Silverblood Demons (Daughters of Darkness Book 1) (11 page)

I carried on speaking while the going seemed to be good. “There are probably hundreds of thousands of times more demons than have already been killed that are afraid to speak up, face it.” I said, as I lowered myself too and began circling Qirvana, trying to see if her eyes were going to reveal what she really thought.

“You
,
the very bravest of all the dissenters, and if I’m not mistaken, their leader−”

“What?”

“You heard me,” I said. “Ophelexa” . . . I let her name hang in the air for a second, “told me that’s what you are, the leader of the insurrection.”

“Your plan, your idea Sin-dy,” she cautiously enquired. “I want to hear it.”

“Stealing the honor of the daughters of Sarturas, or as you called them, the Cambion. needs to be delayed,” I said. “You have to let me go so I can make a plan with some others.” I could see she was intrigued when I said,
some others
.

“I told you earlier, I need to talk with the Templars. I want to tell them that you’ll have the Adamantine Gates opened and that they won’t be challenged by that rabid three headed dog Cerberus or any of Sarine’s forces.”

“I can’t do that, I can stall the Impregnation Ceremony,” she said. “But no one can leave the gates of Hell open, wait a minute, no one except for Lucifer himself, but how do I convince him−”

“Tell him that Hell will be divided and as a result weakened by his daughters plan. It’ll only strengthen his enemies in heaven if there are fewer demons because of an all-out war.”

I don’t believe that everything that was coming out of my mouth made sense, even to me! But did it make sense to Qirvana or was this all an act by her to draw me out?
Was I being naïve to think she would actually go along with this?

“
If
I can do what you’re asking,” she waved a demon over to her side and whispered something that startled the demon, who then left our presence. “We have to make a pact.”

“A pact?” I was starting to worry, where did that demon just go to, were they getting ready to do away with me? I had regained a lot of my strength and even though I felt I could alter-witch and hide or fly out of here, the chances of me getting completely away were pretty slim, probably impossible.

“Ophelexa is right, I am the leader of the insurrection, but even if I succeed in standing up to Sarine’s forces, I am doomed. I will always have to be looking over my shoulder, she’s going to want revenge, that is . . . ” She was facing away from me, but turned enough to see my reaction.

“I can help if we make a pact?” I questioned. “I can help save your life?”

“I have to leave Hell,” she said, “and only you can help me.”

This was an incredible turn of events. Ophelexa brought me to Sedah Hall to my certain death, but here I was, striking a deal with her enemy. But at what cost?

“First, you have to tell me what the Templars−”

“They’re going to escort every last girl out of Hades and back to my world. It’ll be a huge risk for them and I don’t even know if they’ll do it, but what other choice do either of us have?”

The demon returned, she had a jeweled box that she placed on a table in front of us.

Qirvana stepped closer to me, and for the first time in my life I could see deep inside a demons eyes. They were spinning and flashing and had explosions of a thousand colors,
the eyes of all the souls they had taken?

“What is the pact Qirvana?”

“I’m going to give you something,” I looked down at the jeweled box. “No, not that,” she said.

“Get out of here!” Qirvana was shouting out an order to the demons that were still in attendance around us. “All of you.”

As soon as they had all gone she changed her form, she was no longer a demon, she became human, like the girl next door kind of look. “If this plan succeeds,” she sweetly said. “You have to find me a safe haven in your world, that, is the pact you have to make with me.”

“Where am I going to find somewhere for you to live,” I asked. “In a townhouse?”

Qirvana picked up the jeweled box and opened it, a knife? I tried to back away but she grabbed my arm and for some reason I trusted her, I didn’t struggle to get away.

“A pact has to be honored in blood,” she said. “If we do this, we will become blood sisters.”

My eyes opened wide, “You’re going to cut us and mix our blood?”

“Like you said earlier Sin-dy, what other choice is there?” She placed the sharp edge of the knife against my wrist. “Yes, or no,” she asked.

