by Trudi Jaye
I step forward and put my hand out again. “I’m Hazel.”
This time, my hand is accepted, and she takes it in a strong grip. “Nice to meet you, Hazel. I’m Suzanna. And these ragamuffins are Ben and Finn. You have the advantage of me. I’ve never heard Nico talk about you.”
“He’s never talked to me about you, either, don’t worry. We only just met a few days ago.”
She raises her eyebrows. “And he’s already bringing you home to meet big sister? It must be love.”
My face goes hot. “We’re not… We haven’t even… I’m working with Blade. Nico. He’s protecting me.” I try not to think about the pity-kiss that got me all hot and bothered and left Blade cold.
“What from?”
I swallow. “Demons.”
“Well, he’s brought you to the wrong place if that’s your aim. I’ve seen at least two demons this morning, roaming around the back paddocks.”
Blade interrupts by stepping forward. “She’s going to wait in the house with you while I deal with the demons.”
Like hell I am. I manage to keep the thought in my head. Somewhere between now and last night, I’ve gotten my bravado back, and I want to test out my scream on another demon.
As long as there’s only two of them.
“They’re bigger than any I’ve ever seen before,” says Suzanna, looking over at Ben and Finn.
Blade nods. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done this a thousand times.”
“Do you want to rest first? Get some coffee?”
Blade glances at me and then shakes his head. “I’ll just head out and see what I can find.”
He’s probably worried I might try to sneak out and have a go if he doesn’t get to the demons first. It would annoy me more if he weren’t right.
“We’ll help get the demons, Uncle Nico,” says the bigger of the two boys.
Blade shakes his head and crouches down until he’s the same height. “I need you to do something more important,” he says. “I need you to go inside and protect your mother and Hazel.”
They hesitate for a minute, unsure how to take this request.
“It’s an important job. I know I can count on you two.”
“Okay, Uncle Nico,” they chorus.
Suzanna puts an arm around my shoulders. “Come on inside with me, and I can show you photos of Nico when he was a little boy. He was kinda scrawny.” She glances back over her shoulder at Blade who’s bristling, his green eyes stormy, and then laughs in his direction. “Just work, eh?” she says.
I let her lead me away from Blade, and I’m proud of myself for not turning to look at him again. I hear him go to the back of his pickup and take out some supplies. Then he walks off down the driveway, in the direction Suzanna indicated.
Inside the house it’s cozy, with rugs on the wooden floors and a big sofa taking up space in the living room. Kids’ toys litter the floors, and fresh flowers are in a vase on a wooden table.
“Coffee?” asks Suzanna from the kitchen area.
“Sure, thank you.”
I wander around the living room, stopping to look at the photos that are everywhere. There are some of the two boys and an older man who’s the spitting image of Blade but with gray hair and many more lines to his face. There’s also a tall man hugging Suzanna and the boys when they were younger.
Suzanna comes out of the kitchen and sees me staring at the photo. “That’s my husband, Eric. He died a couple years back.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, turning to Suzanna. “I didn’t know.”
She shrugs. “Why would you?”
“It must be difficult raising two boys and running the ranch on your own.”
“It hasn’t been exactly easy. But Nico helps out. I get by.”
Her face holds a strength that’s hard to ignore, and I find myself drawn to her. “How long have you been here on the ranch?”
“Fifteen years. We’ve just started making a good profit from it in the last few years. I’m glad Eric was able to see it come to fruition before he died. He worked so hard on it.”
We sit down on the couch, and I take a sip of the coffee she hands me.
“Mama, Mama.” The younger of the two boys comes running into the room. “Ben went out the back door. He wants to go help Uncle Nico.”
Suzanna stands up immediately. “Which way did he go, Finn?”
Finn points toward the thick grove of trees to the right of the house. “That way. We saw a demon from the bedroom.”
“Oh God.” Suzanne puts a hand over her mouth, but I can see the stricken expression.
