Infernal Devices Novels & Stories

He nodded slowly, then laid the tile down next to the others. I looked at it. My unease grew, because it looked like a bullfrog crossed with a man. Oddly enough, it looked like . . . The creature from the Black Lagoon. “The ‘Other’ is Chiao, the Water Demon. According to legend he capsized boats, devoured men, and ravished women. He was . . . different from the Sacred Four.” I cleared my suddenly dry and tight throat. “How?” Mr. Trung tipped his head. “The Four exact a price for attempting to reach the Gateway, but they are sacred, honorable, bearing your essence away to be judged accordingly. Chiao is an Abomination. It consumes your very essence, making you part of it for all eternity.”

ALMA I was scared out of my mind. I thought I was going to die with no one to save me. Until Lazzaro came. I hated everything about the underworld with my whole being. A girl couldn’t escape her abductor without being abducted by another. Just that these ones were out to kill me. I didn’t understand Russian, but I knew what ubit meant. It meant kill. And they used that a lot. They were going to murder me.

My eyes rolled back. "Mm," I moaned. I felt every press of his fingers. It sent chills through my veins. A smile tugged across my lips. The next moment, I snapped out of it. I jumped off the bronze chair and turned swiftly to look into his eyes. Those blue piercing eyes were gone, replaced by deep crimson ones. "You aren't Mitchel," I said, trying to convince myself that everything he said was fake. "No matter what you think, I will remain Zarchios," he said.

said Ilyra. Zlo inclined his head, as if thinking. “Well,” he said, “The Nemachi relic was more of a challenge than I had thought it would be.” Really, thought Ilyria, she could already think of at least three: the aeon clock, the box puzzled the Sirens used to enchant the Mogul, the projection device she and Astrapi had first encountered at the Nemachi air fortress. Astrapi had said their devices had been a part of the everyday life of the One World. They had been everywhere. Yet Zlo could not find one?

The variable was refusing the math. "The Mother... is the virus," the Mother murmured, her voice fading into a hiss. "She has infected the King with... empathy." "It's not an infection," I rasped, my right hand clawing at the quartz floor, dragging my 90% stone body another inch toward my son. "It's... the... rain." The Deep Altar groaned as a secondary breach erupted from the southern vent. The Fear faction drones hadn't stopped at the surface. They had deployed the "Abyssal Hooks"—massive, silver-alloy drills designed to pierce the cathedral’s ribcage.

A blood-curdling scream came from the furnace. That was how I'd died in my past life, and I couldn't help feeling vindicated as I watched Summer suffer the same fate. The fire ate her up. She'd left blood all over the furnace before her death because she'd tried to claw her way out. Terence stood there, looking like he was admiring a painting. Once Summer was incinerated, he turned to look at Jean. "It's your turn now."

he said back, tapping the wand against his glove like a gavel. We returned to the control room with a bag of quiet horrors: thirteen devices in an hour and twenty minutes. Some were sleek and recent. Some were silly and old, battery cases crusted, corrosion like a bad mood. Three had no juice left; they had been listening to ghosts. One had the faint warmth of a heartbeat in a body that thought it was clever.

The deeper we went, the worse the smell got, blood, rot, and something else I couldn’t place. “What the hell are those?” one of the guards asked, pointing to a cluster of black metal devices wedged into the stone. Tyson crouched beside one, frowning. “Dark energy devices. Old type. Someone’s using forbidden stuff.” “Why here?” “Probably because no one comes here anymore.” I walked closer, studying the formation. They weren’t scattered—someone placed them deliberately, forming a half-circle around the inner wall. I touched one gently. The surface was warm, humming beneath my fingertips.

Ria slowly turned back toward Alpha Klein as a faint smile appeared on her lips. Then…She carefully placed the wrapped metallic device on the ground. It looked like a large main server core, filled with wires and strange circuits connected to the Mobo App. The moment it touched the ground—Ria raised her hand as golden sparks burst from her fingertips. They shot directly into the machine as the device burst into flames. A horrifying scream echoed from within it as though something alive had been trapped inside all along as dark smoke rose into the sky. Before the smoke completely cleared… Before Ria, Roseline, and Mira could disappear…

Kora, at the speed of light, bent down and grabbed the device from inside his bag without his knowing, then stepped through the portal to the underworld to find Lucifer. “Lucifer!” She called out with no answer. She began running around the mansion in search of him, “Lucifer!” She called again. “Kora,” he appeared behind her in armor, ready for battle, “What do you have there?” “The device,” she smiled at him. “The device from Hermes to cleanse the souls?”