“Wait,” he said to the man before the first manacle went on.
The hooded man paused, but said nothing.
“Tell her I’ll talk to her,” Damien said. “I’ll give her what she wants.”
“Damien!” Lily said, “Are… are you sure?”
“I have to,” he said.
“But what about Amber?”
“Amber will be okay. She can take care of herself. I’m more interested in taking care of you.”
Damien stood motionless for a moment while the hooded man hesitated. His heart was pounding, his neck throbbing, and his fingers twitching, but the manacle never went on his wrist. The man let Damien go, let the chain fall to the ground, and then circled back to the front of the room where he opened the door.
He pointed into the corridor and Damien took Lily’s hand before leaving the room. He knew what he was about to do was dangerous, that Acheris was a liar, and that Amber was vulnerable to the demonic more than she was to anything else. He knew all this, and battled with it along every step he took down the corridor.
The truth was this had stopped being all about Amber; it had become about Lily, too. She deserved a second chance at life.
***
Acheris guided me into a huge chamber with a vaulted ceiling, which went up so high it was like staring into a black hole. There were columns rising high into the darkness at specific intervals, and pews lined up in rows leading up to the foot of an altar and a podium. A rack of candles on either side of the altar, against the farthest wall, flickered silently against the dark providing the only illumination.
Given what I knew of her, her cult, and her background, I was surprised to find the room to be as devoid of pomp as it was. Where were the icons to Satan? The murals, the pentagrams, the ram’s head skulls? Where were the hooks hanging from the ceiling, the spikes and chains, and the bats? Hell, where were the giant oil paintings of her? This didn’t look anything like the kind of church I had pictured her doing her black masses in.
But I did hear a sound up in the darkness—almost like a shuffling or scuttling.
“You’re brave to have come alone, Red Witch,” she said as she knelt before the stone—or marble—podium. There, drawn into the front of it, was a single inverted pentagram. “After what I did to your friend.”
She’s trying to get a rise out of you, I thought, be calm—for Collette.
“You did nothing to my friend,” I said.
“Didn’t I kill her?” she asked, turning around with a pinched face. “The necromancer, right?”
“Death is only a transition. You liberated her.”
“Is that the line she’s been feeding you?”
“It’s the truth.”
“For some, maybe. Yes, some linger on as wretched little echoes of themselves, doomed to walk eternity searching for a resolution to an issue they had in life. The others go to the Underworld where they can play kings and queens until kingdom come and trumpets sound. But Necromancers… do you know what happens to them when they die?”
“I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”
“Come and sit,” Acheris said, tapping the front pew. She climbed the few risers to the altar and stood at the podium. Figuring I didn’t have much of a choice, I walked to the front of the church and sat down.
“I didn’t come here to talk about Collette,” I said.
“No,” Acheris said, “But you’re going to listen anyway. See, I’ve been doing this for a very long time. I’ve met Necromancers before—our mutual acquaintance Luther, for example—and I’ve also killed my fair share. They never quite linger on but they also don’t quite fall into the Underworld, though the pull is there. The draw to the infinite below is intense, inescapable, and constant. It pulls them down, down, down, and the more they hold on to the world of the living, the more the pull of the underworld tears at the fabric of their already pained existences until there’s nothing left of it. Then poof, they’re gone. So much for change.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to know that your friend Collette is in great pain, Amber. Pain you caused, pain she can’t escape from, pain that’s eventually going to end her and send her shrieking into a bleak, black place. That’s what happens when you steal from the dead.”
“Collette knew she was going to die,” I said.
“Of course she knew. Just like someone who sees the clouds change in the sky can tell a storm is coming, Collette knew exposure to you would eventually cost her the long life she had worked so hard to maintain. You bring everyone you touch suffering and misery and eventually, death.”
“I don’t kill or hurt anyone. You do.”
“Only to get to you, my dear,” she said. “And because you’re so adamant in not giving me what I want, others have gotten hurt and killed. But make no mistake; their blood is on your hands, Amber Lee. Collette, Lily, Joanna… Damien…”
“Damien?” I asked. “He isn’t dead.”
“By the skin of his teeth,” she said. “But you did almost kill him.”
My heart started to thump hard against my throat. “What are you talking about?”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” She pointed across the church. Damien was approaching with Lily from the back, a hooded man walking behind them like an enforcer—or an executioner. Damien was shirtless, and even against the dull lighting provided by the candles, I could see the remnants of what must have been a nasty wound on his chest. A wound caused by a claw.
Why hadn’t I seen it before? I hadn’t even smelled it! Did that just happen? Maybe I hurt him when I first appeared in his cell and didn’t even register it. Or… no, maybe it was magick that had kept the wound hidden from me. I stood, but Acheris flicked her wrist and an anvil of pressure on my shoulders sat me down again with a hard thud. “Damien,” I said, “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Go ahead, Damien,” Acheris said. “Tell her what she did to you.”
Damien gritted his teeth and gave me his eyes, but then he lowered his gaze. “It’s true,” he said, “It happened during one of your earlier changes.”
“What?” I asked, “I… I mean… how?”