“I’ll go get him,” I say confidently. “You wait here with Finn.”
Suzanna shakes her head. “No, I should go. He’s my boy.” She moves toward the door.
“Suzanna, let me go. I have protection from demons. I can do more than you can. You need to stay here with Finn.”
I block the door with my body and make sure she stays inside, firmly closing the door. Then I run through the pine trees on the right of the house, calling out Ben’s name in a loud whisper and hoping that nothing bad happens before I find him.
“Hazel?” a small voice calls out somewhere to my left, and I veer through the trees, pushing the branches aside, not able to see more than a few feet in front of me in any direction. “Ben? Is that you?”
I push my way through a couple of trees and enter a small clearing. I see Ben’s small shape ahead of me and let out a breath. And then I look up.
A tall, thin demon is floating in front of Ben, its mouth a gaping maw of darkness, and the usual blue glow stronger than I’ve ever seen it. A white mist is moving from the young boy and into the creature. I take a step toward the demon. “Stop! Stop that.”
It looks up at me, but doesn’t stop.
“I’m a chalice. If you don’t stop, I’m going to destroy you.”
The demon hesitates, and the white fog stops moving between Ben and the creature. The demon moves around the young boy until it’s about four yards away from me. I try not to flinch as I face the demon. I still have no idea whether my scream will work, but I’m damned if I’m going to let that thing finish whatever it was doing to Ben.
A long, thin tongue comes out of the demon’s mouth and flicks out in my direction. It just misses my face, but I force myself to stay still, to not flinch.
“Try that again and see what it gets you,” I say.
This time, when the tongue snakes out, I reach out and grab it in my hands. There are thorns on the tongue, and they attach themselves to the sensitive skin on my hand. I scream in pain, the sound going higher in pitch than usual.
The demon screams as well and cowers in front of me. I scream again. The demon starts to shrink, its blue glow dying off. The creature’s tongue is still in my hand, and I try to shake it off. But the barbs are stuck.
I scream again, this time with anger, as the barbs draw blood.
The demon is on the forest floor, the tongue the only part of it still up. I try singing a few high notes to see what the demon does. As each note gets higher in range, it starts to shudder more and more, until the vibrations on the ground almost knock me off my feet.
Heat from the demon burns my skin, and I have to concentrate hard on not flinching away. Then suddenly, flames erupt over the demon’s body, and it screeches, this time in pain. It writhes on the ground in front of me, pulling on its tongue and forcing the demon barbs deeper into my skin. A stinging bright light flares out from its chest, blinding me. I close my eyes against the pain, and when I open them again, blinking frantically, there’s nothing left but ash floating around my feet.
The tongue is still stuck in my hand, now blackened and hard.
Blue mist comes up out of the ashes, swirling around me like a mini tornado. Then, without warning, it forms a glowing line and aimed directly at my mouth. I scream again, and this time the sound pulls at the blue mist, drawing it into my center.
It’s inside me.
Another demon. Inside
me.
I struggle to breathe as I try to think through the consequences. To one side of me, someone comes charging through trees. Blade runs into the clearing just as my legs give out from under me and I fall to the ground.
38
When I come to, there are lights in front of my eyes, but I can’t see anything. I’m back in the house, lying on the big comfy sofa. I don’t remember how I got from the clearing to here.
“Wh-wha’?” I manage.
Blade crouches down next to me. “You’re awake. Thank God. I thought—” He shakes his head like he’s clearing cobwebs. “—Anyway, I’m glad you’re awake again.”
“Ah course ‘m awake. Why wouldn’t I be?” I can hear the slurring in my voice, but I don’t understand it. The little demon inside me is crooning unintelligibly, like it’s trying to settle my overwhelmed senses.
“Do you remember what happened?”
“I ran aft’ Ben,” I say, fairly confident about that part of the story. I blink a few times and my vision starts to come back. I try to sit up and find that it’s beyond me. My bones feel ridiculously heavy. “Wha’s happen’ to me? Why can’ move?” My face feels like it’s dripping from my bones, the skin is so slack.
