Bound in Black by Juliette Cross

clothing denoted him as someone with some power.
    The cackling demon scuttled on all fours to the chains, apparently excited to do its master’s bidding.
    “No! No!” The man under the net kicked and fought, but it was certain he would be their prisoner.
    Not if I could help it.
    I stepped from behind the tree. “Three to one. Kind of unfair, don’t you think?”
    The smaller demons hissed. The one holding the net over the man lunged toward me as I’d hoped. With a swift sweep of the katana, I lopped off his head, and it rolled across the ashen ground.
    The second, smaller demon shrieked and scampered toward me like a spider, fangs bared, spinning as he came. I swung, but my blade skimmed the creature’s shoulder. It circled behind me. I leapt closer to the trees, not wanting to give the big one my back. The cackling demon caught my leg and literally climbed me, claws digging into my leather pants. I gripped its throat as it snapped its jaws at my face.
    “ Flamma intus .” I squeezed its throat, my VS power zinging through my body straight down my arm and into the foul monster. Its red eyes flew wide. With a squeal, it exploded in a puff of ash and white sparks.
    The leader of the trio stepped slowly around its captive, who stared out at the display through the netting.
    “What are you?” asked the three-horned demon.
    Moving with wicked stealth for one on hooves, he circled. I countered the other direction, two-handing my katana, waiting for his attack.
    “You are not a pet of Lethe’s.”
    Pet? That was how he saw these poor souls wandering here for him to torture at will.
    “No,” I answered. “I’m not one of Lethe’s.”
    “You are…different.”
    I’ll say. I readied for his attack as his red eyes narrowed. A wailing screech lifted our gazes to the sky. Mira dove like a bomb into the clearing, swooping with talons extended. Before the demon could swing his club, Mira clawed his arm, blue-white fire licking up from the wound. The demon stumbled backward, screaming and flailing as fey fire crawled up his arm, over his face and down his torso until it consumed his entire body and he could scream no more. With a whirlpool of wind, white flames and ash twisted into a tornado, then vanished into the ether.
    Slack-jawed, I stared at Mira, who now perched calmly on a branch above the smoking bones, hooves and horns. “Is there something you forgot to tell me?”
    She opened one wing and scratched an itch with her beak, then settled back into place, giving me this laissez-faire look as if clawing a demon and burning him to ash was normal.
    Okay. So my spawn had power of her own. Good to know. I moved to the edge of the net and lifted. The man crawled out on all fours and rolled to his back, holding his arms above his head. No, not a man. A boy, possibly mid-teens. Shriveled with wrinkles, his emaciated face and body aged him considerably. His eyes were hollow and black, though the whites of his eyes still shone bright. His teeth and fingernails were gritted with filth. His clothes were dingy and soiled with God knew what, but I could see the unmistakable outline of Spider-Man on his T-shirt underneath the grime. The modern icon and the spark clinging to his eyes told me he hadn’t been in the underworld long. I didn’t even want to consider what manner of death had brought this teen here.
    “Don’t take me to him. Please , don’t—don’t take me to him.” He stuttered and stammered like a frightened boy. Sliding my sword back in its place, I tried for the universal sign of I mean no harm , holding my palms out as I had to the other woman on the plane.
    “Look”—I pointed to the skeletal corpse of the demon who had intended to drag him off as some sort of bounty—“he’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
    “N-n-not him. The master.”
    My VS lit to life, prompting me to take heed. This wasn’t mindless babble. I squatted on my haunches, bracing my forearms on my knees. “And where does