I crossed the threshold, my boots unnaturally loud in the silence. Far away inside the castle I heard the howl of a wolf.
I ran across the entryway, trying to figure out what direction the noise was coming from. And that was when I was hit from behind.
A heavy body crashed into me, sent me face-first to the ground. Fangs pierced the back of my neck and I screamed in pain. I elbowed Violet with all the strength I could muster—not much, considering how tired I was, but it was enough to make her weight shift.
I wriggled out from beneath her and rolled onto my back as she dove at me again. I slashed out with the sword and felt the blade slice through bone. Violet screeched and fell away from me, clutching her left arm with a clawed hand. The arm hung by a few ragged strands of muscle. She glared at me in hatred.
I struggled to my feet, dizzy and bleary-eyed.
“Poison,” I gasped.
Someone trilled a laugh to my left, and I swung the sword awkwardly in the direction of this new threat.
“Yes, of course there’s poison in her fangs,” Amarantha purred. “And there is no thrall here to heal you.”
I wiped dripping sweat out of my eyes. Amarantha was just a blurry shadow in the hall. I could feel my heartstone throbbing in my chest as the poison careened through my bloodstream.
Violet lunged for me again and I swung the sword at her, both of my sweaty hands gripping the hilt so that I wouldn’t lose it. She danced backward away from the blade. I kept my eyes on her. Violet seemed more inclined to do me physical harm than Amarantha. The Queen liked to keep her hands clean.
“What will you do now, Lucifer’s child?” Amarantha taunted. “The poison will kill you long before your friends get here—if they get here. I’ve left a few obstacles in their way.”
“You really are a gigantic bitch, aren’t you?” I said. My tongue felt thick and heavy in my mouth. “That’s your son up there. Don’t you care if he lives or dies?”
Amarantha was silent for a moment. I didn’t want to steal a glance at her since all of my attention needed to be on Violet.
“Once, I would have cared,” Amarantha said finally. “But he chose his loyalty long ago.”
“Because he fulfilled his duty?” I asked. This was an argument I’d had with Azazel several times. “Because he chose not to abandon the dead to dance at your heel?”
“Yes,” she said. “He is no son of mine.”
“Well, if that’s the way you feel about it,” I said, and I turned and threw the sword at her.
She didn’t expect it, and neither did Violet. There was a moment when time seemed to slow down. The blade flew through the air and passed through her chest, throwing her backward to the floor. I saw blood pooling beneath her.
Violet howled and ran at me. I had no magic, no sword, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stand. So I didn’t. I threw myself to one side and cleverly dodged her attack by falling to the ground. Then I kicked out with both legs as hard as I could, aiming for her knee. I’m not as strong as Samiel, but I am significantly stronger than the average person. There was a satisfying crack and she tumbled forward.
I scrambled backward just enough so that she couldn’t grab at me, but Violet was no longer interested in fighting. She was dragging herself on her one good arm and leg to her Queen’s side.
The snake on my palm wriggled in warning. The sword was still embedded in Amarantha’s body. Violet wasn’t trying to hear the Queen’s last words—she was trying to get the sword so she could chop my head off with it.
“Damn it all,” I said, trying to stand and falling again as my head swam.
I army-crawled toward Amarantha’s body as fast as I could, but I wasn’t going to make it.
Violet used one of the columns to pull up to her feet and yanked the sword from Amarantha’s body. She stood unsteadily on the dislocated knee, but her expression was full of triumph and malice. I heard the last rattle of breath from the Queen, and the misty ectoplasmic form of her soul emerged. The soul looked as Amarantha used to, a vision of otherworldly beauty, not like the twisted demonic body Lucifer had given her.
“Kill her,” Amarantha said.
I pushed to my knees as Violet ran toward me with the sword raised. As she did, the castle began to tremble alarmingly, as if an earthquake had struck. Pieces of the ceiling rained to the ground. The magical spell that bound the castle together must have broken completely with Amarantha’s death.
I heard voices coming closer, J.B. and Gabriel, and Wade’s barking. Violet tumbled to the ground as the castle shook, the sword flying free of her hand. I crawled toward it, sickness rising in my throat, my body on fire. The poison was going to kill me before Violet had a chance.
My fingers closed around the sword. Stars filled my eyes and I rolled onto my back, coughing blood. The poison was in my lungs. It was burning me alive.
Violet closed her good hand around my wrist, tried to wrench the sword from me. We must have looked pathetic, two mauled and half-dead creatures wrestling over a sword as the building came down around our ears.
“Kill her!” Amarantha’s soul screamed.
“Shut…up,” I slurred. “I killed you so I wouldn’t have to listen to you anymore.”
Violet slashed at my face with her claws and my cheek split open. I punched her where Samiel had broken her jaw and she rolled away from me, thrashing in pain. A chunk of the ceiling landed on my stomach and all the breath whooshed out of my body.
I rolled over, knocking the rock to the floor, and tried to fly since I couldn’t walk. But I was too tired to hold myself up and I managed to flutter only a few feet before collapsing again. I didn’t know where Violet was.
The floor cracked underneath me. I could barely see now, between the salt burning my eyes and the pain that turned them black. Even the rumbling of the castle seemed a distant thing.
“There, there, you idiot!”
Beezle. That was Beezle.
Hands underneath me, a cold wet nose pressed against my face, my body lifted and slung over a broad shoulder. I smelled apple pie baking, and heard Gabriel murmuring.
Then I felt cold air on my face, and went out.
14
15
AFTER A MOMENT I REALIZED IT WAS NOT AMARANTHA, but her ghost. She looked more than a little unhinged, and her appearance reflected her state of mind, as it often does with ghosts. If they remember themselves as young and beautiful, that’s how they will look in the afterlife, even if that person died in their dotage. If they pull at their hair and scratch things, then their ectoplasmic form will reflect the ghost’s perception of what they should look like after they’ve tugged their hair and broken their nails.
Amarantha looked like she’d been doing both, and she looked a lot more like a wild bean sidhe than either her perfect faerie self or her freakish demonic form.
“Somebody here needs a salon,” Beezle said. “You’ve looked better.”
“You! YOU!” she screeched, and she pointed her finger dramatically at me. “You stole my life from me. I demand justice!”
And then she flew at me with her arms outstretched, fingers bent into claws.
I stood still and waited for her to pass through me. She did, and I shivered. Ghosts draw energy from the air around them, and it means that they make cold spots. When a ghost passes through you it’s a lot like having ice water poured down your spine.