Magic Undying (Dragon's Gift: The Seeker #1)(39)

A whistling sound was my only warning before something grabbed me around the middle. The ground fell away beneath my feet. I shouted as it carried me into the air.

A winged demon! Its pale arms were wrapped around my waist as it dragged me up, higher and higher. My heart pounded. We were in the tallest part of the cathedral, the tower that was right in the middle.

On the other side, four winged demons dropped down from their perches in the rafters, headed straight for Roarke. They were pale where he was dark, their skin an eerie white pierced by red veins. Their wings were the same blood red as their eyes.

Roarke soared into the air, all grace and fury, headed straight for me.

I stilled my struggling. We were high enough that if the demon dropped me, I was dead.

What that actually meant, I didn’t know. But dying the first time had hurt, and I didn’t want a repeat. I also didn’t want to turn into a Phantom.

It killed me to await rescue, but I wasn’t an idiot.

Most of the time.

The demons charged Roarke as he flew, but they couldn’t get a hand on him. He was faster and stronger by a mile. All it took was for him to grab a single body part of theirs, and he’d heave them into the walls. They flew wings over ass, tumbling through the air until they crashed against the stone.

When Roarke was nearly to us, the demon who carried me hissed, then loosened his grip. I fell, my stomach leaping into my throat, but managed to grab his ankle.

He kicked, but I tightened my grip. I was still over forty feet in the air, which was well within splat-like-a-pancake distance. And no way was I going to let this bastard get away.

Roarke hurtled toward us, a vision of strength and fury as his massive wings ate up the distance. In one graceful move, he grabbed me by the waist and gripped the demon’s calf in his massive hand. I released the demon, and Roarke spun in a circle, gaining momentum as the demon swung around us like a whirligig. Right as my vision went blurry, Roarke let go of the demon too. It hurled into the wall, colliding with a stone archway before plummeting to the floor below.

Roarke stopped spinning and held me tightly against his side, his skin so hot it nearly burned me. We hovered in the air for a moment, so high it should’ve made me nauseous, but I’d never felt safer.

“Thanks,” I wheezed.

He nodded sharply, then lowered us to the ground.

I stumbled as he set me down, but he gripped my shoulder gently to steady me. My mind narrowed in on the feel of his hand.

“What the hell were those things?” I asked.

Winged demons were rare. Roarke was the first I’d ever seen.

“Hellspawn. Quite literally. They come from the deepest hell in the Underworld. Cat 3 demons that are rarely on Earth. They don’t make good mercenaries.”

“They did all right.”

He grinned. “They’re good fighters, but they don’t follow orders.”

“So they’re just attracted to the Ubilaz demon’s evil.”

“Most likely.” Roarke glanced around at the now-quiet church. “Where the hell is that thing, anyway?”

I turned toward the far end of the church, where the entrance would normally be. “That way. And possibly underground.”

“The crypts.”

“Yeah.”

We hurried down the nave. I kept my sword at the ready and my gaze darting. This place was crawling with demon magic, though the church was now silent. Candlelight flickered on the jewel-toned figures in the stained glass. I swore their eyes followed us as we passed.

When we reached the main entryway of the cathedral, I stopped.

“We’re above him,” I whispered.

“There.” Roarke pointed to a narrow doorway. The wooden door was open to reveal a winding set of stone stairs that led down.

“Of course the creepy demon hides out in the crypt.”

I followed Roarke to the stairs, my skin prickling from the magic that flowed up from below—the distinct garbage fire smell of the Ubilaz demon, along with the scent of mold and rot and the feeling of ice against my skin.

Roarke insisted on going first, so I followed. Our footsteps were silent on the stone stairs. The hair on the back of my neck stood up at the sound of something scraping against stone. When we reached the base of the stairs, I knocked on my head for good luck.

The crypt was dark and low ceilinged with many nooks and crannies. The symmetrical order of the cathedral above was not mirrored down here. This was a labyrinth of stone walls and tiny rooms. Stone sarcophagi were aligned neatly against the walls. Some were ornately carved, some plain. But it was the small ones that broke my heart.

I shook my head and focused on the hunt, searching the dark space around us.

A ghostly silver form rose up from the sarcophagus to my left. A regal looking woman with an ornate gown, she looked to be about forty. She inclined her head toward me, then pointed to the left, deeper into the crypt.

It was the same direction that my dragon sense pulled me.

She then held up both hands and showed me nine fingers.

Demons. She had to be talking about the number of demons.

I nodded my thanks.

The ghost’s mouth moved, like she was trying to speak. Hurry. She made a shooing motion. Her gaze was desperate.

I pointed. “That way.”

His quizzical gaze met mine, but I didn’t tell him how I knew. He hadn’t seen the ghost, and I wouldn’t confess to having seen it.