As Adena saw Resent burst into the video feed on her phone from the warehouse’s front security camera, she took a long breath. Why was it that the Prince of Hell, north of four centuries old, couldn’t follow a strategy as elementary as divide and conquer? Much like Resent, Xanthos and Verin reveled in hand-to-hand combat, but unlike him, they excelled at teamwork, having had all their lives to discover how to best cover each other’s weaknesses. Granted, from what she’d heard of the prince, in his prime, he would have made short work of them both. But that was in the body of a full-grown diavolik, not a scrawny, callow sixteen-year-old.
To be fair, Rodrigo was learning as fast as could be expected of someone uninitiated to the supernatural as of a few days ago. Faster, really. He was improving at such a rate that she had to humble him in their latest sparring session to keep him from getting a swelled head, and hopefully curb his growing dependence on Resent’s regeneration. She had slightly regretted it later, when she found him staring at her through his long lashes with genuine concern during breakfast. It wasn’t a look she was accustomed to getting from anyone other than Stefan. Expressions she was most used to eliciting included shock, rage, and unadulterated terror. The last of which, on the faces of those who didn’t truly deserve it, had plagued her dreams for years.
Even with Adena’s second cup of coffee, exhaustion was nagging at every inch of her after thirty-seven hours of sleeplessness. One at a time, she risked rubbing each heavy eyelid with a finger trembling from over-caffeination, never fully taking her gaze off the chaotic melee playing out on her phone’s screen. For being outnumbered, Resent was doing remarkably well. While not as agile as Verin, who was a blur of kicks, even with his right arm hanging loosely at his side, or as hard-hitting as Xanthos, the prince made up for it with defensive use of his nebulae and technique. Technique, her research showed, Resent had honed from a young age through training with one of Hell’s best martial artists, the High Lord of Erodis.
Adena had almost convinced herself that she could stay out of the fight and conserve her dwindling energy, when Xanthos drove his fist into Resent’s gut with such incredible power that he was catapulted out of the camera’s view. Immediately, she closed the video and pressed a button on her phone to raise the garage door in front of her. Unruly as he was, Resent was her greatest asset and therefore a necessary evil. At least until he’d served his purpose.
#
Xanthos’ punch sent Resent spiraling into the side of a parked car, the impact busting a few of the windows as it swayed. At this point, Rodrigo half-believed Adena was leaving him and Resent to fend for themselves as punishment for botching her plan. Since she admitted she wouldn’t be of much use in close combat against these two, the idea had been for Resent to lure one of them onto the roof and keep him there. In the meantime, she would have flanked the other one from the garage that opened at the back of the warehouse and incinerated him in a single blast, turning this into a two-on-one. There hadn’t been time for backup plans, but she had been crystal clear about not letting this drag out. While the lesser demons were being warded off by that god-awful orb of hers, it wasn’t like they had been struck blind and would ignore this brawl occurring under the rising sun.
“How is he still wriggling around with so many broken bones?” Verin whined, struggling to his feet. Hard to catch as he was, he was more fragile than his brother, and so Resent had been concentrating his strikes on him. Despite the brutal blows he received from Xanthos as a consequence, Verin’s injuries were adding up nearly as fast as Resent’s.
“Remember, the nebulae manipulators were also infamous for their accelerated regeneration.” Xanthos strode over to the rear of the car Resent was slumped against and gripped the bumper with enough pressure to dent the metal. With a grunt, he hefted the vehicle off the street, then held it overhead diagonally, the front aimed down at Resent. It would be comically over the top, if it wasn’t so horrifying. “No matter, all we need do is destroy him thoroughly.”
“Holy crap,” Rodrigo mumbled. Adena had warned that like the brothers’ physiques suggested, compared to the average diavolik, Verin was far more nimble and Xanthos was herculean, but with her typical nonchalance, she hadn’t given the pair enough credit.
“This isn’t a particularly impressive feat of strength for my kind...” Resent began, giving Rodrigo a flicker of hope. “Nonetheless, it’d certainly be enough to annihilate this body.” And immediately snuffed it out.
Resent was skidding back, when molten metal rained down onto Xanthos’ head and exposed arms from the vehicle in his hands. Yelping, he dropped the smoking car with a hole burning through its center to his side before it could completely melt on top of him. He tore off the charred helmet that had saved his brain from being broiled and threw it aside, revealing golden wavy hair slick with sweat.
Inside a second, Verin swerved around, scanned the area for his brother’s attacker, then spun back to Resent, his eyes wide. “Who else is with you?”
“From the fear on your face, I imagine you can hazard a guess. I have a Blight in my employ.” Resent smirked, like he was talking about an underling instead of their de facto leader.
