by Michele Hauf
Jett’s laughter suddenly abbreviated. She stopped, gripping her gut as she bent over.
“Wait!” she called as Savin ran ahead. “I’m getting a bellyache. Mamma’s cherry pie is sitting right here.” She slapped a hand to her stomach. “I shouldn’t have eaten that third piece!”
Savin laughed and walked backward toward the edge of the field where the forest began. The dark, creepy forest that they always teased each other to venture into alone. Neither had done it. Yet.
Today he’d challenged her to creep up to the edge and touch the foreboding black tree that grew bent like a crippled man and thrust out its branches as if they were wicked fingers. If she did, he’d give her his Asterix comic collection. Fortunately, he knew she wouldn’t do it. Jett was a chicken. And he teased her now by chanting just that.
“I am not!” she announced as she approached him, still clutching her gut. Her long black hair hid what he guessed was a barely contained smile.
“You can’t use that excuse to get out of it this time.” Savin planted his walking stick in the ground near his sneaker. The stick was one he’d found in the spring and had been whittling at for a month. He’d tried to carve a dragon on the top of it, but it looked more like a snake. “Girls are always chicken!”
“Am not.” Jett stepped out of the lavender field and stopped beside him to stare into the forest that loomed thirty paces away.
The trees were close and the trunks looked black from this distance. Savin nudged Jett’s arm and she jumped away from him and stuck out her tongue.
“I don’t need your comic books,” she said. “Anyway, I’ll get them all when we get married someday.”
Jett was the one to always remind him that they’d get married. Someday. When they were grown-up and didn’t care about things like comic books and creepy forests. Which was fine with Savin. Except he thought maybe he should kiss her before that happened. And actually love her. Jett was a girl with whom he raced home from school, ran through the fields and played video games. They spent every day with each other. But love? Right now that sounded as creepy as the forest.
“Whatever.” He stubbed the toe of his sneaker against the walking stick.
“Why don’t you go in there?” she cooed in that cotton-candy voice she always used when she wanted him to do something.
It made Savin’s ears burn and his heart feel like bug wings were fluttering inside.
“Maybe I will.” He took a step forward and planted the stick again.
Looking over the forest, he thought for a moment he saw the air waver before him. Did something flash silver? Of course, a haunted forest might be like that. He didn’t dare say “maybe not.” So he took another step, and then another.
And he heard Jett’s gasp behind him. “Savin, wait—”
He turned to see Jett’s brown eyes widen. She pointed over his shoulder. When he swung around to face the forest, Savin didn’t have time to scream.
Sucked forward through the air, arms flailing and legs stretched out behind him, he dropped the walking stick. Cold, icy air entered his lungs, swallowing his scream. Yet beside him he heard Jett’s scream like the worst nightmare. The world turned blacker than the cellar without the lights on. And the strange smell of rotting eggs made him gag.
Of a sudden his body dropped, seeming to fall endlessly. Until he landed on his back with a crunch of bones and a cry of pain.
He lay there, silenced by the strangeness of what had happened. Had a tornado swept him off his feet and into the depths of the dark forest? Had the sky opened like a crack in the wall and sucked him inside? What was he lying on? It felt...squishy and thick, and it smelled like the worst garbage.
“Savin?”
Jett was with him. He sat up, looking about. The landscape was brown and gray, and a deep streak of red painted what must be the black sky. His fingers curled into the mud he lay on, and he felt things inside it squirm.
“Jett?”
“Over here. Wh-what happened? What is that!”
An insectile whine preceded the approach of a creature that looked like something out of one of those nasty video games his parents had forbid him to play. Jett scrambled over to Savin. He clutched her hand and they both backed away from the thing that walked on three legs and looked like half a spider...with a human face.
“Run!” Savin yelled.
* * *
They ran for days, it seemed. They encountered...things. Monsters. Creatures. Demons. Evil. They were no longer anywhere near home. This was not the outer countryside surrounding Paris. There was no lush lavender field to run through. Or even grass. Savin wasn’t sure where they were or how they’d gotten here, but it was not a place in which he wanted to stay.
Jett cried as often as she wandered in silence and with a drawn expression. She was hungry and had taken on many cuts and bruises from the rough, sharp landscape and the strange molten rocks. Every time something moved, she screamed. Which was often.
This had to be hell. But Savin honestly didn’t know why they were here. Had they died? They hadn’t encountered people. But they did see humanlike beings. Strange creatures with faces and appendages that morphed and twisted, and some even had wings. None had spoken to them in a language they could understand.
“I want to go home,” Jett said on a tearful plea.
Savin hugged her close, as much to comfort her as for his own reassurance. He wanted to go home, too. And he wanted to cry. But he was trying to be brave. He’d hand over all his Asterix comics right now if only they could be home in their own beds.
“We’ll get out of here,” he murmured, and then clutched Jett even tighter. “I promise.”
* * *
They tried to drink from the stream that flowed with orange water, but it burned their throats. Jett’s tears permanently streaked her dirtied face. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her hands were rough and darkened with the gray dust that covered the landscape, and her jeans were tattered.
