“Yeah, you’ve never been big on stealth.”
“Stop telling me what I can’t do, you little shits.” Bel jabbed a finger in each of his brothers’ directions. “I would wipe thefloor with all of you. And if one of you makes another comment about how I can’t kill a measly necromancer, I’ll rip your arms off and beat you unconscious with them to prove a point.”
Meph held his hands up. “No one’s questioning your badassery. We’re just concerned for your safety.”
“Fuck safety! And fuck all of you. I don’t need your goddamn coddling. Why don’t you go open a fucking daycare if you want to baby someone.”
Ash barked a laugh. “Now there’s a good image.”
Meph chuckled. “Can you imagine it? Demon daycare. Moms dropping off their little kids with us delinquents.”
“Raum would be good at it. He’s already babysitting the puppy dogs.”
While his brothers continued with their ridiculous fantasy, Bel spun with a growl and stalked out of the room. Back in the kitchen, he tossed his coffee cup into the sink a little too forcefully, and it shattered. He didn’t stop to clean it up.
He needed space from his brothers until he got his temper back under control, so he strode down the hall to the office he never used. Locking the door behind him, he sank into the cushy leather office chair and stared out the window overlooking the backyard.
He was pissed his brothers weren’t taking him seriously, but he knew that was stupid. His brothers never took anything seriously. It had nothing to do with him.
But he wasn’t joking around about killing Murmur. He’d had enough of the damned Necromancer.
It was at that moment, in a cruel twist of fate, that the air on the other side of the desk suddenly burst into purple flame. There was a small explosion of light, and purple sparks showered down like fireworks. And then it was over, as quickly as it had begun.
In the aftermath, a summoning sigil appeared on the floor,having formed from the ashes of the explosion. In the center of it was a folded piece of paper, sealed with purple wax.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bel said, staring at it. Because he already knew exactly who had sent him that letter.
“You’re dead, Necromancer. So fucking dead.”
He stood, pushing the chair back and walking around the desk. He approached the sigil warily, bending and picking up the letter. Slipping a finger under the wax seal, he popped it open and unfolded the paper in slow motion.
As he began to read, his suspicions were confirmed.
The Necromancer had called in his first favor.
Miracle of miracles, the hellgate worked.
The world turned on its axis and shook her around, and then Suyin stumbled out the other side, head pounding. As the room stopped spinning, she saw the familiar shapes of Murmur’s library and knew she’d made it. Murmur had actually left his gate open, a careless act that seemed totally unlike him.
But she didn’t have long to dwell on that.
She’d stepped out of the hellgate … into an apocalypse.
The room was full of a thick black smoke that she promptly started choking on. It was so dark it was hard to see anything, save for an orange glow flickering through the window outside. A glance through the glass showed fire burning all across the plains surrounding the castle. There was a distant roaring and a low rumbling on the ground like thousands of pounding footsteps.
But she only spared a moment looking out the window, because what was in the room was far more shocking.
In the center of Murmur’s spell, surrounded by swirling gusts of black smoke and wind, was a vortex. Purple and black, it filled the entirety of the circle Murmur had drawn inblood around it. The presence of that portal meant only one thing:
The spell had succeeded.
But if it had succeeded, then where was Murmur? And how the hell was she alive?
Nape prickling, Suyin ventured farther into the room, squinting into the darkness to make out her surroundings. She was still in her altered form, and she flexed her claws in readiness for any surprise attacks.
If she could sneak up on Murmur and stab him before he ever noticed her, she would gladly do so. She’d rip his throat out with her claws first and then sink her blade into his chest. Anything to appease the hurt and rage burning in her chest.
Except … as she got closer to the sigil and spinning portal, she saw a dark shape sprawled at the far edge, next to the ritual table.
