I went weak in the knees at his romantic gesture. Desire coursed through me again. A battle raged inside as emotions of both love and hate fought for supremacy. My head felt as though it would explode.
“You look a bit pale. I have something that will make you feel better.” Gage raised his hand, and a woman carried over a tray of fluted glasses filled with red liquid. Gage whipped one of the glasses off the tray and held it in front of me. “It’s a special punch. I know you’ll love it. Drink.”
My fingers wrapped around the stem of the glass. I watched in horror as my hand raised and my lips touched the glass’s edge. I struggled to keep myself from drinking it, but my fingers tipped up and I felt the cool, bubbling liquid slide down my throat. Was he trying to poison me again? What was in this drink?
Gage gave me a wide smile. “Are you ready, my love?”
I looked around, confused. “Is the party going to start?”
“I wanted to keep it a surprise.” He leaned in and gave me a kiss. When he pulled away, he said, “We aren’t having a party tonight.” He waved his arm out toward the square. “We’re getting married. This is our wedding.”
The glass slipped from my fingers and shattered against the ground. For a moment, I didn’t seem able to speak or move. And then I forced out, “I don’t understand. Our…wedding?”
“Yes, my heart, I did this all for you. Our friends are here with us tonight to watch us come together as husband and wife.” He waved his hand again and music filled the air.
The spell seemed to reassert its influence on me as Gage guided me up to the altar, positioning me next to it. Or perhaps Gage slipped something in my drink to make sure I was docile for the event. Whatever it was, I felt different this time. I could still think in a slow, muddled way, while inside I struggled to regain control of myself. I was like a drunken fool trying to walk a straight line. For a second, I felt like I was pushing through—I almost made myself turn and run away from the altar…away from him—but then I slipped back into that oppressive fog and forgot why I wanted to run.
The ceremony began, but I was having a hard time focusing my eyes. We stood up on the altar, and the air around me was thick with the smell of smoke and blood. A bell rang, and when I looked down at my stinging wrist, I saw I was bleeding.
Gage stood in front of me, a dagger in his hand. Blood dripped from my cut wrist into the golden cup I’d spied earlier. Then Gage cut his own wrist, and his blood dripped into the cup to mix with mine. My blood was red—Gage’s was black. He reached over the altar and handed the cup to a young girl. The demon, I thought foggily.
She stood in front of the altar wearing a black robe with her dark hair braided into a crown around the top of her head. A red cord dangled from her hands.
Gage pulled me down until my knees hit the ground. He knelt beside me, holding my hand.
My temples pounded. I tried to shake my head, tried to clear my thoughts, but it didn’t help. I felt as though I was looking at the world from behind cloudy glass. I could see what was happening, but my reactions weren’t coming through. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
The only clear thought pounding in my head was that I needed to find Mildred.
The demon stood in front of us. The smoke from the candles and incense gathered around her, wreathing her in shadow and making her form indistinct. In my fogged vision, she seemed to morph back and forth from one shape to another—from an evil creature made of shadow to an innocent girl raised from the same family as me.
She took the cup and pressed it to my lips. My mouth opened and I choked down the warm liquid of our mingled blood, gagging and choking as my body struggled to reject it even as my mouth forced it down. The taste of salty copper and rotten meat assaulted my senses.
The demon girl held the cup into the air and began turning. Left, then right. Front, then back. Each time she turned, she chanted words that echoed with the dark chorus of the demon’s voice. I thought I heard other voices screaming and wailing in horror. My mind immediately jumped to my father and brother. Through my mental haze, I knew they were somewhere in there, fighting like I was, but powerless to change the outcome.
The demon lifted the cup high into the air. She looked up, and my head rose with hers. I could clearly see the full moon up in the sky, low on the horizon.
