“Good point,” I said, acquiescing for once. “At least someone’s been paying attention to Dantaleon.”
Pierce was right. Dantaleon loved to talk about subtlety, and disinformation was another of his favorite subjects. “Confuse the enemy, obfuscate the obvious, and you will have the upper hand.” In my head, his voice sounded like pages turning in a book.
“Besides,” Pierce added. “You’re the one with the shielding spell. Come on, man.”
“I could have given you one, too,” I hissed. “Then I wouldn’t have to burst in like a moron all on my own.”
Pierce stood up, scowling. “Quit your bitching and get in there before I tell your mom how much of a dipshit you’re being.”
“Fine.” I turned to go. Pierce slapped me on the ass. I glared at him over my shoulder. He genuinely looked confused, then held up his hands.
“Sorry. I caught a game of basketball on TV the other week. All these tall guys seemed to like doing it.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s for good luck?”
I left him on the ground by the patio, grumbling to myself. What would I know about sports? The only balls I liked to play with were made entirely of fire. I prepared one in the palm of my hand, ready to hurl it in the face of the next person I saw.
There were actually at least ten of them waiting in the kitchen, gathered around a scratched, rickety wooden table, eating what looked like stew out of mismatched bowls, using mismatched spoons.
“Oh,” I breathed to myself.
The man closest to me frowned, then shouted. “Who the fuck are you? Where the hell are Franklin and Josiah? They were supposed to be – ”
A gurgling choke finished his sentence. I barely caught the trajectory of Pierce’s fist when it smashed into the cultist’s face, or the blur of his body moving into the kitchen, for that matter. The man fell face forward into a spatter of his own blood.
Pierce rushed to my side. Chairs scraped over wood as the rest of the cultists sprang to their feet. The only thing they had in common was the fact that they were all men. One man in the back stood out especially because of his clothing, a white robe. I rolled my eyes. Typical. He pointed a finger at the two of us and shrieked.
“Kill them!”
The Thirteenth Choir – what Pierce and I were now realizing was just a ragtag crew of misfits – pulled their guns, at least those who were actually armed with guns. The others reached for the closest makeshift weapon: a chair, a knife from the dinner table. One man, the youngest, I noticed, stared at us with his mouth half open, his skin as white as a sheet.
I hardened myself, resisting the pang of pity. This was what Asmodeus wanted, and no one in their right mind would deny the Prince of Lust. I mirrored the armed cultists as they pointed their guns at me, pointing my open hand in their midst.
“Ignis.”
A sphere of fire flew screaming from my fingertips and exploded onto the table, sending it flying into a crash of splintered wood, broken bowls, and ruined stew. Gunshots went off, but none of the bullets struck me – or Pierce, for that matter. Men screamed as they ran from the kitchen and into the rest of the house, one even stupidly attempting to douse the flames on his shirt in the kitchen sink. The youngest cultist, I noticed, had escaped unscathed and was sprinting straight towards the front door. Good. Good for him, I thought, and never come back. Go to school, get a job, don’t join a cult.
More fire licked through the kitchen, catching on curtains and furniture, spreading into the rest of the house. The men with guns – four, at my last count – had either fled or were crawling low on the ground, whimpering with broken wrists courtesy of Pierce. The only one left who could be considered a threat was the man in the white robe. He stared at us, unafraid of the flames, or of the dagger held threateningly in Pierce’s hand.
“You’re coming with us,” Pierce shouted over the roar of fire. The robed man didn’t resist, following when we beckoned, obediently walking at the point of Pierce’s dagger, yet his glares were certainly sharper than any demonforged steel.
Outside, Pierce shoved the man to the ground. He stumbled and fell to his knees, catching his foot on the hem of his robe and ripping it as he tripped. He knelt there in defiance, mouth set in a tight line, eyes dark and angry.
“There are others,” he murmured, no longer as high-pitched and agitated as before. He was calm. Too calm. “This isn’t all of us. More of my brothers will come.” He covered his mouth with the lattice of his fingers, holding back a maddened cackle. “Oh, they will come.”
Pierce got down on his haunches, putting his eyes at the same level as our captive. “Buddy. Shut the fuck up. It doesn’t matter, because we’re taking you with us. You’re the head of this operation, aren’t you?”
The man looked away, his face stiff with pride despite his state. This was their leader, a thin man wearing a weird white shift that could have been a dressing gown, or a robe poorly constructed to represent one worn by a cleric. His auburn hair fell nearly to his waist, his locks like a shock of fire down his shoulders and his back. There was something uncanny about his face, his expression menacing, almost manic, yet undeniably beautiful behind the wild eyes and even wilder hair.
“My brothers will come,” the man said again, his ruined robe slipping from his shoulders.
“How many of you are there?” I asked. “How many more?”
He gave me a wicked smile. “On earth? Dozens. Perhaps scores. But up there?” He raised his head, his smile softening, becoming beatific, almost wistful. “Up there? We are innumerable. Infinite.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Pierce said. He
