It was infinitely worse without Nathaniel.

On arriving back at the room and realising the door was open, Charmian had momentarily panicked that they had taken him back to Bob. Then she had cast her mind back and realised that she didn’t remember Anton shutting the door behind him. That had been the biggest lift to her spirits in a long while but it did mean that she no longer had any company. All she had to while away the indeterminable minutes she was stuck in that dark room were her own thoughts and the dull ache in her bones.

Providing that Nate had managed to get away quietly, it was very possible help was on the way. She refused to let herself cling to that thought too hard, however, as there was always the possibility that he’d been caught since. The down side to that was it left her with nothing else to do except brood about what Lillith’s next move would be – or should she say Anton’s. She had no doubt that he would still be pulling the strings, working some loophole to make sure it was still his plan being executed and that he would still take credit. Lillith was plenty devious and intelligent but Anton was the truly diabolical one. She would die before admitting it, but as far as demonic plotting went he’d proved himself pretty much a genius. A veritable Moriarty - she was going to curse herself for the rest of her shortened life span for underestimating him. She had no doubt that Anton would have been doing much better than Lillith with turning Justin.

Well, at least that was the one uplifting thing she could focus on. Every time she pictured Justin calling her a skank she couldn’t help but smile, even if her lip was still sore. Her scalp was too now; Lillith had nearly yanked half her hair out.

The door clanked open again, and once again she found her eyes painfully flooded by light.

“So, I’m going to have to retract my previous comment about admiring your balls. Turns out you really are just stupid.”

That was strange. Anton sounded… annoyed? From his tone you’d think he was chastising her for borrowing his stuff without asking. What could she have possibly done to inspire this while sitting in the dark by herself?

“Well hello to you too, sunshine. What got your panties in a bunch?”

“Oh you can save the witty repartee darlin’ you got bigger things to concentrate on now.”

He stalked over to her and yanked her up by the arm again. Her poor shoulder socket was being put through it today. Without ceremony he started dragging her towards the door. She tried not to unduly panic, but this was very unlike him. He was brusque and moody where normally he was devilishly sarcastic and irritatingly smug.

“What, like the Chinese burn you’re currently giving me?”

“Yeah yeah, you just keep being a smart ass, because that’s served you real well so far.” Anton scowled as he marched her along the corridor. “I really hope antagonising her was worth it, Charmian, because you can’t cash the cheque you wrote there.”

“What? What are you yammering about?”

“I’m yammering about you pissing her off. Not only has she not stopped whining to me about it all day, her desire to punish you has given her a great new idea for how to turn your boy. She’s skiing completely off-piste, ruining my fucking plans, and since I made the pinky swear to you to stay hands off the Timberlake project I can’t rein her back in. So nice job, sweetheart, you just fucked shit up for all of us.”

Charmian didn’t understand. Yes, she’d taken the opportunity to rile her a little bit. It was pretty much the only defence she’d had to the way she was being used as a punching bag for her frustrations at the time. The blows hadn’t really registered however; she was still too buoyant from Justin’s insolence. She’d also got one solid knee into Lillith’s gut which had knocked the wind out of her in a very satisfying way.

“What idea?”

“She’s decided she was on the right track but just didn’t push hard enough. Which, to be fair, I’d have made the same assessment.”

She wasn’t walking fast enough for him so he shoved her forward, making her stumble.

“So since you are apparently inspiring him to rebellion, she’s decided she’s going to have you killed and give him a front row seat. Make him either so desperate to save you he gives it up or make him so despondent that he does.”

Her throat constricted and breathing became a struggle.

“Honestly, Charmian, I may hate your guts but I respected you because I thought you had actual brain cells. You know she’s a touchy little idiot, you know that you’re all human and fragile and can barely stand as it is. Why mouth off at her when she’s got all the power? “

Charmian initially thought he wanted an answer to that. She was struggling for one, but as it turned out Anton didn’t really want one. He was ranting more to himself than to her.

“You have completely fucked up everything.  Centuries of work, ruined because you pissed the silly whore off. You’re much too valuable to be killing right now and Justin needed handling with way more finesse than this, at this rate she’s just going to turn him into some brutalised lunk which is no fucking good to me at all. And all because you’re a silly bitch who can’t resist a wise crack.”

Her entire body felt numb. Her legs were clomping along unconvincingly, like they might give out at any moment. For all the times she had faced extreme danger, for all the times she’d gone to battle a foe and known she might not make it home… she’d never been afraid like this. Not even of Bob’s torture table. Even after she’d been stripped of her immortality when she had run into those fights with demons, that didn’t feel like this did.

Anton was taking her to her execution.

She didn’t even have the slim chance she’d had before. She had no weapon and her body was battered. He would take her into that room and they would slaughter her. Justin was going to watch her die. She was going to die. Thousands of years of life ought to have been some kind of preparation for death but she wasn’t ready. She was going to die and she couldn’t even go down fighting.

“That’s it?” She choked out. “Just like that, she’s just going to kill me?”

“Oh no,” Anton spat out darkly. “That’d be too straightforward. She’s got something much more dramatic lined up.”

