“Anyone know what special powers the horses have?” I asked nervously.

Michael and the other archangels were watching the advancing evil soldiers warily. It looked like we were about to discover these demon’s new power together.

“What’s it doing?” Lincoln pointed, while staring wide-eyed at the nearest skelly.

Its eyes were really glowing green, like way more than before.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to kill it,” Michael declared, taking one step in the direction of the bug-eyed skeleton horse. One second Michael was standing there, and the next, the skelly’s eyes had… exploded. A hot lava-like substance shot from its eyes and tried to spray all over Michael, but he blasted into the air to avoid it. We all stumbled backward as I tightened the shield protecting Lincoln and myself. The lava shot across the front of the bus, and the metal and rubber tires melted right before my eyes, in a stinking mass of molten iron.

Oh shit. This was the stuff of nightmares.

We were way out of our league here. The Dark Lord had known we were coming, and he’d built a freaking lava-spewing army to protect him.

‘Oh, hell no. These anorexic horses aren’t going to stop us.’ Sera pulsed at my hip.

I’d forgotten she was there. Hell, I’d forgotten what it was like to fight with her, so used to doing it by myself ever since she was taken.

Pulling her out, I thinned my shield in one spot at the front.

‘Watch this,’ she boasted. A thin laser beam of light shot from the tip of Sera’s blade, and cut into the horse nearest us. Where her beam of light hit, the horse lost a limb—technically a bone stump, since it didn’t have flesh.

“Yes!” Michael roared and advanced forward, cutting the horse’s head right off in one swift move. The green glow that had once lit up its eyes was no more.

‘I was just getting started. Watch this.’

A thicker beam of light shot from my dagger, and I cut my arm across the advancing horses in an arc. Over a dozen of them were sawed in half at once.

‘Oh my God!’ She’d been holding out on me. ‘Do that when we see Lucy,’ I told her.

‘Oh, I’ll do that and more,’ she promised.

As a group, we advanced on the skelehorse army, and took them down one by one. Sera was able to take out the first few in the front lines and make a path for Michael to get to the ones farther back. I dropped my shield so that Sera could shoot her laser of light at will.

Lincoln was tied up with a Castor demon, while I was advancing deeper into the line of psycho-lava-eye-beam-horses. Sera was just preparing for another burst of light when someone grabbed me by the hair, and yanked hard, until I was flush against their chest.

“The Dark Prince has been waiting for you,” A silky rich voice cooed in my ear.

In one swift move, Sera was knocked from my hand, and then I was being pulled upward into the sky by my neck. I couldn’t breathe, and all rationale went out of my head when I realized I was being dragged across Hell by an Abrus demon. He had my wings pinned with his legs, hooking his ankles around my middle, but my throat was taking the brunt of his force.

‘Pull me to you!’ Sera screeched.

I tried to use my magic to pull her from the ground and towards my hand, but I was too panicked. Too focused on breathing. I tried to thrash and get my assailant to loosen his grip, but it was no use.

“Did you know that the average human can hold their breath about two to three minutes before passing out?” the demon informed me. “But with your Celestial healing, I’ll bet you could go longer.”

Oh God. He was going to kill me. And suffocating was such a bad way to go too.

We flew over the skelehorse war, and I was unable to scream or alert Lincoln. I couldn’t calm my mind enough to erect my shield again or call Sera to me. I was majorly screwed and on the verge of passing out. It all happened so fast that, I wasn’t prepared.

How did I let my infinity weapon get taken from me again?

“Now, if I let go, you’re not gonna scream, are you?” he asked me as we flew across the smoky sky.

I shook my head, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Please God, I need air. I couldn’t think straight; all I could focus on was trying to draw a breath past his crushing grip.

Ever so slightly, his fingers let up from my windpipe, and I gulped in precious oxygen. I didn’t even care that it tasted mildly of sulfur. After I managed a few breaths, his hand opened wider and gripped my jaw, allowing me to fill my lungs. I was so relieved, so happy to be alive and breathing, I didn’t even think of fighting him back or using my magic against him. Eventually, as the oxygen helped my sanity return and my panic retreat, I had the idea that I needed to fight this bastard off me.

“Almost there. Raksha will be so pleased to see you.”

All fight fled from my body in that instant.

Raksha. He’d said the magic word.

I relaxed, allowing him to take me. This was what I wanted anyway, to be brought to the Dark Prince. I wanted to end him. I just thought I’d have Sera, Lincoln and the archangels on my side when I did it. Yet, if Raksha was in trouble, then I wouldn’t put up a fight. I’d go willingly if it meant I had the chance to save her.

