Fallen Reign (Sins of the Father 1)

“Hush.” Mammon’s voice was like a soft breeze through reeds, and it punctuated the command by wrapping its golden wires around her mouth. “You’re coming with Mammon.”

“Over my dead body.” Florian leapt from the floor, aiming another punch at the side of Mammon’s face, but this time was stopped dead. The prince raised its free hand, more of its talons forming into a golden shield that solidly absorbed Florian’s blow.

But that, apparently, was exactly what Florian wanted to happen.

The huge floor to ceiling windows leading to the Rodriguez garden shattered all at once, showering the house in a hail of shards and broken glass as massive vines snaked in from the foliage. As one, the vines raced for Mammon’s body, pulling the same trick I remembered Florian using at the Nicola Arboretum.

With each limb caught in the iron grasp of a different, python-thick vine, Mammon was lifted into the air. The shock canceled out its own hold on Artemis, who collapsed to the ground, gasping and groping at her throat. She faded into another shaft of moonlight, escaping. Good. Best for her to be far away, and safe.

But the battle clearly wasn’t over. Mammon was roaring, its talons growing to ridiculous proportions as it used them to cleave at the vines holding its limbs hostage. More and more vines burst into the house from out of the Rodriguez garden, but Florian was going to run out of ammunition eventually. I had to help. I turned to the Vestments, calling for a weapon, when Quill’s voice made the room tremble.

“Come to me. Honor your pact.”

A dozen men and women teleported into the room, some clutching weapons, some cupping arcane flames in their hands. Were these Quill’s friends? Badass. I liked these odds a lot better.

“Nicely done,” I called out to Quill. “Evens the fight out a little.”

The impassivity on Quill’s face, the total absence of emotion, that should have been the first clue. The second, which I noticed far too late, was the smell of brimstone.

“Shit,” I muttered.

Quill pointed at me. “Seize him.”

Twelve demons rounded on me, a tightening ring of bodies. I clenched my teeth, turning in a circle to watch for the first signs of attack. To one end of the room, Florian was battling a demon prince. To the other, Quill leaned against the far wall, turning the pages of some book he’d picked up off the ground, looking almost bored. My gaze shot past the circle of demons, connecting all the way with Quill’s eyes.

“You fucking traitor,” I shouted. “It was you all along. You sent those demons from the start.”

Quill chuckled, then shrugged. “Guilty.”

“Then you’re also a demon prince?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then who the fuck are you?”

He shut his book, then returned it neatly to the destroyed bookcase on the floor. Quill grinned, his smile seeming sharper. “I told you already. It’s complicated.”

I bared my teeth, accepting the golden sword that appeared in my hand from the Vestments. “I’m going to collect your head for this.”

Quill shouted. “What are you idiots waiting for? I told you. Seize him.”

One of the demons closest to me rolled his eyes in Quill’s direction, holding his spiked baseball bat tight. “Wish I could smash this right in that mama’s boy’s mouth,” he said to the knife-wielding demon next to him.

“What?” I hissed. “Mama’s boy? Who’s his mother?”

The demon’s head whipped towards me. Apparently he hadn’t expected me to hear. “Uh, nothing. That was nothing. I mean, death to the princeling’s enemies!”

The whizzing of the bat came suddenly, and I twisted away in time as it zinged through the air and smashed into the ground, cratering the kitchen tile. As for princeling – did nephilim even work with demons? I knew we were the products of sin, but would we ever fall that far?

I slashed with my sword, once, twice, taking out the guy with the baseball bat and the lady with the knife next to him. They fell to the ground, shuddering as their husks began to decompose. The most logical conc

lusion was possibly the worst one yet: Quill was the son of a different demon prince. I glared at him, hating that I had a circle of ten more demons to break through, wishing I could plunge my sword directly into his chest.

But I’d missed my chance. One of the demons, who very well could have been a dominatrix fresh out of a play session, cracked her whip at me. Not a simple toy, either, but the real deal, flicked with a certain amount of practiced skill. The whip lashed around my sword hand, seizing tightly around my wrist, then squeezing so hard that I cried out. My fingers twitched as she pulled on the whip, my sword slipping out of my grip, clattering to the floor, then vanishing into a puff of nothing.

Ah, nuts.

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