“Now I’m pretty sure I’ve heard everything,” I said.
“They’ve stopped moving.” Ingrid pointed to the field, where all twenty-five or so of the hooded figures were now standing equidistant from one another around the outside of their newly drawn circle. I noticed there was a space in their midst that looked as if it was meant for another person.
I suspected it was where Davos should have been, if he wasn’t chained up in a cell under police supervision.
As I was pondering the gap, a final cloaked person emerged from the trees, and this one was not alone.
I immediately recognized the figure of the man being dragged by the cloaked figure. The lean, tall, pale form of Sig was unmistakable, especially with his shirt off, gleaming under the moonlight like a bare-chested beacon.
“Sig,” Ingrid said, her voice breathless.
I could tell she wanted nothing more than to run onto the field and drag him away, but I also wanted to reminder her what had happened the last time she went toe-to-toe with these guys. She had to remember it, but apparently wasn’t worried.
Instead she clicked off the safety of her rifle and edged closer to the lawn. “I’m going to kill the fuck out of those black-hooded douche bags.”
What an incredible sentence to hear from the lips of a woman born in the 1300s.
Ingrid had always been so staid and poised around me. This was a whole different side of her personality, and honestly, I was pretty into it.
The new arrival led Sig into the center of the pentagram and shoved him so hard he went down to his knees. Even from this far back it was obvious Sig wasn’t himself. His head and limbs hung loosely, and he had the wavering look of someone drunk or exhausted, as if he wasn’t fully in himself.
Maybe seeing what they’d done to Ingrid had been the last blow for his resolve.
He appeared completely and utterly defeated.
Ingrid was right. These assholes deserved every single torment coming their way. I didn’t normally relish inflicting punishment on even the worst bastards out there, but man alive, I really wanted to break some bones and split some skulls any time now.
For my friends, and for myself.
This had been one hell of a week, and the last thing we needed to add to it was literal Hell.
Perhaps it was the power of negative thinking, some sort of sour-universe version of The Secret, but the second I started to imagine that portal opening, every single streetlight in the park flickered and went dark.
Moments later, all the buildings around us did the same.
We watched as the New York City skyline stuttered and turned black. Man, these guys had some pretty impressive connections if they were able to create a total blackout.
“That’s probably not a great sign,” Harry said.
Then, Belphegor dropped from the sky, his leathery black wings flashing and his eyes glowing like stoked coals.
I looked at Harry. “You were saying?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Fuck.
A minute ago our odds had been seven against twenty-six. Which by my calculations wasn’t too terrible.
Now we were seven against twenty-six plus one very, very pissed-off Prince of Hell who I had already met face-to-face once and wasn’t too keen to repeat the process.
Belphegor looked bigger somehow. It seemed impossible, and yet looking at him he appeared to be taller than even the nearest trees, which meant he must have been pushing thirty feet.
Super-duper.
“What the hell is that?” Shane asked.
Siobhan let out a soft whistle, one that said she was impressed, but was too quiet for the group on the lawn to hear. “That’s a Prince of Hell,” she declared. “Never thought I’d see one in person, honestly.”