Denny nodded. “I believe I can. Can and must. It will be back. I have to get to it before it gets to us.”
“Us?”
“Oh yes. Us. It knows I will protect you, knows it will have to go through me to get to you. He is probably sending for the cavalry as we speak.”
Iris looked from Denny to Cassandra and back. “Cavalry? We’re not just going to sit around waiting for it, are we? I mean, we’re going after it, right?”
“Not we. Me. Hunting is what I do. Not you. You’ll stay here where it’s safe. You’ll learn from the other witches, and you will stay out of harm’s way. Understood?”
Iris looked to Cassandra.
“Iris, people’s lives are at stake. This isn’t a game. If the hunter says you stay here. You stay here.”
She nodded. “Fine. I will.”
“Good.”
Iris turned to Denny. “Again, thank you, Denny. I...how will I ever repay you?”
“Become the best witch you can be.” Denny smiled into her coffee. “The world needs more good witches.”
“I…I guess I could do that.”
“Excellent,” Cassandra said, her eyes narrrowing. “What now?”
“Now, I need to call in my own troops and see what I can find out about Magyar. Once I get more intel, it’s hunting time, baby.” Rising, Denny walked with a slight limp with Cassandra to the front door.
“Thank you for taking such good care of me, Cass. My leg feels much better than it would have.”
Cassandra held her hands out. “These are miracle workers. You remember that next time you get your ass kicked, demon hunter.”
Denny stepped into Cassandra’s embrace and kissed her deeply, their lips connecting as if they’d been kissing for years.
“Can I come back even if I’m uninjured?”
Cassandra nodded. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
****
“Well, look what the wind blew in.” Ames opened the door for Denny. “Nice limp. Get that skiing?”
Denny grinned as she pushed past him. “Funny guy. I’m actually trying to do my job. I’m after a demon who goes by the name of Magyar.” Denny went straight for the kitchen. “Got any banana nut bread?”
“You know I do. Glad to see your appetite has returned.” Ames followed her into the kitchen where he went about getting coffee.
“Yeah, I’m pretty hungry these days. Seems like I can’t eat enough.”
Ames cut and heated a thick slice for her as the smell of chicory filled the air. “Magyar, huh? That’s nothing but trouble there.”
“I came here first, Ames, I swear.”
The microwave dinged and he handed her the slice. “I know. Now tell me what happened.”
As Denny told him Iris’s tale, he fixed their coffee and handed it to her, not once interrupting. When she finished, he said, “Come on. Bring your bread. I think you have the wrong idea about your Magyar.”
Once they were down in the training room, Ames pulled a large, leather-bound tome from his favorite bookshelf. It looked ancient with its cracked leather spine and faded title.
Opening it up, he flipped through the pages until he came upon an archaic drawing of a demon. “Okay—See here? His name isn’t Magyar. It’s what he is.”
“How can you be sure?” Denny peered over his shoulder. The book was so old, it was actually hand-copied.
“A Magyar is a Hungarian. Your demon is a Hungarian demon known as a Liderc.”
“A Liderc?”
“Yes.” Ames spelled it out. “There are several varieties of them, but yours is known as a satanic lover, or ordogszereto.”
“A what?”
“An incubus. The male demon that lies with women in order to father a child.” Ames looked up from his reading. “Sound like your guy so far?”
Denny nodded. “I have to deal with this demon before he gets more powerful or decides to bring his pals into the mix. Tell me what I need to know to hurt him bad. To blow him to smithereens.”
“I can try.” Ames read the book and gently turned the fragile pages. “It tends to move at night, and there is often a flash of light before it appears. It can assume human form or possess a body. Burning incense and birch branches will prevent it from entering the house. Oh, wait...here’s what you need to know. It haunts cemeteries and must disappear at the first crow of a rooster at dawn.”
“My kind of demon.”
Ames read some more. “One last thing. You can’t outrun the Liderc demon. They are lickety-split fast. You’ll have to go toe-to-toe with it if it catches you before you catch it.”
Denny considered this. “Okay. So I could find it in a cemetery and take it out there.”
“That would be a sound plan if it was alone. You run the risk of him and his buddies being there together. Where is Iris?”
“I left her with the women at the coven.”
Ames looked surprised. “Well done. Using the witches as allies is smart. Very smart. It looks like you’re back.”
A slight grin appeared on Denny’s face. “I’m getting there. It felt really good to help Iris out of the hospital.”
“Yeah. I hear it’s addicting, so be careful.”
Sipping her coffee, Denny closed her eyes. Cassandra’s lips floated into view. Opening her eyes, she wasn’t surprised to see Ames looking at her.
“You’re better. Different, but better. Glad to have you back, Goldy.”
“So does that mean you’re ready to kick my ass?”
Ames shook his head. “Not today. Not with your leg. The training you need is in these books.” He handed her a stack, the ancient one on top.
“Oh, wait,” Denny said. “There’s one more thing I almost forgot. He had a crossbow made of light.”
Ames stared at her. “Crap. Are you sure?” He made a beeline for another book. This one was so old, the spine was cracked and the pages were very yellowed.
