I didn’t think Baalphezar could send another demon this fast, but a much more difficult fight was waiting for me the next morning.

I had effectively beaten the shit out of my training robot over the last couple weeks, so I had borrowed Veazey’s truck to haul Freddy’s remains to the dump. I parked it just outside the Zone and got surprised by another bad guy as I was skipping rooftops.

The demon was green, just over eight feet tall, with emerald skin and a black loincloth. Huge muscles and a broad face. Sharp white teeth and ears so pointy, they almost made me laugh. He was handsome, as demons go - lively and intelligent, resting on his haunches like a gorilla kneeling by a stream.

The creature was hairless, with broad hands wrapped around a blue-gray pitchfork. He was smiling. His voice was deep and reverberating, with no discernible accent. “You thought we only came out at night, didn’t you? Don’t feel bad, it’s a common mistake. I am a lieutenant serving the Demon Prince Baalphezar, and I’ve come to explain some things to you.”

Stunned, I fell back on protocol. “What’s your Name?”

“My name is Belak. My Master is angry with you, and I have come to deliver his terms.” Belak cleared his throat. He was still smiling at me. “But you have some choices to make, and I want you to understand your options. Are you ready?”

I nodded once.

“Excellent. My Master wants you to suffer, but I’ve served him for a long time, and I have some leeway here. Your first option is to cooperate. I’ll preserve your body and take your soul to Hell. You’ll be tortured for a week or so, then you will be expected to offer an apology, followed by a process of atonement that is best left to your imagination. If your contrition is sincere, then your soul will be restored, and you will spend the rest of your life honoring your contract. You might even get Lydia back, if your apology is… creative enough.

“The advantage to this is that no one else gets hurt. My Master won’t care about your friends once he has you working, and no one will harm them once you are taken. On that, I am willing to give you my Word.

“The second option is… uglier. You can fight me, take me on like you have all the others.” Belak smiled wider, wider than any living thing can smile. “Who knows, you might even win! But if you lose, there will be no mercy. I’ll drag you physically to Hell, where my Master will write new pages of suffering upon your flesh.

“Healing magic is not a mercy in Hell. Aleister won’t have a body for a while, but he will give you to his apprentices, and when they run out of tricks, he will rent you out to others. Inquisitors will use you for contests, Imps will eat your tongue, and harem girls will weave carpets from your skin.

“We’ve been interviewing some souls who knew you, studying you since you sent Lydia back, and Sylvia and I have a disagreement over how to handle you. I implored my Master to send her in my place, but Lydia has convinced him that compulsion magic would break something in your mind, and permanently destroy the mechanism that lets you use magic. She made the same claim about your grandfather, and thus kept him from getting exactly the kind of help he needed.

“Men like you and your grandfather need Sylvia. When weak men are left to make their own choices, they make bad ones, or they shut down, and refuse to decide at all, until they are overwhelmed by events, and have no alternatives. This is not simple cowardice. You’re not running from danger when you do this, you’re running from choices, paralyzed by lack of confidence. Men like this seek out strong women who will dominate and direct them, liberating them from that awful burden of choice.

“That is clearly what you need. You had a handler for years before you met Lydia, and when your pony-tailed mistress stopped giving orders, you were utterly adrift. A lifetime of serving Sylvia would be the purest kind of bliss for you, because you would never have to make a choice again. Just learn your magic, eat your vegetables, and do as you’re told, like the overgrown child you are.

“A strong man would have embraced Lydia and devoured that book the moment it was offered to him, like your great-grandfather did. He served us, but he served us on his own terms, and he used our power to accomplish his own goals on Earth. A strong Kovach, in full command of his powers, can lead us to accommodate him, simply because it’s the practical thing to do. Joining the SS was Stefan’s choice, not ours, but that decision left us perfectly positioned to make a deal with the Nationalsozialistische and turn our Master’s Master into their best friend.

“You could have done the same. Embraced your demons, embraced your power, and enlisted Hell to help you fight your war on the corporations you despise. We could have played the different companies off each other for decades, just like we played Russia and the United States, sending you against targets you would have been proud to kill.

