The demon screamed, tossing Rans away with her free arm as though he were a rag doll rather than a powerful, centuries-old vampire. He rolled and sprung to his feet, claw marks from her talons scoring his bare back. At the same instant, Nigellus ripped himself free of her blade and brought his own down, slashing her torso open.
The two demons staggered apart, reeling, until the three combatants formed an uneven triangle. I slammed my magical barriers into place, snapping the connection with Myrial before she could pull anything more from me to help heal her wounds. The succubus fell to one knee, bracing herself upright with the scythe’s long handle as she scrabbled one-handed at her chest.
She was tearing at the place where Rans had stabbed her with my dagger, I realized—and it said something that she seemed to be way more bothered by that injury than by the fact that her guts had been opened up and promptly cauterized by a flaming magical sword.
Nigellus was still upright despite his many wounds... barely. He shot Rans an unfathomable look as the vampire returned to me. The rain was easing, and I tried to keep my stomach contents in place as I got a better look at Rans’ back. Jesus. She’d scored him right down to the bone with her hooked claws.
As ever, Rans acted like the horrific injury was nothing more than a hangnail. After raking me with his eyes to ensure I wasn’t physically hurt, he tossed the handle of the salt dagger in the air and caught it. My eyes widened. The blade had snapped off, perhaps weakened by the places where the rain had dissolved the salt.
Suddenly, Myrial’s attempts to claw at the small entrance wound the dagger had left made sense. The blade was still buried in her heart, salt and all. A slow smile crept across my face. I had the feeling it was not a very nice expression.
“Oh, dear,” I drawled. “Looks like I’ll need to go back to the drawing board with that dagger design. Clearly it doesn’t stand up to hard use.”
“Hmm,” Rans hummed in agreement. “Shoddy materials, apparently. Pity—I bet that broken blade’s going to be a royal bitch to pull out, with no handle attached.”
He reached down with his free hand and I let him pull me up, hoping my legs would be up to the task of supporting my weight. Myrial, meanwhile, had collapsed to both knees, curling around the injury Rans had inflicted. Nigellus tossed away his flaming sword, which disappeared the instant it left his grip. A sweep of his hand banished the gaping wounds decorating his body, and an instant later, all that otherworldly power folded in on itself, leaving him standing before us in his human form.
Only his glowing, fiery eyes spoke of the creature that lurked beneath.
“Leave this place, Myrial,” he said. “As you can see, all of your scheming has been for nothing. Return to Hell, and to whatever fresh lies you wish to spin for the Council. I’ll be along to refute them shortly.”
Damn. I might’ve still been pissed at Nigellus for being a backstabbing asshole, but even I had to admit that the man had cold dismissal down to an art form. Honestly, I might’ve been tempted to throw in an insult or two of my own, if I weren’t so worried about falling over from exhaustion.
Myrial sneered up at us from her hunched position on the ground, her expression radiating hatred. “Oh, I’ll leave, turncoat,” she said, her voice grating like rusty nails. “Still—if I’m to recover my strength, I believe I might just have to cash in some of my chips.” The sneer turned into a rictus grin, and she tossed a final few words at us before popping out of existence. “Perhaps it’s finally time to reap the vampire’s pet bean-counter. That seems agreeably apt at this point.”
I frowned at the space where Myrial had been, trying to untangle her cryptic words. Rans’ sharp, indrawn breath drew my attention, even as his hand clutched convulsively at my upper arm where he was still steadying me.
“Guthrie,” he breathed. The single word was filled with the pain of denial.
A bitter chill ran through me at his tone, as I abruptly realized which demon the soft-spoken businessman must have bartered his soul to, more than half a century ago. And now, she intended to reap him.
Oh, shit.
NINETEEN
“WE HAVE TO DO something,” I said desperately. “Nigellus—surely it’s worse for the treaty if Myrial actually reaps Guthrie’s soul, rather than just quietly maintaining an illegal demon-bond with him!”
But Nigellus seemed focused on Rans rather than me as he answered. “Perhaps so. It’s not my bond to control, however. I have no sway over what Myrial does with a life she successfully bartered for.”
“Damn it, Nigellus,” Rans said, his voice a bare rasp.
But the demon only raised an eyebrow. “Should she attempt to reap him, there’s only one course of action with any hope of holding his soul to this plane. You know that as well as I do, Ransley.”
I looked back and forth between them, trying to keep up. Then I shook my head sharply, breaking free of the standoff. “Then whatever it is, we need to do it!” I snapped. “He could be dying right now!”
Rans hesitated, and I couldn’t understand the conflicted look in his eyes.
“All right,” he said finally. “God help me, I’ll do it. Though if it works—and it may not—he’ll not thank me for it. Get us there, Nigellus. Fast.”
Before I could open my mouth to ask what the hell
