CHAPTER 1

My name is Lily Carlyle, and because of me, the world is counting down to the Apocalypse.

How would you like that on your résumé?

Trust me when I say it sucks.

Not that I did it on purpose, mind you. I was tricked. Told I was keeping the demons out when really I was making sure they each had a front-row seat to the end of humanity.

And we're not talking some namby-pamby Internet countdown by some hoo-ha who read Revelation, heard about an earthquake in Taiwan, and concluded that The End Is Nigh.

No, I'm talking the full-meal deal. The real end of the world. When the demonic horsemen are going to burst from the demon realm to swarm over the earth like a plague of really nasty locusts, feeding off torture and torment and evil and lies.

Not a happy time. Trust me on that.

It's coming because of me. I can say that. I can accept it.

But that's not the end of the story. Like every good player, I've got a card up my sleeve. Two, actually.

Play the Ace of Spades, and I can use the Oris Clef, a demonic key that I tracked down, stealing it from a master demon who'd been determined to find it. It won't lock the gate closed, but it will lock it open. And every demon who crosses over owes fealty to the one who wields that key. I'd be a queen, the most powerful creature on earth.

Except I'd be a demon queen, thrust into power by a demonic tool. And the demonic essence that lives inside me—that I've been trying so hard to suppress and compartmentalize and control so that I could hang on to humanity by my fingernails—would surely rise up. It's hard enough fighting it as things are. Fighting it when that kind of power is at stake?

Honestly, I didn't think I could control the madness. I'd make a hell of earth whether I wanted to or not, and a demon of myself. So far, my track record has been less than stellar. I'd tried to avenge my sister and gotten killed instead. I'd tried to stop the Apocalypse, then nailed the gates open. Not really a vote of confidence in my ability to be a warm, fuzzy demon queen. I was pretty sure I'd lose it. I'd give in to the dark. I'd become horrible and vile and dangerous even if I didn't want to.

And then we have door number two. Play the Ace of Hearts, and I can actually lock the Ninth Gate shut tight. Because it turns out there is at least one way left that will do that. Trouble is, that lock is me. My body. My blood. All I have to do is toss myself into the hell dimension right as the portal opens.

No problem, you say? Kill yourself. Go to heaven. Accept the accolades that would surely come with stopping Armageddon.

Um, don't I wish?

Because I can't die. Not even if you whack off my head. I'd still be alive. In pieces, sure, but alive.

Alive, and suffering. My flesh burning forever. An eternity of agony and horror and utter torment. Torture beyond endurance with absolutely no escape.

Dear God in heaven, "scared" doesn't even begin to describe it.

I've read the bio of Joan of Arc, and yeah, I want to be like her. But then I look at what I am and who I am, and the truth is I'm not St. Joan material. I'm terrified of the pain. Petrified by the torment. And when I peer into hell like that, I've got to admit that the demon-queen thing looks better and better.

But the one thing worse than suffering in the fires of hell is letting down the entire planet. Which pretty much sums up my dilemma.

As you can tell, I'm not sure which way I'm going to go, because both options suck big-time.

But the end is rushing fast toward all of us.

And soon, I'm going to have to choose.

CHAPTER 2

"Run!"

Deacon's voice cut through the haze in my head, and I realized that the ground was shaking, huge chunks of concrete and lethally sharp steel girders being thrust upward as the earth buckled and snapped.

Except this wasn't an earthquake. This was much, much worse.

I didn't argue, didn't stop to analyze. Instead, I grabbed my sister's hand and tugged her across the undulating floor of Zane's fast-disintegrating training basement. There was only one way out, and we needed to be on that elevator. Right then. Right that very second.

Because I knew what was under the floor—I hadn't seen it, but I was certain.

Penemue. A master demon.

More specifically, a master demon I'd just royally screwed. Somehow, I had a feeling he wasn't planning a nice, reasonable little chat. Instead, he wanted what hung around my neck: the Oris Clef. The key that would lock open the Ninth Gate to Hell and give the bearer dominion over all the demons who crossed into the earthly realm.

"Lily!" Rose's shriek was filled with terror, and I turned automatically in the direction she was looking: behind us, the floor had opened like a sick parody of a flower, concrete peeling away like inelegant petals to reveal a deep pit that reached all the way down into the blackest depths of hell.

