“I want to make a deal,” he said.
“Funny”—she sneered at him—“I just want to kill you.”
“Yes, but if I win . . .”
Rose swiped at his throat, but he dodged back.
“You must hear me out,” he said. “If I win, then I want the destruction of the gate to be visited upon my body, not Layla’s. I want to die in her place.”
“You’ll die now,” Rose said. “And no one will destroy the gate.”
The pretty man shook his head. “Accept my deal, and then we will fight.”
kat-a-kat: Agreed. Finish him now, and I will exist forever.
Layla ran toward the intersection, drawing her gun. She tried very hard not to blink for fear that she’d lose her visual grasp on Shadowman, the warping red earth, and now Rose, shimmering before him in the rising waves of Hell’s heat.
How did Rose get there so fast? Had she been following that closely? The devil had found a large gold and blue paisley muumuu since Segue. It was hard to tell with all that fabric, but it seemed her injuries had healed and she was as beastly as ever.
Shadowman had no idea how dangerous she was. Layla had already shot Rose point-blank, lots of times. If modern weapons couldn’t kill her, what did he hope to do with that medieval ax?
Rose and Shadowman prowled in a circle, intent on only each other. And stranger still, the traffic resumed like normal, passing through on green lights, stopping at reds, oblivious to the fight in the intersection. A bass beat from a car parked at a filthy gas station gave the coming fight an urban rhythm, while the air took on a sulfurous stink that made Layla flare her nostrils. Those turning down Layla’s street had to go around all the skewed cars, but she didn’t care, and apparently, neither did the gathered angels, who joined Layla to watch. But, damn them, not to help.
“What’s happening?” Layla shot over her shoulder to the yellow-blond angel who’d given Shadowman the ax. “I thought he was going to fight you guys.”
She gripped her gun, ready to fire, but her instincts told her not to shoot, that the bullet would never—could never—reach Rose, though she was only a few yards away.
Layla put her hands to her head, her body flashing with heat. If she ran into the intersection herself, could she join them in that desert? Had there been a trick to Shadowman’s approach? Like some mage magic? Maybe . . .
The angel stepped up beside Layla and blocked forward movement with his arm across her chest. “Stay here,” he said. “Shadowman is gone from this plane. A mortal can summon a devil at the crossroads to make a deal, usually to sell his soul.”
A deal with the devil? “And the crossroads are in Jersey?”
He smiled slightly. “The crossroads can be anywhere, at any time. If mortals can call on Heaven, they can appeal to Hell, too. We’d have attempted this ourselves, but it is our law that Heaven cannot make any deals with a devil.”
And Shadowman would never have suggested this crossroads thing to her or even Adam, not up against a thing like Rose. He’d only risk himself.
Layla flinched as Rose, snarling, swiped at Shadowman. He dodged back, light on his feet. He arced the ax into a shining figure eight, the symbol of infinity, to loosen his wrist.
“He’s going to sell his soul?”
“No. Mages don’t have souls,” the angel said. “We won’t know the terms of the exchange until the battle is done and the victor claims the spoils.”
Shadowman blurred into a counterclockwise turn. The momentum crossed the ax in front of his chest, and he rounded into a spider cartwheel over Rose’s shoulder. He lunged deeply into a graceful, two-handed strike. Caught the devil at her neck, but the blade glanced away when it hit bone.
Okay, so he might survive five minutes, rather than five seconds.
Rose lashed back. Raked his chest with a claw.
He flexed his hips back when she sent a cross-swipe across his stomach.
The ax windmilled as Rose punched, but she was too slow to avoid the quick uppercut to her chin, which sent her strike wild and her snarl up to a high-pitched shriek.
Layla gulped. “Can you help him?”
The angel didn’t seem worried at all. “I gave him my ax. Devils do not heal from Heavenly wounds.”
“Well, how about giving him a hand?”
The angel finally slid his gaze her way. “Have you any idea how many people over the millennia have fought Death?”
Layla watched Shadowman coolly spin the ax in his palm, as if getting the feel of the weapon. One side of his mouth stretched into a smile. His eyes glittered.
“I’d guess people fight Death a lot,” she said. There was too much good stuff in this world to give up easily. So, okay, he’d had plenty of practice.
The angel returned his attention to the fight. “This should be over fast. The Reaper has never been one to draw out a death unnecessarily.”