Savin had torn up his shirt to wrap a bandage about her ankle after she’d cut it on what had looked like barbed wire. But after she’d screamed, that strange wire had unfurled and slunk away.
They sat on a vast plateau of flat gray stone that tended to crack without warning, much like thin ice on a lake. No other creatures seemed to want to walk on it, so they felt safe. For the moment.
Savin had fashioned a weapon out of a branch from a tree that had appeared to be made of wood, until he’d broken off the branch and inspected it. It was metal. That he could break. But the point was sharp. That was all that mattered. He’d already killed something with it. An insect the size of a dog, with snapping mandibles and so many legs he hadn’t wanted to count them.
“Do you hear that?” Jett said in a weary whisper.
Savin followed the direction she looked. An inhale drew in the air. For some reason it smelled like summer. Fresh and...almost like water. Curious.
“I miss my mama and papa,” Jett whispered. She shivered. She shook constantly. They hadn’t eaten for days. And Savin’s stomach growled relentlessly. “If I die, promise me you won’t let one of those monsters eat me.”
“You’re not going to die,” Savin quickly retorted.
But he wasn’t so sure anymore.
Jett stood and wandered across the unsteady surface, wobbling at best. Savin thought to call out to her, but his lips were dry and cracked. He wanted something to drink. He wanted his feet to stop burning because he’d taken off his sneakers after the rubber soles had melted in the steel nettle field. He wanted safety. He’d do anything to escape this place he’d come to think of as the Place of All Demons.
“I see water!” Jett began to run.
Savin couldn’t believe she had the energy to move so swiftly. But he managed to pick up his pace and follow. She was fifty yards ahead of him when she reached the edge of what looked like a wa
terfall. Actual water?
“Jett, be careful!”
But she didn’t hear him. And when she turned to wave to him, all of a sudden her body was flung upward—as if lifted by a big invisible hand—and then her body dropped.
Savin reached the edge of the falls and plunged to his knees. He couldn’t see Jett. Her screams echoed for a long time. And what initially looked like clear, cool water suddenly morphed into a thick, sludgy black flow of lava that bubbled down into an endless pit. He couldn’t see the bottom.
“Jett!”
* * *
He lay at the edge of the pit for a long time. Days? There was no night and day in this awful place, so he couldn’t know. After he’d decided that Jett had died in the lava, Savin had vacillated between jumping in and ending his life, and crawling away. No one could survive such a fall. Perhaps that was for the best. He hoped she hadn’t suffered. He hoped she was in heaven right now, happy and safe.
But as much as he wanted to give up, he also didn’t want to die.
Savin finally crawled away from the lava falls. He hadn’t the energy to stand. He’d lost his walking stick in the lavender field. The next creature that threatened him? Bring it on. He didn’t like the idea of being eaten alive, but maybe the thing would chomp on his heart and kill him fast.
He crawled endlessly. Nothing tried to eat him.
Calluses roughed his fingers, and his T-shirt was shredded. He couldn’t feel his feet anymore. And his throat was so dry he couldn’t make saliva. So when he heard the voice of a woman, he thought it must be a dream.
Savin lay sprawled on an icy sheet of blackness that smelled like blood and dirt. Again, he heard the voice. Was it saying...help me?
It wasn’t Jett’s voice. Was it? No. Impossible. Though his heart broke anew over her loss, he couldn’t produce tears.
“Over here...”
With great effort, he was able to lift his head and saw what looked like lush streams of blackest hair. Was it Jett?
He crawled forward. His fingers glanced over something soft and fine, like one of his mother’s dresses. It was blue and smelled like flowers. A woman lay on the ground, blue and black hair flowing about her in masses that he thought made up her dress. He couldn’t get a good look at her face because he was too weak to sit up or stand.
“Do you want to go home?” the woman whispered.
He sobbed without tears and nodded profusely.
“I can help you out of Daemonia.”
That was the first time he’d heard the name of this terrible place.
“Please,” he rasped. “I’ll do anything.”
“Of course you will, boy. I ask but one simple thing of you.”
“Anything,” he managed.
“Come closer, boy. If you kiss me, I will bring you home.”
Kiss her? What strange request was that?
On the other hand...all he had to do was kiss the woman and he could return home to his soft, warm bed?
Savin pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked back the direction from which he’d crawled. He’d promised Jett he’d protect her. He’d failed. He should stay in this awful place as punishment. But he wasn’t stupid. And he wanted to see his parents.
“A...kiss?”
“Just one. And then you can go home.”
Savin crawled closer to the woman until he hovered inches from her face. She smelled like a field of flowers. Her skin was dark blue and her eyes were red, as were the eyes of all the creatures in this terrible place. He wavered as he supported himself with a hand and leaned closer.
And then he saw her lips.
Savin cried out. He tumbled to the side and rolled to his back. Her lips were covered with worms!
“Just one kiss, boy. Your parents are worried about you.”
Now a teardrop did fall. Savin gasped and choked as he could only wish for the safety of his parents’ embrace. And then...he forced himself to lean over the woman and kiss her awful mouth.
