Page 7 of Unholy Bond (The Corruption of Evelyn Adams #2)

The blade in my hand was an old favorite. Silver, etched with runes that pulsed red when it sensed a chance to eat life and blood. The kind of tool that made your job easier and your inner demon proud.

The case I carried with other supplies was equally elegant.

The demon bled through his shirt, his jeans, even his cheap knockoff sneakers, soaking the slush-gray warehouse floor in a puddle that steamed where it met the cold concrete.

His wrists were chained above his head to a steel support beam and had swelled to twice their natural size.

The links cut deep, biting through the thin membrane of glamour he’d wrapped around himself.

His true shape showed in patches now: scales under the jaw, black talons where human nails should be, eyes gold and vertical-pupiled like a cat’s.

The skin between was a sickly, inconsistent blue, marbled like raw meat.

I set the knife on a nearby table, casual as a chef about to fillet the evening’s catch. “You ready to talk?”

He spat blood at my shoes. Missed. The bastard was pathetic. “Eat me, pretty boy,” he hissed. “Put my cock down your throat, maybe if we’re both lucky you’ll fucking choke on it.”

They all thought I was the soft one. I cultivated the look with a long black coat, skinny jeans, the threadbare T-shirt advertising a band that never existed in this world.

I wore eyeliner and cheap cologne and never once let my hair stay combed for more than an hour.

I smiled, even now, even with his blood in my teeth.

“I’m not hungry, but you will be soon. My friend Aziz says hunger is the most honest thing in the universe. You should listen to him.” Picking up the knife, I nudged the tip of it under his chin, not quite breaking the skin. “Tell me where she is, and I’ll make this painless. Promise.”

He rolled his eyes, which was a mistake.

I used the chance to shove the blade into the soft spot just below the jawline.

The edge piercing the skin, blood jetting out across my fingers, hot and thick.

With delicate precision, I slipped it up until the point jutted up into his mouth.

His jaw dropped open as he screamed and it looked for a brief second like he had a second, metallic tongue.

Nudging it further, thrusting the blade into him, I eased it back until it poked the dangling uvula at the back of his throat.

The handle of the knife grew slick in my hand from the blood, but I tightened my grip.

He choked on the metal, gagged, then let out an agonized gurgle.

The sound echoed off the concrete and out into the Boston night, where the Green Line rumbled past, indifferent to violence.

I let him squirm for a bit before I drew the knife out with a wet slurp , blood oozing down his neck to his chest. “Last chance,” I said, wiping the blade on his sleeve. “I’m not gonna ask a third time.”

He inhaled a ragged breath and grinned. “We know you. You’re not like them,” he managed. “You’re weak. You want her back? Go beg your master.”

I yawned and reached into my pocket. From the little leather pouch, I drew a pinch of iron filings mixed with the burnt residue of angelic flesh, which gave it a red hue.

I remember the look on that fucker’s face when I took him down.

A cherubim named Safael. I’d enjoyed gutting that sanctimonious prick back in the day.

Now, one dead enemy would help me get what I needed from a living one.

I tossed it in his face. He screamed again, but this time the sound had a low, rattling edge that reverberated in my chest.

The runes on my blade flared. I pressed the flat to his cheek and drew it down, slow and deliberate, until I hit the corner of his mouth.

The wound spat yellow blood, thick as honey and reeking of diesel, ammonia, and rot.

“You should see what this stuff does to your insides,” I said.

“I tried it on a friend once. He lasted six days. Six. Painful . Days.”

He bucked, tried to kick me. I let him have the satisfaction of a solid hit to my ribs. It barely hurt. “You’re wasting time,” he croaked.

“I’ve got eternity,” I said. “You don’t.”

He started shaking. Not from blood loss, yet, but from the creeping rot of the dust eating through his nervous system. Demons built their lives around immunity. Find the right contaminant, you could break any of them.

I spent the next twenty minutes working my way down the classic list of pain, humiliation, deprivation.

I started with fingers, snapping each at the base, then peeling off the nail beds in long, wet strips.

I asked after every break: Where is she?

Who has her? What did Lucifer promise you for keeping your mouth shut?

He held out until I moved to the eyes. The knife was too blunt for precision surgery, but I managed to gouge a channel through the lower lid, deep enough that the eyeball drooped from its socket and hung by a thread of optic nerve.

