Page 100

“Is this all the marked one can muster?” Asmodeus taunted, his borrowed form rippling like oil on water as he flowed around my attacks. “Such potential, wasted on hesitation.”

I struck again, letting him think each blow was born of frustration rather than calculation. The prince moved like smoke and shadow, beautiful and terrible in his fluid grace. My mind raced, analyzing each movement, looking for the pattern in his attacks while I maintained my facade of desperation.

“Fuck you,” I managed through gritted teeth, blood trailing from my nose as power built between us. The air itself felt thick, like trying to breathe underwater, reality bending around our clash.

Behind the barrier I'd created, Sean struggled against Juno's grip. “Cade, stop!” His voice carried that same protective urgency I'd come to rely on, the sound of someone who cared too much to let go.

“Let him fight,” Juno cut in, though I heard the strain in her voice. “He knows what he's doing.”

Did I? The plan had seemed so clear when I thought of it.

Another explosion of force as Asmodeus and I collided, sending lesser demons skittering back into the twisted shadows of what used to be Central Park. Trees writhed unnaturally, their branches reaching like grasping hands toward a sky that continued to tear itself apart. The pentagram's symbols blazed brighter with each surge of power, hungry for more.

“You feel it, don't you?” the Prince purred. “The pull of what waits beyond. Its power, calling to what was planted in you that night.” His perfect features twisted into something crueler. “Your parents died for nothing, you know. They never understood what they were really protecting.”

Asmodeus struck instantly, darkness coalescing into claws that raked across my chest. Pain blazed white-hot, but I forced myself to stumble back, letting him think he'd scored a real hit. It was working. He was taking the bait.

“Cade!” Sean's voice carried raw anguish. I wanted to look at him, to memorize his face one last time, but I couldn't risk breaking concentration now. His fear cut deeper than Asmodeus's claws ever could.

“Your father's weapon grows weaker,” Asmodeus continued, gesturing at Heaven's Lash where it hung untouched at my hip. “Your marked power flares wild and unfocused. Even your hunter watches with such delicious despair, knowing he's about to lose another partner to forces beyond his comprehension.”

I spat blood onto the writhing ground, letting my breath come in ragged gasps. “You talk too much.”

There was only one way this could end, but I needed to make him believe he was winning.

The Prince's laugh rasped like stone grinding against metal. “Perhaps. But soon, very soon, talk will be unnecessary.” He spread his arms wide, shadows flowing from his borrowed form like ink in water. “The walls between worlds grow thinner with each passing moment. Can you feel it?”

He wasn't wrong. The very air seemed to vibrate now, colors bleeding into frequencies that human eyes weren't meant to process. Each pulse of power making the tear in reality above us grow wider. My mind cataloged every change, every shift in the energy patterns around us.

Through that tear, I caught glimpses of something vast and hungry, countless eyes and impossible geometries, a being so ancient it made Asmodeus seem young.

Just a little more.

I launched myself at the Prince again, putting everything I had into the attack. Power blazed through my mark like liquid nitrogen in my veins. Asmodeus met my charge with terrible joy, his perfect form dissolving into pure darkness as we clashed.

“Yes!” he exulted as power exploded between us, feeding directly into the ritual. “Give in to it! Let the walls fall!”

The pentagram's symbols flared blindingly bright, their ancient patterns beginning to lift off the ground like burning brands. Above us, the tear in reality grew wide enough to swallow a building, and through it came whispers that made my bones ache, promises of power and knowledge and terrible, wonderful truths.

“Cade, please!” Sean's voice cracked with desperation. “Don't do this! There's another way, there's always another way!”

“I'm sorry,” I whispered, though he couldn't hear me over the rising chaos.

This was the only solution with any chance of success, even if success meant my own destruction.

Understanding dawned in Asmodeus's perfect features a moment too late. “What...”

I moved before he could finish, but not toward him. Instead, I sprinted for the pentagram's center, where the symbols burned brightest. Power pulled at me like gravity gone wrong, trying to draw me in and tear me apart simultaneously.

I plunged my hands into the pentagram's swirling energy, but instead of letting it tear me apart, I pulled. The mark responded instantly, becoming a channel not out, but in. All that gathered power, all that stolen life force, instead of breaking reality apart, it began to fold inward, drawn into my body like water down a drain.

“No...” Asmodeus's confidence cracked for the first time. “No, that's not possible. You can't...”

“Can't what?” I managed through gritted teeth as more power poured into me. “Can't contain it? Can't use what was done to me for something other than destruction?” A bitter laugh escaped me, half pain and half triumph. “This was always my choice to make, not yours.”

Asmodeus moved to stop me, darkness coalescing into something terrible, but it was too late. The pentagram's power had found its true purpose. Around us, the suspended hunters fell from their energy columns, free but unconscious. The tear in reality shuddered, its edges beginning to curl inward instead of out.

“I will destroy you for this,” Asmodeus snarled, his perfect features cracking to reveal something darker beneath. “You cannot hope to contain such power. It will burn through you like paper, unmake you atom by atom...”