Nik flashed, tracking his quarry. In the mouth of a tunnel, two demons had a human trapped against a wall. The reed-thin scourge punched a human—Russ, the homeless man who’d shaken his crotch at Shadow—in the belly. “Where’s the female with the dark hair from The Refuge—”
Nik grabbed the fucker by the throat and hauled him away. The other demon leaped back. Nik flung a hand, nailing him with several ice spears, then slammed his captive against the wall. “What female?”
“Fuck off—”
Nik punched him in the face. The demon yowled, blood gushing from his broken nose. He sneered and head-butted Nik in the jaw, nearly causing his teeth to lodge in his brain.
“I’m not afraid of death, you fallen dicks—” theskatáspat, bloodied saliva splattering Nik’s face.
“Great! Let’s send you back gift wrapped,” Nik taunted, raging bubbling beneath his skin. The cacophony in his head mounting.
With a snarl, the demon dived foreword, his dagger appearing in his hand. He lashed out, catching Nik on the forearm. Blood seeped. “I will kill you.”
“Been there, done that. Try again—” Nik shot forward as theskatá’sdagger flashed again and kicked him in the ribs. Bone cracked, the satisfying sound reverberating in the tunnels. The demon roared, his bravado shattering, and he crumpled to the ground. Nik summoned his obsidian dagger, dropped down, and plunged it, ripping the scum’s belly apart, then he rammed the blade in the heart before slitting blight’s carotid. The screech rending the air became a gurgle.
He shot to his feet. Dagan had the other quivering demon trapped with his telekinesis. Chest heaving, his mind close to splintering, with his palm, Nik jammed the ice shards further into the remaining demon’s gut. “Talk.”
“I was just t-told to bring the female,” he choked out, dark eyes shifting between red and brown, fear and pain reeking off him.
“Who?”
“H-he’ll kill me!”
Nik twisted one shard.
He cried out. “Tol-Tolvi!”
Obsidian in hand, Nik thrust the dagger into the demon’s heart then slit his throat. He stared dispassionately at the decomposing body, but he had enough of his mind left to step aside, evading the swooshing dark souls of both demons before they dove into the ground and vanished.
“It’s early morning.” Dagan’s voice came from afar. “Let’s head back to the castle.”
Adrenaline still kicking, Nik clenched and unclenched his fingers, breathing erratically. He pivoted and found Dagan standing at the tunnel entrance and watching him.
“Where’s the human?”
“I let him go. A junkie. Knows nothing. You okay?”
“I won’t be okay until I find that fucker Tolvi and crucify him.” Nik snatched up Shadow’s fallen backpack and strode for the maintenance hole to the surface.
“Believe me, I understand,” Dagan said, following him. “But you’re not yourself. The Arc hears about this, you’ll be off rotation—”
“Because I ripped the hellscum apart? I should have done more, would have gotten a confession—” He grasped the ladder’s corroded rung.
“Dammit, Nik.” Dagan flung an arm across the rung, obstructing his ascent, yellow eyes flaring. “It’s not just me, the others are aware—”
“What? That I’m slipping? Going crazy?” A cold laugh. “Only now you figure this out about me? Why do you think we deviants were stashed in the mountains of Romania? You should thank the fates you cut yourself free from this eternal hell.”
“It’s only because I found my mate,” Dagan said quietly. “And you will—”
“Those assholes don’t care about the pain they caused others,” he bit out, unable to get this huge fucking compression around his chest to ease. Every instinct he possessed insisted it was Shadow the demons were after, probably the same ones who marked her and killed Eddi.
Rage consuming him, he dematerialized and shot out of the slight gap in the manhole cover, heading back to the castle.
* * *
Nik reformed at the castle portico and willed the door open. He stumbled into the dimly lit foyer and dragged his feet to the sweeping staircase and up each stair, the souls’ screams splintering his skull, claws gouging the backs of his eyeballs, driving him to the brink of his sanity.
He lurched into the bedroom, and his knees gave way. He fell on the carpet near the bed and just lay there, longing for a moment of peace. Of quiet. Or death. The latter something he’d always wished for, but now…
