She did so by climbing into the RV. The whole front end was toast, including their sitting area with the built-in table, but the back half of the kitchen was still mostly intact. She took one more minute to send a few final texts, and then Bex put herphone on silent, set Felix’s magical weapon bag on the counter for Iggs, and went upstairs to take a nap.
It felt anticlimactic, but Bex had already learned the hard way this week that she couldn’t go nearly as long without sleep as she had before she’d lost her horns. Rest on the battlefield was also iffy, so she was determined to get as much as she could now, forcing herself to stay in bed until there were only thirty minutes left before Lys’s deadline.
Bex used twenty of those to shower and dress for combat in her new boots, a loose-fitting set of black fatigues with plenty of cargo pockets she could stuff full of survival essentials, and a black long-sleeved shirt made from a heavy synthetic material that was supposed to be stab-proof. She also took the med kit from her bathroom, a hundred feet of rope, a metal-handled flashlight, the black plastic box containing all their comm equipment, and her heavy combat knife.
There was no way all of that was fitting in her cargo pockets, so Bex also grabbed a backpack from her only-slightly-crushed closet. When her combat supplies were accounted for, she filled the space she had left with bottles of water and leftover coffee-shop sandwiches from the minifridge Lys had found for her bedroom. When the backpack was stuffed as full as she could get it, Bex topped the look off with a high ponytail and her favorite black leather bomber jacket.
That last one was a controversial choice. Bex’s leather jacket was her longest-surviving piece of clothing. Taking it with her now was practically guaranteeing its demise, but if this was going to be Bex’s last mission, she wanted to do it wearing something comfortable. If nothing else, the familiar weight of the leather made her feel more at ease as she hoisted the bulging backpack onto her shoulder and tromped down the stairs to find Iggs waiting for her in what was left of the RV’s kitchen.
“Bex!” he cried excitedly, holding up the canvas knapsack she’d left for him on the counter. “Is this the thing you messaged me about earlier?”
“That’s Solomon’s Armory,” she told him with a grin. “I’m not sure how much use it’ll actually be, but Felix said—”
“Not sure how much use it’ll be?” her wrath demon repeated in horror. “What are you talking about? This thing isincredible! Just look at this.”
He shoved his hand into the battered knapsack bag and pulled out a gun the size of a leg. Iggs’s leg, not Bex’s.
“You see?” he demanded, holding the weapon out for her to admire. “There’s like twenty of these in here! Isn’t that amazing?”
“Very,” Bex said, making appreciative noises at the costly-looking weapon. “What gun is that?”
“Heavy machine gun,” Iggs replied with a smile so giddy he looked like he was about to burst into song. “They’re usually mounted on tanks or the decks of battleships, but Felix’s goblins must’ve taken demonic strength into account, because all the ones I’ve pulled out of the bag have shoulder straps.” He heaved a dreamy sigh. “It’ssobeautiful. They even packed us ammunition!”
“It’d hardly be useful if they didn’t,” Bex said as Iggs started pulling out belts of the biggest bullets she’d ever seen. “But can those sorts of mundane weapons even hurt Gilgamesh’s constructs? I thought we needed sorcerous weapons for that.”
“Enough kinetic force hurts anything,” Iggs insisted. “These are actual military weapons, not the low-powered civilian and militia stuff we were stuck with before. Each of these bullets can punch a hole through a fifty-millimeter armor plate, and the heavy machine gun firesfifteen hundredof them per minute.” He gazed at the giant gun lovingly. “I bet I could Swiss-cheese a prince with this baby.”
“I’ll leave it to you, then,” Bex said, hefting her own backpack higher on her shoulder. “Use that bag well, and if anything happens to me, make sure all the guns inside get into demon hands before you give it back to Felix.”
“I swear I will,” Iggs said as he carefully replaced the ammo and the giant gun into the sack. “But you don’t need to make plans like that. We’re going with you this time, so nothing’s going to happen.”
