Page 36 of Give a Devil his Due
“Deal.” It does make me feel better even when I know they are placing the girl in the naughty corner so she doesn’t get in their way. Any other time, I’ll be in their faces with my dagger at their throats. Not today.
For a good twenty minutes, they blast the portion of the wall with their powers, with fists, shoulders, and even kicks. It remains just a wall, although if it was the real thing, they would’ve created a hole as big as a canyon by now the way they were going at it.
“It’ll be easier if I just bleed on it.” My offhanded comment has them gawking at me. I shrug. “I’m just saying. So far, it has proven very effective, but what do I know? Carry on.”
They all turn at once and continue pummeling the wards, as well as whatever is hidden by them. George is the one who stands to the side with a thoughtful look pinching his face. I smile tightly at him, and with a glance to make sure the males are occupied, he slides to stand shoulder to shoulder with me.
“I’ll do it,” ,y hunter friend says from the corner of his mouth, not taking his eyes off the group of pissed-off demons and an Archangel. “Give me your blood. I’ll smear it on the cursed wall.”
“Give it to you how?” Mumbling just as low, I straighten from my slump. “You are not touching the dagger.”
I’ve had enough shit to last me ten lifetimes when it comes to my weapon and the way it calls to everyone to take it. Not even Eric wants to go anywhere near it.
“Just cut off my hand and grab it.” His hiss makes me want to slap myself.
Hanging around all these arrogant creatures—despite the fact that I was one too—has me thinking like them lately. I prided myself on being scrappy and thinking on my feet, but now I’m dumbly standing to the side and relying on brute strength. Eyeing the guys, I drop my hand to the hilt of my dagger and pull it out as inconspicuously as I can. One jerk down my opposite palm, and warm fluid fills my closed fist. If I was human, it’d take ages for it to heal, but thankfully I am not. The wound will close in a few seconds.
I take George’s hand, smearing as much of it as possible over his palm.
He doesn’t mingle or wait. Dropping my grip on him, he darts at the gathered males, shoulders between them, and slaps his hand on the wall with a loud, wet smack. My skin prickles before I can register what is happening, and the next thing I know, I’m flying back along with everyone else. A blast of power slams into us, throwing us off with a resounding boom. All the air exits my lungs when I hit the opposite wall hard, the back of my head cracking on it. Stars bloom in my vision, and my ears thunder worse than when the train zipped in front of me.
With a shake of my head, I lift on my hands and knees, panting while the tunnel swims and warps around me, and bile threatens to push all the contents of my stomach out. This is getting old. I’m tired of being tossed around like yesterday’s dirty underwear. The others get up too, their lips curled in snarls and glares firmly in place. I avoid looking directly at Eric, but I do breathe a sigh of relief when George pops his head up.
“We should’ve listened to Helena from the start.” Colt, of all people, snorts, his voice coming muffled like he is talking underwater.
Whatever the others had to say is lost in the startled shouts when the now revealed door bursts open, and three demons, all eight feet tall with large sets of horns, step out of it. No one hesitates, and they collide with my guys in a loud crash of flesh hitting flesh. I stumble to my feet when a passing shadow catches my eye behind the full-on brawl in the middle of the tunnel. From the faint glow through the open doorway, I see the edge of fabric disappearing to the side.
Someone else is there.
Roars, screams, and shouts echo around me, but my gaze is locked on that door and I have no intention of getting sidetracked. Pulling my dagger out for the second time in so many minutes, I inch around the fight, not daring to blink in case whoever is there makes a run for it. Lucky the guys are preoccupied because I manage to slip in before they see what I’m doing.
Or unlucky, as the case may be.
I almost drop my weapon when a set of eyes exactly like mine lock on my gaze.
“Mom?” The word passes as soft as a breath through my lips.
Helena
Asmile as cold and as scary as a shark staring you in the face while it’s preparing to eat you greets me. A chill slithers up and down my spine, but I’m frozen in place, and all the demons in all the worlds can’t move me from this spot. The roof can drop on my head, and I’ll still gape at the woman standing proud to face me.
It’s like looking in the mirror.
The differences become obvious a second later, but the initial reaction of having Zadkiel in front of me scrambles my brain. The similar bone structure of her face, as well as the shape of her mouth and eyes, startles me. Her nose is slightly more pointed, and a waterfall of midnight black hair cascades over her shoulders to the small of her back. Dressed in black, what seem to be leggings and a tight black long-sleeved top, she is taller than me by a few inches, and thinner, as well. Where my hips are round and my thighs are, as I love to say, chunky, she is a perfectly formed lean killing machine.
But those eyes.
I believe that I’m more stunned by the fact that she is looking down her nose at me like I’m dirt under her shoe than anything else. I thought when, and if, I found her, she’d be chained and barely clinging to life just like Satanael. The chains that held my father prisoner are still fresh in my mind.
“Helena.” Voice as beguiling as a siren, she juts her hip to the side. “We finally meet.”
I’ll bet my newly acquired tail and wings she is not happy about that little fact. Confused as fuck, I open my mouth and then close it, the fighting from behind me giving the whole situation some nightmarish quality. In the hopes of regaining my composure, I glance around her at the room, which is three times the size of the one we had available when running for our lives. Naked walls meet my eyes, until I stop on the heap on the floor with glowing chains around it. Blinking fast so I can understand what I’m seeing, my heart punches at the roof of my mouth before splattering at my feet.
Lucifer, his face unrecognizable from all the swelling and bruising, hangs limply behind my mother, a large pool of dark blood forming a small lake under him. Streaks of gold shimmer through it, and he looks much larger—well, thicker than I remember. That’s until he groans faintly, slipping further down into the lump of twisted limbs, and I see the blond strands of hair from behind him.
Michael.
They are tied together back to back by the glowing chains, and seeing them like that brings all the fury I try so hard to keep pushed down so I don’t lose my mind to the surface. My eyes snap back to my mother’s face, and she’s smirking at me now, so I grind my teeth while tightening my hold on the dagger. Why is she all smiles and arrogance while Lucifer and Michael are bleeding out on the floor?
