by Lan Chan
I was wrong again. As the Nephilim’s chin dipped, the body of a popobawa demon hopped through the portal. A popobawa was a black-skinned monster with sinewy muscle that writhed as it moved. Long, pointed ears flopped on either side of its one-eyed head. They were hairless but for the little tuft beneath their chins. Professor Gordon had taught us the popobawa, like most mind-control demons, didn’t need two eyes in order to see. They saw most things through a metaphysical plane.
Even without eyes, it saw the Nephilim slumped by the wall just fine. The thing was joined by several of its friends. The Nephilim let out a snore. It was at that point that he lost control of the cage. The bars disintegrated, leaving both of us at the mercy of the demons.
17
There were some people who were genetically wired to go running into the jaws of death when it presented itself. I wasn’t one of those people. As the demons trespassed over the threshold, I backed up as far as I could go without leaving the outline of the circle.
Popobawa weren’t physically powerful, but they were stronger than a human female. My heart thudded in my chest as the first of the demons tried to body slam into the Nephilim guard. It was rebuffed by the circle I’d drawn around him in my mind.
If I were a high-magic sorceress I might be able to last a few minutes. But I wasn’t. That shielding was a one-time deal. As was the circle around me. Two of the popobawa came hurtling at me. The first bounced off the invisible barrier of my circle. The second scraped its nails against the air. I felt it like the raking of steel inside my brain. That was all it took for the circle to give way.
Without the need to stay inside the chalk circle’s confines, I regrouped. Ducking under the swipe of one of the popobawa, I rolled and pushed myself up to standing. When the wolves saw the limits of my circles, they decided I needed physical training. I was five foot six inches of relaxed muscle. Very relaxed in my lower region from all the cakes I ate. Still, it was muscle nonetheless. If I threw it around just right, sometimes I could do some damage.
The first popobawa to come at me copped a right hook under the chin. The wolves had assured me that a hit like that would have knocked out a person. Popobawa weren’t people. It staggered backward but didn’t go down. The thing gnashed its teeth in rage. When it came at me again, I pivoted and kicked out, slamming my foot into the side of its head.
I felt the second monster try to come at me inside my mind. It latched onto the edges of my fear and tugged. I saw an image of myself go down. I watched as the monsters sucked out my soul to fuel the portal they were opening for their master. The spell in my blood hit back with a wave of alertness that had the image shattering.
I wished beyond all reason for a staff or some knives. Behind me, I heard more monsters scurrying into the room. The sound of a body being pushed over told me the Nephilim didn’t have long before he was harvested. That thought propelled me into a seething rage. My next kick clipped the popobawa in the head and sent it sprawling.
It took a few seconds to get up. I would have whooped for joy if I wasn’t puffing. The second popobawa lunged toward me. I raised my fists, fully intending to wipe that hideous grin off its one-eyed face when it skidded to a halt.
Eye narrowing, the popobawa lowered its torso, snarling as it stared at something over my shoulder. Oh Gaia, what now?
The lion’s growl skirted over my skin and rattled my ribcage. I turned my head in time to watch Max, shirtless but still in human form, catch one of the popobawa by the neck. The monster had been crawling over the Nephilim guard. The sound of bone cracking and hide tearing would be forever imprinted in my mind. The fact it was associated with such a rush of relief would become months of guidance counsellor fodder.
The popobawa attacking me pawed at the concrete. Its small talons gouged marks into the floor. A hideous battle cry spewed from its mouth as it charged forward. Max shot past me, latched his own massive paw around the popobawa’s ankle and used it as a tennis racket. He took out another two monsters with his popobawa weapon.
I could swear he was grinning as I skidded down in front of the Nephilim. He was scratched up pretty badly but there were no fatal injuries just yet. I lifted his eyelids but they resisted. Beneath his lids, his eyes were flickering in rapid movement. I could only imagine the horrors the popobawa were making him see. Some demons stole life essences with pleasure. I’m talking succubi and the like. Some of them stole it with pain. Popobawa fed on fear.