“Survival is never guaranteed,” Bex reminded him, then she smiled. “But it’d have to go pretty horrible to end up worse than my last mission, so at least the bar’s on the floor.”
That was supposed to be a joke, but Iggs wasn’t laughing. “We won’t let that happen,” he promised, his red eyes determined as he stared at her. “We’re going to get through this alive, all of us, and wewillwin.”
His sudden seriousness caught Bex by surprise, though it really shouldn’t have. Lys’s reluctance this afternoon had thrown her, but Iggs had been ready to charge all Nine Hells at once from the moment she pulled him out of Limbo. That was pretty much the plan tonight, so of course he’d be pumped. Bex just wished she could steal some of his confidence as she set her backpack down for a final check. Iggs was the most tactically-minded of their group thanks to his obsession with war games, so she always liked to get his opinion. She must’ve done a good job this time, though, because the only addition he suggested was the exploding short sword he normally used as part of his backup-roll-everything loadout.
“So,” Iggs said as he helped Bex adjust the short sword’s sheath at the small of her back so its handle wouldn’t knock against her backpack. “Now that we’re doing this for real, have you made a final decision about who you’re bringing? I’m going, obviously, but who else?”
“I was planning on just our normal crew,” Bex said with a frown. “Why do you ask? Did you have someone in mind?”
“There’s a few extra candidates,” Iggs said when he was finished strapping her in. “You’ll see when we get outside.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked as Iggs maneuvered Solomon’s Armory—which, as a knapsack sized for the average human, now looked comically small on his giant frame—over his shoulders.
“You’ll see,” he promised, waving for her to lead the way out of the RV.
Bex did so with a scowl. One of the big reasons she’d decided to go ahead and do this tonight—other than all the obvious ones—was because she’d hoped to avoid making a scene. Her demons were jumpy enough after having their safe haven bombarded and seeing their queen crawl back defeated. She’d hoped to sneak out and score a victory before anyone outside her inner circle even knew that she was gone, but she should’ve known better. There was nothing demons paid more attention to than a queen, even a hornless, handless, swordless one, so Bex wasn’t actually surprised when she stepped through the RV’s busted door to find a crowd waiting for her.
Nemini was there, of course, and actually looking combat-ready for once. She normally went into battle in the same sweaters and running shoes that she wore to read books in the RV all day. This evening, however, she was wearing a sleek, dark-gray turtleneck and the same practical black military fatigues as Bex. She still had her usual comfy sneakers, but her snakes were all up and looking around above her head, which Bex took as a good sign.
Lys looked similarly battle-ready standing beside Nemini in a no-nonsense older female form. They also had what appeared to be a tied-up body with a black bag over its head squirming on their shoulder, but that was fairly normal for Lys,so Bex didn’t think much of it. What she hadn’t anticipated was the crowd of witches standing in front of the forest to the lust demon’s left.
There were over a dozen of them, all ladies of various ages dressed in the same all-black clothing and pointed hat that Adrian always wore. His mother, Agatha, was at the head of the pack, along with a shirtless, fully transformed General Kirok. That would have been strange enough all by itself, but the witch wasn’t just standing close to the four-armed demon. She waspaintinghim, using a brush made from nightshade flowers to trace spiraling black patterns all over the towering war demon’s bronze chest, neck, and shoulders.
“What is going on?” Bex demanded as she stomped down the RV’s bent metal steps. “Kirok! You’re supposed to be guarding the eastern road with the other war demons.”
That wasn’t entirely true. The war demons weren’t actually “guarding” anything. They’d been sent to the other side of the Blackwood to keep them away from the rest of the refugees because (a) no one wanted to be around them after the betrayal that had gotten half their army shot in the back, and (b) no war demon could be trusted so long as their queen was still alive to give them orders. Bex knew Kirok understood these points because he was the one who’d volunteered to separate the war demons in the first place. He wasn’t even supposed to know she was leaving since Bex didn’t want to risk Heaven getting a heads-up, but here he was.