She put down the cup and unwound the red cord from around her wrist. She grabbed my hand and then Gage’s, placing mine on top of his and then slowly winding the red cord around them. The cord sucked up the blood from my still-bleeding wrist and the darker black blood from Gage’s. Where the trails of blood met, they seemed to recoil, refusing to mix. Her words floated on the air around me, and I struggled to understand what was going on. I found myself focusing on unimportant little details—the wispy smoke drifting slowly in the still air, the smell of blood and brimstone that seemed to radiate from the demon, and the murmur of the watching crowd each grabbed my attention in turn. My mind was having a hard time making sense of it all.
And there was no one to save me, no one to stop the madness.
A small group of people rose from the front row and gathered around us. Chanting, they circled us slowly. The demon began shouting and drowned out their words—I could just barely hear them murmuring. She shouted at the moon in a language I couldn’t understand, a language I somehow knew was not meant for human ears. It made me want to cover my ears and hide from the awful noise, but even that amount of control was beyond me. It droned on—the sound of horror and pain tearing through the night air.
I watched in wonder as the honey-colored moon began to change. A red haze slowly slid over its surface, covering it—turning it into a blood-red moon. I shivered at the dreadful omen.
It continued shifting in color until it gave off a true, vibrant red. Mist slid across the ground, though it looked like the earth was oozing thick blood in the moonlight. The mist slithered up the stairs until it curled around our bodies. I felt goose bumps rise on my skin everywhere it touched me.
I looked at the girl demon—she was still shouting at the moon, but the fog surrounding her was darker, more solid. It grew and turned from mist into a solid shadow. To my horror, the shadow grew bigger and bigger behind her until it towered over her, morphing into a shape that resembled a horned monster.
And then it disappeared.
The circling people faded away from us—whatever role they were supposed to play was done. Gage rose to his feet and pulled me up until I was standing next to him.
In his hands was a necklace. He lifted it into the air, and I watched a large tear-shaped red jewel twinkle in the candlelight. It was bright in the moon’s red glow. Gage gently placed the necklace over my head. I felt a warm, tingling sensation when the stone fell against my chest.
There was a roar of voices shouting loudly as hands clapped in celebration.
Gage leaned in and kissed me on the lips. Lips that were cold, like a serpent. The cold spread from that point of contact all the way through me. But there was a part of me that relished the kiss…that felt desire hum through me at Gage’s touch.
When he pulled away, a wide smile lit his face. His fingers came up and brushed against my cheek. “There, now you’re finally mine. Now you are my wife.”
The portion of me that was free from the spell cried out with shock and horror. But another part of me was thrilled to finally be his, forever.
Gage pulled me down the altar steps, his arm possessively wrapped around my waist. The wedding guests came up to congratulate us, but he kept us moving purposefully through the crowd toward a building across the square. Gage wasn’t rude—he was charming, greeting each guest in turn—but he never stopped moving.
I looked back. The demon girl stood alone in front of the altar, her doll clutched in one hand. As I watched, a look of surprise crossed her face and she turned to the sky.
I followed her gaze to see that the moon had lost its red haze—it was honey colored again. On the horizon, sto
rm clouds raced toward us. Already, wisps of cloud crossed the moon’s path and blocked out the stars. The storm front was only moments away, and it had appeared out of nowhere.
Gage pulled me tight against him and we began to run toward a building on the side of the square. The wind whipped past us fiercely, the sky full of dark clouds now, and drops of rain hit my skin. The night had turned from calm to chaotic in a matter of seconds. Gage and I ducked into the building just as the rain began to pelt us in earnest.
Wendy was tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Jacob stood to the side, surrounded by two men. His right eye was swollen shut and blood dripped down his face from a long red gash on his temple. Through my haze, I lazily wondered why he didn’t wipe the blood away before noticing his hands were chained together.
I looked back and forth from Wendy to Jacob. I vaguely remembered telling Jacob to take Wendy and run. What had happened? Somewhere deep inside I felt a wave of panic, but the emotion seemed so very far away. Swirling on the surface of my mind were happiness and giddiness—they overwhelmed everything else.
