We ended up back at his penthouse, even though we both knew Lucifer might come by there, eventually. There was no better place to go for something like this.
While I paced in front of the couch, Az did his little security check routine at each wall. I tried to psyche myself up for what was about to happen. There were forgotten memories inside my head. The box would unlock them and tell me things I knew would shake me. When Az finally joined me, he looked troubled.
“Has he been here?” I asked.
If I were Lucifer, it would have been one of the first places I would look. Of course...I probably wouldn’t have watched my enemy fly off into the sunset either. But he was the King of Hell. Our logic didn’t really operate in the same realm.
“No.” He scowled. “I don’t like it. He should have checked here by now. It’s what I would have done.”
“I think we’ve established that he’s kind of a psychopath. So, what we would do is probably not what he would do.”
“No.” Rubbing his stubbled jaw, he shook his head. “He’s biding his time for something, and I don’t like it. What if he wanted us to find this black box?”
“You think it doesn’t do what Rebecca said it does?” I flipped the box in my hands. It was fairly nondescript. Certainly didn’t look magical. “I guess I wouldn’t put it past either of them.”
Az held out a hand. “Let me try it on myself first.”
I snatched back my hand and clutched the box to my chest. “I’m the one with the missing memories.”
“Yes, but I’m...” He grabbed my fingers and slowly pried them away from the box. “The immortal demon. If it hurts me, I’ll heal.”
Sighing, I rolled my eyes and released my tentative grip. “Fine. But if it doesn’t do anything to you, then I get to try it.”
“And here I thought you were avoiding this whole thing. You didn’t seem thrilled back at the demon’s apartment.”
“I’m not thrilled,” I admitted. “And I’m scared. But I can recognize this as something that needs to be done. Maybe it will unlock some magic in me, as crazy as that sounds. And then I might have a chance of standing up to Lucifer.”
Az held the box up to his eyes and squinted. I knew what he was looking for. A symbol, a demon seal. Something to give an indication to whether or not this thing had been doused in some kind of destructive spell. I’d already had a close look, though, and there was nothing there.
He bounced the box in his palm. “I’m going to hold it up to my forehead and see what happens.”
With a deep breath, he lifted the square object up toward his head. For a moment, he held it frozen about an inch away from his skin. Tension pounded against my skull as my heartbeat picked up speed. I didn’t want him to do this. The problem was mine, not his. But I knew he’d never listen.
Az pressed the box against his skull. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he crumbled to the floor.
I screamed and slid to his side, soul rattling. Somehow, I managed to catch his head just before it slammed against his hard floor. I cradled him in my lap, pressing the dark hair out of his closed eyes.
“What’s happening?” I whispered to him, tears leaking onto my cheeks. “What did it do to you?”
I glared at the tiny object that had tumbled out of his open palm. It sat just beside his left knee, still and calm, like it hadn’t just knocked out a Prince of Hell. Or...worse? My fingers found the pulse in his neck. His heart still beat. He was alive. For now.
His voice echoed in my ears.A demon cannot die. The only way to stop one is to rip out his heart and bury it away from the body.
Okay, so that probably meant he’d recover from this. Whatever it was. If there was a spell out there that could end a demon’s life, he would have known about it. It wouldn’t just surface now.
Plus, I was pretty sure Lucifer didn’t want us dead. If we were dead, we wouldn’t suffer.
“What do I do, Az?” I pleaded with him.
My eyes cut to the box again. The best thing I could do was leave it there untouched. Find a way to rejuvenate Az and then toss the thing out of the penthouse window. Maybe it would shatter into a million pieces when it finally made contact with the ground.
But then I would never know.
Something inside me felt drawn to the box. A little voice whispered that I should use it, despite what had happened to Az. It wouldn’t hurt me. Somehow, I knew I would be fine. The feeling was so clear and certain that it could have only been put there by magic.
Muttering curses at myself, I snatched up the box and pressed it against my forehead before logic talked me out of it. The box seared my skin like a hair straightener on the hottest setting. I cried out and dropped the box, pain lancing through my head.
Suddenly, the world went black.
