Call of Night

by Emily Goodwin

  Though if that happens, Ruth will get exactly what she wants.

  Blinking, I look up at the grandfather clock and watch the seconds tick by. They turn into minutes, one slowly adding onto another. Fifteen have gone by and the halls are still silent. How long does an exorcism take? Is the demon holding on because it wants me? If I have to make another deal, I will.

  Though I don’t think I could get out of that one. If I agree to go to the underworld with the demon, he’ll expect me to deliver and won’t stop until I do.

  Suddenly, the office doors fly open. Kristy runs in, panting and out of breath. She has blood splattered on her face, and her eyes are wide with fear. I shoot up.

  “Evander? Is he okay?”

  She shakes her head. “The exorcism…it’s…it’s not working.”

  Chapter 3

  “What do you mean it’s not working?”

  She lets out a breath. “Nothing we do is weakening the demon.”

  Fear creeps up my spine at an alarming rate and I feel like I might pass out. I sink back onto the settee and close my eyes. It has to work. Evander has to be okay. I open my eyes and look back at the clock again. He’s been possessed for a few hours now, putting him at risk for aftereffects of possession.

  “I’m coming with you,” I tell Kristy.

  She nods and strides forward but stops. “Tabatha sent me for you. I came to undo the hexes but you—”

  “Binx did it.”

  “How did you call Binx while you were under hexes—never mind. Let’s go.” She grabs my hand and we run down the hall. Tabatha’s office is at the opposite side of the Covenstead, away from the school and closer to the gathering hall. I had graduated from the Academy by the time she became our High Priestess and have only been in her office a few times.

  The strong smell of sage hits me as soon as we dash up the staircase that takes us to Tabatha’s office. And things aren’t silent anymore.

  Evander screams in protest, and a collective of voices chant out a banishing spell. It’s a powerful spell, said by strong witches. If that’s not enough to weaken the demon…nope. I can’t go there.

  Kristy and I slow, taking a few seconds to catch our breaths. I have no idea what I can bring to the team that they don’t already have, but I have to have faith Evander will be okay.

  I flick my eyes up to the ceiling. “Help us, please.”

  “Are you praying?”

  I slowly shake my head. “I don’t know. He might not even be able to hear me.”

  “Who, God?”

  “No…he’s not God. The blue-eyed man. I don’t know his name or even what he is.”

  “Explain later.” She goes to open the door and stops. “It’s not pretty in here, Cal. Are you ready?”

  I swallow hard. “Yes.”

  She pushes her shoulders back and opens the door. Magic sizzles at my fingertips as I walk into the office behind Kristy. Things aren’t playing out like they would be in a movie. Evander isn’t tied to a bed, with black eyes and boils all over his face. He’s not screaming at us in Latin or vomiting green puke all over the place.

  He’s bound to a chair and tears streak down his face. His body looks worn and tired and his expression is sad. Lost.

  Desperate.

  Is he in there, begging for a break? Or is the demon trying to trick us?

  “Callie,” the demon says through Evander’s voice. “How nice of you to join us.”

  “Get out of him,” I snarl. “Go back to hell.”

  Tabatha stands in front of him, with a council member on each side. Ruby and Ruth stand behind him. Ruth holds a spell book and Ruby has two sage smudge sticks. A ring of salt has been poured around the chair Evander is tied in, with white candles around the perimeter.

  Kristy gives my hand a squeeze before letting go. She picks up a spell book and fills in the circle. I stand next to her, looking down at the banishing spell. The spell alone could send the demon back to Hell, but first we have to sever the ties it has on Evander, and to my knowledge, no witch has ever been able to do that.

  We need a priest, and priests aren’t exactly willing to work with witches. Many are still convinced we are evil and working with the Devil. Even if we did find one who would agree to perform the Rite, it would cost us precious time waiting for him to arrive.

  Evander doesn’t have that much time.

