Dorian had a feeling where this was going, but she wasn’t sure why Briar was sharing like this. It wouldn’t change her mind.
“One night, we found one of the Demon Generals. One of the Seekers located it and the man was this big, hulking son of a bitch escaped from a federal prison. We had him chained in the basement, but the demon was strong. Stronger than I anticipated. This was my first reaping, and I swore I was ready, but… I wasn’t.” Her voice went quiet for a moment. “He escaped from the chains and went after Evie. Broke her neck in one fell swoop. I’ll never forget it. Her eyes were closed and she was using everything she had, but those giant hands grabbed her face and just…” She sighed. “Crack. Dead. She hit the floor like she was a sack of rocks and the demon jumped out the window. It took us two weeks to find him. Pearl put him down like a rabid dog.”
“I don’t,” Dorian began, but Briar stopped her.
“The escape was my fault. It was my spell on the chains but it wasn’t strong enough. I asked Pearl if I could help mixing the potions and I didn’t put enough burnt sage in. The spell was weak, the demon exploited it, and Evie died.”
“Jesus,” Dorian breathed. She reached over and gave Briar’s ankle an involuntary squeeze.
“I thought they were going to hate me. Throw me out. Maybe kill me. The guilt alone was enough to send me off a fucking cliff.” Finished with the brushing, Briar pushed Dorian forward and began to braid her hair down her back. “I couldn’t look Pearl in the eyes for days. She eventually found me in the bathroom with a gun. She knew what I was going to do. I was trying to make amends, you know. An eye for an eye.”
Dorian let out a bitter laugh. “And she stopped you?”
“No.” Briar finished with her hair, and gave Dorian’s shoulder a shove to turn her around. “She told me if I really felt like another lost life was worth it, if it really would help our cause, to do it. She told me Evie knew exactly what she was getting herself into. That death was part of the job. And she told me it wasn’t my fault. I’d done the best I could. All I should do was move forward, to better myself so mistakes couldn’t happen again.”
Standing up, Briar walked over to a small bag in the corner of the room and reached in. She walked back with a small glass vial in her hand and held it out to Dorian. “If you really think you can’t be better, if you really think the only solution is to die, do it. But if there’s even a shred of you that believes you can beat that thing back and come out of this stronger and better, well, you know what to do.”
The vial was cold in her hands, and the room was even more silent after Briar walked out, closing the door behind her. Easing herself on to the edge of the bed, she stared down at the liquid in her hands and let herself breathe through the anxiety creeping up her spine.
Briar was asking her to make a choice. Asking her if she was strong enough to walk out of this alive, and the truth was, she didn’t know. And the fear that she might not be strong enough, that someone else might get hurt, was overwhelming. She closed her eyes and through the demon’s memory, she saw Dash’s face. The anguish and agony in the moment that his spine broke. But before that, he’d been determined. He’d been fighting. He was covered in claw marks but he was still coming for Dorian. Not to kill her, but to subdue the creature so he could save her.
If she took this way out, his sacrifice, his injury would have been in vain. She couldn’t ignore the awful truth—these people knew what they were facing. They understood that death and injury were often their endgame and they accepted it. Dash had walked into the basement that night knowing they didn’t have enough Exorcists, but cared enough about Dorian’s life that they went ahead with it anyway. To try to protect her. To try saving her.
She couldn’t repay him this way.
Standing up, she walked back to his bag and tucked the vial inside, zipping it up with a sharp, fluid motion. She knew where it was now, and she knew if she had to, she’d take her own life. But she owed it to everyone who’d invested in her from the moment they found her to at least try. And she owed it to herself.
Chapter Twenty
The Exorcists would arrive by the following evening. Dorian was unsurprised to learn how difficult it was to gather a conclave of Exorcists, especially one this large. After Adelaide assessed the situation, she sent out notifications for twelve Exorcists to join them, and half were in other countries.
