Devil's Paw (Imp Book 4) (36 page)

“Nicely done. It’s about time I got a real demon in here. You might be just the one I’ve been waiting for.”

The sorcerer clutched his bleeding head and crawled behind the angel for protection while I stood sideways, trying to keep the unconscious guards in view as well as the angel.

“I want my money back. I was promised a comfortable two weeks stay before my death, and I’ve been far from comfortable the last few days. What kind of facility are you all running here?”

The angel laughed and walked toward me. I held the staff attached to my collar with both hands, swinging it in an arc to determine the exact extent of its range of motion. It rotated easy on the collar, but my shoulder was the weak link in my fighting strategy. The initial adrenaline burst was receding, and my arm was beginning to feel numb just as the throbbing in my shoulder moved into the realm of agony.

“I don’t honor whatever promises the demons made to get you over here. Perhaps your anticipated vacation will await you in the afterlife.”

He lunged at me, lightning fast, but I was fast too. I parried his attack with my pole, knocking his hand aside and stepping sideways. Rubbing his wrist, he watched me carefully, mirroring his moves to mine as we danced about the narrow hallway. He was toying with me, dragging the fight out by keeping it purely physical. One blast and I’d be on the ground, unable to protect myself from more than fists and feet. I’d done this too — dragging a fight out to give a victim false hope, only to revel in seeing that hope die in his eyes. Knowing what he was doing didn’t make it any less effective, though. My heart raced with the misplaced idea that I might actually win this and escape.

Again, the angel lunged, feinting as I reacted and sending me off balance from an unconnected swing of my pole. Nearly blacking out from the stab of pain in my shoulder, I staggered slightly. He dove in to grab my arm, his grip wrenching downward, separating my shoulder from the socket. Great. With both injuries, the shoulder was useless. Grimacing in pain, I pulled backward, further disconnecting my shoulder from the joint and snapped a kick at his knee. It connected, but the angel jumped back, avoiding full impact.

“I think I’m in love.” The angel laughed. “It’s been nearly three million years since I’ve had the pleasure of a fight like this.”

I could no longer see Stab down the hallway. The two guards were still out for the count, and the sorcerer cowered to my left. I went on the offensive, ignoring the waves of pain and swinging wildly as I advanced on my opponent. He easily stepped around me, but with his eyes on the pole, he completely missed the foot that hooked around his ankle and pulled him off balance. He threw out a hand to catch himself against the wall and I jabbed with the pole, hitting him right under his ribs.

The angel doubled over, but he also managed to grab the pole with both hands. Yanking backwards, I tried to slide it from his grasp, but his grip was firm and my leverage horrible with the damaged shoulder. The angel took advantage of my movement to launch forward. I fell backwards just as he pivoted, sending me sideways onto the floor.

“Got you, you stinking little cockroach.”

Fury flared up inside me. Only one being was allowed to call me that. Spinning around on my back, I looped my legs around his and twisted, sending him crashing to the floor. Unfortunately, he fell right on top of me, crushing the breath from my lungs and enabling him to get a grip on my collar. With a flash of light it tightened, choking the breath from my throat. Once again, the world swam before my eyes.

“Yes, you’ll do very well indeed.”

It was the last thing I heard before consciousness slipped away.

~32~

T
his time I woke staring into a blinding florescent light on a ceiling. I was on my back, bolted to some sort of table by my hands and feet, my neck also attached through the collar. The special restraints were still on each of my limbs. I once again began the tedious process of trying to find a series of gaps to access my energy stores.

Everything hurt. I closed my eyes, trying to pinpoint the location and severity of my injuries. The repeated blows to the head made me feel like I was ready to puke my guts out. Not that there was anything in my stomach to come up. The gunshot wounds burned, hot and swollen. They felt infected, and I had no way to counteract the raging fever that would soon follow. Not that I’d live long enough for the fever to take hold. Worse than the gunshot wounds, the dislocated joint screamed in agony. With metal stakes driven through my hands and feet, to secure me to the table, I was in a world of pain. I got the impression this wasn’t a usual means of restraint, that the special method was just for me.

