by Kat Simons
The man met the demon’s gaze. “Bargain complete?”
“With one last effort,” the demon assured.
Angie took a step forward. “Drop the lantern or I shoot,” she said.
“And risk hitting the girl?” The man shook his head. “Nope.” He even moved farther behind Mara, blocking any shot Angie might take. “Nope, I’m going to finish what was started.” He stared at the demon again. “So it is done,” he said in a more formal tone than he’d used before.
And then, with a grunt…
He threw the lantern.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Angie reacted without thought. If she’d thought, if she’d stopped for even a moment to consider what she was doing, she’d have made a different choice.
Unfortunately, she didn’t think. She moved. Reaching out and catching the lantern as it barreled toward her head.
For a full ten seconds, she stared wide-eyed at Sebastian, holding the lantern by its handle in front of her like she couldn’t quite believe it was there in her hand.
Then the visions hit like a baseball bat to her skull.
Death and blood, so much blood, spilling, slicing, screaming. Burning. Heat. Pain. Power. Rotting stench. More pain. Always more. Always more. Screams. Blood dripping. Skin splitting open. Melting. Rotting. Stench. Heat. Burn. Pain…
Angie lost all sense of self, all sense of everything. She was the pain, the burning, the power and heat. She was immersed in blood and broken bones and screams. She might have screamed herself. There was too much, all around her, filling her, twining with her. She couldn’t run away, couldn’t escape. There was nowhere to go.
So many people, so much torture and suffering, all the greed, all the power and longing and pain.
She wanted to burst apart with it all, drowning in the lava flow of suffering. She couldn’t find herself, couldn’t remember she was an individual. And nothing stopped the torrent, nothing slowed the blood.
Something moved. Darkness. Darkness filled her. Then everything turned gray. Colors washed away to be replaced by gray and black and…a void.
After the torment, the void was a relief. She breathed. She could feel herself breathe. For the first time. She could relax into the darkness, into the gray void. Let it go. Let go.
Let everything go…
She felt her eyes blinking open. Strange. She could feel herself again, but vaguely. She was there somewhere. Her body anyway. She floated in a soothing void of emptiness. Oh so soothing. So calm. No more pain or heat.
Something… Her mouth moved. Sound came out. Was that her? That didn’t sound like her.
Laughter. No. That wasn’t her laugh. But she felt her body shake with it. The sense of triumph, that felt foreign to.
What was happening?
Nothing, the void whispered. Come back and rest.
Yes. Rest. Cool and gray. No more pain. No more blood.
Except…
Blood? Why did she feel hunger? She smelled something. Something bad, like rotting eggs. She pulled back from the void to look through eyes that didn’t feel like hers, but she could see through them. Strange. Visions usually played out like movies for her. She wasn’t inside the skull of anyone in her visions. She watched. She was watching now, but from the inside of…someone.
“Ah,” that someone said. “So much more power than she knows.” More laughter. She felt the laughter like it came from her. “A perfect vessel.”
There were trees. A clearing. Oh, the clearing she’d been in before her world shattered and broke, and now she needed to be in the void to rest.
But…
The clearing. The park.
No. Rest. There was too much. You’ve seen too much. The darkness will sooth you. Rest.
She wanted to close her eyes, take the advice. But her eyes remained open, she remained inside the vision.
“Release her,” a deep voice said, a voice with power and strength.
And she felt that power, felt the strength of…will. In her bones. In her soul. No! It would not take her, not will her away. She was here now. She would stay. She would own this world!
Wait. What? She…
No, not her.
But her mouth moved. The voice came out of her. “You will die first, hunter.”
Hunter? Was that a name? Did she know who that was?
“You will leave her and be gone,” that same voice, full of strength. So strong.
A laugh. Her? Something else? “This is my world now, hunter. None of you can stop me in this body.”
Angie felt the spell more than heard it. Something familiar. She knew the words. Hands moving. Her? No. Not hers. She didn’t want to call the flames. Why would she need the fire when she just wanted to sink into the void?
Flames on her hand, building. Not there yet. But building. Didn’t burn. That was good.
“Angela Jordan,” that same voice of strength said, “drop the lantern.”
What? She wasn’t holding anything. But the voice willed her to do… That voice. Angela? Who was Angela?
“Angela Jordan, you will drop that lantern. Now.”
Her fingers flexed. She tried to open them. She wanted to open them. Didn’t she? She wanted to let go. Yes. Yes. Let go. Into the void.
No… Not the void. Open her hand. Let go.
Flames built. Somewhere. She could feel that. But… No. The hand movements were wrong. That wouldn’t work. Only one hand. Needed the second hand to make the spell work right. Why wasn’t she using her other hand? Oh, yes, holding something. Had to release.
No!
A hiss. What? Why not?
“Angela, you will drop that lantern.”
Angela. No one called her that. Except her mother when she was in trouble. Her mother. Her mother called her that. But that wasn’t her mother’s voice. No. Too deep. The accent.
Sebastian. Sebastian hadn’t called her Angela since…
Since they first met. When he’d teased her. In the beginning. Annoyed her. Before the love. Before she loved him.
