“Demon got your tongue?” he asked with an amused twist of his lips. I shut my eyes and thought of another beautiful yet daunting face.
Azrael, I called in my thoughts. Help?
There was no response.
“He would not brook himself to appear in this place of purgatory,” Lucifer said. Fantastic. He could read my thoughts just like the other seraphim. I projected images of my demon blade tearing into his chest. The attempt at turning the tables had him rumbling with laughter.
“We could be so much more,” he teased. “You weren’t meant for them. Come to me, release me from this prison, and I will give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
I highly doubted that. The number one thing on my wish list was for his timely death. He chuckled again. I willed myself to think of nothing.
“You can stop it, you know,” he said. He swept his hand over where the mangled body of the dingo lay. I ground my teeth as he pressed the tip of his boot against the column of the dingo’s throat. He grinned when my shoulders tightened. I was terrified that any more pressure would bleed the dingo dry. Lucifer shook his head.
“You were early,” he said. “The full ritual should have taken another ten minutes.” He nudged at the dingo’s hide. It made a low gasping sound as though it had been crying and this was all it was capable of now despite its terror. Unable to stand it, I tried to leap at the seraphim. He swatted me away with the back of his hand. I landed with a hard thud next to the dingo. It blinked, tears streaming from its eyes. I fisted my hands and slammed it against the metal platform. Rage bubbled inside me, heating up my well of power until it was boiling.
“Good,” Lucifer said. “You will need that anger.” He nodded at the dingo. “This is your fault. If you do not release me, I have no choice but to resort to cruder measures. Next time, it won’t be an animal.”
He waved his hands, and my mind filled with the cruel vision of the men setting up the ritual. They were gruff and vacant-eyed. I recognised the milky condition of their eyes. They were demon possessed. My chest constricted as they dragged the dingo from the cage they’d brought and made the first cuts. To open the kind of the circle they wanted, the men intended to drag out the dingo’s agony. It cried and whined as the knife the man used to nick its skin sank deep enough to draw blood but not enough to puncture an organ. They meant to feed the circle with its fear and pain.
“Come to me, Alessia.”
I snarled. Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest. “This world you protect is rotten. When they find out what you are, they will turn on you. Then you will understand.”
I understood all right. When I got my hands on him, I would stick him with my demon blade and unmake him. It was a fanciful thought. One of the many things I’d learned during my fevered research after meeting Lucifer in the cavern in the Fae forest was that killing a seraph would have near catastrophic consequences. They were made of celestial light. The fallen seraphim had given up some of that essence when they imbued the Nephilim with their bloodlines. Lucifer had not. It was very likely that if he were unmade, the resulting energy shift could destroy this dimension and those around it. I had this grand delusion that one of my circles might contain the destruction if by some miracle I could win a fight with him.
What he did now scoffed at that hope. He moved so quickly he was a blur. His fingers clamped around my throat. They didn’t constrict, but my heart was a drumbeat in my chest. His eyes looked into mine. I knew without a doubt that if he were physically present, he could end my life in a heartbeat. Technically, he was still in his cage being watched over by Uriel and Ariel. This was just a vision. One that was getting out of hand. I had told Jacqueline about the nightmares, but right now, I wasn’t asleep. The Morning Star’s power was growing. I had tried to tell the Council but they dismissed it as me trying to get attention. Next time, I would have to be more persuasive.
Heat erupted around the column of my throat. It burned the way firebreather chillies set the salamander’s breath on fire. A thousand hooks dug into my voice box. I struggled to take in air.
“You will not speak,” Lucifer said. “Nothing you say will make a difference.” He chanted a few lines in a forgotten language that muffled my hearing. It was like somebody had stuffed cotton wool in my ears. My eyes watered.
That’s when I spat on him. If I was going to die, I would do it as foolishly as I had lived.
“Soon,” he said.
Something tugged at my hand. “Blue?”
There was a moment of clarity in which Lucifer’s unearthly face twisted. I caught it as the world around me filled with colour once more. All of the sound came rushing back. The smells too. Including the metallic scent of blood all around me. I opened my eyes to find I was still holding on to the dingo’s paw.
“Hey,” Kai said, his arm around my back. I leaned into him, the cage of his body reassuring. “You’re okay.”
No, I wasn’t. I was shivering despite the heat. He wasn’t okay either. Though he tried his best to appear calm, I could feel the tension in every line
