contract appeared in the air. It fluttered down to me. “Agree to surrender to me three days hence and we will leave you until then to resolve your issue.”
The contract in my hand, I looked it over and saw it had been marked by Xyx, not his master. It was your standard demonic contract. Signed in blood it meant a couple of things. The first one was, once I committed to it, I either had to follow its demands to the letter or I forfeited my soul to the contract holder. The second thing was that it confirmed Xyx was a demon, though certainly not one I ever met, or even heard of.
That in itself was quite a surprise.
I glanced at Rahim and there weren’t any answers in his expression. He was leaving this one up to me. Great. That never worked out well.
My thoughts on Abraham and how I’d let him down and couldn’t do it again, I bit my hand and made my mark in fresh blood. Once I finished, the contract drifted back up to Xyx. He glanced at it for confirmation, then it disappeared.
“You have three days. I will come for you then, regardless.” He motioned with his hand and White tossed the bag down to me.
Terrified I’d shatter the vials, I caught it as gentle as I could, grabbing it high and letting its momentum play out a little. Bag safely in hand, I looked back up and all three of them were gone.
“Any idea what that was about,” Rahim asked, worry in his voice.
My hand in the bag snatching up a vial, my eyes checking to make sure everything was still there, I shook my head. “No clue, but I guess I’ll find out in a few days. Of course, I could be dead by then.”
I tried to make light of it, but the truth was I was more than a little worried. There weren’t any guarantees of success against Azrael and his fuzzball minions and their undead entourage, not to mention the Nephilim. Even if we did win out and manage to make our way into Heaven, we were only leaping from one deadly conflict to another. With no way to awaken Metatron, we were stuck killing ourselves on the front line or dying when the Tree of Life gave up the ghost.
Bleak didn’t begin to describe our chances.
Then, to top it all off, if by some miracle we did win out, I’d be stuck handing my ass over to who-knows-who for who-knows-what. It was like being told you were cured of cancer only to learn the world is gonna end in three days.
Let’s face it, life is morbidly cruel.
A couple of sips of Lucifer’s blood whizzing its way through my veins, I reminded Rahim that we needed to pick up Poe and we were on our way.
He made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone about Abraham until it was all over, not even Rachelle. While I really didn’t think it was right, from a moral standpoint-if you can believe that-I knew it was for the best. That was the kind of news that got a person killed. They didn’t need the distraction.
On the mend, but really not feeling any better, we hit the metaphorical road. I had zero expectations that it wouldn’t hit back.
Chapter Twenty
“You’re doing what?”
“I’m comin’ with ya’ll,” McConnell told me, his hillbilly accent twanging on all the wrong nerves.
My first thought was that he looked like shit. Not a doctor, though I’ve played one on many a closeted adventure, there wasn’t much of a medical legitimacy to my claim, but he didn’t look healthy to me.
Normally close to three hundred pounds of solid muscle, McConnell had lost a good twenty to thirty pounds of his bulk. His cheeks looked gaunt, his usual resemblance to Santa Claus now veering dangerously close to homeless veteran chic. His full white beard was scraggly and seemed as lifeless as he did. He stared at me through sunken blue eyes, no hint of the old fire in them.
Nearly eviscerated by Karra in her quest to resurrect her father, he had barely been patched up from that when Lilith stepped in. Like a puppet, she’d used him to spring a trap on me and her daughter, the ex-wife. It didn’t work out so well for poor Henry. His wound too much for Lilith’s magic to fix up, he popped a stitch or twelve trying to kill Veronica and I. Only a couple of weeks out from that, he couldn’t possibly be ready to use his magic, let alone go slugging it out with supernaturals.
Not that I cared about his well being or anything-the damn redneck could go suck a saddle horn-I just plain didn’t trust him. Given the opportunity, and there would be plenty of them, McConnell wouldn’t hesitate to add me to the body count if he felt he could get away with it. My hands would be full enough without having to worry about not-so-friendly fire.
That aside, even if he wasn’t looking for a chance to kill me before the world went boom, he was too beat up to be much of an asset. He couldn’t be relied on. Those things combined made him more of a liability than anything.
“Look McConnell, I-”
“Forget it, Trigg. You need me.”
Need is a very subjective word. “No one is gonna have time to hold your hand, McConnell.”
“This ain’t personal ‘tween us.” He stuck out a pale finger and poked me in the chest. “If this goes south, I wanna know everything possible was done to prevent it. Even beat to shit like I am, I can turn the tide if it’s there to be turned.”
Rahim leaned over my shoulder and whispered, his grumbled voice vibrating my ear. “He’s right, you know. Let him come along.”
Desperate for support, I looked to Poe. There wasn’t any to be found there. He shrugged and suddenly invested his attention in brushing the invisible lint from his sleeve.
“Fine, cowboy, but you better remember whose side you’re on. One wayward fireball singes so much as a single ball hair and I’m crawling up inside your belly and kicking your ass from the inside. We clear?”
He just laughed and I smiled right back, my thoughts on the magic-dampening manacles in my bag. I’d shut him down with them once, and I’d gladly do it again. This time, there wouldn’t be a reprieve.
The verbal cock fight over, Rahim zipped us off to meet with Scarlett and Katon.
Unannounced, we arrived just a little ways from where Katon and Scarlett were camped out, readying the troops. While I hadn’t expected wild cheers of adulation at our return, as much as they would have been appreciated, I certainly hadn’t expected a standing ovation.
An angry hum filled the air as everyone jumped to their feet and stared at us through narrow eyes. A merciless symphony of chambered rounds followed. Not fond of McConnell myself, I didn’t think he’d warrant that negative a reaction, and then it hit me. It wasn’t The Gray they were freaking out about, but my Care Bear companion.
“Whoa there, folks. It’s Rahim.” I gestured to the wizard turned werebear, stepping in front of him and raising my hands. His giant paws mimicked my motions behind me.
Katon’s disbelieving glare lasted until he looked into Rahim’s eyes and heard his bellowed voice. The snarl dropped from his lips and he waved the men down as he went to Rahim. The wizard slipped past me and met him halfway. Scarlett wiped at her eyes as Michael looked on in awe.
Rahim lowered his head and smiled broad, a gentle giant. “Good to see you, my friend.”
Katon laughed like a pardoned death row inmate, his voice cracking as he wrapped his arms around Rahim’s furry neck. “I–I-”
The wizard wrapped his arms around the enforcer and hefted him up into air like a doll, a rumbling chuckle bubbled from his ursine throat. “I thought so too. It was close, but it all worked out as you can see.” He set Katon down and posed, arching up to his full height.
Katon gave him an approving shake of his head. “It suits you.” The shadow of a thought passed over his face, obscuring his smile. “Can you change forms or are we going to have to widen all of the doors?”
“I believe I can revert to my old self, though I’ve yet to test it. Until then, it’s probably best for me to stay this way until I have the time to become comfortable with the lycanthropy. It’s not a field I’ve studied, certainly not
