Shades of Wicked

by Jeaniene Frost

  My body was pinned, but my arms were still free. I stabbed the demon’s eyes out before someone yanked my bone knife away. More agony exploded as the pole was lifted with me still on the other end like a skewered fish. I gritted my teeth hard enough to bite off a fang as I shoved myself forward with all my strength. It felt like the pole had been made from razor wire, but I didn’t stop until I fell off the other end. Then I whirled, spitting my fang at the demon who’d done this to me.

  Dagon looked at the fang and arched a brow. “I’ve never cared enough to ask before, but do those grow back?”

  “I’ll have two to bite you with in no time,” I promised.

  He took the pole he’d impaled me on and hurled it again. Instead of aiming for me, he skewered the demon next to him. Everyone’s eyes bulged, mine included.

  “When I said bring her to me, it wasn’t a suggestion,” he told the demons in a blisteringly cheerful voice. “If you make me get her myself, why do I need any of you alive?”

  I was grabbed from behind before I could twitch to fly away. Then the demons tore into me as if their lives depended on it, which they now knew they did. Soon, it took all my strength to stay conscious and keep my limbs from being ripped off. Pain drenched me, far past my ability to concentrate enough to cast a spell. After a while, I wasn’t even sure if I was still standing. Whatever Ian had left to do, I found myself thinking dazedly, it had better fucking dazzle me when he gets back!

  Then power hit me with the suddenness of a rogue wave. The beatings stopped as the demons looked around to see what had caused it. I tried, too, but there was too much blood in my eyes to see. “What?” I heard Dagon say. He sounded surprised. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

  I swiped at my eyes and turned toward Dagon’s voice. Several hard blinks later, I saw Ian flying toward us. He was about thirty meters away, surrounded by small, pale objects that circled him in the air. At first, I thought it was a flock of tiny white birds. When I blinked again, I realized they were bones. Human-looking ones. They were moving around Ian in faster and faster circles. Ian’s lips were moving, too, but he was too far away for me to hear him. He must be doing a spell. Why? Ian knew that Dagon was too powerful for most spells to work on him.

  The bones suddenly exploded, forming into a pale cloud around Ian. As soon as they did, Ian stabbed himself in the chest with one of his silver knives and twisted the blade. If not for his demon brands, that would have killed him. Blood flowed out and shock filled me. I only knew one type of spell that required bones turning into dust and blood from the heart. A grave magic spell.

  “Ian, don’t!” I shouted.

  He ignored me while his blood coated the powdered bones until the cloud that surrounded him was red. From the curse Dagon muttered, he knew what type of spell Ian was attempting, too. More power blasted through the air as Ian began summoning the darkest of energies from beyond the grave.

  Gods, he must be trying to create a wraith. If he did, not even Dagon could stand against it. But grave magic was far more likely to kill its caster than be successful. That’s why even I had never attempted it. Ian’s brands might prevent the spell from killing him, but it could hurt Ian so badly, he wouldn’t be able to fight off a weak demon, let alone Dagon. I had to make sure Dagon didn’t take advantage of that weakness.

  But to do that, I needed to get through these damn demons! Seizing on the distraction, I ripped the arm off the nearest one while he was still looking up at Ian. Then I stabbed it fingers-first into his eyes when he swung back around. He screamed as both of them were pierced from his own twitching appendages. He fell onto me, eyes still smoking as he died. Demon bone was demon bone, whether or not skin was still attached to it.

  I held him in front of me as a shield while tearing off more of his bones to use as weapons. I wished I still had my machete, but at some point, one of the demons had ripped it from me. They no longer swarmed me from the front now that I had a weapon that could kill them. But there were still two demons clinging to my back, so I couldn’t fly away yet.

  I threw myself backward, trying to get them off me by brute force. When I fell on them, I stabbed blindly at whatever was behind me. I ended up killing one out of sheer luck. With only one more clinging to me, I managed to get in the air, but then another demon snatched my leg and anchored me to the ground. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dagon fly into Ian, punching, kicking, and stabbing him with a frenzy bordering on maniacal. Ian only protected his eyes as he fought, and all the while, his lips never stopped moving.

