Page 15 of A Match Made in Hell

‘What –’

‘What part of shh –’ Sath closes the gap between us – ‘did you not understand?’

I purse my lips. He seems quite distressed by the idea of one of his demons running around. If he’s the one in charge, can’t he tell them to go away? I would ask, but I am extremely busy being quiet. I fix him with a glare so he knows how much I’m enjoying being given orders.

‘I suppose asking you to stay hidden while I deal with them is too much to ask?’ Sath says.

I smile sweetly. ‘Thought you told me not to speak?’

Sath looks torn between rolling his eyes and throttling me. Black flames swirl down his arms, sending a blaze of heat over my face, but I don’t recoil. Despite everything, I’m confident these flames aren’t designed to hurt me.

In fact, they’re not designed to burn at all, but create. The flames twist and turn around one another, forming into metal. A dagger. Sath passes it to me without a word. It’s heavier than I expected, with an intricate floral pattern carved into the handle. The blade is curved and deadly sharp.

Seriously, is there nothing he can’t do? ‘How –’

‘Not now, Willow.’ His flames are already forging something else, something bigger. A sword this time, made of black metal that flickers blue when he waves it in the air. A sapphire gleams from a pommel inset into the hilt, with a rainbow of six smaller gems encircling it.

I’m suddenly less touched by the fact he gave me a knife.

‘Why don’t I get a sword?’ I grumble.

I’m not provided with an answer, so I can only assume he’s doing it to be difficult. Leaving the iron maiden behind, we head into the corridor, Sath in front. He stops when we reach a fork, head cocked to one side, before taking the right-hand turn decisively.

Something in the furthest room is screeching.

‘Stay behind me at all times,’ he orders. ‘Or, better yet, don’t come in at all.’

Unfortunately for Sath, my disposition has always leaned towards disobedience. Plus, there’s no way my curiosity is going to allow me to stay behind. It’s a shame we don’t have phones here; I’d be an internet sensation if I got footage of whatever’s in this room.

Sath kicks the door in, despite a perfectly good handle being right there, waiting for it to crash to the ground before stepping over the splintered wood. My curiosity is immediately washed away by a wave of fear.

Because it’s not one demon. It’s five. And unlike the demons I’ve seen here so far, there are no human-like qualities to them at all.

They’re shaped like bats, if anything. They shriek and extend their wings at the sight of us, membranous tissue stretching out wide. They’d be kind of cute, if they were smaller. And didn’t have fangs.

And weren’t flying towards me.

One shoots through the doorway and dive-bombs into my chest. I go down.

Hard. My teeth rattle as it leaps atop me, jaw opening wide, stretching longer than its whole head.

Oh shit. I kick and scream and writhe beneath it, hopelessly unequipped for this.

I’ve never taken a self-defence class in my life.

Perhaps I should have listened to Sath when he suggested I hide.

Sath . The knife he gave me is still in my slick grip.

I twist, trying to shove it upwards at something, anything, that might hurt it.

The thing shrieks again, and then it’s leaning towards me, mouth descending towards my neck, pincer-sharp fangs inches from me now; my heart beats a frantic rhythm in my chest, slamming against my ribcage as teeth graze my skin, and I refuse, I simply refuse , to let it bite a chunk out of me.

Using abdominal muscles I’m shocked to discover I possess, I sit up and headbutt its muzzle. The bat flies backwards in a gust of wind, hurtling into the room towards Sath. He shoots a bolt of fire, but it dives out of the way before reversing and coming for me again.

I jump to my feet, lashing out, trying to shove it; it swerves my hand and sinks its teeth straight into my forearm. Fuck .

The knife drops from my hand. My scream echoes through the corridor. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. Sath calls out a warning, but what good is that to me; I need him here , now, fighting it off.

A quick glimpse into the room, now flooding with smoke as he sidesteps a two-pronged attack, tells me he won’t be coming any time soon.

Well, fine. I growl, both at the bat and the situation, and yank its ear. Its mouth loosens and I drag my arm free, diving to the floor and scrambling for my knife. My vision blurs as a fresh spike of pain shoots through me, but I don’t stop moving. I find the hilt of the blade.

The shadow of the bat looms overhead, and I whirl round, shoving the weapon straight into its belly.

It meets resistance and I slam it harder, my teeth grinding together with the effort.

Black blood spurts out the edges of the wound.

