Spells & Ashes

by Kim Richardson

  “Screw you, you sick bastard,” I hissed, bile rising at the back of my throat.

  Vargal-Trish pressed her lips in a mock pout. “Poor little Samantha. Do the nightmares still keep you up at night? Can you still hear your daddy screaming for you to die? The little bitch that killed his wife?”

  “Fuck you,” I said, my voice hoarse, lips trembling as hot tears fell freely down my face past my chin to pool around my clavicles. Waves of pain came in the rhythm of my beating heart. It hurt. God, it hurt.

  Vargal-Trish lifted the sleeve of her hand to expose her wrist. “The forces of the worlds granted you a mighty gift, little witch. The ability to borrow and pull another’s magic into you is something that most demons would kill for.” Her black eyes settled on me. “Still, this great and unique gift,” continued the demon, “will not save you tonight. Tonight you will die.”

  A dark chant formed on Vargal-Trish’s lips, and when she held out her wrist again, the same sun-like symbol was etched into her skin, wet and dripping with blood.

  There was a shuffle of feet, and I turned to see Colin running toward the exit. Damn, I’d never even noticed him getting up.

  “Z’ac ick na’im,” called Vargal-Trish. Colin was lifted off his feet and flew into the Greater demon’s outstretched taloned hand. “Where do you think you’re going, little mouse? I’m not finished with you. No. No. No. Don’t you want to stay and meet a true god? The only one that matters? The god of death, war, and destruction? You see, he’ll need some replenishing when he arrives. And you, little mouse, are the perfect meal.”

  Colin thrashed in Vargal-Trish’s grip, but the kid was no match for her strength. A sharp talon stroked Colin’s neck, leaving a trickle of blood.

  Shit. I should have left the kid home. I could deal with me dying, but not another kid, and especially not Colin.

  Vargal-Trish stepped away from the circle, a dark chant emitting from her lips.

  A wind rose violently, sending dust and debris scattering throughout the room. I pulled the hair out of my eyes trying to see. Beneath the circle, the earth sighed and then opened like a hungry mouth. Shoots of ice crawled up my spine as I stared into an endless, black pit, the doorway to an abyss. The Netherworld.

  My heart pounded in my throat. I could see forms and shapes coiled around it like misty clothes.

  And then I heard it, the sound of a waking call, like a thunderous, great yawn. The god was waking.

  The ritual was nearly complete. When Vargal took Trish’s life, the fifth soul, the god would climb through the hole, and then it would be all over.

  The wind rose to a howl, and still Vargal-Trish chanted. Louder and louder, until shapes and things began to crest the top of the opening, the mouth of Hell.

  A savage desperation hit me. It was all over. I’d failed. Everyone I cared about was going to die.

  And then I heard it. The impossible over the roaring of the wind.

  The flutter of wings.

  Could it be? Or was I going mad?

  Blinking through the debris, I stood up, hope filling me with a surge of energy as I stood on my feet.

  A small speck flew toward me, its wings beating fiercely against the wind. Poe.

  My buddy was alive.

  My knees wobbled in relief. I raised my right arm, and the raven swooped down and perched upon it.

  “I thought you were dead,” I said over the rustling of wind, trying to hold it together when my knees felt like they were made of Jell-O.

  “Nah. I just took a little nap,” said the raven, his feathers lifting in a gust of wind. His eyes flicked to Alex’s body, and an angry caw erupted from his throat. “How’d he die?”

  “No time to explain.” I stilled my face so that Vargal couldn’t read the excitement that pounded through me.

  The Greater demon had the nerve to laugh when he saw Poe.

  Big mistake.

  I wasn’t finished yet. Not by a long shot.

  I lacked the power to defeat Vargal. I needed more magic. Dark witches before me borrowed magic to make them stronger and give them abilities they normally didn’t possess.

  And it just so happened I knew where to get some.

  Yeah, I was a different breed. Yes, my own father tried to kill me because I was gifted with something special, and I was going to use it.

  I stood, legs apart, and stilled my breathing.