“Positive. He had me dead to rights, but Cassandra, the Grand Poobah of the coven managed to freeze the trigger or something.” Denny shrugged. “I don’t know what she did, but she saved my ass.”
Ames flipped through the book on ancient weaponry until he found a drawing of a crossbow with light all around it. “Is this it?”
Denny leaned over and looked. “Yes. Yes, that’s it.”
Ames ran his hand across his face. “This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.”
“What?”
Ames looked up from the book. “Only the highest level Liderc possesses the skills for the Balestra di luce.” He looked up from the book. “It says here that the Balestra’s bolt pierces the body but when the shooter yanks it back with the rope attached, it rips the demon from the host body.”
Denny’s hand flew to her chest. “Oh. Ouch. That can’t be good.”
Ames continued reading. “Once the demon is extracted from the body, both host and demon are momentarily vulnerable to both physical and spiritual attacks. The pulled demon is usually shot through the head with the light bolt, which acts like electrocution, destroying the demon.”
“Wait. The Liderc can actually destroy my Hanta? Interesting.” Denny ran her hands through her hair. “Looks like I have a way out of all this, huh?”
Ames shook his head. “Says here the spiritual disruption usually kills the host because of the unpredictable nature of the Balestra’s bolt.”
“Unpredictable?”
“Yes. The bolt could pull your essence out as well, leaving you dead or catatonic.”
Denny blinked. Ames stared at her. Together, they said, “Catatonic.”
“You don’t think—”
Ames held his hand up to continue reading. “Those who remain alive after such a psychic break will remain in a catatonic state until such time as they perish from complications, or are reunited with their essence. The latter of which has been recorded only once.” He looked up. “It happened in the eighteenth century, when Edmund Murphy was successfully reconnected with his s
pirit.”
Denny was pacing now. “Okay, wait. Wait. Does this mean that this could be why my mother is in her catatonic state? Is it possible we have just found the reason why Mom can’t come out of her catatonia?”
“Well, I would say it’s possible, except for one large and looming issue.”
“How the Hanta made it back to her.”
Ames tapped his finger on his chin as he thought. “Exactly. It is entirely possible that your Hanta, once ripped from your mother, actually attacked and destroyed the shooter before it could be killed.”
“If that were the case, it would have re-entered her—”
“Keeping her alive.”
Denny stopped pacing and stared at him. “Wait. You think it—”
Ames held up his hand. “If—and this is all just conjecture, Goldy—if your mother’s essence had been ripped out as well, she most likely would have died.”
“But she didn’t because...because the Hanta jumped back in her and became her essence?”
Ames blew out a deep breath. “It’s possible. Anything is possible. Something kept her alive, didn’t it?”
“Which would explain why the doctors couldn’t figure out why she never recovered. Her body is healthy but nobody’s home.”
“Nobody appears to be home, Goldy. As you well know, Gwen is in there, but she is disconnected from her body. This could have happened when the Hanta was torn from her.”
Denny took the book from Ames. “So how do we move from conjecture to fact?”
“Well, first things first. We need the name of the Liderc you’re hunting. His real name.”
“Why?”
Ames tapped the top book. “Because we need his history—to know how old he is. As a Magyar demon, he will know the past history of his flock of Lidercs as well as all other Hungarian demons. You have to know the demonic history to be fully armed, Goldy. History knowledge is more valuable to you than today’s information. It’s all in there as well as in the lair. You find out the name of the demon and you own him, but understand…demons are not forthcoming about their names. They won’t just give them up.”
Denny nodded. “I understand that, but if I can get his name and learn his history, then we would actually know, one way or the other, whether or not my mother was a victim of this—”
“Soul reaping, yes. That’s what they called it in the fourteenth century when there was a lot of that goin on.” Ames gently took the book back. “And therein lies the issue. To find anything out from the demon means you cannot kill it.”
“Fine.”
Ames shook his head. “Not fine, Goldy. To contain a demon of his level requires—”
“Powerful witches?”
Ames cocked his head. “For starters, yes, but there’s so much more to it than that. Don’t jump the gun. A lot of lives are at stake here.”
“I have witches, Ames. Good ones. Powerful ones. Summoners.”
“Are these witches willing to risk their lives? Are you willing to risk your friends’ lives? Lidercs and other incubi are nothing to play with, Goldy. You back this one into a corner and it will kill you and everyone else in the room.”
“Ames, I saw Cassandra successfully prevent it from getting a shot off. Is that powerful enough?”
Ames tucked the book back into its place. “It’s a start, but if we’re going to do this right, and hope like hell we won’t lose any of our people, here’s what we’re going to have to do.”
****
The slim ray of hope that she might be able to get her mother back fueled Denny like nothing else could. All she could think of was how lost her mother felt when they met on the spiritual plane. If Gwen was only lost then maybe Denny could help her find her way back.
It was a dream that now had a grain of reality.
After Ames laid out his plan, they made phone calls, trained without doing the physical actions, and studied everything they could about Lidercs.
When she was too mentally weary to continue, he made a taco salad dinner before sending her home to continue her education. That meant showering, changing, and returning to her lair and her mother’s journal.