"Move." I grabbed her arm and wrenched her back into motion even as I visually scoured the dust and rubble for Deacon.

The stench of sulphur filled my nostrils as the chasm burped vomit green gas. From the black pit in the ground, I could hear a deep, menacing rumbling as what was down there began to emerge—the demon himself in all his powerful, festering, massive glory.

And beyond him, separated from me and Rose by the widening void and the rising beast, I saw Deacon.

"Go!" he shouted. "Just go."

One long, squidlike tentacle shot free of the abyss, then crashed down, shattering the ground as if it were no more substantial than styrofoam.

"Dammit, Lily! Run!"

I knew I should. Knew I needed to get the hell out of there. But I couldn't. Instead, I stood stock-still, my hand on my knife, my jaw clenched. This was the beast who had fucked up my life. This was the beast who had pulled the strings to trick me and make me believe I'd been doing good when really I'd been Evil's puppet.

This was the bastard who'd done that to me, and damned if I didn't want to look in his eyes. Damned if I didn't want to ram my blade right through him. And, yeah, I wanted to wallow in the darkness that filled me following a demon kill, the bitter black that was the price I paid for doing what I was created to do. A master demon like Penemue would be the ultimate hit, beyond anything I'd experienced before. And oh, yeah, like an addict, I craved what could so easily destroy me. But I didn't care. I wanted it. Hell, I needed it.

"Lily!" Rose screamed as the tentacle lashed out toward us, coming so close we could feel the breeze left in its wake. Rose screamed, the sharp edge of her fear cutting through both my fury and my craving. I took a step backward, abandoning my demonicidal fantasies.

Because the truth was I couldn't end him. Not this beast. Not even with all the power that came from being Prophecy Girl.

He was too much—too massive, too powerful. And even with my supercharged body and ueber-girl skills, I was no match for him. I couldn't risk losing. Not to him. Not then.

Lose, and he would get the Oris Clef.

Lose, and he would use it.

Lose, and Penemue would control all of the demons that crossed over at the convergence. He'd rule the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Not four, but four billion. Even more. Countless, untold demons that would cover the earth like a plague. And Penemue the master of them all.

Not if I could help it. With Rose's scream still echoing in my ear, I turned, grabbed her hand, and ran, the floor buckling beneath our feet as we stumbled across the room.

"Lily!" Rose stumbled over a length of steel girder rising from the concrete like a sentinel. She slammed to the ground, crying out in pain as the sharp edges of stone and metal sliced through her jeans and cut into her hands.

No time to worry about that, though. I grabbed the back of her T-shirt and hauled her to her feet. "Go!" I shouted. She stumbled a bit, probably not entirely used to her new legs and taller body, but to her credit, she picked up speed and headed toward the elevator, not falling despite the way the floor was buckling and shifting beneath her.

"Come on, come on! Dammit, come on!" Rose tugged on the gate to the old-fashioned elevator, trying to slide it aside, but it was easy enough to see that her efforts were futile. A little fact that sucked big-time, because as far as I knew, there was no other way out of the basement that had once been Zane's prison.

I clenched my jaw, determined not to die. Not when Zane had sacrificed himself, banking on me to step up to save the whole damn world. I feared I didn't have it in me to be the hero that the world needed, but right then I didn't have to find out. Right then, all I had to do was survive.

I pushed in beside Rose and grabbed hold, then gave the gate a good, solid tug.

Nothing.

Well, damn. What was the point of superstrength if you couldn't even open one stuck door?

I spun around, searching for Deacon. I needed his help, but he was still yards away, circumventing the gulch that was opening wider and wider in the floor, sucking everything in—furniture, training ring, weapons—as if it were a black hole. I held my breath because Deacon had lost his left hand, so he had only one set of fingers with which to grip the wall. The gray-metal cabinet was still bolted to the wall, and as I watched, Deacon ripped open the door one-handed, then pulled out a crossbow. He met my eyes, then tossed the weapon toward me.

Penemue's tentacle lashed out blindly, knocking the crossbow off its trajectory, but I launched myself sideways and managed to catch it before it disappeared into the abyss. Deacon pitched a quiver of arrows next, and those I caught more easily, then quickly slid the sheath onto my back and hefted the crossbow, already feeling better for the weapon in my hand. My knife was the only thing that would actually kill a demon once and for all, but under the circumstances, I was keen on just knowing I could slow the creature down. Although I have to say, a crossbow wasn't exactly a panacea. Considering the size of the beast fighting its way up through the concrete floor, what I really needed was a missile launcher.