She loved him.
Sebastian.
“Open your hand, Angie,” a murmur now. “Let the lantern drop. Come back to me. Come home.”
“No!” Fire on her hand. No heat. Flames. She could see the flames.
No! She needed to look at Sebastian. See him. There. There he was. Oh. It was him. His eyes were glowing, faintly red, but it was him. She could feel him. Feel the love. Feel the will. She wanted to be with him. Not in this void. Not in this grayness. Wait. Red in his eyes. She could see through the gray. She could…
“Die, hunter,” a voice from her mouth. The flames raised. Her hand? No! She couldn’t…
She wouldn’t kill Sebastian. Something stirred in her gut. Anger, but more. Solid. Hard. Her chest felt the tightening of that sensation. Like what Sebastian fed her.
Will.
Will. And love.
No. She wouldn’t hurt him.
She forced air into her lungs, took control of her breath.
Yes. That’s me. I’m breathing. I’m here.
I. Am. Here.
She stared at her hand, at the ball of fire. She willed it away. Ended the spell. No need for you now. You can rest. Thank you for answering my call.
The flames winked out.
A scream. A curse. The air around her grew hot, but inside she became ice. What was happening? She was losing again, losing herself into the void. No. She didn’t want the void. Not now.
She fought back, willing her body to heed her. Couldn’t focus. Damn it. Stop screaming. She scrambled. She’d been here before. No. She hadn’t. But… No. She could do this. No. She wasn’t going to succumb. No. She was in here.
She would do this. She had to stop this. She had to…
Let go.
She felt the breath leave her, felt her heartbeat slow, felt the panic ease. Darkness and soothing quiet. And a deep deep voice said, “Let go.”
So she did.
Chapter Thirty-Five
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Angie opened her hand. For a long moment, all she heard was a shriek of denial. She took another deep breath. Let it out slowly. Relaxed back into her body. Her body. Her place. No passengers allowed.
“Leave,” she commanded, and this time heard her own voice aloud, heard the deep resonance. This was the voice she used to command the elements and work her spells. She felt her powers welling up, felt control and focus and peace. Felt the magic embrace and envelope her. Yes. This was her place. This was her home.
Magic.
She opened her eyes. She was surrounded by a circle of blue light. She’d built a protective circle without conscious effort. And the lantern lay outside the circle now. Several feet away. She chuckled.
Inside her skull the demon screamed. She felt its claws, scrambling at her soul, felt the heat and anger, heard the whispered denials, the temptations to give in and let it have her body.
She shook her head. “No.” She pulled in all that made her her. Not so much the will, though there was that, but her magic. Her magic, her peace and her place. This was her. She let it well up inside her, and used it to push out the invading enemy.
The separation hurt, like being pulled in two. The demon didn’t abandon her easily and she had to close her eyes again to finish the task. Focus and concentration. A quietly murmured spell of protection. The demon tried for her mind, tried for her visions. Showed her things she didn’t want to see. She let the images roll past, not really seeing them, letting them go. And as she released them, she built another protection circle around her psyche, kept that part of her safely inside a cool cool haven of blue light. Away from the demon.
Another scream, but she repeated, aloud and over the noise, “Leave.”
A flash of pain that left her breathless. Felt blood dripping down her nose. She touched it. And opened her eyes.
The demon hovered a foot in front of her, its black eyes glowing red in the depths, its anger and venom a physical thing between them.
“How?” it hissed.
“Don’t ever come to this realm again,” she said, quietly, but with the force of will that flowed from her magic. She set a second circle inside her own, this one around the demon. It lunged for her only to come up against the barrier.
“No!”
“Yes,” she said. Slowly she turned, looking for just the right kind of tree.
“Angie.” Sebastian’s voice, soft and strong.
She faced him.
“There’s a perfect one here.” He gestured to a tree with just the right sort of shape, a natural V formed from the trunk. Through that V she glimpsed the demon realm. She didn’t focus on it, didn’t open it. Yet.
She dropped the circle around herself and stared at the demon. “Time to leave.”
“I will not abandon all I have built, witch. You will be mine. All of this will be mine.”
“No,” she and Sebastian said at the same time.
“No,” Mara said.
Angie blinked at the girl. She was on her feet and staring at the demon. Angie realized the pale man had vanished. And Mara and Ellen had managed to get their hands unbound. Ellen held a knife in one hand—where the hell had that come from?—and was standing at her daughter’s back, facing the now conscious Grant, the knife pointed at him like she knew how to use it.
Angie took a moment to look for Carmen. The spell she’d put over the woman to conceal her from the others had dropped when Carmen moved, and Carmen had moved at some point during the fight. She stood near Grant, but behind him, her gaze jumping from the demon to the lantern a few feet from Angie.
Before Angie could issue a warning, though, Sebastian scooped up the lantern, keeping it out of harm’s way.
Carmen huffed out a curse and glared at them.
“No more, Carmen,” Angie said. “This is done. For good.”
“I’ll just call another,” Carmen said.
