Witch Hunt(59)

“I thought I’d settle for your head,” he said, grabbing my shirt in both hands, jerking my face close to his. “But this is better than that. I’m much happier killing you myself.”
“More,” I whispered again.
“I’ll give you more, you motherfucker.”
Gregor threw me.
I was flying.
The room hurtled past me. My back hit something hard, something that didn’t feel like liquid sex. Heard glass shatter. I collapsed to the dirt and wine bottles rained around me.
The shelf hit me a second later.
That one hurt.
The pain was almost enough to snap me out of the incubus’s thrall. I remembered fighting him on the beach after saving Ofelia. I remembered slamming him into the rocks, cracking his head open, watching the blood gush over the sand.
Incubi were weak. Any injury could make them bleed to death.
Easy.
But I had to hurt him to exploit that—I had to want to hurt him.
Eduardo was shivering as he fought against Gregor’s thrall. Kopides were less susceptible to demon attack. It still must have hurt like hell. “If you kill Agent Hawke—if you don’t pay me that bounty—we’re going to have a major problem, Gregor.”
The incubus’s laugh was like a deep tiger growl. “I don’t think so, Costa. It sure doesn’t look like you’re the one killing him.” A boot slammed into my temple. My vision blurred. I bucked against the ground, pleasure hardening my abs.
“I’ll send you back to the detention center,” Eduardo said.
Gregor grinned. “You’ll have to tell them how I got out in the first place.”
He kicked me again and I groaned.
I was screwed. Isobel was screwed. She needed me, and here I was, about to shoot my load on the ground while an incubus fucking beat me to death.
Through the haze, I focused on Isobel.
She must have been hit by the incubus’s thrall too, even though Gregor was focusing most of his power on me. She was breathing hard, cheeks flushed, tongue darting out to wet her lips. But she’d broken free of the chair. Apparently, her embarrassing experience in Helltown had taught her how to momentarily shake off incubus thrall—and a moment was all she needed.
Isobel extended her hands over the dirt floor. Her eyes were rolled into the back of her skull. She trembled all over, from her bottom lip to the tips of her fingers.
Magic surged hard, like a fist that squeezed my lungs shut. I couldn’t sneeze. I couldn’t breathe.
Silvery mist rose from the ground around her. Ten different locations around the room—no, more than that. There were graves all over the place. Under the rubble of the wine rack. Under Isobel’s chair. Along the walls.
The Needles had been burying victims under The Pit.
And now Isobel was calling them.
Holy hell.
Gregor stopped kicking me and focused on the silver figures that had just appeared around us. They were all bald and eyeless and glowing, and they surrounded Gregor and Eduardo.
“Get them,” Isobel said. The lips of every spirit she had raised moved with hers. She spoke in many voices, deep and tremulous and echoing.
The spirits rushed.
The incubus’s thrall couldn’t do anything to the dead. He roared as they fell on him, beating his fists at empty air, unable to touch them. The weight of his demon powers lifted from me fractionally, and I searched wildly for the guns I had dropped.
My Desert Eagle was only a few feet away.
I struggled onto my knees, shoving the toppled shelves off of me. I was glad it actually hurt. It helped clear my head, shoving all the scraps of Gregor’s thrall out of the corners of my skull.
Gunfire exploded through the room. Eduardo was shooting. It did nothing to the spirits piling on top of him, tearing at him with translucent hands.
Once a spirit stepped onto me, I realized why he was screaming. A foot plunged into my chest. Icy shock froze my heart.
The room went black, and I spiraled toward death.
“Cèsar!”
Isobel’s voice broke through the darkness. I heard something skitter, felt metal touch my fingertips. Eduardo’s Beretta. She’d kicked it to me. I grabbed it and got onto my knees.
The spirit slipped out of my body, leaving me gasping.
Eduardo and the incubi had retreated toward the stairs, where the other incubi from upstairs had joined them. Four guys altogether. The spirits wouldn’t be able to hold them off for long.
Isobel had given us a distraction, but that was it. Just a fleeting moment to break free of Gregor’s thrall. And I could tell Isobel was going to lose control if we didn’t get out of there fast. She was shaking hard enough that it looked like she’d break apart.
“Isobel!” I reached for her through silver mist. She didn’t seem to see me.