by Dave Ferraro
Chapter Thirty
“Finally all packed up,” Jade announced, wiping her hands together with satisfaction as she stepped into the living room of the haunted mansion the next evening.
Shanna glanced up from the table she was covering in a white sheet, as they’d found it. “Good. I won’t miss this place.”
“Me neither,” Krystal mumbled from where she was lying down on the sofa, eyes closed. She’d been taken to the hospital last night, and had a mild concussion, but was otherwise fine. She would be back to her old self in no time.
“Really? You didn’t like visiting the old stomping grounds?”
Krystal lifted an eyelid. “Hardly. It reminded me why I left in the first place.”
“And why’s that?” Jade asked, curious.
“Because I don’t belong here. I belong with you guys, in Lime Bay.”
“Oh. How sweet.”
Krystal rolled her eyes and closed them again.
Following the final attack by Roma, they had liberated the remainder of the necromancer’s prisoners, which had consisted of a handful of rebellious vampires and loup-garous. There were no other men stitched together from various body parts, monster or otherwise, thankfully. Amelia had broken the spells on the bodies of the zombies, and without their souls, their bodies had quickly shut down. It had been a long day of questions as The Agency’s clean-up crew had come to the scene to take away bodies from both Roma’s mansion and Mr. Crenshaw’s, and each of them filed their reports. But Shanna was happy that the bodies would no longer be abused like they had been. Even Wilhelm’s original body would finally be at rest without his deranged wife around to pull its strings. It was just too bad that they’d never been able to save any of the students they had come to New Orleans to find in the first place. But they were likely long gone, sold at The Goblin Market in one way or another. Shanna could only hope that someone would be able to intervene and save them somehow when they surfaced, but given the loa ceremonies that Mr. Crenshaw had performed, it seemed likely that Roma would have extracted their souls and sold them in that fashion. At least there wouldn’t have been any suffering.
Natalia suddenly walked into the room. “I think we’re all done here. Time to go.”
Krystal sighed and sat up. “Can I make a stop on the way to the airport?”
Natalia frowned, but nodded. “That can be arranged.”
Shanna shot Natalia a curious look. “What about Mr. Crenshaw?”
“I found his body where I left it in the woods,” Natalia said, glancing her way. “The Agency has retrieved it.”
“Good.”
Natalia raised an eyebrow as Jade and Krystal swept past her. “Are you coming?”
“Oh,” Shanna shook her head slowly. “No, I have a date. Damien will take me home.”
Natalia watched her for a moment, then left without comment.
Shanna listened to the cars start up outside and pull away, and let out a sigh. She sat down on the sofa and leaned back, exhausted after the ordeal of the past few days. She’d wanted a mission, and boy, had she gotten one.
She didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until she found herself falling out of the side of a car, the door having opened, spilling her out. She grunted as she hit the ground, and pulled herself along the muddy terrain.
“Oh, Shanna. Where do you think you’re going?”
Shanna looked up to see Cameron coming around the side of the car, a lopsided grin across his face. She could make out the tips of his fangs protruding from his mouth, gleaming in the moonlight, taunting her. “Fuck you,” she spat.
“Shanna, Shanna, Shanna,” Cameron shook his head as he approached her slowly. “You know you’ll never escape me. We’re meant to be together, until the end of time.”
Shanna narrowed her eyes. She usually felt so out of control when she had this dream, like she had to run as far from it as she could. But she didn’t feel that way now. As she watched Cameron’s calculated footfalls in her direction, she frowned. Instead of fumbling blindly along the ground, she pulled herself to her feet. Rather than give in to her fear and hyperventilate, she faced him. Quinn had been able to face his fear. He had looked Metrise right in the eyes and pulled the trigger. If he could face his demons, so could she. She knew she was strong.
“Enough,” she said, her voice steady. She smiled as he frowned. “I’m not yours anymore. And I never will be.”
Then she walked toward him, brushing his shoulder boldly as she stalked right past him, toward the road.
