by Kat Simons
Oh, the demon was clever. Trying to use her compassion to trick her into doing something rash. She had no idea what the demon wanted in the end of all this, not what its ultimate game might be, but she knew it was enjoying the fear and tension, eating up the desperation. She was feeding the damned thing as much as the others, too, and she knew it. Except for Sebastian. She was certain he wasn’t giving the demon anything to work with.
But…
But the demon knew she was Sebastian’s weakness.
“Mara,” Angie said, playing into the demon’s game to see what it would do. “Are you okay? Can you look at me?”
The girl blinked once and looked at Angie, but her gaze was still hollow and resigned. She wasn’t really there at the moment. Angie wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or not, but such hopelessness in a twelve-year-old’s expression was devastating to see. Letting her gaze soften, Angie reached for another spell, a soft, gentle, reassuring spell she used sometimes with extremely anxious clients. The spell was simple, easy to do, and would hopefully give Mara some measure of reassurance. Like a gentle calming of the senses, a breath of air to ease the pain.
Mara blinked a few times and some life came back into her gaze. She looked more fully at Angie then, her brows lowered.
Angie nodded. “I’ll explain later,” she promised the girl.
“Your tricks won’t save her,” the Molder demon whispered to Angie. “She’s been mine from the start. My servants didn’t know, but I saw her potential.”
Grant narrowed his eyes at the demon. He didn’t comment, but obviously, he wasn’t aware of Mara’s potential as a magic wielder. The demon failed to mention that part.
“Who dies for you to possess the child?” Angie asked the demon without looking away from Grant.
“Everyone,” it said with a chuckle. “Everyone will die.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“No,” Grant barked.
The silent clearing echoed his shout around the trees. If there’d still been birds or animals in the area, that noise would have sent them skittering away. But the presence of a demon had done that all earlier. Overhead, the cloud cover glowed a deeper read, reflecting city light down through the tree branches.
“You promised,” Grand said, snarling at the demon, still nearly shouting. “I’ve served you for all these years with a guarantee that you would reward me! You made a bargain. You can’t back out now.”
“You will be rewarded,” the demon said, its tone never changing. “A very thorough reward.”
Grant’s shoulders relaxed at that. Angie raised her brows. He hadn’t heard the demon’s double meaning? Was he that stupid?
Mara must have heard the threat in the demon’s words, though, because she cast a look at Grant that was a cross between incredulous and disgust. It was such a teenager expression, so full of annoyance with the idiocy of adults, Angie had to press her lips together not to smile. There she was, there was the real Mara back with them again. The ache in Angie’s chest eased a little.
“No one dies,” Sebastian said. “You return to your realm, and this ends here.”
“No,” Grant shouted again. “I must have my reward. I will have my reward.”
Sebastian shook his head. “You’ve never been in charge, you know. Not with this one. Why did you survive handing it a sacrifice not of your blood? Why do you think it’s talking of possessing Mara and not killing her?”
“He needs a body. He always needs a body.” The gun in Grant’s hand wavered.
Angie tensed.
“Is that why you look like crap?” Sebastian said. “Been letting a demon take a ride? That kills humans you know? Or didn’t you? Were you too stupid to look that part up? Did you think you would be the exception?” Sebastian’s derisive laugh echoed in the clearing. “No wonder the demon continued to use you. Stupid minions are the best, aren’t they?” This last he directed over his shoulder to the demon.
The demon didn’t answer, but it didn’t refute Sebastian’s comment either.
Grant glared at them both.
Angie took a single step away from Sebastian. Easing a bit closer to Grant and Ellen. She would have to jump in front of Sebastian to get to Mara, but since the pale man didn’t have a gun, he felt less of a threat. The gun was the most unpredictable part of all this. Grant had to be disarmed.
She started another spell, quietly under her breath.
“What have you done?” Grant hissed at the demon. “What’s he talking about?”
The demon’s chuckle was like ants crawling over Angie’s skin. She tried to ignore the sensation, but it broke her concentration and she had to start her spell over. Damn it. She took another step toward Grant and Ellen.
