Brimstone Angels

“I … I’ve met him.”

“Really?” Yvon asked. He stepped closer to her, eyeing her robes. “And how did that happen?”

She opened her mouth but the words didn’t come. Her gaze swept the gathered group, but every one of them was watching her as if she were a rat come in through the floorboards.

And then she saw between the two tiefling men, beyond them, a wide table with strange markings all over it stood in front of a hanging-

Farideh closed her mouth, her heart in her throat.

The hanging banner showed three black triangles surrounded by a larger triangle and a nine-sided circle.

You see that symbol, you run.

“I think,” Yvon said. “There’s quite a lot you have to tell us still.”

Oh gods, she thought. You must know how to turn back time to keep that orc from being sacrificed to the king of the Hells.

She had only the merest moment to feel like a fool, to chastise herself for the mistake that was about to cost her her life. Yvon’s friends were the Ashmadai Lorcan had been warning her about, and she had come to them like a supplicant.

No, she thought, noticing the many eyes on her. Like a sacrifice.

Yvon’s expression had gone cold. He’s pieced it together too, Farideh thought. “Your robes are from the hospital,” he noted. “Might I wager your Lorcan is a cambion who wears the copper scourge?”

Farideh’s tongue was not made to lie. She knew her terror was plain on her face. She couldn’t pretend that Lorcan had set her up for this. She couldn’t pretend she dressed in the robes because she was trying to undo things like a wicked cultist would. She couldn’t pretend she had any way out of the basement room.

The shadow-smoke curled out of her, and the powers rushed in. She took a step backward and felt several similar surges throughout the room-other warlocks calling on their patrons’ powers.

“It isn’t what it seems,” she said.

“Don’t be foolish,” Yvon warned. “You alone are no match for us.”

A sharp cry sliced through the door at the top of the stairs. Yvon’s gaze darted up to it, then back to Farideh. “What have you-”

The door slammed open with a crack. Thirteen pairs of eyes watched as Havilar, dressed in her armor and carrying Farideh’s rod and sword, descended into the Ashmadai’s ritual chamber.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

'Havi!” Farideh cried. “Get away!”

Havilar didn’t look at her sister. Her golden eyes were locked on Yvon instead, burning hot and hateful. The shopkeeper for his part seemed to scour Havilar with his gaze, as if searching for the secret at the core of her. She pointed the rod at his head. “Sixth Layer,” he hissed.

Havilar stood perfectly still, rod outstretched. For the merest of moments, no one moved and all eyes were on the quartz tip of the rod. But nothing happened.

Then the smaller tiefling man, the warlock, cast a blast of heat that washed over Havilar as harmless as a gale. She flinched away and he leaped closer, his hand outstretched with some foul spell on his fingertips, ready to end things.

Havilar struck him across the frailest part of his cheekbone with the heavy quartz tip. The strike was perfect. His face erupted in a spray of blood and snapped something deeper in his skull-a dull wheeze accompanied the crunch of bone, and he collapsed, his eyes glazing. Havilar flipped Farideh’s sword into a stabbing grip and shoved it halfway through the elf woman’s chest and back out without so much as looking. The woman gasped and collapsed onto Farideh.

The Ashmadai erupted.

Yvon may have been right-Farideh alone stood little chance against the assembled cultists. Inevitably, Havilar would fall as well. But Havilar would take a great many of them with her, regardless of the madness that seemed to grip her.

And Farideh would keep her from falling.

She cast a stream of flames into the crowd, neatly parting it and keeping Havilar from being overrun. Her sister seemed, again, to try and cast through the rod, again, frustrated when nothing came of it. She dodged one of the Ashmadai warlocks, tripping him into a comrade so his spell discharged in a messy burst of burning smoke that left the Ashmadai screaming in pain.

Farideh cast a similar cloud of miasma around her, catching the four cultists advancing toward her. She stepped through a rent in the planes and reappeared on the other side of the room, where she could more easily-

A sharp pain exploded from the side of her skull, and her head rocked sideways as something caught her horn and wrenched her neck. She fell to her knees, her vision crumbling into stars. Instinct urged her to move, and she rolled onto her back in time to dodge the big tiefling’s bludgeon smashing into the floor beside her. She threw up her arms and he grinned wickedly, pulling back for another strike.

“Adaestuo.” The blast streaked past the tiefling and crashed into the ceiling above him, punching a hole through to the shop above. Chunks of plaster and floorboard hailed down on them both, but the heavy joist swung down into the man’s head, knocking him senseless for a moment. Farideh cast another blast at him, throwing him backward into the fray. He slammed into Havilar, who caught his weight and threw him to the ground before pinning him down with Farideh’s sword.

Yvon lunged at Havilar. Farideh’s blast caught him and he stumbled, enough to give Havilar time to pull the sword free and turn her attention to the shopkeeper. She slammed her palm against his breastbone, arresting him, and gave him a wicked grin. The flash of magic that pulsed over Yvon’s body shimmered like a slick of lamp oil. His face contorted in pain, his eyes rolled back, and he fell to his knees. The pulse came again and he collapsed.

Havilar looked up at Farideh and sneered. She pulled the sword free of the tiefling man’s body. There were only three Ashmadai still standing, and those had sense enough to stay back.

“Havi, come on,” Farideh said, one hand pressed to the lump growing on the back of her head. The bludgeon had half caught on her horn, but it had hit her hard enough to make her head spin as she lurched toward her sister.

Havilar regarded her, cruel and amused, as if she were watching a spider whose legs she’d plucked one by one try to cross the floor. She turned her attention, unhurried, to the remaining Ashmadai-all armed with daggers. She dropped the sword and the rod and gestured with her hands at the nearest one, the one wounded by Farideh’s miasma. His eyes seemed to glaze over and he turned from Havilar to the cultist beside him, a tiefling woman with wild, white curls. Without a word, he plunged his dagger to the hilt in her back.

Farideh froze, watching as Havilar directed the cultist to go after his final fellow. The last man bolted for the stairs, but as he did, he passed Havilar, and again she caught him with that strange pulse of oily magic, and he collapsed. The other Ashamadai was on him in an instant.

Farideh bent and picked up the rod, uncertain of what was happening, of how much she was imagining. She pressed a hand to her skull again and the hand came away sticky with blood.

“Havi,” she said, her voice shaking, “stop.”

Havilar didn’t respond and kicked the final Ashmadai under the chin so that his head snapped back hard. Dazed, he hardly fought as she stabbed his comrade’s dagger into the fleshy part of his throat. Dark blood gushed out and he collapsed.

Havilar scooped the sword off the ground and turned to face her sister. Her face was a mess of cuts and swollen lumps, but Havilar didn’t seem to notice at all. She advanced on Farideh.

“What …” Farideh tried to ask. Her head had started spinning again. “What have you done? Why did you-” She turned aside as Havilar lunged forward with the sword, barely missing the blade. “Havi!”

“You’ll have to kill her,” Havilar said, her voice raspy and her grin maniac. “I won’t let her go.”

“What are you talking about?” Farideh shouted. She ducked under another sword strike. “Havi, it’s me!”