  Vargal-Trish danced around the hole in the ground, dragging a terrified Colin with her as she chanted. Her voice took on an edge of vicious, spiteful satisfaction, and she continued the incantation. Dark, demonic syllables thundered from her lips.

  I took a breath. “It’s time to play. You ready, Poe?”

  “Always.” The raven shifted on my arm, and his claws dug into my shirt “Now?”

  “Hang on.”

  I kept my eyes on Vargal-Trish.

  Colin, I said in my mind, hoping the kid could still read it even under duress. If you can hear me, I’m about to do something stupid. Really stupid. But it’s the only way to save you.

  Okay, came Colin’s whisper in my mind, and it took all of my willpower not to react. It wasn’t every day I heard someone else’s voice inside my head. It was a tad freaky. Scratch that. It was really freaky.

  When I say go, I continued, my heart in my throat as I strained to keep my breathing even. I need you to stomp on her foot as hard as you can. She’ll let you go. Then you need to run. Get as far away from her and that damn hole in the ground as fast as you can. Can you do that?

  Yes, answered Colin.

  Relief spilled into me. Good. Okay. Get ready.

  I waited and watched as Vargal-Trish took another a step around the hole and then settled next to it.

  Colin! Now!

  True to his word, Colin slammed his shoe on Vargal-Trish’s foot.

  It worked like a charm.

  Vargal-Trish yelped in pain, releasing the boy. Colin sprinted across the room. He never stopped moving. He might be small, but he had some cheetah legs.

  “Now, Poe.”

  I tapped into my will and funneled my anger and my pain into my well of magic, to the core of power within me. With a burst of will, I pulled on Poe’s magic, combining it with my own.

  My back arched as the power flooded in, painful and delicious and abundant. Poe leaped off my arm and flew into the air. My body quavered as a giant slip of energy ripped through me. High on its power, I held nothing back.

  I tapped into Poe’s magic and found what I needed.

  My body fell apart into a tempest of bodies, of exact replicas of me, until I was pulled and separated into forty other copies of me.

  And forty-one mes were a hell of a lot stronger than just a mere one.

  Holy crap.

  I’d never used Poe’s Splitting before. It was the creepiest thing in the world to see other versions of yourself. But at the same time, it was amazing. I’d always wanted to try.

  We felt strong. Invincible. I laughed—we laughed—together. The room descended into a cacophony of my voices growing in laughter. It was awesome.

  But the real kicker was that we, I, were one of the same. Our minds were one, a collective of Samantha Beaumonts. Slowly, my clones and I formed a line and stood facing the Greater demon.

  We met Vargal-Trish’s gaze across from us, her disgusting, white face distinct before us with preternatural clarity. Her eyes were shocked. We drank in that shock. We reveled in it and laughed.

  We were a tide of destruction, and Vargal-Trish had nowhere to go.

  Together we knelt, and with a chalk, drew the exorcism sigil in the space before us. Then we drew upon the energy gathered in the sigil. “In the name of our Lord Creator,” our voices thundered, “we exorcise you, Demon. Every impure spirit, every demonic power, every incursion of the infernal adversary. We command you.”

  “What are you doing!” cried Vargal-Trish, her voice rising to a high-pitched shriek. “No! You can’t do this!” Her eyes darted over all of us, never r
eally settling. Her face twisted in horror. She looked over at the remaining demons still fighting Kyllian and shouted, “Kill them! I am your master! Kill them. Kill her!” The Greater demon howled in rage and turned her burning glare to me.

  As one, the last cluster of imps, ghouls, and shadow demons abandoned the angel and turned their attention on us. Their eyes were wide and searching as though trying to decide who to devour first.

  It didn’t matter. The exorcism was almost done.

  Together, we pulled on the energy, raised our right palms, and said firmly, “Flee this place! Flee this body! May your power issue forth from her.”

  Vargal-Trish cursed us in an ancient language, spit flying from her mouth. She staggered back, turned, and ran in the opposite direction.

  We took a collective breath and said, “Be not, and be gone!”

  At the words, the energy poured out of us in a rush.

