Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (34 page)

The stone ceiling caves
in then;
beams and ru
bble fall
down everywhere, collapsing tables and shattering mirrors.
Choking rock dust
and a
foul odor
permeates
the air,
causin
g
us all to cough and hack
. In the
darkne
ss I
hear something
moving toward us from the staircase
. Low, throaty
snickering-laughter, like the
sound a hyena woul
d make, pushes through the dust clouds surrounding us.

Paralyzed by the sound, I sea
r
ch for what could’
ve made it. The hair on my neck rises as several sets of eyes shine reflective as d
ark shapes
descend
the staircase. The click of
claws scratching against the stone steps causes my jaw to clench.

A
nother terrorizing THUMP comes from
above us. W
hatever’s up there
wants
its
shot at us, too.

The shiny sets
of
eyes near the stairs snicker again.
“W
hat are they?” I ask
Reed.

“Risers
,” Reed says
,
looking around and grasping
a broken chair leg.

A shiver cuts through Russell.
“
W
hy’
re they laugh
in’
?”
Russell asks next to me.

“
They aren’
t. They’
re arguing over
who is the most
dominate. The
pitch of the voi
ce determines who is the Alpha,”
Reed states.

"Why’
s that
important
?" Russell asks in a low tone.

“
Because in Sheol, like every place els
e, the alpha gets to eat first,”
Reed replies.

A riser staggers for
ward to the bottom step,
and as I look
it over, I exhale a breath. Its
head is canine with leather-like fle
sh pulled tightly over bone. It
has ears, but they’
re paper-
thin and ragged, like someth
ing bigger has gnawed them off.
Roughly the size of a
normal
dog, the Riser resembles a
grey
hound, skinny to
the point of being emaciated.

“We can’
t let them feed
on the blood or they’
ll grow
,”
Reed says in
a low tone.
He
pulls
a lighter from his pocket, ignit
ing the home
made wick in one of the bottles. H
e hea
ves it towards the stairs. The bottle shatters and
ignites the pool of blood
,
showering fire
. I watch the smoke rise and with it, the shadows on the staircase
become more prominent as
five
more sets of ey
es gaze bac
k at me. T
hey’
re already
lap
ping
at
the pools of blood on the steps
.

“Ahh, hell! They’re feedin’!”
Russell points out
agitatedly
.

The high-pitched giggles from before begin to come in a lower frequency
. As one
Riser lifts it
s head from the blood,
it
begins to change; it
jerk
s
and pop
s
as it r
ises up on its hind legs and it’
s spine
straightens
. The canine-like muzzle it
used to
possess
flattens to become less dog-like, more human, no...more demon.

Russell
conjures
an elf dart in his hand, throwing it a
t a Riser. He
hits the target square in the chest. The flames cove
r the demon, but it doesn’
t move;
it doesn’
t even flinch.
Instead, it giggles again, thereby calling its
brethren
to it.

“
When they’
re risen
like this, Russell, they’
re almost
impervious
to magic
,”
Reed says with a frown.

“
How am I s
upposed to kill it?”
Russell ask
s in frustration.

“
You kill them with brute strength.
Pierce the heart
or cut off the head,” Reed advises.

“
Wit
h what?” Russell scoffs. “
I don’
t have any weapons.”

“I
mprovise,
Russell, a
nything can be a weapon
. Stay behind me
,
”
Reed says, not looking at Russell but keeping his eyes locked on the demons
that
are beginning to creep further into the room.

A sweet, musical voice comes f
rom the top of the stairs, “
Don’
t touch the little
female
Seraph
,”
she calls to the Riser below. In the darkness, I can just make out the delicate features of a lovely angel
in the snowy doorway
. Her hair is pulled back in a long, im
m
acu
la
te ponyta
il. I can’
t
decipher
its color
because everything is shades of gray. If I were to g
uess, I would say she could be S
eraphim; it’
s somet
hing in the shape of her wings,
they’
re almost regal.
The fur-fringed collar stirs against her cheek in the stormy air.

A lo
w growl resonates from Reed as he follow
s
my gaze up to the Fallen watching us
.

