facing the demon who’d nearly dragged him into hel with her. I could literal y feel him nod in agreement. I went on. “We also saw Vayl and Astral jump through to fight you. And when they came back, al they brought with them was your severed hands.”
“What? You mean these?” She raised her arms and the material fel back.
“Jeeezus,” whispered Bergman, who’d never felt the need to cal on any deities in person until this moment and who, I was pretty sure, had been raised Jewish. I would’ve joined him, but I was too busy watching al my inner girls fal to their knees in panicked prayer.
Even now, three weeks later, Kyphas’s wrists were stil leaking black gouts of blood and gore.
But they didn’t end in stumps as we’d expected. The same vil ain who’d burned her face into an unrecognizable mask and shoved her on a stick like some sick puppeteer had welded a three-headed hydra to each of her wrists. Each head was taking turns sinking its fangs into her wounds, causing her to shake like a malaria victim as it drank its fil .
“What happened to you?” Vayl asked, his shoulders tightening into steel plates at the sight of Kyphas’s snakes. “You are the daughter of a Lord of Hel . Where is your father? Why did he al ow this?”
“I gave up my heartstone,” she said. “Or have you forgotten? Leonard has turned his back on me.”
“Oh, don’t act like it was some great act of charity,” I snapped, using my resentment to cover my horror at her pain and my surprise at her lineage. Her father was the Lord of Black Magic and Sorcery. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t tried to pul some strings to give her at least some relief. “You were trying to turn Cole into a demon. If you hadn’t given your heartstone to us he’d be trol ing Satan’s playground for cute babes to skin alive even as we speak.”
“I broke the Second Law,” Kyphas informed me.
Even though I’d never warmed to Kyphas, I was beginning to believe she real y had wrapped her arms around this fate for Cole’s sake. Demons took al kinds of crap for letting souls slip through their fingers, but they never experienced true punishments for the failure, because it was so hard to snag them in the first place. Only when someone like Cole was al owed to escape on purpose, breaking Satan’s Second Law, did demons burn. Which meant she’d acted out of real love. Damn.
I cleared my throat. “How long…” I couldn’t finish, couldn’t imagine the pain she must be enduring.
She said, “I am to be punished for the next half-century for my crime. And yet my vow supersedes even my jailer’s power. So I’ve come to give you the last bit of help that I’m required to.”
“How did you know we were coming?” I asked, knowing that as soon as she fulfil ed her vow she’d disappear again. And that even this smal break was helping her push back the agony.
She pointed down at one of the women writhing beneath her, the snakes on her right wrist coiling up her arm at the sudden movement. “Lesia is a prophet. Ironical y, the more they burn her, the clearer her visions become. Which is why I know that my beloved has crept through the attic access in the bathroom and is waiting just outside the door for your signal.” She sighed. Then she said, loud enough for her voice to carry across the room, “Cole. Mercy or revenge. Either way you think of it, your bul ets can’t kil me.”
The bathroom door swung open and Cole stepped in. He regarded Kyphas for a long time, his face so stil that none of us could figure out what emotions were moving behind his clear blue eyes.
Final y he said, “Tel Jasmine why you came and then go back to hel where you belong, Kyphas.
We’l fol ow you when the time’s right.”
He glanced at my belt, where the Rocenz hung heavier than ever. When he looked back at Kyphas some silent communication passed between them, because they both nodded and, despite her immense suffering, she seemed almost… relieved.
She nodded to me. “That lovely piece of artwork you carry in your pocket is obviously incomplete.”
I nearly put my hand against the hanky-wrapped skin, but kept it steady under the butt of my gun instead. “I noticed.”
“The rest is stil on the cowboy, Zel Culver. He’l come if you cal him. Stand by the gate, give it your blood, knock three times, and shout his ful name.”
“Thank you, Kyphas,” Vayl said. “Your promise to us is fulfil ed.” She barely acknowledged his words. Her eyes, the only bright and shining parts of her soul left unshattered, kept a steady watch on Cole. “You look fine,” she said. “I’m glad of that.” He nodded. “My friends brought me back.” His stare, ful of dark memories and nightmares, wouldn’t give her an inch. This was the Cole that stayed hidden, the man I knew least and liked best.
“I’l never forgive you for what you did. You should know that.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
What she said made perfect sense. She should feel apologetic for what she’d done to Cole, even if she had paid in skin and blood. But the prickling between my shoulders told me she wasn’t talking about Marrakech. I spun around as Aaron shrieked. Miles, stil hanging at my shoulders like a badly organized backpack, hampered my movements and my line of sight. For a second al I could see were two blurs leaping through the doorway.
“Vayl!” I yel ed, relying on my Spirit Eye to guide me until the rest of my senses could come into play. “Hel spawn!”
Bergman ducked, I thought to get out of my way until I realized he was rol ing up his jeans.
Hoping whatever he’d built into his boots wasn’t another one of his unreliable prototypes, I triggered the holy water strapped to my wrist, fil ing my palm with an attack-ready syringe even as I knocked the first demon back with a barrage of gunfire that wouldn’t kil it in this world. But judging by the squeal, it hurt a lot more than beanbags. That, and the flying steel from Vayl’s shotgun as wel as Cole’s rifle, gave me a few seconds to assess our situation.
As I’d thought, we only faced two opponents, but they were a couple of the baddest fighters hel had ever puked forth. Cal ed