  A familiar power blasted out from Dagon. Just as fast, I blocked his third attempt to freeze time. Then a brutal blow returned my attention to the demon on my back. I let myself drop out of the air, using all my momentum to give him the full force of our landing. Blood shot up around us but he held on, teeth and claws tearing into me. I stabbed at every part I could reach while looking for something else I could use. In moments, more demons would pile on top of me. I didn’t dare deplete more of my strength with another elaborate spell. I had to keep canceling out Dagon’s spells against Ian.

  A demon running toward me leapt over a pile of metal shards between us. Yes, that! I sent a quick spell to fling the metal into his eyes and into the demon’s eyes behind me. The shards blinded the running demon, and I tripped him when he came near. He fell on top of me. I slashed my makeshift bone knife through his eyes, then flung him at the next demon hurtling toward me.

  His body knocked him down. I took that split second to flip over and stab the eyes out of the demon beneath me, then leapt to my feet. I’d hacked my way through two more demons when Dagon’s laugh made me whip my head up again.

  The red cloud around Ian had formed into two figures that were now clear enough to identify. Fenkir and Rani, I realized in disbelief. Ian had used their bones for this spell?

  “You fool!” Dagon chortled. “Don’t you know wraiths are made when the rage of a murdered person is yanked from their bones and given form? But I didn’t kill Fenkir and Rani. You’re raising creatures that will attack her!”

  Dagon was right. Wraiths went after their murderers and no one else. Why would Ian raise wraiths from Fenkir and Rani’s bones? They’d go straight for me as soon as the spell was finished, if Dagon didn’t kill Ian first!

  Trust me without arguing for once.

  Ian’s words were a reminder I didn’t want in my appalled state. But I couldn’t ignore the fact that Ian had trusted me when everything he’d known would’ve urged him not to. I did owe him the same, even if everything I knew screamed at me to run for my life before he finished that spell.

  But if this ended up killing me, I’d make sure my first words to Ian after I came back from the dead was I knew this was a bad idea!

  Chapter 40

  Whatever happened, I couldn’t afford to be incapacitated when Ian was done with that spell. I yanked a hunk of breastplate and rib from the demon body nearest me. Then I wrapped my hand around it so the rib bones poked out between my fingers. With that and the long, thin radius bone in my other hand, I started slashing at every demon near me.

  They fought back just as viciously, now ignoring Dagon’s order not to kill me. They even used the same method I had and tore bones off their dead companions for weapons. I was slashed, stabbed and sliced countless times, then healed only to have it happen again. Adrenaline, determination, and fury numbed most of the pain. The rest made me stagger as I tried to force them back far enough so I could fly away. Above all, I protected my eyes. Everything else, I could heal or come back from. I still didn’t want to test the theory that I couldn’t come back from that.

  The demons around me were suddenly flung aside so hard, many landed on their asses. My brief exultation vanished when I saw why. Two filmy forms streaked toward me. Icy power burst from them with such tremendous force, it cleared everything in their path. Oh, fuuuuck! was my single thought. Then the wraiths made from Fenkir and Rani’s bones ripped into me.

  Time evaporated. So di
d distinct sensations. I didn’t have separate body parts like two arms, two legs, a torso and a head anymore. Instead, I was one exposed nerve that was being endlessly shredded, scorched with icy fire and shredded again.

  Then that unbelievable agony vanished. I came to, gasping—gasping!—while healing from wounds that had left no marks. Almost tentatively, a black-haired demon stepped out from the group that had gathered a few meters away, watching me. Then a shrill scream yanked everyone’s attention upward.

  Ian floated near the top of the wooden roller coaster. His arms were raised above his head and blood poured from his mouth and eyes. But he wasn’t the one screaming. It was Dagon, because the two wraiths were now tearing into him.

  Holy and unholy gods, Ian had actually done it! I hadn’t known wraiths could be redirected from the person who murdered them to someone else. Now, I was seeing it with my own eyes. The demons seemed transfixed by it, too. They watched as the wraiths stabbed their bodies through Dagon in endless loops that had the demon convulsing so hard, his arms and legs broke.