Deacon armed himself, too, then grabbed onto the door and used it to swing himself over the edge of the widening chasm. I held my breath. There were only about three inches of floor left where he was. If he tripped . . . If he needed to reach out and grab something . . .

But he didn't, and once his feet were on firm ground I allowed myself one tense breath. He was steady, but he was hardly safe yet. He stood with his back pressed to the wall, his toes hanging over the ragged concrete edge in a sick parody of a suicidal jumper balancing on a high-rise ledge.

"Deacon! Hurry!" I shouted, as he pushed away from the wall and leaped from the narrow portion to where the ground widened. He landed, steady, and I exhaled in relief, only to feel the sharp sting of cold horror as the tentacle lashed out, circled his waist, and pulled him backward into the abyss.

"No!" I yelled, as Rose cried out Deacon's name.

I don't remember moving, but I was on my belly, my hand reaching out, down into the blackness. Down into where Deacon had gone. Into the night, into the void, into hell.

"Deacon!" I screamed, though I could see nothing in the dark. Not him. Not Penemue. Not even the fires of hell. "Deacon!" I cried. "Deacon! Can you hear me?"

But even as I called, I knew it was futile. He was lost, and my stomach roiled as I choked back bile, willing myself to keep focused and in control despite the fact that my demonic partner had been thrust back into the hell that he'd so desperately longed to escape.

I couldn't think about that just then. If anything, Deacon had bought us time, and I was going to use it. No way was his getting sucked down into hell going to mean the end of me and my sister.

"Come on," I said, scooting back from the abyss and grabbing Rose's elbow. She stood stock-still, her face pale, her lips parted as if she wanted to say something but couldn't quite find the words. "Rose!" I snapped, tugging her back toward the elevator. "Move."

Not that my determination got us any farther. Deacon's demise hadn't magically loosened the elevator gate, and we were still down in the training basement, trapped beside a hole to hell where a gigantic demon would surely reemerge at any moment.

Fuck.

I gave the gate one more futile yank, then kicked the damn thing. It was no ordinary metal we were dealing with. As a training arena for preternatural assassins, the room was chock-full of special protections. How nice.

"Can you make a portal?" Rose asked. "Can we use it to get out of here?"

I closed my eyes and concentrated, but nothing happened. I'd only recently acquired the skill to create a "bridge" that would take me and my companions through space, time and the whole nine yards. I'd done it just a few minutes ago, actually, when Rose, Deacon and I had been racing for our lives. But we'd been returning from a quest for a mystical vessel, and without some object as my goal, I didn't have any way to mentally anchor the bridge.

Which was the long, rambling way of saying that we were stuck.

"We'll figure something out," I said, giving the gate another hard yank.

"Lily . . ." Her voice was low, and far too steady. Which to me meant that she was scared shitless.

I looked over my shoulder—and immediately saw why. A mountainous mass was rising from the dark, like the time-lapse formation of primeval hills. The purple mountains majesty, however, weren't covered with demon slime, and the viscous, snotlike goo that slathered this demonic head made me want to puke.

It's not like I hadn't seen scaly, slimy demons before, but the Grykon I'd fought my first day on the job had been more or less my size. A monster, sure, but still manageable.

This, though . . .

The head alone was the size of a Suburban even without the massive, filth-covered horns that extended at least five feet in opposite directions.

His eyes were red with black slits for pupils, and, within the black, I swear I could see the souls of the damned. He had no nose, only what appeared to be a rotting orifice, and green slime oozed out. His skin looked to be as tough as an elephant's hide, and it appeared to be moving, as if living things were sliding around under the flesh.

"Lily . . ." Beside me, Rose whimpered.

"Don't look," I said, pushing her behind me as I lifted the crossbow that seemed utterly insubstantial. "Don't look, don't watch. We'll be fine."

I reached up and closed my hand around the necklace that was the Oris Clef, the demonic key that Penemue himself had created and I'd recovered only moments before. The thing had the power to control the coming apocalyptic horde of demons, and damned if I didn't wish I had that power right then. At the moment, a subservient hell monster would be a really good thing.

