The [Infernal Commands] came a moment later.

  “Halt,” Haddad said.

  It was the perfect time to use them, after all. Ashtoreth was on the retreat and had pulled so many tricks out of her sleeve that they had to think she was running out of them. The momentary paralysis, if successful, would have easily sealed the deal.

  And because each of them had to suspect she was an [Archfiend of Pride], they couldn’t use the commands defensively because they simply might not work.

  Ashtoreth danced backward despite the command, firing her second-last shot at Apollo, who blocked the attack with the flat of her greatsword and was sent skidding backward more than twenty feet.

  Ready… Ashtoreth thought to her allies.

  “Halt!” Apollo cried.

  Ashtoreth fired her last shot at Haddad, who twisted away from it, but not fast enough: the round tore a hole out of her side and sent her spinning backward across the rock.

  Seeing her chance, she launched her sword at the unbalanced Haddad with a [Mighty Strike]—and was rewarded when her sister used a third teleport.

  Only this time, Haddad didn’t position herself to attack Ashtoreth.

  Instead Haddad warped far behind her, clearly repositioning herself so that she could get to the humans before Ashtoreth could stop her.

  Go! she shouted telepathically.

  Not only was Haddad too far for her to reach quickly, but she knew there was no way that Apollo wasn’t about to do everything she could to keep Ashtoreth away.

  But Ashtoreth could at least be pleased with the idea that her sisters had very likely made a mistake. As long as Frost’s aura could absorb Haddad’s lightning, the three humans could almost certainly keep Haddad busy, if not outright kill her.

  That left Ashtoreth with one clear goal.

  Kill Apollo.

  But as she rounded on her sister, she saw that Apollo’s plan for keeping her busy was more grandiose than she’d expected.

  Apollo was rising high into the air, a veritable sun of red fire building in the space above her horns. As Ashtoreth watched, the sun broke into a constellation of blazing red fireballs, each of which arced out in a semi-random path and then began to plummet toward her in an attack that almost looked like a cross between [Hellfire Javelin] and [Hellfire Nova].

  She consumed another heart from her locket, then began to conjure and launch a series of javelins into the air above her. Apollo’s pillars of descending flame snuffed her flames out easily, of course, but it dwindled in strength as they did so.

  Then they began to engulf her, one by one, still so potent that despite her high [Defense] she thought she’d surely be turned to ash in moments unless she launched herself out of their path.

  Gotcha, she heard Frost say.

  For a moment, she worried that he’d strayed too far from Hunter. A moment later, though, she felt a steady surge of healing magic flowing into her from behind—and she realized that he was simply shooting her with his healing bullets while standing near enough to Hunter to cover him with his protection aura.

  The barrage ended as soon as it had started, and Ashtoreth found herself standing in a field of blood-red flames and watching as Apollo plunged down through the air. But her sister’s face wasn’t a mask of rage that seemed to say, why won’t you die already? She wore a satisfied grin, clearly happy now that the humans were involved.

  Which meant that her and Haddad had been reserving powers, must have been…

  She beat her wings backward, not only bringing herself a little closer to Haddad and the humans but also moving out of the field of Apollo’s hellfire at the same time.

  Now! Ashtoreth said. Get her!

  She launched her weapon at Apollo with a [Mighty Strike], one that was as much to momentarily distract her sister as to throw herself back toward Haddad. Immediately, she began to re-conjure Wanderschloss…

  Hunter appeared next to Apollo, and Ashtoreth saw her sister’s face twist into a snarl of disdain as the human came for her. Just before Ashtoreth spun to face Frost and Haddad, she saw two things: one, Apollo’s look of disdain flickering as she had to move to evade the blade of one of Hunter’s katanas, clearly having underestimated him, and two, a dozen infernal ghosts rising out of the stone ground around her. Kylie’s minions.

  More of them were swarming around Haddad, who had taken to the air and was blasting them into nothingness three or four at a time. They’d distracted her enough that Frost sped by her on her way toward her sister, moving to put Hunter within range of his aura.

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  They just needed to survive long enough to leave Ashtoreth alone with Haddad.

  And Ashtoreth needed to make perfect use of the time they gave her.

  She beat her wings, surging up into the air toward her sister. Haddad had almost finished with Kylie’s ghosts by the time Ashtoreth reached her, and she rounded on Ashtoreth, baring her claws right before the two of them met midair.

  Only now Haddad wasn’t trying to make an opening for Apollo. Now, she had to fight for her life.

  Ashtoreth did her best to fight in a way that would make her seem desperate, snarling as she assaulted Haddad with a flurry of hasty blows. She let her sister score her flesh with her claws multiple times as she fought aggressively, pressing her sister back and trying to overcome her quickly.

