The ground underneath our feet trembled violently, causing the items on the table to teeter. Wyatt and Sean scrambled to hold the things down. Laurence struggled to keep his footing.
Despite the pain in my arm, I pulled off my gloves and readied the gun Wyatt had let me borrow for this special occasion—ironically, the same one I had grabbed during our first encounter with the Halflings. At least it felt familiar in my hands. I’d also loaded it with Holy Water bullets for a bigger punch.
Sean had a similar gun, and he wore a sheathed machete on his hip for backup. Laurence was relying on his defense spells mostly, but just in case that didn’t work, I had slipped a hunting knife I’d found amongst Wyatt’s mess into his back pocket.
“RISE!” Wyatt continued to yell into the darkness. “RISE!”
The air crackled and snapped with power, and the wind became an unruly tornado, throwing up my hair and tossing dirt into the air. I squinted as it smacked against my face and bit my exposed arms and shoulders.
Laurence yelled against the torrent, hands up to block the gale, “Is it working?”
“Oh, he’s coming,” Wyatt called back and grabbed his shotgun. “Get ready, everyone! The bastard’s not going to be too happy we ripped him from his home.”
Then, everything stopped. As if on cue, the blustering winds, the charged energy in the air, the tremors underneath our feet, all stopped, followed by nothing but complete stillness.
It was as if the world itself was holding its breath. The sudden silence after such a flurry of noise and activity was eerie.
A strange prickling sensation rocketed up and down my spine, and when I looked up, I was staring into the glowing red eyes of the full-blooded Hell demon Xaver.
The demon threw his head back and roared, his thunderous voice filling the forest and shaking sleeping birds from their nests. Smoke radiated from his gray, cracked skin as if it were burning, and the pungent scent of sulfur and hot coals wafted through the air.
He was a massive beast, as tall as the trailer behind him, with two horns jutting out of his forehead and twisting at the peaks, like a deranged half-bull creature. He even had the cow-like snout with big nostrils. Two fangs poked out of his bottom lip. The two legs he stood on resembled a goat’s, hairy and hooves and all.
I hadn’t been able to get a good look at him in Kay’s apartment, but it was safe for me to say he was ugly as sin.
He lunged at me, only to have his feet planted in place. Seeming confused, he looked down.
He was standing in a demon trap, one I had drawn in spray paint before we’d started the summoning.
His face contorted in fury. “You summoned me here?” he barked. “You spilled sacred blood for me?”
The word “sacred” threw me for a second, but since blood was one of the keys to keeping humans alive and demons didn’t exactly bleed or live like they did, I guess that made sense.
“You have my friend,” I said, trying to keep my shoulders pulled back and my spine straight even though my head still whirled with the blood loss. I locked eyes with him to mimic strength. Fake it until you make it, baby. “I want her back. Bring her back.”
He laughed. Actually laughed at me, his voice a horrible grating sound, like nails on a chalkboard.
I ground my teeth together, and my anger coiled tighter inside me. Really want to piss me off? Laugh at me. That was the way to get you on my shit-list mighty quick. I aimed my gun, wanting nothing more than to blow his face off and shut him up for good.
His laughter got louder. “You think that human weapon will hurt me?”
I was hoping it would.
My finger hovered on the trigger. Someplace in the back of my head, a tiny voice whispered that shooting him right away might not be the best idea. Only he could bring Kay out of the Hell pit, and if I got him angry enough, he wouldn’t exactly want to bend to my will.
“She’s mine.” Xaver’s gaze hardened. “She’s carrying my spawn. She doesn’t belong to this plane anymore.”
A fiery ball hurled across the yard and hit Xaver in the center of his chest. The skin there sizzled.
“Bring back my girlfriend, asshole!” Laurence shouted, hands up with another small fire ball hovering between his fingers.
Xaver’s gaze swept across the yard and spotted Laurence, Wyatt, Sean, and their weapons for the first time. But instead of fear, his expression only reflected amusement.
