Michael fell through, but Iban exploded into a mess of blood and gore, serving as the needed sacrifice to save Willow’s life. Beelzebub fought desperately to get his wings spread, to take off, only for the demons to drag him back down to the sand as Michael landed beside us.
Beelzebub roared out in pain as his gaze connected with mine, an apology in it that told me everything I needed to know.
I wasn’t going home.
I looked back to the doorway to Crystal Hollow, at Willow’s panicked face staring down at me as we both shared a moment of understanding.
She knew as well as I did that none of us were going to make it out in time. Glass covered the doorway slowly, creeping across the gap and cutting me off from the only home I’d ever known. With all the chaos surrounding me, I felt only guilt that Willow would blame herself. I could see that guilt already etched into the tense lines of her face, her mouth open as she called for me, but I couldn’t hear her through the glass.
Jonathan whimpered as a demon landed a blow against hischest, leaving three bleeding wounds behind. He leapt into my arms for safety, transforming into his feline form in the moment before I released Beelzebub, caught Jonathan, and curled him to my chest between the archdemon and me.
Willow’s eyes were wide and panicked as the glass filled the boundary between planes, her hands frantically smacking against the surface as if she could break through. I watched her nails claw at the window, her blood staining the glass.
The stone that slowly spread to cover the seal was tan where it rested over the bloody smears she’d left behind. I couldn’t tear my eyes off that seal, couldn’t focus on the fighting happening around me.
It covered the gateway to Crystal Hollow as it closed.
And Willow was gone.
PARTII
9
MARGOT
The Present
With both arms wrapped around an archdemon’s neck and not a weapon to my name, I had little hope of surviving the onslaught of demons and souls calling for my blood. The sound of them around us was like nothing I’d ever heard before, vicious and growling creatures that were desperate for the kind of blood that only I could provide. Archdemons were neither living nor dead, a gray area that didn’t call to the hunger of lost souls and lesser demons.
I couldn’t make myself move. Couldn’t make myself tear my gaze away from that now-closed doorway above my head as if it would simply reopen to allow us to escape.
I knew Willow didn’t have that kind of strength left, but it didn’t stop me from waiting to see her try.
Beelzebub groaned, crying out as his wing jerked against me. The sound of pain was enough to pull my attention away from the doorway, and I stared at the gold of his Enochian tattoos where they glowed beneath my arms.
The faint glimpses of the demons and souls around us were enough to make me flinch in fear, some of them entirely humanoid but for the blank look in their eyes. Others were distorted blurs of motion, muscle, and sinew bending in ways that wereunnatural to living things. Their bones cracked and joints popped around us, the sounds like something from one of the horror movies I’d studiously avoided watching.
Sometimes, fiction was far too close to reality.
I couldn’t see the landscape beyond the writhing flesh of demons moving and attempting to reach us, the archdemons who had fallen in with us doing their best to form a wall between us and the coming threat.
“Get her out of here!” one of them shouted, swinging his hand and cutting through one of the demons who fought to get closer to us. Blood sprayed onto my cheek, the proximity of the demon too close for comfort as I gasped at the unfamiliar warmth the violence brought.
Beelzebub’s hands cupped my cheeks, cradling my face in his grip with a gentleness so at odds with the warpath of the demons around us. “I need you to snap out of it, songbird,” he said, that name striking me in the chest. It forced me to shake off the trauma, wincing when his wings tugged me in close and more of my body lined up with his. Skin touched skin, the feeling too warm for comfort in this place where the heat was so dry and stifling. Sweat slicked my body, a mix of adrenaline and the heat making me feel sticky as I nodded up at the archdemon who was doing his best to keep me safe.
“Get me a fucking opening then!” Beelzebub shouted back to the archdemon who had yelled at him. His tone was entirely different from the one I had come to know in the limited time I’d spent with him. This was the commander of Lucifer’s armies. This was His second-in-command, who must have led Hell through the centuries when Lucifer’s soul had been trapped within a Vessel in Crystal Hollow.
The archdemon with fiery red skin grappled with Michael, the archangel struggling without fingers that he must have lost at some point in his fight with Lucifer. If the archangel was anything like what I’d come to know of the devil and His demons,it would take time for his magic to heal him in this place that was so far removed from the father who had provided him with magic in the first place. His feathered wings flapped and smacked against the archdemon, and it seemed to cause more frustration than hurt, leaving the red one sputtering with rage.
Two of the other demons moved with Beelzebub, taking up his rear as he tried to step back from the worst of the fray. I felt Beelzebub shudder as something scraped down his wing, tearing through the fibrous tissue as I nodded up at him. He used his injured wing to throw whatever had hurt him off, nodding back to me as he settled his hands at my waist.
I flinched away from the touch on instinct, nodding through the reaction to encourage him to continue. I could deal with the consequences of being touched later, if I survived, but for this moment I needed to focus on allowing Beelzebub to do what was necessary to save us both without fear of repercussions from me.
He gripped me tightly, tugging me tighter into his enormous frame. Heat pulsed off those golden symbols scrawled into his chest, the light held within them glowing brighter as my hands brushed over them.
I forced myself to tighten my arm around his neck, sandwiching Jonathan between us as I struggled to cradle him with one arm. The cat’s blood leaked out onto me slowly, his wounds deep but not life-threatening, and I knew he would be alright with medical attention.
If we managed to escape.