They had reached a set of double doors, which Anton unceremoniously kicked open. A wave of noise hit her and she was too bewildered and disorientated to really take in the scene. Anton shoved her through the doors and it only got louder as he did. Miraculously she managed to stay on her feet. Squeezing her eyes shut, she stood back up and took a few deep breaths to steel herself. It was just a moment, but she needed that moment to swallow down her terror and centre herself. She needed her wits about her.  When she could put it off no longer she opened her eyes and took in the view.

Immediately she wished she hadn’t, because she was about to be violently sick.

Anton shook his head, glaring at the scene. “Welcome to Thunderdome.”

**

“We locked and loaded?”

Lucas surveyed the three grim faces in front of him. Zac was visibly enraged; you could almost imagine little puffs of steam curling up from his skin. Carmel was quieter but her jaw was set in a manner which made him almost pity any demons getting in her way – almost but not quite. Her brown eyes had turned black and she looked lethal. Alexander wore his usual sneer but there was a straightness in his stance that said he was looking for a fight as much as the rest of them.

“Ready to rumble,” Alex replied.

Carmel’s lips pursed. “But are we sure we don’t want more back up?”

“No,” Lucas shook his head. “Trust me, if we turn up with a horde Anton will haul Charmian and Justin right out of there at the first sign of trouble. This needs stealth.”

“Coward,” Zac sneered.

“No, he’s just smart. Which is why we need to be smarter – we go in soft, fast and quiet. This is a recovery mission not a smack down; we need to draw as little attention as possible. If you don’t need to pick a fight then don’t. We clear?”

“Clear,” came the grumbled response. Zac was itching for a good brawl but he knew Lucas was right, even one scuffle risked being heard by others and the alarm being raised. They needed to be low key.

“Fast and quiet. Move out.”

**

It wasn’t as if he’d never seen people fight before. He’d been to boxing matches, he’d been to wrestling matches; he must have seen every sport going that involved people knocking the stuffing out of each other. He’d been even participated in a few stunt fights himself. This was different. Somebody he cared about was standing in the middle of a ring, being yelled down by jeering assholes, and she was about to fight to the death. There wasn’t some shiny trophy or big gaudy belt at stake. The prize was her very life. Justin had no idea how Charmian could possibly win, but then he guessed she wasn’t supposed to.

The worst thing was that she looked like she knew it. For all the mood swings and the ups and downs she’d had when she became human, when it counted she had been able to shift right back into warrior mode. She hadn’t looked defeated; she’d simply looked like she had a job to do. If Anton hadn’t shown up when he had then she actually would have won that last fight. Now there was trepidation written all over her face and he could see that she was waiting for the killing blow.

The only reason that he wasn’t a hysterical sobbing mess was refusal to give Lillith the satisfaction. She was taking far too much pleasure in the whole thing, and he knew that all of this was for his benefit. It only made it more painful. He had wondered how she would make him pay for his earlier defiance, and to give her due credit she’d come up with a fairly spectacular answer.

“Not too late to back out of this, you know.”

“Oh lighten up, brother dear. I’d have thought this was right up your alley.”

“I enjoy a little petty vengeance as much as the next guy but this is short sighted.”

Lillith turned on her heel and marched towards the centre of the ring, completely ignoring Anton. He folded him arms across his chest and shook his head before turning to Justin.

“Honestly. Nobody has any appreciation for the long game any more,” he said in a conspiratorial tone.

“Then why don’t you just stop her?” Justin asked irritably. “I thought you were supposed to be a big deal or something.”

“I’d love to, believe me, but I made a magically binding oath to your star-crossed lover there that I would back up off of your shit.” Anton shrugged. “I’m here in a strictly advisory capacity, the second I try to actively interfere in the handling of your case… well, let’s just say that I enjoy my intestines where they are.”

“Seems more like she’s handling Charmian than me right now,” Justin tried to argue.

“You run a massive business empire, JT, I know you ain’t that stupid.” Anton rolled his eyes. “Surely you’ve worked out that she’s killing Charmian to get to you?”

Justin was prevented from responding by the sound of Lillith’s voice filling the room.

“Well hello, ladies and gentlemen.” Clearly she was enjoying the attention. “It’s an auspicious day and I’m pleased so many of you could turn up to finally see, after over two thousand years, our favourite avenger finally get hers. Aren’t you all tired of fighting avengers when they get to cheat by being immortal? They can kill us but we can’t kill them?”

The noise in the room increased considerably in volume. Justin didn’t particularly consider the ‘no death’ thing an advantage when the alternative was being captured and tortured for all eternity. From their reaction the demons apparently felt some great sense of injustice out of it though, which was kind of rich coming from them.

“Well not today, ladies and gentlemen, not today. Let’s not waste valuable entertainment time with introductions, shall we? Charmian is finally going to show us what she’s made of without all that handy strength and healing power. But, since unlike the light we demons like to play fair… we’ll even the playing field a little bit. If she can manage a kill or at least a knock out, she wins. But for our other contenders… nothing less than her heart will do. First one to get it out of her chest is going to be richly rewarded!”

