by Ella Summers
“Ten hours ago. I’m ok now.”
“You’re pushing yourself too hard.”
“Because I have no other choice,” Naomi sighed. She could still feel the magical fatigue weighing her down. “I’m the only one who can perform the spell to expose a demon inside a host body and send the demon back to hell without rupturing the veil. You guys need me.” She smiled at him. “You know I’m right.”
His gold eyes were hard, his mouth a tight line. He’d been so overprotective of her since their fight with the demon Sarth last week.
“You can stand by my side the whole time,” she said.
“Oh, I will.” His voice grew softer, even as his voice dipped lower. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his fingers. Then they faced the door to garage thirty-two together.
“All done smooching?” Alex smirked at Naomi.
“For now.”
“Well, then. Let’s get this party started.”
Explosions fired off inside the warehouse.
“Alex,” Sera sighed.
“That wasn’t me.”
“Or your dragon?”
“It wasn’t Nova either.” Alex glanced at Logan. “Honey, if you please.”
Logan grabbed the door and tore it off its hinges. Everyone stormed inside the warehouse. As soon as Naomi spotted Riley and Lara, she cast her spell on them, bombarding them repeatedly with spirit magic to reveal the demons inside.
“There aren’t demons inside of them,” Naomi declared as they finally fell to the floor. Naomi nearly fell herself. Apparently, ten hours hadn’t been nearly enough sleep.
“What the hell, Naomi?!” Lara demanded, pushing herself off the ground. Her enraged eyes glared out from behind the curtain of red hair that had fallen over her face.
Riley rose, wobbling a little as he stepped up beside Lara. “What is going on?”
“We thought you two might be playing hosts to demons,” Alex said with a shrug.
Lara folded her arms across her chest. “No.”
“Yeah, we know that now,” said Naomi. “If there were demons inside of you, my spell would have revealed them.”
Makani closed in behind her and massaged her shoulders. Slow, easy magic pulsed out of his fingers, relaxing her muscles and magic. He gave the best magic massages.
And he was right. She really needed to slow down, or this demon hunt would kill her.
“You thought there were demons inside of us?” Lara said, frowning. “Where would you get a crazy idea like that?”
“You stole magic-proof armor and magical herbs from Drachenburg Industries,” Sera said. “And you’ve been holed up in here since last night.”
Lara expelled an exasperated sigh. “So instead of asking us, you decided to barge in here, magic firing.”
Sera’s smile was almost sheepish. “Sorry.”
“You will need to work really hard to make this up to me, Bridezilla,” Lara snapped.
“Bridezilla?”
“You heard me.” Lara planted her hands on her hips. “The stress of the wedding must have cracked your mind if you thought for a second that a demon could hold me.”
“Bridezilla.” Alex was laughing her head off. “I like it. And you always wanted a cool nickname like mine.”
“Bridezilla is not a cool nickname,” Sera said. “Besides, we’d already agreed that I am the Mistress of Mayhem.”
Alex smirked at her. “Sure thing, Bridezilla.”
Sera stuck her tongue out at her sister and went to stand beside Naomi. Kai walked up behind Sera and set his hands on her shoulders.
“So why were you two acting so covert?” Alex asked Riley and Lara. “What were you two up to? And please don’t say S&M dungeon.”
“No,” Lara laughed. Her gaze shifted to Sera and Kai. “Fine. If you really must know, Riley and I were preparing a special wedding surprise for you two.”
“A wedding surprise?” Sera said.
“That’s right, Bridezilla. We were making you a cake. And if we seemed to be acting covert, it’s because we were trying to keep it all a secret.”
Riley indicated the cake on the table at the center of the warehouse. They’d rushed in so fast that Naomi hadn’t seen it before.
“I bottled some of Lara’s summoning spells, storing them into these.”
He tapped the two dragon cake toppers, and they started moving. The two tiny dragons danced across the wedding cake as little fireworks exploded all around them.