It wasn’t all that difficult to hammer a pike through hands and feet, but it took immense strength to slam them through the table. I gritted my teeth and wiggled my extremities slightly. There was a flat end keeping me from pulling my hands and feet off the stakes, and they felt like they’d been bent as they exited the table to keep them attached. I could probably rip my hands and feet free, given enough time and pain tolerance, but then I’d need to somehow deal with the one holding my collar to the table.

The collar only allowed me to turn my head a limited amount, but when I opened my eyes, what I saw alarmed me. I appeared to be in some sort of laboratory. Other metal tables were on either side of mine, complete with straps and what appeared to be a sort of drainage system of grooves. Large teardrop–shaped globes stood on stands along one wall, long tubes roped on a hook by their sides, like a drip. A sort of portable electronic console sat nearby. I couldn’t see or hear Stab anywhere, which gave me hope. Maybe he’d gotten away. Maybe he’d found a way out and was safely heading back to the mainland.

My stomach had stopped growling days ago, and my mouth was like a wad of cotton. Whatever they had planned for me was obviously imminent. If I couldn’t manage to gather enough raw energy to launch another attack, I wouldn’t have any hope.

I heard the swish of a door opening. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two armed guards and the sorcerer.

“Seriously? Two guards?” My voice sounded harsh, like I’d been smoking four packs a day for half a century. “You’ve got me bolted to a table. What do you expect me to do, spit on you?”

The guards stood at either end of the room. They looked rather bored from what I could see. The sorcerer, on the other hand, was practically shaking with nerves. He wasn’t a young guy. I’m sure all this business with the angel and a bunch of demons wasn’t doing his blood pressure any good.

“Your name wouldn’t happen to be Gareth, would it?” I asked. It would be downright poetic if the runaway sorcerer I had refused to go after wound up being the instrument of my death.

His fear vanished and he glared at me. “No, I’m Pash. Gareth refused this assignment and ran away.”

He turned back to the console, muttering something under his breath about how he should have been smart enough to run away himself.

“You’re Feille’s guy then?” Pash ignored me, but his shoulders tensed somewhat. The guy was clearly in a no–win situation. Feille was a rat bastard, angels were assholes, and the alternative was to run and be torn to bits by a bounty hunter demon. Not that any of this particularly endeared me to the man.

So why did Feille want a bunch of demons drained to an empty shell? That elf did nothing without a solid plan. Clearly he wanted something from us, something our energy stores or spirit beings contained. I frowned, remembering something I’d heard about elven magic and its increased limitations here, among human technology. It had its limitations against us, too. Really strong demons, old ones could shrug off the magic, and some spells only had a limited duration when used against demons. It really sucked when your life’s work fell short of its goal in terms of power.

“Enhancing your magical abilities with demon energy as a catalyst,” I guessed. “Nice. You guys would be a force to be reckoned with in Hel. You could subdue all your elven neighbors, enslave nearly all the demons.”

A glass shattered at my conjecture and my blood felt like ice. Feille was fucking nuts if he thought he could get away with that one. All the demon energy in the world wouldn’t save him from a high–level demon. Or would it? I’d underestimated elven magic too many times before. I’d be stupid to do it again.

But what were the angels getting out of all this? There had to be something more.

I heard the swish of the door again, then a heap of dirty flesh slid beside me along the floor.

“Hello, darling.” The angel’s voice was full of good cheer. “I’ve found your little friend. He was hiding in a storeroom only a few hundred feet from the exit. So sad that he didn’t make an escape, isn’t it?”

I turned my head, trying to see Stab, but all I could manage to view was a lump on the floor and a bare foot.

“You, hook him to that table over there,” The angel instructed. “And you turn this little imp’s table upright, so she can watch the fun.”

I had no desire to watch the “fun”. I didn’t want to see what they were going to do to Stab, to watch helpless as the light went out of his eyes. I’d promised him I’d get him out of here—I’d promised—and now I had to see him die.