I heard a moan and my eyes swung back to Wendy. A look of pure anguish filled her face as she struggled against the ropes binding her to the chair. Jacob lurched toward her, but one of the guards clubbed him hard with a forearm to the side of the head and Jacob fell to his knees.
The demon child appeared beside Wendy, laughed, and began to dance around her.
Wendy seemed unaware of what was going on. Her eyes rolled back in her head and a slew of words I didn’t understand flew from her mouth. Her body began to shake uncontrollably. When she looked at me again, I knew even through my mental haze that she was not Wendy anymore. Whatever was staring back at me was not human. It was something old, something evil.
The demon girl stopped in front of Wendy, reached out, and touched her forehead. At the contact, Wendy’s body immediately started to convulse. Her arms and legs whipped up as far as they could against the restraints. As I watched, the chair rose off the ground. It floated with Wendy still in it, her body twisting and turning as she screamed out obscenities. After a few terrifying moments, the chair fell back to the floor with a loud thump, and Wendy became still.
Was she still alive? I was still struggling to understand why she was tied to the chair and what was going on.
Wendy raised her head and looked directly at me. Her eyes were white. There was no color in them at all. A wicked laugh came out of her mouth, and green foam spewed from between her lips.
Even from behind the mental fog, my primitive survival instinct was pleading at me to run and get as far away from this place as possible.
The demon child moved away from Wendy and turned to Gage, seeming older and wiser somehow. “Bring your bride. It’s time.”
Gage turned and took my hand. “Darling, it’s time for you to use your magic.”
“It is?” I asked dumbly, trying to clear my thoughts. My magic?
He squeezed my hand. “You must do this one thing for me, and then we can go off on our honeymoon.”
My eyes met his and love washed through me. I’d never felt so content. Never so happy.
He is all that I want and need.
The world exploded.
A bolt of lightning struck a wall, blowing chunks of burning shrapnel across the room. I was thrown off my feet and slammed hard into the ground. After catching my breath, I sat up and looked around the room.
The guards and Jacob, who stood nearest to the point of impact, had flown through the air. Glass, chunks of wood, and plaster covered their bodies.
The impact had thrown Wendy backward across the room, too. She had slammed into the far wall, and the wooden chair had shattered, dropping her to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
The demon girl, on the other hand, stood unharmed, calmly plucking smoking debris from her robe. She turned and bent over the guards. I couldn’t see Jacob, but one of the guards was a mangled corpse. The other lay twitching in the throes of death. The demon girl reached down and dipped one finger into the blood seeping from an open wound on the suffering guard. She raised the finger to her mouth and licked it. A wide smile broke across her face and a shiver of revulsion sped down my spine.
Gage slowly turned toward me. That was when I saw that he had his hand wrapped around a jagged piece of timber sticking out of his gut. “No!” I cried out and reached for him, but he waved me back. With a grimace, he pulled hard on the piece of wood until it finally jerked free with a gush of black blood. Gage staggered for a moment, then caught himself. The flow of blood slowed, then stopped completely, and the hole in his stomach began to close. Relief filled me. Gage was healing himself. Gage would be all right.
He then turned and stared out through the opening in the wall.
I could see the center of the square through the smoking ruins. To my astonishment, Mildred stood there, her hands raised in the air. She wore a fancy gown—though it was torn—there were burn marks across her shoulder, and I could see a deep, long, jagged cut on her skin. The bottom of her gown was blackened and scorched as though she’d walked through fire. The rain washed blood and ash across her face and through her white hair in long streaks. Lightning flashed again in the near distance and white light shimmered around Mildred’s body as if in response—she glowed like a lit candle in the night.
When Gage saw her, a slow smile spread across his face.
Before my eyes, Mildred disappeared. I looked around frantically. There was a voice inside me crying out for Mildred’s help.
Just as I looked away, she reappeared outside the building’s crumbled opening. “Let her go,” Mildred commanded.
