The Entity Within

by Cat Devon

“What?” Nick’s voice was curt.

  “Daniella said she had a premonition that if Damon and Zoe had sex, Vamptown would go up in flames,” Gram said. “Was I not supposed to say that?”

  “I know about the premonition,” Nick said.

  “You can’t blame the flames on Zoe,” Gram said. “Or Damon.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” Nick said.

  “I was surprised how modern your spell was,” Bruce told Gram. “I was expecting something more along the lines of Shakespeare’s witches from Macbeth.”

  “‘Eye of newt, and toe of frog,’” Gram quoted.

  Bruce nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Not my thing,” Gram said. “Although I have used the ‘hell-broth boil and bubble’ line on occasion.”

  “Where did you go when you disappeared?” Bruce asked.

  “Listen, they’ve had a rough time,” Damon said. “Let’s get the details later. For now, I think we should head back to the house.”

  “Good idea,” Nick said.

  The moment they were in their house, Gram headed for her room, citing the need for a nap.

  “Where did you go when you disappeared?” Damon asked Zoe.

  “To the tunnels.”

  “Your grandmother sent you both to the tunnels? Why?”

  Zoe put her hand to Damon’s mouth. “Keep your voice down.” She quickly pulled her hand away. Her fingers tingled, but she couldn’t think about that now. She had to stay focused, as in focused on demon demolition and not sex with Damon. “It wasn’t deliberate on her part. She panicked and didn’t specify a destination.”

  “How do you know you were in the tunnels?”

  “Because Silas was there to welcome us. I saw two shadowy figures behind Silas that I’m assuming were the two Guys. We didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”

  “Did Silas say anything?”

  “He said welcome and something about how kind it was of us to grace them with our presence.”

  “What else did you see? Any weapons? Anything else?”

  Zoe shook her head. “We were only there a few seconds. I’m sorry. My only thought was to get us out of there.”

  “You did good.”

  Zoe couldn’t believe her ears. Had Damon just given her a compliment? That had to be a first.

  She’d experienced more firsts since coming to Vamptown than she could count. She couldn’t even focus, she was feeling so burned out. “I need a few minutes alone.”

  “I understand.”

  Zoe didn’t see how Damon could understand when she didn’t. What was happening to her? Why had she had that flashback about Salem? Why had Gram’s spell resulted in them landing in the tunnels? What did the impending equinox have to do with anything? Where the hell was that damn demon book?

  So many questions, so few answers.

  And then there was the intensely personal question. Why, despite everything, did she want to hurl herself into Damon’s arms and kiss him? Why did she long for him, lust for him? Were those thoughts enough to have sent flames shooting through the floor vents throughout Vamptown?

  But the biggest question of all was this—was she falling in love with Damon? Because that would be the most dangerous thing of all, at least as far as her heart was concerned. Dealing with demons was bad enough. Dealing with a broken heart should pale in comparison. It didn’t.

  Dammit, dammit, dammit.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “I’m so glad you are back,” Bella greeted Zoe at the top of the stairs and followed her into Zoe’s bedroom. “I was looking for something or some way to help you and I think I’ve come up with it.”

  “What is it?” Zoe said.

  Bella stretched her paw under the bed and pulled out Zoe’s mother’s amethyst necklace. Picking it up in her mouth, she jumped onto the bed and dropped it beside Zoe with the pride a normal cat might show at capturing a mouse.

  Zoe frowned in confusion. “How is my mother’s necklace supposed to help me?”

  “As you know, I never met your mother. I came to you after she passed.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “So I didn’t know about this necklace until today. You never showed it to me even though you showed it to Damon.”

  “I didn’t show him the necklace. I only showed him her talisman.”

  “Well, that explains it then,” Bella said.

  “Explains what?”

  “Why the Demon Hunter didn’t tell you about the power of this. Look.” She nudged it closer to Zoe. “Look carefully at the carving on the pendant part of the necklace.”

  “It’s some sort of animal. A cat?”

  “A bear. Carved in amethyst. It’s a protection amulet said to put demons to flight,” Bella said.

  “Wait a second. How do you know this?”

  “I Googled it.” Bella lifted her head with pride.

  “So you’re saying if I put on the necklace, the demons will disappear?”

  “It could happen.”

  “Or maybe it’s a trap. If my mother had a protection amulet, she would have told me about it.”

  “Maybe she never got the chance to.”

  “The necklace didn’t protect her from death.” Zoe’s voice cracked.

  “I never said it would protect you from death. Only from demons. Was she wearing this when she died?”

  Zoe nodded.

  “Then her death wasn’t caused by demons,” Bella said.

  “Or it was, and the necklace didn’t work,” Zoe said. She took several deep breaths, trying to regain her control and keep the tears at bay. She didn’t know how much more she could take. Part of her just wanted to curl up in a little ball and pull the covers over her head. But her inner witch wasn’t having any of that.

  No guts, no glory. What if black magic was the only way to get rid of the demons? If they’d killed her mother, she’d be willing to jam Damon’s dagger into Silas’s throat herself.

  “What are you girls doing up here?” Gram asked, joining them on the bed.

