Page 129 of All's Hell That Ends Well

Lucifer paused and stared at me. “We are doomed,” he muttered and proceeded to summon and strap more weapons onto his person.

“I’ll have you know that I’m actually a good fighter,” I groused, fastening the sword belt around my hips.

He flashed his teeth at me. “Prove it.”

“Oh, I will,” I snarled right back, my sense of competition firing up. My brain, being the contrary bitch it was, thrived on being challenged.

If someone told me all Leia-like that I was their only hope and the fate of the universe rested on my shoulders? I’d fold under the pressure like a fragile house of cards. But if they implied I was incapable and wouldn’t be of help? Oh, it wason. I’d show them.

“What’s the plan, then?” I summoned a crossbow from where I’d last seen it in my former quarters and loaded a bolt into it. “Are we staying in here?”

Lucifer gave a curt nod. “As long as Azazel is out of commission, we can’t move. I can’t carry him and fight at the same time. We’ll have to hunker down and bide our time until either he wakes, we’re found, or help arrives.” He summoned another sword in a harness and slung it across his back. Catching my gaze, he said with emphasis, “Remember, we’re the main target. All three of us. They will be hell-bent on getting to us. This coup won’t be successful until they kill you both, since you’re the new king and queen. Taking me will be a nice little bonus, I suppose.”

My eyes fell on Azazel’s sleeping form. He was so defenseless right now. And all that power of death wouldn’t help him at all if they cut off his head while he was unconscious.

With a frown, I glanced back at Lucifer. “Can we evenbekilled? Now that we carry that power in us… It needs a vessel, right? Can the vessel be destroyed at all? And if yes, what would happen?”

Lucifer paused with his features wreathed in sinister pensiveness. “Either it’s impossible, or it would spell disaster if it did happen.” His throat muscles worked as he swallowed. “My best guess is that the forcedoesneed to be contained, and that, should its keeper be killed, it would spill into the world unchecked and run rampant.”

I sucked in air through my front teeth. “So, we’re basically walking, talking nuclear bombs.”

“Worse than that,” he muttered. “An atom bomb has a set radius. Your power does not.”

I grimaced. “Splendid.”

Commotion outside the door made both of us snap up our heads and look toward the barricade. Even before more sounds made their way through the walls and door, I felt thepower. So much of it, the hairs on my arms and neck rose in primal warning. The last time I’d felt anything like it had been during the almost apocalypse, when the archangels and archdemons had been fighting above New York.

“They’re here,” I whispered.

CHAPTER 37

Iraised and aimed my crossbow, moving between the door and Azazel on the couch. Stepping up next to me, Lucifer unsheathed one of his swords.

“Never thought I’d fight by your side one day,” I murmured. “For the longest time, I’d envisioned running a sword through you rather than drawing one together with you.”

“Such black-and-white thinking,” he said quietly. “You can still stab me once this is over, if you feel the need.” His eyes caught mine for a moment, and he added with fierce intensity, “But you have to bealivefor that, you hear me?”

I gave him a firm nod just as the door splintered under a huge blast of power. The impact pushed me back a few steps even as I planted my feet. I aimed and fired the crossbow without pausing to assess who was coming through the door—no matter whom I could hit, it’d be good.

My bolt rammed into the skull of a demon in fighting gear who charged toward us, and he jerked and toppled over.

A shot to the head might not kill us, but it sure worked like a blade to the heart.

I didn’t have time to reload the crossbow, more demons swarming through the broken-down door, so instead Iunsheathed my sword and parried the strike of the nearest attacker. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Lucifer engaged in combat with other demons coming at him. We slashed and hacked and blocked, and power swelled in the room, the air crackling.

Lucifer blasted his attackers off him with a blow of his magic—much weaker than what I’d felt from him before. I still remembered what his energy had felt like when he’d fought above New York, his potential almost fully unleashed.

But back then, he’d had the power of death fueling him, even if he hadn’t been aware of it. Now, without it, he still fought valiantly…though nowhere near as lethally.

That power, it now rested in Azazel and me, and I had no idea how to wield it, or if I even could.

But I still had the strength of an archdemon underneath that new, chilling force of darkness in my blood. While I parried another strike, I reached down and grasped that familiar power, brought it to the surface, and lashed out with it, just like I’d practiced with Lucifer.

Our attackers jerked and shook as if they’d been hit with a lethal charge of electricity, temporarily stunned, and Lucifer and I used the moment to lop off the heads of three of them. They dissolved into light, their empty clothes falling to the floor. More demons surged into the room behind them.

Not missing a beat, I sent out another wave of my power, fanning it into flames—hellfire, burning so hot that it melted the intruders’ hell-forged blades right in their hands. Now disarmed, they easily fell prey to our swords.

For a second, exhilaration rushed through me. We were holding our own.Iwas holding my own. We were fighting them back.

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