by Sarra Cannon
I rummaged through my bag and pulled out my sheathed silver dagger, a small vial of holy water, the rose Martin had given me this morning with my breakfast, and the strip of poison ivy I’d just grabbed from outside. Might as well make use of it, since an opportunity had suddenly presented itself.
I needed to get centered before I could enchant my dagger, but my heart was racing, and I was truthfully just barely holding myself together.
My eyes darted toward Kai. He kicked one demon across the room and swept his hammer in a circle, knocking four others backward. They all seemed to get right back up again. The light in his hammer flickered slightly, and I wondered just how long he could hold it together.
I still wasn’t sure what his powers were, but like me, he seemed to be new to a lot of this.
I turned my back to him and took a long, deep breath to steady my nerves. I could do this. I knew what to do. I’d seen mom do this a hundred times.
Granted, I usually watched her do this in practice or long before any demon showed up, but I didn’t have that kind of time. Next time, I vowed to be less impulsive and more prepared. At least I’d remembered the bag this time. That was better.
I breathed in again, shutting out the noise of the fight happening behind me and the endless chattering in my own brain. Instead, I focused on the feel of my breath entering my lungs and the flow of magic that seemed to tingle at the edge of my fingertips.
Remembering last night, I also closed my fingers around the silver locket that had belonged to my mother. I still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but somehow, this locket had amplified my power.
“I need you to do it again,” I whispered.
“Hurry, Lenora,” Kai shouted. “I’m fading.”
I poured all of my intentions into the locket.
Protection of self. Destruction of evil.
The locket cooled beneath my fingers, and I let the power flow into my body. I reached for the dagger and poured the vial of holy water across the blade.
“Viribus,” I said, repeating the mantra I’d heard my mother say so many times to strengthen the power of her own weapons.
The blade soaked up the water, as if drinking it in.
I wrapped the poison ivy vine around the blade next and repeated the word.
“Viribus.”
The vine grew thicker and then seemed to sink into the blade itself, which now took on a glowing, green tint.
Next, I snapped a single thorn off the fresh rose and pressed it against the blade.
“Viribus,” I said one final time.
The silver blade grew thorns that dripped with green poison.
If I wasn’t so completely terrified, I would have been really excited and impressed with myself. I just hoped it worked. Sometimes, when a young, inexperienced witch dressed their blade with spells, the spell only lasted for one or two attacks.
I prayed whatever amplification and protection this locket had inside it would be enough to make this last.
“Lenny.”
Kai swung at a demon that had been lunging toward me, and between the blow of his hammer and the acidic qualities of the salt against its skin as it touched my barrier, the demon fell to the floor in agony. I stepped out of my circle and sunk my dagger in its chest.
The demon’s eyes widened for a brief moment before its body exploded in a cloud of ash that fluttered to the floor.
Kai continued fighting, but I could tell the magic he’d used to summon that hammer was fading. With each blow, it flickered and dimmed.
He didn’t give up, though. He just kept fighting.
I joined him and fought at his side, using every technique I could remember from the years of training at my parents’ side. The other night when we’d fought Algrath himself, I had seemed to forget all of that training, wondering if I’d ever even known how to fight.
But today, my confidence was restored.
I could do this. Yes, I still had a lot to learn, but as the lesser demons fell to my enchanted blade, one-by-one, I held a sense of power I hadn’t felt since my parents died.
“How do we get out of here?” Kai asked as his hammer faded almost to nothing.
“We have to kill the demon holding the trap,” I said, plunging my dagger into a demon’s back.
Kai lifted his foot and kicked a demon back with a quick blast of light that seemed to sear the demon’s skin.
I had never seen magic like that. Not even from a fae of the summer court.
“How do we know which demon that is?” he asked.
Five more lesser demons came through the living room windows, and my confidence faded slightly. How many more of them were there? Would they just keep coming forever?
“It won’t be coming for us like these are,” I said. “It will be casting. Focusing on the spell that holds the snare.”
“There are too many,” he said, our eyes meeting briefly. “I can’t hold them. Lenny, we have to get out of here.”
“There is no way out,” I said quietly, my surge of confidence and power gone as three more demons ran down the hallway from the kitchen.
This was all my fault. Once again, I’d rushed into a situation thinking I was strong and could handle it. When was I going to learn that I was in way over my head? That I needed more official training before I could handle a situation like this on my own?
The enchantments on my blade had lasted way longer than they would have without the power of the locket, but now, with almost a dozen demons slain, the magic was fading. I didn’t have the time or the reagents to recast the enchantments, either.
We had to find the demon holding the trap open.
I grabbed the bottle of salt from where I’d left it in the circle.
“Follow me,” I said, motioning to Kai.
I ran through the downstairs of the house, fighting off demons and sprinkling salt to hold them back as I searched for the trap demon, but there was no sign of it down here.
“Upstairs,” I said, leading the way as Kai watched my back.
