“Um…”

“Stone,” Rohan said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How they react to external threat.”

“Like Drio’s ax is party time for them?”

“It’s iron. It renders them incapable of–” He jabbed a finger at the demon. “That.”

Talk about stone-cold killer. Drio’s ax now did nothing on the demon, who had, in his rage, seized Drio by the shoulder with his remaining pincer, grinding his long claws into Drio’s flesh.

I flinched at the loud snap of Drio’s shoulder breaking.

The blood drained from his face and he grit his teeth so hard that the tendons in his neck stood out in sharp relief. His agony must have been incredible but the freak didn’t cry out. Using his good hand, Drio awkwardly attempted to jam the axe blade between his skin and the demon’s pincer. Like a lever, using it to try and pry the pincers open.

The remaining sakacha converged on them but Rohan jumped into their midst, a human Ginsu knife of slicing and dicing.

Right, his blades were iron.

Three of the demons skittered back out of reach, but one suicidal fucker charged Rohan, the full force of his bulk nailing the Rasha in the small of his back. The jolt should have sent Rohan stumbling forward but the demon caught him by the scruff of his neck with a pincer.

A sly, satisfied smirk spread over the sakacha’s face.

I wanted to help but I was scared I’d make things worse. How could I free Rohan if I couldn’t use my power?

Didn’t matter. Rohan freed himself by jerking away so hard that a chunk of flesh remained in the demon’s grasp. Blood streamed down his back. My stomach heaved at the strong coppery stench filling the room.

Drio had yet to unseat his sakacha. One arm hung uselessly at the Rasha’s side while the other couldn’t get a proper angle to loosen the pincer from his broken shoulder. The demon wormed his claw into Drio’s shoulder with an expression of sadistic glee.

A sheen of sweat dotted Drio’s face and given his wavery movements, he hovered on the edge of consciousness. Of all the people on Team Rasha, you’d think I’d be most okay with losing him, but I didn’t want him to die because I’d messed up.

Thankfully, at that moment, Baruch charged through the door and ripped the entire pincer arm off of the demon torturing Drio. The pincer itself went slack and fell off. Drio’s arm hung at a nauseating angle from his broken shoulder, blood flowing from the gauges that the pincer had made. He ignored it to go help Rohan.

In the trauma of losing his arm, the sakacha reverted to his natural wood state. My firebomb had done enough damage that once the demon transformed back, he fell apart like cheap particle board.

Tree Trunk thrust his hand into the spongy mass, grabbed the knot–about the size and shape of a large lima bean–and crushed it under his foot.

All the remained of the demon was a pile of sawdust.

With Drio’s help, Rohan was able to destroy the sakacha who’d injured him. Baruch seemed to be holding his own against the rest.

As I wasn’t needed here, I raced deeper into the creepy building, past water-stained walls with their faint tang of mold, and under graffiti-tagged ceilings, on high alert for Ari.

Having imagined my twin beaten, bloody, and caged, I thought I’d prepared myself for the state in which I’d find him.

Imagining the scene was nothing like seeing it.

Ari was a pulpy mess, his flesh a rainbow of bruising. He sprawled on the filthy floor of a small room so obviously broken that the demons hadn’t even bothered to chain him up.

Tears streamed from my eyes as I ran over to him and hooked my hands under his armpits to help him to his feet. “I’ve got you.” My voice cracked.

My brother couldn’t even support himself. I staggered under his weight until I managed to find my balance for the both of us. “I wondered when you’d get here.” He stared at me blearily, his blinks too slow, his expression too dazed.

My heart stuttered. “Sorry to make you wait.” Sorry about everything I ever did to hurt you, intentionally or not. There’d be plenty of time to apologize once we were away from here.

We shuffled to the doorway.

Ari cradled the arm not slung around my neck against his body, his wrist puffy. Blood-encrusted scars were gashed diagonally along his chest and he sported a hell of a black eye. Walking seemed to be a shambling challenge but he wasn’t limping.

Shafts of weak moonlight lit our way along the quiet hallway. My scalp prickled. Where was everyone, Fallen Angels and demons both? Being allowed to wander around unchecked had to be part of a massive trap.

It took some time to backtrack but we made it to the large room where the sakacha battle had occurred. The floor was strewn with sawdust though the sakacha were all gone.

