I snapped my jaw shut a second before he pulled my finger straight. I screeched through my gritted teeth. Another boom struck the container, shaking the floor, but Zylas ignored it as he straightened my fingers one by one.

Breathing fast, I waited for the pain to subside. He cradled my hand, lightly pressing on the joints to ensure my bones were properly aligned. I peeked at him, my vision blurred with fresh tears. The loudest bang yet shook the entire container. The spell Zylas had cast on the doors shuddered under the impact, and I clamped down on a new surge of fear.

“Now what?” I whispered.

“Hnn. I think you said … kill them all.” He flashed his canines, savage voracity lining his face. “I will do that.”

“But how? There are still so many of them.” Two champions, four contractors, four demons, Karlson, and Travis. Twelve opponents, plus Amalia was in danger and needed help too.

Zylas eyed me sideways, then reached for his hip. With a twist, he freed the infernus’s chain from his belt and dangled the pendant above my face.

“Payilas, can you make the spell of bright light again?”

“I need something to draw with. Something like—” I watched a drop of blood run down the side of his hand. I was lying in a pool of it. “Yes, but if you tell me what you have in mind, I might be able to do better than a light cantrip.”

As he grinned, vicious and eager to deal death, I grasped the hanging infernus. This time, I wouldn’t try to stop him. This time, I would help him protect us both.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Boom. The shipping container jolted violently as the hammering continued. The doors, held together by Zylas’s glowing spell, caved inward.

In front of the shaking doors, I’d drawn a three-foot-wide rune in my own blood. Yuck. Even knowing Zylas’s super-speed healing magic had repaired my neck and replenished my blood, I was still freaked out that so much of what was supposed to be inside my body was all over the floor. Painful thirst constricted my throat.

I tightened my hands on his shoulders. He was crouched just behind the rune, and I clung to his back with my legs clamped around his waist. Crimson talons extended from his fingers, and he raised one hand toward the door as another powerful blow shook it.

“Are you ready, payilas?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied tersely. My pulse was racing, my throat was dry, and my limbs shivered with adrenaline. But Zylas knew what he was doing. He didn’t start fights he couldn’t win.

Power lit across his palm and crawled up his arm in twisting veins that glowed through his sleeve and armguard. A circle formed around his fingertips, runes flashing through its center.

“Now,” he said, and a streak of red power leaped from his hand and hit the doors, blasting them open.

“Luce!” I cried, squeezing my eyes shut.

My rune blazed into an incandescent brilliance that shone through my eyelids. As the men outside, blinded by the spell, shouted in pain and alarm, Zylas leaped forward. He could still see; with his infrared vision, he was hindered by neither a lack of light nor an overabundance of it.

We flew out into the cold sea breeze, my arms wrapped desperately around his shoulders. He landed with a crunch on the concrete. I cracked my eyes open as he sprang between two demons, unmoving while their contractors were disoriented. Aiming at his first target, Zylas slashed his talons across the man holding Amalia.

As the rogue fell, I dropped off Zylas’s back. Grabbing Amalia’s arm, I hauled her away from the Red Rum mythics and their demons. They had recovered from the light spell and were turning on Zylas—four demons controlled by four contractors, and two armed champions protecting them.

The wall of lumbering muscles, horns, and spikes closed in on Zylas, the demons spreading out to encircle him.

I raised my arm. My sleeve was pushed up to my elbow, and I’d drawn three bloody cantrips on my skin. The most basic Arcana—draw the rune, speak the single-word incantation, and unleash a simple spell.

“Surrige,” I declared.

An invisible force caught the nearest contractor and lifted him off his feet. As he flailed in confusion, his demon halted all movement.

Zylas dove under the immobile demon. Lunging for their adversary, the other three bowled over their ally, and Zylas wheeled toward the four contractors, his tail snapping out for balance. The two champions rushed forward to intercept him, one with a shining broadsword and the other with a pair of small but terrifying battle axes.

