Imp Forsaken (Imp Book 5) (39 page)

F
or some odd reason, it took Ahriman a few days before he approached me to “try again”. I wasn’t sure if he needed a recovery period, or there was other business he needed to attend to. During that time, I paced the damp dungeon, practicing holding energy within me and converting my form. I
was
recovering my abilities. Too bad I wouldn’t have the time to fully regain them.

I cringed when I smelled Ahriman’s familiar smell, watching his smoke form coalesce in the dim light. Just as he became vaguely solid, a furred lump crashed from his arms to the floor. I stared into Dar’s one red eye, the other swollen shut, his snout covered in blood.

I would have had the succubus join us, but she is well protected at the moment.

“Fucking Wythyn elves.” Dar’s voice was slurred, but the one good eye was fierce with anger.

Yes. Shame their leader is dead. He had his uses.

It was then I noticed the silver collar around Dar’s neck. No wonder he was so physically damaged. He wasn’t able to fix any injuries with that damned thing on him.

“Let him go.” I strode toward Ahriman, clenching my fists. “We had a deal. You don’t touch my household. Any discipline of them goes through me.”

We did have a deal, Az. But you neglected to disclose your damaged state, and you’ve been duplicitous in our very first breeding attempt. Breach of contract, my dear. All bets are off.

I halted, staring down at Dar as my blood ran cold. “I’ll give you want you want.”

I’d risked Dar’s life enough—all for demons, humans and angels he didn’t care about. Gregory refused to kill me up on Devil’s Paw, but he wouldn’t hesitate to take out the monster I’d be forced to create. Would he and the other angels prevail? They were ancient and powerful, but so was Ahriman, and if he had not just one, but a small army of devouring spirits, Aaru would fall. But with my brother before me, I couldn’t choose otherwise, even with the entirety of creation at stake.

“Don’t you dare give this fucker anything!” Dar snarled.

Ahriman kicked him in the side, launching him to land at my feet. He coughed, and chunks of bloody flesh sprayed my legs.

“There are things in life worth dying for,” he whispered, blood bubbling from his mouth. “Make me proud, Mal. Be the demon I would follow through hell and back.”

My eyes stung, Dar blurring as I looked down at him. We were going to die. We were both going to die.

“Fuck you, Ahriman. I won’t give you shit.”

In a flash I was pinned against the damp wall, glowing silver restraints pinning my wrists to the stone. I didn’t have much energy, but I’d be unable to get free, unable to fix any of the damage Ahriman was sure to inflict.

Then I will just take what I want.

Ahriman dove his spirit-self into mine, easily resisting my attempts to expel him. I began a series of futile evasion tactics, trying to hide my devouring ability from him while knowing full well it was just a matter of time before he gathered whatever he wanted and ripped it from me. It didn’t take long before he’d cornered me. He reached for my devouring abilities. I closed my eyes and felt the red-purple within me, the angel-spirit I’d stolen from Gregory, leap forward, blocking him. Ahriman screamed and yanked clear of me, nearly tearing me in half in his haste to retreat.

An angel! You have part of an angel. And not just any angel, one of ancients—the Dragon Slayer, the Prince of the Presence.

I opened my eyes and saw Ahriman inches from me, his orange eyes calculating as they swept me.

You will give me what I desire. Give it to me!

We’d gone from “I’ll take it” to “give it to me”. I realized that the angel-spirit would keep Ahriman from snatching my devouring ability. His increased eagerness was easy to understand. I’d managed to tear away part of a powerful angel—probably the most powerful angel in Aaru. That kind of skill was what he so desperately needed. Too bad.

I spat at Ahriman. He grinned, before turning to Dar. I looked at my brother in apology, and saw the angry resolve in his eye. It gave me strength.

I will drive him to the point of death, and you will have a few brief moments to change your mind before he is gone forever. Just give me what I want, Az, and I will raise you to the highest state. You’ll be my equal, walk by my side as I crush Aaru under my heel. I’ll even let you finish eating that sanctimonious bastard of an angel.

I kept my eyes on Dar, drew from his strength. “I’d much rather angel-fuck that sanctimonious bastard than eat him. Rot in Hel, Ahriman.”

