“What did you do?” Her sultry, velvet tone was harder, like gravel rubbed into a wound. “Who did you kill?”
I gulped.
Was it Lucifer? Was it one Fury, or all three at once? Would it matter to her?
“Was it the king?” she pressed.
There was my answer. She might respect the Furies more than she did Xaphan, but Lucifer, her partner in ruling the underworld, was the one she cared about.
“Yes.” I pretended it was a fact. “They targeted him, and now he’s gone.” I gestured to the fallen demons, now just bits of ash spread on the glittering black ground. “I bet there are many more like this in our world.Dead.”
“How dare you strike down the king!”
Ishtar shot out of her throne. From her hands, fire blazed like lava spewing out of a volcano, flying high and licking the edges of the black ceiling. The temperature climbed, and sweat beaded my skin.
“How dare you think you can strikeanyof us down?” she stormed. “Mere mortals dictating the lives of gods.”
“Fallen gods,” I declared, not sure where I was getting the strength from when I should be running from her rage. “You’refallengods. And you said yourself that I’m a godling. Why would you find it so impossible that we can beat you? I must havesomeability like yours. Others might too.”
The queen’s chest heaved up and down as her jaw clenched, and the fire in her hands died. “Most likely, yes. Too bad you, at least, won’t live to find out.”
Black snakes, a dozen of them, each ten feet long, burst out of her hands. “But I’ll show you whatIcan do. The ability you will never have.”
The snakes slithered toward me, urged on by their master’s laughter and the cheering and jeering of the surviving demons around us.
I darted backward, away from the creatures, my throat tight.
They didn’t look like any snake I’d ever seen. They were too long, too glittering, too focused onme.
Well over one hundred demons, too many snakes for comfort, and the Queen of Hell versus me. Things weren’t looking good.
But you only need one good shot,Tabitha reminded me.Don’t falter now. Everyone is counting on you.
The tears that had been pricking my eyes trailed down my cheeks. She was right. Succumbing to my terror was unacceptable.
I thrust my hands out, and black tendrils of magic flew toward the snakes. My power looked so similar to the creatures slithering across the floor—almost as if they were the same thing.
But when my magic met the snakes and tried to wrap around them, to strangle the life from their streamline bodies, the creatures hissed and gulped down the blackness. To them, my demon magic was nothing more than a harmless mouse.A snack.
Ishtar laughed.
Oh shit. My hands trembled.What now?
Tabitha moved inside my head. I sensed her insecurity, reflecting my own thoughts.
What was I supposed to do? What did I have that Ishtar didn’t?
That’s it!Tabitha said.Do what you do best. Make them disappear.
What? I—
The warphole, idiot!the ghost snapped, reminding me of the flesh-and-bone Tabitha.
I blinked, understanding immediately, and followed through.
I conjured a warphole and directed it over the band of snakes. They disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived, banished to the room that I’d landed in.
Ishtar’s insane laughter ceased the moment her snakes vanished. She placed a hand on her hip. “Clever. Let’s see how you wriggle out of this, then.”