“Aaron was trying to control you and he couldn’t, so I stepped in and you got me… almost killed me.”
“I… Damien… why didn’t you tell me I had done this to you?”
“Because he loves you,” Acheris said, opening her arms like a priest directing herself to a congregation. “Isn’t it ironic? He loves you and you nearly killed him. Sounds like what happened to me in the seventeen hundreds, only I did kill the guy.”
“Is she telling the truth?” I asked, “Do you love me?”
“Amber,” he said, “Don’t.”
“Damien, I need to know. I have a right to know.”
Damien looked at Lily, then at me, and nodded. All of the power in my legs went at once. Good thing I wasn’t standing. My stomach went cold, my face numb, and my heart began to sound a little like a jackhammer, to the point where I almost couldn’t hear anything else happening around me. He… loves me… after what he did, and the way we ended, he still loves me.
“See?” Acheris said. “All you do is cause pain and suffering to those around you.”
The tears came, then. I couldn’t stop them. Lily, Joanna, Collette, Damien—even Aaron and Frank. I was responsible for everything that had happened to them. No one else. Acheris was right. If I had just surrendered to her maybe Collette would still be alive, and maybe Damien, Lily, Joanna, and even Frank would be living happy lives right now.
Amidst the tears, I could feel the beast pawing at the door, bashing the door, begging to be released. But what good would it have done? I ran the risk of hurting them just as much as I stood a chance at hurting Acheris. In the end, what was it all for?
“I’ll give you what you want,” Damien said to Acheris.
I perked up.
Acheris grinned wickedly
. “You’ll give me the demon?”
Damien nodded.
“And in exchange?”
“In exchange, you promise to set us all free.”
“I’m afraid I can’t just let you all go, Damien. The Red Witch is a real thorn in my side.”
“Then she’ll surrender her power to you.”
Acheris moved away from the podium, stepped down from the altar, and looked at me. “Is the Red Witch ready to be human?” she asked.
I could barely even hear her. There was too much going on in my head right now, too many wrongs I had done, too many problems I had caused. I nodded. “Just let them go,” I said, letting the tiredness come. “I won’t resist.”
“Then we have a deal,” Acheris said to Damien. “But before I can make good on it, you have to make good on your part.”
I watched Damien’s eyes look for mine, then go back to Acheris. He nodded. “I’ll make good on my part,” he said, “But you’re going to have to do something for me first.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“You’re going to have to drop the wards you have hanging over me.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
Acheris regarded Damien with the same cautious curiosity of one cat eyeing another. Who are you? What are you? Why are you? The moment hung in the air like a blanket of tension smothering everything beneath it. Spots of sweat broke out on Damien’s forehead, and when he looked into Acheris’s eyes and saw the blackness within them, he noticed for the first time that he couldn’t see himself in their reflection because, like black holes, light couldn’t escape them.
“Drop the wards, you ask?” Acheris said, circling around Damien and Lily like a shark.
“If you want the demon, that’s what I need you to do,” Damien said.
“And why would I drop the wards?”
“Because you know I can’t defeat you on my own.”
“True.”
“And because of the two of us, I’m less of a liar than you are.”
“But you’re still a liar, yes? Or have we forgotten what you did at the cabin?”
Amber’s eyes rose up to meet Acheris, then they went to Damien. His heart leapt into his throat and he could feel his windpipe closing. “Shut up and drop the wards,” he said, “Otherwise you aren’t getting what you want.”
“I see. Very well.” She flicked her wrist and the tension—the magick—evaporated, leaving not a single trace of it having been there. “It’s done.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“Just like that. Now, the demon.”
Damien nodded. “Gimme a second,” he said, closing his eyes. “This isn’t going to be easy or painless.”
“Oh good; that’s the kind of magick I like.”
Stand back, he said in his mind, directing a subtle telepathic jolt to Amber and Lily. Amber perked up immediately, but Lily was a little slower. Too slow? Maybe. Up until that very moment, that millisecond, he hadn’t made up his mind about what he was going to do. If he was to release the demon from its prison within his own soul, it would likely try and find a host immediately, and with Acheris’s help Damien figured who it would take. But if he didn’t release it, Acheris would kill everyone in the room out of anger.
He could see her patience was running thin and didn’t like his chances.
Damien reached into his own soul, deep into himself, where only his own inner light served as a path, as illumination, as sanctuary. His soul was dark, darker than most, but it didn’t make him an evil person. A dark soul doesn’t predispose one to evil; it was the sign of someone touched heavily by it, nothing more. A mark. A reminder. And Damien dug into that reminder to pull, from out of himself, the thing which was darkest and brightest at the same time.
It wasn’t a nightmarish memory, it wasn’t an inner torment, and it wasn’t the demon; it was the Dark Fire.
When Damien opened his eyes they blazed green with sick light. Lily retreated, stumbling over a pew and falling to the floor. Amber stood and backed away, shielding her eyes from the light. Even Acheris had been given reason to step back, startled by what she was bearing witness to, but she didn’t react. Didn’t act, either. She simply stood there, bathed in the same green glow from his dream and just as stunned as the other onlookers.