  “I thought you were going to take a nap,” Zoe said.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Did you know that Mom’s amethyst necklace had a bear carved into the pendant?”

  Gram studied the necklace. “A protection amulet.”

  “I don’t remember it having a bear carved into it,” Zoe said.

  Gram held the necklace in her hands and closed her eyes. “I don’t sense any evil or black magic. I sense your mother’s aura.”

  “You didn’t sense that the spell book was evil,” Zoe felt compelled to point out.

  “Boy, one little mistake and no one trusts you anymore.” Seeing the look on Zoe’s face, Gram sighed. “Okay, that demon spell book thing was a big mistake and we knew that the instant I opened it.”

  “What did you mean when you said earlier that you may have seen the Book of Darkness when you were a child?”

  “I can’t be sure. I felt no sense of recognition when I saw the book here the other day. Maybe I just heard stories about it.”

  “Do you remember the stories?”

  Gram shook her head. “I was very, very young. I didn’t hear stories about the demon book when I got older or I would have remembered. This entire thing is a mystery.”

  “Do you think it’s tied to the Salem witch trials?”

  “I have the feeling it goes back much further than that,” Gram said. “But speaking of the witch trials, I had the strangest experience in front of the Vamptown Council.”

  “Me too,” Zoe said. “When I closed my eyes, I saw the two of us in black dresses dating back to that period.”

  Gram nodded. “And I heard sobs and smelled sweat. And someone was putting nooses around our necks.”

  “I thought maybe it was just me,” Zoe said.

  “No, I had the vision, too. Perhaps it was collective memory from our ancestor. Or a warning of what the vampires wanted to do to us.”

  “Not all the vampires.”

>   “I’m so sorry I got you into this mess,” Gram said. “Maybe we should never have left Boston.”

  “We didn’t have much of a choice.”

  “Then maybe I shouldn’t have gone to hear Martin Powers speak,” Gram said. “But I didn’t go there looking for trouble. Witch’s honor. I saw a brief interview on the TV and there was something strange about his aura. Still, I kept an open mind at the motivational seminar until he started talking about how he could solve everyone’s problems and how he had the secret to happiness but would only share it if paid a large sum of money. Even the most powerful of witches can’t guarantee someone’s happiness. But Powers was doing that, teasing the people there with promises he couldn’t keep. Even so, I should have walked away. I shouldn’t have created a scene. If I’d just kept my mouth shut then that mass exodus wouldn’t have occurred. I didn’t use any magic to cause that,” Gram said. “I just spoke the truth.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m sure there are other motivational speakers out there who help people with self-awareness and confidence and that sort of thing. Martin Powers just wasn’t one of them.”

  “Tristin thought Powers has a thing against witches because one of his ancestors was involved as a judge in the Salem witch trials. He admitted that he might have told Powers that we have special powers.”

  “That’s not possible. I cast a spell to remove your confession of being a witch from Tristin’s memory,” Gram said.

  “Which lasted until recently, when he found the file he’d put on his computer just in case we did something to make him forget.”

  “When did you learn all this?”

  “Tristin was here yesterday.”

  “What? Why am I just hearing this now?” Gram demanded.

  “Because it’s been crazy around here. The bottom line is that Damon took care of Tristin.”

  “He killed him?”

  “No, he compelled him and sent him packing. He also had Tristin’s computer files destroyed. I think we’ve heard the last of him,” Zoe said.

  “What about Powers?”

  “Damon also sent Bob back to Boston after compelling him to forget about finding us.”

  “But if Powers thinks we are witches—”

  “We don’t know that that is the case. Maybe he ignored Tristin’s comments.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “Let’s hope what?” Damon said, strolling into Zoe’s bedroom as if he owned the place.

  Zoe pointed to the surveillance camera on the crown molding. “Read the transcript or watch the recording.”

  “Look, I know you’re stressed out—”

  “Damn right, I mean darn right I’m stressed out.” Zoe leapt to her feet. No way was she staying in bed with Damon in the room.

  “Zoe just informed me that you took care of Tristin for her,” Gram said.

  “For her and for Vamptown.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No thanks necessary,” Damon said.

  “Then will you accept my thanks for sticking up for us at the trial?” Gram said.

  Damon shook his head. “Again, no thanks necessary.”

  “Would it kill you to just accept her thanks?” Bella said with an impatient swish of her tail.

  “He’s immortal,” Zoe said, repeating the words he’d said to her. “So obviously it wouldn’t kill him.”

  “You wouldn’t know it by the way he’s acting,” Bella said. “Show him your mother’s necklace.”

  Zoe reluctantly did so. “It’s amethyst.”

  “Catherine the Great’s favorite stone,” Bella said.

  “And I care about that because?” Damon said.

  “Because the necklace has a bear carved into it.”

  “A protection amulet against demons,” Damon said.

  “See?” Bella said. “I told you he’d know what it meant.”

  “Does it work?” Zoe asked.

  “It’s an old wives’ tale. A myth,” Damon said.

  There was no reason for Zoe to be disappointed. She already had a protection spell. She didn’t need an amulet.

  “You look exhausted,” Gram told her. “Try to get some rest. Take a nap.”