A horde of short, fuzzy, pink heart-shaped demons with enormous darkly lashed eyes and arms ending in fat white-gloved hands, things I swear I’d had in pillow form as a kid, greeted us. Sure they were cute, but I wasn’t an idiot. They were still demons. If these were the dremla, they were soul leeches.

Careful not to jostle my brother who still clung to me for support, I fired up my left hand–the one farthest from him–with a nice, bright electrical ball.

The demons all burst out into short, nasty quills.

“I’m going to have to let you go now,” I said in a low voice, my focus on the demons.

Ari’s arm that was slung around my neck tightened to asphyxiating proportions. “I don’t think so.”

I feebly slapped at my brother with my right hand.

“Take whatever form you want, demon. I’ll still kill you.”

Huh? Was he talking to me? “Not funny,” I managed to gasp.

Ari flipped his poison ring open and threw the contents at me.

I jerked sideways. My poor hair took the brunt of the maybe half teaspoon, but I still screamed, feeling like my scalp was on fire. A clump of charred hair fell to the ground, and my left ear lobe bubbled. My stomach heaved.

“I may not be Rasha,” Ari hissed, “but I still trained as one. You hurt me, unholy spawn, I’ll hurt you back.”

“Unholy spawn” was not a nickname of mine. Ari didn’t know who I was.

My blood ran cold.

“Ari,” I said in a steady voice, “I’m your sister, Nava. Look at my ring. I’m Rasha.”

He laughed mirthlessly. “Good try, but there’s no such thing as a female Rasha. And I don’t have a sister.”

Asmodeus could make the rest of the world forget about me. But not Ari. The demon didn’t get that win.

I dropped low, ducking under Ari’s arm with a shocked yelp as he kicked me sideways, sending me partway across the room. I smacked the side of a pillar, all air knocked from my lungs. Of course, I had to make sure my darling twin didn’t kill me first.

Ari crouched in fighter stance, fists up and a determined look in his eyes. “Make the dremla stand down or I swear I’ll kill you. I know your weak spot.”

Yeah, idiot. You.

The demons flanked me like an army. My army.

My eyes widened. “Oh no. Not mine.” I fired at a couple of them.

“We are sorry to disappoint, my Queen,” they said in musical voices. Faking, bunny-eyed spawn.

Before I could insist that I had no royalty status among the demonically-inclined, Ari rushed me. I was no match for my brother. The first few hits hurt but it was the punch to my eye that sent me over the top.

I slammed my hand into his chest, spreading my electricity in a fine web around his torso. Ari took deep gasping breaths, his entire body spasming. I kept the voltage low because I had no desire to heart attack him into me being an only child, but I had to make my point. “Who took the blame when you broke the dining room window with your homemade catapult, Ace?”

Still caught in my magic web, Ari raised a shaking hand and shot me the finger.

So much for using my words. I tugged at my non-poisoned earlobe once, in our “I’ve got your back,” code.

His face creased in confusion. Then he tugged back, staring at his hand like he wasn’t sure why he’d done that.

I stopped my magic, catching him as he sagged. “Let’s get out of here.”

Asmodeus stepped into the room, slow clapping, and totally healed from our fight the other night. There were no signs of any of the wounds that Rohan and I had inflicted on him. Not even the slash across his throat. “Good job, catching the prisoner for me, Nava.” Once again, only his ogre head spoke, though he refrained from getting all Lust Master on me.

“As if, you–”

I froze at the look of hatred on Ari’s face. “Knew it,” he whispered. With that he was ripped out of my arms by the demonic pillow horde and marched away, leaving a couple dremla behind to help Asmodeus.

I faced the demon, jaw tight. Killing his spawn was nothing compared to what I planned to do in retaliation for putting that look on Ari’s face.

“So easily forgettable,” Asmodeus said. He scratched at the fur on his bull’s head, this encounter with me a minor irritant. Hot bovine stank wafted off him. “Your comrades, your own brother? None of them able to remember you.”

“Drop their compelled memory loss and their love of me will rush right back in,” I countered.

Asmodeus’ thick ogre lips drew together in a distorted expression of pity. “Don’t you realize how my compulsions function? I work with what people already want. I prefer to deal in lust, but I can affect any desire. I simply amp up that craving, maybe small, maybe buried deep down, but still burning hot and bright inside them. With the memory loss? All those people couldn’t wait to forget you. Even you know you shouldn’t be Rasha. That’s why you wanted to forget the joke of you as a hunter. The joke of your entire existence.”

