She frowned, confused, then screamed as a pit of flame opened up beneath her. Fire licked at the tips of her hair, at her skin. Asmodeus began to sink into the ground as the pit, slowly yet surely, absorbed her in a growing pool of blistering magma. It was working.
“Keep going, Quill,” Crystal cried out, the air filled with a roaring that sounded like a jet engine, like dragons. “Keep doing it.”
I poured more of my soul and my energies into the soil. The gout of fire was so strong that the flames were surging back up my arm. All the power that my friends were lending me was nearly overwhelming, ripping out of my body in a torrent that threatened to shake the earth. My shirt was on fire, but the flames didn’t hurt me. No, the pain was meant for Asmodeus, and Asmodeus alone.
Then the screaming stopped.
My heart leapt, seeing the top of Asmodeus’s head sink into the magma. All that remained was one of her hands flailing above the soil, its clawed fingers groping at air, no doubt wishing it could wring my neck. Within seconds, that had gone, too. And then all that remained was grass, no gaps in the earth, no bare soil to even hint that Asmodeus had once stood there.
I fell backwards, disengaging the circuit of power as I wrenched my hand away from the earth. The others broke apart, the separation heavy, almost painful, like magnets being pulled apart. I sat there, huffing and panting, my hands planted in cool, soft grass.
“You did it,” Pierce said, pushing himself up, wearing a triumphant smile. “You did it, Quill.”
“We did it,” I said, smiling back. “We all did.”
Ragged reassurances and words of congratulation went up from around our group. Hornbellow lumbered over to check on us, and even Mr. Wrinkles had nothing snippy to say, seeming to finally understand why we couldn’t go home anymore.
Hornbellow’s eyes gleamed with fire. “Will Master Quilliam be all right?”
“Yes, Hornbellow. I’ll be fine. I just need a minute. I just need some time.”
Tired. The spell had drained me. I cast my eyes across the steadily blurring silhouettes of my strange little family: a cat, a girl, a golem, a book, and a brother. We’d done the impossible. Until she found the power to put herself back together again, the Prince of Lust would no longer be a threat.
That could mean months, weeks, days, or minutes, but it bought us time. I slumped against the grass, chuckling as I stared up at a clear blue sky. We just needed some time to recover, to heal.
Heavy and exhausted, my eyes fell shut. All around me, the world fell silent.
31
My back was on something soft. It felt very much like a cloud, so comfortable, almost cool against my skin. I wondered if I’d died and gone to heaven. In my delirium, I chuckled. Demons didn’t go to heaven. Did they?
Then a thick, delicious smell entered my nostrils. Beans, perhaps, and meat, and tomatoes. That aroma, whatever it was, surely was close enough to heaven on earth. I opened my eyes, finding myself surrounded by a beaded curtain. To my stark horror, I realized that I was in Bastet’s bed.
I sat bolt upright, feeling at myself, realizing that I’d been stripped to the waist. It was embarrassing enough that we’d been such an imposition on the goddess, and now I’d sullied her bed, too? The curtain rattled as I parted it. The door from Bastet’s bedroom was open, which explained the smell.
Wearing only my jeans, I padded out, scratching awkwardly at my chest when I saw Crystal sitting crosslegged on the sofa, leafing through the pages of some magazine. In her lap was the crystal ball that had saved her life. She looked up, cocked an eyebrow, then whistled tauntingly.
“Pretty boy’s awake,” she said.
I raked at the back of my head, my fingers working through tangles of my hair. “How did we get here? Where is my shirt?”
“Burned clean off your body.” She furrowed her brows. “Don’t you remember? As for how we got here? Magic.”
“That’s impossible,” I said, shaking my head. “We’d all been squeezed clean of our reserves.” I looked down at my hands, expecting scorch marks, finding nothing but stray bits of grass. “At least, I was.”
“Kidding,” she said. “Farmhouse, right? We found a truck. I drove us here. We needed to load Hornbellow in the back. How else were we going to get here?”
I took my place on the couch opposite her, then looked over to where she pointed. Hornbellow had somehow arranged himself on the ground, the fires in his mouth and eyes dimmed, every flat surface on his body covered in a quantity of cats. He was holding Mr. Wrinkles in one hand, stroking his back gently with the other. Mr. Wrinkles had his eyes closed. I thought I could hear him purring from across the room.
“Nobody saw him coming in, don’t worry.” She winked. “Quick invisibility spell. Doesn’t last long, but it does the trick.”
I half grinned at her. “The dabbler wins the day again.”
She tapped the tip of her nose. “And I can drive, too. What a catch.”
I nodded at her crystal ball. “Speaking of catches, I’m surprise that thing didn’t split you open when it showed up.”
Crystal smiled. “The one that got away. The Obliterata. I thought this baby had left me forever, but I guess it missed me.” She hugged it to her chest, then pressed a kiss against its surface. The purple crystal pulsed where her lips met it, as if reacting. “Mama missed you too.”
“Glad you found your artifact,” I said, scratching the back of my hand. “Reminds me of my books,” I added glumly.
The couch dipped. Pierce threw his arm across my shoulders. “We’ll find a way. We always do, right? Right.”
I shook my head, chuckling at his optimism, clapping a hand on his thigh. “Glad to see you’re okay.” I looked around the
