Mentored in Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights)

There are still too many, Cahal said.

“I got another premonition,” Emery yelled. “Whatever is going to happen is going down soon.”

“Dang it,” I spat out, pushing harder, faster.

Another pulse of air shoved against mine, this one the strongest I’d felt. Had to be the sect leader—the conspector. They’d pack the most punch.

“Take the others,” I said, veering that way. I’d need to take the head honcho out to give us a fighting chance.

A wave of inhuman shouts and yelling filled the hall, followed by a chorus of hissing. A demon body flew high. Then another, blood gushing out and raining down on those below.

“More vampires,” Penny said. “Ja…” The name was spoken on a sigh of relief. She clearly thought Ja wouldn’t betray us. She was almost certainly correct. Hopefully.

I kept my focus, pushing to the right, toward that pulse of power I’d felt. I released my hold on the remaining demons around Darius, stunned now and easy pickin’s for him. I grabbed a few other demons, keeping the effort small to save strength, and directed them at that pulse. I caught sight of it, a female form in a man’s wrinkled suit, on a little dais, overlooking the shifting, seething crowd.

“What is the deal with the wrinkled suits?” I asked as I closed the distance, shoving demons out of my way with a swell of magic, then lighting them on fire and letting them burn.

The leader’s beady eyes flicked and shifted until they landed on me. It didn’t make any sign that it knew me. Or show any emotion at all, actually. It stared, blank-faced, with a pug nose much too close to its eyes and a hairline starting where its eyebrows should be.

“You didn’t get that quite right,” I said, pointing as I approached, creating a channel of fire around me.

“Your highness.” It bent slightly.

I clucked my tongue. “It’s your heinous, actually, and that wasn’t much of a bow.”

I paused as the demons I controlled battled around me, through the flame, dying as they killed to create a little bubble around the leader. I motioned to the demon, knowing I needed to hurry, but stopping in front of it all the same. There would be survivors, and I wanted them to know who they were dealing with here. If I ever came back to the Underworld, it was important for them to know that I wasn’t just some human off the street—I belonged here. I had the power to prove it.

“Bow,” I demanded, and let the demons go around me. They staggered through the flame, faltering and falling.

It tensed, I could see. Its power pulsed higher as it prepared to act.

I squinted a little, tilted my head, grinned, and thought to myself, Are you sure? I wanted to see if he’d read the cues.

Nothing in its demeanor changed. Its expression didn’t shift. Its body didn’t move. All the same, I knew it suddenly doubted whether it could stand against me.

“Bow,” I said like I was chomping on glass, speaking its language, something that came naturally when down here. I didn’t add the ending to that command, but we both knew it all the same. “Or die.”

Slowly, as though an old granny was winding its crank, it bent toward me, spine curling. Fire raged around us. A pasty-white vampire ran by, splattered in black blood, crimson dripping from its fangs.

“Good,” I said when the leader’s head was closer to the floor than the ceiling. “Do not trouble yourself about your efforts here. I know you think you are acting in my father’s best interest. I will let you make it up to me at another time. Kill one of my friends, however, and I will pull your insides out through your mouth.”

I gripped its middle in a tight fist of magic, knowing it would be much too strong for me to fully control but wanting to give it a jolt all the same. I let fire shimmy the air around it. Then I knocked it off its dais and turned. It would know my strength, it’d know I had both types of magic, and any question of my lineage would be put to rest. Why this mattered, when I might never come back here, I did not know, but Lucifer had taught me more than magic. He’d taught me to hold my own with underlings, or die when I turned my back. For better or worse, I was the heir, and I felt the need to own my place in this savage sect.

I shoved a wall of demons back, starting to feel fatigue. A spell ballooned to my right, and I knew the natural dual-mages were also fading. It wasn’t as strong or vicious as what they would normally put together under dire circumstances.

“Hurry, let’s get out of here,” I yelled as I ran toward the door, covering my people in magic and raising fire all around them.