Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

“Come back, damn you!” He slammed to the end of the chains—crack-boom!—and then fell back—rat-a-tat. “I’ll give you the magic. I’ll give you whatever you want!” Shouting, foaming at the mouth, he kept flinging himself forward, and then falling back. Crack-boom, rat-a-tat, three more times, four. But then the noise went crack-clunk.

It took a second for the difference to penetrate, another for him to feel the give in the manacle holding his right wrist. Whipping his head around, he saw that one of the bolts had sheared off where it held the chain to the wall, and another had bent partway. Sudden visions of freedom hammered through him—images of the ocean, the desert, Phee screaming as flames consumed her—and something like panic closed around him, galvanizing him to escape. He hurled himself to the end of the chain, then tore at it, yanking with every bit of strength he possessed. Crack-clunk, crack-clunk, crack-clunk-crack-clunk, the blows vibrated through him, rattling his clenched molars, until with a final crack-crunch, he wrenched the chain free from the wall.

Shaking now, breath whistling between his teeth, he tore at the lock pins on his wrists. Then, hanging on to one of the chains to keep himself upright, he undid his ankles, kicked away the clinging irons, and was free!

Son of a bitch. He was fucking free.

Letting go of the chain, he stood for a second in the center of his cell with his feet braced so his body wouldn’t reel the way his head was doing.

He had thought he was going to die there, strung up against the fucking wall.

Apparently not. Or at least not right now.

Cobbling together some semblance of his former self, he did a once-over of his body and supplies, like he would’ve done back when he was a warrior. His shoulder and hip sockets howled and his skin felt strange on his body, as if gravity had changed now that he was standing on his own two feet. He was still wearing the jeans and boots he’d had on when Phee took him—or what was left of them. That was all, though. He didn’t have any weapons, backup, or way to contact the Nightkeepers. He wasn’t even sure he could copy whatever magic the demoness was using to get to Skywatch—although he could still feel the stir of dark magic in his blood, it, too, had deserted him, as if not even that half of his heritage wanted to claim him anymore.

But he was alive, damn it, and he was free.

And he had demons to kill.

Grabbing the fallen whip, he staggered through the door and into an unfamiliar tunnel that was lit by a string of bare lightbulbs on a Home Depot–orange cord. The smell of the ocean was stronger here, and he could hear the rise-and-fall hiss of the surf. All around him, the softly ridged limestone and the cold slick of moisture told him the tunnel had been a subterranean river at some point, while the carvings—more screaming skulls along with the trefoil hellmark of the Xibalbans—said he was in what was left of an ancient dark-magic temple, somewhere in the former Mayan empire. On the shore of the mainland, maybe, or one of the sacred islands.

Tightening his grip on the whip—the lash might work as a garrote, the bone handle as a bludgeon—he headed toward the sound of the ocean. It felt strange to be walking, stranger still to have the scenery move past him, but even as part of him registered the disconnect between now and a half hour ago, he scanned his surroundings, searching for his enemies. The tunnel curved up ahead; he slowed as he reached the bend and heard telltale scraping noises that fired his blood.

Camazotz!

Snarling, Rabbit surged forward, moving low and fast. He whipped around the corner and slammed into a ’zotz. The lone bat demon shrieked and backwinged in shock, causing it to rake its wings bloody on the stone around it.

It wasn’t Phee’s favorite toy—this one was wearing a necklace of bones and teeth, signifying some sort of rank, and it was a big son of a bitch. Eyes flaring, it screeched beyond Rabbit’s hearing and lunged for him, claws outstretched. He tried to dodge, but the ’zotz slammed into him and they both went down. Red eyes gleamed from its pug-assed mug, and the stench swirled like sewage as they wrestled on the tunnel floor.

Rabbit jammed an elbow under the thing’s chin and reversed the whip butt for a club blow that bounced off its cement-hard skull. The ’zotz gave a piggy, pissed-off squeal and raked his torso and upper thigh with its claws. The venom couldn’t knock him out—not anymore—but the scratches hurt like a bitch.

Cursing, Rabbit grabbed the thing’s wrists and rammed a knee into its oversized genitals. The bat-demon keened in pain but wasn’t incapacitated. Instead, it twisted around, hissing, and snaked its ugly mug in to bite him.

“Fuck you!” Fury surging alongside the knowledge that he needed to hurry, Rabbit jammed the whip butt into its gaping maw and shoved, putting his weight into it.

The whip handle pierced the back of its throat and up toward its brain, something went crack up inside, and the ’zotz went limp.

Rabbit lurched to his feet and took a couple of steps away, but then turned back, knowing the fucker was going to regen—

A heavy weight slammed him into the wall and the battered ’zotz loomed over him, spraying his face with the oily black ichor that pumped from its throat wound. Fuck! Somehow, Rabbit tore free from its grip. The creature’s claws bit through skin and sinew, though, leaving him limping. He reeled around and shook out the whip, cracking it for good measure when the demon squared off opposite him with a blood-chilling snarl.

“Son of a bitch,” Rabbit got out between ragged, painful breaths. So this was what it was like to fight without magic . . . it fucking sucked.

He was still bigger and stronger than the average human, still thought, moved and healed faster, but that was it. He didn’t have the warrior’s explosive magic or protective shield, didn’t have his own pyro skills or telekinesis. Worse, the ’zotz could regenerate way faster than he healed, and it could be banished only by magic . . . or by him getting up close and personal, sawing off its dick and cursing it back to the hell that had spawned it.

Rabbit was outmassed, outgunned, didn’t even have a knife, but he didn’t give a shit what the odds were. He didn’t know if this was one of the fuckers that’d whipped him to the bone, but that didn’t matter. Anything that kept him from going after Phee and saving Myrinne was the enemy right now.

Roaring a vicious curse, he raised the whip and charged.

The next minute or so was a slippery, bloody blur of Rabbit getting his shit torn loose while returning as many blows as he could with the whip butt, like some mad, beaten-down Indiana Jones. He blocked a blow with his forearm and lost his grip on the whip, grabbed for it and came up with the end of the camazotz’s tail instead.

The demon screeched and tried to yank away, but Rabbit hung on. It was like holding a rattler—hot, scaly, dangerous and way stronger than it looked. The ’zotz roared and reared back, and its eyes went deadly cold, like it was saying, No more fucking around. You’re finished.

But Rabbit wasn’t letting it go down like this. No way.

Shouting as the oily fangs came at him, he blocked the incoming bite with that pissed-off rattler. The camazotz chomped down on its own tail. And screamed bloody fucking murder.

Black ichor flew, pumping oily gouts that made Rabbit’s grip even slipperier. Instead of letting loose, though, he dug in. And, turning his fingers to claws of his own, he wrenched off the barbed end of the ’zotz’s tail.

The bat demon’s screams went supersonic, no doubt calling in every reinforcement within earshot, but Rabbit didn’t care. Hissing between his teeth, he grabbed the ’zotz’s dick, set the barb’s edge to the base of the thing’s cock, and started sawing. And, as the bat demon sank its claws into the back of his neck, he grated, “Go back to hell where you belong, motherfucker.”