“Instead, you’ve retreated into this child’s fantasy of heroes and villains, trying to fight demons in a world where the angels are worse, with no thought to how you could have turned this whole thing to your advantage. That’s how a strong man seizes opportunity, and I hope you’ll remember that, in a decade or so, when you get a choice like this again.

“My Master also believes you want to be a martyr. He says it would be useless to torture you, because you will see pain as proof of your virtue, and every cry of pain will be a cry to Heaven, begging the angels to notice how selfless you are.

“I believe that, too, is nonsense. You say you’re not afraid of pain because you have no idea what pain is. Like most of your generation, you’ve been coddled for so long, you can’t tell the difference between emotional pain and physical pain. But rest assured, I am not here to hurt your feelings. I am here to hurt you, until you understand what pain is.”

I cast Anson’s artillery spell at close range, using all the power I could muster before fear took it from me. The demon swung his pitchfork around and blocked it, moving with impossible speed. The magic just kind of sank into it, covering the weapon in green fire.

“A fine opener!” Belak beamed. “Shall we begin?”

I had wards and fortitude up, but Belak reached out and casually sliced my cheek open, like I had no defenses at all.

“Same wards your ancestor tried, when I had to fight him. You think you’re tougher than he was?”

Belak lunged with the pitchfork and tried to put it right through me. I couldn’t trust my wards, so I did the only thing I could think of. I put all my energy into the fortitude spell and grabbed the pitchfork with both hands.

I had a flashback to the compound, when one of the men dared me to piss on an electrified fence. That was bad. This was worse. A hard, sharp shock, followed by a helpless drained feeling as the tantalum of the weapon sucked magic out of my body. I wasn’t completely drained, but I could already feel myself weakening, as Belak reached out and sliced my other cheek.

“You really embarrassed my Inquisitor, Kovak. He’s inconsolable. He can’t have you yet so he’s asking for the witch. I told him I would offer you one last chance to cooperate, and if you refuse, I will give him the new Hardy. First rule of management, yes? You have to keep your subordinates happy.”

“You can’t touch her! Denise is protected.”

“Cecilia Hardy is protected by faerie pacts. Hardy family property is protected by faerie pacts; but Denise herself was carefully exempted from these. Cecilia wanted to make sure the faeries who enslaved her family had no hold on her precious daughter. So, Denise is free, and completely unprotected. If you insist on fighting me, she will be my… second stop.”

“I don’t want to do that. I know you think we’re monsters,” the monster said, “but I do not enjoy inflicting pain. I have a job to do, and that job comes first. I do what it takes to get my job done, but I am only as evil as I need to be. I am only as evil as you force me to be. Nothing erodes a demon’s reputation faster than unnecessary bloodshed, and that’s what this is, Kovak - completely unnecessary. You know who I was in life?”

“I thought demons couldn’t remember their lives.”

“Most of us can’t, but the information can be bought. I was a warrior, Kovak, a samurai serving Minamoto Yoritomo in feudal Japan.”

I shook my head, oblivious to the slow trickle of blood running down my face. “Even if that’s true, samurai were honorable men. How did you end up in Hell?”

Did all lieutenants talk this much? This guy was a talker, so I encouraged him to talk while I was stalling for time, sucking in magic in erratic, stuttering breaths.

“I had a disagreement with my lord,” Belak said. “I seduced his wife and killed his heir, but that is beside the point. The point is, this is not just a job for me. I see my service to Baalphezar as an extension of my mortal life. I have been given another chance to prove myself. I will give Baalphezar the loyalty I denied my Earthly Master, and I will be redeemed.”

I quick-drew my pistol— and yelped in pain as Belak yanked it out of my hand. He just wrapped his tail around the barrel and pulled, hard enough to strip the skin off my finger. I cursed and stuck my finger in my mouth, quivering while Belak examined the gun. “They’ve made improvements! But there is no time.” The demon twitched his tail and sent my weapon soaring off the roof into god knows where.

Then he lunged forward and stabbed my hand, like he was trying to punish my trigger finger.

“Not completely defenseless, then,” the demon observed. “My weapon can cut through your wards, but you’ve got some other things going. An improved version of your ancestor’s strength spell? Improved after his battle with me, no doubt. It’s making you stronger all the way through, and is that a bit of regeneration? He was so annoyed to lose a fight to a demon, he tried to turn himself into one!”

