Immortal Rider_ Lords of Deliverance Series_ - Larissa Ione [8]
Rhys hissed, spraying blood. “It matters not, Horseman. Truly.”
“And why is that?” she ground out.
“Because if he hasn’t broken by now, he won’t. The order has been handed down. He’ll be executed tomorrow. He’ll be dead in twenty-four hours.” He grinned. “The honor will be mine.”
“Wrong answer, asshole.” Limos slammed the dagger through his good eye, gave it a twist, and sent the blade straight into his brain. The demon jerked, his body spasming wildly. “That was for Arik.”
She leaped to her feet, her mind working furiously.
Hellmouth’s gate. Her breath caught as Rhys’s casual mention pierced her fog of fury. Though very few humans knew about them, there were six hellmouths on Earth, passageways through which humans could enter Sheoul—usually dragged there by demons. Could Arik be near one of them?
God, she hoped so, because right now, it was all she had to go on. And she had to hurry, because if Rhys was right, Arik had only hours to live.
Three
Kynan Morgan freaking loved being immortal. Yeah, he bore a lot of weight on his shoulders because of it, weight in the form of the crystal pendant around his neck. But immortality was worth bearing that little piece of Heaven—literally, Heaven. Given the choice, he’d make the same decision to be charmed by angels in order to protect the pendant.
Today, as he surveyed the half-dozen injured demons lying on the floor of the underground Las Vegas pub where he and his new fellow Aegis Elder, Decker, had beaten them into submission, he was more grateful than ever for the charm. The gray-green reptilian bastards hadn’t been able to lay a finger on him, which was great, seeing how their fingers were coated in a sticky acidic substance that bonded them to you like Superglue while they dissolved your flesh.
Decker was currently peeling himself out of his black BDU pants, which were attached to one of the creature’s hands. Just the hand… since Decker had amputated it from the demon’s arm with his KA-BAR.
“Mother. Fuck.” Decker got h1emis pants caught on his combat boots and did some kind of crazy dance as he tried to extricate himself. “God… damn, these demons are nasty.” He tossed the pants away and made a sound of disgust. The vampire bartender, one of the few people who’d remained in the pub when the fighting started, laughed, but shut up when Decker flashed a wooden stake at him.
“I’m just happy you’re not a free-ball kind of guy.” Kynan winced at Decker’s Dale Earnhardt Jr. boxers. “Not that what you’re wearing is much better.”
Decker drew his Aegis sword from the sheath at his back, and hacked off one of the demons’ heads. “Some of us aren’t all charmed up the ying-yang.”
Ying-yang did not sound right with a Texas twang, but Ky kept his mouth shut as Decker separated demon heads from necks, stopping with his blade poised over the heart of the last surviving demon. When the thing reached for his leg, Kynan used his single-handed modified Aegis crossbow to nail the demon in each palm, pinning its hands to the blood-soaked wood floor.
“Thanks, buddy,” Decker said.
Decker had never called Kynan “buddy” before Arik went missing, and the reminder of why they were here pricked at Ky’s temper. With a growl, he kneeled at the demon’s side and held the tip of his double-ended, S-shaped stang to the creature’s throat.
“Where is the human being kept?” he asked.
The demon rolled his lizardlike eyes up to meet Ky’s gaze. “How… would I… know?”
“Because you and your scaly friends have been taking bets on how long it’ll take him to break.”
“Fuckers,” the demon hissed. “We are… what do you call them… bookies? We hear things.”
“You do more than hear things.” Kynan used the tip of his blade to impale a demon tick the size of a damned quarter that was burrowing beneath one of the lizardman’s scales. “You’ve also been taking human form and insinuating yourself into human gambling operations.”
The breakage of Pestilence’s Seal had thrown off the delicate balance between good and evil that