“What if she’s in there?” I turned to Aaron. “Could you …?”
He shook his head. “I can protect myself from burns, but I’m not immune to smoke inhalation.”
Ezra stretched onto his tiptoes to peer over the spectators. “There are ambulances on the other side. Let’s circle around and see if Robin and Amalia are getting treated.”
Aaron and I followed as he backtracked up the street and cut into the alley. Several barricades prevented civilians from approaching the burning building’s rear, but no firemen or police guarded them, so we jumped over and continued on. The worst of the flames were consuming the opposite side of the structure, and as we walked closer, I could hear the fire alarm blaring through a wide-open emergency exit.
Our steps slowed, and I glanced around anxiously for any sign of Robin, Amalia, or Zylas. Had they escaped out the back? Was Zylas the one who’d exploded the wall of their unit? What on earth had happened?
Drawing level with the rear door, I peered up the steps and into the hallway. Orange light flickered, but I couldn’t see any flames as the black smoke twisted and coiled, thick and impassable.
I squinted. I could almost see something in the dark haze … something solid. Something moving.
With crunching steps, Ezra and Aaron joined me, and all three of us stared into the boiling blackness. The shape grew clearer—big, solid, steady. Whatever it was, the smoke didn’t bother it. My pulse drummed in my throat.
A demon walked out of the smoke and fixed its crimson eyes on us.
I gaped in disbelief. A demon? But why? What was it doing in there? I’d seen this type before—it was the huge, stocky type with spines on its back, same as Burke’s demon, but it couldn’t be the same demon. That one had escaped this world when I’d killed Burke.
The air around Ezra chilled warningly.
“Well, well.” A gravelly voice drifted down the alley. “Look what we have here.”
A man with a full-on biker beard and an infernus hanging in plain sight on his chest walked toward us—and three others followed him, all big, burly, and clad in leather. I spotted a second infernus.
“We’ve been waiting for someone to show up,” another male voice remarked, satisfaction oozing from every word.
My head snapped in the opposite direction. Four more men—two with those distinct silver pendants around their necks—strolled toward us from the alley’s other end. We were trapped between them.
“Grand Grimoire,” Aaron growled under his breath, naming the city’s notorious Demonica guild.
“We were hoping to catch little Robin Page and her little demon,” the first man sneered, “but this is even better. We get to take down the demon mage instead. Once in a lifetime opportunity, boys.”
The mythics laughed.
Aaron shifted closer to me. “Don’t try to fight the demons,” he whispered. “The contractors are our targets.”
“I’ve got to ask, though,” the beefy contractor added. “How did you become a demon mage, Rowe? I didn’t think there were any summoners left who could do it.”
Ezra’s arm brushed mine. “The champions will protect the contractors. We’ll handle them. You—”
“Well, kid?” the mythic demanded. “Have anything to say?”
“Got it,” I whispered, my hand drifting toward the holster on my hip.
The contractor’s sneer returned. “Well, in that case—”
Aaron plunged his hand under the back of his jacket. Sharpie’s hilt appeared as he yanked the sword free, the razor-edged point tearing through his jacket collar.
Crimson light flared over the three contractor’s pendants, and the fourth contractor’s demon lunged for us.
Aaron and Ezra charged up the alley, and I ran after them, paintball gun clutched in both hands. With the demon on our heels, we raced for the waiting mythics.
The two champions sprinted to intercept us, one of them brandishing a machete with water coalescing around the blade. Without breaking stride, Aaron flicked his sword.
The champion, still ten feet away, burst into flame.
Screaming, the man dropped his weapon and threw himself onto the ground, trying to smother the flames.
If the situation hadn’t been so desperate, I would’ve stopped to gape at Aaron. I’d seen him throw fireballs, create moving inferno walls, and engulf himself in flames, but I’d never seen him light another human being on fire like that. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was highly skilled at discorporate ignition. He could light anything on fire.
He’d merely chosen not to turn people into flesh torches—until now.
As the burning man collapsed, Ezra blasted the other champion off his feet with wind. I aimed my gun past the aeromage’s shoulder and fired a shot at the nearest contractor. The yellow ball flashed across thirty feet and splattered all over the man’s chest.
He grinned. “We know your M.O., witch!”
Cold rushed through me. The Odin’s Eye mythic I’d shot had been immune to my sleeping potion too. They knew to dose themselves with an antidote before battle.
Baring my teeth, I unloaded the clip, firing all the shots into his face. He roared in agony, reeling back and clutching his eyes.
Ezra yanked me off my feet—just as an inhumanly long, muscular arm swung at me from behind, so close I felt the wind of its passing.
One demon—belonging to the contractor I’d blinded—wasn’t moving, but the other three had caught up to us. Aaron slashed with his sword, tearing the nearest demon’s stomach open, but it didn’t even flinch. Its fist smashed into his chest, knocking him clear off his feet.
Ezra clapped his hands together, then swept his arms out. A hurricane-force gale erupted from him, shoving the heavy demons back several steps. Grabbing my hand, he bolted away. Aaron was back on his feet, and sword in hand, he followed on our heels—but the thundering steps of the demons were right behind us, and the contractors whooped gleefully as we fled.
My legs pumped, thighs burning. If we faltered, we’d be dead. Three demons were too many, and Aaron’s fire wouldn’t stop them.
“This way!” I yelled, wheeling left into a narrow gap between buildings.
Aaron and Ezra careened after me, the latter ducking a demon’s
