She felt her eyes drift shut but didn’t fight it. Didn’t bother trying to punch the window or shout for help, because … No one is coming.
Maybe something had happened to Pamela. Or maybe she’d come outside to check on them, found Devon asleep, and figured she’d be okay a little longer. The thought made Devon’s heart slam against her ribs, and her eyes snapped open. She hadn’t missed her chance to get help, had she?
Oh God, maybe she had. She should have stayed awake.
A sob built in her throat, but it didn’t come out. Her breaths were just soft, shallow pants now. Like her body didn’t have the energy to take a full breath.
She didn’t know it was possible to be this hot. Or this thirsty. Or this tired.
Her eyes almost slid to the side to get a look at—no. No, she couldn’t look at him. If she looked at him, it would make it real. She needed to pretend that he was okay. Needed to pretend they’d both be okay.
Her eyelids fluttered shut again. She wouldn’t fall back asleep, but she could just rest her eyes for a few minutes.
Tires screeched outside. Doors opened and closed. Footsteps thundered along the cement. And then a hand slammed on the window.
Devon forced herself to look up, saw … “Jolene,” she rasped.
The Prime tried yanking the door open, but it didn’t work. And then one of the lair’s incantors was there, telling Jolene to stand back. The woman then waved her hands and did some sort of chant.
The door was roughly pulled open seconds later, and then Devon was being scooped up by Jolene. “Devon. Oh, sweetheart.” Jolene kissed her cheek. “Please tell me somebody has a bottle of water! Beck, get the baby out.” She kissed Devon’s cheek again. “It’s all right, sweetheart, you’re going to be—”
“Jolene,” said Beck. The word was flat. Somber. Devastated.
“What is it?” Jolene peered into the car. And tensed.
“I don’t think he’s just sleeping,” Devon rasped. “Can we fix him?”
Face crumpling, Jolene just palmed the back of Devon’s head and held her close.
The heavy weight of magick disappeared from Devon’s body, making her suck in a sharp breath. She didn’t hesitate to release the dark power that had been bashing against her ribs. It lunged at the incantor and snapped around her body, squeezing the breath right out of her lungs.
Jo’s eyes widened with first shock then pain. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as the hazy vapor slithered around her like a serpent, tightening and tightening, crushing bones, causing veins to pop, tearing skin, and rupturing blood vessels. Then her head flopped forward, and the power released her corpse in an instant. It was over in mere seconds.
Devon was vaguely aware of Finn leaping to his feet and diving at Eric, taking him down, as she threw a ball of hellfire at Leticia, who’d been staring at Jo in shock.
Leticia stumbled backward, colliding with the wall. “Bitch!”
“Aren’t I, though?” Devon’s inner demon charged to the surface with a snarl, appearing in an explosion of smoke with only a flash of pleasure/pain. It blinked its eyes at its prey, blood boiling with rage, leg muscles quivering with the urge to lunge and maul and kill.
*
“You’re wondering why you didn’t scent me,” Foreman said to Tanner. “I can hide my scent. Make it literally vanish. Hiding the scents of others isn’t as easy—I usually only manage to cover them in a fake scent.”
Which was why Tanner hadn’t recognized Muriel’s scent at Harry’s crime scene. “You didn’t change Muriel’s scent today, though.”
Foreman shrugged. “There didn’t seem any point. You still would have followed the scent down here. I just had to be ready to stop you from disabling the bomb.”
None of them would know the first fucking thing about disabling a goddamn bomb, but Knox would easily dispose of it … if only they could get out of this fucking snare.
“You really want to die, Royal?” asked Knox.
Pain shadowed Foreman’s eyes. “I died here a long time ago. Muriel’s right; this ground needs to be purged of the evil here.” He frowned. “I didn’t help her kill the others. Just kept them still for her. Can’t aim that ability on more than one person at a time, though, so I figured it’d be best to cage you all.”
“It wasn’t,” said Knox.
Foreman jumped back as flames shot out of the ground and lapped at the fluid walls of the snare. Flames that were a mix of red, gold, and black that gave off no smoke. “The flames of hell.” Foreman stared at Knox, his face slack. “It’s true, you really can conjure them.”
“They’ll eat this snare, Foreman,” Knox told him, speaking loud enough to be heard over the crackling, hissing, spitting flames. Nothing was impervious to them. “They’ll devour it, and then they’ll consume you just before they consume the bomb if you don’t let us out right fucking now.”