“More human weapons?” he bellowed and laughed again. “And you with your puny fireball spell…” He pointed one talon at Laurence. “You think fire will kill me? I was made from fire!”
His laughter grated on my nerves. My finger itched on the gun’s trigger, but before I could make a move, three more fireballs were launched Xaver’s way and hit him in the shoulder and side of his face. He howled in pain.
Laurence’s face was all determination.
Xaver growled and leapt Laurence’s way, only to find his feet were still cemented in place. That only enraged him more.
“Here’s the deal, Xaver. We have you trapped and will be keeping you that way until you give us Kay.” When I said it that way, it sounded like we had the upper hand, didn’t it? “So, I suggest you do the smart thing and bring her to us now. Or you’re going to be living a very lonely existence here in a human’s backyard.”
A sickening grin curled up the corners of his mouth. “I have all of eternity,” he said. “The Medium girl, on the other hand, does not.”
Oh shit. There went our leverage.
“How about you give us the girl or we’ll kill you?” Wyatt shouted up at the demon, shotgun at the ready. For an old man, he was no joke. But could you even kill a demon? Was that even possible?
“You can try,” was all Xaver said.
The gunshot popped off, the echo ricocheting throughout the woods around us. Wyatt’s smoking barrel told me it was him who’d fired.
At first, Xaver didn’t more. The bullets had buried themselves in his stomach, but no pain showed on his face. For a moment, I thought he had been right and we were screwed, but then his skin bubbled and blackened around the wounds.
Xaver peered down at it, shocked. “Holy Water?”
“There’s more where that came from,” Wyatt replied. “We may not be able to kill you, but we can make living hurt like hell.” He raised the shotgun again. “Now, give us the girl.”
Xaver’s glowing red eyes bore into the human standing off in front of him, as if he couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. Then, amusement toyed with his beastly features. “You’ll need to let me out of this trap first.”
“Fuck no,” Wyatt yelled immediately.
“No way,” followed Laurence.
Xaver turned toward Sean. “How about you, pretty boy? You want to be a good kid and let me out?”
Another loud bang of a gun, this shot skimming the side of Xaver’s neck. Instantly, the skin sizzled.
In one swift motion, Wyatt popped the empty shells out and reloaded. “Don’t test me, demon.”
I admired his need to protect his son, even if Sean was more of a man than a boy. There was no doubt in my mind he knew his way around a weapon, too. Especially growing up with a father like Wyatt.
I wasn’t proud of myself, but in that moment, I wished Cole were here. He would know what to do in the situation we were in. Better yet, he would have something special in his backpack that could maybe save the day.
Who knew where he was. Probably still at the motel or roaming the streets of Fairport trying to find me for his contract with Azrael. I ground my teeth at the thought.
Fuck him. I didn’t need him. Or his stupid backpack.
“Let him out,” I said.
Every head whipped my way. It felt as if I were pinned into a corner. What other option did I have? Every second counted now. Tomorrow was the solstice. There wouldn’t be another time to summon Xaver to collect his blood and perform the cure ritual.
“Are you out of your mind?” Wyatt said in a harsh whi
sper. “The first thing he’s going to do is come after us.”
“We’ll keep our guns on him the entire time. If he tries anything funny, blast him.”
“I don’t know about this, Jade…” Laurence said. “There has to be another way.”
“What if he runs?” Sean added.
I eyed the demon before us, who was grinning wide enough to show every single pointed tooth.
“He won’t run,” I said. “Not when he hears that I have a deal for him.”
“A deal…?” Xaver’s pointed ears perked up at that. What was it with demons and deals? I thought that was just a rumor. “What kind of deal?”
Cautiously, I approached him and the demon trap. Like I did with the spirit circles, I smudged one of the outermost lines with my boot, deactivating the magic binding him to the spot.
