The cuffs shot into the air on their own and the glow coming from them turned blinding. Oh shit.
A light poured out from one of the metal rings. It created a slash of brightness in the middle of the room. A hazy image began forming in the light. Something was there on the other end. My eyes protested but I kept squinting into the blinding light, desperate to see what was happening.
The picture clarified enough to show something horrifying on the other side. A hulking creature waited over there with pointy horns, white misshapen wings, and ugh, red eyes and red teeth…
Holy shit, talk about nightmare material.
“Is that your brother?” I asked Orion.
“I-I think so.” Really hadn’t thought that would be a trick question. “Yes,” he decided on. “It’s him, he just lookscompletelydifferent.”
Demons were supposed to be experts at camouflaging themselves. Orion and Bad Mother certainly had no wings or horns like this guy. From the sound of it, his brother had some work done to make himself extra demon-y since they last met.
That explained why Orion went still, transfixed by the new face and appearance of his brother. Lex clapped and waved, laughing with glee.
It fell to me to make an executive decision.
Moving forward quickly, I snatched up the cuffs. Even touching the inactive and not glowing ring burned my hand, the thing radiated heat and power like crazy.
I held on tight anyway and swung the thing down, knocking the glowing ring into the coffee table. I swung it onto the surface again and again until the glow faded. Then I aimed what power I had left at the window. Glass shattered and went everywhere as I tossed the cuffs out the window.
Nobody moved for a moment.
“No!” Next thing I knew, pain radiated from the left side of my face and Lex was over me, pummeling my face with his fists. “You bastard!”
He fired off a few good blows I’d definitely be feeling in the morning, though Orion tackled him a second later.
“You did nothing!” he yelled, struggling in Orion’s hold. “I’ll still bring him here, and I’ll make sure you suffer!”
“Shut up,” Orion grumbled. “Shut up now.”
“I’ll kill you!” Lex yelled, not shutting up. “Both of you! Do you even have any energy left to fight me, little Robin?”
I coughed, blood getting in my mouth from a gash he’d created on my lip. I spit it out. “Nope.” I laughed. “I’m tapped out. But we were still just stalling.”
Beating him on our own would have been great. We just weren’t exactly banking on that. Our trio failed once, so we needed to call in a few ringers for back up.
Lex gave me a bewildered expression, then got free of Orion with a well-timed elbow to his stomach. He seemed ready to go back to the punching—two new arrivals appeared before us.
"Sorry we’re late,” Max said. “I had to convincesomeone."
“We’re breaking so many intergalactic rules right now,” Frost muttered.
Lex swung towards them, raising a hand and ready to fight his way out.
“No,” Frost said.
Lex crumpled to the floor. He twitched but did not get back up.
Yep, Frost was still the scariest Fed ever. He was the scariestanythingever.
Unable to really move, Lex twitched and jerked until half his face was free of the floor. He glared and stayed defiant to the end. "This doesn’t matter! If I can’t take this relic, Mar will find another. He’ll find a way one day. He won’t stop, and neither will I. Not until Mar is here."
"Not a good argument to keep you alive," Bad Mother noted.
“What will you do with him now?” Orion asked.
Frost brought Lex up to his knees and evaluated him. “I’ll put him somewhere appropriate. And somewhere he can’t cause more trouble. Perhaps he’ll even prove useful in the future.”