Dorian did wonder about the hierarchy structure of these people. Who was in charge? How did it work? Who did they defer to? Everyone seemed to revere and respect Adelaide, taking her word over that of Mat or Markus, and no one bothered to ask anything of Lennox other than to fetch things or mix up spells and potions.
The entire thing was disconcerting. Though Dorian knew these people were here for the greater good, the only people she really trusted were Briar and Lennox, and they both seemed to be avoiding her like the plague.
In fact, it wasn’t until after midnight that night that she even saw Lennox again, and it was when he popped in the back room to get a few things from his suit cases. Mat and Markus wasted no time after arriving in furnishing the place, having couches, tables, beds, and dressers delivered. They had a team in the basement to clear the mess down there, and when Dorian ventured into the kitchen for something to snack on, she found the fridge and cupboards bursting with food and drink.
She couldn’t sleep, so she was sitting on the bed with a sleeve of chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of water, some show on the laptop playing without sound. Lennox walked in, startled to find her awake, and he immediately looked away from her. “Sorry. Just came in to…” When he started to turn away, she held out her hand. “I get why you don’t want to look at me, but you don’t have to leave. This was your room first. I can just grab my shit and go.” She started to pack up but Lennox sighed and shook his head.
“No lass, it’s not you.”
Dorian froze with a frown. “How the hell is it not me?”
“Briar told me about your talk. About what you wanted to do.”
Her face flared bright red and she couldn’t help but glance over at the bag with the vial of poison nestled at the bottom. “Oh. Um. Okay.”
Lennox hesitated, then dropped on the edge of the bed a few feet away from her. “She told you about Evie. How she died.”
When Dorian answered, her voice was choked in her throat. “Yeah. She did.”
“Did she tell you the first time we met was at Evie’s funeral?” When Dorian shook her head, Lennox smiled a little. “She thought I was going to kill her. Tit for tat or something. She didn’t expect I’d ask to work with her.”
Dorian’s eyebrows shot up. “You requested to work with her?”
Lennox nodded and sat back on his arms. “I think someday you’ll fully understand it when we all say we know what we’re getting into. My siblings and I were raised in this life. My dad died when I was six, throat clawed out by a demon. My brother’s retired now. His face was ravaged during a botched exorcism. Can’t see much more than a fuzzy blur anymore, but he does what he can from home.”
“Jesus,” Dorian breathed. She understood what he was saying, but it didn’t change things. “That doesn’t mean I don’t feel responsible for what happened. And you can’t pretend like you’re not avoiding me.”
Lennox looked ashamed, his cheeks going pink, and he let out a breath. “I didn’t lose him, Dorian. Dashiell, he’s going to live. He’ll have some rehab and whatever the damage is, we’ll live with it. I don’t love that tosser because he has an able body. I love him because he understands me in a way most people never can.” He paused a moment. “I’m not avoiding you. I’m scared. Markus showed me the files on your demon, and he scares the piss out of me. I’ve never come across something like this. I’ve never seen a demon invested in a human life, and I’m angry with myself because I underestimated him. If anyone’s to blame for the cock-up your exorcism became, it’s me.”
Dorian shook her head. “I should have… I could have insisted we
wait. I knew. I knew what he was, I knew how strong he was and…”
Lennox reached out, closing his hand around her wrist. “If you continue to blame yourself, you’re never going to be able to fight him. You need to understand whatever hurt Dash, whatever hurt me, he’s also hurting you. He’s the monster. And you can fight him, but you have to believe you can.”
Dorian bowed her head and tried to believe that. But her entire life had been a mess and she’d been told since she could remember it had been of her own making. She could have been better, stronger, if only she’d tried. Let the therapy work. Stay regular with her drugs. Overcome her mother’s poor choices. She could only blame it on bad genes for so long.
“You can do this, lass. I believe in you. Briar believes in you. Hell, even Markus has his money on you or he wouldn’t be here. If he didn’t think you were strong and valuable, he would have sent me a kill order and that would be that.”
She gulped, feeling the heavy weight of all that resting on her shoulders. Eventually she took a breath, looked him in the eye, then nodded. “Okay. Okay I’ll give it all I’ve got.”