"What are we going to do?" Rose said.

"Defend ourselves," I said. I raised my crossbow. "Ourselves, and the Oris Clef."

So far, our only advantage was that Penemue had slowed down. At first, the building had been crumbling around us. But when Deacon had disappeared, so had the demon's tentacles. He'd returned, but his ascent was so slow that I had to wonder if he was half-in and half-out of some other dimension.

"You need to go," Rose said. "Pick something, use your arm, and just go."

I kept my eye firmly on the crossbow's sight. "One, it's not that simple. Two, I'm not leaving you." I'd cozied up to hell—literally—to save my sister, and there was no way I was going to throw her to the wolves. Or the demons.

A long wail emerged from behind me, and we both turned to stare at the gaping hole that was the demon's rising mouth. His eyes were like fire, and his tentacle thrust up, then slammed back down again only a few feet from us, rendering bits of broken concrete into dust.

"Shit!" I cried, bracing my body against the useless elevator. "Something's going on. There's no way he should have missed us."

Something was going on, and my heart lifted a little when I realized what it had to be: Deacon. He was down there fighting. Buying us time.

He was giving us a gift, and we damn well needed to use it.

"I'm going to check the weapons cabinet," I said.

"Right now?" Her voice was high, squeaky, and terrified.

I didn't expect to find anything to kill Penemue with, but maybe I'd find something to help me open the elevator. For that matter, if I could get to Zane's office, maybe he had some sort of override button. I didn't know. All I could think about was not wasting the chance that Deacon was giving us.

"He'll catch you!" Rose said, as I started in that direction. "He'll knock you in!"

"I'll be careful," I said, but even as I spoke, the tentacle burst free, along with the shoulders of the beast, making the floor buckle and tossing me onto my ass. Penemue lashed out, and it was clear he was aiming right for me. I fired, the arrow shooting true—embedding itself right into that slimy, sickening skull.

Fabulous, I thought. And then amended the thought to holy freaking shit, because my arrow was ejected immediately, thrust out by the intense force of a horrific column of fire.

I threw myself sideways, missing the bulk of the blast but it still scorched my jeans.

"Lily!" Rose called.

"I'm okay!" I held on to the crossbow as I scooted along the floor, abandoning my plan to head to the cabinet. Instead, I had a better idea.

"Get down," I shouted, then raced toward the elevator, the crossbow aimed at Penemue. "The ground, Rose! On the ground!" The tentacle swiveled and turned, and I dodged it. The head had disappeared beneath floor level, but I needed to see it again, and I took a chance and yelled for Deacon. "Let him go! I have an idea!"

I heard a low rumble like an oncoming earthquake, so deep and menacing it made my insides tremble. And then the demon burst up, the slime-covered head breaching the shattered floor, as if someone holding him down had suddenly let go, and the beast had been overwhelmed even by his own velocity.

I aimed. I fired.

And as soon as the arrow was free, I threw myself to the ground, barely missing the burst of fire that shot from Penemue's punctured skull. The blast shot over both me and Rose, slamming exactly where I'd hoped—right in the middle of the elevator gate.

Bingo.

The gate didn't open, but it didn't matter because now there was a giant hole in the metal mesh.

"In," I shouted to Rose. "Get in!"

Rose didn't need my encouragement. She was already climbing through the hole and calling for me to follow her. I didn't have to be told twice, and I scrambled in that direction, over a floor that was buckling and moving again beneath my feet as the beast surged up, pissed off and determined to stop me.

The damned tentacle shot up again. Only that time it was followed by two more appendages and the entirety of the beast's head. His mouth burst open, and millions of flies emerged, swarming around me, getting in my eyes and my hair and my ears and my face. I swatted at them, ducked my head, and tried to run—tried even harder not to be grossed out—but the truth was, I wasn't fast enough. The bugs did their job, and as I tried to shove through the thick, living mass, I felt something thick and cold lash itself around my ankle.

As Rose screamed, I rolled over, slashing at the tentacle, half-terrified that I'd miss and get my leg, and the other half of me not caring if I lost all my limbs so long as I got free.

It wasn't any use.

Penemue was dragging me back toward hell.

