Page 45 of Demon Heart: The Complete Series

T anith followed me, her speed almost matching Xavier.

She delivered a punch to the back of my head.

I stumbled onto the stairs, yelling in fury. I was sick of taking hits to the head and face.

“You will answer me!” she screamed. “Where is?—”

She stopped, coughing.

I turned, magic ready to strike.

The demon clutched her throat with both hands. She fell to her knees, clawing at her skin, her snake eyes bulging.

“What…” she tried, her lips turning blue.

Sneaky End, I said to myself. Thanks, Your Majesty.

No matter how unintended.

A shape crashed through the gate at the top of stairs, taking two stairs at a time.

Xavier!

“Don’t come near me!” I barked.

He stopped two steps up. “What happened?”

“Sneaky End.” I filled him in on the potion’s specs. “I’m worried you might be affected.”

“But you’ve already made contact with a target,” he countered.

“Just want to be careful.”

He nodded, focus landing on Tanith. “Is this attack your doing?”

She managed to hiss at him, patches of blue spreading across her upper lip into a morbid mustache. Her being a demon, the potion wouldn’t kill her, but it sure looked like it hurt.

He told me about the attack on the palace.

I stayed upright, despite taking another shock to the system. “Then we have to get the fuck out of here.” Nothing like pointing out the obvious.

He went to touch me.

“Remember I’m toxic!” I snapped.

I expected some quip from him, but nothing came. He landed a hand on my shoulder, one on my cheek.

I closed my eyes. “Don’t start choking to not-quite-death.”

“I promise.”

I opened my eyes, his softness brief. He released me, turning his attention back to Tanith.

Thank God he was okay.

“Enjoy the demon realm, old friend,” he said. “Whatever your true plans are, they’re?—”

“Did you think I didn’t know?” The queen stood at the top of the stairs, her face smeared in ash.

“Your Majesty,” I rasped.

“I gave you the opportunity to correct me, to line your story up with King Basile’s true account.”

The king had not hidden anything from her.

“Another disappointment,” she said.

Xavier growled up at her.

She ignored him. “This is the demon he described. Platinum hair, protective of my assassin.” She sniffed. “I knew all along, My Shadow. There is nothing you can hide from me.”

“H-How?” I responded. Probably not the best idea.

She sighed heavily. “Because I am your queen.”

“Shouldn’t you be cowering in a bunker?” Xavier snapped.

Her glare could melt the ice caps. “You fucked my Shadow.”

“Where are your guards?” he retorted.

“Why? Are you afraid?”

“You should be afraid,” he said. “I’ve seen what’s happened to your palace.”

Her left eye twitched, her jaw tensing. “I will eradicate your kind from this realm, if it is the last thing I do.”

I tried for peace, channeling my inner Phillipe with raised my arms. “Can we talk about this?”

She bared her teeth. “My Shadow is meek. My Shadow is pathetic. My Shadow has fallen from my grace. He has sullied his body. He has doomed his soul. You lay with killers of love, destroyers of worlds. I can never forgive you.”

“Your Majesty?—”

The bang took me by surprise, the sound bouncing off the walls, the bullet striking me in the heart.

“No!” Xavier roared.

The air in the corridor changed, an explosion of red Synth energy, green, yellow, pink, blue, black, a whole fucking rainbow of swirls going off like fireworks.

I clamped my hands over my ears, the crackles, the booms too much for my eardrums. And I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t on the ground bleeding out. I stood, a strange humming in my heart, a sensation of coming undone.

Huh? Not dead? That bullet had struck my heart.

That rainbow spilled out of my chest, brightening, becoming one blinding light, swallowing me, breaking me down into a million little pieces. Scattering me to the winds beyond this corridor, beyond everything I knew.

Lost.

I’m lost.

I’m going.

Going.

Going.

Going.