I didn’t understand why it wasn’t engaging. If it had been sent to kill me, well, I was helpless. Then it shredded my blouse with its talons—and I knew. My skirt fell in tatters beneath razor claws. No. Not that. Just kill me. Please.
It slammed me to the ground and came down over me. The scaly hide bit into my skin, echoed by the painful prick of the metal spikes on its harness. I tried to keep my thighs together, but it ripped them wide-open with a casual gesture. I ground my teeth. It couldn’t end like this: raped and murdered in a village whose name I didn’t even know.
Think.
The demon ran a claw tip down my neck. I felt almost no pain, but then hot blood trickled down my neck. Its long, forked tongue flickered over my skin, snakelike, and it shuddered in pleasure. I lay still, trying not to provoke it. Take your time. I’m no threat. The crucifix had fallen to my side when the demon knocked me down. I fumbled for it, a new idea kindling. If only I could—
Got it. I curled my fingers around it and dropped my mental blocks. As I’d hoped, the years of priestly faith remained, there for the taking. I let their surety and peace swell through me. I didn’t believe, but four hundred years of devotion offered significant power, and I owned it now.
To distract the creature, I softened beneath it. I couldn’t bring myself to arch or moan, but it noticed. The fiend paused in licking up my blood. “Do you attempt to bargain for a painless death?”
In answer I curled my free hand through its harness. It couldn’t know my gift, what had been my one little useless gift. Though I was more now, the touch would save me. Bolstered by the gentle strength and piety of long-dead holy men, I rode the anguish that blazed through me. For countless, infinite moments, I waded through the degradation, terror, and agony it lived to inflict. I lived a thousand nightmares before it carried me to the heart of what I must know.
When I came to myself again, rich in new knowledge, it lay atop me, poised to enter. In some hideous sibilant tongue it crooned to me, opening my legs wide.
I smiled and struck.
My time in the jungle had given me greater strength, or perhaps priestly shades lent theirs as well—whatever the power, the crucifix sank into the side of the monster’s neck. It screamed and rolled, talons scrabbling at the holy object. The cross sizzled in the wound, sending foul ichor bubbling forth. A vile smell filled the air, like burnt, rancid meat.
“You have not slain me,” it snarled, ripping the cross out of its flesh and flipping upright. “Only roused my wrath. Now I shall devour you while I fuck you, accursed meat-girl.”
As it leapt, I dove. Elation flamed through me. It had tasted my blood; therefore, it could be unsummoned, no matter what safeguards the sorcerer had put in place. Now that I knew its name, I owned this thing; the power of ancient kings sang in my veins, and for that moment, I believed.
“In the name of north, south, east, and west, in the name of the once and future queen, in the name of the smoke and the earth, and the wind and the water, I name you Caim, Knight of Hell, who was banished from light of the daystar and may not walk this earth without my leave. I turn and bind you back from whence you came. Tsurikshikn!”
Darklight swarmed around it. If I expected fury or outrage, I was disappointed. Instead, the thing displayed reverence. It fell to its knees as the world ripped wide once more. “My queen,” it breathed. “You are she, born of Solomon the Binder’s line. Master did not tell me, I swear. I did not know.”
And then it crawled backward from whence it had come. Distant screams came to me as if filtered through a layer of water. I heard the pain and the anguish, and then that too fell silent. The air lost its viscosity, holding now only the hint of sulfur and brimstone.
Kel. If that was where the fiend had sent him, I had to get him out of there. My hands shook as I fought to recall precisely what the demon had said to him. If I could find the right words, words that were precisely opposite, I could call him. I knew his name. I crawled across the trampled grass to the crucifix; I would use it as my focus. Once more, the energy surged through me.
“Kelethiel, my friend and guardian, son of Uriel and Vashti, in the name of the smoke and the earth, and the wind and the water, I call and command thee.”
Nothing. No flash of light. No otherworldly pyrotechnics. No, no, no. I wasn’t leaving this up to divine minions, who might not get around to liberating him for a hundred years. Maybe I hadn’t gotten the verbiage quite right.
I wrapped both hands around the crucifix, feeling the burn start on my branded palm. Power built, like lightning in the air before a storm. “Kelethiel, my true friend, son of Uriel and Vashti, on the strength of your sacred vow, I call thee!”
Everything shifted and slowed. It wasn’t like before, but more like the world split in two and then merged. In the old one, I was alone. In the new version, Kel tumbled to the ground before me.
He looked dead, so many wounds. Blood smeared his skin, obscuring his tattoos; they held no light at all. Visible bite marks scored his skin, as if a horde of demons had chewed his flesh. The hole in his chest hadn’t healed, either, not even a little. He had no power in hell, or whatever dimension contained the demons. They’d stripped him, as if his clothes contained his strength or his power. Or maybe they just hadn’t wanted his garments getting in the way of good torture.
Movement in my peripheral vision caught my eye; a few villagers had come out of their homes to investigate the weird lights and noises. I shooed them off with a fierce scowl and a bark of, “¡Lárguense!” I’m sure the sight of a bloody, naked woman and a dead-seeming man did more to frighten them than my voice.
Shielding his body with mine as they hurried off, I remembered how he’d pressed his hands over the wound in his belly in my bathroom; that seemed like ages ago now. Uncertainly, I sealed both his palms atop the gaping wound, using mine to hold his in place. If the fiend had pierced his heart, perhaps he couldn’t heal from this. In all the lore I’d ever read, destruction of the heart guaranteed true death.
For the longest time, I maintained the pose. I didn’t know how the magic functioned, and I’d give ten years of my life for my mother’s grimoires. For the first time, I thought they might work.