“I must be crazy to trust a−”

“A Demon?” she cut in, as she changed back to her former demon self.

Not wanting to show any fear, I took the knife from her hand, placed the edge on her wrist and asked, “Yes, or no?”

Qirvana placed her hand over mine, “Do it, daughter of mother Gaia.”

“No problem,” I said. “Daughter of Hell.”

Fearlessly we looked at each other and drew the sharp edge of the knife against our wrists and placed them together. Qirvana pulled the sash from my silver gown and bound our wrists together, letting our blood mix. Nothing, can describe the feeling I felt, as the cocktail of human and demon blood, swept through every strand of DNA in my body. We became blood sisters.

“We have to make this look like we had a fight,” I said, as I removed the sash that was now a psychedelic colored mix of an Alter-Witch and Demon blood. “It’s time for me to go.”

“I told you earlier that I was going to give you something,” she said. “Stand aside.”

Qirvana took an ancient broadsword down from the wall, “This is what I want to give you.”

At first I thought Qirvana meant the sword, but she walked away from me, raised the broadsword with both her hands and brought it crashing down and shattered the bathtub I was in earlier. The water poured out and pieces of the tub flew in every direction. Picking up a piece the size of my head she placed it in a leather bag and put it down in front of me. “This is a diamond. It has no imperfections and in your world it is priceless.”

“Should be a nice down payment on a castle somewhere for you,” I joked.

“Your escape has to look realistic,” Handing the sword to me she said. “I want you to injure me, here in my side.”

“Are you sure?” Barely able to pick it up I waited for her to steady herself. Qirvana placed the sword at her waist. “Now swing!” she said. I pulled back on the medieval weapon and brought it crashing against her side, she buckled to the floor and roared in pain.

“Time for you to go sister and don’t let me down,” she said. “I’ll give you enough time to make it out of here before I call for help. Fly high and head toward the crystal mountain, you’ll be back in Sarturas in a few hours.”

“How will we communicate?” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll find you.”

“I’ll take this too,” I said, as I picked up the knife we became blood sister’s with. “You never know when a girl is going to need a good knife.”

I flew up toward the opening in the ceiling and out to my freedom. I could hardly wait to get back to Kylar
.

Chapter 12

Flying back to Sarturas, carting a huge diamond was the least extraordinary part of my journey. Heading in the general direction of the crystal mountain I could see smoke coming from several buildings below me. Damn, I was so looking forward to seeing Kylar and I didn’t know if this was a good idea, but how could I just pass right over the smoking buildings without at least taking a look to see what was going on.

The problem was that Qirvana and I had made a promise that we would each do our part to protect the girls of Sarturas, the Cambion, as she had called them and I didn’t have time for anything to sidetrack me. If Qirvana managed to delay the Impregnation Ceremony for a day or more, which sounded so sterile, considering it’ll be a mass rape of unheard of proportions, then I had to do my part by reaching out to the Templars and work some kind of miracle convincing them to enter Hades.

There were so many elements that were interconnected to all of these plans and ideas that something was bound to go wrong. For now, I had to go check on those buildings.

Within minutes I was standing in the middle of a ghost town. There were fires smoldering everywhere around the complex of buildings. I don’t know what had happened, but the strange and toxic smell coming from the building ahead was the obvious choice for me to investigate. I had already alter-witched into a wild dog frothing at the mouth. Several of them were roaming the area while I was making my way back to Sarturas.

After entering the building from a huge metal side door that had been melted open, I couldn’t hold my shape any longer, my body shocked itself back to being me again. There must have been hundreds of demons piled high to the ceiling. They were all dead and steaming from their burning flesh.
Who had this much power?
My heart was thumping so loud I could feel it in my ears.

Turning to leave before I became the latest edition at the top of the heap, just like them, something caught my attention, something moving. Before I could even think about doing anything, there was a loud crashing noise outside, this might have been a really dumb idea for me to stop, I should have listened to my gut feeling and just kept flying past.