  So that’s what they’d been doing to me, I thought numbly, almost pitying Dagon the horrifying pain. Almost.

  Then Ian’s hands moved, the gestures too fast to track. The wraiths began carrying Dagon toward the roller coaster. As if that broke the trance, the dark-haired demon resumed his path toward me, but he kept glancing up. Clearly, he’d rather keep staring at what was happening to Dagon than try to kill me, but he kept coming for me nonetheless.

  I attempted to fly away, cursing when I couldn’t. The wraiths’ attack must’ve taken too much out of me. It took all my effort to scrounge around for more demon bone. I must have lost mine when the wraiths ripped through me. If I didn’t find some, I’d be in trouble. Soon, more demons would get back to trying to kill me, once they stopped watching the wraiths and Dagon.

  I’d grabbed a handful of what looked like half-crushed shin bones before throwing them away when they folded, too broken to be lethal. Then, incredibly, I saw my demon-bone knife a few meters away, the gleam from its steel-reinforced back practically winking at me in the moonlight. One of the demons must have torn it free from my pocket while fighting me. Instead of picking it up, he had left the knife on the ground.

  I lunged for it right as the black-haired demon coming after me saw it, too. Both of us scrambled to grab the knife. It skidded out of our grasp as our struggles knocked it away.

  “Now!” Ian’s shout jerked my head up. “Detonate, detonate!”

  I shoved the demon off me to grab the bulky object in the pocket of my cargo pants. Another demon jumped on my back, tearing into me with something that burned as if I was being splashed with acid. I didn’t defend myself, keeping my focus on pressing every part of the detonator within my pocket. It felt broken from the various fights. I wasn’t sure if it still worked, but I had to try. After a few frantic seconds, I felt a dip in the metal and pushed inward, hard.

  Explosions rocked the roller coaster as our salt bombs went off. There were so many, they turned the air white. We’d also spelled them to increase their distance and velocity. Dagon’s new shriek when salt blasted into him was sweet music. More salt bombs near the roller coaster’s base shot out far enough to strafe the demons surrounding me. Their screams soon drowned out Dagon’s. I took advantage of their writhing to force myself free and grab my bone knife. I still couldn’t fly, but I managed several jumps as the wooden skeleton of the roller coaster toppled over, the base crumbling with the detonation.

  “Bone knife!” Ian shouted. “Now!”

  I had one, but how was I going to get it to him? I still couldn’t fly! But even scalded all over with salt while being strafed with wraiths, Dagon had started to struggle. I had no idea how he managed it. He must be far, far stronger than I’d realized. Ian had clearly used everything he had to wield the grave magic enough to do the unthinkable and force the wraiths off me and onto Dagon. Now, he looked as if he couldn’t hold himself aloft in the sky much longer.

  “Hold on!” I shouted back. “I’m coming!”

  I pulled extra energy from the only water source I could find: a left-over sewer tank buried beneath the park. It didn’t have much in it, but I took everything. Then I flung myself into the air without knowing if I’d rise or splat to the ground.

  I rose. Ian let out a roar when he saw it. Then he managed to fly over to Dagon and get so close, the wraiths’ carnage tore into him, too. Right as I reached them, he flipped Dagon over so the demon was facing me.

  Dagon’s screams were white noise. All I was focused on was his eyes. I hit one at full force, my momentum driving the bone knife deep into his skull. His shriek ruptured my eardrums, causing instant deafness. I ripped the knife out and rammed it into Dagon’s other eye without hearing his new scream. Smoke burst from that, too, and I saw rather than heard Ian’s shout.

  Then Ian’s arms fell away, and he dropped from the air. Dagon dropped, too, both eyes still smoking as he hit the ground very near to Ian. Both men hit hard and didn’t move. Then light burst from Dagon, and the wraiths disappeared. His body also began shrinking into itself, proving he was finally, truly dead.

  I couldn’t celebrate. I was too worried about Ian. I flew down, landing hard enough to crack the ground next to him. Then I touched Ian’s back. He wasn’t moving. I was struck with fear over what I’d find when I turned him over. He’d landed on his stomach, his arm flung over the part of his face that wasn’t pressed into the concrete. He felt cold, gods, so cold! What if Dagon had done something as a final, cruel taunt? What if he’d spelled himself so that if he died, Ian died, too?

