Brimstone Prince. Barbara Hancock J.

to the lower world. Hopi people believed that their ancestors had risen up from such places to become a part of this world. In most kivas, the hole was only a few inches deep. In this unexplored, undiscovered kiva she had found with the direction of her affinity and her mother’s kachina dolls, the sipapu’s floor was so deep that it wasn’t revealed by her lantern’s light, and a cool waft of air rose up to chill the whole chamber.

      Lily set her teeth, hardened her jaw and dug her heels into the hard-packed desert earth that had been carved into a religious chamber hundreds of years ago. She needed to seal the portal to the lower world. Then she needed to pretend she had discovered the kiva and the surrounding ruin of a small unknown Hopi pueblo on an innocent hike so that archaeologists and Native historians could come in and excavate the site.

      “A noble promise, but I bet you’ve met resistance along the way,” the daemon replied.

      He didn’t hold a weapon. But he was obviously big and powerful. Not to mention the whole daemons-being-nearly-immortal thing. At five foot four inches, and one hundred ten pounds, she was in trouble. She had no one to rely on for protection but herself. Not anymore.

      The daemon edged closer. The kiva chamber was a large circular room. She was separated from the approaching daemon by the fire pit and the sipapu, but the sipapu was only about a foot in diameter and he’d already made his way around the bigger indention of the pit that was still blackened by ancient fire.

      “I have a sacred duty. I handle resistance as it comes. I’ve sealed every single sipapu I’ve discovered,” Lily warned.

      Her family tree could be traced to ancient Aztecs on one side and to Spanish settlers on the other, but it had always been rooted by one simple thing: standing against evil. There was irony in that, considering where she’d spent the last fifteen years, but she had no time to let that slow her down.

      The daemon didn’t flinch or falter when she refused to move away from the portal. He continued to approach. Slowly, carefully, as if he were giving her time to get used to his presence. The pleasure of his voice spread warmth to other places already warmed by his Brimstone burn. The whole chamber had gone from chilled to heated. Her gooseflesh was gone. Her flush had deepened. The perspiration had evaporated from her skin. She’d been warned to guard against daemon persuasiveness. Her powerful affinity wouldn’t protect her from it. On the contrary, it made her more susceptible than most.

      “The other daemons who tried to stop you were Rogues. They want as many pathways to the hell dimension as possible to remain open as they resist the rule of the rightful daemon king,” the daemon said in a soft, reasonable voice, as if he was pacifying a madwoman.

      Who was he and how did he know these things?

      Considering her free hand had gone to the hilt of a hidden sword at her back, his tone was probably justified. She could feel the grimace that stretched her face taut as she prepared to battle. She was no warrior, but the small elemental spirit dolls at her feet weren’t her only weapon. The flute and the dolls helped her channel her affinity to call on the elemental spirits. In days long past, she would have been deemed a priestess. Her mother had trained her in the old Hopi ways...but the sword had come from her father.

      “My mother gave me a job to do and the sacred tools with which to do it. My father gave me this,” Lily said. The rasp of steel against its leather scabbard sounded loud in the underground room.

      Perhaps the daemon could see the Latin prayers scribed into the blade even by lantern light, but if he could he didn’t retreat. He came toward her one more step. Then two.

      “And what makes you aware of the daemon king’s wishes?” Lily asked as she brought her father’s blade down in a practiced move that prepared for the daemon’s attack.

      The whole while she took in the daemon’s appearance. The absence of wings didn’t matter. Her mother had given her a gift along with her training and her tools. It was nestled in the backpack that had held all the kachina dolls that were now arranged near the sipapu. Hundreds of years ago one of her ancestors had carved an unusual kachina doll. It had been passed down for generations. From the time the daemon had stepped from the shadows, she’d recognized the sharp angle of his jaw and the full swell of his lips. She recognized the thickness of his wavy, shoulder-length hair swept by the desert winds. His broad shoulders, the set of his eyes and the patrician nose were all familiar.

      The kachina doll had stiff wings that had been carved in a mantle down its back and painted black. This daemon had no wings. That initial illusion had only been created by shadows. But his fallen angel’s voice made the idea of wings possible every time he spoke.

      He couldn’t be her warrior angel.

      Her hand gripped the hilt of her sword to stop the trembling in her wrists and fingers. This couldn’t be her family’s kachina come to life. He was no nature spirit or ancestor who had come to help her. When he moved, she could see the glint of Brimstone glow in his eyes. She could feel the heat of his blood. She refused to let fire and familiarity influence her actions.

      “The daemon king doesn’t rely on sipapu portals. He has his own pathways he protects,” the daemon explained. “But it isn’t safe for a human to meddle in these matters.” He had paused, but it didn’t feel like a reprieve. It felt like he was waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

      “Are you his servant then? And you’ve come to help me?” Lily asked.

      Likeness to her family’s oldest treasure aside, she still held the sword at the ready. Over the long, hot months of the strangest summer job any runaway had ever taken on, she’d learned to guard against daemon deception. They couldn’t be trusted. It wasn’t her Hopi mother who had told her that the devil had a silver tongue. That bit of wisdom had come from her guardian himself.

      “No. I’m not his servant. I’m his adopted grandson,” the daemon said. “My name is Michael D’Arcy Turov.”

      Her sword didn’t waver, but the air did catch in her lungs again in a hiccup of surprise. Her guardian’s heir wasn’t here to hurt her. She’d never been allowed to meet him, but she’d known about him from afar. The guitar on his back should have given his identity way, but her shock over his features had distracted her.

      Michael Turov was a living replica of her warrior angel, but he was also the Brimstone prince. He was the talk of the hell dimension and had been since it had become common knowledge that he didn’t want the throne.

      The unusual kachina her Hopi family had once worshipped, then treasured for centuries, was the perfect likeness of a daemon prince. She wondered why her guardian, the daemon king, had never deemed it necessary to warn her. Lily was distracted by the revelation only long enough to blink in surprise, but that was long enough. The daemon leaped. His body slammed into hers and her planted feet slid backward with the force of his superior weight and strength. His momentum pushed her back from the portal’s edge, and his hands over hers on the hilt of her sword kept her from using it in defense.

      It didn’t matter. She couldn’t have attacked him anyway. Not even if she hadn’t realized he was trying to protect her from the sipapu’s edge. She’d always slept with the beautiful kachina beneath her pillow. When Michael Turov pressed her back against the chamber’s earthen wall so that his body was between her and the open sipapu, the shock of his Brimstone heat didn’t stop her from tracing the familiar features of his face with her gaze. It was almost too sharply cut to be traditionally handsome. There was something inhuman in the perfectly pronounced bone structure beneath his skin.

      This daemon prince’s face was the reason she’d been drawn to kachinas in the first place.

      Face-to-face with a living replica of the unusual doll, her hand twitched against the hilt of the sword. Her mother had been a carver, but Lily suddenly ached to be an artist. Could she re-create the angles of his cheeks and jaw? Could she capture in wood the ferocity of his expression while still creating the slight softness of his lips? She noted his mouth seemed to tilt on one side as if he laughed at the world, or himself, or some unseen joy in the shadows that gamboled for his attention alone.

      “Grim,