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LARGE, LEATHERY, TATTERED black wings flapped hard as the hideous demon carried Sorcha upwards. The hell spawn’s body was thin and malnourished, with ribs that were far too prominent. Deep, ugly scars crisscrossed the creature’s body. Glowing gold eyes scanned the area, searching for somewhere to land.
They flew southwards and ended up in the Night Cursed District. They descended and landed on the rooftop of the insane asylum. Sorcha dispelled the noise muffling part of her shield, then spoke. “Are you going to kill me?” she asked warily.
“No,” the demon replied in a guttural, yet somehow feminine voice. She kept her face averted, as if she didn’t want the assassin to see her clearly. “If I wanted you dead, you would be.” Her tone was matter of fact rather than boastful.
“Why did you kill that other demon and bring me here?” the sorceress asked. She was poised to cast a deadly spell if she had to, but she was too curious not to ask.
“I owed you a debt. The debt has now been repaid.” The demon turned to fly away, but Sorcha reached out to touch her wing. Yanking her wing away, the hell spawn spun around and hissed at her. “Don’t touch me!” she said in warning. Twin talons on the ends of her wings were held ready to skewer the assassin.
“Sorry,” Sorcha said, holding her hands up peacefully. “I just wanted to know what debt I owed you. I’ve never even met you before.” She’d seen the demon flying around a few times. Her gold eyes were too rare to belong to anyone else.
“You’re the assassin who killed Beleth, aren’t you?” the creature asked, averting her face again. “I recognize your scent.”
Sorcha glanced at the scars crisscrossing the hell spawn’s skin. They seemed to cover her from head to toe. She debated about whether it would be stupid to reply, then threw caution to the wind. “Yeah, that was me,” she admitted. “How could me killing him put you in debt to me?”
“By murdering Beleth, you released me from imprisonment,” the demon said. “He’s no longer my master and I am now free to seek my revenge.”
“Who do you want revenge on if Beleth is already dead?” Sorcha asked.
The demon cast her a look and her gold eyes blazed as she bared her teeth. “I want revenge on the creature who is responsible for my slavery,” she growled. A hint of hellfire flickered in her eyes, then she launched herself into the air and flew away.
“That was weird,” Sorcha said when the creature was gone. “I never expected to be rescued from demons by one of their own kind.”
She teleported home and took a seat on her gold divan. Lightning flared, hail pounded against the windows and thunder rumbled constantly. Storms were common in Nox, but this one seemed worse than usual. A cup of tea appeared on the windowsill of her bay window. She sipped it slowly as she tried to digest what had just happened.
Casting her mind back to when she’d assassinated Beleth, Sorcha remembered tracking him to a chamber deep in the catacombs. It had taken all of her concentration to avoid the demons that dwelled in the area to reach her target. If she’d been able to shield her scent and sounds back then, the task would have been a lot easier.
Beleth had been bigger and uglier than most of his kind. The purple demon had been hunched on the gray stone floor of his chamber, muttering to himself when she’d teleported into the room behind him. Cages made of various types of metal had lined the room. Smaller, weaker demons and other beings were imprisoned inside them. One had what looked like a pile of old rags in it. The bars were silver rather than iron or steel. Beleth had been reaching for the door to the silver cage when Sorcha had beheaded him with a blade made of air.
Thinking back to the cage, had the pile of blankets moved slightly just before she’d teleported away? Was it possible that they hadn’t been blankets at all and that the demon who had just rescued her had been huddled in the cage? It had been completely lightless, apart from the dark purple glow of Beleth’s eyes. Her eyesight was sharp, but her night vision wasn’t as good as the demons’.
“That poor creature,” Sorcha murmured. She shuddered at the prospect that the female hell spawn had been held captive by Beleth. It was a mystery who she wanted to get revenge on now. From what the sorceress had just seen, the target had better watch his or her back. The demon was far stronger than she looked. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who got in her way.
A letter wormed its way beneath her door and fluttered over to her. Hanging her head for a moment, the sorceress felt crushed by the burden of unwanted responsibility that had been thrust on her. She hadn’t even finished her tea yet and she had another assassination order to fulfil already.
The letter moved close enough to almost brush Sorcha’s cheek, silently insisting she open it. On a childish whim, she set it alight. Both the letter and envelope burned to a crisp. Before she could celebrate, they reappeared again. It became frantic for her to open it and accept her new orders. Despair sank into Sorcha as she took the letter and tore it open. How was she supposed to find and kill Sebastian and locate the mysterious magic user who would free her from the Immortal Triumvirate when she had so little free time?
Her new mission became embedded in her mind and she drained the rest of her tea and rose to her feet. There was no point whining about it. Like it or not, she was the only remaining Assassin Guildmember. She would have to do her duty, or go mad trying to resist the orders to kill.
Her next victim was an elf who worked in the Magic Guildhall. He was a mid-level drone, but he’d done something to irk one of their leaders. Sorcha decided to walk to the guildhall, making sure to wear a disguise and to mask her scent. The last thing she needed was for the demons to find out where she lived. They couldn’t enter the building without her permission, but they could ambush her when she was coming and going.
Sorcha didn’t see any sign of Kade Sinclair as she made her way across the marble foyer and entered the main chamber of the Magic Guildhall. She took the stairs up to the next level and followed the spell in her head to the elf’s office. Sorcha cracked the door open an inch to peek inside the room. Her target was sharing the office with several other magic users, but they all had their own cubicles. She pointed at him and waited for her chance to strike. He leaned back to stretch and she assassinated him with a thin spear of air. The elf slumped forward, but he didn’t fall to the floor. If it hadn’t been for the hole in his head, he could almost have been taking a nap.
Sorcha teleported away and curiosity had her returning to the Shifter District. She appeared on the rooftop of a building near where the demons had been chasing her. They were gone and there was no sign of the black and gray hell spawn who had rescued her. The sorceress teleported to a few locations in the District to make it impossible to track her. She then headed to the Vampire District to continue her search for the monster who had killed Eden and Malachi.
