“He’s been compromised,” Mist said suddenly. “The scent is clear.”
Fuck.
Bel nodded. “Go. I’ll deal with him.”
“Wait—” Raum began, but Mist was already gone, dissolved back into mist. “Where’d he go?”
“I got you. No need to worry.” Bel took a step toward him, knife still in hand.
Raum backed up, shooting a glance at the patio door and windows. All closed.Fuck.
He gave it a shot anyway.
Bel lunged. Raum shifted.
But Belial hadn’t earned his reputation for being the baddest motherfucker in Hell for nothing. He tossed his knife at the crow shooting across the room, and his aim was dead on.
It pierced Raum’s feathery body and knocked him right out of the air.
He shifted back to a seriously pissed-off man with a knife in his side and leapt to his feet. “What the fuck!” he roared at Bel, and he whipped the blade out and hurled it at his brother with as much force as he could muster.
The sonofabitch caught it straight out of the air. By the blade.
Raum started to shift again, but Bel was already across the room, grabbing him. Raum’s wings crunched under Bel’s grip, so he shifted back to human and punched him in the face. Bel didn’t even flinch. Hellfire blazed in his eyes instead, and he gained several inches of heightandbreadth.
The violence was setting him off.Fucking great.
Belial decked Raum back with a boulder-sized fist. Raum’s head snapped back and lights danced in his eyes.
Okay, now he was pissed off.
“You piece of shit.” He spat a mouthful of blood in Bel’s face.
“Sorry, bro,” Bel said, but his demonic eyes were alight with the thrill of violence.
Raum really didn’t have time for an intervention or whatever Bel thought this was. He needed to get back to the roof and get Sunshine out of here as soon as possible. So he did something he never did when he was on Earth—desperate times, desperate measures, and all that.
He shifted to his full demon form.
He was way too big to cram into this tiny human-sized apartment, but right now he only cared about beating Belial to a pulp.
His plan worked too. Bel momentarily froze, shocked by the sight of Raum’s demon—something he hadn’t seen in a long time. Raum used the opportunity to lunge, wings spread as far as they could in the confined space, and drive his beak into his brother’s throat.
Belial roared, and then he burst into flames.
* * *
It was a sunny day,though the spring air was still fresh. On the roof, there were still a few piles of old snow, protected in the north-facing shadows behind chimneys and air conditioning units. Another day or two of warm sun and they would melt.
Sunshine took a seat on a raised ledge with a triangle-shaped skylight and decided to let Luna off her leash. It was an enclosed area, and there was nowhere she could run off to, and Sunshine figured it would be a good experience for her to explore.
Luna seemed much less timid now that they were away from the shelter, and when Sunshine reached down to unclip the leash, she didn’t cower. When she was free, she didn’t run as most dogs would have. Instead, she stood in place and looked up at Sunshine.
Her eyes seemed to say,Don’t you want me?As if she feared Sunshine was abandoning her by taking off the leash.
Sunshine wondered if that was what her previous owner had done. “You’re free to sniff around if you would like,” she told Luna, “but I’m taking you with me when we go.”
Her head cocked a little.
