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“Do you, now? Too little, too late, young princeling.”
Quill flinched. Princeling. There was that word again. Why did the witches call him that? The air left my lungs, my chest heavy enough with the weight of the sealing circle. I gasped with realization, with bleak understanding. Was Quilliam a nephilim, too?
And then it happened. The charred, undying remains of Leonora decomposed within seconds into a pile of red and black slime, her skeleton nowhere to be found within the ruination of her disintegrated corpse. Monica screamed as she threw her head back – and back, and farther back, until her neck snapped, lolling horribly off her shoulder. But her screaming never stopped, even when her body melted like candle wax sitting in an oven. The terrible sound of her wailing only ended when her lips fell away into sludge, joining the rest of her body in a pile on the floor.
This shit only ever happened with demons. This had their stink all over it. I gagged as the revolting smell of burning, decomposing meat filled the air. But I couldn’t look away, even when the twin puddled purees of the Rodriguez witches’ remains began to swirl on the ground like a whirlpool, their molten bodies joining and coalescing. Even worse was the changing smell of the air, no longer the stench of rotten flesh, but something paradoxically beautiful and elegant, like flowers, like the inside of a perfumery.
I looked on with aching bones and body as the storm of flesh churned faster, lifting higher and higher into a slowly thickening spike, rising finally to the height and shape of something humanoid. My heart swooped as the dead flesh began to pulse and bloom with young blood, as alabaster skin stitched its way over newly made muscle.
The creature that stood before us was a familiar and unwelcome sight. Its hair was styled into a severe, black coif, its body clad in a red suit so sharp that it could have been cut from rubies. Gold dripped from its earlobes and its fingers, and the characteristic green of its eyes glimmered with malicious glee.
“You,” Quill murmured.
“Indeed,” the creature said, its bare feet settling in a pool of liquid gold.
“Then where are the Rodriguez witches?” Florian asked, stammering.
The creature’s laughter rang as devilish music through the house of the dead witches. “They are long perished, and the Prince of Greed has been wearing their skin for sport. There are no witches here. Only Mammon.”
33
I knew it. I fucking knew Mammon was going to track my ass down to look for the sword that I’d lost. What was it called again. Duskfang? Damn it. Damn it all to hell.
Green eyes like venomous stars swiveled in my direction, twinkling with dark laughter. “Mason Albrecht. It has been such a long time since Mammon has seen you.”
I fought to arch my back off the ground, the sealing circle still pinning my body and spirit to the floor. “Can it, Mammon. I don’t have your sword anymore. We lost it in the ritual, and now you’re just going to have to deal with that. Besides, we never took it. Belphegor tricked us. He stole it from you.”
Mammon bowed its head. “Ah, yes. Mammon’s wayward sibling, always opting for the easy way out. Look what trouble he has caused you. Your relationship with him has not been a productive one, surely you must confess. Such a liability. And now you owe two princes a debt.”
“Not fair,” I grunted. “We didn’t know. Didn’t steal from you.”
“Why, never to worry, nephilim noble, little princeling. There are other ways for Mammon to profit from this unfortunate incident. The sword is no longer of concern.”
My blood chilled as I wrenched my head to look Mammon straight in the eye. I knew where this was going, and I didn’t like it.
“You’ve tried before,” I said, “and you can keep trying, but you’ll never drag me into your stupid little zoo. Fuck you and your menagerie, Mammon.”
The Prince of Greed laughed, the sound of it filling the room so loudly that my ears rang. I thought the walls were trembling. “Such harsh words you have for the high nobles of the infernal courts. Mammon wonders if you would have the confidence to speak to the other princes so brazenly.” The demon moved its head ever so slowly towards Quilliam, giving him a pointed look. “Especially if you knew of their tremendously varied temperaments.”
Quilliam’s lips pursed in anger, but if he meant to say something, he managed to keep it to himself. Did these two know each other? What the hell was going on?
“My point stands, Mammon,” I said. “You aren’t taking me alive.”
“Such brave words you speak, for someone caught in such a vulnerable position. Surely even you, in your foolish inexperience and youth, understand that this is a losing proposition, Mason Al – ”
The crack that Florian’s enormous fist made against Mammon’s jaw filled me with deep satisfaction, making it my first real sensation of relief from the sealing circle’s intense aura of pain. I thought I saw something gold fly out of Mammon’s mouth, sail through the air, and clatter to the floor. It rolled and rattled for a while, finally settling at the edge of the blood pool on the ground. A golden fang. I laughed hoarsely, proud of Florian’s opening blow, then suddenly deathly afraid of how Mammon would counter.
With claws, apparently, huge, long talons that gleamed with an edge of golden menace. They left glittering trails of light as they arced through the air, swiping closer and closer towards Florian’s torso. If even a single one of them connected, I knew that he would be in grave danger, and very likely a hell of a lot of pain, to boot. I didn’t know much about the demon princes, but I could safely guess that even magic-infused aloe vera wouldn’t be enough to save Florian from Mammon’s claws.
Something, or someone, appeared out of the corner of my peripheral vision. I blinked, forcing my eyes to regain focus, finally identifying the shape huddled just at the edge of the sealing circle.
“Quill?”
He knelt there, touching his finger to the ground, nearly but not quite poking at the blood circle.
“Hmm. It wasn’t meant to go down like this, you know. Really threw a wrench in the works. The Rodriguez witches were supposed to kill each other. Then I could scoop you up, whisk you away without a fight.”
“What? What do you mean whisk me away? You got some kind of crush on me, Quilliam? Geez. Buy a man some dinner, first.”