Grant’s full attention was on the demon now. “You used me!”
“Of course, human. That was always part of our bargain.”
“Not the possessions, you used me to get at my daughter. Why? Why not just kill her the first time? What don’t I know?”
“So many things,” the demon said on a sigh.
Its tone was so condescending it made Grant growl.
And the gun moved away from Ellen’s temple.
“You promised,” Grant hissed. “You made the bargain. Immortality. Freedom from the early death. You promised me.”
“Oh, I will give you immortality,” the demon said. “A bargain is, after all, a bargain.”
Grant’s shoulders relaxed a little. “You said we’d all die. You didn’t mean me. I see. I see.”
The demon chuckled again. Angie held her concentration on the spell this time, but only barely.
“You’re missing a lot,” Sebastian said to Grant, taking on his lecturer tone, the academic schooling the ignorant student. “Do you know what a demon will do with an immortal human body? The torture and pain it will inflict? And you won’t die. You’ll continue to suffer, over eternity. This is part of the problem with making demon deals. There are many layers and humans frequently miss the loopholes. Your lack of understanding is to be expected, I suppose, but really, after all these years.” He sighed. “You should have done better research.”
Grant swung the gun toward Sebastian. The end shook in Grant’s trembling grip.
Sebastian smiled faintly.
Angie knew, in her gut, why Sebastian was doing this. But even still, watching the wobbly tip of Grant’s gun directed at him made her heartbeat triple and her palms sweat. She wanted to cry out a warning, do something to protect him, but she didn’t dare offset the balance or distract either man. She murmured the last words of her spell, completed the final hand gesture just before setting the spell. And waited for her opening.
“You don’t understand,” Grant growled. “I have spent years ‘doing my research.’ Why the hell do you think I’m here? I will not succumb to the same fate as my father and his father. Do you hear me? I will not die that way.”
“No,” Sebastian said with a sad sigh. “If I left you to your fate, you would die in a much worse way—or in this case, not die. But suffer. Greatly.” Sebastian flicked a glance at Mara, then back to Grant. “I’m tempted, you know. To let you suffer. Because you offered up a baby. Because you purposefully tried to conceive that baby just so you could have the demon kill her. Far as I can tell, you’ve earned your demonic ‘reward.’”
“You don’t know,” Grant said, his voice low, the gun wobbling more as he jerked his arm out toward Sebastian. “You don’t know anything.”
Another sigh. “More than you do, mate. More than you do.”
Because she was fully focused on Grant, Angie saw the flex of his finger on the trigger, the tightening of his jaw. She was moving before the retort of the gun sounded in the clearing, already grabbing his wrist in one hand and roughly shoving Ellen away from him with the other. Ellen helped by rolling away, jerking free of Grant’s hold. And the instant she was no longer touching Grant, Angie pushed his arm upward and triggered her spell.
Grant’s entire body seized as the sho
ck went through him, the currents of electrical charge so strong, every muscle clenched tight. She heard the crack of teeth and blood trickled from between his lips where she was sure he’d bitten his tongue. His finger tightened on the trigger a second time and another shot fired overhead. Angie prayed no errant night birds, or anything else for that matter, had been directly over them and the bullet would fall harmless to the ground—likely to be lost in the Park’s detritus unless some curious leaf comber discovered it.
She cut the spell, ending the waves of electricity, and the instant his body started to relax, she pried the gun from his fingers. When she had the weapon, she jumped away from Grant, putting enough distance between her and him that he couldn’t easily launch an attack.
Only then did she look around to assess what damage had been done.
And saw Sebastian staring at a bullet as it hovered in the air a few inches from his nose.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Angie gasped and took a step toward him, but he raised a hand to still her without taking his gaze off the bullet.
Under his breath, he murmured, “My will is as strong as yours. My kingdom as great.”
She nearly cried hearing him quote Labyrinth to her at a time like this.