  Now that I’m close, I can see him fighting to get the demon out, and that will wear him down fast. His eyes are bloodshot, and his cheeks flushed. I bet his skin is hot to touch too, and it wouldn’t be long before a dangerously high fever were to break out, putting his whole body at risk to start shutting down.

  Tabatha looks around the circle and nods. We all start chanting again while she picks up a metal bowl of herbs from a table behind us. She whispers a different incantation, invoking the powers of the herbs.

  “Auferte malum elementa invocabo,” I say, reading the spell from the book. “Dimittie eam mitte erranti est ultra modum.”

  The herbs ignite and dark blue smoke rises from the bowl. Tabatha hurries over and wafts the smoke around Evander. His eyes darken and he smiles, sneering at us.

  “Hic non receperint vos malum spiritus,” I keep reading. “Hinc ablegare invoco elementum purus. Sed vade et proficiscere et non relinquit vestigium!”

  Evander’s body goes rigid and I feel magic swirling around my fingers of my right hand. I ball my fingers into a fist. Now’s not the time to be taken over by my emotions. I need to hold it together and focus on sending this demon to hell. I suck in a breath, watching Evander writhe with pain as he fights against the demon.

  There’s nothing cinematic about this. It’s so far from how exorcisms are depicted in film it leaves me most unsettled. Evander is before us, hurting and in pain. There is a demon inside of him, one that’s quiet and smart and planning its next move so it can stay inside of my friend, so it can slowly kill him from the inside out.

  For me.

  Or…because of me, I suppose. I can hear Lucas’s voice echoing in my head, telling me I can’t blame myself for this. I’m not the one who forced a demon inside Evander’s body. I’m not the one who summoned the demon from the pits of hell and let him run loose in Thorne Hill…only, I did.

  Not directly, I know. And playing the martyr doesn’t solve shit. Wallowing in guilt and shame will only set me back, but the reason the demon got out of hell was because another, more powerful demon was on a death mission.

  Stop it, I tell myself. This is exactly the type of negativity a demon would want me to fall into. I take a breath and look into the demon’s eyes.

  “Auferte malum elementa invocabo. Dimittie eam mitte erranti est ultra modum.”

  Evander’s head flops back and he lets out a yell. Yanking against the restraints, he jerks his head forward and back over and over, until Tabatha drops the bowl.

  “Stop!” she cries. “He can’t…his body can’t…he needs to take a break.” With tears running down her face, she goes up to her only son and places her hand on his head. “Somnum,” she whispers, and the sleeping spell takes effect immediately. Evander’s body slumps forward, head hanging against his chest.

  I can feel Ruth’s eyes on me, but she’s not stupid. She knows how dire the stakes are right now, and shifting her attention away from Evander will make her look heartless in the eyes of the coven. I know she’s heartless, but the rest don’t.

  She needs them to hold her in high regard. Because once I have proof that she forced me to perform a Satanic ritual, her own days are numbers.

  “What do we do now?” Ruby asks, voice thin. She pushes her dark braids over her shoulder and pulls her robes closer around her body.

  “Contact a priest,” one of the council members suggests. “We don’t have the power to compel a demon back to hell.”

  But I do.

  His voice is like a whisper of wind on the back of my neck. I whirl around, eyes wide. No one is behind me, yet I know that’s where the voice came fr
om. Where he came from.

  The blue-eyed man.

  “Help us,” I whisper. Kristy turns, having heard me, and narrows her eyes in question. I shake my head ever so slightly and look back at Evander. “Please, help us.”

  “We should all take a break,” Ruth says, opening her arms to the others. “Five minutes to reground ourselves and another ten for research. There has to be a way to break through.” She meets my eye as she strides past, leaving Tabatha’s office. Ruby stays, arms crossed tightly over her chest, as the others filter out.

  “I thought witches have performed exorcisms in the past,” she says quietly.

  “They have,” Kristy tells her.

  “Then why isn’t this working?” She looks from Evander to us. “There are half a dozen witches in the room.”

  “The demon has a strong hold,” Tabatha says, voice shaking. “But we will sever those ties.”

  Ruby nods but doesn’t look convinced.

