Shades of Wicked (Page 50)

That dried-up demon husk was Rani? “You glamoured him to look like you.”

Dagon’s smile was all teeth. “Got the idea from your friend Vlad since glamour worked so well on Ian the first time. You know what they say about fooling someone twice, boy.” He tossed his blond hair before wagging a finger at Ian. “Shame on you.”

Ian smiled back. “Here’s a saying I fancy more: If at first you don’t succeed . . .”

“Try, try again,” I finished. We’d known the mirror trap might not work. That’s why Ian and I still had another bone knife, and we also had a whole theme park full of surprises.

Without warning, Dagon’s power blasted from him like a bomb going off. It froze time in the room, rolling over me before catching Ian in its pitiless grip. Just as fast, I let mine loose, releasing Ian from his paralysis before Dagon could take so much as a step toward him.

“I don’t think so.” I barely recognized my own voice from the growl that came out of my throat. Dagon stared at me as if he’d suddenly seen a stranger, too. Then he laughed.

“Look at you, girl! Full of power now that you’re all grown up.” Then he took in a deep sniff and laughed again. “From your scent, you’ve been mixing your work with play, too. Not that I blame you. I couldn’t resist Ian, either.”

I swung a horrified glance at Ian. “You didn’t?”

Dagon took advantage of that by leaping around Ian to slam a fist into my stomach. The impact knocked me through all the remaining walls in the fun house and into the Tilt-A-Whirl behind it. I hit that hard enough to crack my skull, then shook my head to clear it as I looked back at the fun house.

Ian and Dagon burst through its roof. They were grappling in midair, each landing punishing blows on the other. Dagon tried freezing time again. I blasted his spell apart before Ian even slowed down. Then I grabbed my second bone knife, about to fly toward them when a fresh sizzle of power hit my back like a swarm of stinging hornets. I whirled around to see who it was and . . . what the hell?

Dagon was behind me! I spared a glance to confirm that another Dagon was still in the air fighting with Ian. He was. The demon had indeed arrived with reinforcements. As an extra trick, he’d glamoured all of them to look like him. Now, I didn’t know which was the real Dagon. Didn’t matter. We’d just kill them all.

This Dagon grinned before disappearing in a clear attempt to teleport the rest of the way to me. I tightened my hand around the bone knife and flew at the spot where I’d last seen him. Seconds later, he appeared back in that same place, frowning.

Surprise! I thought nastily. The complex web Ian and I had spent days casting over the entire park meant demons could teleport into it, but they couldn’t teleport within the park’s limits again.

I slammed into him, shoving my knife into his eye at the same time. The force smashed us both through the Tilt-A-Whirl I’d recently cracked my head against. Its heavy steel frame tore as we hurtled through both sides of it, the jagged metal ripping into my flesh. The double impact was so violent, I missed when I aimed for the demon’s other eye.

He punched me in the head. My vision went dark and horrible crunching noises exploded in my skull. I managed to tear away before he landed another one, flying blind until my eyes healed enough to see again. When they did, everything was still blurry. I blinked until I saw a shadowy image of the demon running beneath me, something large in his hands.

Carousel pony, I realized as he hurled it at me. I dodged far enough for it to miss most of me, though its legs struck my shoulder with a glancing blow. I blinked rapidly, trying to force my vision to heal faster.

“Did you lose something, girl?” the demon taunted in Sumerian, holding up a small object this time. A few more blinks and I saw it was my demon-bone knife. But that wasn’t what made me feel as though I’d been hit by a car.

His voice and scent was the same as Dagon’s. The glamour Dagon had used had been thorough. But the way this demon said ‘girl,’ with one more syllable than the ancient language called for . . . I remembered a demon who used to pronounce it that way.

“Fenkir,” I said, hate slicing deeper than the metal had.

Dagon’s face grinned back at me, but the one eye that wasn’t blackened out and smoking . . . I knew the person staring back at me from that eye, no matter what color and shape it came in.

“Girrrrllll,” Fenkir said, deliberately dragging out the only word he and the others had called me back when I’d been their captive. “This time, when I kill you, you’ll stay dead.” And he wagged the demon-bone knife at me.

I’d never been murdered by demon bone through the eyes before, so it was possible. Perhaps they knew my father was actually a different sort of demon.

I wasn’t about to ask. I also wasn’t going to let the fear of permanent death stop me. I only paused to cast a split-second glance Ian’s way. He and Dagon were still trading blows that leveled everything in their path, but Ian didn’t seem to need my help at the moment. And I really wanted to show Fenkir how far I’d come since I had been the traumatized, broken girl he’d last seen.

I held my arms out. Wind began to blow my hair around as the power I summoned spilled out into the air around me. Fenkir cocked his head, squinting with his one eye as he watched.

“Are you too much of a coward to come down and fight?”

“Don’t worry. I’m coming.”

The power built, fueled by memories I finally freed because they gave it fuel. When it grew enough to make my skin burn as if something inside was trying to claw its way out, I aimed that power right at Fenkir and released it.

He screamed. A pitiless part of me enjoyed hearing it. Told you I was coming. Here I am.

Then he ran. My power continued to laser into him with concentrated beams. His legs became sluggish. I flew at him right as he tripped. He rolled when he fell, holding the bone knife in front of him while an expression I’d never seen before crossed his features.

Panic.

If I were Fenkir, I’d pause to savor that expression on my victim’s face. Then, I’d take my time torturing that person, instead of delivering a clean kill. I’d also laugh, while promising to stop if he or she begged me pathetically enough. But of course I wouldn’t, and I would laugh again as I continued the torture. That was Fenkir.

It wasn’t me. I landed on him with all the force I could muster. It broke my legs, but it shattered his rib cage and spine. The momentary paralysis made it easy for me to rip the bone knife from his hand. Then I stabbed it through both his eyes even though one was still blackened and smoking. I was off him again before his body had a chance to start deflating.

Fenkir loved drawing out the pain before he killed people. I just wanted justice served. For him, it finally was.

I yanked the bone knife out of Fenkir’s eye and flew back toward the fun house. Ian and the other Dagon were no longer there. They’d moved their battle near the rusted Paratrooper ride. Two of the mock metal parachutes were torn from their perch when Dagon threw Ian into them. I flew faster and grabbed Ian’s arm, spinning him around before he could fly back to attack again.

“Not here!” I urged in a low voice.

Enough of the bloodlust left his gaze for him to nod, but Ian also had actual blood all over him. I hoped some of it was Dagon’s. From the crimson lines streaking the demon, it could be. But was this really Dagon? Or another glamoured demon?