It was such a nauseating experience that when I was released, I fell to my knees and vomited right on the middle of Ariton’s plush Victorian rug, one of my hands still wrapped around Jim’s collar. The demon didn’t say anything, but its cold nose pressed against my cheek in sympathy as I clutched myself and tried to keep from barfing a second time.

“You come at last,” Ariton said, rising from behind his desk, his eyes narrowing as I wiped a tendril of saliva off my lips. “Do you think I am such a fool that I do not see through your idiotic scheme to put me off? Who are you working with?”

Ariton grabbed me by my hair and brutally yanked me to my feet. I squawked with pain and outrage.

“What are you talking about? I’m not working with anyone! I’m sorry I’ve been too busy to see you, but—”

“Silence!” he bellowed, power crackling off him as he backhanded me. I flew across the room, slamming against a thankfully bare spot on the wall, my head whacking painfully against the solid wood paneling. The room spun before my eyes for a moment as I tried to regain my wits. “You will cease this deception!”

“I am not deceiving you,” I snarled back at him, pain chasing fear enough that it kept me on my feet. I have never been one to take abuse, and I wasn’t about to let Ariton be the first. “And you can stop with the rough treatment! I am a fellow demon lord! You can’t treat me like that!”

He laughed, a horrible sound that made my soul weep. “Do you seriously believe I cannot destroy you where you stand?”

I rubbed the back of my head as he walked around me. Obedama stood next to the door, a sentinel of silence. Jim sat a few feet away, its eyes dark and unfathomable as it watched us. I could order Jim to attack Ariton, but there was no way it had the power to defeat a demon lord.

“Do you know what it would take to destroy you, Guardian?” Ariton stopped in front of me, his face hard.

I lifted my chin on the principle that offense was the best defense. “I am immortal. You can’t destroy me.”

A slow, blood-chilling smile slid across his face. “Not kill, no. But there are other forms of death. There are ways to destroy your mind but leave your body intact.”

Horror skittered down my back at the depth of evil in his eyes.

“You cannot kill a demon lord. But you can destroy one. Once you have the soul, you can render the physical form inert, and banish the essence of what remains to the Akashic plain, where it will be trapped, powerless, for an eternity.”

“Demons don’t have souls,” I said, my voice a croak.

The power that surrounded him in a dark aura snapped around me, sending little frissons of pain deep into my being. “But demon lords do. It is what gives us our power. Would you like to see how that power can destroy you, Guardian?”

I licked my lips. I knew as I did it, Ariton could smell the fear on me, but I was struggling as it was to keep a grip on myself in the face of sheer, utter, almost incomprehensible evil. “I think I’ll pass on that.”

He turned away, his voice as smooth and polished as it had been the first time I’d met him. “You will tell me with whom you are working, or I will break your body, corrupt your soul, and banish you to an eternity of torment.”

Every inch of my body broke out into a terrified cold sweat as I frantically looked around the room, desperate for some way to escape, or something I could do to distract Ariton long enough to get away. But other than Jim and Ariton’s minion, we were alone. There were no weapons, no handy Demon-Lord-Begone spray, not even the slightest hint of an idea of what I was going to do to get out of this.

“I really wish I could help you, but I just can’t. I’m not working with anyone,” I told Ariton, desperation swamping me.

Ask him about his soul. A voice spoke into my ear. My head snapped around to the left, but there was no one there. Ask him to show it to you.

It’s a pretty good indicator of the state of my mind that I ignored the suspicion that arose as to the wisdom of following the disembodied advice from who-knew-what being. For the first time in my life, I was truly terrified, not for my body, which I was sure would survive just about anything, but for my soul. If that was destroyed, it would mean Drake’s death, as well. The other demon lord I’d had a brief brush with had been frightening, but everything had happened so quickly, I hadn’t really had time to be terror stricken.

This time it was different.

“About your soul,” I started to say. Ariton closed his eyes, lifted both hands toward me, and began to chant. Each word he spoke struck my body like a barbed missile, pain sweeping through me. Frantic, I pulled on Drake’s dragon fire to give me strength. “If you’re going to destroy me, the least you can do is tell me why demon lords have souls if demons don’t. You’re bigger and badder and infinitely more nasty than any one demon, so why do you get to have a soul?”

A little flicker of relief rose in me when Ariton paused his cursing, or whatever he was doing to destroy me, in order to answer my questions. “You mock me with these foolish questions, pretending ignorance for some reason I cannot fathom. You know of the Fallen. You know of the six classes of demons.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep from screaming for mercy. Ariton was clearly not going to believe me if I tried to convince him of my innocence in the ways of demons and their lords. “Of course I know. But you were born human, not a demon.”

“And as a weak mortal, I was burdened with that most heinous of gifts—a conscience. Once I rid myself of that, once I purified myself by bathing in the pool of the Dark Master, then I became what you see. You wish to see my soul, Guardian?”

Be ready, the voice to my left spoke into my head.

Ready for what? Every inch of my body sweated beads of sheer terror. What was I supposed to be ready for?

“Behold, the true being, the One Form!” Ariton threw open his arms, a brilliant black light bursting from his chest, creating a corona of pure power around him.

Banish it! Banish it now! the voice screamed in my head. Send it to Akasha and you will be free of him forever!

Banish? Like I did when I sent Jim to the Akashic plain? I didn’t stop to think, didn’t reason out whether or not trying to banish a being so well versed in dark power was a smart move. I didn’t pause for even a second to consider what such an act might do to me. I had no choice—either I saved myself or Ariton would destroy me, and by association, Drake and Jim as well.