I reached down, grabbing onto the tentacle and trying to pry it off with my fingers. As I did, I looked up, and found myself staring into the demon's face. Into its eyes.

Oh, fuck.

I felt the snap—the sharp tug when I was pulled into another creature's thoughts. Another little gift of mine, and one that I really didn't welcome at the moment, but I had no choice, because I was in, and the horror was around me, the fires and the pain and oh God, my skin—my skin was burning, the flesh curling, turning to ash as I watched, as I suffered and cried, then starting all over again, the pain so intense I swear it was alive, and I couldn't do anything except scream and scream and scream and—

Snap!

The connection broke. I'd shut my eyes in terror, the reflex freeing me from the horror. A horror, I knew, that would be mine if I did what needed to be done. If I played the martyr. If I stepped up and saved the world.

I breathed deep, trying to control my trembling.

Dear God, how could I ever find the courage?

"Lily!"

Rose's voice cut through my fear and self-loathing. I didn't need that courage now. Now, I just needed to get out of there.

With a fresh burst of determination, I rolled to my side as the tentacle tugged on my leg, this time thrusting my knife into the ground and trying with all my might to halt our progress toward the abyss. I slammed it down hard, shoving it into a crevice in the concrete, then closing my hand tight around it. With my free hand, I grabbed a protruding metal beam, my muscles straining as I tried to pull myself up.

"Nothing's happening!" Rose called. "The buttons don't work!"

Okay, I confess I wasn't completely interested in the state of the elevator at the moment although I did want my sister to get out of there. Pretty soon, I figured she was going to have plenty of time to escape. Because once the demon had me and the key, it really wasn't going to give a flip about her.

But the other thing I was afraid of was that the demon would realize that she was the way to get to me. Take her hostage, and I was going to be Cooperation Girl. I knew it, and so, I feared, did the demon.

My fears were borne home when the pressure of the tentacle around my leg let up, and I screamed out in both anger and fear as the appendage lashed forward to close around Rose's waist.

She howled, using her knife to hack uselessly at the tentacle that refused to let go. I rushed forward to join her, thrusting my blade in and twisting, but the demon's tentacle seemed immune to pain.

"It's getting tighter! Lily, oh God, make it stop!"

I stabbed my knife down deep into the spongy flesh, and started sawing, wishing the blade was serrated, because I was damn well going to saw through all fifteen inches of flesh if that was what it took.

But I had to saw fast, because she was struggling, her mouth open, her breath coming in gasps, and fear pounding behind her eyes.

I was going to lose her. Oh God, oh God, I was going to lose her. Rose. My little sister. The little girl I'd risked everything—including the Apocalypse—to save.

I felt numb. I felt raw. And I felt wholly and completely impotent.

And then, as her eyes began to dim and I could barely see the dent I was making in the demon's flesh from the tears floating in my eyes, I heard it.

Low at first, then building up strength. A deep, terrifying wail.

I turned, saw the demon's eyes go wide, the black shifting to red. I turned back fast, and acting solely on instinct I grabbed Rose around the waist, then spread my legs, my feet anchored inside the elevator, one foot on either side of the hole that had been blasted in the cage door.

It was the right move. The tentacle pulled back, retreating, and trying to take Rose with it.

But it couldn't. Not easily, anyway. Not with me holding on to her.

And damned if it didn't let go.

I didn't completely understand why. All I knew is that whatever had produced that horrific wailing noise had scared Penemue. And he'd retreated into the darkness.

I figured it would be a good idea to get out of there, too. Because even in my limited experience in this world, I'd already figured out that it's a good idea to run from things that disturb massive beasts from hell.

I slapped Rose's face, heard her moan, and sighed with relief. I didn't have time to do more, though. So I let go and let her fall to the floor of the elevator car. She coughed, and rolled over, and I knew that for the moment at least, she was safe.

I jabbed at the elevator buttons, but Rose was right—they didn't work. We needed out of there, though, and I tilted my head back, searching for the emergency door that was standard in all elevators. Including, apparently, those installed by minions of hell.

I used the broken metal of the cage as a makeshift ladder and managed to get up there, then pulled the trapdoor down. Then I hopped back down and made a stirrup with my hands for Rose to step in. "Can you manage?"

She lifted her head, looking a lot like a girl who badly needed a nap.