“You got in a fight with a demon. You saved Ben, by the way. He’ll take a little time to heal from the essence that it stole from him, but he’s young. He’ll be okay.”
I nod carefully, although I’m not entirely sure I understand. “How’d I do? Di’ I lose?” I must have, because I feel awful.
Blade shakes his head. “No, you won. At least I think you did. The demon went inside you.”
“It possess’d me?” I try to sit up, my panic rising. I can’t have another demon inside me.
“No, I think you killed it,” says Blade soothingly, pushing me back down. “But you absorbed it into your body somehow. I think that’s why you’re like this. I rang Damien. He’s catching a flight and meeting us at your apartment.”
“Bet he’s piss’d,” I say, still slurring, if only a tiny bit. I feel the strength returning to my fingers and toes, the blood pumping sluggishly through my body.
“Yep. Asked what part of staying away from demons I didn’t understand.”
I laugh. “Sounds like him.” My voice is getting stronger, and I push myself up to a sitting position. This time it works, if very slowly.
“You’re feeling better?” asks Blade, and I can hear the relief in his voice.
“Did you think I was a goner?” I ask, jokingly. But when I check out his face, he’s looking at me with a grim expression. “You really thought I was dead?” I ask with a squeak.
“You were out for the count. For a long time. We did everything we could think of to revive you, and when that didn’t work, I called Damien.”
“Did he say I was a goner too?”
“No, he just said you’d used too much of your power in one go. Apparently, you have to build up to this kind of thing.”
“I can believe that.” I look down at my hand, still clenched around something. Opening my fingers, I find a withered black strip—the demon’s tongue. I try to drop it, but the tongue’s barbs are still stuck in my fingers.
“We tried removing that as well, but you screamed every time we tried. Damien said he knows how to get them out.”
“He suddenly seems to know a lot more than he did before.”
“He’s been reading up.”
“So it would seem.” I clear my throat, trying to get rid of the last of the croakiness. I roll my shoulders back and ignore the wizened, black demon tongue stuck in my hand.
“How long was I out for?”
“An hour or so.”
An hour. No wonder he thought I was dead.
I look around. “Where are the others?”
“Suzanna took the boys outside, to give you some quiet. Ben wanted to stay, to look after you.”
I swallow hard, trying to get my thoughts in order. “Are you sure that’s all it is? That I just used up all my powers? It’s not that…”
“What?”
“Are you positive the demon didn’t possess me?” I feel queasy even as I ask the question.
“The body of the demon was ashes at your feet. It was definitely dead, so it couldn’t have possessed you. But its energy must have gone somewhere.”
His words spark a memory. “The energy is inside me,” I whisper, suddenly remembering what happened. I lift frightened eyes to Blade’s face. “You said demon energy was dangerous and unstable.”
“You’re not just any person. Damien said you were special. That means whatever happened, there’s a way to reverse it, to make sure you’re okay.” He says it like he’s trying to convince himself as well as me.
He’s not convincing either of us.
The door slams open, and the sound of small feet running interrupts us.
“Uncle Nico! Uncle Nico!”
Finn comes hurtling into the room, straight for Blade. “The demon, it’s got them. You gotta come save them.”
Blade stands up immediately, still holding Finn. “It’s got who?” he says sharply.
“Mama and Ben. Hurry!”
Blade turns to me. “Stay here with Finn,” he says, dumping the young boy on the sofa next to me. “Keep him safe.” He pulls out his mobile phone from his pocket and hands it to me. “Call Damien if there’s trouble. Let him know.”
He strides out of the room, set on his rescue mission.
Finn turns to me, his eyes wide.
“What happened?” I ask.
“We was outside, playin’, and one of them came up to us, all mean. Mama shooed us back and was standing up to it. She’s brave,” he says proudly.
