It was in that moment that I heard the small, yet mighty scream of a child. Adrenaline pulsed through me, and emotion tightened my throat. I wasn’t sure there was anything else in the world that motivated a soldier more than the wail of a helpless child.

Lincoln jiggled the door handle and then nodded to Luke.

“We’re on borrowed time!” Lincoln shouted, pulling his sword as blue splinters of light shot from the blade.

Luke wasted no time, rearing up on his hind legs, and then charging the door. Putting all of his probably five-hundred-pound weight into the push, he came down on top of it. The door was one of those cheaper aluminum ones, so instead of cracking or falling apart, it simply burst off the hinges and then fell flat onto the floor, revealing an apartment.

Lincoln waited for no one, charging past Luke and running headfirst into the house. My man was fearless. I hadn’t yet decided if that was a good or a bad thing.

We all waited as Lincoln, Noah, and the other two Fallen Army soldiers ran into the apartment. Then the first team went in—the one tasked with removing the dead little girl’s body. My heart ached at the very thought of seeing a dead child. I had every intention of being a good girl and awaiting Lincoln’s next instructions until I heard Bonnie’s call for help.

“She’s not dead!” my classmate screamed.

Instinct took over then. Bonnie was a Necromancer—she knew death. If she said the little girl wasn’t dead, she wasn’t dead. I was the only healer available, so if the little girl needed help, it was going to have to come from me.

The second I started for the door, Shea and Luke trailed behind me without question.

“What are you doing?” the second group whispered. They were waiting by the door for Lincoln’s okay to come get the second twin.

“Don’t worry,” I told them, and then I was in the apartment.

As I entered the space, the first thing that hit me was the smell. It was surprisingly sweet and alluring—vanilla, but with an underlying decaying odor.

There were some gnarly battle sounds coming from the bedroom, and it took everything in me not to go in there, and try to help out. I had to trust that Lincoln had this handled.

‘If he doesn’t, I’m ready,’ Sera told me. I patted her hilt in an effort to calm her. I had every intention of not seeing that Succubus.

“In here!” Bonnie whisper-screamed, and I turned toward the sound. They were all hunched over a small child’s form, and the familiar swirls of purple and orange Necromancer magic—that I’d grown up seeing with my mom—were dancing around the little girl’s body.

I frowned. “I thought you said she wasn’t dead?” The little girl’s brunette hair was cropped short and splayed out onto the carpet behind her, and she was seemingly lifeless. If she wasn’t dead, why was Bonnie using Necro magic? Even if she was, why the hell was Bonnie using Necro magic? Besides it being forbidden to raise the dead in Angel City, it was doubly forbidden to raise a child.

Bonnie held her hands over the girl. “She’s kind of half in, half out. Her soul keeps jumping from that room back here into her body. I’m trying to pin it into her,” Bonnie explained.

That was some crazy shit. My mom tried to explain to me once how she knew someone was dead even from twenty feet away. It was the light, the aura, the soul. Necromancers could see it, sense it, manipulate it at times. It kind of freaked me out.

“Can you force it down? Then, maybe I could heal her.” Bending down, I ran my hands over the little girl, trying to do a healing scan. It was a third year study but Noah had shown me a little so I was going to wing it. She was human, obviously, and therefore quite frail from the trauma. There would be no supernatural healing kicking in for her.

Bonnie shook her head. “This is some advanced shit. The Succubus in the room is doing something. I’m pulling against her.”

I breathed in and out slowly, trying to feel for something I could heal, but there was nothing I could sense that needed healing. Her life-force felt so weak, and I wasn’t sure how to help that. I needed to work on my healing skills with Noah more.

“Lincoln, look out!” I heard one of the boys call from the room, and then a crashing sound rang throughout the house.

Screw the rules.

I pulled Sera from my thigh holster and took off running to the bedroom. I wasn’t going to let some little demon bitch hurt my man and steal this little girl’s soul.

I have the mark of Lucifer himself, and I’m not scared of any demon. They should be scared of me!

With all the confidence of a lioness, I ripped the door open and readied myself for a fight. But when my gaze fell onto the creature suspended in midair, I nearly pissed myself.

“Holy shitballs.” I breathed.

And then she tried to kill me.

Chapter Eight

I grew up around demons. Warts, oozing skin, horns, scales—none of it scared me. But the creature before me now was absolutely terrifying.

She was humanoid-looking with long, thin silvery hair, and gaunt cheeks that made her look even more ghoulish. Her body was waif thin, showing protruding bones from every angle. That was okay—a skinny demon, I could handle—but her eyes were… missing. Where a human would have eyes, she had black empty pits, and yet she looked right at me. Her hands were weapons themselves. The fingers didn’t seem to have skin, they were just sharpened bones that turned into claws, and glowed an angry red. She was grinning in my direction, and I saw a legit razor blade peeking out from behind her teeth.

