Page 72 of Incoronate
More demons descended. A swarm of them overtook Death, dragging him down under the weight of their bodies, while War and I kept fighting, slashing and stabbing, moving through the chaos as though we’d choreographed it.
I drove my blade through the last demon pinning Death to the floor, the creature dissolving into ash that scattered across the floorboards as Death pushed to his feet without a word, shadows clinging to his frame like living things.
Unperturbed, I wiped my blade on my jeans. Blood and ichor smeared across the denim in dark streaks that would never wash out.
We moved together toward the back room. Toward the heartbeat. Toward the chanting that had grown louder with every step we took.
The sisters stood in a circle around a bassinet, their hands linked as they chanted, a shimmering barrier rising between us and baby that pulsed with power and rippled the air around it.
The invisible wall held us back. We couldn’t move an inch to cross it.
A voice cut through the chanting. Weak and strained and barely more than a whisper.
“You’re too late.”
My gaze jerked to the bed. Nikki was sprawled across blood-soaked sheets, her long hair tangled and slick where the strands clung to her temples. Her skin had gone the color of ash, and her lips had taken on the pale, bloodless shade of someone whose body was shutting down piece by piece. Blood pooled beneath her in a dark stain that had already saturated the mattress and was bleeding through to the floorboards in a continual drip. She was hemorrhaging. Dying right in front of us.
I turned away. Not because I couldn’t look, but because I didn’t care.
All that mattered was getting the barrier down.
My wings erupted from my back without thought, black feathers filling the room as I closed my eyes and reached for my magic. I pulled it up from the depths of whatever I’d become, dragging every element to the surface, gathering everything I had and every ounce of power I’d ever possessed and focusing it on a single point.
I pushed against the barrier.
The sisters’ chanting faltered. The barrier wavered, distorting like heat over hot asphalt.
I pushed harder. Poured everything into it until I felt something crack and split down the middle like fractured glass.
The barrier shattered into a thousand glittering pieces that dissolved into nothing.
Death moved first. He crossed the space in two strides and reached for the veil covering the bassinet.
Blue hellfire erupted the moment his fingers touched the fabric.
Flames engulfed him instantly, consuming him with a hunger that seemed almost sentient, eating through flesh and bone with terrifying speed. His screams filled the cabin as his body twisted and burned, the sound high and agonized and impossible to ignore even if I’d wanted to.
I stepped aside and let him fall.
His smoldering corpse hit the floor with a dull thud, smoke rising from what was left of him and carrying the stench of burnt meat and something darker.
War kicked at the remains as I turned my gaze to the sisters. Their chanting had stopped, their expressions a mixture of wide-eyed fear and defiance as they stared back at me.
“Impressive,” I said. The word came out completely void of any real admiration.
One of them smiled. “Wait until you see what we have planned for you. Are you sure you want to do this?”
My lip twitched in what should have been a smile, but the muscles couldn’t complete the gesture.
I unleashed everything.
The blast of unfettered magic hit them like a physical force, flinging them clear across the room and slamming their bodies into the wall hard enough to crack bone.
Before they could recover, I pulled up my fire element. Flames erupted in a circle around them, caging them in, the heat immediate and suffocating as the fire roared and crackled and fed on itself, growing higher with every breath.
I turned back to the bassinet and slowly walked toward it, my sword raised and ready. This was what I’d come here to do. This was the entire reason for everything that had happened tonight.
War stayed back. Watching. Waiting for me to complete the mission.