She swallowed hard. She’d never seen any of the hunters stop a bullet before. Though, as she thought about it, she wasn’t sure she’d seen any hunter have to deal with a gun in her time working with Sebastian. And she realized suddenly that, in this country at least, that might have been unusual. It was entirely possible they dealt with guns a lot more than she suspected.
He wasn’t sweating. He didn’t look worried. Just focused. Very very focused.
She, on the other hand, was sweating hard now and her heartbeat couldn’t hammer any harder or she’d pass out. She couldn’t look away. She knew Mara was still in trouble. The pale man was still there. Grant would recover soon. The demon hovered only a foot behind Sebastian. Too many threats still. Too much could go wrong.
But she couldn’t look away.
After another breathless moment, Sebastian reached up and plucked the bullet out of the air. His hand jerked, as if he absorbed some of the bullet’s residual momentum. But other than that… He was fine.
Angie let out a breath, her shoulders slumping. “Fucking hell,” she muttered.
Sebastian chuckled. “Haven’t needed to do that in a few years,” he said, studying the bullet. “Had a good run without guns.” He tucked the bullet into his jean’s front pocket and winked at her.
She huffed, relief making her giddy. A touch of irrational anger at him for scaring her robbed her of a proper comeback. She finally turned her attention to the pale man and Mara. Ellen struggled to her feet, even with her arms behind her back and lurched toward Mara, ignoring Grant where he’d crumpled to the ground.
Angie hissed a warning at her. Grant was down now, but she hadn’t used enough of a jolt to actually kill him. She’d just wanted to get the gun away from him. The bastard was still a threat.
The pale man hadn’t moved, hadn’t taken his hand off Mara, and didn’t seem even a little bothered by the passing events. Not even the fact that Sebastian had somehow stopped a bullet with just his will. He looked on as if all this was expected and he was just waiting for…something.
“Let the girl go,” Angie said. “None of this ends good for you. If I have to, I will kill Grant to protect her.” She adjusted the gun in her hand and pointed it toward the pale man. “And you too.”
“You know how to shoot?” Sebastian asked. “Should have guessed. Americans.”
She pressed her lips together to keep from snarking at him. In truth, her father had taught her and her brothers at a target range only so that he could impress on them that they didn’t want to mess with guns, that guns were dangerous, and that she, in particular, was already dangerous enough without one. As her witch’s creed was—at least an attempt—to do no harm, she’d agreed wholeheartedly with him.
But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t use the weapon now if she needed to. Even if she really just wanted to melt it into a useless knot of metal so it couldn’t hurt anyone ever again. She hated guns. And she hated them even more now that she’d watched Sebastian face down a bullet.
The pale man smirked at her. “You shoot me, you risk hurting Mara and we both know you won’t do that. I’m not as easy to distract as Grant, so that—” he gestured at Grant’s prone body— “whatever you did to him won’t work either. Won’t let you get within touching distance. I know you have other spells up your sleeve, witch, but I also know with Mara here in the way, you’ll be reluctant to use them.” He nodded at Ellen. “Pushed her away first. I notice these things.”
“You’re outnumbered,” Sebastian pointed out. “And the demon can’t help you.”
The demon chuckled. “So you assume, hunter.”
“So I will it,” Sebastian said in a deep voice, without looking at the demon.
The beast hissed but Sebastian still didn’t turn to look at it. “Best to let it go. Take Carmen somewhere far away. And maybe, if you don’t summon any more demons, you won’t have to see me ever again.”
Angie heard the unspoken threat and it sent a shiver up her spine. She had no idea what Sebastian might do to the pale man and Carmen, what his threat implied exactly. Just that it was a threat. And the fact that she wasn’t entirely sure how far he’d go, how much he could do to them, was both upsetting and illuminating. But not in a good way.
Grant started to stir, his body twitching. The pale man glanced at him. “He’s not dead? Huh.” He looked back at Angie. “You that kind of witch? ‘And it harm no other…’ type?”