She was stronger than she’d realized. And she would get over what he’d done to her.
“Shanna?”
Blinking, Shanna sat up and smiled at Damien, who was standing over her in the dark room of the dilapidated mansion.
“Everyone else is gone?” he asked.
“Everyone,” she confirmed, sitting up. She swiped at her eyes and stifled a yawn. Damien’s face was bathed in shadows, so she could barely see him, but his solid presence made her feel safe anyway. The dream was slowly fading, but she held onto enough of it to make her feel brave.
“So, dinner?” he asked, taking a seat next to her.
She leaned her head against his shoulder and breathed deeply, drawing in the smell of his spicy cologne, the fresh soapy smell of the shower he’d rinsed off. “You are really something, Damien. You were a real knight in shining armor yesterday, helping me save my friends.”
“I was following your lead.”
She scoffed. “Don’t diminish what you did. You walked through fire for me. I won’t forget that.” She lifted her head and met his eyes, which gleamed in the moonlight coming in through the windows. She saw them flicker down to her lips and she couldn’t resist giving him what he wanted. She pressed her lips to his forcefully, passionately. He deepened the kiss and she returned it hungrily, like he was providing her with air to breathe. And behind her kiss, she put all of her gratitude and love, so that when she pulled away, she knew that she’d expressed herself without having to voice how she felt.
“I also trust you, completely,” she said, leaning forward and whispering in his ear. “Which is why I want you to do something for me.”
Damien shivered and pulled back to look her in the eyes. Her heart thumped furiously in her chest at the hunger she saw in his eyes, the eagerness. “Anything.”
She couldn’t resist kissing him again, moaning as he pushed her back against the couch, his body pressed up against her so that there was no space between them. She found her hands searching beneath the back of his shirt, feeling his strong back, and yearning to yank it off, to yank everything off so that there was nothing between them. But she resisted, and pulled back, breathing heavily, lips throbbing, and looked him in the face. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. He sat up and let out a deep breath. “Never be sorry for that.”
She chuckled. “Damien, I…want you to go back inside my mind.”
He started. “What? Why?”
Licking her lips, she pulled her legs beneath her. “Remember when you did it when we first met? You had full access to my thoughts. I…need to find something I’ve lost. A memory. It’s…very important to me.”
Damien watched her for a moment. “Are you sure? Because I can’t filter out what I see. You’ll be completely exposed to me, all your thoughts. Welcome and unwelcome. Pure and good, dark and twisted.”
“I know. And I trust you. That’s why I want you to do it.”
He sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
She nodded. “I do. It’s…just know that it’s a painful memory. I know that I shouldn’t ask you to have to go through it with me, but-“
“I’ll do anything for you, Shanna,” he interrupted her. “No matter how painful. And I won’t see anything in your mind that will make me think less of you.”
“You say that now.”
�
�I know it to be true,” he said, his voice confident. “You are too good. It’s why I…” He looked away. “Well, tell me what I will be looking for.”
“A little girl watching her parents being murdered.”
Damien let out a deep breath. “Okay.”
He closed his eyes and Shanna watched him for a moment, tracing the contours of his face with her mind, from his dark lashes to his lips. Before she was tempted to throw herself at him again, she forced her eyes shut as well.
She felt him inside of her mind, probing her memories, represented as a library full of books. He swept over them with a spotlight, looking for what he wanted. Each time he illuminated a new book, a flood of images flashed across her mind. The first time she’d slipped a blade through the heart of a demon. When she’d been in Styx, and saw Kelly, her best friend, lying dead on the floor, discarded like a sack of trash. Accepting her diploma from her principal and swiftly exiting the stage, knowing that there would be no one in the audience to watch the moment. When she’d first laid eyes on her cross-dagger in an antique shop.
“Another important moment you may want to examine further.”