I twist the knife, dragging it up and round its insides; it squeaks and squeaks and I don’t care, I have to kill it – tears run down my cheeks, but I can’t stop, not until it’s shut up .

Finally, it slumps forward. I pull the knife out and scuttle away, trembling. The blood on my hands is almost like tar, so sticky I can’t shake it off no matter how hard I try. I stare at the body, panting.

Something crashes inside the room. My knees threaten to buckle as I hobble over to check if I can assist in any way. Running would be the safer option, but, apparently, I hate myself.

The room is a replica of the previous: an empty cave, save for the iron maiden in the centre. Sath is battling the final bat, his arms aflame, shooting arrows of fire at its head. But it’s too quick. It ducks and dodges each attack, wings flapping furiously. Sweat gleams on Sath’s face.

He’s killed the other three, at least. Their heads are rolling around near the doorway, while their bodies twitch in the far corner.

I avert my gaze in time to find the bat hurtling straight for me.

I raise my knife – I shouldn’t have come back for Sath, why did I come back for Sath?

– but before the bat can reach me, Sath’s there, back to my chest, pressing me into the wall and shielding me from the oncoming attack.

The bat crashes into him instead, the tip of its wings slicing into his stomach. He shudders against me, and his flames go out. I check his hands: empty. His sword has disappeared.

But I still have my knife.

The bat rears, gearing up for another charge.

‘Sath, duck ,’ I whisper.

He drops, rolling underneath the bat as it lunges, allowing me to plunge the knife into its eye.

No hesitation this time. I don’t care. Not about the blood, or its scream, or the fact I’ve taken another life.

It’s a demon. A monster. It deserves to hurt.

I picture Aric’s face when he watched that man burn, and I want to stab the bat again.

I want to stab it over and over and over – I’m breathing hard by the time I realise I’ve driven the knife so deep the bat is spasming around the weapon, like I’ve embedded it into its nervous system.

I gasp, squashing that lingering urge for more , and pull the knife out.

The bat falls to the ground. Blood oozes around its body like an oil spill.

I look away, feeling distinctly nauseous, my rage dimmed by the sudden silence in the room.

The initial sting in my arm has subsided to a dull ache, and I flex it to check everything’s still working before looking over at Sath.

He’s coated in more blood than me – I guess from all the beheading he was doing while I was busy getting bitten – and it leaves streaks over his face, his neck, his hands. His cream jumper is ruined.

There’s also red pooling across his stomach.

‘You’re hurt,’ I say, fighting the entirely inappropriate instinct to reach out and inspect the wound.

He does not need me to care for him. He probably doesn’t want me to care for him.

But he did get that injury defending me, which is making me feel all kinds of inconvenient things like gratitude and guilt.

I lock my arms to my sides, just to be safe.

Sath lifts his jumper to reveal a sliver of tanned skin with a deep cut sliced through the muscle. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘That is not nothing.’ My hands are pressed against his flesh before I can stop them.

I pause. Look up at him. Touching the Devil is probably a massive no-no.

But the wound is deep, and he isn’t doing anything to stem the bleeding.

Instead, he’s staring at me, a muscle in his cheek ticking.

‘Will you heal, like, magically? Or I could try and . . . I don’t know, stitch it, or something. ’

I say that like I have any idea how to stitch a wound. Blood, fresh and red, coats my hands as it leaks over my fingers. It’s so . . . human. So different to what came out of those bats.

‘I’ll heal.’ He frowns, noticing my arm for the first time. ‘You’re hurt too.’

I wince as he lifts my arm, examining the twin puncture marks the bat left behind.

His fingers prod my skin, his touch deft and light as he brushes blood away using his thumb.

I step closer, like he’s a magnet, drawing me in.

Beneath my hand, I can feel his stomach rise and fall with his every breath.

And I feel it stop moving when his breath hitches.

I peer at him, and something in the air shifts. I seem to have taken another step without knowing it. He’s dangerously close now, our chests almost brushing, and although he’s staring at my arm I don’t think that’s where his attention is. His eyes flare.

‘Why do they do that?’ I ask. ‘Your eyes. Sometimes they’re brown, and sometimes they’re like . . . molten gold.’

Sath inhales. When he finally meets my gaze, his eyes are brown again, but I’m sure something flickers beneath the surface, like a candle behind a curtain threatening to burn the whole building down.