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“I think we have to kill ourselves in this world in order to return to our physical bodies in the one we come from,” Christian answers my thoughts. From beside me, he holds out a hand. “Tonight we die, so we must live to the fullest.”

“What a fucked theory.”

A howling wind moves between us, carrying with it the thin line of salt. One of the demons scrambles for my leg.

“We warned you.” A chorus of sickly hissing dances around me.

FORTY-NINE

“I’ve left most of you alone for the most part. But it looks like you want to be delivered to oblivion.” Christian barrels his hulking frame into the pack of demons, scattering them with ease. He reaches for my neck snatching the necklace Kieran had given me, wraps the thick chain around one of the demon’s neck. Silver burns through their skin, severing muscle and bone with a spray of black liquid. His leg collides with the demon’s skull, kicking it into the basin allowing for a sickening gush to spill from the hollow wound in its head.

He brandishes another blade, more a sword than a dagger, swiping with the ease of a dancer.

“Why are they after me?” I grit through bared teeth as I bypass him to tackle a creature reaching for his shoulders. We land with a thud, my blade against the demon’s skull.

Skull is an understatement considering its brain matter seems to be leaking out from every fracture.

“I’m not sure.” Christian’s already obliterated the gathering by the time it takes me to angle my blade in and out of a creature’s head.

“The last time, they warned me about Kieran.” I remove my blade and with it is an unwelcome spray of blood that covers me from head to toe.

“Even the devils know he’s not a good man,” Christian declares.

Your time is running out; you need to find yourself.

Bodies lay in a pile against the snow, now turned an ashen gray. “It looks like a painting,” I mutter.

Christian responds to my statement with a deep chuckle. He steps over the stack of bodies and approaches me, reaching for my chin which he gently tips upward. “Maybe this whole time, the Devil is you. You actually seem to enjoy this.”

“Maybe.” I shrug. But it’s not a lie. The deep thumping in my chest is addictive. Blood warms my muscles against the chill. I feel like a live wire ready to combust. Maybe this is what happens when the mind goes dormant for an extended time—a bloodthirsty frenzy.

“You should be more afraid,” he says.

“I’m working on it, to be honest. Now what are we wasting all of this blood for? You say we’re getting out of here?”

After we secure basins of the blood, we move deeper into the forest. Eventually catching up with the group and every now and then, I catch strange glimpses—Killian scaling a tree with impossible ease, Irene whispering to a creature before slicing its jaw free, Arian gazing at the dissolved body of a demon woman. And Cassandra...she watches me. Since the moment she’s laid eyes on me, I know she’s watching. For what? I don’t know.

“I have a place I want you to see,” Christian says from behind me. I can feel the deep intonation of his words against my skin. Unbidden, a flourish of goosebumps trail across my neck.

“Lead the way.” We break through thick underbrush into a clearing. The storm that had retreated into the horizon has returned. It pelts sheets of cold rain upon us. Maybe the misconceptions of Hell were all wrong. There was no fire. There was only desolate cold.

A low moan echoes from my right. Another creature emerges, dragging its half-shredded leg, its jaw dislocated. It pulls itself toward us with ravenous jerks. “You want this one?” I direct to Christian, twirling my blade in my hands.

A flash of two people practicing in a field slices through my vision. I blink the sight away.

“Absolutely not. I’ve done enough killing in my lifetime. Rack up the points, little bird.” The corner of his mouth twitches and he leans against the tree, watching expectantly, arms crossed. Rivulets race down the locks of his hair, down his neck and below his jacket. His tattoos, seem to writhe upward, curling around his neck and onto his face.

The creature bellows loud like an old steam train. I avert my gaze from Christian, if I don’t, I might just steal him away to fuck away the restlessness I’m feeling.

Violence may be the only answer.

“Now we’re talking, finally some action.” The blade is at home in my hand, the ease with which I lean into the fear and adrenaline should concern me, but I find again that I like it.

I skirt the clearing, waiting for the first move.

The creature leaps. I duck under loose bone, slicing straight up through her arm and into her head; another creature crashes from the left, barreling toward me with impossible speed. Her claws swipe across my arm, slicing into skin. I stumble backward. “Bitch.” I spit into its face. In return the creature lunges for my face. Before I can lodge my blade into her sternum, Christian collides with me, slamming me into the ground just as her jaw snaps shut where my throat would have been.

“Christian—”