  “You should probably get Sister Ross,” Kristy says, hardly able to look at Tabatha as she speaks. “Just to be safe.”

  Sister Ross is Grim Gate Academy’s nurse. She has the same training any RN would have, along with an extensive knowledge of magical afflictions as well as their cures.

  “Good idea,” I agree and take a tentative step forward. I want to comfort Tabatha, yet I fear she’s going to blame me for this. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter, but letting her down crushes me each and every time. I want nothing more than to make her proud, and it seems all I’ve done in the last few weeks is put her and the coven at risk

  “I’ll get her,” Ruby says and rushes out of the office. She leaves the door open behind her and I hold my hand out, using magic to close it.

  “I am so, so sorry,” I start, tears pooling in my eyes. “If I’d known, I would have never—”

  “That sort of talk won’t help.” Tabatha wipes away a tear. “This is not your fault, my dear.”

  “Then why does it feel like it is?” I slowly shake my head and look at Evander, who’s still slumped forward in the chair. “It all started with that demon wanting to kill me.”

  “That makes you the victim,” Kristy says, trying to make me feel better.

  “I’m no victim,” I retort, not upset with her but at the situation. “And I won’t let Evander be one either. There has to be something else we can do.”

  Tabatha’s eyes flutter closed for a second before she takes in a breath, recovering from her emotions and nods. “We can combine spells and make an even more powerful banishing spell. My only fear is that stripping the demon too fast could cause harm.”

  “What about holy water?” Kristy asks. “I have some at my house. I kind of stocked up when vampires first settled into Thorne Hill,” she admits. “Though it doesn’t do much good on them.”

  “Anything is worth a try at this point.” Tabatha goes to Evander and presses the back of her hand to his cheek. “The fever is starting to set in.”

  “Sister Ross should be able to help with that.” Kristy nods, needing to reassure herself as well as us.

  “What if I have another way?” I bite my lip and look at Evander. His body is asleep, but the demon could still be listening. I motion for Kristy and Tabatha to come over and cast a silence spell around us, making it impossible for anyone to eavesdrop.

  “The demon wants me to go back to hell with it,” I start. “I won’t, but if I agree—”

  “Making a deal with a demon is dangerous,” Tabatha warns. “And making a deal with the intention of breaking it…it won’t end well.”

  “But if I can get the demon to leave Evander’s body, then maybe I can kill it.”

  “How?” Kristy’s blonde hair falls around her face as she shakes her head. “How are you going to kill it? A demon without a body can move through the shadows. We’ll have no idea who it possessed next. It could be a student.”

  Blue magic sparks around my fingers again. I open my fist, releasing it a few inches above my palm, and then close my fingers, reabsorbing the magic. And then an idea hits me.

  An idea I know Kristy will hate, and Tabatha will flat out refuse to let me carry out. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and I’m pretty damn desperate right now.

  “White light kills demons,” I start, turning toward Tabatha. I hold out my hand and conjure an energy ball. “I killed a demon who possessed someone this way before.”

  “You’ve come across other demons?” Tabatha stops short. “The less I know the better.”

  “Callie,” Kristy says softly. “The white light killed the man the demon was possessing too. Well, I think. Unless the body was already dead. He was pretty far gone.” She rapidly shakes her head. “We can’t risk that with Evander.”

  “I know.” I tuck my hair behind my ear. “But the white light won’t kill me. Watch.” I toss the energy ball up, hold out my hands, and let it fall back onto me. The magic sizzles as it touches me, stinging slightly, but doesn’t burn me. Instead, it sinks back into my body. “I can’t hurt myself with my own magic.”

  “Callie, no,” Kristy shouts, knowing where I’m going with already. “That’s a terrible idea.”

  “It might work.”

  Tabatha whirls around, facing me. “Absolutely not!”

  “What other choice do we have?” I throw out my hand. “He’s running out of time!”

  “There’s no guarantee this would even work,” Kristy argues. “How can you be sure you’d even be in control of your powers.”