“You want this demon?” Damien said. “Catch it.”
He tilted his head back, made his throat work, and when he opened his mouth green flame and patterns of light came roaring out, illuminating the interior of the church. From the ceiling a chorus of hissing and two-toned screeching fell, and when Amber tilted her head up she saw them. There were people up there; men and women dressed in rags, nothing more than skin and bones and wiry hair. They were stuck to the vaulted ceiling like spiders, defying the laws of gravity, and their eyes… even from down here she could see how they were white and rolled into their skulls, could see the way their mouths opened and unhinged themselves in a grotesque way.
And they were legion.
“Damien, no!” Amber said, but it was too late.
When Damien’s throat swelled to the size of a football, an entity made of black ink clawed its way out of his mouth. It screamed and hollered and the noise it made sang a song of agony unlike anything any human would ever experience. It was burning. The Dark Fire was hurting it, eating its inky black flesh, destroying its essence.
Acheris screamed and her hands came up. She made a pulling gesture and the creature climbing out of Damien’s throat came rushing out, its cry all but deafening to the human ear. Damien coughed and choked as his throat returned to its normal size, and he doubled over from the pain, but then something else happened. It was a tingling sensation first, but then it burned—and then the feeling caused him to scream.
The scar on his chest, the once-claw mark that had existed, was glowing. Tiny green embers seemed to burn outward from the inside, ripping the flesh apart again and eating whatever magick Acheris had used to heal the wound. Damien thought his heart was going to explode, thought he was going to die, but he knew he couldn’t die without doing what he needed to do.
He fell to his knees, looked up at Acheris, and let the Dark Fire spill out of him and race toward her. She struggled with the flames, screeching and shrieking, but it was the demon that was most vulnerable to Damien’s magick. In a manner of seconds, the black shape vanished under the might of the dark magick Damien had summoned. Destroyed. Gone forever. Consumed.
Damien put his arms out to prevent his face from hitting the stone floor as he fell, but he fell hard anyway.
“What... have you done,” Acheris said, eyes wide with disbelief.
“I lied,” Damien said.
***
Oh shit… is he dead?
My head was pounding, heart beating so hard my vision was starting to blacken in pulses, my chest so heavy I felt like it could topple me over. Damien wasn’t moving, his body was smoking, and the chorus of screeching and hissing falling from above like rain kept me from being able to make any kind of logical decisions. As the glow of the remaining Dark Fire faded away and the church once again fell into darkness, I knew I had to choose.
Attack Acheris in the confusion or help Damien?
I snapped out of the daze, dashed toward him, and threw myself at his side. The wolf was coming. I could feel it reaching for the surface, but I needed a moment to think. Just one!
“Damien?” I said, pulling his face up and tapping his cheek. “Damien, speak to me!”
“I’m sorry, Amber,” he said. His voice was weak and fading fast. “I didn’t mean to try and hurt you or Aaron.”
“No. You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m going to get you out of here, okay? Just hold on, Damien. Don’t you die on me too!”
My chest was starting to vibrate, and the pulses were flowing through my arms and into my fingers. I could feel my Power bubbling, like the wolf, rising to the surface. Acheris’s wards were down, and I was free. Without hesitating, I let Damien rest his head on t
he floor and stood, turned, and faced Acheris.
“That was unfortunate,” she said. “But c’est la vie, right?”
“You’re done,” I said. “This is where you end.”
“Do you really believe that, Amber?”
My Power came flowing out me in a surge. I screamed, pushed my hands out, and sent a wave of telekinetic energy hurtling at her. Pews parted as the wave of power rushed at Acheris. Her hands came up in defense of the power, but she was too late. The pulse hit her square in the chest and sent her to her back a few feet from the altar.
I watched my hands seethe and crackle with flicking red and silver light. This is new, I thought, but I didn’t question it. Instead I approached. Acheris stood, straightened her dress, and brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face. She scowled and said, “I’ll give you that one, Red Witch. The next one you’ll have to work for.”
“Didn’t seem like you gave me anything,” I said, and flicked my hand across and sent a line of streaking Moonfire into her cheek, but the magick struck some kind of defense and fizzled before it touched her.
It was Acheris who approached now, her hands at her side and beginning to glow with the sick green color of Dark Fire.
I ducked to the side, dashed between a set of pews, and threw myself behind a stone pillar just as a bolt of energy came racing at me. It struck the stone with a loud crack and took a chunk out of it, but I was fine. Acheris laughed.
“What’s the matter, Red Witch? Scared I’ll burn that pretty face of yours?”
I swung around the other side of the stone pillar, screamed, and fired off another ball of silver flame at the devil’s whore. This one struck her shoulder and she screeched as the silver fire burned her dress and the skin beneath. From above, the possessed men and women clinging to the ceiling like spiders sang in harmony to Acheris’s cry of pain. Out, said the wolf, but I ignored it. Instead I willed another ball of silver flame to form from my right hand and hurled it at her like I was throwing a baseball. Acheris’s magick flew up in defense of this attack and the ball of fire dispersed, sending a shower of silver embers into the darkness and all around the dark church.
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