Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Safia didn’t wince at the knowledge of his orders. She continued that slow entry, filling his mind with her. Petru found the sensation was comparable to swimming through thick murky oil. As a Carpathian, he would have automatically blocked himself from the vile feeling. He could tell Nicu felt the same way.
Sensation is necessary.
Safia’s advice came to him, but not in the same way as it normally did. She was more cautious than usual. The words were more felt than heard, as if she may have stroked them onto the walls of his mind with delicate brushstrokes, barely discernible.
Evil was swift and invasive, pouring into the demon without mercy, stabbing at him from every conceivable angle until his eyes and ears wept blood. He shook his head continually in a feeble attempt to rid himself of the vicious entry of his mistress.
Petru had no time to puzzle out how Safia had known Lilith was going to make an appearance. He was a very powerful Carpathian, an ancient, as was Nicu. It should have been next to impossible to mask their presence from one so evil as Lilith, but both had lived far too long and developed the scars that marked them as more beasts than men. They belonged in the underworld more than either of them belonged in the world above.
But there was Safia with her brightness and innocence. How was it that Lilith couldn’t detect that shining star among the evil and brutality swirling together in the demon’s mind? She had no business being there and should have stood out like a sore thumb.
“Is the woman dead?” Lilith demanded.
“No, mistress,” Art responded immediately.
He clapped both hands to his mouth to prevent the scream that roared through his mind from emerging as she jabbed at his brain and eyes mercilessly with a hot poker. Petru could see the hot stick glowing bright red, retreating and then glowing again.
“Why?” Lilith snarled. “I asked two small tasks and sent four of you to get them accomplished. You were to direct the others. Are you telling me you can’t control them? You can’t get the others to do what you say?”
The sneer of contempt was also a promise of unrelenting retaliation. Lilith was not a forgiving person, and her torture chambers were legendary. Sometimes she forgot she sent her victims there, and they remained for years. There was no dying to escape in the underworld. The punishments went on until Lilith determined they were over.
“We’ll find the woman and slay her, mistress,” Art assured. He dropped his hands. Blood trickled down his face from his eyes. His expression turned sly. “We have a child, part of her family. She will come for him.”
There was silence. Lilith ceased poking at him with the stick. “You may have your uses after all. Don’t kill the child. Bring him to me after you manage to trap the woman. And do not fail me, or all four of you will be fodder for the games.”
A shudder went through the demon. “We won’t fail you, mistress,” he promised.
She gave him one last vicious jab with the hot poker before she was abruptly gone. The demon spat a mixture of blood and saliva on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Aabis demanded. “People eat in here. We keep a clean establishment.”
Now, Safia commanded, take them over now. They can’t see anything or be used as hostages.
Benedek and Mataias instantly materialized, waving hands toward the ring of human males, freezing them in place so there was no possibility of them witnessing the destruction of the demons who were preying on them.
Petru allowed the four demons to see Safia and him standing directly in front of Art. Nicu continued to be concealed, their secret weapon in case they needed one.
Art appeared startled. He looked around the room to make sure the other three former mages were able to see what he was seeing—that Lilith hadn’t driven him insane by her jabbing and piercing with the hot poker.
He lifted his hands to begin weaving a holding spell. “Have you come for the child?”
Safia pulled out a short black sword with an intricate hilt from the inside of her long coat. As she did, the razor-sharp blade lengthened into a crystalline sword. “There is no child here,” she replied.
“You are wrong. Your curious nephew couldn’t help himself when he heard your name and knew Aabis and his friend Kadin planned to set a trap for you. Little did he know, he was to be the bait in the trap.”
“Again, Charif is not here. He is safe at the farm.” She inclined her head, princess to riffraff. “I understand you are looking for me, so I have come to send you home. I am Safia. Ku Tappa Kulyak. Demon Slayer. Defender of my people.”
Art frowned, glared at her and then at the air where he had woven his spell. He looked to the demon on his right. “Use a locking spell, Basil.”