“We have a deal, woman!” the demon growled. “We made a bargain. You will allow me in so I can destroy these humans. Or you will die.”
Carmen sighed. “We all have to die one day,” she said.
“No!” Grant yelled. “You promised. You promised you would give me immortality.” He started to rise to his feet, but Carmen gave him a quick kidney jab that Angie barely saw and the man dropped again, hard.
“Sit,” she ordered. “If I don’t get to keep the demon, you don’t get immortality.” She snarled at him. “Bastard. Trying to kill a child just to outpace your own genetics. You could have been enjoying what life you had.”
“There’s a story there,” Sebastian murmured. “But perhaps for later.”
Angie turned back to the demon. It was testing her circle, pressing its hand against the edges. Blue light flared around it with each contact.
Angie considered the tree from the corner of her eyes. “You push, I’ll open?” she said to Sebastian.
He winked.
“I will not be so easy to banish,” hissed the demon.
“If I banish you to a realm not your own, that should keep you busy for a few millennia,” Angie said.
“What? No. That’s not possible.”
“You know what I can do. That’s why you wanted my body. But, the trick is, I don’t open your realm just because you’re here. I open whatever realm the tree connects to.” She nodded to the tree Sebastian had found her. “Sometimes it’s the right one. Sometimes it’s not.”
“I will own whatever realm I am in.”
“Yeah, I doubt you’d have spent so much time working on cultivating a way in here if that were the case. Earth and humans are easy pickings, not the kind of place anything truly powerful really wants.”
The demon snarled and lunged at her. The blue light of her containment circle flared bright enough to light up the entire area, like a flood light had gone on suddenly. And just as suddenly dropped.
Angie blinked against the spots in her vision. For the most part, that blue light was a metaphysical thing, showing up only in her mind’s eye. But that contact with the demon had flared in the physical world, she realized, because even Mara and Ellen had tried to shade their eyes.
“Mara,” Sebastian said. “You feel up for helping me banish a demon?”
“What?” Ellen said. “No. She can’t…”
“Oh, she’s got the will,” he said quietly. “That’s part of the problem.” He chuckled. “But I think that will will be used for something other than demon hunting in the future.”
“Like magic,” Angie confirmed.
There was a very very faint glow around Mara. Not an aura as such since Angie couldn’t see those very well. But a pale pale blue light that appeared in Angie’s mind’s eye. An instinctive bit of protection Mara had built around herself. It wasn’t strong enough to hold against real magic. Or any kind of physical world harm. But the fact that Mara had instinctively built that shield without even knowing how was a good sign she’d need training soon.
Mara looked between them. “I don’t know if I want magic, but I do want this demon gone for good.”
“We can help with that,” Sebastian said.
The demon laughed. The laughter drew all their attention.
“I cannot be banished forever, humans. I will be back. I live in your nightmares. Your fears and anguishes. I whisper your deepest secrets and shames. You will call me again. Like it or not. You all call me.”
Sebastian sighed. “I’m done with this one. Off you go.”
The demon lurched backward as if it had been hit. “No,” it snarled.
Sebastian merely said, “Yes.” And the demon lurched backward again, coming up hard against the containment circle. To Angie, Sebastian said, “Let me know when you’re ready. You’ll need to drop your circle.”
“Right.” She faced the tree fully, finally, staring into the V, staring at the hellscape beyond. A fire and brimstone realm. The crackle of hardening lava, tinkling over the rolling liquid heat. Flames burst in the distance from unseen fissures. The sky was a deep
red, and dark like the sun had just set. Stinking steam rose around the doorway Angie opened.
And in the distance, she heard the high-pitched, nerve-scraping chittering of approaching demons.
“Time to go,” Angie said without taking her gaze from the breach. She dropped the circle around the demon, cutting it with a swift mental gesture, and from the corner of her eye, she saw the demon lunge for her.
Sebastian stepped between her and the demon. He was holding a long sword that glowed with a reddish light.
“And where did that come from?” she asked, without expecting an answer.
She wasn’t disappointed.
The demon pulled up short, but still too close to Sebastian. Sebastian jabbed forward, a direct hit to the center of the demon. It screeched and grabbed at the sword.
There was no blood, no obvious jagged hole, not that Angie could see. But steam rose around the wound, with a stench that made her bile rise.
“Well, that’s gross,” she murmured. For once in her life, it took an effort to keep her gaze on the realm breach she’d opened rather than having to force her gaze away.
“Be gone, beast,” Sebastian said with all the strength of his will deepening his voice. The power filled the clearing. A magic all its own.
“Be gone,” Mara added, and though hers was still a child’s voice, a child’s will, the strength was there, waiting to be built and developed.
The demon screamed and clawed at its chest even as it backed away from them. Sebastian moved closer, forcing it back as he chanted under his breath, a banishing spell in a mix of Latin and Spanish, the same chant he’d used before but with a few added elements Angie wasn’t familiar with.
The demon reacted to the spell, though, screaming and clawing at the air as it was slowly, relentlessly forced backward, like the opening into the hellscape dragged it closer. A gravity well of pain and suffering, pulling the demon in.