“Still think this is a good idea?” Derek whispered, clutching his laptop bag. He’d been shifting it from shoulder to shoulder since they’d unraveled the ward on the side entrance. “Because I just realized we’re breaking into a law firm run by demons. Who are also lawyers. That’s two kinds of evil.”
“We’re borrowing,” Victor corrected, leading them past the reception desk toward the service elevators. He’d traded his usual suit for a black Henley and dark jeans. Without the designer armor, his movements looked different: deliberate, predatory. “And technically, we have authority to access firm resources.”
“Great. I’ll put that on my tombstone.”
The security guard’s desk sat abandoned. His coffee still steamed.
“Where’s the guard?” Ava asked.
“Better not to know.” Victor pressed something on the wall, not a button, but a symbol that glowed briefly under his touch. A hidden panel slid open, revealing older buttons made of tarnished brass, covered in arcane symbols.
The service elevator arrived with a wet gasp instead of a ding.
Inside, the buttons went from B1 to B3, then jumped to runes that cast a soft glow across the polished steel. One of them pulsed like a heartbeat.
“Basement thirteen.” Victor pressed the button with his sleeve over his hand. “Then we walk.”
“Walk where?” Derek’s voice pitched higher. “Below basement thirteen?”
“The deep archives don’t technically exist in the building.” The elevator shuddered and began to descend. “They’re adjacent. Connected but separate. The firm built around them, not the other way around.”
The temperature dropped between B3 and B4. By B8, their breath clouded. At B13, ice crystals had formed on the brass railings, and the elevator walls had developed a texture that looked disturbingly like skin.
The doors opened onto stone.
Not the polished granite of the upper floors; stone that looked stolen from somewhere ancient. Possibly from several ancient places, badly stitched together. The ceiling dripped steadily, but the drops never hit the floor. They disappeared halfway down, absorbed by darkness that seemed to have weight.
“This way.” Victor led them through a corridor that turned left, then left again, then left a third time, which should have brought them back to where they started, but didn’t.
They passed doors that bled rust. Doors that whispered in languages Ava almost recognized. One door that was just a child’s chalk drawing on the stone, complete with a crooked doorknob and “KEEP OUT” in purple crayon. The crayon looked wet.
“Don’t touch anything,” Victor murmured. “Don’t answer if something calls your name. And whatever you do, don’t run.”
A sound echoed from somewhere ahead. Footsteps, maybe. Or something dragging itself across stone.
They reached a door more ancient than the others: bronze and wood, with two holes carved beneath what used to be a scanner. Fresh stone dust clung to grooves around Abyssal runes that hadn’t been there six months ago.
“This is new.” Victor pressed his palm where the scanner should have been. Nothing happened. “Someone’s added security since my last visit.”
Derek muttered something about needing to survive long enough to regret this.
The bond let Ava read the runes.Blood of the Abyss. Blood of intent. Blood of sacrifice.
“Two holes,” she said. “It needs two sources. Demon blood.”
“Or two demons.” Victor was already rolling up his sleeve. “I’ll use both hands.”
He shoved his right hand into the first hole. His breath hissed between his teeth as something inside bit down. Blood ran down the bronze, following channels she hadn’t noticed before, spelling words in languages that predated speech.
He reached for the second hole with his left hand.
The door shuddered. The bronze flared white-hot. An invisible force slammed into Victor’s chest, sending him stumbling backward with a sound like tearing fabric.
“Victor!” Ava caught his arm. His right palm had five perfect puncture wounds, bleeding freely. His left hand was untouched; the door had rejected it before it could enter.
“One source isn’t enough.” He stared at the door, jaw tight. “It knows I’m the same person.”
“So we need an actual second demon.”