Shanna blinked and found herself standing in the library of her mind, a circular room of warm brown wood, shelves covering the walls and books on every available space. She stared at the speaker, a woman with green scales, her hair lifting in tendrils of scales like snakes. She was somehow beautiful in her alien form, but also intimidating. Her eyes flashed red as she gazed upon Shanna. “Rangda.”
Rangda smiled. “Yes, Hunt”. She glanced over at the spotlight that Damien used to peer into her mind, at the images racing up the golden beam. Shanna saw herself in the memory he was currently examining, as she approached a display case and bent over, looking at the cross-dagger curiously. “It’s like it called to you, isn’t it, Hunt? And perhaps it did.”
Shanna looked up at her. “You told me about the ritual involving my parents. You were right. Thank you.”
Rangda watched her for a moment, then nodded and pointed behind Shanna at a thick book on a shelf, its spine navy blue. “This is the memory you seek.”
Shanna stared at the book for a moment before calling up to the source of the spotlight. “Damien, over here!” There was no ceiling to the room, it merely dissolved into white light. But Damien seemed able to hear her somehow and the beam of light flashed over the navy book. And Shanna closed her eyes as the scene overwhelmed her.
Cautiously, Shanna got out of bed, and walked up to the door, her bare feet cooled by the hardwood floor. She turned the door knob carefully and eased the door open, unsure of what she would do exactly, but knowing that her parents always made her feel better after her bad dream. Even if she could look in on them for just a minute, she was sure she’d be able to fall back to sleep and hopefully dream something a little more wholesome.
She slipped out of her bedroom and down the hall, where she could hear voices in the living room. And the voices were singing, which was strange because her parents never sang. Her father always complained if her mother so much as hummed. Suddenly, a little nervous, Shanna inched her way to the living room and peeked around the wall that opened up into the large room.
It took a moment for her to realize what she was seeing. Her parents weren’t singing. They were lying on the floor in a chalk circle, staring silently up at the ceiling, their eyes looking around wildly. She was about to call out to them when she noticed who was really singing. Shanna almost cried out. They were things from out of horror movies. Orange, hulking figures in dark blue robes. A light blue crescent moon adorned the back of the robes with a pitchfork of dark blue in the center. They were singing something that Shanna didn’t understand. It sounded old, the air felt charged with energy. Shanna was frozen with fear.
Shanna concentrated on the words the demons sang, fighting the desire to curl up in a ball and rock herself. The fear she experienced as a child was overwhelming to her. But she grit her teeth and pushed aside the images she was barraged with. She let the images fade away and concentrated on the words. “Yugg-bak-too! Cor-sec-val! Sor-prech-udul-koralek-vizra-su!” “Draw on the power touching them! Make it your own! Attach yourself to a new magickal vessel and drink in its riches!”
Suddenly the song ended and each of the demons took a gold cup and poured the contents into one of her parents’ mouths. A red liquid dribbled out of the side of Shanna’s mother’s mouth.
The creatures traced shapes in the air with clumsy gestures and tossed colorful dust over her parents’ still forms. Shanna wanted more than anything to wipe it off of her parents, but she couldn’t.
Taking deep, calming breaths, Shanna fought to control her emotions. She watched the demons’ fingers as they created shapes in the air. Runes. A pentagram with a pitchfork going through it. A horse shoe with a square surrounding it. Something that looked like a Star Trek badge upside-down and at a forty-five degree angle. She swung her attention to the other demon, who was throwing the dust over her parents. Alternating orange and purple.
Before she could follow what was happening next, the creatures had buried blades deep into the bellies of her parents and pulled them out with quick, easy strokes. Blood pooled quickly over their clothes and flowed across the floor. Her parents’ mouths opened and screams erupted throughout the room.
But they were her screams, not her parents’. Her parents were lifeless, growing pale, bleeding until the whole circle of chalk was filled with crimson, and then spilling over even those boundaries. Shanna couldn’t believe the amount of blood that came from her parents. She couldn’t believe that it was so easy to kill two people she loved. A quick puncture into the stomach and it was over. Goodbye, Life. Goodbye, Love. Goodbye every comfort she’d ever known. Human beings were too fragile. Much too fragile.
