Page 89

Suddenly Cassiel appeared in the center of the church, his blade dripping with black demon ichor. In his hand was a small, pulsing object about the size of a fist. It glowed with an unearthly red light, veins of darkness spreading across its surface like cracks in glass.

The Heart. The final seal.

He tossed it up once, catching it effortlessly, his expression grim. “We need to end this before Asmodeus shows up.”

I turned to him, my breath coming in ragged gasps as I struggled to hold back the tide of demons with an increasingly empty gun. “Can you do what you did at Purgatory? That light show?”

Cassiel's expression darkened. “No. That took too much from me. I won't be able to do it again so soon.”

“Fantastic,” I growled, ducking as a demon hurled a broken piece of pew at my head. “Any other bright ideas?”

The battle was chaos, pure and simple. We fought with everything we had, but it was like trying to stem a flood with a handful of sand. For every demon we cut down, two more seemed to take its place.

Cade and I fought side by side, our movements synchronized. He'd clear a path with the Lash, and I'd pick off any stragglers. It was a dance we'd perfected, but even the best choreography fails when the stage is overrun.

Sterling was bleeding heavily from a gash along his side, his movements growing sluggish despite his stubborn determination. Hawk was barely standing, using the wall for support as he continued to throw daggers with unerring accuracy. Even I was running on fumes, the Colt's hammer falling on empty chambers more often than not.

Cassiel stood in the center of it all, the Heart clutched in one hand, his blade in the other, but we had no clear way to protect the seal from Asmodeus. We needed to get it somewhere safe, but the church was crawling with demons.

“We need to get out of here,” I shouted to Cade, who was using the Lash to hold back three demons at once. “Regroup, come up with a plan.”

“No time,” he grunted, his face slick with sweat and blood.

He was right, damn him. We were trapped in an impossible situation, outgunned and outnumbered, with the fate of the world literally in our hands.

And then, suddenly, everything changed.

The air in the church went still, so abruptly it was like someone had flipped a switch. The demons froze mid-attack, their expressions shifting from bloodlust to something that looked disconcertingly like reverence.

The temperature spiked—not like fire, which at least was a familiar kind of heat. This was deeper, wronger, like standing too close to a reactor core. It crawled under my skin and settled in my bones, making my teeth ache and my vision blur.

“Oh no,” Sterling whispered, his face draining of what little color it had left.

I felt it before I saw him. A pressure at the base of my skull, a weight in the air that made it hard to breathe. Power, ancient and terrible, pressing down on reality itself.

The massive doors of the church creaked open on their own, revealing a tall figure silhouetted against the moonlight. He stepped inside with the casual grace of a predator that knows its territory, that fears nothing because nothing can touch it.

Asmodeus.

The demons instantly knelt, bowing their heads in submission. The gesture was so unanimous, so immediate, it was clear they had no choice in the matter. Their loyalty wasn't earned; it was compelled.

A slow, satisfied smirk crossed Asmodeus's perfect lips as his gaze swept over the scene—the destroyed church, the kneeling demons, the five of us standing bloodied but defiant.

And then his eyes landed on Cade.

23

THE DEVIL’S WAGER

CADE

The moment Asmodeus stepped forward, I felt the unnatural pressure in the air—a weight settling deep in my bones, cold and sickeningly familiar. The abandoned church seemed to contract around us, as if the very walls were trying to escape his presence. Each step he took left momentary impressions of frost on the cracked stone floor, melting away seconds later. My mark burned beneath my shirt, responding to the demonic power that radiated from him in nearly visible waves.

“You still don't remember, do you?” Asmodeus purred, his golden eyes gleaming with predatory amusement. His voice was liquid honey poured over broken glass, beautiful and cutting at once. Light caught the perfect angles of his face, highlighting features too flawless to be human—the ultimate deception packaged in beauty.

My body tensed involuntarily. Every muscle coiled tight as instincts older than conscious thought screamed danger. I didn't need to ask what he meant. The missing time in Hell, the gap in my memories, the wall in my mind that Sean had warned menot to scratch at—I knew the answer lay with this demon. The certainty of it resonated in my marrow.

Asmodeus tilted his head, feigning disappointment with theatrical precision. “Oh, but your soul remembers.” His perfect lips curved into a smile that never touched his eyes. “The walls that’s been built around it? Fragile. One push, and it all comes tumbling down.” He traced a lazy pattern in the air with one long finger.