I held my breath, praying I wasn’t wrong about this and my promise of a deal was enough to keep Xaver earthbound. More importantly, I hoped I hadn’t just signed everyone’s death warrants by letting a powerful demon go.
Slowly, Xaver stepped out of the trap. His gaze stayed locked on me the entire time.
Okay, light power thing. Whatever you are. Get ready. I might need you here. I called to the white energy inside me, praying I would somehow be able to control it this time and it would listen to my pleas.
Laurence held his fireball, and Wyatt and Sean aimed their guns.
Xaver crossed the yard until he got to a flat, grassless area. Then, he held out his hand and pressed his claws into his palm. Black goo flowed from the self-inflicted wounds onto the ground.
Was that…his blood? Gross. It looked like tar. Smelled like it, too.
Walking in a small circle, he let the sludge spill.
The dirt in the center quaked before falling away completely, leaving a bottomless crater in the earth.
I stepped back. The last time a hole had opened up in Wyatt’s yard, a bunch of Halflings had crawled out and tried to kill us.
Instead, Kay floated up from the pit and hovered there in midair, out of reach.
“Kay!” I called, but she didn’t flinch. The bath towel was wrapped around her naked body, and her eyes were closed and her head lolled to the side.
Dead?
My chest constricted in terror, but then her chest moved, still breathing as if she had been placed in some kind of dreamless sleep, and I relaxed. But only a little. She was still in danger.
As I started toward her, another body rose out of the ground and hung suspended next to Kay.
Blond side-swept hair. Model-like features. Oversized jacket and the tattered backpack hanging off his arm.
My heart plummeted.
The demon had Cole, too.
I shouldn’t care.
I didn’t care. Nope. Not at all. Not even a little. Cole had been working against me the entire time. I had been his job. His mission. A part of some cockamamie plot with Azrael to keep me distracted and out of the afterlife while he did who knows what.
Keeping secrets. Telling lies. Manipulating me. Using me.
That made him a grade-A asshole in my book.
But even as I went over it again in my head, my insides twisted at the lie.
It shouldn’t bother me in the slightest that he had been captured by a demon and was now hanging above a Hell pit, but it did and I hated myself for it.
I’d had sex with him, too. Had that been all part of this charade, a way to gain my trust completely?
I wanted to punch myself for that one. How could I be so stupid?
The moment I had seen him rise out of the ground, my chest had constricted with a new kind of fear. Dammit! I barely knew the guy. Why hadn’t I just done my assignment, like Simon had said, and not gotten involved? I could have avoided this entire thing.
Now, seeing the two people I cared for the most dangling feet above a Hell pit, my stomach was in knots.
“Let them go,” I shouted, my voice shaking. Power buzzed across my skin, jumping across my knuckles like an electric current. I curled my hands into fists, scrambling to think of a plan to save them. If I blasted Xaver back to Hell, would Kay and Cole disappear, too? I could lose them forever.
What was I going to do?
Think, Jade. Think. How are you going to get out of this one?
I scanned the backyard, looking for something that could give me a leg up or trigger an idea. I not only had Kay and Cole’s lives to think about, but I had Laurence’s and Wyatt’s and Sean’s, too. Whatever I did, it had to be enough to protect them all from Xaver.
Annoyance pinched Xaver’s ugly features. “So, what’s this deal?” he pushed. “You said you had a deal for me. Out with it, then.”
Deal?
Oh. I had almost forgotten I had offered him a deal to get to Kay. Problem was, I didn’t actually have one. It had been just something I’d said to get one step ahead of him. I’d been hoping it would have bought me some time, and instead, it had revealed Cole as Xaver’s other captive, causing more of a mess.
But maybe there was a way a deal could get everyone out of this alive. If that was what he wanted, that was my only option.
What could I offer a demon? I had nothing.
“Well?” Xaver growled.
“Let them both go, and crawl back into the hole you crawled out of. Leave us all alone.” I rolled my next words on my tongue. I had to save my friends. They were all I had.