  Haddad was quickly put on the retreat, pulling Ashtoreth further away from her allies, doubtless measuring out the longest distance she could still manage to warp…

  Incoming! she told the others with telepathy.

  A moment later, Haddad vanished in a flash of light. Immediately, Ashtoreth spun in the air and launched herself toward where her sisters fought the lower-level humans.

  Distantly, she saw Hunter with his wings out, still fighting Apollo on the ground. Ghosts of infernals were still rising up through the stone to try to tackle Apollo, but she was seemingly ignoring them, focusing all her attacks on Hunter with a manic, frenzied rage. Huge patches of hellfire burned around them, and Ashtoreth could see Haddad now standing in some of the flames nearby, apparently ignoring the hail of sustained fire from Frost’s minigun despite the fact that it dealt sacred damage.

  They knew that with Ashtoreth momentarily out of the fight, this was their chance to end it. She wished she’d had one of her cannon-weapons out: it would have regenerated a shot by now.

  Instead she just had to watch.

  Haddad launched her bolt of lightning at Hunter just in the same moment that Apollo feinted with her sword, then dropped it mid-swing to lunge for him with a faster, unavoidable attack with her claws.

  Hunter was fully struck by the bolt of lighting… and then sank into the stony ground at his feet as Kylie phased him through the earth, both of Apollo’s claws shredding the tops of his wings before he vanished completely.

  She howled in rage. Both of them began to round on Frost, then seemed to realize that Ashtoreth was too close. Apollo moved for Ashtoreth; Haddad, for Frost.

  It was the best chance she was going to get.

  Having Wanderschloss out meant that she’d gotten access to her tripled [Bloodfire] pool, and she spent a massive portion of it, almost all the remainder, to grant herself a new [Bloodfire Boon]—one that was two-thirds [Strength] and only one-third [Defense].

  She launched the debuff she’d taken with her [Spellsteal] at Apollo as a momentary distraction, though it essentially did nothing: her sister completely ignored it, absorbing the debuff and rushing at Ashtoreth without slowing at all.

  She used her [Power Tap], which had become available again, to increase her [Strength] by several thousand. Then, finally, she spent the buff granted by [Ashtoreth’s Boonsurge] for another five thousand [Defense] and ten thousand [Strength].

  She raised her weapon as if to meet Apollo in battle, then telekinetically moved it behind her before launching herself straight at Haddad with a [Mighty Strike].

  The air itself seemed to form a solid curtain ahead of her, and she tore through it as she sped toward her sister. Haddad turned, a look of surprise just barely beginning to form on her face before Ashtoreth struck her claws-first.

  Her speed along with her sister’s [Defense] made Haddad feel like a statue of solid adamantium, but it didn’t matter: forces greater than anything Ashtoreth had ever wielded pushed through the resistance with seeming ease.

  Haddad lay in the center of a small crater. Ashtoreth’s arm was plunged through a hole in the center of her chest, where it had obliterated her heart and lungs to pulverize the stone below.

  Haddad looked up at her with bloody eyes… then dissipated into a cloud of yellow ether.

  Then she heard Apollo’s raw scream of anguish.

  “No!”

  She stood and dispersed the ether with her wings as she rounded on Apollo, raising her claws to see her sister charging toward her, her face a mask of grief-stricken fury, her sword raised.

  But Apollo was suddenly all anger and no control. Ashtoreth dodged the first blow easily, then fought as defensively as she could against her sister’s frenzied assault, feeling no need to try to get the upper hand in single combat.

  Soon the others had joined her. Frost fired on Apollo from a distance, Kylie sent more ghosts to drain her stats and bog her down, and Hunter hung back in case a sudden intervention was necessary.

  “I hate you!” Apollo screamed, swinging her massive sword wildly as sacred bullets tore through her wings and into her back. “I. Hate—augh!”

  Seeing an opening, Ashtoreth had conjured Wanderschloss again and then sheared Apollo’s legs off at the knees. She dropped the weapon and tackled her sister a moment later, gouging into the root of her wings with both claws to disrupt Apollo’s flight magic, then pinning them both to the stone with the force of her own.

  “Hold her!” she shouted. Frost was at her side a moment later, helping to roll Apollo over and pin her limbs as her face was pressed against the ground, then placing the barrel of his assault rifle against the tip of both her horns to shoot them off with his sacred rounds, disabling her primary spell focus.

  Apollo screamed the whole time. “Get off me! Get—augh—I hate you!”

  She’d completely lost it, Ashtoreth thought, grunting as her sister squirmed. Had Haddad actually meant that much to her? Truly, it was a surprise that Apollo had any affection for their sister.

  Get up here, Kylie, she thought. Her sister would meet the same fate that Yama and Freyr had.

  And then they could find out just what, exactly, Apollo had been up to.