I considered running, but that wouldn’t be wise. Whatever big bad creature was out there would probably love to give chase. I glanced straight ahead, happy to see the turnoff a few short meters away. If I ran, I might be able to lose whatever was following me. I didn’t waste another second considering it, I charged toward the next tunnel.
I rounded the corner and hurried into the shadows, drew a quick protection circle, then pressed myself into a damp recess, hidden from view.
A slight displacement of pebbles indicated my stalker hadn’t given up. I held my breath, worried the slightest intake or exhalation would give me away. My pursuer paused close enough that I could just make out his features, and I bit back a string of curses.
“Are you completely—”
Wrath’s hand shot out and covered my mouth before I finished my sentence. He’d crossed my protection circle without showing any indication it had affected him at all. Which should have been impossible because it was keyed with my power. I was too stunned to do something smart, like bite him.
“Now that you possess the Horn, there are three dozen Umbra demons closing in. Two dozen of which have been following you since you left your house.” He removed his hand. “If they attack, I want you to run. Do not look back or linger. Understand?”
“What?” Nearly forty invisible assassins had been trailing me, but that wasn’t even the most terrifying part. Imagining that many demons invading this world, and the damage they could do . . . it was too much. “How did they get here?”
“I have two guesses. Either the gates are exponentially weakening. Or someone summoned them all.” Wrath pressed us more firmly against the stone, his massive body swallowing up any bit of light from my amulet that might give us away. “If you agree to it, I can transvenio us back to the palace. Will you come with me?”
A slight tug of warning stayed my tongue. Which was odd considering I very much wanted him to magic us away from the danger. But it was also highly convenient that I only had his word about the invisible mercenaries. Envy had succeeded in one thing; he’d created doubt.
“How does that work, exactly?”
“Put simply, you travel through dimensions with me, and are deposited at a place of my choosing.”
“You said I had to agree to it . . . does that happen each time?”
“Once you give permission, it is eternal.”
Despite the danger closing in, there was still that nagging feeling I couldn’t ignore. I’d rather take my chances with mercenaries than make an eternal bargain. “And what else?”
He hesitated now. Which worried me. “Essentially it feels like you’re being incinerated while we shift time and space. It doesn’t last more than a second or two.”
I stared at him. Fire and witches mixed as well as demons and angels. It was settled. I’d try my luck with the assassins. “There has to be—”
“Run, Emilia!”
He whipped around, and landed a hard kick into what could only be an Umbra demon. I didn’t see it go flying, but I heard a strange sound. If it was incorporeal, I wasn’t sure how Wrath had made contact with it. He lashed out at another, and another. It was only when they collapsed that I understood the anomaly. Wrath’s demon dagger severed their heads. Maybe holding the weapon allowed him to strike them, too.
As they died, they lost their invisibility. I wanted to run, but couldn’t seem to move. I stared at the pale faces with deep black circles around their sunken eyes, and teeth carved to tiny points that pulled back from rotting black gums. They looked like corpses and smelled much the same.
I couldn’t decide if not knowing their true faces was better or worse.
“Take the horns and leave!” Wrath dodged forward, struck, heads rolled. He was violence made flesh. Watching him attack and maim demon after demon, I imagined he was invincible. He’d strike, parry, kick, and then heads would roll. Body parts went flying. Dark blood splattered. There was nothing that could stop him.
Envy emerged from the deepest part of the shadows, his eyes glittering like emeralds. “Seize him.”
He snapped his fingers once, and I just made out the shadowy forms of the Umbra demons as they swarmed in like a hive of vicious wasps. Wrath fought, thrashed, and managed to take out a few more, but it was no use. Even something as mighty as the demon of war couldn’t hold back the tide of invisible bodies that kept coming for him. Not unless he unleashed his full magic.
Strangely enough, not one of them so much as breathed in my direction.