Chapter 3
He was called a reckoner now.
Savin Thorne sent demons who had come from Daemonia back where they belonged. He was hired to do so and rarely hunted them himself. He left the hunting for others. Once the demon was subdued or contained—usually in some style of hex circle—then he stepped in and worked his magic. A demonic magic afforded him, he believed, because of the demon within him. She had hitched a ride to the mortal realm when she sent him home following that foul kiss. He knew it was a female. And he could not get her out of him. He didn’t know her name, so had come to refer to her as the Other. He’d love to expel her from his very soul, but he’d tried every possible spell, hex and banishment without success.
He’d accepted that life from here on would be spent sharing his bones and flesh with the demon he’d once kissed out of a vile desperation.
Rain spattered Savin’s face and streaked through the headlight beams. The woman kneeling on the ground before him waited for his reaction. She’d called him by name. And her name was...
Mon Dieu, he’d thought her dead.
“Jett?”
She nodded, blinking at the falling rain. “I...I finally got out.”
“Finally...” Words felt impossible.
It was incredible to fathom. This frail, dirtied woman was Jett? All grown up? Had she been in Daemonia all this time? Twenty years? If he had known she’d survived the fall, he would have found a way to get to her, to rescue her from the unspeakable evils. Somehow.
Savin’s heart thundered. His fingers flexed at his sides. He didn’t know what to do. How to react. He should have been there for her when they were nine and ten and lost in the Place of All Demons. He’d promised her he would protect her. And he had failed.
Yet somehow Jett had survived. Had she escaped through the rift that had opened earlier? She must have.
She must be so... Twenty years! She had no home. No life. She had literally been dropped into this world.
“Jett.” Savin dropped to the ground before her, his knees crunching the wet gravel. Without reluctance, he hugged her to him. She was frail and shaking and they were both soaked from the rain. “I thought you were dead. Oh, Jett, I’m so sorry. It’s really you?”
He leaned back and studied her face. He remembered the sweet round face of the girl with the long black hair and the giggles that never ceased. Her eyes had been—Yes, they were brown. It could be her.
It had to be her.
“You’ve gotten so big,” she said, and then managed a weak laugh. “Yes, it’s me. Jett Montfort. I’m out. I’m... Oh, Savin.” She searched his eyes. Rain lashed at her pale skin and lips. “I want to be safe.”
“Of course. Safe. You are now. With me. I’ll...”
What would he do? He couldn’t leave her alone on the side of the road. She needed a place to stay. Clothes. Warmth. Food? How in the world had she survived in such a place for so long? It didn’t matter right now. She was frightened and alone.
“Will you come with me?” he asked.
“Where to?”
“My place. I live in Paris. I’ll help you, Jett. Whatever you need, I’ll help you to get.” And before he could regret another vow, he said, “Promise.”
She nodded, her smile wobbling and tears spilling freely. “Please.”
And when he thought to stand and help her up, instead Savin scooped her into his arms and carried her to the passenger side of the truck and set her inside. He tucked in her thin dress, which was nothing more than jagged-cut fabric clinging to her torso. She was covered with dirt and scratches, but the rain must have washed away any blood. She’d been hurt. Traumatized, surely.
She was a strange survivor.
And he owed her his life.
“You’re safe now.” He squeezed her hand, then closed the door and ran around to hop behind the wheel
.
Legs pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped about her shins, she bowed her head to her knees and closed her eyes as Savin drove into the city.
* * *
What strange luck that her escape into the mortal realm should be met by the one person she knew and had thought of many times over the years. It couldn’t be a coincidence. And yet Savin was a part of the demonic world in a way that disturbed Jett. She’d watched as he stood before the tear between the realms and reckoned demons back to Daemonia. He was powerful. And dangerous.
To her, he could prove most threatening.
Yet in her moment of need, Jett had accepted his offer of safety. Because she was exhausted, tattered and worn. And yet triumphant. She’d done it! She had escaped to the mortal realm. And whatever happened next would challenge her in ways she couldn’t imagine. She had prepared mentally, but the physical challenges would be unknown. She owned a specific power. She could survive this new adventure.
As the truck entered the city, she watched headlights flash past in swift beams of red and white. It had been a long time since Jett had been in a cosmopolitan city with vehicles and buildings of human manufacture. She remembered Paris. The historical monuments and buildings, the gardens and sculptures. The elite shops and the River Seine. It hadn’t seemed to change.
She had changed. Everything she knew about every single thing had changed.
And Savin remained the one pillar she needed more than she could fathom. He’d grown older, as had she. He’d gotten big and tall. The man was a behemoth wrapped in muscle and might. His dark brown hair was still shoulder length and tousled, as it had been when they were children. But now he wore a mustache and beard and a brute glint lived in his eyes. He had become a man. A very attractive man.
Jett couldn’t prevent the frequent glances out the corner of her eye to the man driving the truck. She had not seen such a handsome being in...a long time. And he occupied every air molecule with his presence. He overwhelmed the space in the truck. Being near him made her heart flutter, in a good way. That was something it had not done since she was a kid.