Demon Forged

toward the giant marble elm tree that sheltered the square.
    She was thankful she’d given Alice the warning when the Guardian emerged from her building, her skin flushed and her hair unbound. Alice’s giant tarantula ran out after her, claws clicking on the white stone tiles.
    At the sight of the spider, Irena wanted to climb into the tree—but she wasn’t certain if Nefertari couldn’t jump that high.
    Alice had told her that bigger spiders crawled in Hell, creatures many times larger than the Coliseum in Rome. Irena had lived more than sixteen centuries without stepping foot in Hell, and was glad of it. The demons didn’t frighten her; she’d have liked to kill legions of them. But she feared she might run away screaming if she spotted a monstrous spider.
    She held her ground as Nefertari skittered toward the tree, and hid her relief when, with a soft word and a touch of her Gift, Alice commanded the spider to remain at her knee.
    A second later, Jake appeared beside her—just as flushed, and wearing a broad grin. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something.
    Irena eyed him, then realized what was missing: the staff that served as his electrical ground. She hadn’t felt the now-familiar sizzle of his second Gift, either—only a faint push of his teleportation Gift.
    She nodded. “Well done.”
    “Hah! Wait until you see this.” Jake held his index fingers an inch apart. His electric Gift hummed, and a white current arced between his fingers. “I’m a Taser.”
    “I now see what had you so excited when you came to get me.” Alice’s mouth quirked, and she began braiding her hair. “I wonder if this is what Khavi meant when she said you would be known as ‘the Weapon’ among the demons. How utterly terrified all of Hell will be when you whip out your Taser.”
    He grinned at her. “Just wait until I figure out other applications.”
    Alice pressed her lips together, flags of color on her cheeks. Nefertari purred and rubbed her hairy body against Alice’s skirts.
    Jake turned back to Irena, who was fighting a shudder and the urge to swat at her own leg.
    “So does that rock or does that flippin’ rock?”
    “We are susceptible to shock,” she agreed. But what he’d just shown her seemed worthless. An injury from that tiny electrical arc would be an irritation at worst. Unless . . . She stepped forward, took Jake’s hands, and put one on each side of her head. “Now, try—”
    Her vision burst into a white hot flash. Then there was nothing.

    Irena opened her eyes to Alejandro’s worried gaze. She felt the marble tiles beneath her back. Alice’s lap cushioned her head. She prayed her feet weren’t within biting distance of the tarantula.
    The worry faded from Alejandro’s eyes, replaced by amusement. “Jake fetched me.”
    “Not a healer?”
    “I believe he was more concerned about what you would do to him when you awoke.”
    She looked past him. Jake stood with his hands linked behind his head, his face pale. Not with fear, she saw, but guilt.
    Sitting up only made her head swim a little. Whatever his Gift had done to her, it hadn’t hurt—or she’d healed while she’d been unconscious. She had to moisten her lips before she spoke. “I am impressed, Jake. But I will be more so when you can create that arc between two swords.”
    Relief lightened his psychic scent. Speculation lit his eyes. “That would do some damage.”
    “And might melt the metal, so do not use the swords I made when you practice.” All of her dizziness gone, she rose to her feet. “We’ll experiment with different conductors and weapons.”
    “Not today,” Alejandro said.
    She looked to him. Anticipation rose within her, sudden and hot. “Taylor?”
    “Michael replaced me at sunset.”
    She must have been unconscious for at least twenty or thirty minutes, then—and she still had not completed the task she’d come here to do.
    To Jake, she said, “Do you have the spikes?”
    When he called them in from his cache, she immediately saw that the two spikes Jake and Alice had found pinning the wings of Zakril’s skeleton matched the one she’d pulled from Rosalia’s forehead.
    She called in that spike. A touch of her Gift to each one confirmed her suspicion. “They are the same.”
    Alice frowned, looking at the spike in Irena’s hand. “Are you certain? They do not look at all alike.”
    “I changed this one when I freed Rosalia.” With a pass of her Gift, Irena reshaped it. “But I