Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Cordelia whipped around to see something the size of a small dog explode from the dumbwaiter, shattering it—and a good portion of the wall—apart. The demon had a ratlike face, with long yellow teeth. It was covered in scales and too many skinny limbs, whipping around in a fury, each one tipped with a hooked claw. A Gamigin demon, Cordelia thought, though she’d never seen one in person before.

Ariadne drew a blade from her belt, but it was too fast. One of its skinny limbs shot out, the hook at the end of its claw sinking into the back of Ariadne’s jacket. It flung her away; she skidded across the dusty floor as Anna screamed, “Ari!”

And Anna sprang into motion, racing across the room, her whip suddenly in her hand. The demon was crouched over Ariadne, its yellow-toothed mouth opening wide. She screamed as black demon saliva spattered her neck and face. Then Anna was there, her whip arcing through the air, a wire of golden flame.

With a shriek, the demon sprang away. Anna dropped to her knees—Ariadne was convulsing on the floor—and the demon, hissing, shot across the floor toward Cordelia.

Time seemed to slow. Cordelia could hear Anna, begging Ariadne to hold still, hold still, and the demon was hurtling across the room toward her, leaving a trail of black ichor, and Cordelia knew that if she so much as lifted a broken floorboard to defend herself it would bring Lilith, but she had no choice—

The demon was on her. It lunged, and Cordelia kicked out as hard as she could, her boot colliding with its dense, springy frame. It yowled like a cat, rolling onto its back, but the yowls weren’t just noise, Cordelia realized. They were words.

“They rise,” it hissed. “Soon they will be invincible. No seraph blade will harm them.”

“What?” Throwing caution and sense to the winds, Cordelia ran toward the demon where it crouched on the floor. “Who is rising? Tell me!”

The demon looked up at her—and went limp. Its fanged mouth trembling, it cringed away from her, covering its body with some of its legs. “Paladin,” it rasped. “Oh, forgive me. Thine is the power, thine and thy Lady’s. Forgive me. I did not know—”

A sharp crack sounded. Something punched into the demon’s body—Cordelia thought she saw a hole open between its eyes, a black hole rimmed with fire. The demon spasmed, legs curling in. Then it melted away into smoke.

The stench of ichor on the air was mixed with the sharp smell of cordite. Cordelia knew what she would see even before she looked: James, white-faced, pistol in hand. It was still pointed unerringly at the spot where the demon had just been.

“Daisy.” Lowering his arm, he moved quickly to her side. His gaze raked her, searching for injuries, bruises. “Are you hurt? Did it—”

“You needn’t have shot it,” Cordelia snapped. “I was questioning it. It said, ‘They rise,’ and I—”

His hands still on her shoulders, James’s expression turned incredulous. “You can’t question a demon, Daisy. It’ll just lie.”

“I was managing.” Shock had turned to a hot fury in Cordelia’s veins, a fury that seemed to have a tight hold of her, even as a small part of her mind looked on, appalled. “I didn’t need your help—”

His golden eyes narrowed. “Really? Because you can’t wield a weapon, Cordelia, in case you’ve forgotten—”

“Stop it. Both of you.” It was Anna, speaking more sternly than Cordelia had imagined she could. She and Ariadne had crossed the room to them; Cordelia, intent on James, had not noticed. She wondered how much they had overheard. Anna held her stele in her hand; Ariadne, beside her, sported red welts on the left side of her face, where the demon’s acid saliva had touched her. There was a freshly applied healing rune on her throat. “Whatever’s happening between you may be none of my business, but I won’t have you arguing in the middle of a mission. It puts us all in danger.”

Cordelia felt wretchedly ashamed. Anna was right. “James,” she said, looking at him directly. It hurt to do that; it was like pressing a sharp pin into her hand. He was beautiful, just as he was—breathing hard, his black hair in his eyes, a sheen of sweat along his collarbones. She wished she could make herself immune to his beauty, but it seemed impossible. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t apologize.” The Mask had gone up; he was expressionless. “In fact, I’d rather you didn’t.”

A crash came from downstairs, and a shout. Lucie, Cordelia thought, and a moment later they were all bolting down the steps toward the main floor of the house.



* * *



Cordelia, James, Anna, and Ariadne raced back downstairs, only to find Jesse and Lucie in the parlor. More specifically, Lucie was in the parlor: Jesse was halfway up the fireplace, getting covered in soot.

“What happened?” James demanded. “What was that crash?”

Lucie, also streaked with soot, said, “Something fell out of the fireplace into the grate. Jesse?” she called. “Jesse, did you get them?”

A moment later Jesse emerged, the top half of his body nearly caked with soot. He looked as if it had been raining black paint on him. In one hand he held a dirty mirror; in the other, what seemed to be a book with a leather cord wrapped around its binding, which held a number of loose papers.

“Notes,” he said, coughing. “My mother’s notes and bits of old diaries. I remembered seeing her peering up the chimney with this”—he held up the mirror, which James realized was not dirty so much as made of a shiny, reflective black material—“and I realized, she had a hiding place up there you could only see if you shone the mirror up the chimney. Some kind of magical signal beacon. That’s why the Enclave didn’t find it.”

“Does it do anything else?” Anna asked, peering at the mirror curiously. “Besides pointing the way to the chimney hiding place?”

“Might I see it?” James asked, and with a shrug, Jesse handed it over. James could hear the others discussing the demon they’d found upstairs, Jesse wondering aloud how long it had been living in the dumbwaiter, but James’s concentration was all on the mirror.

Before he even touched the mirror’s handle, he felt as though it were in his hand: smooth and cool to the touch, humming with power. It seemed made of black adamas, or something very close to it, surrounding a circle of dark glass. And around the edge of the glass were runes, obviously demonic, though not in a language James recognized.

He touched the glass. When his finger made contact, though, there was a sudden flash, like an unexpected leaping ember from a fire. He sucked in his breath.