“This surprise has taken months of planning and testing.” Lara frowned. “And now you’ve ruined it.”
“Why did you take two suits of magic-proof armor?” Naomi asked.
“Some of the spells we’re trying out to create the special effects are rather explosive,” Riley said.
“Explosions.” Alex smirked at Sera. “Just what every good wedding needs.”
“And the cursed pearls?” Sera asked Riley. “Were you planning on cursing the guests?”
“The Pearls of Tears are completely misunderstood. The pearls themselves are not actually cursed. Each one is simply an immense magic reservoir, a place to store spells. Which we used to store the firework spells.” Riley pointed at the strand of fat pearls that dotted the cake’s top tier. “Curses are complex, multi-layered spells. They take up a lot of magic storage space, which this necklace provides. That’s why people used it to curse people.”
“And what about all the non-magical ingredients you bought?” Alex asked Lara.
“Oh, you mean flour, sugar, and eggs? Let’s just say we blew up a lot of cakes before we got the spells right.” Lara winked at her. “And cleaned up a lot of cake bits. Those were all the cleaning supplies I bought with the cake ingredients.”
The cake’s sweet aroma teased Naomi’s nose. Her stomach growled in response. Apparently, sleep wasn’t the only thing she was missing. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten.
Oh, right, the pancakes. That felt like years ago.
Her head felt light, airy. Dizziness swaddled her. Hands caught her before she even realized she was falling.
Naomi looked up into Makani’s eyes. “Thanks.”
“Sit down, Naomi.”
“I’ll be ok.”
“I wasn’t asking.” His voice was harsh and gentle, all at once.
“He’s right,” Sera told her.
“Even the crazy Dering sisters know when to stop,” Alex added.
“No, you don’t.”
“Well, then don’t follow our horrible example,” Alex said with a wicked wink.
Naomi sat down at the table, which put her even closer to the cake’s tempting scent. “It looks good.”
“I’d offer you a piece. You sure look like you need something to eat,” said Lara. “But unfortunately, Riley and I haven’t worked out all the kinks in the recipe.”
“What kind of kinks?”
“It turns out that it’s not that easy to make a beautiful, delicious, magical cake,” Lara sighed, a wistful glimmer in her eyes.
“I’m still figuring out how to contain the leakage of the more explosive ingredients,” Riley explained.
“Meaning, if I eat it, I’ll blow up too?” Naomi asked.
“No, nothing so dramatic,” Riley assured her. “You’d simply be poisoned.”
“If you and Lara can’t figure out how to not poison all the wedding guests, then I’m putting Naomi in charge of the wedding cake,” Kai said, every word crackling with magic.
“She drugs all her desserts,” Riley protested.
Naomi flashed him a grin. “But they are happy drugs.”
“We will figure it out,” Riley assured Kai.
Lara glanced at Naomi. “We might not have a working cake yet, but we do have a refrigerator full of Magic Spike and other magic-boosting drinks on the other side of the garage.”
“Unfortunately, they don’t help me.”
Lara blinked.
“Oh, right.” Lara mulled that over. “Well, the drinks also have lots of sugar in them.”
“So, what now?” Alex said as she sat down beside Naomi. She casually planted her boots on the table, leaned back in her chair, and balanced on the back two legs.
Logan’s eyes slid over her. “Practicing for tea with the Queen?”
“Absolutely,” Alex replied brightly.
“What prompted you to suspect that we were demons anyway?” Riley asked Kai.
“A demon we defeated tonight taunted us that the remaining two demons were hiding right under our noses.”
“It sounds like he wanted to keep us all occupied,” Riley commented. “Or he wanted to make us not trust each other.”
“Or both,” said Naomi. “Yeah, the thought crossed our minds. But what if it’s not a trick? What if there really are demons hiding within our inner circle?”
They’d been running around blind, chasing phantoms, for far too long.
The demons are inside two of you. All you have to do is figure out who was closest to the Spirit Warrior when they got loose.
