“You have known this all your life but you wait this long to call for aid?” He scoffed.
“I wasn’t even sure help would come if I asked,” she admitted desperately. “And until recently, I’ve had help. But my mother and grandmother are dead. I’m not strong enough alone.”
His features hardened. “Now I am here. And my hurricane will see an end to any threat.”
“Boreas, if I can set the spells, the island will be safe again.” She thumped his chest once more.
“Until the next celestial event approaches and demands new spells from you,” he pointed out ruthlessly. “You cannot do this alone forever. The power needed to see it through must be immense. You would burn out quickly.”
“That’s why I asked for help!” she yelled. “Just lend me your strength.”
“It will not be enough. My magic is not like yours.” He caught her fists. “I am a Shikar. Killing Daemons is my purpose. Protecting humanity is the responsibility of all my people, one we do not take lightly. You are but a lone witch and a human. So much has been asked of your bloodline already. Too much is asked of you now. Your job here is done.”
“I can do this.” But Vetiver knew from the determination she read in his gaze that she was grasping at straws. “I just need to divert everyone’s attention, so there’s no chance I’m interrupted at a crucial moment.”
“Vetiver, if this island is a doorway, you are the key that keeps it locked. The equinox is a moment when all locks turn against the key holders. I am the storm that will splinter all doors into dust, rendering them useless.” He peered into her, through her. “There are always three spells to bind, three spells to break. You broke one when you spent your blood and invited me here through the keystone—”
Vetiver jerked her hands, but he held fast. “No. I won’t let you do this.”
“Two remain,” he continued relentlessly. “It is only a matter of time before they are rendered sterile now that the first and most powerful is broken.”
Ball was barking. The gale was loud enough now to nearly drown out his wrath.
“I will protect you,” Boreas promised, bringing her fists to his lips. “But the island will fall. Before the equinox is upon us, this land will rest beneath the waves.”
Ball threw back his head and howled just as every window in the Device house exploded outward.
The floorboards cracked, splintered and flew up in a geyser of debris.
Chapter Five
Hell was unleashed in her home. Vetiver Device had never dreamt such a sight and for a moment she feared she’d lost her mind. But she had read the myths in her ancestors’ Grimoires. It was only years of intense study that kept her sane now, as the horrifying monstrosities crawled up through her broken floor and lumbered toward her, fangs dripping, obsidian claws as long as bayonets, flesh rotting and smelling of damnation. There were five that she saw, but the endless reverberation of their growls warned her there could be many more.
The Unnamed were earthbound at last. And on her watch.
Vetiver tasted failure like sour milk on her tongue. It stained her heart with the resignation that her island was indeed doomed. She hadn’t known she was breaking any bounds when she’d asked the island for help. In her rash ignorance, she had allowed the Unnamed a way through.
Ball’s fur quivered. He stood between his mistress and the closest monster—its flesh bubbling and weeping thick, tar-colored pus—and his body swelled to an enormous size. His bones cracked. His form morphed as spines erupted along the length of his back. His fur fell away, exposing a reptilian hide of scales. His eyes bled crimson rage. A belch of flame erupted from Ball’s snarling mouth, catching the monster before it could strike Vetiver, launching it into the air, through the ceiling of the room, a hurtling ball of fire that screamed with the voices of a thousand lost souls.
Vetiver was frozen in fear, but Ball’s rough lizard head herded her from the room. Meanwhile, Boreas himself had transformed. His hair whipping around him like a typhoon, blazing white-blue blades erupted from the tips of his fingers like claws, which he used to slice their attackers. He ran, bounced one foot off a wall, flipped to the side, landed behind one particularly brutish foe and cut him in half with one swipe of his hand.
He moved so fast, Vetiver could only see this small glimpse before Ball had pressed her out into the hallway.
But here they met with more danger. Just one Daemon, but it was so massive it blocked the entire width of the hall, cutting them off. Ball breathed fire but the Daemon roared, its fetid breath holding the jut of flame at bay. Vetiver couldn’t think, much less plan an attack, but it seemed her heritage sang rich in her blood this night. Her body turned of its own accord. Her hand reached out, grabbed a teardrop paperweight on the old, narrow buffet. It was made of crystal—a heated mixture of sand, quartz and lead oxide, a mélange of natural materials that seemed to nudge alive the magical center of her.
Vetiver felt her body as if she were apart from it. It was a lightning rod, along which the mysteries of the universe raced, imbuing the paperweight with immense power.
Her hand felt as if she’d doused it in liquid nitrogen.
Her bones felt as if they were made of something radioactive and her skin thrummed madly around her skeleton.
Her hand hefted the paperweight, which glowed a vibrant green, and threw it into the Daemon’s open, snarling mouth.
The Daemon’s head exploded.
Ball looked back at her and Vetiver shrugged, wide-eyed. “Just go with it. I am,” she said through numb lips. Together they raced to the front door, she and her dinosaur Familiar.
Outside, the earth vomited up more of the creatures. But Vetiver vaulted over the porch railing, her bare feet slapping onto the wet grass. She would have run then. But something in the ground gave her pause and she stopped still.
