Page 94 of Demon Bound

“She’s dead?” Azreth said. He seemed as surprised as she, his brows dipping down in a deep frown.

Raiya stepped closer and found the reason for the woman’s death—several deep punctures in her belly. A short trail of bloody footsteps was smeared behind her, as if she’d managed to wander for a few steps before bleeding out. “Quite dead.”

“Well. She’s with her goddess now.”

Sensing the irony in his voice, Raiya raised an eyebrow at him. “Was that a joke, Azreth?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you think a sword did that, or another demon?” Madira asked.

“I cannot say,” Azreth replied. “We should find the lord and ask him.”

“A summoning gone wrong?” Adamus suggested. “It’s hardly rare for a demon to kill its own summoner.” He glanced up at Azreth. “No offense.”

Azreth looked at Raiya instead of at him. “The truth does not offend me.”

“Or Lord Han-gal killed her after she helped him,” Jai suggested. “He seems like the type to get rid of someone after they’ve outlived their usefulness.”

Raiya stepped around the corpse and kept moving. Whoever had killed Gereg was probably still somewhere in the castle. “The summoning circle the last cultist made was in the tunnels below the castle. We should start there.”

Wind whistled through the corridors as Raiya led them toward the staircase to the dungeon. They passed more dead creatures on their way, none of them human. Raiya stared at their twisted, bloodied forms. They looked terrifying, but whenthey were lying dead and motionless on the cold floor, she couldn’t help but pity them.

“The inhabitants of the hells are so strange,” Jai murmured.

“Especially when you consider the fact that these must have been killed by something even bigger and stranger,” Adamus said, his expression dark. “They have the same puncture wounds the priestess had.”

They entered the great hall. Snow and moonlight were drifting through windows that had been broken recently, their glass littering the floor. Raiya stopped when she heard a soft fluttering. Something was moving near the ceiling. Azreth raised his ball of mage light higher until the rafters were illuminated. Raiya’s jaw dropped and she took an automatic step back.

The rafters were lined with roosting demon-birds, their heads tucked into their feathers in sleep. Raiya could see the beginnings of several nests in the corners. They’d made themselves right at home. Something small skittered along the railing of the balcony that overlooked the space from the second floor, and more crept around in the shadows on the floor. More unwanted visitors from the hells.

Azreth put a hand on her shoulder. “Just birds. They’re small.”

“They’re quite large by our plane’s standards.”

“But not bigger than I am.”

Her home had become a graveyard and a demon nest. It looked like it had been abandoned.

They watched the creatures for a few moments longer, and then the birds shifted, lifting their heads in unison. As if one of them had spread a telepathic command, all of them spread their wings and flew, fleeing through the narrow windows or down the corridors, not seeming to care which way they went as long as they got away.

“Something frightened them,” Azreth said. Raiya felt him grow tense. A shadow shifted in the corner of her vision, and then a bright projectile flew toward them.

Azreth spun, putting himself between her and the projectile and raising a shield of magenta magic. The projectile exploded against the shield with such force that Azreth stumbled and Raiya was shoved off her feet.

Disoriented, Raiya looked up. Beyond Azreth’s shield, a figure approached from the shadows of an adjacent corridor. It was tall, humanoid, and horned. He had violent red skin, almost like he was covered in blood, and his eyes were like embers.

Unlike Azreth, each of his fingers tapered into enormous claws. Raiya’s throat went dry. She had thought Azreth was enormous, but this other demon made him look scrawny by comparison.

The demon swung an arm, releasing another projectile. It was a solid beam of light not unlike Azreth’s own light weapons, but these ones seemed somehow more aggressive, more wild and powerful, sparking and crackling like lightning. Azreth rushed forward, deflecting the projectile and then tackling the demon. To her surprise, he swept the other demon off his feet with a dive into his legs.

Someone grabbed her arm. “Get up!”

She obeyed, letting herself be dragged backward as she stared at Azreth wrestling the other demon. Every other time she’d seen him fight had been like a child play-wrestling compared to this. Their bodies contorted and struck out with ferocity and speed unlike anything she’d ever seen.

He was going to be hurt, or killed. He couldn’t beat someone so much bigger than he was. She aimed her baton, waiting for an opening. Beside her, Adamus had drawn a bow and an iron-tipped arrow.

A screech pulled her gaze upward. One of the birds was swooping down on her. She jerked her baton up, and a blast of magicboomedout of it, sending the bird spinning. More of the birds were coming now, as if spurred by the commotion, perhaps an instinct to protect their new nests. Raiya shot another one as it tried to dive for Jai. The sharp smell of raw, crackling magic filled the air.

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