As Shadow’s Chain Lightning felled one of the Gray Maidens, he felt a sudden surge of newfound health, as the Theater card he’d drawn from the Harrow deck earlier siphoned off some of the fighter’s hardiness and infused it into Shadow. He grinned, remembering when they had actually been intimidated by the Gray Maidens. What a bunch of wimps!
“Should we take this stuff back to the Dead Warrens, let Kroft know what we’ve found, and try to decipher this book?” Tomas asked. They were in Domina’s Study, high atop her namesake tower, and they’d apparently found Ileosa’s secret lair, full of incriminating documents and tantalizing clues. But they still hadn’t found the Queen, or, if the Infernal Contract they’d found could be believed, most of her Hellish minions.
“If the Queen’s here, we need to find
her,” Nat said emphatically. “I agree,” Jax chimed in. “Now that we’ve stirred
things up, she might take off, and I’d hate to miss her by this much.”
“But we’re pretty beat up,” Erin
cautioned, trying to wipe some of the dried blood off her shield.
“I’m not!” chirped Nat. “I’ve still got lots of spells!”
Erin finished sawing the third and final head off the corpse of the belier devil. Unlike most of the devils they’d fought (at least the ones who weren’t already in Hell), this one’s body had not vanished when it died. Nat had tried to assure her that this simply meant this devil was on this plane of its own free will, and had not been summoned here, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
Tomas spun to confront the pair of Gray Maiden palace guards who’d just run in to join the battle in the throne room. He ducked under the first one’s sword and, holding his bow sideways, fired a pair of arrows up under her breastplate. As she collapsed, he kept turning, pivoting on one knee. The second guard was drawing back her sword as he continued firing; the first arrow caught her in the thigh and the second slipped under the visor of her helmet. He heard the muffled clank of the arrowhead striking the top of her helmet as she slowly fell backwards.