I tried to dive around his body to punch him or push him somehow, but he was too damn fast. He blocked with his weapon, sucking away more of my magic, leaving me with another bloody wound down my leg.

“I’m going to keep cutting you until you understand why it hurts,” Belak said. “That spell will allow you to withstand incredible punishment, keeping you alive, even when I do things like this.”

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Belak lunged forward and jammed his weapon right through my gut, until I could feel the points of the pitchfork sticking out my back. Then he yanked it out and continued to lecture me, as I collapsed onto the dirty concrete roof.

“You should bleed out now but watch the spell. It’s repairing your organs as we watch, just enough regeneration to get a mage back on his feet and give him another chance at winning a duel. But this is not a duel. This is a lesson, and the lesson is not over.”

Belak winked at me, and I ran. I figured, he’s big and strong, maybe he’s slow. But Belak wasn’t slow. Belak was patient. He made no move to follow me; just leaned on his pitchfork and let me run.

I didn’t slow down and I didn’t look back. My mind was focused on one word. Truck. I had to find the truck. Hop in the truck and drive to the tower, where the wards could protect me. Belak looked like he weighed six hundred pounds; surely, he couldn’t outrun a car. I was traveling in a straight line, using levitation to skip the rooftops. A month ago, this would have impressed the hell out of me. Today, it was just instinct.

I hit a long stretch and paused to get my bearings, trying to remember where I parked. Suddenly, the whole roof shuddered, knocking me off my feet. I rolled over and Belak was there. He couldn’t fly, he just jumped. He didn’t have wings, but with legs like that, I guess he didn’t need them. I got to my feet and fumbled in my holster, reaching for a pistol that was now lost in the dirt, fifty yards away.

I tried to run again, but Belak wrapped his tail around my neck and yanked me backwards off my feet. I hit the ground gagging, struggling to breathe. Belak came around in front of me and stomped on my chest with one giant foot. I’d lost my concentration on the way down, so the impact broke three ribs and squeezed all the remaining air out of my lungs.

Still grinning, Belak flipped his weapon around and centered the points on my chest. “One last bit of irony for you, Kovak. This weapon that’s about to steal your soul? Jacob found it for me. Isn’t that funny?”

I couldn’t remember my healing spell, I couldn’t remember my wards. I couldn’t think of anything but air. Sweet, delicious air. I’d sell my soul for… My right hand was flopping around of its own accord, digging in my pocket for what? Bus pass? Chewing gum? Bullets for a broken gun? My hand dipped in my pocket and came out with Cecilia’s knife.

I had a weapon, but what good would it do? Six-inch handle and a two-inch blade, versus six-hundred pounds of demonic killing machine? Most of my brain was preparing for death, but one random neuron in the back was still firing. Belak was pulling the pitchfork back, about to plunge the points into my chest. That was important, but there was something else, something important that didn’t seem to matter at the time.

My last neuron processed the thought and turned it into words. I figured what the hell, he’s wearing a loincloth, maybe he has a groin? I gripped the knife and extended the blade. Belak had shifted his weight to his back leg, giving me just enough room. I leaned on my left arm and stabbed viciously with my right, burying my knife in the dark dangly bits under his cloth.

I felt it go in, but I couldn’t see anything. I wasn’t sure I’d hit something until I heard the demon roar. The sound prompted me to take a breath. No idea what weird faerie shit this knife was made of, but apparently it could make demons feel pain. I braced myself and leaned in with all my strength, slashing in and up and left and right, all at the same time.

I pushed, and the knife kept going in, just as far as I could reach. My right hand sank into something warm and wet, all the way to my third knuckle. Then the knife hit something solid and stopped. I wasn’t strong enough to pull it out, so I left it there and tried to stand up.

The demon’s foot was off my chest. He was hopping backwards, clutching at his wound. I couldn’t tell how much he was actually hurting, but he seemed very upset about the damage.

I crawled across the roof and took off running again, fighting for traction as I slipped in a pool of Belak’s blood. I ran blindly, struggling to stop the gibberish in my head. Truck. Truck. Where did I park that fucking truck?