  The energy hit Vargal-Trish in the back. She stumbled and fell on the ground, thrashing. She whipped her head around, her face contorting in fury. Her lips moved in a curse to kill us. But then she howled, her back arching as she screamed again and again, raging and tearing at the ground. She struggled one last time, and then her body eased and was still.

  Howls split the air, and then the twisting mass of demons charged.

  “Feurantis!” we shouted, and forty-one fireballs blasted out of our palms, lighting up the room in an array of fireworks.

  The balls hit. The room shook as the mass of lesser demons flared up, the heat of the flames warming our faces. Piercing wails thundered around us, and the ground shook as hundreds of bodies hit in unison. The demons squealed in pain, their arms and legs shuddering as they went down like flaming chunks of meat on a grill. Their bodies scorched and blackened like burnt firewood. And then they all crumbled and exploded into ash.

  Our hearts thumped together in exaltation.

  But it wasn’t over yet.

  The same black, writhing mass we’d seen with Julia came surging up from Trish’s body. Its form was vaguely human, distorted. A wraith of the Netherworld. A Greater demon’s soul.

  Vargal’s specter rose, a faded, warped shadow-image of his true self like a wisp of cloud swallowed by the light. It poured forth with frenzied agitation, a slithering blackness that recoiled from the light. It soared in the air, toward the top of the atrium and the night sky.

  Anger rushed us. Dark and fierce. He’d killed Julia and tried to kill Colin. The bastard wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Conlidam!” we roared, lifting our hands as we poured our will and the power from the rings into the spell.

  A raw, invisible force of pure will focused into a violent burst of kinetic energy and shot toward the black specter.

  The shockwave slammed into the shadow that was Vargal. It shimmered, solidifying into a humanoid shape, and then exploded into chunks and shards of black, crystalline ice that fell to the ground, smashing into thousands of black shards as they collided with the cement floor. The shards dried until only flakes of ash remained. The darkness itself simply devoured it, swallowing it into nothingness.

  Holy shit. We’d just killed a Greater demon.

  The ground shook beneath our feet. Our pulse raced as lightning flashed along the rim of the hole in the ground, lit with a sudden eerie, green fire that slowly faded away.

  And then with a pop, the hole in the ground pulled and yanked chunks of earth, rock and concrete, filling itself up until it was covered completely as though it had never existed.

  With a huff of exhalation, I let go of the spell, the magic, and the power. And then my clones disappeared.

  I collapsed to my knees, and my body shook with the aftermath of working so much power. I had a brief feeling of being alone and remembered that was probably just remnants of having forty extra replicas of myself. I blinked the black spots from my eyes and tasted the bile in the back of my throat before swallowing it back down.

  I did not want to ruin my moment by spewing all over the floor.

  “Samantha,” I heard Logan’s voice and looked up to see him standing next to me, a huge welt on the side of his forehead. It was bleeding. “Are you okay?” he asked. A twinge of fear marked his handsome face.

  “I will be.” I didn’t know if he’d seen me use Poe’s magic, but there was no time to worry about that now. Pushing my fatigue aside, I struggled to my feet and ran to Trish.

  The woman was splayed on the floor. Her eyes were closed, and she didn’t look like she was breathing. A twinge of fear hit me.

  I pressed my fingers against her neck. A strong pulse answered back.

  “Thank the cauldron.” I sighed in relief.

  “She’s alive?” Kyllian stepped toward me. His face was haggard and dust streaked, and his clothes were sticky with demon blood and topped with ash. Though his face was bruised and scratched, his eyes were alight with hope.

  “She is,” I told the big angel. A smile pulled at my lips just as Trish stirred, and her eyes flashed open. They were a beautiful hazel color.

  Kyllian moved forward and scooped her up in his arms, holding her as though she were a precious jewel, fragile, and cherished, like he’d never let her go.

  Trish looped her arms around his neck, looking up at him like, well, like he was the most beautiful man who ever was. What warm-blooded female wouldn’t when she had just been saved from the big, bad, ugly demon by a glorious celestial creature molded to perfection? And yes, by the way, she was looking at him openly; I had a feeling psychics could see the supernatural. Trish knew Kyllian was an angel.

