Still, Nix couldn’t help teasing him. “Will there be hugging? Or manly claps on the back?”
“We’ll be fortunate if there aren’t any more gunshots.”
In a case of perfect timing, there were four subtle pops of a silenced gun, and Nix felt the four traitorous souls being snuffed out in the back.
That was all the betrayal dealt with. Sergei was gone, as were the men he’d managed to turn. The grunts, as Ivan had called them, would have to be parsed through at some point, but Ivan’score group was loyal now, and those who hadn’t been would be replaced with better models.
It gave Nix a funny feeling, a strange tugging in his gut. Which was odd, considering he didn’t care much about human lives.
It took the shock emanating from Ivan, now stiff in Nix’s arms, for Nix to realize the strange feeling wasn’t about the deaths at all.
His arms around Ivan’s neck had gone transparent. Ah. That explained the tugging, didn’t it?
Nix was being pulled back to the Void.
“Oh,” he could only say dumbly. “I guess we met the conditions of the contract after all.”
The last thing he saw of the human realm were Ivan’s pale eyes widening in horror, and then Nix was taken away.
20
Ivan
Ivan’s demon was gone.
Disappeared, in a puff of sweet smoke. In Ivan’s arms one moment and dragged into the ether the next.
Ivan hadn’t been ready.
I was never going to be fucking ready.
He barely registered the murmuring of voices until Jace was in front of him, his brow furrowed at whatever he saw on Ivan’s face. “Boss?” he asked warily. “Things have been…dealt with. You need anything else here before we head out?”
Ivan should be telling him “well done,” shouldn’t he? Nix had been harping on him about verbalizing appreciation for his men more.
Nix would want him to be appreciative.
Ivan drew his gun and pointed it as his new main lieutenant. He distantly registered the shock and fear in Jace’s eyes, but that wasn’t important.
Only one thing in Ivan’s life held any fucking importance.
“I do need one more thing from you, Jace,” he said, in a voice that was nothing like his own. “And I’m afraid refusal is not an option.”
He held the gun steady as he withdrew the Book from his jacket pocket.
“I need you to summon a demon.”
21
Nix
Nix landed hard on the dusty cave floor.
He was usually more graceful returning to the Void, but he was too stunned to catch himself, and he ended up sprawled out on his back.
He’d completed the contract.
Obviously, since here he was, back in the Void. But worse—so much worse—was that when he reached for Ivan’s beautiful, broken soul piece in his chest, it wasn’t there. It was somewhere deep inside Nix, dormant with all the others.