You may be the last of your line, the trees whispered. But you are not the least, added the rocks. You are a Device, the soil murmured. You are our daughter, all the voices of nature chimed, in a chorus that drowned out any lingering fear or doubt.
Vetiver felt her heart soar and, with the aid of all the elements of nature on her side, she faced down the advancing army. The wind picked up, the rain fell harder and thunder shook the sky.
With a smile playing on her mouth, she felt the whole of her body light up like the day.
* * * * *
Boreas was frantic. He’d lost sight of Vetiver in the fray. He’d also lost count of how many Daemons he’d dispatched. There was a pile so high around him it was impossible to gauge an exact figure, but there were dozens at least. He knew if he didn’t burn their hearts to dust they would rise again, but he had no time, he had to find Vetiver first.
Had they taken her? He felt his heart stop, terrified by the idea of what they would do to her when they caught her. Would they eat her, like they did the majority of their prey? Or would they take her prisoner as they had at least one other powerful psychic in recent years?
He would tear the world apart at the seams if they had her. He would not rest until she was returned to safety, even if it required absolute destruction of the planet.
Boreas charged from the bedroom, shouting her name. He sent his Winds to search and blew the walls apart like rice paper.
The house was in ruin. Vetiver was nowhere to be found inside. He exploded out the front door like a cannonball, sending timbers and debris about him like toothpicks.
What he saw tripped him up, stunned him, and he landed hard on his knees, unmanned before the spectacle unfolding in front of him. But he was too stunned to care about his disgrace. He was undone.
It was a siege. Pure and simple. The goal, the prize, was the witch. And his witch was standing her ground.
Boreas wanted to shout at her to run. He wanted to throw all of his power to her, to lift her up and away from danger. But he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He could only watch in disbelief.
Vetiver was blazing, alight with a savag
e power that humbled his own.
She was glorious.
And without mercy.
Her entire body shone as bright as a dying star, blotting out every shadow the beasts might have found shelter within.
Boreas was blinded and had to turn his face away from the heat baking off Vetiver in suffocating waves. But in the short glance he’d managed, he saw the fierce warrior grin stretching her lips. The twenty Daemons rushing her. The reptilian form of her Familiar at her side, aglow with his own fire dancing beneath tough scales. The image was seared into his mind’s eye, engraved on his heart.
Her courage was breathtaking.
Her magic was terrifying to behold.
The sun was anathema to Daemons. More so than it was to any Shikar. Vetiver’s very form had become their greatest enemy.
In doing so, she had become the greatest weapon against the Horde that Boreas had ever dreamed of. She’d been created for this battle. She had been born to fight this war.
At his side. His mate. His equal.
The Daemons screamed as their bodies were set alight. Eyes watering, Boreas couldn’t stop himself from once more bearing witness to this wonder. The monsters’ flesh bubbled. Their eyes exploded. Their bones crumbled and their voices faded, died. As quickly as they’d risen, they’d fallen.
All that was left behind was ashes, heavy and wet from the rain, sinking into the grass and soil.
The heat ebbed, the light dimmed, and Boreas looked at the woman he vowed would belong to him forever. He breathed her name. “Vetiver.”
Her multi-hued, smoke-gray eyes were silver and still bright, wide in her delicate face. The piercings in her face were glowing red and little tufts of steam floated up where the rain sizzled on her bare shoulders. Her dress was plastered to her body, wet and transparent, revealing all her lush femininity.
His breath stilled in his lungs and lust thickened his shaft, tightening his sac. He wanted inside of her. Now.
With a short, bewildered laugh, she pitched forward, unconscious.
Boreas caught her before she could hit the ground. He was almost afraid to touch her, but when he did her skin was merely warm, not scalding as he’d feared. He lifted her up in his arms and carried her into the trees behind her home, Ball keeping pace with him, tendrils of fire curling about the corners of his mouth.
When he’d carried her to the keystone where she’d first called him, the only safe place he could think of, he placed her gently on the broken blooms scattered over the ground and tucked her beneath the shelter of the boulder. He eyed the beastie that was her Familiar. “Can you go back and destroy the bodies in the house so that I can stay with her?” he asked in a low voice, barely louder than the blitzing air, afraid of drawing attention should more enemies be lurking close.
Ball huffed, as if such a request were insulting to his great talents. Still, he turned and raced for the house, leaving his mistress in Boreas’ protection.
Chapter Six
Vetiver awoke to see her house engulfed by fire.
There were better ways to greet the dawn.
Her head was in Boreas’ lap. His hand was stroking her hair and he, too, was watching the spectacle of her home—the last tie to her heritage and family—go down in a blaze of glory.
The sun had not yet breached the horizon, and with the storm still raging, the clouds dense overhead, it would not touch the island today. The wind was still up, the trees bending at alarmingly sharp angles, but none of it touched them where they rested underneath their shelter of granite. The ground was still littered with blooms from where Boreas had sprouted—had it only been last night?—and the freshly overturned soil was a strong scent in her nose, but not strong enough to blot out the acrid odor of her burning home.
