“Bill?” he said with wide eyes. “What is happening?”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m being summoned.”
My body locked and pain exploded in my chest as my essence was dragged from Hell. I would murder whomever was performing this ritual. Humans understood very little when it came to my kind. They couldn’t control us, and their failure meant their death.
My body materialized in a room, each side was boxed in with a panel of glass etched with runes meant to contain me. Outside, people scurried to close down the energy stream linking me to Hell. They meant to trap me here.
I slammed my fists against the glass, the blood bursting from my knuckles leaving a crimson streak on the clear pane. A silver-haired woman stepped forward out of the shadows and narrowed her gaze at me.
“Calm down, Beleth, I have summoned you, and now you are mine to command.”
I threw my head back and laughed. The woman thought she had me trapped? How foolish. I calmly sat on the floor and let my power stream out of me as I leveled the bitch with my gaze. I will give her her due, she didn’t flinch or retreat. Perhaps she was more of an adversary than I thought.
Let’s see how confident she is once I’m free. Will she continue to hold her ground? A burst of power meant to break the walls erupted from me. The runes flared a bright blue and sucked my power from my body. I did it again, and like an eager leech, it lapped up every bit of magic I was expelling. The walls didn’t even flex. That was concerning.
The woman smiled and folded her arms as she watched me struggle. I stopped trying to escape and conserved my energy. I glanced down, noticing the same circle and pentagram were etched onto the floor. My name was written in the dead language in the center, but she’d missed an essential ingredient. It was only a matter of time before I returned to my own dimension.
The woman tilted her head as I waited her out.That’s right witch, I’m not giving you any more of my power.
She narrowed her gaze as we spent silent minutes glaring at each other.
A man whispered something in her ear. She jerked her head once and a malice most demons didn’t contain entered her eyes.
“I need your magic,” she said. “So you have a choice—you can either expel it yourself for me to collect, or we can do this the hard way.”
I shook my head, a small smile pulling at my lips. She huffed and snapped her fingers.
Electricity erupted from the metal floor and caused my body to lock and jerk. My power splashed out and coated the room as it tried to defend me. The circle flared as it struggled to hold me here in this dimension.
She raised her hand and the pain locked my muscles tight, forcing more power to flood the room and be gobbled up by the runes. Her gaze studied the pentagram and she blinked as she realized I was about to disappear. I had just enough magic to survive my trip home.
“Full power,” she shouted. I wasn’t quick enough. The surge of electricity exploded through every molecule just as the spell broke and I began my transport home. Darkness claimed my vision, and my last thought was being thankful that while I wouldn’t survive, my remains wouldn’t be wasting away on Earth with a woman who had evil shining in her eyes and violence in her soul.
***
When I woke, I was lying on Lucifer’s plush sofa and he was holding out a juice box to me. I snatched it with shaky hands, gulping it down in twenty seconds flat. Lucifer raised an amused brow before handing me a second one, which I sipped more slowly as I pushed myself into a sitting position.
“You were successful?” he asked after a couple of minutes.
I jerked my head knowing if I told him the truth, it may start a war between Hell and Earth.
He raised a brow. “Are you going to tell me?”
I grimaced. “I need your reassurance that you won’t react. I am dealing with the threat.”
He leaned back and his gaze narrowed. “Just spit it out, Cora.”
“No, not without the promise I’m after. I know it’s a leap of faith, but these crimes will not go unanswered, I just need time.”
“Fine.”
“Say it.”
“I will not react immediately to what you tell me. I will give you time to explain and share with me your plan.”
Ugh, good enough I guess. “Bill was summoned to earth and trapped inside a glass room where he was provoked into expending his power which was collected by a complex set of runes.”
“Who?”
