Brimstone Angels

“I don’t need your help anymore,” she interrupted. “Go.”

“Damn it!” Lorcan snapped. “I’m not losing you to Sairche and I’m not losing you to the shitting moon goddess. Give me the amulet and stop playing around.”

Something in her cracked.

“You cannot lose me because I’m not your pet!” she shouted, hurling a bolt with each curse. “I’m not your bauble! I’m not your prize!” Lorcan dodged and ducked, but as he covered his face, the last bolt hit his arms and threw him backward. Farideh stormed toward him, her fury plain in the miasmic shadows that swirled around her. She shoved the tip of the rod under his chin, her hands shaking with rage and the powers of the Hells roiling through her.

“I’m not a fool. You don’t tell me what to do,” she said. “And don’t you lay a hand on me.”

Lorcan stared up at her, still short of breath and more stunned than enraged. Wounded, she thought. Betrayed.

To the Hells with him and his betrayal.

“This rod is more than you said,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

“Tell me what it does.” He hesitated, and she jabbed the point against his throat. “Tell me what it does or I will gladly blow your karshoji head into the ground.”

A smile flickered at his mouth. “I don’t know why you ever worried about me corrupting you. My virtuous warlock, a cold-blooded killer for the moon goddess’s pleasure.” At least you’ve an audience to appreciate your transformation. His eyes darted over her shoulder, and Farideh glanced back to where Havilar and Brin stood, watching her with wide, frightened eyes. She pursed her lips and turned back to Lorcan, still lying on the ground.

“Leave them out of this,” she said. “Tell me what it does.”

“Or what?”

Or what, indeed. This close and she might burn away the soft part of his throat, right in front of her eyes. The blowback would scar her knuckles and maybe worse. He knew she wouldn’t. He wasn’t afraid of her.

“I think the Ashmadai would leave me be if I gave you to them,” she said. “I’ll bet Rohini would too, if what you said is true.”

His mouth went small. “Don’t. Don’t even play with that one.”

“Tell me what it does.”

“Farideh, she’ll kill you. She won’t care if you’re mine or not any longer.”

“Better than being your oblivious plaything,” she said. “That isn’t how we’re doing things any longer. If it’s because we’re both dead, well, that wasn’t my plan either. So it’s your choice.”

Lorcan watched her. Wounded, she thought again. Defeated.

Fine. He could feel trapped and terrified for a bit too.

He wet his lips. “That is the Rod of the Traitor’s Reprisal,” he said. “It enhances your casting and … amplifies some of your spells. The fiery ones in particular, it seems. But only if you are defending yourself against someone bound to the same fiend.” Was it her imagination, or could Lorcan no longer meet her eyes? “I gave it to you to protect you from the orc in case he went after you.”

“Why did it work on you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You are bound to me, but it’s all a chain, isn’t it? I answer to Invadiah, so you do as well. And eventually all of us answer to Glasya, who answers to Asmodeus-for all I know the rod works on everyone who serves beneath the god of evil.”

“I do not serve Asmodeus.”

He laughed bitterly. “Whatever you say, darling.”

“Why did I have the rod?” Havilar asked.

“What?” Lorcan lifted his head, forcing the tip of the implement into his throat. Farideh hesitated, but pulled it back so he could sit up. “When did you have it?”

“Fari said I had it when I killed the Ashmadai,” she said. “There’s … Fari, there might be someone’s … blood and things on it.” The rod was indeed caked with blood and pinkish flesh. “But why did I have it instead of my glaive?”

Lorcan peered at it. “Did you beat someone to death with it?” He looked up and seemed to register for the first time the fact that Havilar was stained tip to toe in blood. He swore ripely. “What happened?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Farideh said.

Lorcan fumed at her. “Stop trying to be difficult and tell me what in the Hells happened.”

“I don’t remember.” Havilar started trembling again, and Brin put an arm around her shoulders.

“Farideh,” Lorcan said. But it wasn’t a threat or a chastisement this time. “Please.”

“Something took Havilar over,” she said. “Brought her to an Ashmadai meeting place and killed the lot of them.”

“ ‘Took her over’?” Lorcan said. “Ashes. And she was carrying the rod? You don’t remember anything and you killed, what, a dozen Ashmadai? A score?”

Havilar shook her head. Her knuckles whitened around the glaive.

Lorcan swore again. “Nothing? Not even as you’d remember a dream?” Again, Havilar shook her head. Lorcan turned back to Farideh. “This is very, very bad. We need to get somewhere safe.”

“We don’t need to get anywhere,” Farideh said. “Havilar and I need to get Mehen and-”

“And if you try you’re going to be killed,” Lorcan said, pulling himself to his feet. “Possibly by Mehen. Listen to me, darling, this time I’m useful.”

Farideh kept the rod pointed at him. “Mehen wouldn’t … he wouldn’t do that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lorcan said. “Rohini is a devil. She’s a succubus. She’s here for … darling, let’s put it as such: you do not send Rohini to cause mere mischief. And Rohini has Mehen in thrall. He’ll do whatever she says, whenever she says it.”

“Mehen?” Farideh said. “That’s not possible.”

“I was going to ask, how does a succubus …” Brin said. “I mean he’s a dragonborn.”

Lorcan rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t need to bed him, you dolt. She just has to get close enough to dominate him.” He smirked. “Besides … she’s a shapechanger. If she wanted to she could bed just about anything under the sun.”

“Is that what happened to Havi?” Farideh asked. “Rohini dominated her?”

“No,” Lorcan said. “Being dominated is like a dream. You’re watching yourself act. You’re aware, you just can’t do a thing about it. If Havi doesn’t remember, she was possessed.” He regarded Farideh soberly. “Which means Rohini is even more dangerous than I previously supposed, and our problem is growing rapidly.”

Possessed. Farideh kept the rod pointed at Lorcan, clinging tightly to it as if the implement were holding her up and not the other way around. Lorcan couldn’t hurt her under the amulet’s compulsion, but she could hurt him. She wanted to hurt him.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, and she wanted him to stumble, to lie, to give her more reasons not to trust him. She wanted to hurt him-some part of her wanted to obliterate him.

Give me a reason, she thought. Give me an excuse to reduce you to ashes and bones. Give me a reason to shove these stupid hopes aside and get rid of you before you hurt me again.

But then he sighed. “Normally, you shouldn’t. You know that and I know that, and I’m not foolish enough to pretend otherwise with that rod pointed at my heart.” There was no bravado, no threat, no wheedling, coaxing tone in his voice. “But this time, darling, if you don’t trust me you are going to die. Havilar is going to die. Mehen is certainly going to die.”

“You’re just repeating your threats,” she said. That was reason enough wasn’t it?

“Farideh,” he said. “Farideh, look at her. Look at the blood. Rohini did that. Rohini slaughtered an army in Havilar’s body and left her to answer for it. You know why she did that.”

“Stop it,” Farideh said, as Havilar-her brash, brave, reckless sister-started to shake again. She could not hold the rod on Lorcan and comfort Havilar. “Stop it.”

“Farideh, please,” he said. “Listen. That was supposed to be you. Why else put the