The moment we stepped onto the second-floor landing, I saw it.
“There,” I said, running toward what had to be Ms. Julie’s master bedroom at the end of the hall.
Sitting on the end of her bed, a demon held the dark spell between its fingers. From here, it looked like a ball of dark thorns.
I spread the last of the blessed rock salt across the top step and ran toward the bedroom. The demon looked up suddenly, its eyes open and trained directly on me. I couldn’t risk having it move or cast a new, more dangerous spell.
On impulse, I grabbed the tip of my dagger, reared back, and aimed at the center of the demon’s chest. The fingers of my left hand wrapped around the locket as I threw the dagger, but I realized my mistake the moment the dagger left my hand.
This demon was a trickster. It liked traps and tricks of all kinds, and it had set up a mirror image of itself up here. I’d just thrown my dagger at an illusion. The blade passed through the image and embedded itself in the headboard.
Something behind me growled, and both Kai and I turned as the real trap demon pounced at us from behind.
“Lenora,” Kai shouted, diving toward me, his arms outstretched.
A bright light flashed as Kai wrapped his arms around me. Enclosed in a shield of pure, golden light, we tumbled to the floor.
The demon slammed against the shield and screamed in agony. Its death-cries shook the house, and I clung to Kai, burying my head against his chest.
Instantly, the oppressiveness of the dark trap around us released itself. It was like a weight lifting off my shoulders, and I took a deep breath to still the racing of my heart.
Kai hovered over me, pulling back slightly to look me over.
“Are you okay?” he asked, placing a hand on my cheek.
But I couldn’t answer him. All I could do was stare at the beauty of him.
Kai’s tanned skin was bathed in golden light, and his eyes shone from the inside. But that wasn’t
the best of it.
The light he’d wrapped around me to use as a shield against the demon wasn’t light at all.
It was angel’s wings.
So Little Time
I could hardly breathe as I looked at Kai. He’d been completely transformed.
Yes, of course, he’d always been a good-looking guy, but now, with his white wings extended behind him and their golden light casting the most beautiful shadows across his face, I was mesmerized.
Whatever part of me had been holding out, refusing to fall for anyone so fast, completely gave in, and I suddenly became acutely aware of his hands on my face.
“You’re an angel,” I managed to say, my voice barely more than a whisper.
He was like a dream, and I wondered if I’d maybe eaten a Moondust cupcake and all of this was a figment of my drugged imagination.
But when he ran a fingertip across the line of my hair at my forehead, I knew there was no way this feeling inside me was made up. It was the most real thing I’d ever felt in my life.
“Half-angel,” he said with a slow smile, our eyes locked. “I was trying to keep that to myself for as long as possible, but that became impossible the second you rushed head-first into danger, yet again.”
I blushed and sat up.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think we were in any real danger with them gone,” I said. “How was I supposed to know the house was trapped?”
He sat back and his wings slowly faded into nothing. I missed their light and warmth immediately. He looked normal and human again, but my heart hadn’t stopped racing.
“It’s curious, too. Now that I think about,” he said, frowning.
“What’s curious?” I asked, taking my first good look around at the house.
There was a huge pile of grey ashes where the trap demon had fallen, and there were dark, burned fingerprints in some of the doorways and on the floor from the demons’ touch. There was no way to really hide what had happened here.
I seriously hoped Olive wasn’t going to be the first one home.
“It’s curious that I didn’t trigger that trap when I came in alone,” Kai said. “I don’t know how this particular trap works, but with most traps, they’re triggered when anyone comes in contact with them. So, why didn’t I trip it when I walked in?”
I stood.
“Why don’t we discuss it while we walk out the door?” I asked, shuddering as I stepped over the trap demon’s ashes.
It wasn’t dead. Just banished. To really complete the job, we would have needed to perform an extra ritual on the ashes to either kill or contain each demon, or at least make sure it never came back from hell. But we didn’t have the right tools, energy, or the time.
I quickly retrieved my dagger from the headboard in Ms. Julie’s room and made my way down the stairs.
After being trapped in here with no way out, I was ready to feel the sun on my face and to see this house in the rearview mirror.
Kai apparently agreed, because he stood and followed me out the door just as quickly.
We didn’t bother walking along the back fences. Instead, we made our way straight to the car and headed back toward Martin’s house.
“It’s possible the trap didn’t trigger because you were invisible,” I said. “But to be honest, I don’t think that has really ever stopped a trap before, unless it was a really weak one.”
“Which means someone specifically set that trap for you,” Kai said.
I shook my head.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “If someone knows we’re getting close to the truth, why wouldn’t they just set a trap for both of us? We’ve been together every step of the way with this.”
“It’s something we should at least keep in mind,” he said. “Maybe someone involved specifically wants you dead, Lenny. I don’t want to think that could be true, but I’ve been investigating this for months and never had anything like this happen. You start investigating and a day later, you’ve already been attacked and almost killed twice. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
There are no coincidences.