Verin blinked. “From Dreadmus? But why would she—”
“Focus, brother!” Xanthos barked, the blackening burns on his arms lacing his voice with pain. “We can deliver her head to Misery alongside the former prince’s. Find her!”
As Verin ran off toward the warehouse, Resent sprang to his feet, arms outstretched, dark orbs already generated on his fingertips. All at once, he fired them at Verin’s back, but Xanthos slid in front of their trajectory, guarding his face behind charred forearms. The nebulae smashed into his vambraces, snapping off several of the spikes but not piercing through. The motion of raising his arms was enough to make Xanthos grit his teeth.
“Pathetic,” Resent said. “With the way the Blight was singing your praises, I expected more. But it seems the two of you are only halfway decent as a set.”
“Easy to say for someone born into such privilege. Your nebulae, your regeneration, your elite mentors...can you honestly say you would be as accomplished as you are without even one of those advantages?”
Resent scoffed. “Oh, conqueror, my estimation of you lowers with each asinine remark that escapes your mouth. The tables turn, and so like a child, you resort to hypotheticals? Have it your way, then. Die in disgrace, at the hands of your contemporary.”
“What the hell are you thinking?” Rodrigo asked as Resent gave him back control.
“Crippled as he is, Xanthos is as good as dead. That slippery bastard Verin’s the real problem. Kill this one off, while I study the other.”
As Rodrigo looked at Xanthos’ face, twisted with vehement fury, he couldn’t help but think of Resent as a matador who had waved the muleta in front of a bull, then pulled Rodrigo out of the audience to be gored in his place. He was tempted to argue the absurdity of this, but this was the first time the prince was choosing to rely on him, and he didn’t want to ruin that newfound trust.
Still, he wasn’t deluded enough to think Xanthos’ injury put them on equal footing. Since Adena had filled him in on how long-lived demons were, all those centuries of experience had become the most frightening thing about them. Xanthos being able to beat Rodrigo to death, even without his arms was a safe bet. Letting him close the distance wasn’t an option. Not on his terms, anyway.
Rodrigo discreetly hid his right hand behind him as he thrust his left out, forming the sphere from the nebulae, then directed it downward. It was actually the creature countering him that taught him the tendrils were sharp enough to burrow through concrete, as they did now. The pair of spikes burst from the ground a few feet away from Xanthos, stabbing upward for his torso. The conqueror raised his leg to kick them away, only for a third tendril to sprout up behind him from Rodrigo’s concealed hand and slice the back of his other knee open above his greave. It was a vulnerable point even in most medieval armor, protection being sacrificed for mobility and comfort. Off balance and hamstrung, Xanthos fell with a grunt.
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No sooner than Rodrigo had gripped the hilt of his sword and started running forward, Verin rushed back over and booted him in the chest. His momentum working against him, he was knocked away and flat onto his back. It wasn’t the power behind the hit, but the swiftness of it that left him gasping for air.
“What is this?” Xanthos demanded, wobbling as he rose yet looking annoyed at his brother’s interference. “You think me incapable of dispatching some mongrel?”
“No, but if you avoid damaging your arms further, they should heal in a few hours. Stay back, and watch for the Blight. She is using a fade periapt, as those of her ilk favor.” As Verin was approaching Rodrigo, he came to a halt and squinted down at him, seemingly just noticing the change in appearance. “Unbelievable. The coward switched places with you? How does he believe that will benefit him?”
“Maybe...I’m more competent than you think,” Rodrigo said through ragged breaths as he stood up.
Verin snorted before darting at Rodrigo faster than he could move a muscle. As his foot was about to kick Rodrigo’s head off his shoulders, Resent popped in and caught Verin’s leg with the nebulae. Not wasting a second on taunts, he crushed Verin’s nose and mouth under a vertical fist. The jab was hard enough to knock off his helmet and hurl him a fair distance.
Resent raised his right arm, pointing his index and pinky fingers at the downed Verin. He took a deep breath as his nebulae raced around him erratically. Once calm, they gathered at his hand, cracks beginning to spread throughout the concrete beneath him. Rodrigo restrained himself from asking for an explanation since Resent seemed to be in a deep state of concentration. By the end, hovering less than an inch from his fingertips, were two small nebulae with an odd shine to them, resembling dark stars.
It wasn’t until Xanthos, who had been hurtling to his brother’s aid despite his wounded leg, made it a few meters from Resent that Rodrigo saw what the previous seconds of buildup had been for. Resent shifted his hand toward Xanthos and the nebulae burst into dual beams that bore straight through his skull, dropping his limp body in an instant, and piercing the building behind him. The beams kept moving, out of sight, but audible as they continued to wreak an indeterminable amount of havoc.