She was looking directly at me, but I felt so confused. My thoughts were so sluggish. Who? Me? I felt so perplexed by the turn of events. I don’t want to go anywhere without Gage…
Gage’s smile turned cold and calculating. “Think about what you’re doing, old woman. I’m not someone you want as an enemy.”
Mildred’s hands rose into the air threateningly. “You think I’ll just stand by while you let the legion loose?”
Gage laughed out loud. “You think you can stop me?” He calmly turned and walked over to the dying guard. Without any sympathy toward the moaning, gasping man at his feet, he bent down, placed his hands into the growing pool of blood, and…the blood began to disappear. I watched in astonishment. Somehow, he was drawing the blood into his hands, absorbing it into himself.
The still-healing wound in his stomach flared with red light, and I watched in confused wonder as the injury completely disappeared, as if it had never existed. When he stood back up, his hands were covered in blood, which slid down his fingers to drip to the floor. Then the dripping slowed and the blood began to stretch and grow, morphing until Gage held a red blazing sword in his hand. For a moment I wondered if any of this was real. Was I hallucinating?
I looked over at Mildred. She was staring at Gage with wide eyes. Whatever I was seeing, Mildred was seeing it, too. This was real. Gage had just created a sword out of blood.
Gage began swinging the sword back and forth. The air sparkled with red and orange light as it moved.
Mildred’s expression didn’t change. There was no fear or insanity glowing in her eyes—she simply looked determined.
Without warning, there was a loud crash and shouting. Mildred, Gage, and I turned toward the source of the noise in unison.
Dean burst through a section of the bramble bush, sliding to a stop in front of Gage. His eyes followed the movement of the bloody sword, narrowing as Gage smiled at his caution. He looked around for a weapon as people streamed out of the buildings on either side of him. Without taking his eyes off Gage, he walked sideways to where a long truss from the broken building laid on the ground and stooped to pick it up.
Mildred refocused her attention on Gage. “Maybe I can’t stop you, but I swear by everything holy, I’ll die trying.” She disappeared again, only to reappear at the edge of the bramble bush. I watched
as she got down on her knees and pushed her hands into the dirt below the bush. After a moment’s pause, the ground began to shake and the bush began to grow. Its branches reached out and headed toward Gage’s men. The ones closest to it screamed as thorns pushed into their clothes and skin.
With no reaction to the chaos, Gage headed outside with the demon child on his heels. I started after him and found myself outside, standing in the rain by his side. I tilted my head back and felt cool drops fall on my face. There was fear inside me—but it was centered on Gage’s safety.
The red decorative spotlights glittered in the rain, making the entire scene outside glow like a vivid sunset. All the while, lightning bolts streaked through the sky, hitting the ground and flinging bodies into the air.
Gage lifted his free hand, conjuring a black cloud in the air before him. He waved his hand and the cloud shot off, racing toward Mildred.
She saw it coming, wrenched her hands out of the dirt, and a bolt of lightning blasted inches from me. I felt an electric punch as the air around me came alive. I screamed as I was thrown off my feet for the second time that evening and smashed into the ground. My skin hummed—the hair on my arms and neck stood on end, tingling with energy.
I lay on the ground, stunned. My whole body felt as though a truck had hit me. But…something was different. When I got to my feet, I realized, finally, I could think. Thoughts of Gage were still there, but all the love that had overwhelmed my reason was shoved to the back of my mind.
For the moment, I was in control again.
On the spot where Mildred had stood there was only the dark cloud. It was twice as big as before and still growing. My chest tightened with worry. Was Mildred inside it? Did she use her magic to teleport away before it hit her?
Anger roared through me, blasting away the last remnants of confusion and doubt that clung to me. I felt the strength of it pumping through my blood. Gage had turned me into his plaything. He forced me to marry him. I felt sick all the way to my core. He needs to pay for what he did to me. With lethal intent, I raised my hands, and after a moment, heard howls on the wind. My spirit pack. I was finally free to use my powers.
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