  Great. So it had finally come to this. Now Zoe had to nap before she could kick demon butt. She had never needed a nap before. A sniff of peppermint essential oil and she was usually ready to go.

  But then she’d never dealt with demons before. Or hot vampires. What happened to vampires being cool, pale, and all shimmery? Was the hot thing unique to Damon?

  Gram was right. Zoe was exhausted. And thinking about hot vampires wasn’t helping, which is why she made no protest as Gram and Damon left her alone to rest. Alone … with Bella.

  The gray cat sat beside her on the bed. “Lie back and I’ll tell you a bedtime story about how I became a familiar.”

  “You never talk about that,” Zoe said.

  “Be quiet and listen. Once upon a time there was a beautiful, brilliant woman who married a count and became a countess who was a close confidante of Catherine the Great. They didn’t have Viagra in those days so the marriage with the much older count was a bust. But this countess was smart enough to make good connections and not get caught up in the backstabbing and the espionage taking place on a daily basis at court. I avoided any mention of the king of Prussia like the plague. Not that he had the plague, although Catherine’s husband, who had a similar problem getting it up, had smallpox before they were married. He was German as was Catherine, whose birth name was Sophia. But this isn’t about them. It’s about me. I had a great life until an evil witch turned me into a familiar and I had to do her bidding. The end.”

  “That’s it?” Zoe said.

  “What? You were expecting and then they lived happily ever after? Didn’t happen. When she died, I became the familiar to her daughter and so on until finally we left Russia for London before the Revolution. From there we traveled to Boston first class. The witches became more and more difficult and my life sucked until I was sent to you.”

  “Why did the witch turn you?” Zoe said.

  “She was jealous of my beauty and brains.”

  “That’s sad.”

  Bella eyed her suspiciously. “Are you hormonal or something?”

  Zoe blinked back tears. She didn’t know why she felt sad, she just did. Like she needed a reason after what she’d been through lately.

  “I could use some pet therapy,” she said.

  “Get a dog,” Bella said.

  Zoe’s lips trembled.

  Bella shook her head but moved closer until she was curled against Zoe’s side. Once there she started purring. “Better?”

  Zoe smoothed her hand over Bella’s head. “Yes, thank you.”

  “Go to sleep.”

  Zoe woke in time for dinner. She felt guilty wasting time that way and tried to make up for it by spending the rest of the evening alternating between going through the Adams Book of Spells and the Internet searching for a connection between the equinox and demons or any reference to the Book of Darkness.

  The closest she got was a reference in their Book of Spells with drawings of demons with claws surrounded by flames. She’d never seen this page before. That was the problem with magic. Things had a way of appearing and disappearing at awkward times. Sometimes there were meanings behind it, or messages trying to be sent. But trying to decipher it all was not an exact science by any means.

  Gram, still shaken from the Vamptown Council meeting, had been unusually quiet during their meal and had retired to bed early.

  Damon focused on his phone.

  “Anything new?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  Her cell phone rang. It was Daniella. “I’m so sorry about Tanya calling you and your grandmother in front of the council. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you.”

  “They told me you couldn’t attend because you’re not a member of the council.”

  “Because I’m a hybrid.”
r />   “Did you have flames at the cupcake shop?”

  “No. You know, I may have been a bit off on my premonition. It could have been the flames through the floor vents and not that the entire neighborhood would be incinerated. Not that I saw anything incinerated. I didn’t mean that.”

  “So what are you saying? That the precipitating event you listed before may not be a problem? That it’s okay to … you know.”

  “You’re asking if it’s okay to have sex with Damon?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s your call. I do know there is a very powerful bond between you two. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s your destiny.”

  Daniella’s words stayed with Zoe long after she’d ended the call.

  It wasn’t logical but Zoe was dealing with legends and magic, not logic. She was also dealing with demons, darkness, and doom.

  She wasn’t someone who used sex like chocolate to feel better after a bad day. At least, she never had been in the past.

  Maybe when this was all over, if it went well and the demons were demolished and good won over evil then … maybe then …

  Oh, who was she kidding? There was no guarantee that good would win over evil. Even Pat said the odds weren’t in their favor. Zoe wasn’t giving up, but would it be so wrong to …

  Yes, it would. Anything that didn’t directly apply to destroying the demons and the book that called them forth was a distraction. It was wrong to think or speculate or fantasize about anything other than those goals.

  “Something is wrong,” Damon said.

  “Ya think?” Demons were threatening and she was thinking about sex with Damon. Hell yes, something was wrong.

  “I haven’t heard from Simon. He hasn’t responded to any of my attempts to contact him.”

  “Who is Simon?”

  “My sire. The Demon Hunter who turned me.”

  “How did he do that?”

  “Simon used his fangs to open the vein on his wrist and then held it to my mouth, urging me to drink his blood. I did and that created an irrevocable bond between us. Because when you are turned, the first blood you get is from the vampire that turned you. He taught me how to survive the transition.”

  “Survive it? I thought vampires are immortal.”

  “You aren’t a vampire until you survive the transition. I did. Some don’t. After that, Simon taught me how to hunt.”