A vampire lieutenant’s chest exploded.

The gunshot rang painfully in my ears as the vampire keeled over. With a shimmer of light, Girard appeared on my left, pistol still aimed at the vampire. Alistair rippled into view, his staff in hand and blood all over his shirt. And between the two, Darius appeared.

He no longer held his silver daggers. Instead, he gripped the long handle of a huge silver war hammer, the heavy end resting on the ground in front of him. But it wasn’t just any war hammer—it was the one that normally hung above my bar.

When the hell had he gotten hold of that? Had Girard and Alistair brought it? I’d thought they were down for the count!

“Xanthe.” Darius’s voice cut like blades of ice. “Xever. When you decided to destroy my guild, you should’ve considered who you were challenging.”

Even blinded, Xanthe curled her upper lip. “Is that so? You—”

Darius didn’t wait for her to finish. He swung the hammer up and slammed it into the ground.

Grayish sparks burst from the point of impact and a wave of concussive force rocketed outward, hurling the enemy group off their feet.

Ezra, Aaron, and Kai charged for the fallen cultists. Darius heaved the war hammer to Alistair, who caught it one-handed, the thick muscles in his bare arms bunching. He dropped his staff, took a two-handed grip on the hammer’s handle, and launched forward with Girard on his heels.

Darius drew his two backup daggers and vanished from sight.

I flipped the Carapace’s hood up, adjusted my grip on my borrowed katana, and ran straight into the melee. Fire, wind, lightning, shaking earth, spewing lava. The silver hammer swung down and crushed a werewolf beneath it.

As their lieutenants fought and died, Xever backed away, Xanthe clinging to his arm.

Launching in front of a spell a cultist had fired at Kai, I rushed through the battling mythics and monsters. No one could touch me—or stop me—and I burst out the other side. Flipping the cloak open to free my arm, I pointed my katana at the two cult leaders.

Xever smiled coldly, and crimson light flashed on his chest. The infernus hanging around his neck glowed—and red power streaked from across the battlefield and struck the pendant. It filled the silver disc, then burst out again.

Nazhivēr took form in front of me.

On the plus side, he wasn’t looking too great—bleeding gashes raked his limbs and one of his wings had a long tear in the membrane. On the downside, I was now facing a demon all by myself.

Clutching my sword, I lunged at the demon.

He slid aside with inhuman speed and swung at my head. His fist slowed as though he were trying to punch me through ever-thickening mud and came to a halt without ever touching me.

I slashed the sword down his immobile arm.

As thick demon blood splattered from the new wound, the demon’s other hand snapped closed around my wrist—the one sticking out from the Carapace’s folds and very much not invincible.

Nazhivēr wrenched me off my feet. The cloak flapped open, exposing me to attack.

Gasping, I grabbed the fluttering edge and threw it over the demon’s head. Crimson sparkles whooshed out of Nazhivēr and sucked into the Carapace. His glowing eyes widened.

He flung me away.

The cloak tore free from my shoulders as I pitched backward, my head on a collision course with the pavement and limbs flailing. I plunged down—and landed on a thick cushion of nothingness.

The dense pillow of air beneath me deflated, and I thudded to the ground. Rolling over, I shot to my feet.

Ezra stood beside me, blades angled at the cult leaders and Nazhivēr.

The Carapace had caught on the demon’s horns, and he ripped the artifact off, throwing it aside. I clutched my sword in both hands, knowing I couldn’t reach the cloak without Nazhivēr killing me.

The demon’s glowing stare raked Ezra. “Is Eterran too cowardly to …” His eyes narrowed to slits, and his expression froze. “Where is Eterran?”

“Good question,” Ezra growled.

“I cannot sense him.”

Ezra smiled.

Nazhivēr hissed furiously. “What did you do? How did you break the contract?”

“What?” Xever demanded from behind his demon. “A demon mage contract can never—”

With a flash of crimson, a dark shape leaped over the battling mythics behind us and landed with a thump ahead of Ezra. The newcomer straightened, chest heaving as he caught his breath. Dressed in black, hood drawn up, and a long, thin tail snapping behind him.

Robin clung to his back, her hood off and hair mussed into a wild tangle.

I saw the exact moment Xever realized the black-clad figure wasn’t a man but a demon—Zylas, inexplicably dressed like the baddest of badass combat mythics.

“Robin and Zylas,” he observed as he pushed up his sleeves, revealing rows of silver bands around his arms. “How kind of you to join us. Xanthe?”

His partner smiled, her confidence unruffled despite the fact that she was still blinded. “Go play with your toys, then, Xever, and I’ll deal with the important matters, as I always do.”

