tool the universe used to right the scales of balance, then I was willing and ready.
I backed out of the forge, careful not to touch Belial with so much as the barest centimeter of the Spear.
“It was made for me.” The weight, the balance, the length… it was all perfectly designed to suit me. When the Spear was in my hand, I didn’t feel like a person wielding a weapon. I felt like it was part of myself, an extension of who I was in a strange sort of way.
Belial looked it over slowly, his eyes lingering on the reddened skin at the edges of my palm. “We’re ready.”
“Not quite.” I gripped the Spear tighter, determined to know every inch of it before I brought it to the one battle that counted. “Azazel’s been holding out on me. We’re not wasting any more time.”
Belial raised an eyebrow. “He’s always holding out on something.”
We walked to the tunnel together. I went ahead, letting the light drifting off the Spear illuminate my path. “We’re going to go to the Between.”
If Azazel hadn’t told me about it, no doubt it was dangerous. But every second we wasted was another second where the scales of balance tipped further in one direction.
If they went too far, we’d never right them.
21
Azazel
Frost crackled under my hands as I searched the orb, scanning the lands over Irkalla.
Melisande would kill me for doing this without a guide or someone to pull me back, but my lover was far from here, her light gleaming in a completely different portion of the orb.
Besides, I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Satan’s grip on my mind had been oily and slick, but his power was easily recognizable. I avoided it for now, searching the rest of Irkalla for the thing I feared the most.
We were in luck, for the most part. Satan’s power was the only signature registering in the orb, plucking at the edges of my mind, but that was better than the alternative.
Far better than Ereshkigal herself.
I didn’t dare search closer to Kur, where she might feel me lurking in the magic webs entangled around her city, but I still felt remnants of power from an ancient battle staining the lands of Irkalla closest to Kur.
She’d spilled her sister Inanna’s blood there, humiliated her, tortured her, then ripped her heart out of her chest and ate it as we’d watched. It was the last place we should go; the land there had long memories.
And it would know me.
I exhaled and pulled my hands from the orb. As long as Ereshkigal remained holed up in Kur, we stood a chance. If she left, well…
I’d leave Lucifer to his fate. But Vyra… I couldn’t let her die like that, nor could I let Melisande throw herself into it headfirst.
I closed my eyes for several long moments, remembering when Ereshkigal had gripped Inanna by the throat and tore right through her chest, forcing her lover to watch her die.
Then my imagination superimposed Melisande, and then Vyra, in that situation.
Unacceptable.
And yet I couldn’t leave her there.
The conundrum tore at me. I’d always thought I’d be there for Vyra first, willing to sacrifice myself for her, but not if it meant Melisande would plunge in and die, too.
The only way to win was to prevent Satan from getting any closer. If he was swapping bodies, perhaps that’d buy us a little time.
I smoothed my coat and descended through the floor, leaving the silence of my library behind. Soft, agonized snuffles filled the air in the cathedral below.
I gave Druzila and Typhon a cool once-over. And to think I’d believed they would make something of themselves.
All they’d managed to do was embarrass the Grigori and treat my mate like dirt under their heels.
The rage that’d been slowly building since I realized what Satan was doing began to rise again, a slow and steady bubbling in my veins. Every bit of impotent anger that I couldn’t unleash on the one who deserved it was directed at these two, the easy targets sitting in front of me.
It was times like these that I realized I’d never be completely free of the monster inside, whether my soul was whole or not. I enjoyed their suffering, the retribution for their disobedience.
But she would be disappointed if she knew.
I forced myself to exhale. They’d been physically punished long enough. It was time to let them down from their crosses before I vanished, potentially for months.