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I cringed, stiffening my muscles and curling my fists, as if that could prepare me for what was coming. Deals with demons never went exactly as expected, especially the bargains we’d made with demon princes.
Always read the fine print, I told myself. Make sure everything is worded correctly, precisely. I shook my head, then stopped when the world started spinning. And I was certain that it wasn’t my vision playing tricks on me, not some sudden bout of vertigo. The world really was spinning.
Shaking, actually. The earth was trembling beneath our very feet, the campfire sputtering and burning harder, brighter, throwing out huge, angry sparks.
“Well, great,” I shouted. “Just great. What the hell could it be this time?”
Sterling grabbed me by the forearm, staring hard into my eyes, his words accusing. “Oh, I think you know exactly what’s happening.”
I tore my arm away, scowling at Sterling, yet fearing for all the world that he was absolutely right.
“Oh, hells, no,” Scrimshaw said, gathering up as many of the s’mores ingredients as he could fit into his stubby little arms. “This is way, way above my pay grade. Sorry, boys, but I’m out.”
I gawped like a fish as he spun in place and vanished into a puff of farts, but could I really blame him? Scrimshaw had risked life and limb, contacting an actual demon prince for our sake. This kind of bravery wasn’t typical of most imps, nor expected. Herald told me so, and he knew his demons. Scrimshaw had done more than enough.
The peals of Belphegor’s easy laughter filled the air, his eyes gone bright crimson, his expression no longer set to its default boredom or languor, his lips pulled back to expose sharp, wicked teeth.
“You should always be careful what you wish for, boys. Maybe next time you’ll be a little more specific.” He flipped his hair again, revealing a third, burning red eye in the middle of his forehead. He stuck his hands in his hoodie’s pockets, winked at me with his third eye – the creepiest fucking thing – then vanished in a plume of scarlet fire.
“Fuck,” I yelled. “Mason, you owe that asshole a favor, too.”
He threw his hands up, his eyes wild as he answered me. “Don’t you think I know that? Thanks for the reminder, Dad!”
I deserved that one. I wasn’t even going to argue the fact that he was bringing back that cringe-worthy nickname again, because we had much bigger fish to fry.
The new intruder, for example. The campfire had turned a bright, familiar shade of green, very much the color of light striking an emerald.
“Fuck,” I shouted. “Run away.”
Too late. The flames burst outward from the campfire, erupting in lines towards the base of the hill, like the spokes of a great wheel. Then more columns of fire filled the spaces between, arcs drawn in flame to complete a larger circle to entrap us.
Normally I’d tap on the Dark Room’s door to test its power, or at least its responsiveness. This time I barged my shoulder into it out of desperation, but it wouldn’t budge. The emerald fire had fenced us in. I couldn’t shadowstep us out.
From where the campfire once burned, a pillar of green flame reached hungry fingers for the sky, the nexus for the great burning wheel that was keeping us locked firmly in place. From within its depths emerged a familiar barefoot figure, clothed in a suit that could have been sculpted out of rubies.
Shit. Oh, shit.
“Thing of shadows,” the entity called out from among the flames. “Mammon is most pleased to see you again.”
Chapter 25
I held my hands up for Mammon to see, backing away from the flames slowly, and then realizing that we were bordered on all sides by green fire, anyway. No escape.
“Listen,” I said. “We had no idea that Belphegor was going to steal from you to help us.”
“How pitiful it is,” Mammon said, walking forward, leaving a little puddle of gold with every step. “How very upsetting. You were friends with Mammon, once. A colleague, even, when business was good and thriving. Yet here you are, seeing fit not only to steal from the treasuries of greed, but to conspire with another of the demon princes to do so.”
“We swear, Mammon,” Mason said. “Belphegor tricked us. We thought the sword belonged to him and he was only going to retrieve it. We didn’t know it would be – ”
“Silence, nephilim.”
Mammon’s voice boomed across the hilltop, the flames licking at the sky. Please, I thought. Let someone from the Lorica, anyone detect that something was super, extremely, very wrong, just on the outskirts of town. If I was fast enough, I could yank out my phone and text a quick S.O.S. to Carver or someone else on Team Borica before Mammon singed me to a blackened crisp with one of their emerald fireballs.
“Once, you could have been Mammon’s friend,” the demon prince said, directly addressing Mason. “Someone who would have flourished as an employee, even a colleague. The same can be said of your foster father, the thing of shadows. Yet it all happens in the end, does it not? Betrayal.” Mammon brought one clawed hand to its face, cupping its chin with fingers tipped in wicked golden nails. “Who would have imagined that humankind could be so much more traitorous than the demon princes themselves??
??
This is over, I thought. We were trapped. All it would take would be for Agatha Black to find us there, and then what? We’d be fenced in, then annihilated. Then the world would be doomed. So close, too – just one final sword away from my ascension.