He smiled, the gesture tense, but he pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head. “When this is all over, we can go see that moron who’s got himself all comfortable and spoilt in his hospital bed. We’ll go steal his lime jelly and watch shit daytime television and annoy the nurses until they kick us out. Deal?”
She grinned and settled back into her blankets. “Deal. But… should I be afraid? This conclave of thirteen?”
Lennox bowed his head. “I’ve never seen it this big before, but believe me when I say, I’m with you to the end.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Morning came and though she hadn’t slept much, Dorian felt more rested than she had after sleeping off the effects of the attempted exorcism. Although the house was growing in number with arriving members of the conclave, the mood around everyone remained tense and silent.
When she went down for coffee, there were three men she didn’t recognize talking to Markus. Although he offered her a good morning nod of his head, he offered no introduction and the strange men regarded her with obvious unease. She felt exposed, like an animal in a zoo as they stared at her, fixated on the spells woven around her arms in the red symbols. The exorcism would be worth it if only to get them to stop treating her like a rabid beast about to attack.
She could also feel the wards increasing. With every member arriving, more spells were woven around the house and it made it hard to breathe and harder to think. She knew it was the work of Adelaide, the resident spell-caster, so she asked for her and was directed down to the basement.
The idea of venturing down there where everything had gone so wrong sent her into a spiral of panic, but she wanted to face her fears. She needed to confront everything before she was chained down again and forced to fight Nic or die. Or both.
With a straight spine, Dorian opened the door to the basement and peered down the stairs. She could see a soft glow from candles, and it was warm but not overwhelming, so she took the stairs one at a time, her steps slow and deliberate. The door shut hard behind her, making her wince, but she kept going, and eventually stepped into the open space to see Adelaide crouched over a low table.
The basement was still in a state of disrepair, the walls and floors cracked, but the rubble and broken furniture had been cleared out and replaced. There were new symbols on the walls and floors, though different from the ones Lennox and Dash had drawn, and the candles were all sitting on shelves instead of hovering in the air.
“I was wondering when you’d come down here.” Adelaide’s voice was soft, but carried over the quiet, still air.
Dorian licked her lips nervously as she crossed the distance between them. She saw the young girl bent over a large, aged map spread out over the table. At the edge she had a small, silver mixing bowl and a dagger propped against the side.
“I came to ask you about the new spells,” Dorian said as she stood at the opposite side of the table. “They’re getting a little…” She trailed off, tugging at the collar of her t-shirt.
“I know. I apologize, but it can’t be helped. The more Exorcists that show up, the more I have to expand and strengthen the wards. The ones Markus called in are all high profile, and tend to have demons tailing them. Can’t risk your exposure.”
Dorian rubbed her hands on her cheeks, trying to chase away her frustration. Her gaze darted around the room, and the memory of Dash’s injury still fresh in her mind threatened to surge forward.
“He doesn’t blame you, you know.” Adelaide’s voice cut through Dorian’s thoughts, making her startle. “He’s worried about you, but he wants you to survive. I think he’s mostly upset because he can’t be here.”
“Is he ever going to work again?” Dorian asked, her voice trembling just a bit.
“As an Exorcist?” Adelaide shook her head. “They’re not going to be able to do much for his legs, and you can’t run from demons if you can’t run.”
Dorian felt her stomach surge up into her throat, threatening to spill her breakfast. “God.”
“He’s okay with it. He’ll probably be trained as a Seeker. He’s got the gift for spell-casting.” Adelaide sounded unbothered by the whole thing. She looked up at Dorian, her eyes wide and curious. “It’s what happens to most Exorcists when they’re forced to retire.”
“When?” Dorian pressed.
Adelaide let out a small laugh. “Yeah. That’s how most of them go. Either killed or damaged at the hands of demons. Luckily they’re not as rare as the Reapers.”