“
Your pets know what to do,
Larken,”
the powerful angel next to Larken states as he crosses his
a
rms over his chest and observes
us from his
stadium
position above.
A frown forms as his eyebrows draw together.
“
She does look very fragile, though...
too fragile...
I should go down and—”

“Hail
”
" Larken barks his name as she reaches out and p
ulls him back to her side. “She’
s stronger
than she appears. Let Valerius subdue her first...we promised him...
”

Anything else that Larken says is drowned out by the clownish-laughter comi
ng from the Risers. They’
ve
grown into massive, powerful beast
s
in
a matter of moments, with claws that are meant for shredding and jaws that drip
saliva
in anticipation of a meal. The
y spread out and seem to be push
ing
us back nearer to the hole in the ceiling at the center of the room.

Reed tenses;
his muscles flex in his arms. “Please stay behind me, Evie,”
Reed says in a low tone, glancing at me to see my reaction.

“I promise,”
I nod.

Reed
’
s wings spread wide, and for a
moment
, all I can see are his dark feathers
as they
serrate at the edges. With a leg from a chair grasped firmly in his hand, Reed leaps up and
is across the room in half a
second. He
drives the stake downward, plunging it into a monster’s
neck thereby
severing the nape like a matador kills a bull.
The Riser in front topple
s to the ground. Reed breaks its
paw off and uses the claws
to slash the Riser on his left
.
Saliva spews from the creature’
s mouth, burning everything it touches like acid. Hackles elevate on the Riser nearest Reed; it
grabs him in its
powerful arms
,
squee
zing Reed as its
jaws latch onto Reed
’
s wing.

My heart lurches into my throat.
I pick up a broken bottle
from the floor
as Reed drives his head back into the face of the Riser, fo
rcing the monster to unclench its
teeth and free his wing. The demon continues
trying to crush
Reed, its
laughter
becoming
high-pitched as Reed struggles to get free. I run at the Riser, using a chair as a
s
pringboard to propel
me to them. Driving the bottle in my hand f
orward, I embed it in the Riser’
s temple, continuing on to sever its skullcap.

Immediately, Reed is released from the cage of arms as the Riser falls to the floor. Reed shoves me back as another Riser rushes forward, pouncing on him. I sprawl on the floor. As I sit up, I draw energy to me and channel it all at the Riser, letting it pulse out of my outstretched hand. The Riser absorbs the power surge from me; it only seems to grow larger as it tears at Reed.

I glance around for help, b
ut Russell and Anya are under
attack,
attempting to fend off two Risers who are circling them. Russell is keeping Anya near his side
,
always
pivoting
and slashing at the Risers to keep himself between the Riser and Anya.

Looking for another weapon to use, I step back and scan the floor. Reed pulls himself from beneath the Riser, thrusting it back and then diving forward to tackle it to the ground. In my next breath,
I feel
swirling heat and
smell
the scent that has
every fi
ber of my being on point to run
. Looking up
at the hole in the ceiling
, one
enormous,
deep brown
eyeball stares
down at me
. I shudder, unable to move.

The eyebal
l pulls
back
from the hole. “Russell,” I want to scream his name
,
but it won’
t come out louder than a whisper as
dread
seeps
through me
.

Russell must’
ve
heard me, but he just grunts a response as this momentary distracti
on allows the Riser’
s claws to cut into his forearm.

“I need you,” I beg
, backing away from the hole on shaky legs.

“WHAT?” Russell
hisses
, straining to avoid the swipe
at his head.

“MAGIC!” I find my voice
, beginning to pull the energy in the room to me, but there isn’t much because somet
hing is pulling it away from me—
probably the scores of Gancanagh hanging around outside
—or maybe the Ifrit himself—now that he has spotted me
. Tryi
ng hard to concentrate, I close my eyes and grit
my teeth.
“
WE NEED MAGIC!
”

“IT DOESN’
T WORK ON THEM! IT JUST MAKES THEM BIGGER
!
” Russell pants
.

“IFRIT!” I yell
, opening my eyes and seeing Russell stumble back, fallin
g to the floor with the Riser
on top of him.
Anya pounces
on its leathery back
, thrusting a gold tipped
arrow through it like a dagger.

T
he Ifrit squeezes
himself through the hole in the
ceiling.
He’
s
just like a human in every
way b
ut for the fact that he’s
currently a shrinking
giant as he
continues
to reduce
in size.
“Valerius,”
I whisper, looking back
toward the stairs and seeing
Larken and Hail
still watching us with
avid fascination.