Which was what this was, come to think of it.
I took a steadying breath and l
ooked at the crowd of black hoods moving in around me, then stared up to the massive demon looming over me.
“I’m going to take them down, and then I’m coming for you,” I said.
He chuckled at that, and the sound of his laughter instantly made me regret how I’d chosen my words. One of the hooded acolytes dove at me, and I swiftly divorced his head from his shoulders.
The rest of the group had inched closer to the blazing circle, which was now almost completely alight, and still Sig hadn’t moved a muscle. The ground continued to fall away beneath the smoldering lines, showing a bottomless burning pit underneath him.
Something down there was stirring.
Scratch that. A lot of things down there were stirring.
I dispatched more heads from the bodies nearest me, but the bulk of the group had turned their attention to my friends as the cult realized we were bent on dismantling the circle and shutting their precious gate.
The first clawed hand cleared the cusp of the pit when I was about fifteen feet away from the edge. Over this past week I’d come to realize something about demons and how they looked. When you see those old wood-cut drawings of demons that look borderline goofy, it’s most likely because someone who actually saw a demon went absolute batshit insane as a result, and then tried to explain what they had seen to an artist.
So you’re telling me it had horns and wings and a face made out of melted babies?
Seriously, go look at old demon art and tell me that’s not someone doing their best to draw the words of a crazy person.
The thing that came out of the pit could, politely, be described as fearsome. It was dark gray, its skin covered both in crocodile-like scaly flesh and singed feathers. It didn’t have horns, but rather ridges of hard skin or bone running down its scalp all the way to the base of its back. No tail, either, but it did have four legs, each with clawed toes.
It sniffed the air cautiously, then spotted Belphegor and gave a modest bow. “Liege. We wondered what had become of you.” Its voice was rocks in a garbage disposal.
“We must rid ourselves of the human complaint here,” Belphegor said, indicating all of us, including the cult contingent. He clearly didn’t care who ended up dead, as long as the gate remained open. “Our brothers and sisters must be freed.”
Oh yeah, that so wasn’t happening.
The newly arrived demon looked teeny tiny next to the looming figure of Belphegor, but was still pushing nine feet tall, which made him a heck of a lot bigger than the rest of us.
The moment he’d emerged, all fighting had come to a stop because the reality of the open gate had quickly sunk in. The cult members who were still alive and not undead puppets, were now seeing their plan in action, and I think maybe one or two of them were second-guessing their life choices.
One guy made a break for it, and no one stopped him.
No judgment here.
Flames had surrounded Sig now, completing the circle. He didn’t show any sign of getting up, even though the only thing keeping him from falling into the depths of Hell below him were a few hastily drawn spray paint lines.
There was only one person who was going to get his ass in gear.
“Ingrid,” I screamed. “You have to get Sig.”
He wasn’t going to move without her. He was crippled under the weight of thinking he’d lost her, and it wouldn’t be until he saw her face that he would realize there was still something left to fight for.
A few feet away from me, Holden was going hand to hand with one of the vampiric cult members. At least I assumed the guy was a vampire, because he was holding his own with one of the Tribunal Leaders. Holden threw a vicious right hook at the guy, getting blood all over his knuckles and his nice, tailored gray suit.
That’s what happens when you wear a custom Gucci suit into battle, I guess.
Emilio was just outside the melee, his gun trained expertly as he avoided our people and did his best to stop the goons from getting back up again whenever we took them down. Siobhan, likewise, was keeping her distance but doing killer work with her headshots, and Shane was busy diverting the cult members from advancing on either Emilio or Siobhan.
Still, we felt wildly outmatched here. Even though I’d managed to behead several of the dead cultists, there were more, always more, and at least ten of them stood between Ingrid and Sig.
“Harry.” I looked around wildly for my demon sidekick and spotted him with one of the cult members in a suffocating chokehold. “Get Ingrid to the circle.”
He obediently dropped the cult member into a heap on the grass. Before Harry could get anywhere near Ingrid, the ground began to rumble, and in two giant steps, Belphegor was standing above us. He plucked Harry up off the ground as if he were merely a toy, holding him almost daintily around the neck.