I could hear my father’s voice in my head. He used to say that all the time. Don’t overlook anything or dismiss it as just a coincidence. Everything had meaning to some degree. Everything was potentially important.
And paying attention to those little details could mean the difference between life and death.
So, on top of everything else, I needed to think about why someone might specifically want me dead. Or want me to stay out of this whole investigation.
There was no real reason for Julie Peterson to care about me, in particular, even if Algrath was currently running around pretending to be her.
But there was one name that came to mind. Someone who would have a lot to lose if I discovered a connection between her and a powerful demon.
Ms. Greer would potentially lose everything, including her position as Keeper, if the Council found out she was involved in this, working for the other side.
Maybe she knew I’d put that bundle on her car the other night. That would explain how she’d been able to attack us in the woods yesterday, but what about the Peterson house? Had one of Ms. Greer’s ravens been tracking me everywhere?
I leaned forward and looked into the sky, but I didn’t see any birds. Still, it could be anywhere, watching us.
I wondered if she was still in town, and if so, if Martin knew how to get ahold of her.
When we made it back to Martin’s without running into any demons, I sighed in relief. I’d been checking out every car we’d passed on the way home, and I realized my entire body had been tense the whole drive home.
We found Martin in the kitchen making paninis.
My stomach growled. I was so lucky to live with someone who really knew how to cook. My parents had been all about quick and easy meals, so I’d grown up on fast food, canned vegetables, and ramen noodles.
I would have traded all the paninis in the world to have them back, but at least there were a few perks to my new life.
Martin narrowed his eyes at me.
“What happened to you, Lenora? You’ve been fighting,” he said. “I told you not to engage and to watch from afar. I take it you ignored my instructions. Again.”
“It wasn't exactly my fault,” I said, grabbing a handful of homemade potato chips from a bowl on the counter.
Kai and I explained the entire scene that had played out at Ms. Julie’s house, filling him in on everything from the backyard poison ivy to the trap demon triggered only by me.
“You never should have gone into that house,” Martin said, glaring at Kai.
“It was my decision to go in, so don’t take it out on him,” I said as we sat down to eat.
“Oh, I have no doubt it was your decision to go inside, but Kai here was told to keep you out of danger,” Martin said. “Kai, I thought we worked this out months ago.”
Kai cleared his throat.
“Yes, sir. We did,” he said. “I’ll do better next time.”
I frowned. Months ago?
“That’s not fair,” I said. “I’m allowed to make my own decisions, even if they’re bad ones. I don’t want anyone holding me back from what I need to do.”
“Yes, it would be a tragedy if someone saved your life by keeping you from rushing into things like The Devil’s Snare,” Martin said with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, girl. No one is trying to take away your freedom, but until you develop a little more common sense and a little less jump-right-in, I’m going to continue to look out for you. It’s called family.”
He put his hand on mine for a brief moment, and tears sprang to my eyes. It meant a lot to have someone like Martin looking out for me.
And hey, now I also had a guardian angel. Kind of.
I smiled at the thought of it and glanced at Kai.
I still had so many questions about his heritage. Where had his mother come from? What coven did she belong to? And how, exactly, had his fath
er fallen in love with a human witch?
There were a lot of myths about angels and some people actually doubted their existence at all, but one thing everyone seemed to agree on in the legends was the humans and angels were not allowed to be together.
Angels probably also weren’t supposed to be friends with Slayers, but Kai had said his father was good friends with my parents.
I wanted to know more about that.
And more about what had happened to his father.
So many questions, so little time.
“What’s next? Did you find anything at the attack site?” Kai asked, polishing off the last of his sandwich. “That was delicious, by the way. Those would be a huge hit at Sir Bean, I bet. Melvin has been thinking about adding a full menu.”
Martin smiled and cleared away the dishes.
“If I ever get bored enough to need such a diversion, I will let you know,” he said. “For now, though, we have quite a lot to take care of before tomorrow. I would like to go back to have a look at that portal, if there’s time, but first—”
His words were interrupted by the chime of the doorbell.
That doorbell hadn’t made a sound since the day I moved in three months ago, and now it had rung twice in one day. I groaned. More bad news? I wasn’t sure my heart could take it.
I wanted to rush out to the foyer to answer it myself, but after our earlier conversation, I decided to resist my jump-right-in tendencies, as Martin had called it, and wait for him to slowly make his way out there, instead.
“Aren’t you going to see who’s here?” Kai asked, leaning his tall frame against the kitchen counter.
“No. As a matter of fact, I’m being super mature right now and waiting to see what Martin says. I can be patient and calm if I want to be.”
“I see,” Kai said with a smirk. “Wonder how long that will last?”
I lifted my chin in defiance and tried to appear calm as my toes tapped inside my shoes.
What was taking Martin so long? Was it the police again? Did the detective know I’d broken into the Peterson house?
Well, that would just be a big mess I couldn’t explain.