I tripped on a ledge and fell. Belak was right behind me, and I had nothing left. No gun. No spells. No knife… But the knife was hexed to my hand. I wrapped my mind around it and held out my hand. An interminable pause, and another roar, as the knife tore through Belak’s scrotum, on its way back to me.

The knife slapped in my hand with a satisfying thunk. It was covered in goo, and I didn’t have time to clean it off. I jammed it in my pocket and tried to think. I couldn’t even think in sentences anymore. My mind was just a random string of words. Run. Die. Stand. Fight.

I took in a huge gulp of magic and charged up my spells, a second before Belak hit the roof. He was limping, with a slow trickle of bright green blood pooling on his foot. But the bastard was still smiling, and he still loved to talk.

“Oh, what is this? What is this? A mage who stands and fights? Stupid boy. Mages don’t stand. Mages don’t fight. Mages cower behind warriors and sling spells from the back row. Mages hide in caves and send slaves to do their fighting for them. Really, Kovak, how can you hope to defeat us, when you ignore the most basic rules of your profession?”

He was about to charge me, but I was already moving. Running start and a flying kick, using levitation to push myself down, like he was a roof I was trying to land on. I hit him dead center and knocked him off the roof. Belak fell four stories and left a demon-shaped dent in the ground. But I had used too much force and sailed off into nowhere. I grabbed the ledge and slammed myself against the side of the building.

I levitated myself back up to the roof and saw Belak was still in his hole. I should have turned and run the other way. Instead, I got another running start and jumped on him, trusting the fortitude spell to keep my bones intact.

Watching this fight in the mirror, I can’t believe I did that, and I can’t remember what I was thinking. The impact drove him down, but I had foolishly put myself in range of his arms again. He reached up and swatted me away. I caught myself in mid-air and levitated back to the roof.

Belak jumped up to join me, leaving us in a classic showdown position - precisely the setup I was trying to avoid. We were face to face now. I could barely breathe, and I had lost the element of surprise. Belak held his arm out, and his weapon came spinning back into his hand. I guess demons can do that, too.

Belak was laughing. “My god, boy! You are magnificent. All those years since I fought your ancestor, I never thought we’d get another one worth fighting. Imagine! A mage that stands and fights! I live centuries waiting for a day like this! I still have to kill your friends, but now, before I kill them, I’ll tell them what a great man you were!”

I knew it was pointless, but I really wanted to run. I swayed on my feet and took one last look around. The grass and the trees. The river and the shattered buildings. And a red blob that could only be Veazey’s truck. I would die looking at it.

Belak was behind me, but he wasn’t poised to strike. He was following my gaze, reading my thoughts like they were written on the back of my head.

“Your vehicle. The machine you would escape in.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Run for it. Run for the machine. If you make it, I’ll give you one more day. Twenty-four hours of peace until I come again.”

I coughed and spat blood over the edge. “Bullshit.”

“You think I’m lying to you? Oh no, I would not lie to you. I owe you, boy. I owe you for the best fight I’ve had in years. I offer you one more day of life. Another day with your friends. Another day to laugh and cry and remember who you were. Another day with your loved ones, another night with fair Judith, a chance to say all those things you meant to say. Think about it, Kovak. Think what you could do with one more day.”

I was quiet, but I wasn’t thinking about his dare. I was thinking about Belak, wondering what it would take to beat him. I couldn’t match him in a straight fight. He was too strong, too smart, and too fast. I had to surprise him, but he’d done this a hundred times. How do you surprise a creature like this?

There was something different about the pitchfork, but it took me a moment to remember what it meant. When he blocked my first bolt, the weapon had been a lustrous blue gray, a bit darker than titanium. I had watched the magic flare up along the length of it and sink in. Now the pitchfork was jet black, and that meant something. Tantalum turns black when it’s saturated with magic. He had used the weapon to cut through my wards, and block my artillery spell, but now it was full.

I took three quick steps and launched myself in the air. Belak thought I was running. Hell, for a minute, even I thought I was running. But I wasn’t taking his offer. I had made a choice. I knew my condition, and I knew my limits. My concentration was shot, my spells were failing, and my left lung was slowly filling with blood. I would never make it to the truck.

One leap, and I was away from him, four stories in the air, sucking in magic all the way. I was low on juice, and I only had time for one spell. I could attack, or I could break my fall, but I couldn’t do both.

