by Lucy Auburn
Maybe I could get there if I run up the stairs fast enough.
Just in time, Sebastian comes back from around the corner. And he shakes his head. “The door is locked, Dani. You won’t be able to get to them.”
Fuck. It’s all I can do not to curse aloud; the light down the hallway is growing stronger as she heads this way. My eyes go to Yohan’s study, wondering if I could shelter in there, but Ezra shakes his head at me. “She’ll just burn through the door, Dani. You need to get ready to fight.”
How? As if he can hear me, Mateo starts to answer, “Just use your damn powers already, Dani, it’s not—”
He’s cut off by a strange, high-pitched scream. It sounds like the raptors from Jurassic Park just before they eviscerate the bad guys. And then I hear it: footsteps running down the hallway, straight towards me.
I’ve got no other options. Turning towards the staircase, I grab the railing and run.
But when I get to the landing, Ezra is standing there. He looks me in the eyes and says, “You’re going to have to fight, Dani.”
I turn. The White Phoenix is staring up at me, her wings glowing all around her, eyes pure white with her power. She wears nothing but a bleached white dress that clings to her thin frame. Crouching, she looks more like an animal about to pounce than something that was ever human. She opens her mouth and a scream comes out again.
I take a step back, passing through Ezra. That tingle goes through me, all the way from my toes to my scalp, impossibly strong and inexplicable.
Mateo draws a gun from his vest, even though the bullets will go right through her. Sebastian takes out his knives and faces her, like he thinks he can do something. Even Lynx has his rope.
Beside me, Ezra draws his sword. “There’s no other option. It’s time to fight.”
I stare into the White Phoenix’s eyes and see my death coming right for me.
But all around me there’s this connection, one that started the night I died. The four of them each have something to give to me: strength, humor, knowledge, and bitter unflinching honesty. If they can try to face her, I can try to somehow bring them into this world completely and make their efforts worthwhile.
It’s that or die trying. Again.
As I turn to face her, I feel it happen. Times slows down until she’s frozen. My senses tell me what’s going to happen next: she’ll go right at me with her claws out and burn me to a crisp. But I know she’s coming now, and I can do something about it.
Ezra’s shoulder brushes up against mine, suddenly very real and very warm; he smells like pine sap and mint, not at all like murderous evil.
And when I glance down at my hands, I see a shadow of bright orange energy wrap around my fingers, twined with black as dark as the night sky outside.
“Let’s do this thing.”
“Wait.” He pulls something off his belt and hands it to me: a knife, warmed by his hands, solid and real. “For as long as this lasts, you’ll at least have a weapon.”
Grinning, Mateo pulls a grenade out of his pocket. “Alright!”
“Try not to blow up the school,” I warn him. And then I move, and as I take a step, time moves forward as well.
She takes a flying leap up the stairs—and stutters to a stop, falling back as Lynx throws a black rope around her shoulders and tugs her down. He snarls, muscles corded with the effort.
Ezra steps in front of me, sword casually held in front of him. He slashes at her; she dodges. Face contorted in rage, white hair flowing behind her, she grabs Lynx’s rope and burns right through it with white fire.
Then screams, as Sebastian takes a leap at her back and plunges a knife into her middle. She turns around and backhands him on the face, the smell of burning flesh searing in the air as her hand connects. Her fingers splay and she throws white fire at all three of them, sending Mateo, Lynx, and Sebastian flying.
I scream. Ezra pushes me back. “They’ll be okay. Dani—run.”
But I can’t. I’m the one who brought them here with me, who somehow has them anchored to this place they don’t belong. They’re hurt because of me; it’s me they’re protecting, and I’m the one who turned them into flesh and blood, thinking they could save me when I haven’t even tried to save myself.
I reach out and try to push Ezra away from me so I can face her, but he resists. Pushes back. But I’ve seen him be a leader, and I can imitate it even if it doesn’t come naturally to me. Putting all the command into my tone that I can muster, I tell him, “Let me do this alone.”