Xaver waved his hand, and Kay and Cole’s unmoving bodies began to descend back into the crater.
Panic clawed up my throat. “Wait, wait!”
They continued to fall.
What was I going to do?
Cole’s blond hair disappeared past the ground line.
“You can have me!” I yelled, my heart hammering. “Take me in their place!”
Xaver’s eyes widened in surprise.
The gravity of what I had just offered hit me like a ton of bricks, but instead of regretting it, certainty flooded me. Yes. This was what I had to do. The choice was easy.
But would my soul be enough for not only Kay and Cole’s, but for Laurence, Wyatt, and Sean’s, too? I was a nobody. All I had going for me was being a newbie reaper and this new white light I had. Would that be desirable to a demon?
I had to hope so.
“Me in in your little Hell hole forever in exchange for them.” I added more force this time to show him I wasn’t playing around. “All of them.”
I didn’t trust demons. There was nothing to assure Xaver wouldn’t spin around and grab the other three after the deal was done.
Xaver’s gaze roamed over every face in the yard, and he frowned, as if I had spoiled his plans. When his eyes landed on me again, his expression twisted into something devious. Animalistic and unnatural.
“You’re willing to give up yourself and your eternity for these…blood sacks?” he asked.
“I’m not negotiating,” I said, staying firm. “That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”
He scratched is sunken cheek with one talon, pretending to be in deep thought.
To mock me and my deal or was he actually considering it?
The tense moments dragged by, every second like a painful prick to my skin. I didn’t have a plan B. If this didn’t work, I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“Jade…” Laurence’s whisper came from behind me. “Are you sure?”
Absolutely.
“Is there another part of this plan we should know about?” Sean asked.
Nope. This was all I had.
“We could just light him up,” said Wyatt, his hold never wavering on his shotgun. It was still aimed and ready to go at any second. “Sounds good to me.”
I stayed locked on Xaver, waiting for his decision. Even though I was shaking on the inside, I had to keep the façade of complete calmness on the outside. Maybe if I made it appear like he was getting the better end of the deal, the demon would take it.
Glancing at the tops of Cole and Kay’s heads peeking
out from the Hell pit, anger tugged at me. I didn’t like gambling with lives, and I was growing tried of whatever game Xaver was playing.
“Going once,” I said, holding up one finger. Testing him. When he didn’t even flinch, I put up two fingers. “Going twice.”
Disbelief flashed across his face. This wasn’t a joke. I meant business.
“Deal,” he said finally and snapped his fingers.
Kay and Cole floated out of the pit again. Once their feet touched solid ground, their eyes fluttered open, as if waking from a deep sleep.
“Wha-what’s going on?” Kay asked, rubbing her forehead.
Laurence hurried over to her and hugged her tight.
“Laurence?”
With Kay in his arms, he mouthed the words, “Thank you” to me over and over.
I smiled. “Get her out of here,” I whispered. “Wyatt and Sean will help you with the cure.”
Sean nodded and moved closer to them. “We will.”
When I turned back around, Cole was staring at me intently. There was heavy conflict behind his eyes. I doubted he knew I had been behind the motel door listening in to his conversation with Azrael. This was something else.
“Jade… I…”
I shook my head. “You don’t need to say anything. It’s done,” I told him. “Just please make sure you help Kay with the ritual. Promise me.”
“What did you do?” He glanced back at Xaver, who was grinning broadly. “No. No, you didn’t.” When his head whipped my way again, his eyes were wide. “You didn’t make a deal.”
“She did. And it’s done.” Xaver huffed. “Come on. Let’s go, reaper.”
“Wait, Jade. No…” Cole reached for me, but I stepped back. If he touched me now, I might lose my nerve, and I couldn’t afford it.
The wounded look he gave me was enough to make me second-guess everything, so I looked away.
“There has to be something else we can do,” he said. He swung his backpack around and ripped the zipper open. Fumbling through the contents, he mumbled to himself angrily.
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