I guess Lincoln wasn’t joking about that part.

Jesus Christ, have mercy.

Everything happened so quickly that I could barely process it. I did a rapid scan of the room to see both of the Fallen Army guards unconscious on the floor and Noah leaning over one of them, healing orange light emanating from his palms. Lincoln was crouched over a terrified, pale, stricken little girl identical to the one in the living room. His sword and gun were drawn and he looked feral, blood dripped from his left eyebrow and down his cheek.

The Succubus was already halfway to me, crawling across the ceiling like a possessed monkey. My name burst from Lincoln’s lips, but all I could hear was my heartbeat slamming in my ears. My eyes flicked once again to the little girl and how terrified she looked. This evil demon was feeding off them and had nearly killed her sister in the other room.

Anger boiled inside of me and I just… reacted. Sera told me nothing, gave me no advice, I just exploded. I leapt into the air to meet the demon instead of falling back. With a roar, I lashed out, and Sera shot a bolt of white-hot light from her blade that licked across the demon’s abdomen, cutting it open.

Holy shit.

I barely had time to register how badass Sera was, and that she’d cut the demon without touching her, when a razor blade flew across the room and sank into my left upper arm. Pain shot up my muscles, as I fell backward with all the grace of a giant elephant. The Succubus didn’t let up—she was coming for me full throttle.

“Brielle!” Lincoln roared, but didn’t leave the little girl’s side.

Rage boiled hotter inside of me and I did a kick up, throwing my legs into the air and forward, allowing the motion to pull my body into a standing position. A little something Darren taught me. The demon dropped from the ceiling like a freaking hundred-pound spider, landing right on top of me. Her hip hit my head, throwing me to the side, and then I felt her searing hot claws on my back. I’d fallen to my knees with her weight, but her leg was right in front of me, and I took the opportunity to shove Sera in, right up to the hilt.

A roar rang out from the demon and she pulled herself off me, standing before me with those two red glowing hands outstretched.

“Lucifer’s princess,” she cooed in a voice that was anything but human. Her gaping eye sockets were locked on my chest and the mark that rested there.

She put one hand on Sera’s hilt, pulling her out without a problem.

Shit.

‘She’s made of fire. I can’t burn her,’ Sera told me.

I lunged for my weapon just as the Succubus thrust her arm out and an invisible force knocked into me, throwing me backward out of the room and into the entryway.

Shea and Luke scream-roared simultaneously. I landed hard on my ass, but immediately righted myself. The Succubus had gone back into the room, and was doing some weird shit with her hands, Sera still clutched in her grip.

‘Get me out of here!’ Sera screamed, panicked.

The darkness inside of me was welling up. I couldn’t push it down any longer, nor did I want to do it.

The Succubus had her back to me as she opened a portal on the wall. Lincoln had the little girl draped in his arms, and was standing at the far end of the room. He was inching along the wall, trying to make it to me, and the open doorway.

Does that demon bitch think she’s going to leave with my freaking seraph blade?!

Noah was still helping the two soldiers. When my eyes flicked to Lincoln, he shook his head. A big fat no from him.

Screw that. Sera was a part of me; I wasn’t just letting her go.

I screamed and thrust my arms out, intending for the black blob to rise out of my throat, like it normally did, and wrap around her neck. That didn’t happen. Instead, a shiny, black energy whip burst from my palm and coiled around the demon’s waist.

Holy mother of darkness.

The demon hissed, and then everything happened seemingly in slow motion. She swung her arm, and I watched Sera swirl through the air and into the Hell portal.

‘Bri!’ Sera shouted, and I felt a physical pain in my chest as she sailed through the opening and was lost into oblivion. All I could see was red haze and fire.

The Succubus spun on me then. I was without my cherished weapon, but I had a new one. A totally freaky and really dark weapon, but it was a weapon nonetheless. I cinched the whip tighter and she roared.

“Whatever you’re doing is working!” Bonnie yelled from the next room.

The little girl. I could save her. I may have lost Sera, but I could save the girl.

With all my strength, I wrapped both hands around the whip and yanked.

“Nooooo,” the succubus yelled, pushing her hands outward. That invisible force knocked into me again, but when I went flying, I made sure to hold the black energy whip tight. It pulled her with me, and I saw rivulets of dark inky blood fall from her stomach as the whip cut into her. She was clawing at it frantically, and just behind her, I spotted Lincoln approaching with his blazing sword in his hands. I quickly flicked my eyes down to the ground so she wouldn’t notice my attention on him.

She must have sensed him though, because as he came down on her neck, she turned, but it was too late. Her head flew from her body and hit the wall with a thud.

My whip disintegrated and I was flung backward with the sudden loss of tension, but I was able to roll my body to the side so my fall wasn’t severe. I immediately jumped up, searching for the portal. My eyes flicked to the wall where it once stood, and my stomach dropped as I noticed it had snapped closed with the Succubus’s death.