Anton’s gaze shifted sideways as he heard a retching sound to his left. Sure enough, Justin had vomited – though at least he’d been smart enough to turn and do it over the side of the chair instead of down his own front. Humans were so squeamish.

Charmian, for her part, was wondering exactly how she was expected to manage even a knock out when she hadn’t been provided with any weapons and clearly wasn’t going to be. A quick glance around the makeshift ring was enough to tell her there was nothing useful to hand. Anything useful was on the walls beyond the braying pack of demons, and none of them were letting her leave the square. So not only did she have to kill people ten times stronger than her, she had to disarm them first to even have a glimmer of a shot at it?

Well, she could hardly expect Lillith to have the same definition of ‘fair’ or evening the playing field.

She felt numb and as if she was having an out of body experience while Lillith finished talking up the match and her opponent appeared. He was unfamiliar but she knew the insignia on his arm - he was a low level foot solider. The fact that somebody relatively low-powered and probably newly minted was up first told her that they were looking to drag this out. Whether that was simply to put on a better show or instil some false hope she couldn’t be sure, but at least it meant her heart might continue to beat a few minutes more.

There was little else she could do except draw in a deep breath, stand up straight, and clear her mind as she’d been taught.

“Any last words, Charmian?”

“Besides fuck you?”

Lillith’s blood red lips parted in a wide grin. “Hey, we’ll put it on the tombstone. Fight!”

For the spectators it made a pretty boring fight, and there were a lot of catcalls to let her know just how they felt about that. She was beyond caring, she could hear them but she wasn’t listening and the words were glancing off her. Her opponent was clearly extremely new, all strength and no training, and he was pretty easy to dodge. It was painful on her already suffering body but skill alone was more than enough to avoid him, and the second he gave her an opportunity she was able to swipe the knife from his hand and stick it through his heart.

The crowd did not enjoy that, but Lillith was only getting warmed up.

“Well clearly that was far too easy. Shall we give her more of a challenge, folks?”

The roar conveyed their consensus. Charmian was breathing heavily as it was, but when her next opponent stepped into the ring it felt like the oxygen had been knocked from her lungs.

“Boss,” he said mockingly.

The harpy was better than she’d given her credit for – she’d gone for the emotional punch this time too. Jacob had been but newly raised and was already showing promise when Bob had taken him. Alexander had in his usual supercilious way denounced him as a no-hoper who would always be too rash for his own good, but she had liked him. Now he was reduced to this.

“Oh Jacob.” The gnawing ache in her stomach grew stronger. Seeing one of her avengers reduced to this was as painful as any of the hits she’d taken in the last few days. She’d always felt personally responsible for her subordinates and it had hurt when they’d been taken, but seeing him on Hell’s side felt like a knife to the chest. “I’m sorry.”

“What for? Being a demon is so much more fun than being your lackey. Falling was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

The sudden swing for her head was lightning quick but it was all she needed to realise that maybe Alex had been right. They’d had more than one argument over him, with Alex complaining that he was always so itchy to get into the fight he left himself wide open and telegraphed all his moves. She had thought that was a fixable fault and he hadn’t. His had been the accurate prediction because apparently the time as a demon had not taught him any better. She’d seen the swing a mile off.

He was still a better fighter than the minion she’d just dispatched, however, so it was no walk in the park. He was handily making it easy to anticipate and pre-empt his strikes, but he was still much too able to defend. She was ducking and diving and executing some rolls which were murder on her already sore ribs, but she wasn’t any closer to actually making a hit. He was quicker than her and it was saving him. There was no opening to make a strike.

“I gotta hand it to your girl,” Anton said cheerfully to Justin. “Anybody else would be dead already.”

Justin wasn’t listening. He felt disembodied. As much as he wanted to turn his head away, do anything except watch, it was like his entire body had locked into place and couldn’t move. His knuckles were white with the grip he had on the chair arms. When finally Charmian managed to use Jacob’s own momentum against him and have him fall on his own sword, his entire torso collapsed with relief and he near slumped over.

At this point she was gasping for air, her shoulders and chest rising and falling in an impossibly exaggerated way. As much as she tried to gulp it in it wasn’t enough, she felt light headed and about ready to pass out from pain. She’d re-opened a lot of her cuts and her body was screaming. She doubted she could last another fight, especially if as she suspected her opponents were going to get progressively tougher. Spots danced in front of her eyes and she could feel that she was ready to black out.

She was so out of it she almost didn’t notice when chaos erupted.

There was an uproar. The ring was abandoned as demons started charging for the door; they’d almost forgotten about her in the meantime.

“CHARMIAN!”

Even in her disoriented state that one hit home.

“CHARMIAN WHERE ARE YOU?”

“Lucas?” She wheezed it out, unable to give it the volume which would have told him where she was. He probably couldn’t see her in the mass of bodies.

An arm caught her round the waist as she began to stumble and another familiar tone sounded. This was one was right in her ear and much less welcome.

“Time to go.”

Anton’s voice was the last thing she heard before the darkness descended.