by Cecilia Lane
He snorted. “That’s not going to happen. So, we have a resort full of frozen guests, one witch held captive, another that doesn’t know how to banish a demon, and no way to reach the outside world. Those don’t seem like such bad odds.”
“Are you insane?”
He shrugged. “My supervisor Eustace thinks so. Sent me on this damned vacation for some rest and relaxation. Nothing is more relaxing than saving the world. I have a box of weapons in my SUV that we need to get to. Then we can get to your house and start tracking the demon. Are you ready, witch?”
Was she ready? She wanted to rest for a thousand years before even thinking of running wild through the woods again. But the faces of the guests frozen in the middle of the resort flashed in her mind, quickly followed by the contorted and snarling face of her mother. She didn’t have the luxury of rest when they were all in danger.
She nodded with determination. “I’m ready.”
Chase padded toward the front door. Ari followed after him and adjusted the pack on her back. He eased open the front door and scanned the view for any apparent threat. Then his nostrils flared and she knew he was taking in the scents all around. His lips turned down in a frown.
“It’s all a mash of sulphur and decay. It’s all fresh. Everything is so crisscrossed.”
She chewed on her lip and expected him to make a decision to move. When he stayed silent, she said, “We can’t just stay here. We have to do something.”
He nodded after a second. “Okay. SUV, then your home.”
He swung the door open and she followed him out, shutting the door behind her. There wasn’t any reason to invite the demons to wait inside.
Chase crouched and went straight for the rear door of the SUV. He held his keys tightly so they didn’t rattle and turned the key in the lock. The door hatch opened with a quiet hiss. He reached inside and hauled a large box forward, throwing open the lid.
Ari shook her head at the contents. “You must be a joy to get through airport security.”
“Agency issue. Never leave home without it. Here, put this on.” He looped a thin chain around her neck. Hanging low against her chest was a leather holder and a shiny badge. She’d never seen an Arcane Affairs Agency badge in real life.
“It’ll protect you from demon possession. In case anything goes wrong.”
“Chase…” She fingered the badge and felt the prickling of tears in her eyes. He’d gone against the demon twice and taken wounds, but she hadn’t thought of him as anything but solid. That he considered his death as a potential outcome frightened her. She didn’t want to lose him to her mistake.
He shook his head and started pouring through the box. “You’re the witch. You need to banish the thing. We can’t even take a chance of you getting possessed.”
There were several boxes of bullets, some of which he handed to her. A machete was strapped to the underside of the lid, along with several sharpened stakes. He handed her a pot of salt and she knew it’d do well against demons if they would stay still long enough to not overwhelm her, which she didn’t see as a likely possibility. Her pack quickly grew thick with contents.
She zipped the bag shut and pushed his hand away. He wanted her to throw in a wooden stake? She’d likely stumble and impale herself on it. “No more. I can’t fit anything else in if I’m going to put anything from my house in here.”
Chase jerked his head upward and toward the other cabins. “Shit,” he swore.
Ari froze and looked in the same direction. She couldn’t hear what he heard, but it didn’t take long before the rustling and chattering reached her ears. The lesser demons were coming.
“Go to your home. Get whatever you need and lock yourself in there.”
His voice was thick with his bear even before he finished his sentence. Ari didn’t wait for him to finish shifting. She ran for her front door, still wide open from the previous night. She slammed it shut behind her as soon as she was inside. Even through the door, she could hear the growls and roars of the bear tearing into the pack of decaying rat demons.
She caught her breath quickly and urged her heart to still. She needed to find the trinket in the wreckage of the living room.
The bookcase where it had last lived was on its side and all the contents were strewn across the floor. She knelt and started sifting through the books and broken picture frames and others knick-knacks. She stuffed a few more bundles of herbs and trinkets into the pack, but she couldn’t find the one she needed.
Finally, she shoved at the overturned couch against the wall to clear room to look under the overturned coffee table. It scraped loudly on the floor. Ari again got down on her hands and knees and lifted the blanket the draped sadly over the side. The trinket was pinned beneath the back of the couch and the floor.
Gritting her teeth and digging her fingers into the arm of the couch, she ignored the sting of the strained cut on her palm. She needed the trinket more than she needed to be in pain. She inched the heavy couch up and over, up and over, until the bronze woman was freed.
A hiss and the smell of rot made her turn toward the hallway. Lesser demons started coming out of the rooms in the back of the house. Their red eyes focused on her while their sharp teeth snapped in fury.
She stuffed the trinket in her bag and threw open the front door, slamming it behind her and, she hoped, trapping the demons inside. Their claws scratched at the wood, then quieted. She didn’t want to wait for whatever the monsters planned to do next.
Chase had lured the pack back toward the main cabins and away from her home. She couldn’t even see the bear anymore, but she could still hear him. She jumped down the stairs and tried to figure out her next move.
The demons decided for her. A fresh wave of them poured out from under her home and more came from the direction Chase had led them. They hadn’t taken the bait, or they had heard enough commotion from their comrades to know to turn back around.