The demon sprouted vicious claws on his feet and began to kick Dar, tearing sections of his abdomen with each blow. When Dar became a bloody mess of fur and flesh on the stone floor, Ahriman turned to me.

It was my turn, and it wouldn’t be quick. I thought of Gregory and realized that we’d never have our eternity of sin together. He’d mourn, but I knew in my heart he’d be proud of my decision. Would he ever know my sacrifice? Would he ever realize I’d died doing the right thing?

The right thing.
This is my parting gift to you, my angel,
I thought, and I opened up the place in me where all my Owned beings resided. I flew wide the doors to my soul and felt a rush as they exited. Ahriman laughed and gnashed his yellow teeth, slowly approaching.

You too,
I told Samantha Martin.
End of the line, girlfriend.
She hesitated a moment, and just as the demon reached for me, she left, sweeping out of my spirit-being into her afterlife.

Teeth tore into my neck. I felt the muscles tear, the blood pour down into my lungs and out along my skin. I looked death in the eye and felt oddly light. Something bright and shining swam through me, like a river of fire. A river of smokeless fire. As I danced on the knife’s edge between life and death, the red-purple of Gregory’s spirit-self erupted within me, suffusing my being with a burning heat of power.

The dungeon exploded in light. I heard Ahriman scream, felt him slap against me as he pushed himself backward. The restraints that held my arms melted, dripping on the floor to smoke like white acid. I felt oddly unbalanced, as if something unfamiliar and heavy rested against my back. But it didn’t matter, because I was free, and even if I died, I was going down fighting.

I dove for Ahriman, but my physical attack was wasted on a semi-solid demon. His black surrounded me, seeping into my pores and through to my spirit-self where he hit me with a massive surge of energy. It should have split me in half. It should have killed me. It certainly hurt like fuck, but I wasn’t dead. I blasted him back, realizing my efforts were in vain. I just couldn’t pull as much energy as I used to, and Ahriman was ancient.

He swarmed me, and his oily, black essence was doing something to me that his energy attack couldn’t. I felt my skin sizzle as if he were acid, and where he touched my spirit-self, I burned. The pain overwhelmed me and I gave up my attack, swatting frantically at his black smoke with both arms. I heard his high-pitched scream, saw slashes of light appear in the darkness and realized that something was in my right hand. A sword.

Fucking piece of shit. Where had it been? I’d needed it desperately, and it had refused to come. But I wasn’t about to refuse to use it in a fit of pique. I’d use the damned thing now, and yell at it later.

I hacked at Ahriman like a woman possessed. He pulled back, his oily smoke swirling into a column. My downward stroke tore a line of white through him. I reversed my grip to hit him on a backstroke, and his coal-black hand grabbed the hilt just above my fingers, nearly wrenching my shoulder from its socket.

Ahriman pulled. I pulled. We danced around the dungeon in a deadly tug-of-war. He was winning. What would happen if I lost my grip? Would the sword abandon me as before? Would it betray me and go to him? Fury coursed through me as I thought of my fickle artifact, and I yanked with all my might. Ahriman held firm, and my grip slipped. He pulled. The sword slid from my grasp. By some odd turn of fate, he had unbalanced himself, expecting me to hold firm. He staggered backwards, his heels hitting something large as he tumbled onto the damp dirt floor.

Dar. The sword vanished. I hesitated a split second, looking at my brother as he lay on the floor in a pool of blood. He was going into convulsions. With no time left, I needed to give this everything I had if I had any hope of saving Dar.

I leapt onto Ahriman and straddled him as he bounced against the floor in a puff of oily, black smoke. White streamed from me into the demon, and I frowned. What the fuck was up with that? Whatever it was, it seemed to be working. Ahriman thrashed and screamed under me, pieces of him shattering into frozen chunks. His smoke held motionless for a second in the air before it dropped to the floor in tiny grains. Sand.

His orange eyes met mine, full of hatred.
Angel-loving bitch.

“Damned straight.”

I threw everything at him, and he erupted in a sandstorm of particles, blasting the dungeon walls. I stared down at the gritty floor, at the golden dust coating my hands. Holy shit on a stick, what had I done? I’d somehow managed to take down an ancient demon, one of the strongest in all of Hel.

But there was no time to contemplate my strange new powers. I crawled through the sand and grabbed Dar, sending my spirit-self into his body.

He wasn’t there.

