The Beautiful Ashes

chapter fourteen

“My lord Mayhemium,” Adrian said, bowing formally. “I have discovered that this one is too flawed for you.”

The blond demon came closer. I tried not to stare, but he had wings. Were they real or a type of illusion, like Demetrius’s ability to transform into shadows and other people?

“What is so flawed about her?” Mayhemium asked, and my skin felt like it was trying to crawl away as his gaze slid over me.

“I have crabs,” I blurted out, saying the first gross thing that came to mind.

The single glare Adrian shot my way said that I wasn’t helping. “She’s mentally defective,” he replied, his tone implying that it should be obvious. “I’m taking her to Ryse’s realm. He doesn’t mind less-than-superior pets.”

Mayhemium’s gaze swept me again. From his expression, Zach had glamoured me into looking as gorgeous as Adrian’s disguise was plain. Then the demon waved an imperious hand.

“I’ll take her anyway.”

Adrian let go of my arm and stepped away. I tried to conceal my shock, but I wasn’t that good of an actress. Yes, we were deep in enemy territory and outnumbered by a thousand to one, but was he really going to let Mayhemium take me?

The demon thought so. My breath sucked in at the gleam that appeared in those inhuman eyes. Now I knew what death looked like when you stared it in the face. Then Adrian straightened, abandoning his subservient posture.

“I never liked you, Mayhemium,” he said in a tone so flat, he sounded bored. “At least you’re so arrogant, you came alone.”

Before the last word left him, he hit the demon, moving so fast all I saw was his usual blur. Mayhemium stared at him, something inky leaking out from the side of his mouth.

“Adrian?” he asked in disbelief.

“Ivy, leave,” Adrian ordered, urgency now replacing the flatness in his tone.

Mayhemium’s head whipped around, and he stared at me with understanding that turned into unbridled savageness. “The last Davidian,” he hissed.

Adrian punched him so hard, I expected a dent to appear in the demon’s face. It didn’t, but more incredibly, Mayhemium shattered, his body transforming into dozens of large crows that flew straight up before diving in a furious arc toward me.

My arms rose to shield myself, but Adrian was suddenly blocking them, his large body absorbing the stabs from beaks sharpened into knifelike points. With lightning-strike quickness, Adrian snatched the largest crow out of the air and then crushed it in his fist. Mayhemium materialized at once, howling in apparent agony, his long black wings now broken.

“Think I didn’t remember how to neutralize your trick?” Adrian’s purr dripped viciousness as he punched the demon hard enough to knock him over again. “What’s wrong? Can’t fight without your wings?”

Mayhemium snarled something in Demonish that turned Adrian’s face into a mask of rage.

“No,” he spat. “I’ll never do it.”

“You will,” Mayhemium roared. “It’s your destiny!”

“Not today.” With that, Adrian landed a kick that snapped the demon’s leg when he got up again. When Mayhemium bent low and staggered, Adrian smashed a knee into his face, crunching bones with an audible sound. Then Adrian’s fist drove through the demon’s neck, briefly disappearing up to his wrist before he yanked it and a handful of something pulpy out.

Yesterday, the sight would’ve made me gag, but after touring the pyramid, all I wanted to do was cheer, especially when Mayhemium fell and didn’t get back up.

Adrian strode over, yanking my arm with a hand now coated in what looked like motor oil.

“What part of ‘leave’ did you not understand?” he snapped.

“The part where I left you alone with a pissed-off demon,” I replied, feeling dazed. “Is he dead?”

“Of course not.” Adrian propelled me into the darkness, running so fast I had trouble keeping up. “For the tenth time, humans can only kill demons with the weapon we don’t have yet.”

“You’re not human,” I panted, my strides no match for his.

“I’m as human as you are,” he said, shocking me. “And you need to run faster. He’ll wake up soon and send every minion in this realm after us.”

“I can’t...run faster.” I could barely talk, I was huffing and puffing so much from our frantic pace.

“Yes, you can.” He hauled me closer, his body a guide in the stygian darkness. “We’re the last of the two most powerful lines in history, and our ancestors passed down all their supernatural abilities to us. If you try, you can do everything I can do, except sense demon gateways. It’s in your blood, so use it.”

The source of his incredible abilities was also in my blood? Impossible. I wasn’t superwoman; I was the girl who’d hated gym class because of all the times I’d gotten picked last for teams.

“I’m running as fast...as I can,” I gasped out.

He only yanked harder on my arm. “Not yet, and you need to. I can protect you from a few demons, but not all of them. Do you know what will happen if they catch you? Death will be the best part. Before that, they’ll hurt you worse than they’ve hurt anyone else. Rape won’t be enough. Torture won’t be enough—”

“Stop!”

“—and they’ll make you watch as they do the same to your sister,” he continued ruthlessly. “You’ll die knowing that everything she suffered was your fault, so run, Ivy!”

Something snapped in me. I’d already failed Jasmine by leaving her in that B and B when I should have stayed until I found a way to get her. The last time I’d seen my sister, I’d been running away, and she had no way to know that I was coming back for her—

“That’s it,” Adrian yelled, his grip on me loosening. “Faster, Ivy, you can do it!”