Gluttony’s words echoed in Naomi’s mind. What did the demon mean by them? They’d already checked everyone who’d been there at Monster Lake—well, except for the two ghosts. But a demon could not possess a ghost. Or could it?
Naomi’s phone rang before she could debate any further impossibilities. She glanced down at the name on her screen.
“Mom?” she answered.
“Naomi, your father just woke up,” Mom said. “He is asking for you.”
Happiness pinched her heart. Dad was awake! He was truly all right.
“I’ll be right there,” Naomi told her mother.
She had to see her father. She had to hug him, laugh with him, just be with him again. And she had to talk to him about the remaining two demons.
They were bumbling around blind in their demon hunt, but Dad was an experienced Spirit Warrior; he’d spent years fighting demons. He knew how they thought. And, more importantly, he knew better than anyone else alive how the laws of spirit and demonic magic worked. He might just be their only hope of tracking down the two incognito demons—and stopping them before they executed their dark, mysterious plan.
9
The Princes of Hell
The breakfast table was already set when Naomi and Makani stepped into the dining hall of her family’s home on Fairy Island. Flower pots of all shapes and sizes filled the room, and inside each of them was a living plant. Lemons, limes, clementines, strawberries. Their tart sweetness flooded the hall.
Dad loved anything and everything citrus. Each time Naomi had visited the island over the past two months, there had been more of it. Naomi’s family had brought the plants inside to coax Dad out of his magic coma.
It seemed to have worked. Dad sat at the table, alive and well. His long blond hair was pulled away from his face. A light stubble covered his cheeks and chin. Mom sat beside him, holding his hand as though he would disappear if she let go even for a second. She was an elemental mage with the power to wield all the elements. According to Aunt Cora, back in her days as a mercenary, fire had been her favorite. Ever since starting Fairy Island, she’d favored earth more. Now that Dad was back, some of that fire was back in her.
Aunt Cora sat at the table too, dressed in a lovely pale pink dress. She wore her sleek dark hair down today. Naomi’s teenage sisters Ivy and Ruby were also decked out in white dresses with pretty flower patterns and cute little ballet flats. A daisy crown topped Ivy’s raven-haired head. Strands of tiny little flowers were woven into Ruby’s red curls.
Seeing them like this, all dolled up, Naomi felt horribly underdressed. She’d put on these wrinkled clothes two days ago, and since then, she’d fought monsters, convicts, and demons in them. She’d slept in them too.
“I apologize for my appearance,” she said, leaning down to hug Dad. “We’ve been dealing with a bit of a crisis.”
“You look lovely.” His hand touched her cheek affectionately. His eyes shone as they panned across his family. He looked at them like they were all princesses in his book.
The door to the hall opened. Naomi’s brother Ash and his wife Nerida entered. Today, Ash wore a formal suit—and gold eyes rather than his usual green. Nerida was dressed in runway heels and a pastel blue dress with a gold sash tied into a big bow at the back.
They set down Arion and Ariel, their twins, on a soft baby play area that Ash had made for them at the side of the hall. The play area included all sorts of activities and obstacles. There were blocks to crawl on—or, in Arion’s case, to chew on. There were rolling mats and little balls enchanted with magic to glow different colors when the twins touched them.
Ariel and Arion crawled up to the mirror on the wall, giggling at their shifting reflections as they changed their features. In the course of a few seconds, Ariel’s hair went from brown to black to white to blue to red. Arion’s green eyes turned purple, and horns grew out of his head. Ariel’s cute little nose elongated. Arion grew a feathered tail.
Dad watched the twins, his smile never fading. “I’ve missed so much.” He took Naomi’s hand in his, squeezing it. “I’m so grateful you got me out of hell.”
“We all are,” Mom said. The look in her eyes was priceless—and totally worth all the horrors Naomi had faced to find Dad again.
“How are you feeling?” Naomi asked Dad as she took her seat.