Fuck. Fuck! I expanded, frantically searching while keeping myself anchored to my physical form. It seemed like hours that I searched, panicking. He couldn’t be gone, couldn’t be dead. Not Dar. No.

I felt a feathery wisp of his spirit-being and pulled, spooling him to safety inside my form, holding him as Gregory had done to me in the fire. He shuddered in pain, and I ran myself over and through him, hoping he’d excuse my intimate familiarity. After an exhaustive search, I finally relaxed. All the damage was on the surface. Nothing significant had been lost. I had gotten to him just in time. One more second and he would have been in the same shape I’d been, or perhaps worse.

If I let you go, can you create a corporeal form?

I felt his confusion. He’d never done this sort of thing before, never been without a body. Sharing mine, he wasn’t sure how to separate and create his own. We do this upon birth, but it’s not a skill we practice afterwards.

Stay here. Hold onto me.

I felt him cling, and I reached down to his dead body, brushing the grains of sand from it, melting the silver collar like warm butter in my hands. Dar’s form had been ripped to shreds by Ahriman’s claws. He’d quickly bled out. I couldn’t put him back inside a dead body—he’d not learned to live inside one as I had. I reached down and ran my hands over the grey fur, staring as the flesh knitted beneath my fingers. This was a day of surprises. I’d somehow gained the power to dust ancient demons, and now I could heal. The rat-like snout of Dar’s body grimaced up at me, a variety of unsavory fluid coating the lips. This was totally gross, but it was how the angels did it. I shuddered in revulsion then leaned down to place my mouth against his.

Golden light spilled from me. The body shimmered, lungs inflating and heart pounding.

In you go,
I told Dar, snatching him and tossing him into the body. I sensed his panic, and then he grabbed hold, clinging to his rat form with all his might. I pulled my mouth away, spitting in an attempt to rid my mouth of the horrible taste, and I watched. And hoped.

“Come on, Dar. I can’t lose my favorite brother.”

Red beady eyes opened a fraction, then wider. He bit me, jumping as far as he could and baring his teeth.

“Son of a bitch!” I swore, clutching my arm. “Dar, you bastard! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

His jaw dropped. “Mal? Mal? What happened? What did that shit-for-brains Ahriman do to you?”

What was he talking about? For the first time, I became aware of my surroundings. I’d noticed the sand grains that had once been Ahriman spread across the floor, but the whole thing seemed abnormally lit up, as if someone had finally found the light switch to the dungeon. The light wasn’t coming from any fixtures, though: it was coming from me. I looked down and saw myself, a vaguely humanoid form, shimmering indistinctly with a golden light.

And I panicked. Holy fuck, would I always look like this? I’d let all my Owned souls go; would I have the ability to recreate anything beyond this weird, alien-looking silhouette? I tried to calm myself, to steady my breathing and assume a shape, any shape—my first form, Samantha Martin, an insect, anything. The light dimmed, and I saw my hands become flesh. I breathed easy, realizing I’d created the human form I’d worn for over forty years. I had no idea how accurate it was, but anything was better than glowing, gold alien.

“I don’t know what happened. Do I look all right now?”

Dar’s eyes went from my face to something off to my left. I heard a rustle, felt a shiver of something beyond my back and looked in that direction, dreading what I might see.

“Mal, you have wings,” he whispered, as if afraid someone might overhear him.

I did. And they weren’t the leathery kind I usually created. Black feathers covered my wings—light-devouring matte-black that absorbed the dim light of the dungeon. It was noticeably darker for a few feet around the wings. I caught my breath, and they shivered in response. They were so sensitive, and I was aware of every particle of air against them.

“You’re an angel.”

I’ll be damned. “I am
not
a fucking angel. I’m a demon, an imp.”

“If you say so.” Dar’s eyes drifted to the black-feathered protuberances.

I scowled and concentrated, trying to dissolve them as I would my leathery ones. Nothing happened. I tried a few more times, then attempted to make them smaller, change them into leathery ones, hide them from view. Nothing I did altered the huge black-feathered appendages attached to my back. If I changed my form would they remain? I had a feeling the answer was yes, and the mental vision of myself as pond scum with huge black wings was disconcerting. They were impossible to ignore. I could feel their weight and sensitivity, like extra limbs.