Ari ran away from her home, away from Chase’s cabin, and away from the resort. She didn’t stick to any trails. She simply ran and still they came after her.
She stumbled forward and caught herself against the trunk of a tree. She tried to swing out to her right, but the pack surged forward. There were too many to pick her way through, more than attacked them at the cabins.
Ari turned to the left and was again blocked by the mass of the lesser demon pack. They tumbled over one another in their effort to get at her. The only direction was straight ahead. She pushed off the tree and ran.
Branches whipped by her and tore at her hair. She clutched the pack in her arms and tried to dig out the pot of salt without spilling everything onto the ground. Sharp teeth nipped at her ankles and calves and drove her forward. She tried to turn away, but they were herding her to one place.
The mass faded away as soon as her feet touched in the clearing used by her coven. She saw why they slipped back into the woods, though the rustling in the brush hinted that they were still near and waiting for her to try and leave.
The summoning circle had been redrawn, though it wasn’t quite right when she glanced down. It wasn’t the circle she had drawn the previous night with the intention of bringing snakes from the earth. The circle was red and angry and she felt the evil of it in her bones. More lesser demons crawled out of the circle and faded away into the brush around the clearing.
Above it, hanging in the air as she had in the cave, floated her mother.
Chapter Eight
“The little witch has finally arrived.”
Ariadne turned in a slow circle, her eyes wide. The demon stepped out of the trees behind her. Its malformed body swaggered past her and toward her mother. “No!” She started toward them but stopped at the demon’s raised hand.
“Tsk, tsk, little witch. You didn’t have permission to move. This one was so willing to obey. There was hardly any fight in her at all.” The demon stroked a feathered hand down her mother’s face.
Ari chilled at the words. Instead of
snarling as she had before, her mother stared blankly ahead. Ari didn’t want to lose herself to the demon as her mother evidently had.
“Mama? Mama look at me!” Her voice shook as she demanded her mother’s attention and received nothing but the demon’s cackle.
She felt as if a knife had been pushed under her ribs. Each second her mother didn’t move or fight was another twist in her side. Her mother had always been strong. She ruled over their tiny family coven and taught the girls everything they knew about their craft. Even her defiance to speak or move after Raina’s disappearance had been about a contest of wills. Dangling in the air and looking forward with dead eyes, she had been broken by the demon.
A distant roar told her Chase had discovered she wasn’t in her home. The lesser demons surrounding the clearing chittered and gnashed their teeth in anticipation.
The demon growled. “That bear has hurt more of my pretties! You’ll have to summon more of them forward, my sweet.”
He stroked another hand down her mother’s face. It turned its back on Ari. One long fingernail pressed into her mother’s arm and dragged downward. Her mother didn’t wince or make any noise as blood welled up and sprinkled onto the summoning circle below her.
Another chill ran down Ari’s spine. The demon was using her mother as a slow-bleeding sacrifice for the summoning circle. The lesser demons crawled from the earth at a faster rate. Her instincts told her to take the chance and run. But Ari kept her eyes locked on the demon. She could still try the trinket.
Her fingers struggled to unzip the overstuffed bag. She shoved the bulky pieces inside away from the zipper to ease the tension, but the items clinked together. She had only partly opened the pack when the demon focused its attention back to her.
“What do you have there? You wouldn’t do anything to harm your mother, would you?”
The rasping voice changed tone. Ari cocked her head to hear it better. It tinkled in her ears, like bells on the wind.
“Bring your bag to me.”
Ari shook her head and resisted the urge to walk toward the monster.
It crooked a long finger and beckoned her forward. The tinkling bells rang in her ears and sweetened the demon’s voice. “Let me see what’s inside.”
Her arm dropped to the side. One hand held the pack by the handle.
“Come to me, little witch. If you do as I say, maybe I’ll let you live.”
She tried to shake away the words and clear her head. Align herself with a demon? No, it wouldn’t do.
Her free hand latched on the Arcane Affairs badge around her neck. Her thumb rubbed over the raised metal and traced the edges. It protected against possession, Chase said. The demon couldn’t take her over and force her body to do its bidding. But it could use its words and ensorcell her.
“One step. Come now,” it crooned.
Ari blinked. She wanted to step forward. It would place her near her mother. She needed to save her mother. One foot dragged against the ground and carried her one step closer.
“You want to give me your magic, don’t you? It’ll make everything puff away into smoke. No more hurt in the world. No more shifters stealing your family away. You’ll have your sister back. Your mother will speak again.”
Raina would be reunited with them. Her mother would be overjoyed. They would be a family again. They were happy when they were all together.
Her back foot scraped against the ground and she inched closer.
An increasingly small voice in her head screamed at her. It was terrified of reaching the demon. It told her to stand still, to turn back around, to face the lesser demons in the woods rather than put herself anywhere near the demon. It wouldn’t give her anything in return; it would destroy the world.
She snuffed the voice into silence.
A large bear roared and rushed into the clearing. She’d never seen anything more beautiful in her life. The rich, brown fur nearly shimmered in the light and with the rage that flowed out of him. The sharp claws were ready to protect her and sink into their enemy. The bear was gorgeous in his ferocity.
