Page 17 of Unholy Bond
The Void surged inside me with anticipation. The black tendrils coiled in my veins, rising to the surface in twisting, visible tattoos that shone through the pale skin like rivers seen from space. The other demons saw it, and bowed even lower, the mass of them trembling in unison.
I let the power gather, let it fill me. The temperature in the room dropped another ten degrees, and the marble of the floor cracked under the pressure. The edges of the chamber blurred, reality gone a little liquid at the seams.
“We have work to do,” I said, and every monster in the room looked up at me and nodded.
Chapter 10: Aziz
The sky tried to warn us. If you looked out past the sharp edge of the Boston skyline, you’d see the cloud mass boiling up from the Atlantic like the birth of a new species of god. The rain battered the windows hard enough to blur the horizon, but from the penthouse suite it looked less like weather and more like a siege. Levi had picked this place because of the view, but now the view was gone, and we were left with the interior of polished concrete floors, black leather, and the echo of too many conversations about how we’d end the world.
Ian was at the kitchen island, hunched over a run of parchment, his wrists dusted with black ink and silver powder. He inked the last of the protection sigils.
Levi paced the length of the living room in long, angry strides, arms crossed over his chest, blond hair yanked back into a knot that made him look less like a fallen demigod and more like a tennis pro. He muttered under his breath, sometimes at the storm, sometimes at Ian, mostly at the world for refusing to break according to his schedule.
I sat on the sectional, a duffel bag across my lap, fingers busy packing and unpacking the weapons. I cataloged the knives, the chains, the bent and dented crucifix that Levi had swiped from the ruins of St. Mary’s. Every item vibrated with a purpose, but the air in the penthouse was so thick with ozone and unspoken tension that I almost couldn’t breathe.
A lightning strike hit somewhere close, close enough to light the room for an instant. When the thunder came, it rattled the glassand sent a shudder up my spine. I closed my fist around the handle of the biggest blade and listened to the familiar click of the bones in my knuckles.
Ian didn’t look up from his work. “We need another ward on the door,” he said. “Lucifer’s going to smell this from a continent away.”
“I want him to,” Levi said. “You ever think maybe we’re wasting time with all this prep? He’s not going to let us in by RSVP.”
“Maybe not, but I’d rather not get shredded by a security demon before we hit the gate,” Ian replied. He blew a dusting of powder over the parchment, then set it aside to dry.
Levi sneered. “The last time you used a sigil, it backfired and almost cooked us both.”
“That was your fault,” Ian said, voice even. “You swapped the ash for graphite. You think the difference doesn’t matter, but it does.”
“Everything matters,” I said, before I could stop myself. My voice came out raw, like I’d been gargling broken glass. “We fuck up one thing, and he’ll eat us alive.”
Levi turned on me, blue eyes sharp. “Since when are you the careful one, Aziz? I thought the plan was to go in, break everything, and drag her out.”
“That is the plan.” My hands shook as I zipped the duffel shut. “But not if we can’t get past the front door.”
Ian slid a glance my way. There was blood on his cuffs, still wet. He didn’t bother to hide it, just flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders like a man prepping for a fistfight. “We’re outnumbered, outgunned, and he’s got home-field advantage. We do this my way, or we don’t do it at all.”
Levi planted both hands on the kitchen counter, knuckles whitening. “You’re so obsessed with your own genius you can’t see how much time we’re wasting. She’s probably already—”
I was on my feet before I realized it, the knife unsheathed, the point directed at Levi’s throat. “Don’t finish that sentence,” I said. The words hung in the air, heavy as iron. “She’s alive and we’re bringing her home.”
For a moment, the only sound was the rain hammering the glass, the room lit in the cold blue of another lightning strike. Levi held up his palms, slow and easy, but I could see the tension in his shoulders.
“Go ahead,” he said. “If you want to bleed me, do it. Just don’t pretend you’re not thinking the same thing.”
Ian stepped in between us, still calm. “Put the blade down, Aziz. This is exactly what he wants.”
I let my arm drop. The knife clattered against the table, and Levi looked almost disappointed.
“Lucifer wants us at each other’s throats,” Ian said, turning from me to Levi and back again. “That’s always been the play. You two start fighting, he doesn’t even have to lift a finger.”
I stared at them for a moment. “So what’s the plan?”
Ian smiled, the kind of smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “The plan is, we hit the gate at 0300. We use Levi’s key to force the lock, I handle the wards, and you do what you do best.”
He tapped the grid he’d sketched, a neat box of sigils and numbers that made my skin itch. “0300 Boston puts us on Third Watch below. That’s when the Council drags every ranking bastard to the dais for roll call. Wards stay up, but they re-balance—thin around the North Tower while the Watchfires tilt.”
Levi spun the brass key on his finger, pretending not to care. Ian kept going. “Lightning clocks the gate. We ride sky-fire through the lock, or we bounce. Window’s sixty-six heartbeats on our side, call it seven minutes while they chant the Litany. During that verse, corridors empty, supervisors sit their asses in Council, and your brother’s posted guard either gets reassigned or stares at an empty hall.”
I felt the storm breathe against the windows—glass flexing, old bones humming. “Sixty-six heartbeats,” I said. “We miss it, we die.”
