Page 37 of Hell to Slay

I turned at the sound of galloping paws but didn’t get my quicksilver blade raised in time to stop the big hellcat from bowling me over. My back hit the uneven terrain, knocking me beneath the smoke and shadows that surrounded us, enveloping me in the haze that covered the ground inside the threshold. The earth beneath me shook as the hellcat’s jaws snapped in my face, and I struggled to hold its body above me, its molten body burning my forearms.

Then a spear of stone pierced the hellcat’s heart, emerging from the shadows at my shoulder. The spear kept growing, lifting the hellcat off me entirely.

Nico reached down to help me to my feet, but I pushed off the ground with my vampiric strength. Bad enough that he’d had to help me when the battle had only just begun.

With his focus on me, he didn’t see the hellviper slithering toward us from the side.

“Move!” I lunged at Nico, knocking him aside as the viper’s jaws snapped where he’d been. “I’ll handle this one,” I told him gruffly as I manifested another quicksilver blade.

Nico put his back to me to take on two other hellcats, using his earth magic to batter them with chunks of rock. I didn’t have time to process him coming to my aid and getting distracted while I faced off against the hellviper. As I fought, the wounds on my forearms began healing from our shared reservoir of magic and all the healing charms I wore.

“Come out and fight us yourself, you coward!” Mel yelled into the shadows ahead of us, adding to the chaos of battle. The last thing we needed right now was to also deal with the devil.

“Watch for winged hellhounds!”the little hellfox’s voice rang out inside of our heads.

I lopped off the giant head of the hellviper, sending its corpse tumbling into the smoke at our feet. Luckily its body was big enough we could see it above the haze and avoid tripping over it.

“More incoming!”Tempest cried.

Next up, a hellbull charged, and I dodged. It whipped its head to the side to impale me, and I pulled my hips back, narrowly avoiding its fiery horns.

Lightning coursed through the bull as Mel flanked it and distracted it. Together, we killed the hellbull, and it collapsed into ash. Then she pivoted to slice a winged hellhound from neck to stomach as it flew too low overhead. Cinders rained down on her, but Fox’s artifacts protected her without fail.

We fought and fought, our shared magic reservoir draining slowly but surely. That had to be part of Ty’s plan. He wanted us low on magic before he came to claim Mel as his devil’s next host.

We couldn’t let that happen. But I knew Mel and Hudson would never retreat. They were too invested in this course of action.

“Tempest! Get us out of here!” Hudson called.

“Nico and Hudson, cover us! Jax and Mel, follow me,”Tempest responded.

I caught the flash of the lightning in her tail just before it was eclipsed by Mel’s own. Massive bolts crashed into five targets at once, killing two and stunning the rest so we could quickly finish them off. Then Mel and I took off following Tempest.

I risked glancing over my shoulder, worried about my brother and Nico.

Hudson created a wall of flame as Nico created a literal wall of earth between us and the demons. Then they wasted no time following us. Together, the four of us ran at a breakneck speed — even for vampires — over the uneven, smoke-hidden terrain beneath our boots. Somehow, Tempest stayed ahead of us.

I studied Mel’s back, surprised to find no weariness in her gait. When we’d first teamed up with her, killing five witches with a lightning storm like that had nearly knocked her unconscious… but she hadn’t had a reservoir then. And now she was a vampire, with all the added strength and stamina that came with it.

Hudson shot off another stream of flame behind us as Nico created another wall. But as we followed Tempest farther and farther, the demons behind us trailed off, either losing interest or being called away to regroup.

“He’s going to wait until we’re tired to strike again,” Hudson grumbled in frustration. We all knew which ‘he’ my brother referred to.

“Where shall I lead you?”Tempest’s voice echoed in our minds.“What is your primary goal here?”

“To close the portal once and for all,” Hudson answered.

“Killing Ty,” Nico said simultaneously with me.

I gave him a sideways glance, but then Mel answered.

“We have many goals. But first? I want to free my mother’s spirit.”

“Then I will take you to the rift between realms.”

I wasn’t surprised that Mel’s familiar would prioritize Mel’s goals above ours. And perhaps it was best to try to free the trapped spirit first, in case killing Ty closed the portal and trapped her eternally.

“What is the rift between realms?” Mel asked as the four of us maintained a high level of caution traversing the infernal realm.

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