“Xanthos!” Verin screamed as he rose and ran to his older brother’s side. He scooped his brother off the ground with his one good arm and got a safe distance from Resent before pausing. The lower half of his face was smeared with blood, and tears, actual tears, were welling in his eyes. To think, the two brothers must have been part of each other’s lives for several times longer than Carlito had been in Rodrigo’s. He almost felt like the bad guy.
The black slits in Verin’s orange eyes constricted, animal-like in their ferocity, as he glared back at Resent. “I swear on my brother’s corpse, Prince,” He spat the title out as if it were a curse, his mocking tone from earlier gone. “I will return with a legion and tear you, the Blight, and anyone else cowering in that building limb from bloody limb!”
As soon as Verin was gone, Resent fell on hands and knees, taking big gulps of air.
Rodrigo was forced back into control. “Uh, are you all right?”
Resent hesitated. “The 666 is a technique that every member of my bloodline learns. It’s a deathblow, an attack on the soul itself, that there is no regenerating from. But it comes at the considerable price of leaving oneself in an exhausted, vulnerable state, which is why I’ve avoided using it thus far. I do not repeat my mistakes.”
“What mistake?”
“Never you mind. Just return to the building so I can recuperate.”
Adena was standing by the entrance of the warehouse. “See what happens when plans aren’t followed?”
Rodrigo raised an eyebrow. “So, what? You let him get away for a teachable moment?”
“Since I don’t share Jett’s interest in self-destruction, no, I didn’t let Verin do anything. Fast as he was, if I failed to end him in one attack and gave away my position, he could have killed me in seconds.”
Rodrigo found anyone being able to kill Adena in seconds hard to imagine, but she was looking run-down. After Adena had used her key card to open the doors, she pressed a button on her phone. Rodrigo covered his ears as a blaring alarm went off throughout the warehouse.
Jett was the first to react, racing out of his room and down the stairs, coated in electricity. He glanced around frantically before relaxing as much as could be expected. When the electricity died down, Rodrigo was glad to see his cousin had at least pulled himself together enough to clean the blood off his face. Those claw marks were definitely going to leave some nasty scars, though.
Indistinct screams and frenzied movement was heard from the others upstairs until Adena turned off the alarm. Rodrigo went to the bottom of the staircase and yelled up, “It’s okay, guys, we’re not under attack or anything!”
One by one, the group, including a yawning Carlito, came down the steps.
“The hell was that? A fire drill?” Raquel asked.
“Something important has come up,” Adena said. “Feel free to get some breakfast first.”
Rodrigo went over to Carlito, who was in line with the others, to rummage through the huge 4-door refrigerator. “Glad to see you up and about, bro. You had us all worried.”
Carlito stared blankly at him. “Sorry. I still don’t know what happened to me. Did I miss anything big?”
“Yeah, but you’ll hear about it soon enough, anyway.”
Everyone stuck to easy to make foods like toaster pastries and cereal, so after a few minutes, they were all seated around the table.
“All right, what’s this about?” Raquel asked, and all eyes flicked to Adena.
“This location is no longer secure. While you were in your rooms, two powerful demons discovered us. Resent and I killed one, but the other one escaped, vowing to return in force. I don’t plan on being trapped in here, so we’ll be leaving in the next twenty minutes.”
“What?” Leila asked. She checked the time on her phone. “It’s only been a few hours since we got here. I thought this place was supposed to be safe?”
“It’s true. We’re having a streak of bad luck,” Adena said. “First a captain, and then a pair of conquerors. But we have advantages normal people don’t. If we can find an abandoned building, which shouldn’t be hard with everyone fleeing the borough, then we can transfer over the portable defenses I have here and make a temporary safe house out of it.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Carlito said, drumming his fingers on the table. “But what about getting there? I don’t know where we are, but we’re going to have a bad time on foot.”
“That won’t be a problem. Look, our priority is to survive. Staying here all but guarantees our deaths. It’s that simple,” Adena said. What choice did they have? Verin was enough of a handful alone. If he came back healed up and with an army, there would be no way to defend against that.
“So, now that we’re clear on this, pull yourselves together and meet me in the garage,” Adena said as she stood up. “And one more thing. We’re not out there to be humanitarians. I don’t want to see any of you endangering your lives for anyone outside this room.”
“What are you saying?” Raquel asked. “If I see some little kids being attacked by demons that I shouldn’t try to help them?”
“Precisely. Playing hero when you’re out of your depth is a surefire way to get killed. We’ll be seeing plenty of awful things out there. It’ll be hard for some of you, but you need to suppress any altruistic impulses. If not for your own safety, then for the sake of the rest of the group, let those that will die...die,” Adena said before walking away.