Levitation was in my head, but I didn’t cast levitation. I twirled in mid-air and hit Belak with everything I had, every drop of rage in my body, converted to magic and fired at point-blank range. I hit him with the artillery spell, bathing him in white fire until I couldn’t see his body anymore. I was falling like a rock, but I didn’t care.

I hit the ground and rolled onto my face, screaming as my legs broke. I was still for a long time - broken, stunned, and struggling to breathe. Then the air came in and I started to sob, crying and screaming and clawing at the grass.

A long black object landed beside me and went twang, quivering in the wind. I looked up and saw Belak’s severed hand, still wrapped around the shaft. The weapon lingered for a second, and disappeared, dropping Belak’s severed hand on the grass.

My body was a mess, but flesh was the least of it. I yelled, “Jeeves, heal!” I don’t know how long I was there, writhing on the ground while the spell knit my bones back together. It felt like forever, and as usual, the cure hurt worse than the disease.

The fight was over, but I was still boiling, sucking in magic like I expected him to come back. I tried to stand too soon after the healing, stumbled and fell again. I needed something to lean on, so I crawled to a building on my hands and knees, grunting and gasping as I struggled to my feet. I stubbed my toe and started kicking the building, sending wicked shocks through fresh tissue. The wall didn’t move, so I started beating it with my fists. My aura was so bright, I could see tiny grooves in the brick.

It was the first time I couldn’t stop it, the first time I really lost control.

Azael made me watch the surge, captured with perfect fidelity in his mirror.

I watched myself spit on the ground and scream down at Hell, “Is that all you got? You’re next, motherfucker! You hear me? You’re fucking next!”

I wiped my nose and spat a stream of pink mucus, enraged by the taste of my own blood. The magic was still coming, stronger and stronger until I thought I would burst.

“Fuck the planning! Fuck the plan! You and me, asshole! Right here! Right now! I know you’re watching me. No more lackeys! No more threats! Come up here and fight like a man you prehistoric fuck!”

I took hold of the power and fired six bolts across the river. I was trying to bleed it off, but it just kept coming.

“Come on you bastard! I’m right here! No friends! No backup! I don’t even have a gun! Face me now or I’m coming for you! Face me now or I’m coming to Hell. I’ll break your gates and I’ll kill your guards and I’ll tear that fucking palace down brick by brick! You hear me? I’m coming for you! Anson and Grandpa and all those other ancestors you fucked! I’ve got their secrets and I’m coming for you! We’re all coming for you!”

Expanding circles of uncontrolled magic surging at my feet again. Whump. Whump. Whump. Too much rage. Too much power. Crashing against me like waves breaking against a rock. The power lifted me up and burned a blooming circle in the ground. Too much to stop, too fast to send it anywhere. And when I couldn’t fight it anymore, I spread my arms and screamed at the sky.

The world went white, and I woke up in a circle of burning grass. The stronger buildings in the radius were bent, and the weaker ones had collapsed entirely, leaving mismatched piles of rubble where they stood. I saw brick and girders and a crumpled ball of red, resting by a burning tree - the remains of Veazey’s truck, smashed like a giant had thrown it there.

* * *

Belak hit the Lake just as hard as Lydia did, but he seemed much less bothered by it, casually strolling back to the palace with a little smile on his face.

His Master was alone, using his mirror to try and find the Kovak boy, still unable to pierce the miasma left by a dead god. He had been trying to watch the boy’s fight with Belak, hoping to finally see an end to his humiliating display of defiance, when Belak walked in, and confirmed that Baalphezar really might have to deal with this personally.

Belak did not kneel before his Master in disgrace the way Lydia did. He just strolled up and said, “The Eighth Kovach has defeated me.”

Belak was expecting a burst of childish rage, his Master’s default reaction these days, but Baalphezar sounded strangely curious. “How is that possible? How does he keep doing this?”

Belak cocked his head. “Master, you will not control this one with fear. That boy broke his own legs to bring me down. I don’t know what he was when Lydia found him, but he’s a fighter now.”

Belak turned and strolled down the hall to the barracks, as his Master yelled behind him. “You were not dismissed! You were not dismissed!” But Baalphezar’s lieutenant didn’t even turn around.