  “I’m not sure,” I admit. “But there might be a backup plan.”

  “There might be a backup plan?” Candlelight flickers across Tabatha’s face. “Willingly accepting a demon into your body creates stronger ties. Exorcising this one is proving hard enough and he did not go in willingly.” Tabatha puts her hand on my cheek. “I love you, my darling girl, and I admire your bravery, but this isn’t the answer.”

  “It will work,” I counter. “Even if I can’t control my power, he…he’ll help. Again.”

  “You mean that blue-eyed man you keep talking about.” Kristy shakes her head.

  “Yes,” I tell her. “I can’t explain it, but I just feel like he’s watching over me. Protecting me.”

  “He hasn’t done a very good job,” Kristy says ruefully. “You were kidnapped and tortured by vampires.”

  “But I lived.”

  Kristy’s eyes narrow ever so slightly, and what she doesn’t say screams loud and clear. No one knows me better than her, and I can almost feel her words pressing down into me. Probably because I’m thinking the same thing and don’t want to admit it to myself: I want to know who the blue-eyed man is, who I really am, so bad that I’m willing to put myself in danger.

  “Look,” I start, eyes flitting from Evander to Tabatha and Kristy. “If we don’t do something soon, the demon will continue to sink its claws in. It wants me, and once it’s in, I’ll hit myself with my own magic. The demon will die, and we can all go home to bed.”

  “That sounds way too easy, Callie.” Kristy looks at Tabatha for support.

  “It does, and I’m forbidding it.”

  “I know I simplified it,” I begin, “but we can do this safely.”

  “You can safely invite a demon to possess your body?” Kristy’s blue eyes go wide. “Callie, think about what you just said. It could kill you from the inside out.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m planning to do.”

  “Demons aren’t dumb,” Tabatha reminds me. “There’s a chance it’s already thought this through.”

  “And there’s a chance it didn’t.” I nervously twist a strand of hair around my fingers. “I’m going to do this the right way—I know, I know, there isn’t a right way. But we can lay down some heavy protective circles. There’s one in the Goetia that—”

  “Hang on.” Kristy tips her head to the side as she thinks. “You just gave me an idea. Granted it might be more dangerous than your original, but theoretically, it�
�s safer.”

  Tabatha, whose nerves are shot and heart is in knots, shakes her head again. “Do I even want to know?”

  “Callie has a point. The demon wants her. I think if we bribe it somehow, we can get it to leave Evander’s body.”

  “But bribing it with the promise of Callie? Absolutely not.”

  “What if it’s not really her.” Kristy inhales and looks at Evander, not trusting the silence spell. “I think we should talk in the hall once Sister Ross gets here to check on him.”

  I nod in agreement and Tabatha breaks the silence spell, going over to Evander. She tries to make him more comfortable by propping his feet up. Not long after, Sister Ross flies into the room, followed by Ruby. She speaks with Tabatha for a moment and then begins an assessment on Evander.

  “What’s your plan?” I ask as soon as we’re in the hall. Tabatha casts another silence spell just to be safe.

  “Astral project into the room,” Kristy starts, holding up her hand so we don’t stop her and tell her leaving a body while a demon is present is a terrible idea. “We’ll guard your body. There are a few eleventh years here over break, right?”

  “Right. Four of them.”

  “Perfect, one for each element.” She looks at the time on her phone. “Naomi and Nicole should be here any moment. I sent them a summon as soon as I heard what Ruth was trying to sentence you with,” she tells me. “They can assist the students in keeping the circle up around your body, and get Binx to come for backup.”

  “A demon will know I’m a projection.”

  “If you were just standing before him, yes. But if you were to already be there once the sleeping spell is lifted, he won’t know how you got there.”

  “It still won’t take long for it to notice the lack of life,” Tabatha says.

  “Not if you’re standing inside a circle. I didn’t think of the Goetia circles until you mentioned them, Cal. They’re difficult to cast, but strong. If you’re standing in it…I mean, it’s a stretch, but it might work.”