Page 81 of Midnight Witch

A feral sound left Brimstone as black lightning buzzed into life above Barquiel. Sable squawked angrily, blue fire brightening her eyes.

Mae’s breath stuttered. Alicia rifted behind the demon, her orbits glinting and her scythe looming under the blood-red moon as she swung it at his back. Barquiel grunted and lurched, the weapon striking the dark scales protecting his flesh in a shower of sparks.

Mae glanced at the gloom-filled chancel. There was an opening in the floor to the right of the obsidian altar.

Her pulse quickened.That must lead to the basement!

“Enrique!”

Cortes followed her as she sprinted up the aisle with Brimstone and Hellreaver, Popo and Sable flying overhead. Nikolai’s magic and Vlad’s demonic energy washed across their backs as the pair engaged the hellbeasts that threatened to block their path.

The air sizzled above Mae just as she and Cortes reached the chancel. Static lifted her hair around her head and danced across Brimstone’s fur and Hellreaver’s blades.

Sable screeched out a shrill warning.

Mae grabbed Cortes’s arm and took him to the ground with her.

Barquiel’s black lightning scored the spot where they’d been a second ago, the explosion so loud Mae thought her eardrums would burst. Broken tile shards rained down around them as they skidded on their front all the way to the entrance to the basement.

Mae activatedWind Furya heartbeat beforethey tumbled into the drop below the opening. The spell buffered their falland fetched them up against a moss-covered, stone wall. Brimstone shifted into his smaller form and jumped in after them.

Mae caught him in her arms, twisted around, and raised a hand. “Eclipse!”

CHAPTER33

A black voiddetonated across the doorway just as Barquiel flashed into view, Alicia right on his tail. The demon’s roar of rage faded to nothingness.

Hopefully that’ll keep him busy for a while!

Mae looked at Cortes, her chest heaving with her breaths. “You okay?”

He climbed to his feet and pulled her up. “Never better.”

A scarlet glow lit up the gloom beneath them.

Demonic energy wavered around Hellreaver as he growled.I smell a lot of black magic, my witch!

Sable settled on Mae’s shoulder.

They started rapidly down the winding stairs.

Cortes manifested his blade and whip, the weapons radiating the same golden radiance brightening his and Popo’s pupils. “How many?”

Mae counted the cores she could feel below as she unleashedDevour. “There’s twenty of them.”

A savage smile curved Cortes’s mouth. “Piece of cake then.”

A pair of black magic spell bombs curved up the staircase toward them.

Hellreaver sliced through the attacks in a flash of crimson.I’ll go on ahead, my witch!

Brimstone scampered after him.Wait up!

Mae felt the fox transform seconds before screams echoed beneath them. Brimstone and Hellreaver’s powers resonated with her core when she and Cortes reached the bottom of the steps. They rounded a corner and rocked to a halt.

“Fuck,” Cortes mumbled.

A horde of Dark Council sorcerers and witches had engaged Hellreaver and Brimstone where they guarded a sickening, translucent black barrier in the middle of the crypt. Enclosed within it was an obsidian pillar blazing with blue runes. Mae’s heart raced when her gaze found the blonde bound to the base of the altar.

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