“Depends on the circumstance,” she said, not letting the gun waver. She wasn’t big on permanent harm. She didn’t like the idea of taking those kinds of stains on her soul. “A child in danger would be the ‘harm is okay’ kind of circumstance, though,” she added.
He shrugged. “Of course. Noble people tend toward the predictable. Me, see, I’m not noble. Not like Carmen in her quest to destroy arrogant rich men. Not like you and the hunter, out to stop demons from escaping, rescue kids, all that. I’m just here for the money.” He paused, then, “Well, and to watch the show. This has been one hell of a show, I’ve got to tell you. Before Carmen, no idea there were demons. And having one walk around inside you is…interesting.”
“Bad interesting or good interesting?” Angie felt compelled to ask.
“Powerful interesting. I can see why people jones for it.”
“You?” Sebastian asked.
The man shrugged again. “Could take it or leave it. Wouldn’t call it addictive. For me anyway.”
“Who’s paying you, then?”
“Both of ’em.” He nodded to the twitching Grant first then Carmen. “Lucrative work. But…” He glanced at the back of Mara’s head. She was staring at the demon, no longer with that dead expression in her eyes, but there was something else there, something more than the fear. The man couldn’t see it, but Angie frowned, wondering what she was thinking in the middle of all this.
“But,” the man said again, “I’m about done with this job. One last part, one last arrangement, then enough money to retire.” He glanced at the demon. “Right?”
“Of course,” the demon murmured.
“And no killing me since that wasn’t part of the deal.”
The demon chuckled. “We do have a bargain.”
Angie sighed. “Everyone making deals with this fucking beast.”
“What’s left to do?” Sebastian asked the man.
Angie darted a gaze at Grant and Carmen. Carmen was starting to stir now, too. In another few moments, there were going to be more bad guys than good again. Ellen glared at the pale man, but she was still bound and gagged. And unless Angie wanted to lower her gun, she couldn’t free her. Angie needed to find a spell that would loosen bindings, damn it. Never considered she might need it… Oversight.
She stepped closer to Seba
stian so she could keep all the potentially dangerous people in view. Ellen took a step closer to Mara, but the pale man shook his head.
“Nope,” he said. “You get too close, I’ll just toss her to the demon without ceremony.”
Ellen froze. Angie narrowed her eyes. Mara wasn’t exactly a tiny child, but he might just be able to follow through with his threat. And the problem with the type of containment circle she’d built around the demon—it was designed to keep the beast from getting out, not others from getting in.
“What now?” Sebastian asked quietly. He subtly adjusted his stance, a movement Angie felt more than saw.
“Now,” the pale man said. “The demon gets the body it’s been wanting. And the witch opens up a demon portal. And the rest of you can deal with the hordes. I’ll be off to an island in the Pacific. Far far away.”
“You know…none of this will go the way you want it to, right?” Angie said, frowning at him. How did people not see that their bargains were barbed and designed to work only in the demons’ favor?
The pale man shrugged. “Got me a house picked out and a plane ticket already. Not sure how it couldn’t.”
“You don’t have a lantern,” Sebastian said. “The demon can’t possess her without that.”
The man smirked. “Yeah, well, see, what I haven’t mentioned before is my previous profession. I’m a thief. A good one. A really excellent one. And, you know, it’s easier to put together a fake bone lantern than you might think.”
While still keeping a hand on Mara’s shoulder, he reached over his own shoulder to a backpack Angie hadn’t noticed, the straps so black, they blended in with his coat. From the pack he pulled out a lantern that looked identical to the one Sebastian had handed over to the other hunter just an hour earlier.
Angie’s heartbeat sped.
“Now,” the man said, “I know what you’re thinking. This could be the fake lantern. You’ve secured the other, I assume?” When no one answered his question, he nodded. “But see, Carmen never looked at the thing real close. She’s been using it so long, it just didn’t occur to her to study it every time she carried it off to commune with her demon. She might have figured it out earlier tonight, if you hadn’t stopped her. But you did, and she didn’t, and that sure did make my life easier.”