Waltzing into Damnation

by Rita Stradling

  “Linnie, get back into the hallway,” I say to her just as Nicholas makes a similar plea. But she’s not listening to either of us.

  “Is he all right?” she whispers as a tear falls onto her cheek.

  “He’s alive right now . . .” He shrugs his massive shoulders. “But there’s a soulbound group infiltrating the Leijonskjöld. When the demons are ready, very, very soon, the soulbound plan to desecrate the ground and let the demons take Leijonskjöld castle once and for all. As the ranking officer in Leijonskjöld, he always puts himself on the front lines before his men.”

  Linnie inhales sharply, her hands covering her throat. “No.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Linnie.” Nicholas walks sideward, clearly stepping in the direction to intercept my mesmerized sister while keeping his aim. “Soulbound infiltrate Leijonskjöld all the time. They haven’t succeeded yet.”

  I’m moving, too, closing the distance, wanting to get directly into her path.

  Before I get to her, Linnie rushes to the edge of the circle. “Is he going to die?”

  “Linnie! Get away from the salt!” I yell.

  Her dirty-crusted sneakers are just the littlest bit over the line, scuffing the edge, though the line is still intact. But it’s like she can’t hear me at all, so focused is she on the demon.

  The demon stands to his full height, going to the edge of the salt line. “I don’t know futures, Linnet,” he whispers across the too few inches of space separating them. “All I can see is secrets, those dark places of shame, deceit, and yearning that humans hollow out in their own souls, keeping from the light of day. But you don’t keep many secrets, do you, Linnet? You’re not like your sister. She keeps so many secrets, from you and everyone else. She lies so much, hiding the true darkness inside her. You’d risk your life to help her, but she won’t even tell you her feelings for the demon Andras never truly died.”

  “Linnie, get back,” I say quietly, though panic is pumping blood into my ears and I can barely hear my own voice. I don’t want to startle her. “He’s lying, twisting words. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but I know he is.”

  Nicholas and I reach for her at the same time, but neither of us grabs her. She hovers just at the edge of the salt line, and I don’t know how to move her without risking pushing her into the circle or having her foot smear the line.

  “Linnie, snap out of it!” I beg right behind her, but it’s like she doesn’t even hear me.

  The demon leans in so close, his nose must be brushing the invisible barrier that keeps him in. His voice lowers to a whisper. “Richard Jones cherishes that kiss you gave him before he left. It was right after you told him you were staying with your sister. It gets him through the hellish nights after he searches for survivors amongst the ruins and finds none. He cherishes it, even though he knows it was a kiss to say goodbye.”

  Tears course down Linnie’s face, and she shifts her weight onto her right leg as if to take a step.

  The demon’s hands come out just as Nicholas and I lunge for Linnie at once. Nicholas grabs the back of her shirt and yanks Linnie straight into me.

  Linnie yells out, obviously startled, and we go tumbling to the floor. She pushes away from me, but I’m not even about to let her go. I bear hug her and attempt to roll us both away from the salt circle so our tangled legs don’t hit the line.

  “Raven, ugh!” she shouts as I roll her once more, smacking her into the hardwood.

  “Are you awake now?” I yell at her, straight into her face. “You just almost walked into the salt circle with a greater demon.”

  She blinks up at me, looking extremely startled. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, you did,” I say. “Look over there at the scuff mark.”

  She leans over, looking at the salt line. Her mouth drops open, obviously startled and horrified. “Oh. My. God.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Linnie, close your eyes and plug up your ears, okay? Don’t listen to him.”

  Her frantic eyes move about the room, and yet again, it strikes me that even after two years of being neck deep in demon shit, my sister still hasn’t learned how to tread water. I wish she had gone to Leijonskjöld.

  “Raven wishes you had gone to Leijonskjöld, Linnie,” the demon whispers from behind me.

  “What?” Linnie asks.