One of the guards raised my tabletop vertical, which meant I was suspended by the stakes through my limbs and my neck collar. I tried to hold myself upright, to take the pressure off my impaled hands and feet, but my one shoulder wasn’t up to the task. Gravity took hold, and I felt my diaphragm condense as my weight sagged on the metal spikes, my breathing further compromised by the pressure on my neck from the restraint there. I had to tense all my muscles and try to hold myself up by pushing against the stakes through my feet, which wasn’t easy in my weakened, starved state. Muscles shook, and I found myself constantly slipping and choking.

Stab didn’t look any more comfortable. They hadn’t bothered with the silver energy–blocking restraints on his wrists and ankles, but the thin chains binding him to the table cut deep into his flesh. Blood welled up from the cuts, thick and sluggish, illustrating how terribly dehydrated the demon was. He turned his head to me, and I saw he’d been battered by a hard object. His nose was smashed flat to his face, and both lips were torn.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You gave it a good shot. I wish I could have bought you more time.” I wish I could have killed this fucking angel and his sorcerer too. Then gone after Feille and mounted his sorry–ass head on a pike to parade through the streets. Fuckers.

Stab smiled. It was a gruesome sight with his torn mouth and mashed nose. “Hot wings sounded fun. Sorry I won’t be able to make it.”

My eyes burned. Fuck, I was
not
going to cry. Not in front of this angel. “Rest assured, this sorcerer is going to die. The angel too. And it won’t be an easy or quick death.”

Stab’s smile was fleeting, and I heard a laugh from the being that had quickly climbed to the top of my “want–to–kill” list.

“You’re in no position to kill me, sweetheart, but you keep on with your little fantasy.”

I snarled, feeling all the rage of the past few days rise up. The sorcerer hesitated, an odd, glowing tube in hand, and gave a quick glance toward the angel.

“Maybe not, but you’ll still die. Did you not notice I’m bound? He’s going to come after you and take you apart one tiny little bit at a time. You’ll never escape him, and you’re a fool if you think you can best him in a fight.”

The angel chuckled, taking the tube from Pash and slamming it into the center of Stab’s chest. The demon gasped, rising off the table as far as he could before collapsing down.

“I see who has bound you. I have no idea why he’d bind a nasty demon instead of just killing you as always. No doubt he’s got some job for you to do. He can’t summon you from here with all the shielding in place, and centuries from now, when he finally gets around to it, he’ll just think you died. Don’t flatter yourself that you matter at all to him, or to any angel. You’re all no more than a smudge of dirt on our wings to be washed off.”

He didn’t know. Didn’t know who I was, or that Gregory’s bond with me went far beyond the traditional one. He must have been down here with the humans for over a year without communication with Aaru, or surely he would have known. Angels love gossip as much as we do, and I’d been the subject of much gossip over the last year.

“Don’t bet on it. He’s the one who killed your other mage. Hunted him down and shredded him like coleslaw. Cut off his hand and sent it to me in a freezer box as a gift. Your fate will be worse.”

The sorcerer had backed away, his face gray, his hands over his mouth. He looked terrified, like he was about to puke.

The angel shot an irritated glance at him. “Don’t let her get to you. She’s lying. Demons do. You should know that by now.”

“Your mage had a ring on the middle finger of his right hand. A gold ring with a black onyx stone inscribed with an inverted triangle and an ‘x’. I know. I’ve seen the ring, held it in my hand. I’ve held his severed hand in my hand. The angel is looking for you right now. I told people where I was going.”

The sorcerer gagged, and the angel waved a hand at him to come help with Stab. “Get on with this. If he was looking for her, he would have been here by now. She’s lying.”

Pash edged over to the table, keeping one wide eye on me as he placed his hands over the glowing tube and began to chant. The lights dimmed and a bright white began to fill the large glass teardrop–shaped bottle off to the side. It must have been some substance other than glass, had to have been magically enhanced. Raw energy can only be held inside a demon. Once it is released, it has to become something — usually something terribly explosive, but somehow it remained in its neutral state within the glass.

Stab was still alive and breathing, and he didn’t look to be in terrible pain as the energy flowed out the tube and into the vessel. He’d been telling the truth about not being a particularly powerful being. The glass jar was not even a quarter of the way full when the glow faded from the tube.