His mouth opens, but no sound comes from him. Dantalion roars his fury in hollow silence until even the ghost of him is gone and I’m left blinking into the space where he just stood.
“Paige?” Tori urges, tugging on my arm. “Are you all right? You look like—”
Kincaid goes for his staff just as the inky black shadow of his demon form finishes creeping over his cheek. His already muscled body strains against the bonds of his tailored jacket, tearing at the seams. His pants shred to ribbons and a barbed tail sweeps low over the marble floor as he lifts his staff.
I shove past Tori and shoulder through the last few bodies between me and Kincaid.
“Wait,” I shout, but he’s beyond hearing me. “Kincaid, wait!”
I don’t know why, but everything in my body is screaming that he isn’t safe. I have this terrible feeling that if he leaves, he may not ever come back.
That’s two demon lords now. Malphas and Dantalion.
Two unkillable demons are dead.
And Kincaid is about to rush into the fires of Hell to search for them.
He needs to know he won’t find them there. He needs to stay.
“He’s gone,” I say, clearing the gap as Kincaid lifts his staff and slams it into the marble.
Cracks form in the stone, snaking out from his strike.
I barrel into his side at the same moment the staff strikes the marble for the second time and both of us spiral down into the dark.
A scream is yanked from my lungs and my body bends and twists under the pressure of whatever dark magic Kincaid is using. His hands are securely around me, holding me together. Keeping me from falling apart. From being obliterated. I can see nothing in the dark save for the glow of two wide yellow eyes. I can feel nothing but pain, Kincaid’s rough hands, and the soft touch of smoke on my cheeks.
It’s over in mere seconds, and I am on my knees against hard stone. The repulsive smell of sulfur assaults my nose, and a blistering heat ripples over me, wringing sweat from every pore.
A myriad of barbaric sounds filter through the deafening roar of a raging fire.
I choke and sputter, trying to catch my breath as my bones sing in agony. They feel as though they’ve each been bent to the point of snapping, but none have broken.
“Paige,” Kincaid growls, and I can feel his hands on my back. I shy away from his touch, my skin sensitive and raw, like I lost a few layers of it on the way down.
On the way down…
Oh fuck.
With a groan, I force my eyes to open, and then I gasp.
We’re high off the ground, standing at the top of a tall gray stone tower. Beyond the battlements is a scene unlike any to be found on earth, cementing my fear.
“No,” I hear myself whisper, tears springing to my eyes though I can’t be sure whether they’re from the oppressive heat or from what they’ve now been forced to see.
Those barbaric sounds weren’t just the howling of the wind through the raging flames.
They are screams.
They are growls and snarls and the flapping of great black wings.
In the distance, amid a landscape charred to bitter black ash, is a funnel of flame shot down from the sunless sky to reach the blackened wreckage of the ground.
Within the swirl of fire, naked bodies fall screaming into the bowels of Hell. Great black winged beasts watch their descent, flying over a congregation of screaming demons jeering and shouting as more and more mortal souls fall to join them for an eternity of torment.
Ever since Lucifer walked the earth, we knew Hell had to be real. Where else would he have come from? Where did the Diablim and Nephilim come from if Heaven and Hell did not exist?
But knowing it and seeing it are two impossibly different things.
“K-Kincaid,” I manage through the blockage in my throat, pushing myself to stand despite the pain.
Gently, he brushes a hand down my arm and takes my hand, tugging me to him. When finally I am able to tear my gaze away from the flaming cyclone and back to him, I see that he isn’t the Kincaid who danced with me at the Midnight Court.
Nor the Kincaid I kissed in a darkened corridor below it.
He’s in his demon form, with skin black as the ash floating around us like morbid snow. His horns glimmer in the orange glow of the flames in the distance and his yellow eyes burn.
“Do not fear me, Na’vazēm.”
“This is Hell, isn’t it?”
He nods gravely. “You shouldn’t have tried to stop me.”
“Please.” I choke, a fresh wave of hot tears welling in my eyes. “Take me back.”
His lips press into a tight line. “No one except for the seven lords can leave Hell, Paige,” he tells me, brushing the sweat-dampened hair from my eyes.
My bottom lip trembles, and I stumble back from him, shaking my head.
“No,” I say in a breath, every inch of me shaking like a leaf in the wind. If my heart were beating any faster, it would beat straight through my breast-bone.
A wave of vertigo almost takes me back to my knees, but I fight it, pressing the half-moons of my nails in my palms. “No,” I repeat, more firmly this time. “You take me back, Kincaid.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You promised Tori…”
“I lied.”
My heart stops.
“There’s only one way out—a gauntlet. I promised Tori she would have her chance at freedom, but no more. She will have the opportunity to run the gauntlet should she ever need it, but only one soul has ever made it to its end.”
A scorching fury explodes in my belly, and without thinking, I shove Kincaid hard in the chest. “Fuck that,” I bite out. “Tap your stupid staff thingy and take me back.”
The blue light shimmers beneath its black surface, pulsing with latent power. If he won’t take me, I’m ready to make a grab for the thing and do it myself.
“You can’t travel by the staff, Na’vazēm. It isn’t—”
He cuts himself off and then without preamble closes the short gap between us and presses his hand to my chest. His wild yellow eyes widen and then narrow, meeting mine.
I shuck off his hand and glare at him. “What?” I demand.
“You should be dead.”
He rubs a wide hand over his face, and I notice how some of the black shadow beneath his flesh is seeping away, slowly changing him back to the Kincaid I recognize.
“Your heart still beats, Na’vazēm.”
He grips me by the shoulders, and his face splinters into agonizing relief. “It should have killed you. Your soul should belong to him.”
He presses his hand to my chest again and barks a bewildered laugh. “I can save you,” he says and wraps me into his hickory-and-musk scented embrace. “I can save you.”
His staff taps against the gray stone once. I gasp, rushing to knot my hands into the tattered remains of his jacket. Twice and I brace myself for the long fall.
“Hold on,” he whispers into my ear, and the floor vanishes from beneath our feet, Hell along with it.
28
The instant we’re back on solid ground, I have to rip myself from Kincaid to retch onto the polished marble. My body heaves until there’s nothing left.
Vaguely, I can hear a familiar voice calling to me, but it’s like I’m hearing it under water. Dampening the voice are new screams.