Page 99 of The Darkest Night

“Shield us!” he ordered Violet and Miles.

A muscle jumped in Violet’s cheek. “You’re going to undo the binding ritual like you did at the cemetery?”

“Something like that.”

Miles frowned, his worried gaze shifting to the ensnared Witch Queen and her companions. “Don’t you need to be next to Mae to do it?”

“No. Not for this.”

The cousins glanced at each other curiously before erecting a barrier around them. Dickson stabbed his sword into the edge of their shield, the power inside his blade lending strength to the shimmering wall. The Dark Council’s spell bombs landed harmlessly against the barricade, as did the attacks of the demons who wished to claw out their hearts. The New York coven emerged from the lower floors and engaged the enemy, theBlack DevilskeepingOniksbusy elsewhere in the building.

Nikolai’s pulse thrummed as he lowered himself to one knee. He pressed his hands to the floor and brought forth his magic, his jaw aching with tension.

There was no time to draw the runes he’d come up with to counter his father’s spell. He would have to follow his instincts and pray that they were right.

Vlad swore. “Mae!”

The incubus banged his hands against the wall protecting them, enraged. Nikolai followed his crimson gaze. His heart stuttered.

Rose stood inside the black magic circle. Her hands had punched through Mae’s chest and belly. Crimson stained her clawed fingers as she twisted them.

Mae raised her face to the sky and roared, red lines spreading across her flesh as her magic tried to break free. Brimstone bellowed and Hellreaver shrieked where they remained frozen beside her, their rage shivering scarlet around them.

“Submit!” the devil growled.

Mae’s head slowly tilted down. Sweat beaded her forehead as she glowered at the demon. “Never!”

“Hurry!” Vlad glared at Nikolai over his shoulder. “What are you waiting for, dammit?!”

“Let me out,” Calvarro said coldly. “I’m going to buy you both some time.”

The Queen of Soul Reapers shifted into her true form.

Violet and Miles gasped. It was their first time seeing the skeletal figure.

Vlad stared. “I’ll clear a path for you.”

The reaper nodded. Dickson sliced a temporary breach in the shield. She stepped through it, the incubus and his familiar at her side.

Nikolai took a shuddering breath and closed his eyes, shutting out the torturous image of Mae in the grip of the Sorcerer King’s spell. The world faded around him as he focused, Alastair’s powers a bright light that melded with his soul.

Magic shot out through his fingers, white lines that sliced through the metal beneath them and darted straight down the steel framework into the ground.

It took him almost a minute to find a ley line under New York. He followed the branch to its source, grasped the pulsing core of power at its heart, and guided it straight back into the building.

Chapter 45

Mae’s heartthudded painfully in the grasp of the demon who held it.

Barquiel’s claws scraped futilely against the organ, frustration glinting in his red pupils. However much he tried to pierce Mae’s heart, something fought back.

Crimson flashed at the edge of Mae’s vision.

She turned her head a fraction.

Magic danced violently on Vlad’s black-diamond blades as he carved through the wall of Dark Council acolytes and demons separating him from the binding circle, his face soaked with the blood of the fallen. Calvarro helped, her weapon singing through the air in polished swings that always found their target.

The devil scowled when the soul reaper queen reached the column of black magic and cut through the barrier with her curved blade. He ripped his hand from Mae’s belly and grasped the scythe’s handle before it could strike his neck, his grip made slick by blood.

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