His voice slithered through me, pulling down stone after stone in the wall of my self-confidence that I’d so carefully erected after my dreams went up with the snap of my Achilles. Exposing these bricks as hollow, plastic shells.

“No.” I barely choked the word out through the thickness in my throat.

“The Rasha don’t want you. Your brother doesn’t either. It’s your fault he didn’t get to take his rightful place.”

Shards of my heart cracked off. I clapped my hands over my ears, not wanting to hear the demon’s insidious words. Not wanting him to see my hands shake. Not wanting to hear the truth my own experience borne out. The Rasha wanting to forget me I could live with. It sucked, especially from Rohan, but I got it.

Ari, though? Asmodeus killing me over and over again couldn’t inflict as much hurt.

He laughed. The same laugh I’d heard in the supposedly empty hallway earlier when he’d also touched me. Creeped out, I skittered backwards.

“I was simply going to leave your brother’s body for you to find. But erasing you as his sister altogether? Having him think you’re one of us?” The demon hummed in glee. “You’ve been so entertaining in so many ways.”

Head bowed, my hands slid down the side of my head, my palms skimming over my ear lobes. The ongoing searing on my left side was a distant second to my broken heart. I flashed on Ari giving me our secret “got your back” twin code. Asmodeus wanted me devastated. Wanted me to lay down and die. But he’d failed to realize one very important point: even if Ari did hate me right now, he needed me. I wouldn’t stop having his back until I was dead.

I straightened up, beckoning the demon forward with my hand.

His three heads looked between each other in amusement. Bulls and rams should never look amused.

“My turn to be entertained. Gonna kill you now.” Pushing past all my exhaustion and pain, I dug deep for my anger. Letting my hatred of Asmodeus not rule me, but absolutely fuel me. My magic coated me in a bright blue glow, lightning bolts slithering over my skin like animated tattoos.

“Cute,” he said. “But you can’t take me on your own and your friends are,” he paused for effect, “busy.”

I fired a lightning bolt into his side. He didn’t get to walk away from doing this to my brother. To me. “Don’t be such a coward, Asmodeus.”

In the blink of an eye, he dropped what little civility he’d pretended to have. The monster that now faced me was primal, brutal, and very much a deadly prince of his realm. “As you wish.” He leapt at me, kicking me in the head.

Light exploded in my brain. If I was going to see stars, it better damn well be from the other kind of hard pounding.

I staggered back only to be caught by the throat with one enormous hand.

The more he squeezed, the harder my power flared up. My vision flickered, white spots dancing before my eyes. Blood seeped from my temple, mingling with my sweat. My inner voltage fluctuated wildly and my heart pounded so hard, I was amazed I didn’t crack my rib cage. I had to shut myself down, but since that would leave me powerless in a demon’s grasp, I chose to let the needle on my inner meter break and allow my magic voltage to flood me.

Asmodeus roared as I flared bright, releasing me from his grip. Gulping air in heaving breaths, I fell on my butt, my hands sliding in a thick, viscous goop.

I scrambled to my feet, darting away and using every iota of mental strength I had to bring my power levels down. My magic didn’t simply dissipate. The electricity bounced around my body before snaking out through the soles of my feet. It didn’t hurt though, so that was a step up.

Asmodeus faced me, bits of his flesh blackened and smoking dropping to the ground with sickening thuds. A rat scurried out of the shadows, going to town on this all-it-could-eat demon buffet.

I dry-heaved.

Suddenly, the demon’s side went limp.

“You might want to start wearing shoes,” Rohan said to the demon. “Because those tendons of yours are baby-sensitive.” He reached down and hauled me to my feet, raking an intrigued eye over me. “Magic ink. Nice.”

Lightning bolts danced over my still-blue skin. “Took your time.”

One of dremla attached to Baruch like a barb, looking like it was trying to cuddle him to death. Baruch’s skin rippled. His eyes rolled back, showing the whites, before he let out a war cry, grabbed the demon by its arms, and ripped it in two.

I expected to be showered in fluff but instead this maggot-like creature fell wriggling to the floor, so I stomped it to gory smithereens. The remaining dremla fled.

Asmodeus regrouped, lashing out.

Baruch tossed me a pair of red ear plugs.