Smirking, he retreated, moving backward down the street to escape the impending violence. Nazhivēr moved in front of his master, wings spreading protectively.

A low, husky laugh rumbled from Zylas. Still carrying Robin on his back, he vaulted across the gap between him and his enemies, landing in a crouch a foot from Nazhivēr’s knees.

“Ori eruptum impello!” Robin shouted.

A silver dome expanded around her, throwing the demon backward.

Leaving her and Zylas to it, I faced Xanthe. How did she think she could deal with us in that state?

She smiled and hooked a finger under the collar of her jacket. With a tug, she lifted out a jangling cluster of silver pendants. Three flat discs with jagged markings. Was each medallion an infernus?

She couldn’t control multiple demons at once, could she?

Crimson flared across all three. Power leaped outward and hit the ground in three spots. It flowed upward, taller than Zylas—than Aaron—than Nazhivēr. At seven feet, the three demons solidified.

Glowing crimson eyes. Long, curved horns rising above hairless heads. Spines jutting from their elbows. Massive wings on thick shoulders. Long, powerful tails with bone-crushing plates on the end.

It was the near-indestructible unbound demon from Halloween—times three.

“First House demons?” Ezra whispered hoarsely. “Three of them? How?”

“In case you didn’t know,” Xanthe purred, “demons can see even in complete darkness. The luminamage can’t blind them.”

I tensed even more.

Xanthe waved a hand in our general direction. “Kill them all.”

The three demons, in almost perfect unison, flexed their fingers. Crimson lit over their claws and veined up their thick arms. Jagged spell circles flared over the demons’ wrists—a different spell for each of them. They lifted their arms, aiming the coming attacks at us.

I dove for the ground. Landing in a roll I’d practiced a hundred times on the mats in Aaron’s basement, I snatched up the Carapace. I was still slinging it over my shoulders as I leaped in front of the demons’ triple attack.

But the cloak wasn’t properly in place around me.

Or maybe I’d pushed the fae artifact too far.

Or maybe the demons’ combined magic was just too much.

“Tori!”

The next thing to register in my awareness was significant pain.

Arms were clutching me. I groaned. Why did everything hurt so goddamn much? And why were my eyes closed?

I wrenched them open. I hung in Ezra’s grasp, Aaron flanking us on one side and Kai on the other. The three demons were straight ahead, and since everyone was basically in the same positions, I guessed I’d blacked out for only a few seconds.

The Carapace, though. It lay on the ground, a tangle of purple fabric that neither sparkled nor shimmered nor did anything remotely fantastical.

Ezra pushed me behind him, and I wavered unsteadily, unsure how or where I was injured. Everything hurt. How much of that blast had the Carapace absorbed and how much of the hit had I taken?

“Stay back, Tori,” he ordered.

I realized he was about to attack. In the instant before he leaped forward, I snatched my combat belt off his sword sheath. Aaron swept after him, the flames on his sword doused but the blade dripping blood. On his heels, Kai darted toward the demons, electricity crackling over his limbs.

Movement flashed past my other side. Alistair, still wielding the war hammer. Girard, his pistols exchanged for handfuls of artifacts. And Darius, who wasn’t bothering to hide himself when the demons could see him anyway.

Farther up the street, crimson power burst and crackled—Zylas and Nazhivēr battling. Zylas couldn’t help us. He had his own deadly opponent.

How could the six mythics defeat three of the most powerful demons that existed?

A battle cry rang out behind me. I flung a glance over my shoulder—and my heart leaped.

Tabitha, Andrew, Laetitia, Lyndon, Ramsey, Gwen, and Drew cut through the debris, weapons at the ready. Bleeding, battered, but ready to join the final fight. They streamed past me and leaped into the chaos, Tabitha and Andrew shouting commands.

For any of them to survive this, we couldn’t count on killing the demons. We had to stop the contractor—but it would take the combined efforts of everyone else just to keep the demons at bay.

Sucking in a deep breath, I scanned the raging battle—Ezra blasting a demon with air blades, Aaron lunging for its flank, Kai peppering it with throwing knives and sending bolts of electricity leaping for its body, each flash accompanied by a thunder-like crack.

Alistair slammed the war hammer into the ground and zigzagging fissures split the earth in every direction. Bubbling lava spewed from the cracks as, a few paces away, Tabitha cast a wave of ice across the legs of the middle demon, freezing its feet to the ground.

I picked my route—and ran into the howling violence.

Ducking Lyndon’s mace as he swung it at Tabitha’s frozen demon. Springing over a lava-filled crevice. Diving beneath a demon’s sweeping wing as it vaulted skyward, crimson power rippling up its arm.