The demon pissed himself at that point, which always signaled the beginning of the end.

When he shit himself a few minutes later, I knew I had him.

Even demons had a breaking point. So used to doling it out, they weren’t used to taking it, and most weren’t able to take this kind of torture for long.

“Talk,” I ordered. My patience was real, but not infinite.

He wept. I watched the yellow tears streak his battered face. “She’s in Hell,” he spat finally, the words burning in his mouth. “They took her below. My brother is her guard. In the North Tower, the palace. Nobody else can touch her.”

I froze. “Your brother.”

He nodded, once, twice, then collapsed into a shuddering heap, the chains the only thing keeping him upright.

“Thank you,” I said, and drove the knife up between his ribs and into the heart. Demons didn’t die like humans, but the pain was enough to render him useless for the next millennium or so. I twisted the blade for good measure, then withdrew and wiped it clean on the hem of his jeans.

I stood, ignoring the blood pooling in my boots. The warehouse was silent again, except for the buzz of dying streetlight outside. I checked my phone. Three new texts from Levi, two from Aziz, all urgent. I sheathed the knife, flicked the blood from my fingers, and left the demon to rot.

As I stepped out into the alley, the cold air hit my lungs and made me want to laugh. I’d been doing this for centuries, but the hunt never got old. If anything, the stakes kept getting higher.

The city lights shimmered through sleet. I kept my head down and walked fast, thinking only of the next steps: find Aziz, find Levi, and bring Lilith home.

Kneeling, I washed the blood from my hands in one of the many rain puddles, grinning a self-satisfied smirk as I did. If Hell wanted a war, they’d just bought one.

***

The penthouse sat thirty-seven floors above the Common, a glass-and-steel coffin wrapped in storm.

Rain lashed the windows so hard it sounded like a million typewriters gone mad.

The city below glinted with blue light, the old bones of Boston stitched together by neon arteries and the occasional flash of police sirens.

I stepped through the private elevator and into the main room, already feeling the mood like static in my jaw.

Aziz stalked the perimeter, bare feet silent on polished wood.

He’d taken off his shirt, and his skin caught the city’s bruised light, shifting from black to purple to something almost gold when the lightning hit.

He paced in a perfect square, shoulders flexing, fists opening and closing like he was kneading dough made of rage.

Levi lounged on the couch, one boot up on the coffee table, twirling a crystal tumbler between his fingers.

There was nothing in it but tap water and a single, melting cube of ice.

His suit jacket lay in a puddle on the floor, his white dress shirt unbuttoned enough to show the tattoos that crawled up his sternum.

He looked bored, but his left leg bounced at a frequency that would have driven a human insane.

Neither of them said a word as I entered. They just watched. Aziz’s eyes burned holes through me. Levi raised his glass, as if toasting my return from the dead.

“Miss me?” I asked.

Levi flashed a smile, pure predator. “You look like shit,” he said.

“Still prettier than you.”

Aziz stopped pacing and planted himself by the window. He stared out at the storm, shoulders rigid, back to us. I knew better than to interrupt him, but I did it anyway. “She is in Hell,” I said. “It’s what we thought. She’s been taken to the palace.”

Levi whistled. “They don’t fuck around.”

“She’s got a guard,” I continued. “Demon I just carved up said she’s in the North Tower.”

Aziz grinned, and for a second, I saw the old Titan behind the mask. “Then we go get her.”

Levi frowned. “And walk into a trap? Lucifer’s palace is more secure than Fort Knox. Fuck all, it might be easier for us to get past he God damn Pearly Gates than into that place without an invite. Last time I checked, you couldn’t even get a Tinder date with someone inside the second ring.”

“Then we crash the party,” Aziz said. “Old-school.”

I laughed, but it came out hollow. “You think he doesn’t know we’re coming? You think he didn’t count on it? He’s using her as bait for exactly this reason.”

Aziz bared his teeth. “You scared, Astaroth?”

I ignored the jab. “I’m not scared. I just don’t want to get us all erased because we let our dicks do the planning.”

Levi set the glass down, hard enough to crack the rim. “He’s right. We need a plan.”

“We need access,” I said. “First step: we breach the ring. After that, we improvise.”

Aziz’s gaze cut through me. “Can you do it?”

I shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”