A Den of Tricks (A Shade of Vampire #54)

“Rightfully ours? Seriously?” I whispered, mostly to myself. Caspian squeezed my shoulder, reminding me to keep quiet.

I lifted my head to get a better look, and noticed a large, empty space at the bottom of the stairs. King Shaytan clapped his hands once, and the ground started shaking beneath us. My blood froze as I used my True Sight and spotted the source of that instantaneous mini-earthquake. About a thousand large daemons marched from the side, filling the space I’d just seen in front of the palace stairs.

They were massive grunts, clad in heavy armor and carrying shields, spears, and broad rapiers with ivory handles. They came to a halt in the middle, then turned to face the crowd, their faces seemingly carved from stone.

“For too long have we allowed those bloodsuckers up there to keep us from thriving as we should,” King Shaytan continued, his voice booming across the square. “And now, they have the audacity to call their friends from whatever dirty rock they came from in the first place! It is time we teach them a lesson. Last night’s… fireworks were just a taste of what’s to come!”

Fireworks… Oh, wow, that’s how he’s chosen to refer to the explosions that claimed the lives of dozens of innocent Imen and Maras. I was disgusted, my stomach churning.

Servant daemons moved through the newly formed garrison, checking that their breastplates and large cuffs were mounted properly, occasionally tugging at and tying loose strings. Others carried wicker baskets around, from which they handed out small leather pouches to each grunt. I had a feeling those were invisibility spell supplies.

“Tonight, my dear subjects,” King Shaytan grinned, his red eyes beaming as he scanned the crowd, “tonight we teach those newcomers not to underestimate our glorious species anymore! Soldiers!”

The grunts let out a collective roar, then turned to face their king. The crowd around us grew restless, unable to take their eyes off Shaytan. Their adulation was starting to creep me out.

“Go into Azure Heights, and bring me those newcomers,” the king ordered, and the grunts nodded. “Bring them alive. All of them. Especially the dragon. I need a new pet, anyway…”

The air left my lungs. Ice poured through my veins as I instinctively started looking around me—I couldn’t see Blaze standing next to us, of course, though he was there. Several scenarios started rumbling through my head, but none ended with any of us walking out of this mess alive.

The king of daemons was about to send an army after us. The entire city of Azure Heights was vulnerable. Half of us were in here already, while Scarlett, Patrik, Avril, Hansa, and Fiona were back there.

We have to do something… We can’t let the daemon army go.

We’re… We’re so screwed…





Caia





(Daughter of Grace & Lawrence)





I froze, holding Blaze’s hand tightly as the king of daemons announced to his crowd that he wanted our dragon as a… pet. I was disgusted and terrified at the same time. Blaze seemed to feel my distress somehow, as he pulled me closer, his hot breath warming the top of my head. I felt so tiny and helpless in our position.

“What do we do?” I whispered.

“What can we do?” Hansa breathed. “There are too many of them. We’re in the middle of their city!”

“We can’t let them go out,” Harper interjected, her voice trembling. “We have to stop them…”

The king continued his speech, addressing his soldiers, who got louder and more aggressive with every minute that went by, stomping their feet and beating their chests, and the crowd around us got even more restless.

“For too long, we’ve kept to our cities and allowed the Maras to thrive,” King Shaytan growled. “It’s time we take our world back. We are the rightful rulers. The strongest. The undefeated.”

My stomach shrank to the size of a pea. We really had no other choice at this point, and very little time to figure out a strategy to both prevent the army from reaching the city and not get ourselves killed.

“We have to reveal ourselves,” Harper sighed. “Draw attention to the fact that we’re here… We have to get their minds off invading Azure Heights…”

“I just need to get to a high altitude point and go dragon on these monsters, while they’re all gathered in one place. It’s better if I do it from somewhere above than from the ground, where they might try to poke my eyes out,” Blaze whispered. “You don’t need to reveal yourselves for this.”

A couple of seconds went by. Shaytan kept agitating his subjects, raising goosebumps all over my skin. The savagery, the hunger, and the desire to hurt others was downright terrifying.

“No, we have to show ourselves. They need to see us down here so they don’t think we just sent the dragon to roast them. It’s essential that we keep the daemons focused on us and not Azure Heights. We’ll reveal ourselves and give you the window you need to get to a good spot. The tower,” Harper replied. “Get to the top of the tower and douse them with as much fire as your giant lungs can produce, Blaze.”

“I don’t think I can cover the whole city, though. My flames don’t have such a broad range. But I can definitely take on the square. You’ll have angry daemons down in the streets afterward,” he breathed, thinking out loud, while the daemons around us stomped their feet, agreeing to whatever else Shaytan had just said.

“It’ll be good enough,” Caspian intervened. “As long as you burn this whole damn square to the ground, it’ll give us the chance to spread out and head for the tunnel from whence we came. We won’t need a live daemon to get back through the cloaking spell, so we’ll just run out.”

“I’m guessing no one ever escapes a city of daemons, so there was no point in sticking to the original cloaking spell?” Harper replied.

“More or less, yes,” Caspian replied. “I think it has more to do with the daemons using slightly different ingredients, as opposed to the original swamp witch formula.”

“So what do we do once we get back to the surface?” I asked, my whole body trembling from the mounting tension around us.

“Let’s get to the surface first,” Jax murmured.

I wasn’t one to scare easily, but this whole situation was starting to get to me. We were grossly outnumbered, and even outgunned, with just one dragon against thousands of swamp witch magic-wielding daemons. There was a garrison of about one thousand massive fiends, armed to the teeth and clad in armor, ready to attack a city where thousands of innocent creatures lived. Our friends and teammates, our family was there.

Harper was right. There was no other way to stop the daemons from attacking Azure Heights. We had to reveal ourselves and convince them that we’d come to them, so they wouldn’t go looking for us…





Harper





(Daughter of Hazel & Tejus)