It was over.
Everything she owned consumed by hungry flames.
Everything that had owned her, that held her to this place, was torn away; dead roots to a tree that would bear no more fruit.
The Grimoires, the antiques, the heirlooms, the foundation of her life and the lives of so many of her ancestors, all of it transmuted to ash in but a few hours.
She couldn’t help but feel a little lost.
Who was she now? A woman without a home. A witch without a purpose. Her New England island was doomed to a watery grave. And she had nothing save the dirty clothes on her back and the silver cuff she’d managed to keep secured on her arm.
All that remained of the Device family wisdom now slumbered in her memory. Long days of study at her granny’s knee, Ball at her mother’s side while she went about making a poultice for some friendly islander. Sleepless nights spent worrying over the next Warding ritual when she’d inherited her powers, and Ball along with them. The sudden loss of her mother and grandmother, the comfort she’d taken in all they’d left behind for her. The many tears she’d shed as she had worked hard to memorize every spell her mother had written, every recipe her grandmother had saved during the course of her long life, the better to help them live on when the time came for Vetiver herself to give birth to a Device girl child.
If only she had known the hand of fate was guiding her down this path, she would have secreted the Grimoires away, off the island, stored away for her descendents.
It was a strange legacy, stranger still to be cast loose from the moors of the responsibilities that had accompanied it. It was all Vetiver knew.
And now it was over.
She sat up and looked at Boreas. This strange, electrifying man who had swooped into her life, with hell close on his heels. She didn’t blame him. What had happened was destined. She’d felt it when she had first come here to call upon the elements for their aid, though she hadn’t understood it at the time. Nor did she feel bitter that it was she who had been chosen to enter this fray and meet the Unnamed foe their family had feared for so many centuries.
What she felt was a confusing mix of defiance against her lot, resignation to it, anticipation of what might await her next and a deep appreciation that she had this strong, fearless warrior at her side to help her weather the storm he’d brought to liberate her.
“Will more of them come?” she asked, her voice husky from sleep and roiling emotions.
“Not while the sun is up.” His voice was a deep rumble, music to her ears after the cacophony of the night.
“But won’t the clouds give them cover?” She looked at him pointedly. “You seem just fine out here.”
“They cannot abide any amount of sunlight. The clouds protect me, not them.”
The air screamed around them as if in agreement. “What about when night falls?”
“If the island remains, they will come,” he said simply.
“So the wards are broken.”
“Not all.” He looked at her. “Breaking through this,” he patted the rich earth beneath the great stone that sheltered them, “was the first spell undone. I believe the destruction of your house was the second.”
Vetiver didn’t want to ask, but needed to anyway. “What is the third?”
“You.” His eyes glowed in the darkened shadows of the tempest. “The magic in your blood.”
“So I’ll just leave.”
“And in doing so, you will completely unbind the island. The Daemons have your scent, they will hunger for your strength. They will never stop hunting you, Vetiver.” His amber eyes regarded her solemnly. “They will flow out through the portal like an unbreakable tide.”
“Then I’ll kill ’em,” she said, raising her head proudly. “You saw what I did to them. What I can do.”
“And look at what it cost you. You’ve been asleep for hours. I couldn’t wake you. Neither could your Familiar. You were exhausted, and those were but a few Daemons you faced. Their true numbers are unimaginable. From all you’ve said, from what I’ve seen, they have been waiting for generations to consume a Device witch and all the power she offers. You have proven a feast worth fighting for. They will not waste this opportunity to pluck you ripe from the t
ree.”
“I’ll kill every last one of them before I let them overrun my land,” she swore. “Ball will help me. You have no idea how strong we can be.”
“You won’t have to be strong. The island will sink and the portal between worlds will be closed.” Boreas’ preternatural gaze darted out toward the darkest clouds in the sky then back to her. “My storm will drown it out.”
“No, Boreas.” Vetiver shook her head, pursing her lips against a sharp pang of desperation. “Please. It doesn’t have to be like that.”
He caught her chin in his hand. “How beautifully you plead. And how dearly I would love to give you all you wished.” In his eyes there lurked an apology, but stronger than that was his will to follow through with what he had started. With what she had started when she’d called him forth. “But in this I cannot compromise. Now the doorway is opened. Daemons will come. You know the people of this island. What would they do if they were exposed to such danger? If they learned that every dark fairy tale was real? That monsters like Daemons roam the darkness? Normal human beings cannot fathom such mysteries without being driven to acts of madness, you understand this.”
Vetiver swallowed. Damn him, he was right. Most people couldn’t handle living next door to a girl with strange eyes, morbid clothes and body jewelry. No one she knew would understand or accept the very real conditions of living amongst supernatural monstrosities that dined on flesh and supped on blood whenever the sun set below the shoreline.
There would be chaos in the streets.
The Unnamed were evil. But human beings were violent. Often times they could be cruel. Combine all three ingredients and the recipe spelled apocalypse with a capital please. Life wouldn’t be worth living in a world like that.
“What should I do?” she asked, pleading. “This life is all I’ve ever known. What can I possibly do now?”
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