The swordsman slapped a hand to his blade and the earth trembled with his magic. The other pointed an axe and shouted an incantation.

I thrust my arm out. “Ventos!”

My second rune flashed and wind erupted, buffeting the champions and whipping grit in their faces. The gust scarcely made them stumble, but it created the distraction Zylas needed.

The sorcerer’s spell missed him by inches. The spiral of burgundy power hit the pavement and exploded in a wave that covered everything nearby in a glistening layer of … something. Shouting furiously, the terramage whipped his sword out, and the earth split open in front of him—but Zylas had already leaped. He slammed into the mage, plowing him into the ground as his claws flashed.

The demons were moving again, all four barreling toward Zylas and the two—now one—champions.

I swung my hand toward them. “Nebu—”

Amalia grabbed my shirt and yanked me backward. A dart of searing hot magic grazed my shoulder as a spell whipped past me—launched by the axe-wielding champion.

“Nebulam!” I yelled as fast as I could get the word out.

The largest cantrip on my arm flickered and a hazy mist rose off the ground, billowing around us. The last thing I saw was Zylas turning on the remaining champion as four demons charged him. Mythic and demon forms blurred in the fog.

A scream rang out. Metal clanged. Another cry of agony.

The fog cantrip was already fading, too small and weak to last against the sea breeze. Shadowy shapes reappeared—a pair of unmoving demon statues, and the two demons still in battle, controlled by the last survivors. Zylas was a lethal blur darting among them, glowing magic dancing over his hands.

Dh’ērrenith, he would’ve called this moment. Assured victory.

“Watch out!” Amalia yelled.

I whirled around. Karlson, the short Red Rum leader, came at me with a silver knife in his fist. I lurched backward, my hand flashing up, a bloody rune drawn on my palm.

“Impello!” I cried.

The invisible push spell hit him and he staggered, the blade knocked from his grasp. He paused, his eyes burning with fury, then extended his empty palm, concentration hardening his jaw.

A steel battle axe appeared in his hand.

He stepped forward, the blade gleaming. It was the champion’s axe. Somehow, the fallen champion’s weapon was now in Karlson’s hands—and he was almost on top of me, the deadly edge angled toward my body.

“Stop your demon,” he spat. “Now!”

Another scream split the air—the last contractor dying. Karlson’s gaze darted to the bloody battlefield, and I saw the decision in his eyes. No demon was worth his life. He was going to kill me to stop Zylas.

His other hand opened and a second battle axe appeared in his grip. He swung the weapons up and I stumbled back, too close, too clumsy—

He jerked convulsively. His face went slack, then he pitched forward. His weapons hit the ground with clangs that echoed in the sudden quiet. Travis stood behind the collapsed man, holding a blood-splattered rock. He stared at Karlson, his face white.

Ten yards away, Zylas stood alone, surrounded by his fallen enemies. All the demons had disappeared, their contractors dead, and blood had turned the musty concrete into a macabre painting. Zylas was splattered all over.

My stomach squirmed and I looked away. So much death. So many lives ended. Numbness spread through me, and I didn’t know what to feel. Should I have felt anything else besides the relief coursing through me?

Tail swishing, Zylas hopped across the battlefield. When he’d cleared the bodies, his gait shifted to a dangerous prowl, gaze fixed on Travis.

“Well, payilas?” he crooned as Travis’s expression slackened with terror. “Should I kill this one too?”

I studied Travis, who clutched his rock like it might save him. Amalia gave me a pleading, desperate look.

Briefly closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. “Zylas, I think enough people have died already.”

“Mercy is for the weak, payilas.”

“The weak can’t afford mercy.” I met his eyes. “I think we can.”

He stared at me, then grimaced—his favorite “you’re so dumb you don’t even make sense” grimace. I rolled my eyes. Looking like he could hardly believe his luck, Travis cleared his throat to speak, then changed his mind. We stood mutely, silenced by the trauma and violence we’d survived.

“We should leave,” Amalia suggested.