The mental door in my mind was flung wide open as I welcomed the roar of Drake’s fire. “Ariton, known as Egyn, seventh prince of Abaddon, leader of the twenty-two legions, by this light, by my virtue, by my being, I do banish thee!”

Ariton clearly wasn’t expecting that from me, because he stared at me in surprise for the count of three before releasing a roar of such hideousness, the walls around us cracked. “You dare?”

Power, black and evil, washed over me as he recommenced his chanting. I struggled to breathe, my body beginning to fail under the influence of his will.

Do it again! Banish him now! It is your only chance.

Through a miasma of pain and sorrow and abject terror, I saw Jim’s face for a second. It was twisted with sadness, pain and regret so deep in its eyes, it made me weep.

It also brought me renewed strength of mind. I was a professional, dammit! I was not going to go down without a fight! I pulled hard on Drake’s fire, flames erupting around me until I stood in a veritable inferno, one hand reaching for Jim. The demon didn’t have any power as such, but it made me feel better to have my hand on it as I made a final, last-ditch attempt to save us. “Ariton, known as Egyn!” I bellowed, channeling the dragon fire straight at the demon lord. It met his dark power, colliding into a fireball. The resulting flash of light blinded me, but I didn’t pause to wait for it to dissipate. “Seventh prince of Abaddon, leader of the twenty-two legions!”

“You will bother me no longer, Guardian! Begone!”

Little bits of me started to tear off. Not my body—bits of my soul, ripped from me and destroyed with the chant Ariton took up again.

Do it now! the voice shrieked in my ear. Use the power! Banish him!

I lowered my head, pulling on Drake’s fire for all I was worth, but it wasn’t enough. I could feel the chant working on me, pulling me apart, destroying not just my mind, but my very being, the essence that made up the core of my soul.

“No! I will not allow this!” My words ripped from my throat in a voice I did not recognize. The door in my head, open wide to allow me access to all the possibilities, suddenly was flooded with a hot, sticky warmth. Black and thick, it filled me with wrath, fired my rage to unimaginable heights, burning deep and dark alongside Drake’s fire. “By this light, I banish thee!”

I lifted my head to look at Ariton, filled with so much power, it glowed around me in a strange, coppery aura. Jim said something, but I paid the demon no attention. That was solely focused on channeling this newfound power into the will to destroy the demon lord.

Ariton screamed back at me, words that cut into my flesh like honed blades, but I laughed at the pain. It didn’t matter; none of it mattered—my whole being, my whole purpose was to destroy the being in front of me. And destroy him I would!

“By my virtue, I banish thee!”

A noise like a tornado ripping apart a house crashed over me. Ariton was screaming in horror now, his body twisting and whipping around itself as the power flowed from me, wrapping around his form in tendrils of destruction. “No! This cannot be! This ... cannot...”

“By my being, I do banish thee!” My voice rose high and piercing over Ariton’s screams, painful even for me to hear. With the final words, I gathered up everything I had, every ounce of rage, every morsel of terror, every atom of spirit that dwelt within me, and blasted Ariton with it. He exploded in a nova of blackness that slammed Jim and me against the wall.

As I slid to the floor, my body rigid with agony, a voice spoke with quiet contentment.

Well done, Aisling Grey, prince of Abaddon.

20

No,” I told the voice, pulling myself to my knees. “Tell me you didn’t say what I think you just said.”

“I said you’re crying blood. Your eyes are different, too. You ... er... you didn’t happen to channel any dark power, did you?” It was Jim’s voice that answered me, not the voice that had spoken so urgently into my head.

“What? Dark power?” Oh, god! That was the warm, dark, thick feeling that had filled me a few seconds ago. Loathing rose within me to swamp all the other emotions twisting around my gut. I had used dark power! The most dangerous, most forbidden of all powers! The meat and manna to dark beings. I would be damned forever now! “No! I didn’t mean to! I don’t know—”

I looked around the room as if someone had written out the answers in big, easily read letters, but there was nothing. The room looked a bit worse for wear after the struggle between Ariton and myself, and there was a nasty black stain with rays that spread out across the floor where he had been standing, but nothing more.

And there should have been something. Someone whom I had last seen next to the door.

“Obedama?”

“No, although I used its form for a bit,” the demon answered, but it wasn’t in Obedama’s voice. It was another voice, a familiar voice, once that made my stomach clench tight with dread. From the black shadows Ariton’s passing had left on the floor, a figure gathered in the air and formed into that of a man.

I was still shaken by the events with Ariton—not to mention sick with the thought of having tainted my powers—but I was not a coward. “Peter Burke. I should have known you’d be bound up in this somehow. Who exactly are you? And why were you pretending to be Obedama? Why did you have me kill your master?”

Peter laughed. He looked perfectly normal, dressed in a conservative polo shirt and pants, but his face and eyes were as expressionless as ever. The feeling of power that rolled off him was bad. Very bad.

“Ariton was not my master. He was not, in fact, an overly bright being. I used Obedama’s form to keep tabs on him for years, and he never noticed the difference. In truth, you did us all a favor by banishing him. I have every confidence that you will rule much wiser in his stead.”

“No, no, no,” I said, groaning as I got to my feet. I was more than a little bit surprised to discover that my towel was still covering me, smudged and dirty from the demon smoke and chalky with debris from the plaster walls, but still present. I tucked an end of it a little tighter, automatically brushing it off as if it was a dress. “I don’t know why you’ve been trying to manipulate me to be the Venediger, but you’re absolutely insane if you think I’m going to be a full-fledged demon lord. I’m grateful you showed me the way to destroy Ariton, but I am not now, nor will I ever be, a prince of Abaddon.”