I didn’t feel any change in my body. My legs didn’t work harder, my lungs didn’t suck in more air, but I was somehow ahead of Adrian, running flat out into the impenetrable darkness. Once again, I flashed to that day at the B and B. Mrs. Paulson had attacked me, and I’d made it into my Cherokee without knowing how. Right now, I did. I must’ve run just like this, with a speed no human should have, but I somehow did.

Was Adrian right? Had ancient legacies and inherited abilities been simmering in me this whole time?

He drew even with me, his hand a brand on my chilled flesh, guiding me in directions I couldn’t see. At some point, I’d dropped the ski gear, but I was glad I didn’t have it. All that padding would’ve hindered me, and the cold spurred me on. In my mind, it was now tied to this place, so I hated it. I ached to be back in the sunshine where it was warm and demon-free, and all I had to do to accomplish that was to run faster.

So I did, my legs pumping with the same velocity as Adrian’s. When he grabbed me and I felt the body-bending force of hurtling through one realm into another, then found myself facedown with a mouthful of hot sand, I smiled.

We were back in the Zone of Silence.

Adrian didn’t give me time to celebrate by kissing the ground, which I wanted to do. He also didn’t pull me back through the gateway so we could search another demon realm through the vortex’s version of a revolving door. Not with Costa and Tomas waiting here like sitting ducks. Instead, Adrian hauled me up into the Jeep, barking something to Tomas in Spanish that had the brawny Mexican and the handsome Greek scrambling for their machine guns.

“Vamonos!” Tomas shouted, starting the Jeep.

Adrian practically flung me into the back, jumping in after me and grabbing the third gun. To my surprise, he shoved it into my hands, barking out quick instructions.

“Hold it tight. It’ll still fire if you drop it, then you’ll blow your own head off. Stay down, but if anyone gets too close, shoot them until you see ash.”

He grabbed the last gun, hooking his other arm through the railing behind the seats. I did, too, after Tomas’s rapid acceleration almost pitched me out the back. I’d just gotten a good grip on both the automatic weapon and the metal bar when a stream of people hurtled out of the oblong rock behind us.

“Incoming!” Adrian yelled, and started firing. Costa did, too. The noise was like explosions going off in my ears, but when the minions began running after us as if they had rockets strapped to their asses, I didn’t care if I’d go deaf.

They moved like Adrian did, and they were armed, too.

Adrian shoved me down at the first hail of bullets. The back of the Jeep shuddered, but the rounds didn’t penetrate. Now that I was eye level with it, I saw how thick the back door was, and that extra metal plating couldn’t have come standard.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay down?” I heard Adrian snap, then another barrage of gunfire stole his voice. The Jeep bounced madly from Tomas’s speed, but Adrian and Costa held on to the rails as they fired and ducked in a frenetic display of violence and defense.

“You gave me a gun, let me help!” I protested.

“No,” Tomas yelled, whipping the Jeep around so fast that I hit my head on its side panel. “Stay down! You’re who they most want to kill!”

Me? Then I remembered Mayhemium’s look of loathing, and what he’d hissed right before Adrian hit him. The last Davidian. Did the demons want me dead because I was the only one who could locate a weapon that could kill them?

It didn’t take long to get my answer. Despite the hail of gunfire Adrian, Costa and even Tomas leveled at the minions, they kept trying to get to where I crouched. My little corner became dented from all the bullets fired at it, and every so often, minions would hurtle themselves into the Jeep kamikaze-style. Adrian threw them out with his incredible speed, but I was soon covered in blood, bruises and cuts. And they kept on coming, until I was convinced that the whole realm had emptied in their attempt to kill us.

Or kill me, specifically.

When Tomas had to slow down to get through the tight passage between the mountains, five minions managed to jump onto the Jeep. Adrian got clobbered by three of them, and Tomas and Costa sounded like they were in their own life-and-death struggles. Their bulky machine guns were a hindrance in a close-contact fight, but I still had mine. I got up, raising it with grim determination.

Out of nowhere, another minion grabbed the barrel and used it to yank the gun from my hands, delivering a brutal kick to my midsection at the same time. I fell back into the corner, and for a split second, our eyes met. His were cerulean blue, and he grinned as he raised his own gun. Unarmed and wedged between the door and the seat, there was nothing I could do to save myself.

A knife suddenly slammed into the top of his head, twisting with vicious force. My would-be killer abruptly went cross-eyed and dropped his gun. I snatched it up, clutching it but not firing. Adrian was now right in front of me, and I didn’t want to hit him, plus my would-be killer looked really, really dead.

Adrian yanked his knife out and the minion began to fall. As he did, his body transformed, turning dark as pitch and then dissipating altogether. What landed on the blood-spattered floor wasn’t a man. It was a pile of ashes that coated me when the Jeep bounced from Tomas’s wild acceleration as we finally cleared the mountain pass.

Adrian knelt, one hand roughly cupping my face while the other searched me for injuries.

“Thank God you’re okay,” he breathed.

For some reason, hearing Adrian thank a deity he mostly seemed to despise shocked me as much as seeing my would-be killer disintegrate before my eyes. I stared at Adrian, the ashes covering me and then the horizon. No more leaping, murderous minions appeared, and since Costa and Tomas had stopped firing, I assumed we were finally in the clear.

But with the sun hanging lower into the sky, we wouldn’t be clear for long. Night was coming, and with it, demons.