As we flew, a familiar landscape came into view, the outside courtyard of Lucifer’s underground castle. We neared and my eyes roamed over the faces of the demons that stood at the outer wall. I recognized a few, but when my gaze fell inside the courtyard, complete and utter shock ripped through me.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of Lucifer… holding a baby.

Twenty-Two

The first thing that popped into my head was if somehow that baby could be mine. As crazy as it sounded, it wasn’t that far out there, considering Lucifer had wanted to track my cycles and make a baby with me before I broke free. Now here he was, holding a beautiful little infant.

My gaze flicked to a crumpled heap at his feet, and a sob formed in my throat. Raksha was on the ground, bleeding freely from her abdomen.

When we were about ten feet from the courtyard, the Abrus demon dropped me. He just let go. I flapped my wings to slow my descent, but I still landed roughly and twisted my ankle, causing pain to shoot up my shin.

“Ah, Brielle, perfect timing,” Lucifer called out to me.

At his words, four thick bands of black magic shot from his free hand and wrapped around my body like ropes, binding my arms and legs against me. I didn’t fight it, didn’t even bother to tell him to fuck off. My eyes were glued to the baby.

“Hey, Lucy.” I spoke calmly, but using my nickname for him had his upper lip curling. “Why are you holding an innocent baby?”

Lucifer laughed. “Oh, she’s hardly innocent. The spawn of a Succubus demon and myself? No, no, she’ll be anything but innocent.”

Relief washed through me that the baby wasn’t mine, but then I was filled with horror. The Devil and a Succubus demon had a baby?

“Michael’s blood… runs… through her veins,” Raksha croaked from her place at Lucy’s feet.

I tried to process her words, but all I could find myself thinking, was how badly she was injured and how I couldn’t heal her with Lucy standing right there.

Lucifer waved Raksha off then. “Just a smidgen of Michael’s blood to give her good fighting ability, but not enough to sway her moral scales.”

That’s what he’d used the blood for, the jar Mathias dropped off while I was held captive down here.

“No one is born evil,” I declared, my gaze falling on the sweet baby once more. I refused to believe she was born with any hatred. That had to be taught… if I let her father live. Which I wouldn’t.

I didn’t have Sera, the archangels, or Lincoln, and my hands were tied behind my back, but I was going to kill this bastard one way or another. Just as soon as he put down the baby.

“You’re wrong in thinking I’m evil, Brielle,” Lucifer stated calmly, while the baby made bubbles with her spit. “I just have a different viewpoint than your other feathered friends.”

I swallowed hard. “Let me heal Raksha, and then I’ll give you whatever you want.”

Okay, I’d resorted to begging pretty quickly, but she was freaking bleeding out right in front of me. I was feeling desperate.

His high-pitched laughter cut through the air surrounding us. “I already have what I want. You’re trapped here with me, and after my army kills the archangels, I’ll never let you leave. Thanks for bringing them here, by the way. Really saved me a trip.”

Plan B. If Sera were here, she’d do something psycho like lash out with magic and try to blind him. The entire time we’d been talking, I’d built up magic along my skin, like I did with my shield, but this was magic I hoped was about to burn through the bands that held me.

With an animalistic, roar I pushed the magic from my skin, snapping the bands in half. They fell to the ground as I burst from where I stood, shooting straight forward. My ankle stung as I leapt for the Devil, completely unsure what the hell I was going to do.

He was holding a freaking baby, for crying out loud!

Lucifer looked surprised for a moment, but that expression was quickly wiped off his face and replaced with malice. With no plan, and no desire to hurt that damn adorable baby, I just let my momentum slam into him. I turned to the side and lined up my shoulder with his chest, at the same time reaching out to cup the baby in my arms as I did a full football tackle. The force of my hit knocked him backward, and he loosened his hold on the baby, allowing me to snatch her from his grip.

I had seconds here, mere seconds, to decide of the fate of Raksha, this baby and myself. I could take flight and bring the baby to safety, but he would surely finish off my hurt friend. It would be the smart thing to do, but I couldn’t bear to lose her. Could I carry them both? I had to try.

Spinning, I deposited the baby into Raksha’s outstretched hands where she lay on the ground, pivoting just as a giant blob of black inky energy crashed into my chest. A burning fire settled into my lungs, and I stumbled backward in pain.