  “Cut it out,” I call over my shoulder. To Linnie, I say, “Listen to me, okay? Plug your ears and close your eyes. Do you want to go in that salt circle with the demon or let him out to kill all of us? That’s what demons do. They try to kill their conjurers or trick them into releasing them. He’s a master at it, and you were seconds away from doing both.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, her lip trembling as tears course down her face. Her whole body trembles under me.

  Ugh. All I want to do is shake my sister in that moment and demand that she hardens up. But at the same time, I just want to form a bubble around her, so she won’t ever have to.

  “Just please do it, Linnie,” I whisper, and I can hear the defeat in my own voice. “And don’t peek until I touch your shoulder.”

  She nods. Rolling into the fetal position, she turns away from the demon and sticks her fingers into her ears.

  When I climb to my feet again, I’m so very pissed off. The demon might be able to manipulate my sister into almost walking into his waiting arms, but I’ve got another thing coming for the jerk.

  Turning, I stalk right up to the salt line and look straight up into the demon’s yellow cat eyes. “Hello, Barbas.”

  Even though I know he’s on the other side of an impenetrable barrier, I swear he’s looming over me. “Hello, Raven Smith.” He lifts his hand to his mouth, biting his thumb. The movement is so disconcerting in its humanness. “How exceptionally secretive your life is. How do you keep track of them all? There’s so much you haven’t told those who protect you. Would they protect you if you told them about the hellfire and the portal, or would Nicholas Tapper turn his gun on you instead?”

  “I guess we’ll find out if you tell him,” I say, keeping my gaze on his and my expression stony. “Why are you here?”

  “You summoned me by spilling her blood in the circle, blood infected with my bite.” He nods toward Cassidy.

  I take a step along the circle’s outer edge, and he matches my pace, so I continue walking.

  “You cure diseases. Can’t you cure Andras’ infection in Cassidy?” I ask.

  A small grin tips up the side of his a little too wide mouth.

  “Yes,” he admits.

  I take another step along the circle’s edge. “But if you heal her, she’ll wake up. And the moment she does, she’ll send you back to Hell. Isn’t it a little un-demon-like to want to be trapped in a conjurer’s circle? Or are you hoping you’ll get free and be able to kill me?”

  His golden brows rise on his face. “Ah, but I don’t want to kill you.”

  “You don’t?” I ask incredulously. It’s not that every single demon wants to kill me, but I’d give it a good ninety-nine-percent that did. Räum had chosen to abstain from doing it, but I’d figured out later he was probably in league with Andras’ plan to possess Stephen’s body. He’d cut out a little corner for himself and was happily living it up and not infringing on Andras’ demonic domination. If Andras opens the seals of Solomon, a demon like Räum would be a krill in the ocean, just as he is in hell.

  Maybe Barbas has the same sort of thinking about it all, but I’m not about to put his claims not to want to kill me to the test even if he can’t lie about it.

  “Then why are you keeping yourself trapped? What do you want?” I ask.

  “I’m here because you want something, not because I want something. You sought answers from a demon on how to kill Andras and push his presence out of Stephen, did you not?”

  “It’s impossible. Is that what this is all about?” Nicholas almost yells the question.

  I almost forget his presence altogether. Am I getting mesmerized? Blinking ha
rd, I focus on my feet; no, I haven’t scuffed the salt line. Not yet.

  Choosing to ignore Nicholas’ rather expected denial that it’s possible, I step a little wider and continue to circle the demon.

  “You’ve already said you’re not knowledgeable or wise,” I say with a shrug. “You only know secrets, and this is information people probably don’t know. This is why we tried to call Ose. He has more information than you. Why don’t you stop wasting both of our time and heal Cassidy, so she can send you back to Hell?”

  “Raven, stop it!” Nicholas barks.

  Startled, I look across the circle at him and then back to Barbas. I immediately jump back, shocked at the sight of the demon. His eyes glow a new shade of yellow. I know Barbas is prideful; I’d been poking at his pride on purpose, trying to get him to give some information before things escalated to who knows what. Obviously, I completely underestimated the effect of insulting his pride.

  “Do you know how I am stopping the bullets from riddling you with holes?” he hisses as his pupils slit up their length. “Look outside of this house.”