  “Ian.” I ran my hand along his back, gulping when he didn’t move or speak. “Ian, wake up!”

  He rolled over and my heart jumped as if struck with a thousand volts. Then he sat up, his forearm still pressed against his forehead. “Remind me never to attempt grave magic again,” he moaned. “That hurt too much even for me to enjoy.”

  I grasped his free hand and pressed it to my chest. I would’ve hugged him, but I was afraid that would cause him more pain. “You’re really okay?”

  What a stupid question. He’d just said he wasn’t. But I needed to hear his voice again, even if it was only to answer my ridiculous query. What I should be doing is finishing off the rest of the demons before they ceased being incapacitated from the salt bombs. Not sitting here clutching Ian’s hand while unable to look away from his face.

  And I would do that. In a minute.

  “Mostly.” He gave me a faint smile. “Twisting the wraith spell to send them after Dagon still has me all sixes and sevens, but I’ll recover. Good thing it worked.”

  “Yes, good thing,” I breathed. “Though you should never have attempted it. That spell could’ve gotten you killed in several different ways.”

  His smile faded. “We were outnumbered, Dagon wasn’t taking our bait, and he was more powerful than either of us anticipated. It was a choice of possible dying versus absolutely dying. Given the choice, I’d always rather go down fighting.”

  I brushed my lips over his knuckles. “So would I.” Then, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I released his hand. “Speaking of fighting, those demons screeching over their salt wounds aren’t going to kill themselves. Stay here. I’ll be back after I take care of them.”

  This time, his smile looked more like the usual Ian: half teasing, half enticing. “Give me a moment, and I’ll join you. Can’t have you tiring yourself out. We have a celebration to—”

  His smile froze and he stopped speaking so abruptly, I looked back at the demons to see if one of them had gotten up and started doing something threatening. But no, they were all still writhing on the ground more than thirty meters away.

  Then I looked back at Ian—and screamed.

  His right eye was now black and smoking.

  Chapter 41

  Ian’s head drooped and he listed to the side. That’s when I saw the hilt of a bone knife sticking out of the back of his h
ead. Dagon—how? HOW?—was rising up behind Ian. His eyes, healed back to their icy blue color, stared right at me as he shoved another blade into the back of Ian’s skull.

  “Don’t!” My scream broke from sheer panic. “Please, stop!”

  Dagon did, though his hand remained on the knife that was half-buried in Ian’s skull. Shudders wracked Ian, filling me with relief and rage. Those shudders meant the second knife hadn’t bitten too deeply yet. He still had a chance.

  A little smile played on Dagon’s lips as he leaned over so he could see me fully past Ian’s shoulder. “What will you give me if I don’t kill him, girl?”

  “. . . n’t.” Ian’s harsh grunt was barely coherent, but his remaining eye blazed with green and his expression translated it plainly. Don’t. “. . . eave . . .” Ian forced out, his stare drilling into mine. “. . . by . . . owr’ . . . s’ell . . .’ing . . . us . . . I . . . commaaaaan . . . ou . . .”

  I choked back a sob as I pieced together what he was trying to say. “You can’t command me to leave by the power of the spell binding us. I got out of its hold almost two weeks ago, when I killed the body it was tied to.”

  Incredibly, a smile ticked the corner of Ian’s mouth. “. . . ’eat’d,” he said, approval clear in the broken word.

  Tears overflowed and I didn’t care that they made Dagon grin. “Yes, I cheated. I didn’t trust you then, so I wasn’t about to make a deal I couldn’t get out of.”

  Dagon tapped the hilt of the bone knife. Anguish flashed across Ian’s face before he tried to conceal it. “If you want him to live,” Dagon purred, “you’ll make another deal, girl. Only this one, you won’t get out of.”

  Of course Dagon wanted my soul, my abilities, my subjugation, or all three. Could I stall him while I siphoned enough power to free Ian? There was no lake, pond, or other water source nearby. But if I stretched my senses, I might be able to find one farther away that I could tap into. I had to try.