To my shock, he moves, though he has a frown on his face that twists my heart unhappily. I can feel his emotions as I brush past him and take a step down the stairs, looking the blinding white light of the phoenix straight in her eyes. I raise my dumb little knife in front of me.
In a voice like a haunted thing she says, “The weak must die, to preserve all others.”
“Yeah well. That doesn’t include me.”
And I feel it. My connection to the four men around me. The stairs beneath my feet, the flow of time that I can somehow yank at and slow.
When the demon stretches out her hand to throw fire at me, I dodge to the left and it scorches down the wall, bits of it licking across my right side, searing the edge of my sleeve. Stepping towards her, I keep one hand up to protect my face, that weird energy coiling around my palm.
She tries to slice at me; I dodge her again. This time, the muscle memory of a move Kade forced me to do dozens of times flows through me, and I stab her right in the chest.
There’s a shocked look on her glowing face. Her wings stretch out behind her as she makes a choked, angry sound. And I can feel Ezra right over my shoulder, desperate to fight; can feel the others healing from her fire. They’re four presences in the room that I sense because somehow they have a little part of me in them, glowing like a hot coal in a cold fireplace.
So I scream out, “Fight!”
And they rise to the occasion.
Behind her, Sebastian is getting to his feet, skin red and burned but healing by the second. Raising a hand, he snarls at the phoenix, “Feel the pain. Tenfold.”
She screams, the sound impossibly loud. The knife in her chest, the dagger in her back, both sink in.
Ezra rushes down the stairs to my left, fury in his eyes. He raises his sword to cut her down and she stops it in midair, grabbing it with her bare hand and pulsing white fire down it. Though his face twists in pain as it scorches his hands, he drives his sword down even harder.
By the hallway, Mateo grabs his gun up off the floor, stumbles to his feet, and shoots at her wildly. One round digs into her knee; she screams again. Sebastian keeps his focus on her, chanting, “Pain, pain, pain!”
The agony must be unbearable. But the thing that undoes her, that brings her to her knees, is Lynx’s corded rope around her ankles. He snags it against her and yanks her down, anger on his recently-burned face, his shirt—of course—turned to ashes that reveal the impressive muscle underneath.
I feel it all, every bit of their rage and strength, and somehow it makes something in me wake up. As I take the last few steps down towards her, facing those bright white eyes, the energy in my hands pulses. Wakes up. And something happens, just over each of my shoulders—I know because she looks at me with wide eyes.
For a moment, I have wings.
And then, before I can grab the knife in her chest and drive it all the way through to the other side, ending her life like I’ve seen the guys do six times now, something shifts in the air. Her energy changes; black laces the bright white of her wings, taking over and shuttering her energy.
In a mulish voice she murmurs, “Yes, Master.”
Then I blink.
And she’s gone.
Chapter 19
When I look over my shoulder there are no wings there. Maybe I imagined it all. In the darkness, it’s hard to see anything, so I quickly reach for the light and flick it on. The ridiculous chandelier overhead is so bright it reveals everything al
l at once, stark and terrible.
The boys have looked better, for one thing. They each have burns on their faces, arms, shoulders, chests—everywhere, bright red streaks of pain. But they’re also slowly going non-corporeal again, and it looks like the wounds are healing bit by bit.
I’m the one to break the silence. “What the hell was that?”
“Look.” Ezra points to a big splash of blood on the floor. “Whoever she attacked got hurt pretty bad.”
“How can you tell whose blood is that? There’s blood everywhere.”
There is, from the big pool at the bottom of the steps where she disappeared, to streaks of it across the banister and walls. There’s also a giant scorch mark stretching up the wall against the stairs, licking all the way towards the ceiling.
“The blood trail here is separate. C’mon—if she’s still alive, we have to help.”
I let Ezra lead me down the hallway. He sheathes his sword, looking worse for the wear but better by the second. “Do you heal faster than a normal person or something?”