I was plenty afraid. But as a human living amongst the supernatural, fear was kind of like a second skin. I wore it pretty well by now. That didn’t stop me from squeaking when Max smashed a monster right beside where I sat and crushed its skull with his foot.
He grabbed me by the arm and shoved me behind him. For the time being, the portal had stopped vomiting corporeal demons.
Physical demons were the harbingers of their masters. Most of them were the underlings to those demons with the will to dominate all others. Something much worse was coming.
“Can you close the portal?” Max asked.
“I haven’t learned how!” I thumped on his back so he would turn and see there was no door. “The only way out is back the way you came.”
“Shit.”
I wanted to question how he’d gotten here in the first place. Shifters had no high magic. His lips pulled back over teeth gone serrated at the tip when he looked down at the unconscious Nephilim. He was verging on a shift and was just holding it together.
Alphas were treated with the reverence of royalty by their subordinates, but I had always thought the responsibility would suck big time. Being a leader often meant making hard choices. Max didn’t even hesitate. He reached out to grab me around the waist.
“Wait!”
He hauled me into his arms and curled himself protectively around me. We were moving before I could protest. I bit back the scream at the thought of leaving the Nephilim helpless.
Any scrap of altruism disintegrated when we landed on the other side of the portal. Max’s feet touched down in the infirmary. I heard scraping and sharp, shallow intakes of gurgled breath. We were earthbound for a split second before his muscles stretched taut and he sprang. Max broke into a run. I had enough time to take in the sprawl of demons all over the unconscious before he collided with the front doors and we were heading back to the dorms.
I put two and two together. He must have tried to take Charles to the infirmary only to find it was infested with demons. I was just grateful for whatever possessed him to jump through the portal. Knowing Max, it was just his way of protecting those in the infirmary. The hairs on his arms were so thick it was a wonder he was still on two feet. Leaving his brother would have taken every ounce of strength in him. He didn’t stop running until we were back inside the dorms.
“We don’t have much time,” he said as he finally let me out of his arms. “Everyone else is unconscious.” He stalked over to the huge ebony piano and lifted it like it was a matchstick. Max pushed it against the door. The barricade wouldn’t last long.
“The deputy headmaster?”
Max grimaced. “I might have helped him get there a little.” I would have to question him about that later. “Please tell me you know how to fix this? I tried to contact the outside but the MirrorNet isn’t working.”
I scampered up the staircase. “Do you remember any of your dreams for the past few weeks?”
He came running after me. “Not really.”
“Do you remember chasing me in lion form?”
“No.”
“But you still did it. Have you seen Curtis, Bran or Marshall recently?”
We reached the top of the staircase. I jogged on the spot trying to remember which rooms belonged to Kate’s friends. “Not that I can think of. Why?”
“They’re the ones who control the wards and the portals to the outside. My guess is the demons have them under some kind of lucid hypnosis.”
“They’re Nephilim!”
“So what? They’re just as susc
eptible to demonic persuasion. Especially if it comes at them when they’re least likely to suspect it.”
He made an incoherent grunting sound. I categorised it as disgust. “Why aren’t we affected?”
I ignored the question, but he snatched my arm and turned me to face him. “Sophie!”
I tried to pry his fingers off. No dice. “Are you going to be pissed if I tell you the truth?”
“I just left my brother to come after you. Stop acting like you can’t trust me.”
It was the complete opposite exactly. He was just about the only one I did trust. Losing him now made me apprehensive. “Sophie.” His voice grew deeper, coaxing. I bit my lip.
“I tampered with our food,” I said. It was supposed to be a joke. He didn’t laugh.
“You do that often?”
I nodded. “A lot of the time it’s unintentional. I like to cook. It makes me happy. My magic passes that on to the food. This time, I did it purposefully. I knew something was wrong, but I kept forgetting what it was. Until whoever it was broke into my room.”