  “You saved me,” she said, her big hazel eyes locked onto Kyllian’s with a love-at-first-sight expression. “You fought those demons to get to me.”

  “I did,” answered the angel with a smile that would have had naked women flinging themselves at him. “You’re safe now,” he added. His voice carried a tone of comfort and safety. “I’ve got you.”

  Yes, he did.

  The two of them had their eyes locked on one another, and a flicker of discomfort rolled through me, like I was spying on an intimate moment.

  A familiar weight pressed on my arm. “That was badass,” commented Poe. I pulled my eyes away from the angel and Trish. “You totally rocked the Splitting.” The raven cawed in approval. “Everyone saw, you know,” said the bird, answering my suspicions. “Everything’s going to change now.”

  I knew it would. “Doesn’t matter,” I answered with a growing sense of unease. “It was worth it.”

  I turned to find Colin making his way back with a smile on his face as he settled himself next to Logan. The kid had been awesome.

  The raven fluffed his feathers. “Let’s go home. I’m starving.”

  “Not yet. There’s still one thing left to do.”

  I straightened and rushed over to the vials. Poe’s claws bit into my skin as he balanced on my arm.

  They sat on the ground, each with a shimmering light bouncing on the inside as though each vial had a trapped pixie inside. White light kindled, like a cloud of fine pixie dust, and a flickering glow spread inside the glass vials, sparkling in steady, pulsing waves.

  I reached out and grasped the four vials.

  “Is that?” asked the raven, his voice filled with wonder. “Are those souls?”

  Heart racing, I stiffened and clenched my teeth. “They are.” I didn’t know what kind of magic was used to trap human souls in the vials, and right then I didn’t care.

  “For Julia,” I whispered, my eyes burning, and then I smashed the vials on the ground.

  The vials exploded into thousands of shards of broken glass. I felt a tingling on my skin as though some dark spell had lifted.

  And then four small brilliant white globes the size of golf balls rose from the debris. They hovered for a moment, so close I could have reached out and touched them. One of the globes broke free of the others and came up to my face. I blinked the brightness from my eyes as it floated there for a moment as though it were try
ing to tell me something, as though it were thanking me.

  Goodbye, Julia.

  The globe drifted back to join the others. And then as one, they soared up into the air like miniature stars, up through a gap in the atrium’s broken glass ceiling and disappeared into the dark sky.

  28

  By the time we dropped Colin off at his parents’ place, Trish to her apartment in Upper Manhattan, and made it back to Mystic Quarter, the sun was up and bathing the sky in pinks, oranges, and blues.

  I had to perform a memory sigil to soothe his frantic parents, who’d called the police thinking he’d run away. I was tired and drained, but I’d managed to make his parents think he’d spent the two days at his friend Mat’s place, and I was Mat’s older sister dropping him off before I went to work.

  “Will you come visit me sometime?” Colin had asked, making me feel all fuzzy inside.

  “I will,” I promised. “There’s a lot I still don’t know about your abilities. And I’d love to learn, if you’ll let me.”

  The kid had answered with a huge bear hug, leaving me flushed and not knowing what to do. So I tapped his head.

  I really liked that kid. I was going to miss him.

  A half hour later, we were back in Mystic Quarter, in New York’s East Village. We drove up Doom Avenue, through the paranormal district, rolling past a few strolling vampires and witches who’d stopped to look at the cab as we drove by. To the driver, they were just normal human couples going home after a late night in the city. He didn’t see the vampires’ fangs or their black eyes, nor did he see the cluster of pixies fighting over a gleaming gold watch.

  A New York City yellow cab was a rare commodity in the district, and we stuck out like a blot on the landscape. We drove through the quiet streets, a recent rainfall covering the pavement in puddles and reflecting the sun like mirrors. The cab’s engine was barely an audible purr over the ringing of thoughts and emotions in my mind.

  I felt a great sense of relief at vanquishing a Greater demon, not just any regular demon, but a king of demons, a powerful being from the Netherworld.