“First of all, I’m not a person,” he points out, as we pass the restrooms and storage closet, headed towards the end of the hallway towards a left turn that leads to the dining hall. “But yes, we heal pretty fast.”
“This White Phoenix fire is a bitch, though,” Mateo grouses. “Damn she had flames. And then Dani—”
He’s suddenly muffled; glancing back, I frown when I see that Lynx has his hand over Mateo’s mouth, swallowing his next words. “He was going to say something inappropriate about your ass, I could just tell.”
Mateo manages to get out from under Lynx’s grip long enough to point out, “It is a nice ass.”
“Now is not the time,” Ezra reminds them calmly. “Some innocent is dying just around the corner.”
And it’s true. We walk down the hallway towards the dining hall, where the blood trail gets worse, and my stomach roils. There’s a huge burn down the wall, but even worse than that are the gouges that run through the blackened wallpaper and drywall, at least an inch deep. When the White Phoenix found her prey, she hunted to maim.
But not kill. Down at the end of the hallway, fallen on the spot where she tried to escape through the double doors of the dining hall, is a girl curled up in a puddle of her own blood, hands desperately trying to slow the flow. Her breath comes ragged but shallow, and her eyes are wide with pain.
“Kayla!”
Recognizing her, I sprint down the hall and kneel in front of her, trying to reach out to look at the wound—but she flinches and rears back, her gaze frightened. Blood on her lips, she babbles at me, “Stay away!”
“Kayla, it’s me.”
She isn’t all there anymore, though. The agony is driving her over the edge, and I’m helpless to do anything about it.
“Here.” Sebastian kneels next to me and holds his hand out in front of him, palm facing towards Kayla. “I can take away her pain, if you can help me stay here on this plane for a little while longer.”
“I’ll try.”
Kayla watches me, eyes darting back and forth between me and Sebastian—or the empty place where I’m looking, if she can’t see him. It’s impossible to tell with her as out of it as she is.
Licking my lips, I stare at his hand, and concentrate on making it corporeal.
The trick to it, I’ve realized, is wishing he could touch me.
So I imagine what I started to dream the other night, before my rude awakening: Sebastian’s blue eyes staring at me, his warm lips pressed against my neck, those hands of his that kill so easily brushing against my skin with the barest touch. The feeling of his strong fingers diving between my thighs and bringing me to arousal, making me wet and ready to open my body to him further.
It’s a thought that makes my cheeks heat, sends shame spiraling down through me—right next to the tingling warm heat between my thighs, which wants what it wants, inexplicably.
Despite the fact that it’s embarrassing to do, it works. Kayla sees Sebastian and startles, asking, “Where’d you come from?”
“I’m here to help.” His voice is surprisingly soothing, the bitter tone I’ve seen so often gone from his words. Gently, he murmurs, “Let the pain be no more. No pain, no pain, no pain.”
It’s like a chant, bizarre and magical. Breathing out, Kayla closes her eyes, slumps to the side, and falls into a trance-like state.
As she does so her hands slip off her middle and her wound shows. I suck in a breath, staring at the gruesome sight of her insides slipping out through a giant gash. The skin all around it is burned, and her sides heave unevenly, as if every breath hurts.
“We’ve got to get help.”
Behind me, Ezra says, “No need. I just scouted down the hallway. Someone is on their way. They’ll see Sebastian. Dani, you have to let him become incorporeal again.”
Easier said than done. Looking into Sebastian’s blue eyes, all I want is for him to touch me, to kiss me, to talk to me in that low, soothing voice.
But when I stare at Kayla’s wound, all the sexiness disappears from my mind. So I concentrate on it, and within a few breaths Sebastian’s hand is see-through again—and the other guys are too, so all anyone will see if they come down the hallway is me and Kayla.
Moments later, I hear footsteps coming down the hall, just like Ezra said. Leaping to my feet, I call out, “Help! A student is injured down here.”
