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“I really may end up hating you for this,” she shouted over the wind, her face clouded with emotions he could no longer decipher. Her hand reached up, touching a golden perilla hairpin for a long, pensive moment. Then she turned to the Lady of the Lake, and as the wind howled louder, her scream rang out. “I accept!”

She sprinted towards the gigantic golden hand as it burst from the flames, only for it to snatch her mid-stride and wrench her away from Oleander.

His stomach twisted as the spirit vanished in a tornado of crimson flames, Peri tightly grasped in her fist.

There was a ripple in the fire and then they were gone.

Oleander’s attention snapped downward as something sharp tore through his calf. His leg was bleeding—there was a vicious slash in his trousers with blood spilling from it.

The rest of the Grand Dukes were riding toward him on their massive hellcats.

They were here.

A fury he hadn’t realised was coiled inside him surged to the surface. Oleander turned toward them, eyes narrowed with lethal focus. They wouldn’t survive him.

His blood pumped hot with rage.

He was ready for this.

The gorgons had enchanted his coat to hide throwing stars, each one deadly when thrown with precision. These were one of the few weapons he’d ever mastered. And tonight, they would save his life.

With a quick, practiced motion, he hurled the first star at his father’s neck, sending Asmodeus crashing to the ground, injured but still alive. Oleander’s heart thundered with a merciless rhythm as he threw star after star, each one finding its mark, each one slicing through flesh like paper. Golden blood stained the earth, thick and sticky.

His father lay on the ground, and then he was screaming for the Devil’s help. Pounding the ground with a clenched fist. The air darkened and a series of cracks shook the ground, reverberating through him until his teeth were gnashing together. He stumbled forward but glanced up in time to see his father cradling the Circumscription Urn in one arm, crawling over to the Hellfire that raged along the edge of the land.

How the Hell had his father summoned the urn like that? Perhaps he’d always been connected to the Devil, yet it didn’t seem—oh fuck.

Asmodeus thrust the Urn into the flames, shouting something incomprehensible as the shadow of the Devil seeped out, black as the grave, and unfurled its monstrous shape into the fire. Then he snatched it, immediately whipping the burning shade of the Devil at Oleander.

Oleander leapt back, barely missing the flamed shadow. It landed somewhere behind him but he had no time to look because Belial, the Grand Duke of Floralia’s Circle, was riding closer to him.

Belial never stood a chance, falling in gruesome silence.

Samael had stopped moving towards Oleander, shaking his head at something just over his right shoulder, before turning and riding his hellcat in the opposite direction. Oleander was breathing hard and loath to turn his back on the other Grand Dukes. Instead he threw a star directly into his father’s neck. Asmodeus dropped like a stone in water. He was running at Moloch to finish what he’d started when Zila bounded towards him forcing him to look behind him.

He hadn’t realised that behind him the Hellfire had caught hold and was moving swiftly towards the edge of the forest.

Zila’s voice punched into his mind. There is no known way to stop Hellfire. It’s Hers. I don’t— You need to beg her. She won’t bargain with me… she prefers demonkind. Give her something she can’t refuse and she can stop it before it consumes every living thing in Hell.

He ran a shaky hand over Zila’s fur before vaulting onto her back and racing towards where the Lady of the Lake had last been seen.

They sprinted towards the flame that licked even more hungrily than before, as if excited by the upcoming destruction. He glanced behind him and was shocked by how fast the flames had moved. Where the Grand Dukes had just been was engulfed in the blaze. The forest now was nothing more than Hellfire spreading ever quicker towards the Samhain celebration at the centre of the Circle.

It had only taken seconds.

In front of them was a wall of blazing fire. Panic seized him but Zila didn’t even pause and at the last moment, the flames opened up to them. They rode through a fiery tunnel for long, excruciating minutes, sweat pouring down Oleander’s face until his eyes were blurry.

When the flames no longer opened, he screamed into them. “I want to make a bargain!”

The spirit rose slowly from the flames, a gleam of wickedness in Her eyes. Her teeth flashed in the firelight, and demon blood dropped into the flames. She rested her arms on the land’s edge, eyeing him expectantly.

“Stop your flames… please!”

The spirit’s smile faltered, then grew darker. “What will you give me?”

Suspicion coiled in Oleander’s gut, but he had never been more desperate. “What do you want?”

“Pledge yourself to me for ten years.”