  “Listen to me, Raven. He’s tricking you,” Nicholas says. “Back over to me.”

  I don’t listen, though. I cross over to the window. Holding onto the edge of wood Cassidy used to board up the windows, I go to my tiptoes to see out of a bullet hole. Putting my eyes straight to the whole, I see only a small sliver of the scene outside.

  “Get away from the walls!” Nicholas demands.

  “Oh my god . . .” I whisper, my voice trailing off in shock.

  Chapter Nine

  Three Days Before

  I only see a small amount of the yard, but that’s plenty.

  Goats.

  Goats roam everywhere around the house. Most are big, burly creatures, but some look lanky and starved. Guns litter the ground at their feet, and many stand on their weapons, bleating at each other. I wonder how I could have missed the strange sound for the last minutes.

  “He’s turned all of them into goats,” I call back. When I turn fully, I find Nicholas standing just at the salt circle line. He holds his gun right at the level of the demon’s head.

  “Turn the soldiers back into humans,” he demands.

  The demon raises his hands, obviously in a motion of surrender, but clear glee touches his smile. “It’s not a permanent change.”

  “Great, that means I can kill you,” Nicholas says.

  “I don’t think it’s wise to say that part first.” The demon laughs, rolls his eyes, and then the giant gun drops from Nicholas’ hands. Where his hands once were, now only little furry paws remain.

  Nicholas cries out, though the sound is much more like a squeal. Gray, downy fur sprouts over his face while it rounds. His ears shift up and bubble out, stretching fast. Grotesquely, a round, furry snout pushes out of Nicholas’ face, and whiskers shoot out of his little black nose. His body doesn’t stop shrinking either. His uniform collapses to the floor, and a gray floppy-eared bunny sticks his head out. His nose wrinkles wildly as he attempts to paw his way out of the pile of clothing.

  “Nicholas?” I ask. Even though I watched the whole transformation with my own eyes and saw it was him, I still feel the need to ask.

  He makes a whimper sound as a third paw comes up through the collar of his shirt, and he attempts to push it wider.

  Running over to him, I grab the bunny Nicholas and pull him out from where he’s stuck in his own shirt.

  He weighs almost nothing. His furry body feels so tiny and frail in my hands. He lifts one of his hind legs, and a paw pushes at my arm. Clearly, he’s not a fan of being held.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I say as I set bunny Nicholas onto the ground next to his massive gun.

  Obviously, still thinking he might manage to kill the demon, bunny Nicholas paws at his gun, but after several attempts, it’s clear there’s no way he has the dexterity to aim and shoot the behemoth gun.

  Barbas goes to one knee, directly across from Nickolas rabbit. “What’s funny to me is that you waited so many years to tell my Cassidy your feelings—that you’d had a schoolboy crush on her all the time she was friends with your brother. Even after her confession in Thailand, you were too afraid that she was only under Räum’s thrall. And today, the day you consider throwing caution to the wind and finally admitting it to her, you turn into a bunny.”

  Nicholas bares his teeth, which sadly only look adorable in his bunny face.

  All right.

  This has clearly gone on long enough. Crossing over to Cassidy, I pull my own gun from her pants and point it at the demon.

  He doesn’t look fazed at all. “That one doesn’t have enough power to kill me. It doesn’t even have enough power to send me back to hell.”

  “Depends on how many times I shoot you,” I say, but I know he’s probably right. From what I know, you can kill a demon permanently in its true form, but it took pretty much complete obliteration, or they heal themselves. The big gun might work, but I still don’t know what to do with it, and I’m not about to show that to the demon yet. “Turn Nicholas back into a human.”

  He laughs. “No. Since you’re less annoying to me than he is, if you keep pointing that gun at me, I’ll only turn you into a cat.”

  An ache shoots through my hand holding the gun, and my wrist spasms, pointing the gun down. The moment the gun points away from the demon, the cramp subsides.

  “What’s going on?” Linnie yells, but thankfully she still follows orders and stays the heck out of it all.

  Ignoring my sister, I yell at the demon, “What do you want?”

