I’d lied. I did do the banter thing occasionally, if I thought it might knock an opponent off balance. Especially when that opponent was turning out to be more of a challenge than I’d expected.
He snarled and circled to his left, backing me toward a corner.
“Then there was Jennifer Winter,” I continued. “A little brown girl who was stronger than you in every way. Is that what’s been eating at you all these years, Alex?”
“She had the power of a god, and all she did was wallow in angst and throw it all away!”
As he was talking, I slapped the flat of his sword with my knife, knocking it aside long enough to slash a shallow cut across the front of his thigh.
He staggered back a step and scowled at the blood darkening his pants. “Not bad.”
“You’re not the first angry man-boy I’ve gone up against.”
“Why don’t you put down that knife and we’ll talk about this like adults?”
Jenny had mentioned that Alex might have access to persuasion magic. Trying to use it on a succubus was laughable, like trying to fight a bonfire with a pocket lighter. But if he was dumb enough to try...I lowered my knife an inch. “What is there to talk about?”
He brushed his leg. Black blood flaked away. The cut had already clotted. “You’re the weakest of your little trio. I wanted to test myself against you before I go up against Temple or Jenny. I hate to admit it, but seeing how long it’s taking me to end you, I’m not quite ready for them. Jenny would have finished you off in thirty seconds. Sixty if she was in a quippy mood.”
“Fifteen if she was pissed.” I relaxed and lowered my knife, hoping he’d mirror me and give me an opening.
“R’gngyk stirs, but I can only touch a sliver of his power. Our bond isn’t strong enough yet.”
“Gods have different appetites. Maybe Ring-guck isn’t into bondage.” More banter? Jenny had been such a bad influence on me.
“R’gngyk,” he snapped. “The god of a thousand names, who exists between dreams and death. His power is beyond anything Artemis could grant.”
“Why would he grant that power to a middle-aged burnout like you?”
“Because I’m the first in more than a thousand years to bring him gifts and worshippers.” He still hadn’t dropped his guard. Not enough, at least, given his strength and speed. “Put away your knife and come with me. You’re not the sacrifice I’d planned to give him, but you’ll make a nice appetizer.”
I sheathed my knife.
It was an impressive persuasion charm. The magic intertwined with my own motives and desires. Was I obeying him because we needed more information about Alex’s plans, and playing along was the best way to get it? Or was that all a rationalization my brain had come up with to make me do what he said?
He pointed his sword to the ladder in the floor. “Climb down to the cargo hold.”
Below, LED lamps hung from the cargo hold ceiling, brightening a low area with scattered barrels, crates, and coils of rope. Tied to a thick pillar in the middle of it all was a hearth devil. A pair of steak knives protruded from his chest.
He was the size of a ten-year-old child, with thin limbs and a thick gut. A bushy beard the color of dirty straw emphasized his jutting chin and oversized teeth. He wore cutoff jeans and bright blue Crocs.
“Don’t worry. Hob’s not dead.” Alex jumped down behind me. “The blades are stainless steel. They don’t do any permanent damage to his kind. I just needed to shut him up.”
I approached the hearth devil. There wasn’t much blood. I kept my attention on Alex in case he tried to stop me, but he just smiled as I pulled the two knives from the devil’s chest.
Hob’s eyes snapped open, and he gasped. “Fuck me with a cactus named Betty. Thathurt!”He looked up at me. “Well, hello there, sugar-tits.”
I tossed the steak knives aside and drew my Bowie. “This one isn’t stainless steel.”
He tried to scoot away, but the ropes held him in place. Alex had done a nice job with the knots.
“All right, all right,” said Hob. “Don’t get your pruney ass in a bind.”
“Hob has been engraving the sealing spells on my pills for me,” said Alex.
“Temple thought it might have been done with lasers,” I said.
“Lasers?” snapped Hob. “Every one of those spells was handwritten by yours truly, using a pen a tenth the width of one of your kinky gray pubes.”