“You couldn’t have done it on a bigger scale?”
I gave him a hard stare. “Nobody will let me anywhere near the dining hall because they’re afraid I’ll poison everybody!”
The irony of the situation almost had me weeping. We didn’t have time for that either. Max’s right eye twitched. His irises were bleeding gold. It was then I remembered his sense of smell. “You know Kate, right?”
He nodded. Of course he did. She would fall over herself if he walked past. “Do you know her friends? Can you take me to their rooms?”
It said a lot that he didn’t ask why. My human legs must have been too slow because halfway down the hall he grabbed me and ran. We came to a stop in front of a door with the name Jenny Liu on the plaque. Jenny wasn’t in here, but the state of the place made Max growl. Lack of discipline was something to be ashamed of for shifters.
Jenny was half human, though. Her jewellery was all over the bloody place. I dumped the contents of her entire top drawer on the floor. Max crouched down beside me. “What are we looking for?”
“Cheap African souvenir necklace.”
Max sniffed. He got up and marched over to Jenny’s nightstand and brought back a small, shell-shaped box. Inside was the necklace in question. I made a note to use his nose more often.
“Break it.” I held my breath as he crushed the wood in one hand. Nothing miraculous happened. We did this twice more. Inside Debbie Conway’s room, my nerves frayed as her necklace snapped in half in Max’s hands. All was quiet.
I’d never been at an exorcism, but I’d read about it and there was supposed to be more fanfare than this. If nothing else, demons were whiney bastards who kicked up a huge stink when they were banished.
“Dammit! I was sure it was one of those necklaces that started this!” Disappointment had me wanting to tear my hair out.
“What else could it be?” Max asked. A feral edge crept into his voice. The longer we messed around in here, the closer his brother came to being drained.
“I don’t know. The relic could be anything. A handkerchief, a music box, a bloody piece of string –”
My eyes widened. I shoved my hand into my pocket and brought out the leather chain of Kate’s necklace. Max inhaled. “What’s that? It smells bitter.”
Undoing the dull copper clasp, I ran the length of the knotted rope along my palm. “Smash the beads. Undo the knots.”
For someone with such big hands, Max was surprisingly dextrous. He undid the first knot in seconds. My throat locked at the sound of wind being sucked into a void. I grinned. A moment later, my hubris was rewarded with a soul-shattering shriek.
What I heard wasn’t the wail of a weakened demon. It was the bellow of a demon who was casting off its chains for the first time in millennia. We were too late. A thunderous boom rocked the Academy. The wall shook so much I flattened myself on the ground. Max leaned over me, his balance much better than mine.
When the shaking stopped, we ran down the staircase. Max boosted me up onto his shoulders so I could see outside of the high bay windows. “What’s happening?”
My voice died in my throat. It took me seconds too long to register what I was seeing. The view towards the portal field was obstructed by other buildings and the tree line. But I had no issues spotting the three winged figures that floated into the air. Had they been in their right minds, Curtis, Bran and Marshal would have cut down any lower demons in their path. Instead, they circled around the field, their broadswords lighting up the sky.
“Oh dear Gaia,” I hissed.
“What?” Max shouted.
“The Nephilim. They’ve been possessed.” The demon no longer needed Kate’s necklace to ground it in this dimension. It had better hostages.
And then I heard it. A voice inside my mind that couldn’t have come from anywhere but the master demon. “When there is nothing else left: there is blood. I’m coming for yours Sophie Mwansa.”
18
My vision was blurred when I climbed down off Max’s shoulders. Judging by the quivering of his top lip and the way his hair bristled, Max had heard the voice too. He enveloped me in his arms. More than the fear, it was the knowledge of what a demon possession did to a Nephilim that hurt me. They were two opposing entities. The pain the Nephilim must be feeling made my eyes water.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Max said. If we got out of this, I’d get him to teach me how to lie so effectively. Funny thing was, I kinda believed him.
“We can’t leave everybody.”