“Enough,” Rangda said, and Damien’s ray of light suddenly disappeared. The demon watched Shanna for a moment, her labored breathing, the faraway look in her eyes. “You got what you came for.”
Shanna licked her lips and looked up at the demon. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Good,” Rangda nodded. She put a hand on Shanna’s right shoulder, and her skin was cold to the touch and rough, much like a snake’s. “And know this: the crows are not what they appear.”
Shanna blinked and when her eyes opened, she was staring into the concerned face of Damien. She started, then relaxed and leaned her head back on the sofa, a hand to her forehead.
“You okay?” Damien asked, putting a hand on her knee.
Shanna nodded, then sat forward and offered him a smile.
“What happened?” Damien frowned. “I got the sense that you weren’t alone in there. And I was cut off so abruptly. Just like last time.”
Shanna shook her head slowly. Last time. Someone had said “Enough” in her head the last time Damien had been in her mind. Someone who’d shattered the connection then as well, just after he’d released the memories of Diana. Had it been Rangda back then, too?
“I’m sorry, Shanna,” Damien said softly. “That must have been horrible.”
Shanna roused herself. “I’m fine,” she said, brushing off his concern. His pity. “I think I got what I needed.”
He raised an eyebrow as she grabbed a book off of the coffee table. The one she had found at Incantations. She flipped through the pages until she reached the bookmark she’d placed in it, where she would be able to identify the demon being summoned during the ritual. First, she looked to the colors. Purple and orange. That alone cut out most of the culprits. Then she looked through the descriptions of language. She ruled out a few related to the romantic languages, and was left with only five demons that could be connected to the ritual, to her parents’ death.
She sat forward excitedly as she read through the descriptions of the symbols. A hammer with the infinity symbol running over it. No. An eye with a triangle surrounding it. No. A rake run
ning over a pentagram. She paused. A rake could look like a pitchfork. She put her finger on the line, then went to the next symbol on the list. A horseshoe in a square. A lopsided arrowhead. She swallowed hard and her eyes eagerly sought the name associated with the runes. The name of the demon who was ultimately responsible for her parents’ deaths.
Her finger ran down the page and stopped over a name in bold. Paimon.
She sucked in a shuddery breath and looked up at Damien, who gazed at the name with wide eyes.
“Paimon,” she whispered. “The same demon that Ash is being terrorized by.”
Swallowing hard, Damien met her eyes. “Paimon is a strong demon, Shanna. If someone like Ash can’t stop him…”
“I can enlist Ash’s help. He will want to see him die as much as me.”
Damien slowly shook his head. “Shanna, Ash is…unstable. He wields Paimon’s powers. I’ve seen how he’s changed over the years. He can be…dangerous.”
“He wasn’t dangerous last night. And you didn’t seem to oppose his aid.”
“I know. But I also know the things he’s done. He seemed okay yesterday, but I…I know him. You can’t try to kill a higher demon with the likes of him.”
“Then I’ll do it myself.”
Damien frowned. “No, you won’t.”
Shanna frowned and pulled back from him. “What? Are you…forbidding me from doing this?”
With a sigh, Damien ran a hand back through his hair. “No. I’m just saying…don’t do anything rash. We can figure out a way to get to Paimon. Just give me some time to talk to contacts and see what La Faer Noir has at its disposal. That’s all I’m asking for, okay?”
Shanna watched him for a moment, and nodded. She would wait, for now. But she wasn’t going to wait forever.
Damien looked relieved. “Good. Thank you, Shanna. I promise I will find a way for you to get to Paimon.”
“I know you will.”
They regarded each other for a moment, and Shanna thought that neither of them quite believed the other.
“Well,” Damien suddenly got to his feet. “The city’s best Cajun food awaits. What do you say?” He held out a hand to her.
“I say I’m famished,” she replied with a grin, and let him help her to her feet.