Page 71 of A Fury Of Shadows

Maybe we’ve both lost our minds.

Alastair pecked his ear at that.

He grimaced. “Alright, I’m sorry.”

Alastair ruffled his feathers.

Nikolai stopped in front of Barquiel’s door. He looked up and down the corridor with a faint frown. He hadn’t seen anyone on his way here.

I bet they’re all in the infirmary.

He steeled himself and knocked. There was no answer.

He knocked again, louder this time. “Hey, are you in there? I want to talk.”

Alarm fluttered across his bond with Alastair, startling him. The crow was peering intently at something on the floor.

Nikolai followed his familiar’s gaze and saw what had drawn his attention. His pulse spiked. Crimson light bled onto the marble through the faint slit under the door. It was coming from the demon’s suite.

What is that?!

Nikolai swallowed. He hesitated before reaching for the doorknob and twisting it. To his surprise and mounting dread, the door opened under his hand. An acrid stench burned his eyes and nostrils when he pushed it. He froze.

A scarlet rift pulsed in the middle of Barquiel’s suite.

A memory came to him then. He recalled seeing something similar in the cemetery where Oscar and the demon had tried to capture Mae with a binding ritual. He’d witnessed the same phenomenon at the abandoned factory on the Brooklyn waterfront where they had gone to confront the Dark Council and rescue Mae’s sister and grandmother.

Barquiel had opened portals to Hell on both occasions. And those portals had looked identical to what he was looking at right now.

Nikolai crossed the threshold and locked the door behind him before he could change his mind. His instincts were telling him he should find out what Barquiel was up to. His heart thrummed a wild tempo in his chest.

Still, it’s not as if I can just stroll into Hell. I’m human!

Alicia had told him and Mae several of Astarte’s human allies in Chicago had once ventured into the Underworld to rescue one of their own. Which meant the air had to be breathable, at least.

Something resonated with his core, rooting his legs to the ground.

Alastair flinched.

Nikolai’s eyes widened as he registered the familiar sensation. He pressed a hand to his belly, shock making him dizzy. It was a pulse of magic. One he knew intimately. It was the same power that lived inside him and the ley lines of every nexus he had ever tapped into.

This is white magic. Pure, unadulterated white magic!

The pulse came again. Nikolai’s gaze locked on the scarlet rift.

It’s coming from there! But—how?! How can there be white magic in Hell?!

Alastair sank his claws into his shoulder. Resolve hardened Nikolai’s stomach. They had to find out what this was. Even if it meant venturing into a place no human should technically visit alive.

Nikolai cast a silent prayer to any deity that was listening, drew on his and Alastair’s combined powers, and shrouded them in a potent layer of white magic. A thought came to him.

Dark red flames sizzled into life, overlaying the veneer of white magic. Somehow, he suspected Azazel’s Hellfire Magic would protect them in the Underworld.

He took a deep breath and stepped inside the rift.

He and Alastair were immediately sucked into the vortex of a scorching wind. The crow clung desperately to him as they fell headlong into a spinning, crimson maelstrom.

Bile rose in the back of Nikolai’s throat. Things swam in and out of view beyond the blurry walls of the portal. Things that screamed and howled with hunger and agony. They clawed at the rift when they sensed him, trying to break through to get to him.

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