Flipping through it, she began looking at years when she remembered Gwen had been ill or hospitalized. It was more often than Denny realized. She’s broken her arm twice, her collarbone once. One time, when she’d been in the hospital, her father had told them it was for appendicitis. She’d stayed almost a week. Another time, she was “away visiting a friend” for almost two weeks. Denny had asked every day why she hadn’t at least called.
Now she knew why.
One call to Sterling gave her the month and that narrowed her search a great deal. After ten minutes, she found what she was searching for.
When Denny was twelve, her mother had been hospitalized for a “fall down the front steps.”
Had she fallen or was she pushed? Had the Magyar come after her mother as it had come after her?
“Come on, come on,” she said, quickly perusing the pages looking for the words Magyar, Liderc, or incubus.
That’s when she found it.
June twelfth, when Denny was twelve, her mother had been hospitalized. As she flipped to the days before, she discovered Gwen had been hunting a Magyar demon that had gotten the drop on her, beating the crap out of her and pushing her down the stairs. The demon managed to get a single shot off from the lit crossbow, but missed because...
Denny stopped reading.
A woman named Valeria had deflected the shot and run the demon off, saving her mother’s life.
“Who the hell is Valeria?” Denny asked aloud. She looked up. “Come on, Rush, I need some answers here!”
Did her mother have a partner Denny never knew about?
“Valeria, Valeria.” She searched the databases in her computer. Nothing.
Standing in front of the bookshelves, she knew her name was in here somewhere.
She called Ames. He wasn’t picking up. She called Lauren and put her to the task of locating the history of a Valeria and seeing if she could pull up anyone by that name in Savannah.
Then, at eleven o’clock, she donned her leather hunting gear, grabbed Epee and Fouet, and started out of the lair...only to walk smack into the one person she never expected to see again.
****
“Rush? Oh my god. It’s you!”
The ghost of Rushalyn Holbrook smiled widely. “I’d say in the flesh, but that would be a lie and I’ve never lied to you, baby. Ever.”
Denny’s mouth hung open a moment—the inability to hug Rush washing over her. She so wanted to pull her close and hold her for a long, long time.
“Where have you been? No. Strike that. I don’t care. Are you okay? No, strike that. Are you—”
Rush put a finger up to her mouth. “Shh. You’re acting like a crazy person. Be still. Come. Let’s sit on your bed like old times and chat.”
“Chat? Do you have any idea how much I’ve been chatting with you?”
Rush floated from the room. She was wearing a Bulldogs’ football jersey that was three sizes too big. “You can pick at the past, baby, like a scab, or you can deal with me right now. It’s your call.”
Denny followed her into the bedroom. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
“Lie down.”
“Stop bossing me.”
Rush smiled. “Please. Lie down. The conversation we need to have needs to be on a plane where I can touch you.”
Denny sat on the bed. “Touch me? Do you have any idea how pissed off I am at you?”
Rush sighed. “I do. And since you’ve chosen to pick at the past, we can have his conversation right here.” Rush hovered above the floor, arms across her chest, her hair flowing as if there was a wind. She was cute by any century’s standards, a button nose above a pert mouth.
Denny quickly lay down. “No, no. I’m ready.” Closing her eyes, she counted down from one hundred and breathed in deep breaths until she was on a plane where she and R
ush could actually touch. It was how they had had sex for the last three years.
When Rush appeared, Denny grabbed her and crushed her in a hug. “God, have I missed you.” She melted into that hug, feeling Rush’s heat against her. It was like coming home. “I have been so angry with you for leaving me.”
“I know you have, baby, and I’m going to explain to you why I had to leave…and why I am back.” Pulling away, Rush lightly brushed Denny’s hair from her face, a mask of worry. “You’ve been reckless. So very reckless with your life. You’re not the only one pissed off, you know?”
“So you have been watching.”
Rush shook her head, her blue eyes dialed in on Denny’s. “No, love, I haven’t. It...it’s too painful. I just...know things about you and how you operate.”
“I’ve missed you so much.”
“And I, you.” Rush sat on a red plaid picnic blanket underneath an oak tree by a river. It was their favorite spot. “But I learned something about myself when that nasty ass demon nabbed me and held me hostage. I had been incredibly selfish where you are concerned.” Taking Denny’s hands in hers, Rush continued. “He said things I didn’t want to hear—things that were as sad as they were true.”
“Things? What kinds of things?”
Rush inhaled slightly. “I’ve been a most selfish person—a horribly selfish and self-absorbed person. Life is for the living, baby, and that’s not me. I haven’t been alive in a long time. There is so much for you to experience—so many women to love—so many adventures to have. You need to…no, you deserve to have that kind of a life.”
“I don’t want to love anyone else.”
“Right. And see, that’s the problem. Don’t you see, sweetheart? The living need you. Iris needed you. She still does. Your life, your real life, belongs out there. Not in here. Not on some spiritual plane with a ghost…no matter how much this ghost loves you.”
“I thought you said you weren’t watching.”
Rush pursed her lips. “What I meant was I wasn’t hanging around all the time. That’s like stalking or something uber creepy. I was here when it mattered.”
“It’s always mattered, Rush. You just left. Just like that. No real goodbye.”
The Demon Within Page 15