I had to find out. “Fenkir’s gone to be with Rani,” I called out. “Hope you don’t miss him too much.”

Fury lit Dagon’s features. Then it cleared and he laughed. “Such a shame. He was so looking forward to getting another piece of you. You remember how Rani and Fenkir used to love taking turns? I never understood how they bore all your sniveling enough to enjoy it, but enjoy it they did.”

Yes, this was the real Dagon, and his smirk made those memories all too vivid. He’d worn that same expression countless times while I was being abused. Those memories had fueled me with Fenkir, but now they cut me. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to lose the despair and keep only the rage.

“Know what I remember, Dagon?” Ian’s tone was scathingly bright. “How you panted after me for weeks before I agreed to spend the night with you. Didn’t turn out how you’d hoped, did it? When it was over, you still had blue balls, and I had your egg-sized blue diamond. Looks smashing on the mantle of my favorite house, by the way.”

Dagon’s expression became mottled with rage. “Fuck you.”

Ian flashed a savage grin. “Oh, you tried. And failed.”

Dagon tore off one of the remaining paratrooper pods and hurled it at Ian. He ducked it with a crowing sound. “Still sore about that, hmm? You should be, I’m magnificent. Ask her.”

“That’s why Dagon’s been hunting you for decades?” I let myself laugh out loud at the demon’s palpable humiliation. Dagon had tried to wound me with the past, but while I’d dealt with that, Ian had made sure Dagon’s strategy backfired. “Wow, you got fucked, all right,” I went on mercilessly. “Just not how you wanted, and let me assure you—you missed out.”

Ian grinned, continuing to fly toward the wooden roller coaster while Dagon chased after us. “Diamond’s valued at millions,” Ian called out to me. “Still wasn’t worth cuddling and kissing him to get close enough to steal it.”

We were almost at the roller coaster. Dagon was still furious, but he’d slowed down from his single-minded pursuit of us. I needed to get him mad enough to keep following.

“When we leave here, we’re selling that diamond and donating the money to charity,” I told Ian. “We’ll even make the donation in Dagon’s name so everyone can thank him for it.”

Ian laughed. “Still treating what’s mine as yours, I see.”

I raised my voice to make sure Dagon caught every word of what I said next. “Embrace your new state of matrimony, honey!”

That did it. Dagon zoomed toward us, his body upright as if rage kept his spine ramrod straight. I flew around the roller coaster, Ian right behind me. Dagon was almost in the blast zone. A little closer . . .

He stopped as if he felt exactly where the blast radius of the salt bombs was located. Then he held out his arms in much the same way I had when I’d channeled the energy to make Fenkir stagger. I’d use that tactic on Dagon if he weren’t too strong for it. Plus, I still had to conserve my power in case he tried freezing time again.

But that wasn’t what he was doing. Moments later, a shockwave hit me, though not from a time-pause attempt. It had been from the force of three dozen demons instantly teleporting into our area. Ian ground out a curse while I stared at them in dismay.

I looked back at Dagon in time to see him smile. “You didn’t think it would be easy to kill me, did you?”

Chapter 39

“Bugger.” Ian said the single word with all the vehemence I felt. Then, he gave me a light push toward the horde. “You need to hold them and Dagon off by yourself for a few minutes. Something I have to do.”

“That’s more important than this?” I sputtered.

His smile was a tight flash of fang. “Like you told me before, you have to trust me without arguing for once.”

With that, he flew off, leaving me, Dagon, and the newly arrived demons staring after him.

Dagon began to laugh so hard, it sounded like he pulled a muscle from it. “He left you to save his own skin! Ah, girl, I’m enjoying your expression so much, I think I’ll let Ian have a head start.” Then he whistled at the demons. “Bring her to me alive!” To me, he added, “You stole my last Red Dragon source, so I’m going to use your blood as my new one, and that’s only one of many, many plans I have for you.”

“Then like Ian, I’ll have to disappoint you,” I snapped before turning toward the horde. Eeesh. Nearly two score against one was terrible odds, no matter my strength.

I set my jaw and zipped the bone knife into one of the many pockets in my cargo pants. I couldn’t risk sheathing it in my belt because the belt could be torn free, and I couldn’t risk it being pulled from my hands again. Not when I still needed it to kill Dagon. Besides, they’d been told not to kill me and they felt like average soldiers to me, not upper-echelon demons. There were other ways to level the playing field than risking my only demon-bone knife.

I flew over to them, staying out of their reach but only just. Ian had said he needed time. I’d give him as much as I could. True to Dagon’s taunt, he hadn’t chased after Ian yet. No, he seemed to be settling in to watch the show with me and his demons.

“Go on, try to teleport up here to get me,” I taunted them, then laughed at the multiple failed results. Their attempts ate up only a couple minutes, though. I needed something more dramatic to hold their attention longer.

“I’m guessing none of you can fly, but can any of you jump high enough to reach me?”

That resulted in several more attempts, some of them forcing me to fly higher in sudden aerial leaps. All the while, I kept up the taunts with comments like “Almost!” and “You were so close!” while getting closer to the Enterprise. It was a ride shaped like a Ferris wheel when it was upright, but was now abandoned on the ground—like a huge, multi-spiked metal wheel.

“I’m getting bored, so I’ll make it easier for you,” I said, landing dead center in the middle of the rust-coated ride.

The demons vaulted over the remaining gondolas and countless metal arms that anchored the gondolas to its base. I sent my magic out, not in a blast that would have warned them but in drips that coated the ride slowly enough to let two of the fastest demons jump me before it was even half finished.

I defended against the worst of their blows, but I didn’t fight back when even more demons joined in. All my energy was focused on spilling out more magic in non-alarming drips. Pain exploded everywhere. The blows were too fast to heal between them. Soon, my head sounded like a bag of stones grinding together, I was blind from the blood, and I fought not to puke up my pulverized organs.

But my projection of helplessness galvanized the demons. From the sounds, all of them were probably on the sprawling ride now. I could hear them shouting as they tried to force their way through the others to get their turn to beat me. When I felt my magic reach the end of the enormous wheel, I dropped to my knees and pulled the pin on the spell. Most of my magic wouldn’t work on the demons, but it worked fine on inanimate objects.

The wheel burst apart as thousands of pounds of metal instantly turned into high-velocity shrapnel. I was so covered by demons, not a single piece tore into me. From the chorus of screams, the shrapnel hit everyone else. When the demons around me fell back in a belated attempt to shield themselves, I shot straight up so fast, only a few pieces of shrapnel hit me. Then I took out my bone knife, waited a few seconds until the shrapnel was no longer whirling about with tornado-like speed, and flew back down to stab out every eye I could.