Dorian remembered the statistics, how many of the post-possessed exorcisms resulted in survival, making Reapers a rare breed. “So he’s going to be… he won’t be…”
“Cast out? Hardly. He’ll be around. He’ll probably be assigned to your house eventually, once he’s gone through more training. It’s not like Lennox would let him go very far, besides.”
It did offer some bit of comfort, knowing Dash wasn’t cast out of the only life he’d ever known. And knowing that Seekers were often Exorcists injured on the job made the transition less terrible. “What about you? How’d you get this job?”
Adelaide looked up again, her face passive. “I wasn’t an Exorcist, if that’s what you mean. I’m only thirteen and they don’t let kids work in the field like that.” She leaned on the table, her hands spread out over some of the map. “I was born with the gift. I could see things. Demons mostly, though at the time I thought they were ghosts. One night a demon came after my family, slaughtered them in their sleep. Came after me, too, but I was able to hold him back. Eventually I got found by another Seeker and brought in. I was six.”
“Oh my God.” Dorian couldn’t begin to fathom that kind of trauma. In a way, she’d been lucky she didn’t remember her mother. All she’d ever known was the system, and she didn’t want to think of how broken she might be if she’d known love, even for a little while.
Adelaide was looking at the map again, and after a second she hummed and reached for the dagger. Slicing the top of her finger, she drew a symbol in blood and muttered something under her breath. The blood flared bright white, and when the light faded, the map was clean.
“What are you doing?” Dorian took a step back, afraid to disrupt the spell, but Adelaide seemed unbothered.
“I’m trying to pinpoint where the stronger demons are. In fact…” She motioned for Dorian to come closer, and when she did, the Seeker grabbed her and made a quick, deft slice in her palm. Dorian let out a small cry as Adelaide squeezed her hand over the bowl, drops flowing into the clear liquid sitting at the bottom. “Sorry, but your blood is perfect. It’s tainted with his.”
Dorian took a step back when Adelaide let her go, putting the wound to her mouth and sucking on it. It tasted coppery and unpleasant, but it soothed the pain a bit as she watched Adelaide mix some white powder into the bowl and say another incantation. After a moment, steam rose from the bowl, an
d Adelaide lifted it, dumping the contents onto the map.
It hissed, sending Dorian stumbling back, and as she watched with wide eyes, the reddish liquid ripped across the map, leaving smoking trails in its wake as it gathered around twenty different points. The puddles of liquid lit up, bright and glowing, then fizzled out, leaving a black smear like a burn mark.
“What was that?” Dorian asked, unable to help herself.
Adelaide swiped her hand across her forehead before she looked up. “That was my spell. Your blood was really effective, actually. It’s going to be a shame to lose that.”
Wincing, Dorian wasn’t inclined to agree with that statement. Still, it was interesting to watch the Seeker work. She stayed silent as she watched Adelaide pull out a notebook and make several marks on a blank sheet of paper. When she was done, she set the book aside and smiled over at Dorian.
“I think you’re going to do just fine, you know. With the next exorcism.”
Dorian let out a surprised cough, and shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that. I feel like a huge mess.”
“You are a huge mess.” The Seeker walked around the table, leaning back on it and folded her arms over her chest. “I know I’m just a kid. Magic or not, I’m thirteen, you know? But I’ve seen a lot, and you’re not the kind of person who cracks under magical pressure. Plus, Markus is an idiot and I think Lennox was on to something. That demon doesn’t want you to die.”
“So you think if the exorcism looks like it’s going to succeed, he’s going to let me go?”
Tapping her chin, Adelaide hummed in thought. “I think so. I can’t be sure. A lot of what you have going on,” she waved her hand up and down Dorian, “is impossible for me to see. Which sucks, if you must know. Hard to do my job and everything. But I really do think so. Maybe not without consequence, but I can’t feel your death nearby.”
Dorian had no idea what that meant. She couldn’t begin to imagine how far a Seeker’s powers extended, especially one born into it. It was frustrating not knowing the ins and outs of how everything worked, but she was learning.
The Reaping: Language of the Liar Page 16