Lucifer’s eyes had narrowed as I spoke, and I could see the realization dawning that his master plan had somehow backfired.

“Oh,” I said, and held out my hands before me. “Your magic wasn’t the only magic inside me, by the way. I am Azazel’s daughter, you know.”

And I let my nightfire fly.

17

He wasn’t expecting it; otherwise he would have easily been able to block my shot. But the nightfire blast hit him full force in the chest, and it took him off his feet. Alerian and Puck both paused in their battles, obviously shocked to see Lucifer on the ground.

Which allowed Nathaniel and Jude to take advantage. A moment later, Alerian was flat on his back with a growling wolf standing on top of him. Puck was on the ground sitting on his butt with a confused look on his face. Nathaniel floated down to land beside me. He watched his fallen father with steel in his eyes.

“I’m not bound to you anymore,” I said to Lucifer. The shock of my blast had shaken away the magic he’d used to maintain his demon face, and he’d returned to looking angelic as usual. “You cannot force me to do your bidding. You cannot draw on the blood tie or on the power of the Hound of the Hunt. I don’t have to perform any more of your crappy errands or be any kind of ambassador anywhere. I am free.”

“I still have dominion over you and every other mewling human on this Earth,” Lucifer snarled.

“No, you do not.”

It was the very thing I was going to say, but somebody else took the words out of my mouth.

The voice had come from behind me, and as I turned and looked I saw Daharan was there, and it seemed like his entire body was lit by dragon fire. His voice was measured and controlled as always, but his expression was so suffused with anger that I had to turn my face away. Daharan was frightening like that. It made me remember that he was a dragon at heart, and one should not take a dragon lightly.

Lucifer and Puck visibly shrank back—not a lot, but enough that you would notice if you were watching them closely. I had never seen either of them cower before anyone.

Jude was still growling away on Alerian’s chest. If his victim had not been a billions-of-years-old immortal, then Jude probably would have slashed his throat open by now. But Jude knew as well as I did the physical consequences of killing something so old. When I’d taken out Titania, I’d actually sent her to another galaxy far away, so that when the magical energy that had built up inside her for thousands of years exploded outward, it wouldn’t flatten the entire city of Chicago and its neighboring suburbs. Alerian was significantly older and more powerful than Titania, so his death would probably take out the center of the continent and then cause the rest of it to fall into the sea.

Daharan stalked toward his three brothers. When he reached Jude he tapped the wolf on the shoulder. Jude twisted around and looked up. When he saw Daharan he stepped off Alerian, who stood up with careful deliberation and then joined the other two, who were watching Daharan warily.

The eldest brother faced off against the other three, and even though there was a disparity in numbers, it was clear who had the advantage.

I didn’t want to break the spell of his dominion over the other three, but I had to know.

“Daharan,” I said, and I was surprised by how small my voice sounded. “Where have you been?”

“I am sorry, Madeline,” he said, but he never looked at me. He kept his eyes locked on Lucifer, Alerian and Puck, like he was a snake charmer keeping three reptiles at bay. “None of this would have happened were I present. However, these three ensured that I would not be.”

My eyes went from Lucifer to Puck to Alerian. “It’s a conspiracy? Really? They’re all working together? I thought they all hated one another.”

“A convenient fiction that has allowed them to work in secret for many months, each of them putting their individual pieces in place,” Daharan said.

“But they did not reckon for your involvement,” Nathaniel observed.

“Correct,” Daharan said. “And they knew that my willingness to remain silent would last only up to a point. I have been attempting to draw all the threads together for some time, and then to dissuade these three from enacting their plan, long before you knew me. But matters were greatly accelerated after Puck sent you to that dead world and manipulated you into killing the Cimice to release your shadow. Even then I tried to block them, to protect you, to protect humanity. When it seemed that their pieces were finally falling into place for their ultimate plan, I moved to stop them once and for all. And they betrayed me.”

I understood immediately that this was almost worse than anything else these three had done. Despite all of their wrongdoing, Daharan had always tried to keep their family matters in the family. He had kept things hidden even from me, believing it better to take care of the matter quietly unless he was forced to otherwise. For the three brothers to reward Daharan’s loyalty with betrayal—well, let’s just say that it wouldn’t sit well with a being of Daharan’s character.

“How did they betray you?” J.B. asked.

“They imprisoned me. It took all three of them to do it, but they lured me from your home with promises of negotiation, and then trapped me in what they thought was an unbreakable prison,” Daharan said. I couldn’t see his eyes, as his back was to me, but for a moment I thought that there was a red light that flared on the faces of the other three.

“It was an unbreakable prison,” Puck muttered, sounding pouty. “I spent a lot of time crafting that spell. I entwined it with the essence of your magic so you wouldn’t be able to break out. I don’t understand how it would fail.”