"Rose, please. We've got to move."

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. To her credit, though, she did stand. As she did, her eyes darted toward the hole in the elevator door and out toward the chasm. I knew what she was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing: Unless I'm dead or broken, I'm getting the hell out of here.

I held out a hand to steady her as she came over, then re-formed the stirrup for her. "Grab my shoulders," I said.

"I'm okay." Her voice was weak, but she meant what she said, and even before I had time to worry if she'd have the strength in her arms to pull herself up, she was through the hole, and I saw her peering down, waiting for me to join her.

I was just about to do that very thing when the tentacle thrust toward me again. I leaped, trying to get through the trapdoor. Rose grabbed the back of my shirt and tugged, trying to help me up, but it wasn't enough. Despite my strength and her valiant effort, the tug of the tentacle that had lashed around my waist kept me from climbing through the escape hatch.

It would have pulled me all the way back to hell with it, if it wasn't for a coal black, winged creature that burst from the gorge. It shot forward as if fired from a cannon, flame dancing over its body, not as if it were on fire, but as if it was fire.

And the fire-creature roared straight for us, the flames dissipating as it grabbed me under my arms, then shot straight up into the elevator shaft, effectively pulling my lower body free of the tentacle, which had loosened only slightly, as if shocked to see the creature.

It slowed enough to grab Rose with its other arm, then it put on a fresh burst of speed and rocketed straight up, up, up—at least until we jerked to a stop, flipped over, and started moving in the opposite direction. In other words, back toward Penemue. Which really wasn't where I wanted to go.

I called out in protest, but it was no use. Penemue was down there, two floors below, and we were heading right for him. The demon's bulbous body filled the elevator shaft, that black pit of a mouth sucking us in, as if we were the very air he needed to breathe. As if we were caught in some damned sci-fi tractor beam, and we were moving backward, toward the gaping maw.

I screamed and struggled in my captor's arms, desperate to get me and Rose out of there. A reaction that was, of course, idiotic, because if I got free, gravity would send me hurtling down into Penemue's waiting mouth. And once that little fact registered in my head, I clung more tightly to my winged rescuer. I didn't know who he was or what he wanted, but at least until he got us out of the elevator shaft, he was my new best friend.

And right then, my friend was fighting dirty.

He thrust his torso and legs up, so that his head was pointed down, and Rose and I were pulled in close to his side. And then, as I watched, he let out a wail that came straight from the deepest pit of hell and emitted a burst of flame from his mouth so hot that I had to close my eyes and twist my face away. But when it dissipated, I turned back, then sucked in air at what I saw—the entire elevator shaft had melted away, and Penemue had retreated, leaving one burned-off tentacle behind, the flames still snapping at the crispy flesh.

"He will be back." The low voice rumbled through me, rough and inhuman and yet also somehow familiar. My breath caught, and warm fear flowed through me as my mind filled with horrible possibilities.

I had no time to ponder those fears, though. Not then. Not as he shifted direction in the shaft, and we began shooting upward, so fast I feared that we'd slam into the masonry and die from massive hematomas.

Not that I had to worry about that. As we approached at breakneck speed, our savior released another burst of flame and melted the floor above us, along with the ceiling above. Handy trick, that.

We burst out into the dead of night, rising high above the city, all of Boarhurst before us and the lights of Boston proper twinkling in the distance.

He dropped down then, and, as my heart pounded in my chest, the beast landed us softly on a patch of grass, his arms releasing us as he stepped back, wings folded, head down, crouched there in front of us.

Beside me, Rose was breathing in and out fast as she scrabbled backward, crablike, away from him.

Me, I stayed put, holding tight to my knife.

But I didn't attack. I knew this creature. I was certain of it.

And when he lifted his head, I saw it in his eyes.

"Deacon?"

Something dark flashed in those eyes, and he lunged, teeth bared, mouth open as if another burst of flame was coming.

Rose screamed, and I tackled her to the ground, then rolled over and thrust out my knife, wondering what the hell use it could possibly be against a demon who could breathe fire as Deacon did.

"Go," he said, his muscles practically trembling with restraint.

I didn't. I just stood there, awed and shaken and—yes—more than a little freaked-out.

"Go," he repeated. "Find the last key. Find it," he growled, "before it's too late."