“Is she a jaguar like your Uncle Nico?”
Finn nods. “We all are. But she didn’t change, not for a demon.”
“Does she know how to fight it, like Blade?”
“She used to, before she had us. Now she don’t like to leave us alone.”
“What kind of—”
The door bangs open again, and Ben and Suzanna come running in. Ben is covered in dirt from head to toe, and Suzanna is pale, with her long blonde hair in a mess around her face. She rushes over to Finn and grabs him up into a tight hug. “Well done, my son. Well done,” she says fiercely.
“Where’s Blade?” I say, although I know the answer. He’s out there with the demons.
On his own.
“They don’t usually come this close to the house,” says Suzanna, pushing her long hair back off her face. “I don’t know why they’re coming so close.”
Because of me. It has to be. I push myself to my feet. I need to check on Blade, to make sure he’s okay. I’m still a little unsteady, but I have to be sure he’s not out there getting killed because of me.
“Shouldn’t you be sitting down?” asks Suzanna.
“Is there a window we can see Blade from?” I ask. I’m still clutching the shriveled demon tongue in one hand. My hand clenches in a spasm and the thorns dig deeper. Pain shoots up my hand, into my arm.
“Over here,” says Suzanna, leading the way to a big bay window at the front of the house.
Outside, Blade is dancing with two demons. His movements are calm and graceful, like he’s done this a thousand times before. Which he probably has. The demons are circling him cautiously, their soulless black eyes never leaving his face.
“Will he be okay?” I ask.
Suzanna nods. “He’s been trained since he was a little kid.” She ruffles Ben’s hair. “Younger than these two.”
“Can I start training too, Mama?” asks Ben. He’s looking up at his mother with wide, eager eyes.
“Not until you’re much older,” says Suzanna, her voice troubled. She drags both her boys in tight to her and watches out the window as Blade makes a quick movement toward one of the demons. His knife sinks deeply into the side of the demon, and it screeches, turning to ash before I can even blink an eye.
The other demon roars, the sound
reverberating around the front yard. Its eyes widen, and it solidifies into its faux human shape. This one has raw metals over its body. I can see rocks with veins of gold, sparkling jewels encrusted with crystals, and even several bright-blue turquoise stones covering its body. It snarls, its eyes deepening to the blackest black I’ve ever seen.
And then another demon comes out from behind the barn. And another one. And another one. Soon there are twelve of them, all circling Blade. My stomach turns over. I remember exactly how it felt to be in a circle of demons.
“Can he fight that many?” I ask, turning to Suzanna.
She’s staring out the window, her expression worried. “They don’t usually come this close. Even when we get a few of them in the back paddocks, they don’t come up to the house,” she whispers.
She doesn’t answer my question, but I don’t need her to.
Blade attacks another of the demons with his knife, swiping at its arm, but only manages a small cut. The demon hisses and draws back. Another one takes its place, forcing Blade to keep moving, to keep fighting.
“I’m going out there to help him,” I say.
“No, you can’t. Blade told me to keep you inside. He was very insistent,” says Suzanna, grabbing my arm.
“Will he be able to fight all those demons on his own?” I ask.
She hesitates. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Then I’m going outside.”
39
My heart is pounding and I feel like I’m about to throw up, but there’s no way I’m leaving Blade outside on his own when I know I could help him. The screen door bangs behind me as I step outside. I push my glasses up on my nose. A couple of the demons glance my way, but the rest of them are focused on Blade.
He’s standing in the middle of a circle of demons. I can only see part of his face, but it’s glowing blue in the reflection from their bodies. I stomp down the steps and into front yard.
My hands are shaking, and I wobble slightly as I walk forward. Visions of the demon ripping apart my father fill my head, and I struggle to keep myself moving. What the hell am I going to do? My gadgets are all at home, I don’t have a knife like Blade, and I’m holding a blackened bit of demon tongue in my hand.