“I feel like I had a bundle of demons inside of me, then I slept for two months.”
“We’ve sent a few dozen demons back to hell,” Naomi told him.
Dad nodded. “Good work.”
“That’s not all of them.”
A dark shadow fell across Dad’s face. “What can I do to help?”
“You can hardly stand,” Mom told him, her voice harsh. “So don’t get any ideas of going off on some wild goose chase with your wild daughter.”
“My daughter?”
“She takes after you, Dash. Obviously.”
Dash had been Dad’s nickname back when he’d been a mercenary.
“I don’t know.” Dad rubbed the stubble on his chin, a contemplative look on his face. “I seem to remember a young, volatile mercenary mage getting me into loads of trouble back in the day.”
“Oh, do you?” Mom said, leaning toward him. “Because I seem to remember a young, volatile mercenary fairy getting me into loads of trouble back in the day.”
Mom’s eyes shone; she was positively lovestruck. And Dad looked at her like he’d been holding his breath all these years, waiting to exhale only when he was in her company again. Dad’s hand locked around her waist, and he drew her in for a long kiss.
Ivy’s face crinkled. “Ew.”
“Seriously,” Ruby said. “Get a room.”
“Actually, Dad,” Naomi said when her parents came up for air. “I was hoping you could help me with something.”
Mom shot her a hard look.
“With information,” Naomi added quickly, before her mother launched a fireball at her face.
“Ask away,” Dad said.
“What did the demons who held you do to you in hell?”
“They tortured me, Naomi. It’s not something you need to hear about.”
“Indeed we do not,” Mom agreed, frowning at Naomi.
“What I meant was, what did they do to your magic? You are a Spirit Warrior. In all those years, why didn’t you escape?”
“The two demons your mother and I fought before I was sucked into hell weren’t just any demons, Naomi. They’re the princes of hell, the sons of the current king of hell.”
“Current king?”
“The demons have been locked in a civil war for millennia. The current king of hell has reigned for the last two centuries, which is only the blink of an eye to an immortal. His sons are just as powerful. And just as ruthless. Several years ago, t
hey came to earth to pave the way for their father’s armies. I managed to push them back into the spirit realm, but my spell backfired. It went out of control, sucking me into hell as well. Unfortunately, I popped up in the second circle at just the wrong time, right in the middle of a battle between two warlords. The demon Bael’s warlord, named Valin, captured me. He recognized my magic and took steps to negate it. I was bound in chains that blocked my spirit magic.”
“That’s when I met your father,” Makani told her. “We escaped the camp together, but when Valin’s warriors took chase, we were separated. Your father led the warriors away from me.”
“You were injured,” Dad said.
Makani frowned like they’d had this conversation before, probably right before Dad had run off after Valin’s army, distracting them.
“I can take care of myself,” Makani told him.
“You were in chains when I met you,” Dad pointed out.
“So were you.”
Their eyes remained locked in a hard stare for a few moments, then they burst into laughter. Mom watched them, caught somewhere between rolling her eyes at Dad for his recklessness and batting her eyelashes at him for his heroism.
“Valin’s warriors didn’t catch me,” Dad said. “I’d regained just enough magic to open the veil and escape the second circle. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough magic to get back to earth. I thought that I’d be safe in the first circle, but a lesser demon had followed me there from the second circle. He was a scout from another demon, one intrigued by my magic. She wanted to use it for her own purposes. In my weakened state, I was no match for the lesser demon. That lesser demon brought me to the seventh circle, to his demon mistress, who kept me chained up for years. She eventually learned to harvest my spirit magic and bottle it. She was about ready to start using it when her fortress was attacked by a rival demon. In the attack, the rival demon captured me. Back in his fortress, he continued the other demon’s work. Keeping me locked up and powerless, he harvested my magic and gave it to his warlords and warriors.”
“Which demons did this to you?” Naomi asked him.
Dad shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”