Page 13 of A Fury Of Shadows

Evidently, Oscar was too much of an idiot to notice he was in half a mind to rip his foul heart out of his chest and shove it down his throat.

“Mae Jin is half human. And like all humans, she is a slave to her emotions. We can use her family against her, like we did before. Better yet, it’s clear she’s chosen Nikolai as her consort. If his life’s at stake, she will do our bidding.”

Oscar frowned. “And if that still doesn’t work? She’s a doctor. More than that, she’s the daughter of Ran Soyun, a woman who willingly sacrificed herself to save her people, according to your own account of the war you and the first Sorcerer King waged against Azazel. She’s altruistic enough to do the same, even if her actions result in Nikolai’s death.”

Barquiel’s fingers twitched. Hearing Ran Soyun’s name on Oscar’s lips made him want to tear his mouth off his face.

“Then, we’ll just have to kill her,” he said flatly.

Oscar lapsed into silence. Barquiel could tell from the spite burning in his eyes and the way he smirked that killing Mae Jin rated high on his bucket list.

“When do we leave?” the sorcerer asked brusquely.

“In the morning. Be ready at dawn.”

Barquiel left Oscar in better spirits and returned to his own quarters in the northeast tower. Though it was strictly unnecessary, he raised a demonic barrier around the suite to keep intruders out just in case.

He shifted into his demon form, opened a rift to Hell, and stepped inside. Crimson light pulsed across his vision as he descended into the interdimensional portal, the hot wind whipping at his body carrying the distant screams of lost souls.

He and Vedran had an agreement. It was the same agreement he’d reached with the first Sorcerer King after they’d defeated Azazel, and every man who had taken his throne thereafter. He would help them rule the world as long as they stayed out of his business.

The familiar stench of the Underworld filled his nostrils when he emerged on the other side of the rift. He stilled and scanned the dark cavern around him.

Few demons ventured this deep into Hell. Still, Satanael had eyes everywhere. His gaze dropped to the creatures crawling across his boots.

Even these hellspiders could be his spies.

With that in mind, he opened a series of portals that would make even the Lord of Hell’s most shrewd lackeys struggle to keep up with his location. He walked in and out of the doorways that opened all over Hell Deep seemingly at random until he happened upon a mountain in an unchartered stratum of the dimension. One he had concealed upon first discovering it, several millennia ago.

Barquiel spread his dark wings and dove off the summit of the elevation. A vertiginous drop opened up below, the bottom obscured by mist and sulfur clouds. Wind whistled in his ears as the rockface blurred past him. He spotted the breach in the cliffside, snapped his wings closed, and slipped inside.

Sulfurous fumes whirled around him as he navigated a chasm scored with lava pits. It widened after some two hundred feet. The demon’s pulse quickened. He arrowed toward the vertical wall rising at the end of the shadowy gully.

The defensive shields he’d erected to obscure the mouth of the cave that stood at the base brushed across his skin as he flew inside. Barquiel landed lightly on his feet and headed into a dark tunnel at a brisk pace. One mile of underground passages later, he finally reached the innermost sanctum of the cavern beneath the mountain.

A pale light lit the gloom as he approached the space. It brightened the closer he got. He emerged into a circular chamber he’d carved with his own hands, the radiance filling the sacred space almost blinding him.

His breath caught, as it always did.

“I’m here,” Barquiel whispered reverently.

CHAPTER6

“You want to do what?”Cortes said leadenly.

“I want to touch your core,” Mae repeated. “And I mean that in a strictly non-sexual way,” she added hastily at the sight of Popo’s bright eyes and Anya’s frozen expression.

“That’s sick,” Violet Nolan mumbled.

The witch’s face was full of macabre delight. She sat on a box eating a sandwich, her rabbit Trixie nibbling enthusiastically on a chunk of carrot where she perched on Brimstone’s head.

Violet had finished her end-of-semester engineering exams in Chicago and returned to New York last night. Her cousin Miles was arriving later that day, after taking his last paper at Harvard Business School.

Anya’s wary gaze swung from Cortes to Mae. “What exactly are you intending to do?”

Mae explained her theory. They listened to her with mounting disbelief.

“Told you they’d react that way,” Vlad muttered.

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