I heard a cough, not a human one, but a strange inhuman wheezing kind of cough, that’s what I saw moving earlier. So I couldn’t go outside where all the crashing sounds were coming from and there was danger inside too.
I’m so stupid, how did I get myself into trouble already!

“I need help,” The voice came from the back of the dead demon pile. Whoever this was, it had moved away from me, but it seemed to be injured and making eerie sounds.

“Show yourself,” I said. “How do I know you won’t hurt me?”

“I saw you change from a Khurpek to a human,” He was still groaning. “If you help me, I can help you.”

A deal, with a demon, again?

“If you need help, come out and tell me what happened here, and what are the crashing sounds outside?”

At twice my height and covered in gleaming Chromium scales and probably the reason he’s still alive, he shuffled and dragged himself around the pile of his dead legionnaire brothers. His arm and one leg were covered in light green blood and he had a rip in his left wing, right at the top where there should be a skeletal joint.

“Xenakaz?”

“Who are you that you should know me, human.”

“I’m known in Sarturas as Sceleris, I’ve heard your name and all about your Chromium scales many times. You’re the highest ranking leader of Hades, second only to Lucifer himself.”

“You’re not afraid of me?”

“You would have killed me when you saw me earlier, there must be a reason you didn’t.”

The crashing outside had stopped and I had my own problems, there was too much at stake for me to get caught up in whatever was going on here.

“I have to leave, I’m sure you know about the Impregnation Ceremony tomorrow morning−”

Xenakaz stumbled and fell to one knee, he let out a painful and guttural roar that must have been heard for a mile around us. Now what?

“Take me with you, Ophelexa’s forces probably heard me. Now they
know
I’m not dead,” Xenakaz stood back up again. “All of this has happened because we stood up to Sarine’s insanity.”

“Do you mean you’re part of Qirvana’s insurrection?” I could hardly believe what I was hearing. The second most powerful being in Hell, he’s injured and asking me, Sin-dy, to help him.

“Right now I’m not part of anything, if we stay here much longer, neither will you be.”

“How can I take you with me? I don’t think you can fly.”

“You have to tie yourself to my side, my other wing is still good, between the two of us we can escape before it’s too late.”

Xenakaz’ keen sense of hearing jolted him. “They’re coming, if you’re going to help−”

“I know, I know, fine, tie us together with what?”

He ripped up a few golden tunics that seemed like they were uniforms for all the dead demons, they had that triangle shape with the three horns in the middle and lashed us together, of course my feet weren’t touching the ground but there was no other way.

We made our way outside and I saw where all the crashing sounds had been coming from. There were more dead demons. Ophelexa’s forces were busy killing as many dissenters as possible before the final trap they were going to set for the rest of them at the audience with Sarine. They were probably dropping off the bodies here, so no one would be tipped off.

Now I could hear the demons advancing toward us too. “Ya ready Xenakaz?”

We rose above the ground, awkwardly at first but with each beat of his wing we flew more steadily and the buildings quickly disappeared from sight. If we could heal this Titan of demons then maybe there’d be hope yet for all of us.

I tried communicating with Kylar again but for some reason it wasn’t working.
I hope that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong. I miss him badly, I need to see his face again, to . . .

I had to concentrate, Xenakaz was in pain and kept missing beats with his wing.
This is all I need, if he passes out with me tied to him,
I didn’t want to think about that, in a few hours we’d be back in Sarturas and somehow I still had to find the hillside refuge.

Somewhere inside of me I could sense Kylar’s presence, he wasn’t going to relax until he found a way see me again, I just knew it
.
And even though Elektra can be a real pain I couldn’t wait to see her and Kira too. There’s so much to catch up on, I hope they’re doing well. My thoughts were rambling, one minute I was thinking about Ophelexa almost killing me, then my discussion with Qirvana, and then back to Kylar again. Soon I kept promising myself, soon.