Everything that happens next goes blurry, maybe because of the relief, or the fear bleeding out of me. A teacher I don’t recognize, one who teaches the shifters, comes down the hall. Then there’s Yohan, then Kade, until there are so many people the hallway is full of them. Someone puts gauze on Kayla’s stomach; someone else asks me if I’m okay, and tends to the burn on my shoulder.
But a moment later I hear the words, “She’s dead.”
It takes me a moment to realize it’s true. Kayla’s chest isn’t moving anymore; she bled out until there was nothing left. At least, in the end, there wasn’t any pain. Sebastian took that away from her.
Turning towards me, the headmaster—I didn’t see her get here—asks, “Dani, what happened here? What did you do?”
And my heart plummets all the way down, straight through my stomach, leaving me cold, lost, and angry.
“It all sounds like it was very frightening.” The headmaster’s tone is soothing, but I still dig my hands very hard into the chair I’m in, across from her desk. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
I can’t forget her earlier words: what did you do? They didn’t make any sense; I hadn’t done anything.
But. As I’ve learned, when someone takes you in off the street and provides for you, they tend to make certain assumptions. They decide for you if you’re good or bad, deserving or ungrateful, trouble or an angel.
I was found alone in a hallway blackened by phoenix fire next to a dying girl curled in a pool of blood. The assumption here is that the street rat did it.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds, they scold you, and even if you didn’t they still think you might.
Next to me, Lynx murmurs, “Don’t forget about the book. We’ve got to get it before they find it and put it away.”
Right. Back to business; licking my wounded ego can wait. Shooting the headmaster my best exhausted-innocent look, I ask, “Can I go back to my room now? I’d like to go back to sleep.”
“Of course! I’m sure being woken up the way you were must be exhausting. Though, given the extensive repairs we have to make to the main hall, it might be best to move you.” She must see something in my eyes, because she hastily adds, “Tomorrow. After a good night’s sleep.”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll go with you back downstairs. Just in case something happens.”
I don’t want them to go, but as I get up and head out of the office, it’s clear that the demons need to rest themselves—if that’s what they even do in the nowhere place. So I take a deep breath, calm myself down, and try to pretend I don’
t need them.
Ezra reaches out to brush his fingers against my shoulder, sending tingles shooting up wherever we converge. “We’ll come back if you need us.”
Then he fades away, along with the rest of them, leaving me feeling more alone even though the headmaster is right beside me.
“Dani?” She’s staring at me, like I’m acting oddly. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” I murmur, even though I’m dreading walking back downstairs, past the burnt hallway, through the dried bloodstains, and all the way to my room. “I’m just...”
“Yes,” she says sympathetically, “it’s always disturbing to see someone you know die such a violent death. I’m sorry you were here for it. I promise, we’re investigating this incident and will take care of it as soon as we can.”
Two names flit through my mind: Eleanor Collins, Matthew Stephenson. I’m tempted to ask her about them, but right now I’m too tired to do any kind of digging. So I let her lead me through the horrors—someone is already scrubbing the blood out of the carpet, no doubt for an exorbitant fee—and back to my room.
As we pass Yohan’s office, I notice the door is cracked open, but there’s no one inside.
“Goodnight, Dani,” the headmaster tells me, leaving me alone in my room around the corner from the bloodshed. “Someone will be by tomorrow to help move you into your dorm.”
“Goodnight.”
As soon as she’s gone, I slip back out, past the cleaner—who doesn’t seem concerned about anything except the blood on the floor—and into the empty office. The book is still there, open to a page scrawled with diagrams and directions to arcane rituals. Scooping it up, I bring it into my bedroom and stare at the embossed front cover, sitting alone in the middle of my bed.
Page by page, I go through the entire section on demonic whatever-it-is, studying each diagram, glancing through the paragraphs.
And stop when I reach something that fills me with a deep sense of familiarity—and even deeper despair.
The Severing of a Demonic Quartet Bond with the Summoner