Entice: An Ignite Novella by Erica Crouch Read Free Book Online

out which words I want to share with man first. Maybe I’ll start with insubordination.

Chapter 7
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    “W HAT IF WE BURN THE place to the ground?” Azael suggests.
    He’s lying upside down, hanging off of the edge of his bed with his feet propped up on the wall as I throw daggers at the door. I toss the dagger in the air and catch the tip of the blade between my fingers. I grip the blade and raise my arm, bringing my hand behind my ear, and snap forward, my arm cutting straight in front of me. I let go of the blade and watch it spin around before it sticks into the wood of the door with a solid thunk.
    “You’ve got to stop thinking flames , Az,” I tell him, releasing another blade that buries itself in the door next to the first one. “Look around you.”
    He makes a show of scanning our room. “We could destroy all of the garden with your books,” he suggests, rolling backward off of his bed. He goes to my side of the room and reaches between stacks of papers and notebooks. “I bet some of these thick ones under your bed could crush Adam himself if we dropped it from high enough!”
    I shake my head at him as I let another blade slice through the air. “Ice, you moron. Heaven is all about fire, not Hell.”
    “Heat rises, I get it.” He waves his hand dismissively as he pulls out the largest volume of notes I have, opening it in front of him and breaking its spine.
    I pivot toward him and throw my last dagger. It catches the sleeve of his shirt, tacking him to my mattress. I walk over to him and take away the book.
    “Don’t destroy my books.”
    “Don’t stab me with your little throwing knives,” he says back, pulling the dagger out of the mattress and sliding it across the ground.
    “I didn’t stab you.” I place the book on my pillow before turning back to the door and removing the stuck daggers.
    “You could have.”
    “But I didn’t.” I turn to him and smile. “I never miss my target.”
    With a dramatic eye roll, he stands up and takes away my knives, locking them away in my nightstand. “Enough with the daggers. We have to come up with a plan.”
    I pout but don’t protest. “Fine. But how are we supposed to plan anything when we don’t even know what Naamah and Botis are doing?”
    Azael narrows his eyes at me and nods. “Touché.” Grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair Gus was sitting in, he heads to the door. “Let’s go.”
    “Where exactly?” I ask to his back as he disappears down the dark hallway.
    His voice wafts back to me in answer. “To meet with the B Team.”

Chapter 8
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    T HERE ARE OVER A DOZEN gathering halls in Hell. They are located at random intervals along the spiraling corridors. The centermost hall, which is also at one of the lowest parts of Hell, is designated for dining purposes. A large fissure of blood runs from one side of the hall to the other. When I walk over it, I always feel as though the ice cracks, making me believe—for one spine tingling second—I’m about to fall through.
    Spiraling out from the dining hall is the hall where the Greater Demons congregate, with their hulking frames and strange leathery skin in putrid shades of gray, green, and burgundy. The next hall is overrun by power demons—mostly fallen angels and shapeshifters. The hall nearest the gates of Hell is for the watchers, diviners, and wraiths. And of course, within every faction in Hell, there are cliques. The Greater Demons divide themselves into brains and brawn—guards, warriors, and intellects filling in the handful of common halls that dot the path to the powers.
    Sometimes I think that power demons are the vainest of all. Fallen angels hold themselves in higher regard than possession demons and shapeshifters. After all, we’ve been to Heaven—we’ve seen who and what we’re fighting against. When Az and I shove our way into the crowded power hall, clusters of demons stop what they’re doing to watch