  “Her,” the demon purrs, pointing across the room to where Cassidy still lies unconscious. “But if I can’t get her, either one of you will suffice.”

  “Well, that’s not happening.”

  He raises his hands out to his sides. “Then we’re at an impasse. Eventually, her body will fight through the infection, right about the same time all the people out there will turn back into humans and start shooting. She can release me then. Until she wakes, I can just keep you company.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but no.” I step back from the circle. “I’m taking my sister, Cassidy, and Nicholas . . . the bunny, pushing all the goats aside and getting in a car to drive as far as I can.” I mean it too. Crossing over to my sister, I reach down to tap her shoulder.

  “For all his centuries of existence, only Satan knew the secret of how to destroy Andras permanently while saving the life of his host. Then one day, he told a man named Ulric. After telling Ulric, Satan told no one ever again. But that was centuries ago.”

  I still, standing slowly and looking warily back at the demon. What he said was so specific, I can’t really find any room for hidden lies in it. “And this Ulric, he told people?”

  “Ulric told only one person, but then he followed the woman and stabbed her repeatedly, striking a fatal blow before she could repeat the secret aloud.”

  “But she communicated it to someone . . . not out loud, then?” I ask, as I definitely see the big gaping hole in what he just said. “Did Ulric or the person he told write it down somewhere? Is there a record somewhere?” I know Barbas is luring me in, just as he did Linnie, but still, I slowly approach the salt circle.

  A Cheshire Cat smile spreads across his lips as he tilts his head to the side. “No. Neither Ulric nor the person he told left any written record either.”

  What other kind of record is there? “Did Ulric or this woman whom you’ve been specifically referring to right now . . . gesture it to someone in some sort of unspoken, not-written communication?”

  “No,” he purrs.

  My throat dries. “But you know the secret?”

  “Alas, no one ever told me how to destroy Andras permanently.” A sudden and intense ferocity overtakes his voice. “If I was capable of destroying Andras, I would do it myself. I know there is a way to do it, and I know to whom it was told.”

  “And that person is dead, and they never told any
one. Great, got it.” I take a step back. “Thanks for nothing, but this is a waste of precious time while the soulbound remain goats and Nicholas a bunny.” Linnie and I are just going to have to carry Cassidy and the bunny in the car with the most gasoline out there and drive as far as we can make it. Turning back to the demon, I tell him, “This is your last chance to wake up Cassidy. I don’t know what’s going to happen to you here after we leave. You’ll probably just have to wait until those animals turn back into humans and kill you.”

  “I can make Nicholas Tapper’s transformation into a rabbit a permanent one,” the demon threatens in a hiss.

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I say.

  “Maybe you want to live as a cat? Or maybe a rat?” he asks.

  “I’ve never had a problem with them,” I say, which is more of a half-truth since I’m not about to go snuggle with a rat, but obviously it’s true enough for the demon.

  “Last chance. Going, going, gah—”

  Barbas steps over the fallen gun and out of the salt circle. The rifle. I hadn’t even noticed the very end of the space-age gun fell on the salt line, likely splitting the line to either side of it. Nicholas had broken the line the moment his gun fell onto the circle.

  “I—I—” I can’t remember what a person is supposed to do if a lesser demon breaks out of a salt circle. I’m pretty sure there isn’t much you could do besides try to kill it. And Barbas is a greater demon.

  “You see, I’m conflicted,” Barbas says as he swaggers closer, his bright yellow gaze on mine. “I would really enjoy killing you and all your companions save my Cassidy, but I also want you to destroy my enemy. You may be the only human or demon aside from Satan that can do it, and so you see, I’m conflicted. You need my help too, and I am not accustomed to giving my help to mortals without them paying dearly for it.”

  Suddenly, the bunny hops in front of me, making a sort of hissing sound.

  The demon glares down, baring a full set of elongating fangs. Barbas hisses through his teeth. “You look delicious.”

  “Shut up, Nicholas.” Leaning down, I scoop Nicholas bunny into my arms and attempt to hold his wriggling little body.