Chase placed himself between the demon and Ari and roared again. The demon snarled and advanced on the new threat.
The sound of the bear’s roar echoed through her body. The demon’s hold on her mind faded as the reverberations bounced through her, clearing away the cobwebs the demon had planted inside her. She shook her head and the last of the demon’s fog disappeared.
She snatched the pack up and dug out the trinket. The bronze woman was cold in her hands. Chase and the demon circled one another, striking out and testing the other’s defenses. They’d fought twice before and learned some of the other’s tricks, but neither would chance a surprise.
Ariadne stroked the trinket and focused all her energy on the demon. Its freakish body jerked and stiffened in its slow circling. It swung its head around to face her. Another snarl formed on its bloodless lips.
But it stayed still.
A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead. She felt the trinket drawing her power into the bronze statue, but she also felt the pull it placed on the demon. It fought against the magic that held it in place and she fought to keep it still.
“Chase,” she said through gritted teeth. She should have let him load her up with the machete. He could hack at the hellish beast while it stayed immobile. Would decapitation work on a greater demon, or would the head still laugh at them while it rolled on the ground?
The bear snapped its jaws around one of the demon’s thin arms. It screamed and writhed in the bear’s grasp. Ari struggled to keep it bound by the trinket. It fought like an animal caught in a trap, crazed and desperate to break free.
The lesser demons surged into the clearing and suddenly her focus was divided. The rats crawled and gnawed on the bear biting their master.
They didn’t stop with only harassing the bear. Some ran toward Ari. She kicked them away as much as she could, but their teeth found her legs and feet. Their claws scratched at her skin.
The demon took advantage of her broken concentration. One last push against the magic holding it in place and it shook off her control. It tore its body free from the arm in Chase’s mouth with a sickening squelch, then disappeared into smoke.
The lesser demons abandoned their attack and scattered into the woods. Chase lumbered after them, biting and swiping those he could reach and sending a few more of them to their smoky deaths.
But Ari was more concerned about her mother. Instead of vanishing with the demon, the woman thudded heavily to the ground. Ari rushed to her mother’s crumpled body.
The demon had played one final trick and stole her mother’s life.
The harsh red lines of the summoning circle faded away to nothing. The last lesser demon to try crawling its way into the mortal realm became stuck, half in and half out of the dirt. It squealed loudly until a human Chase dispatched it with a swift kick.
She was barely aware of Chase kneeling by the forgotten pack and digging out the soft shorts he’d had her carry for him. The world was a mess of color and sound and confusion outside of her immediate space.
Ari cradled her mother’s body. She always joked with her sister that their mother must have been enchanting her appearance to look younger. The time with the demon had aged her at least twenty years, more than could be accounted for a vain enchantment. Her jet black hair had turned as white as fresh snow. Wrinkles lined her face. Even her skin appeared thinner.
Ari pressed her tear-slicked cheek against her mother’s cool forehead and wept. Sobs were torn from her chest and she sucked in breath only when her body forced her to pause in her sorrow.
It was her fault. Her foolish plan to banish shifters from the resort had caused her own mother’s death.
She felt utterly empty inside. The despair ate at her very soul until she only saw the darkness the demon meant to bring to the earth. She knew it had meant to cause her pain and it had succeeded.
Chase knelt by her. He didn’t say
a word, but he didn’t need to. She knew there was blame from him, though it would never be as much as the blame she directed at herself.
“I’ve lost everyone.” She whispered quietly.
“You haven’t lost her yet. She’s still breathing, however faintly.” His voice was quiet and he tentatively reached out to hold a hand just under her mother’s nose.
Ari held her breath. She didn’t want to hope and have her mother lost a second time. But if Chase could feel some tiny spark of life that her dull human senses failed to detect...? The demon had been using her as a conduit to summon his minions into the world. It would be just like Ari’s own brush with death after exhausting her magical ability.
He nodded in affirmation and bent to scoop her mother into his arms. “Quickly now. Grab the pack and trinket. We’ll head to my cabin and bundle her up in all the blankets we can find and turn the heat up.”
Her mother looked so small in Chase’s arms. He held her close and they trekked the short distance back to the cabins.
The resort had returned to an eerie quiet. No voices carried on the air. The world seemed to be holding its breath and waiting for whatever would happen next.
Ari slid the glass door open and pushed aside the blinds so Chase could trudge up the deck stairs and straight into the cabin. He didn’t pause in the living room and went right into the bedroom to gently lay her mother on the bed. He had wrapped all the blankets and sheets around her thin frame by the time Ari fiddled with the thermostat and entered the room.
She couldn’t see the rise and fall of her chest or hear the weak beating of her heart, but she was sure Chase listened closely.
“She’s not getting any weaker,” he murmured and made room for her.
Ari took a seat on the bed and rubbed the bulky side where her mother’s arm would be underneath the mass of thick blankets. “How long until she wakes? How long was I out?”
“Hours, probably. But Ari… She’s in worse shape than you were.”