“Everybody isn’t my concern right now. It’s coming after you.”
That was just my luck. I was so busy trying not to turn into a monster that I’d ended up pissing off a demon. An honest to Gaia demon. If I wasn’t dead soon, my mama was going to kill me. I gripped Max’s arm.
“That’s right. It’s coming after me. Maybe I can distract it so you can get the word out and get help.”
“Are you insane? How are you going to defend yourself?” My silence was answer enough. “It’s not happening. We’ll find another solution. You’re Enock Mwape’s great-granddaughter for heaven’s sake! Now would be a good time to act like it!”
I sputtered. “If anyone heard you encouraging me to be like him, you’d be in a world of hurt.”
“I don’t give a shit! Aren’t you tired of making yourself lesser so other people feel better? They’re supernaturals. It’s about time they stopped whining. You threw a wolfsbane fireball in my face. Let’s try more of that scary shit! What can you throw at a demon to banish them?”
You could say a lot about my great-grandfather, but he was a human who scared the pants off supernaturals. Right now, I could use some of that mojo.
“Angel blade?” I suggested.
“Try again.”
I glanced at the leather chain. “Binding is out of the question then. My circles aren’t strong enough to keep it in. What if…what would happen if one of the Nephilim died while possessed?”
Max bared his teeth in a silent snarl. “They die. And the beast will find another host.” I wracked my brain for anything else I’d learned in Demonology. Max did the same.
“We can’t close the portal. We can’t fight them all. Is there any way we can break its hold on everyone? You managed to make us immune. Can we try something like that?”
A seed of hope planted in my mind. “They’re already under,” I said. “My food was a preventative. We need a cure. The only cure for demon possession has to be something so strong it…”
“What?” Max stepped closer.
It had been right there in front of me the whole time. “What?” Max whisper-shouted.
“The Elixir of Life!”
“That’s a fairy tale.”
“No, it’s not!”
“I’m pretty sure it is. Professor McKenna said no one has ever been able to perfect the potion before. It asks too much of the spellcaster. Whatever that means. We don’t h
ave any of that lying around in case you hadn’t noticed.”
I was already running. Back inside my room, I snatched my cauldron and then sprinted to the bathroom. Max was still babbling as I filled the cauldron with water. “Sophie!” he yelled. “Hang on a second.”
“No! You said be scary. So that’s what I’m doing. I don’t need the ingredients.”
He pulled at his hair. “Then what are you going to do?”
I looked him directly in the eye. I was breaking rule number one when dealing with an alpha shifter but I didn’t care. “I’m going to cheat.”
For the first time in my life, I was going to allow my magic to be free. I might not be physically strong, but I could transmute potions like nobody’s business. Max’s lips slowly pulled into a grin.
“Let’s kill us a demon.”
I grinned back. Then I dropped the bombshell. “Can you catch me a possessed Nephilim?”
As expected, his smile dropped. “You mean one of those flying, supernaturally strong, angel-blade carrying Nephilim?”
I nodded. He sighed. “Fine. But you owe me.”
I set the cauldron down when we were back in the common area. Terror was baying at the edges of my mind, but I pushed it back with focus. “We need to get out onto the portal field.”
Max shrugged off any scrap of good humour he’d shown. The face he wore now was of the shifter lurking beneath his human exterior.
“I can draw a circle around myself but it’s not going to hold for long. Do you think you can do this quickly?” Implicit in the question was an admission that I trusted him to protect me. I just wished there was somebody to protect him. My stomach clenched at the thought of something happening to him. I bit the inside of my cheek.
He clamped his hand around my right shoulder. “Just this once I’m going to pretend you didn’t just insult me.”
Right. I should have known better really.
“Ready?” I nodded even though I wanted to curl into a ball. Max removed the piano and pushed the front doors open. I picked up the cauldron. We expected to be set upon by low demons as soon as we emerged. But the Academy was deadly quiet. Like it was holding its breath.