I popped them in and the world fell silent. Which was weird since I should have heard the sounds of the brutal and bloody fight we were engaged in–or Asmodeus using his voice compulsion on us.

His ogre face grew redder and redder as he tried, his features more and more twisted with fury. Drio grinned his unholy grin and mockingly tapped his ears.

The fight raged on. Magic continued to pour out of me with no problem, though my poor meatsack stayed upright through sheer will alone.

Earlier, Baruch had assigned us each a battle zone. A part of Asmodeus’ body to focus our attack on. Best case scenario, we’d notice him trying to protect the sweet spot. At the very least, we’d be weakening his body with strikes.

I’d been assigned the demon’s back. I wounded him. I even bloodied him but not enough to do real damage. I was tiring far faster than Asmodeus was. True for all of us. With his broken shoulder, Drio looked about ten seconds away from passing out.

Asmodeus had gotten in enough licks in that our blood splattered the floor like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Then Rohan managed to slice off one of the hardened scales on the demon’s chest. Asmodeus flinched. The tiniest movement but compared to his lack of reaction with the rest of our hits, fairly telling. As if we were Borg, connected by a hive mind, Baruch, Drio, Rohan, and I refocused all our magic on his chest. Drio and Rohan used their ax and blades respectively, Baruch weaved in to rip off scale edges in order to expose more vulnerable flesh, while I blasted any bit of skin uncovered.

That’s when Kane, sporting a nasty cut across his temple, hobbled in with Ari. He gave me a sheepish grin, resting Ari carefully against a pillar. Told you my brother wasn’t dead. Why wasn’t Kane jumping into the fight? I did a full-body scan to check if his injuries were more extensive than I could see, but that wasn’t it at all. He waited until we’d torn a wide strip of scales off Asmodeus’ torso. Kane swaggered up behind him and then, his skin iridescent purple with poison, he hugged the demon.

Asmodeus convulsed.

Kane said something to me but when I shook my head at him, unable to hear, motioned for me to pull out the ear plugs. I did.

He bowed low, with a flourishing arm. “I left you the good part. Care to do the honors?”

Chest heaving, I caught my breath enough to answer. “Hell, yeah. Hey, Asmodeus.”

The demon zeroed in on me, the poison rippling through his shriveling frame and tight pain etched across his three faces. His ram’s head gave a wounded bleat as he unsuccessfully attempted to protect his right pec. The sweet spot.

I shot him the finger, a perfect forked bolt shooting off that digit to bullseye him. “See who’s forgotten now, bitch,” I crowed.

Asmodeus fell apart into puzzle pieces, all of him winking out of oblivion with a sucking noise.

It was over.

The lightning bolts disappeared from my skin as I powered down from blue to my usual Snow White pale, though I still reeked of electricity. Despite my bleeding, my bruising, my burned ear, and my bone-deep exhaustion, the knot in my stomach overrode everything else. “Tell me you remember me.”

Drio eyed me with distaste. “Sì. I like you even less now.” Keeping his shoulder more or less in place with his other hand, he strode out.

“One thing going right in my day,” I called out after him.

Still all poisonous, Kane blew me a huge kiss with a “Hola, babyslay.” He toed at the floor. “I’ll get the sodium peroxide mix to scour off our blood. Don’t want demons getting hold of it.” Especially not if they used it to take down our wards.

Baruch gave me a proud eye blink.

“Awfully sweet of you, Tree Trunk,” I said as they hurried off.

Rohan didn’t say much one way or the other. He shot me an inscrutable look and left.

Then there were two.

“Hey, Ace.” I slung my arm over his shoulder. Please let Ari remember he comes as a matched set.

“Hey, Nee.” Yay! “Sorry for the whole trying to kill you thing.”

“No problem.” My grip on him tightened. “But do it again and I’ll stab you in the tits.”

He mussed my hair with more noogie than fondness. “Like you could.”

“I so could.”

Ari laughed then pressed his hand to his side. He looked like a human punching bag and needed to rest, as did I.

I grabbed him in a hug, practically squeezing the life out of him with my tears falling against his neck. He returned it, just as fiercely. Just as choked up. I wanted to ask if this meant we were okay or… not. But I wasn’t that brave. I’d do it after I got his initiate status confirmed.

I disengaged with a sniff. “Come on,” I said and my brother and I trekked out of the darkness and back into the moonlight.

Together.