Page 60 of A Study of Blood and Ichor

“At least this one is nice to look at,” Vain sneered.

“For what it’s worth, I much prefer your first iteration,” Ghen said with a knowing glint in his eyes. “I know exactly who you are, Vain.”

Vain straightened and grimaced at the archdemon. “Then let’s stop pretending, shall we?”

Ghen lunged with inhuman speed, becoming nothing more than a blur of movement as he barreled toward us. I braced for the impact.

But it never came.

At the last possible second, Vain matched the archdemon’s speed and sidestepped as if he had anticipated exactly how Ghen would move against him.

Vain was ready for the second attack when Ghen’s power lashed out again. He rolled to dodge it, but Ghen was quicker. The archdemon redirected and slammed his energy into our chest, knocking us back and forcing all the air from our lungs.

The energy in the room sharpened as Ghen sent a cut made of shadow through the air, flying toward our head. I registered it all too slowly, but Vain reacted just fast enough for me to feel the edge of it graze our cheek, and I hissed internally at the stinging heat it left behind.

Ghen chuckled darkly as he reared his power back, strong enough that I could feel the force of it as it built within him—a climactic, crushing blow. Feet lifting off the floor, he flew across the room with a preternatural speed, a raging tempest which Vain met in force, bracing both arms in front of him.

Bulging black veins protruded against the pale skin of Ghen’s temples. Vain ground our teeth together as he strained to hold the archdemon back, but I could feel his control slipping at the effort.

The archdemon smiled. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it until now. You certainly hid yourself well all this time.”

“Or perhaps you were too proud to look.” Vain groaned with the force of holding Ghen back. Contained in my body, he wasn’t strong enough to hold out for much longer against the archdemon. And he knew it as well as I did.

Digging deep down into his well of power, Vain drew up enough to throw out a surge of energy that sent the archdemon stumbling backward halfway across the room.

Black flames tipped in shades of red ignited at Ghen’s fingertips until they engulfed his hand and the fire had swelled into a brilliant orb, hot enough to melt the mortal flesh from my bones. Ghen hurled it toward Vain, who deftly dodged the attack, and the flaming ball sailed through the air and crashed into the curtains, sending them up in flames in an explosion of sparks and searing embers.

It was the distraction Vain needed. Reaching into his pocket, his hand closed around the cold metal of the grenade before he shot it straight at Ghen’s feet where it exploded into a heavy battering of silver and selenite shards. Vain threw himself out of the worst of the blast, leaving the archdemon to choke and sputter as he inhaled the cloud of silver dust left behind that burned his lungs, followed by a roar that felt like it tore at the very fabric of reality.

Vain choked back a cough as he held his breath against the suffocating combination of the remnants left from the dust cloud and the billowing smoke as the black and red fire caught every surface like kindling.

The archdemon fell to his knees and Vain surged forward, driving the short selenite blade he'd hidden up his sleeve deep into Ghen’s heart. It wasn’t nearly enough to kill him—not that I was sure of anything that could kill an archdemon—but it could at the very least give us enough time to escape.

Vain shot toward the exit, daring one last look at Ghen who clutched at his chest, ichor flowing from the wounds left by the shrapnel and the blade.

“It won’t take me long to find you,” he rasped. “You run, and I will burn through everything and everyone in my way until I get to you.”

With the echo of Ghen’s words on his heels, Vain left the archdemon on the floor of the burning room behind him, and he ran.

Bursting into the hallway, the guests were frantic. Vain scanned the panicked crowd for Ava, but she was nowhere to be found. And the mark on our wrist…the mark was burning.

SEVENTEEN

Ava

Istood frozen outside that door for what felt like minutes, unable to move. Alone in a house full of demons, I felt cornered without Vain by my side, and all their stares were starting to make my skin crawl, and I was desperate to escape them.

My blood prickled as it tore through my veins, and every nerve under my flesh buzzed as my vision tunneled while I struggled to take in a full breath.

In our last look before the door shut between us, Vain’s eyes had been pleading, almost seeming to say “Everything will be alright. Do not move. I will find you.”

But everything was not alright. And I wanted to run.

Unlocking my legs, I fled through the crowd, not caring who watched as I narrowly missed stumbling into multiple demons, and found an empty bathroom to shut myself inside.

Wrapping my hands around the edge of the sink, I leaned into it and tried to ease the trembling in my core, reverberating off every bone in my body.

Ghen was here—an archdemon in the flesh. Every time I tried to swallow the panic, I gagged, my fear tasting like ash in my mouth.

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