by Kit Colter
“Thanks,” Erin said. It was all she could think to say.
Seven pushed Erin into the backseat of the car, piled the groceries on top of her, and slammed the door. Derek climbed into the driver’s seat—waiting just long enough for Seven to get her foot in the door—then sped out of the parking lot. The twins took turns driving, the passenger busily dressing the other’s wounds. An hour later, they had settled on the most expensive hotel in Paris, where they proceeded to call room service with ludicrous requests by mixing items on the menu like chicken and cheesecake stew. Erin walked straight to the bed, pulled off her sunglasses, and collapsed onto the blankets.
Chapter 24
Erin was awakened by hunger and sat up on the bed. She lay there for a few seconds, hoping she would be able to sense something—anything—about her surroundings, but nothing happened. She found herself in blackness, so she listened. Breathing. Two people. The twins. The television was on. She recognized the sound immediately. The twins were playing video games, a combat game if she wasn’t mistaken. Erin sat up.
“I can’t sense anything at all. Will that injection, that nano stuff, wear off?”
“Twelve to forty-eight hours,” Seven said. “Depending on your metabolism.”
“So, what happens now?” Erin asked. She felt around the comforter, found her sunglasses, and slid them over her eyes. She heard the sound of the video game disappear with an electronic beep. Guessed they had paused it.
“We’re about to beat level eight,” Derek said.
“Is it over, then? Can I go home?” Erin pressed.
“Oh,” Seven said, “that.”
“Depends on what happened at the mountain,” Derek said.
“I’m not sure what happened,” Erin said slowly. “I know I ended up in the cave. I think I saw the maiden and Sauth Rahn, somehow, when they fought. When she tried to kill him.”
“So, she didn’t kill him?” Derek said.
“No, not exactly,” Erin responded. “It seemed like he started to cross over. Into her. But he didn’t have time to finish.”
“What happened to the other half?” Seven asked.
Erin shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Well, probably, it just hung around in the cave for centuries waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Erin asked.
“Waiting for you to bring back the other half.”
Erin felt a dropping sensation in her stomach. “What?”
“Maybe. Maybe not though. Maybe you climbed up the mountain because of some remnant magic from the maiden. Who knows.”
“So, there’s a possibility I reunited an extremely powerful demon with its lost half? And now that demon’s going to be loose? Killing people? Doing whatever it used to do?”
“Fair chance,” Seven said.
“Well, I can’t go home then. I have to do something. We’ve got to stop it.”
Derek chuckled. “Even if you did, Sauth Rahn will be weak from all that time in isolation. He’ll lay low for a couple decades getting himself back together. Unless you took the Nine up to him, too, in which case we’ll know about it in the very near future.”
“So, the Nine really exist?” Erin asked.
The twins were silent for a moment. “You tell us.”
Erin didn’t know how to respond to that. “From what I saw, they did. A long time ago. Not that I believe I had them, but—you’d know, for sure, if Sauth Rahn did get the Nine. Wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, yeah. The Tower will pick that up in a heartbeat.”
“So, then, Sauth Rahn was the one who sent the Elemental and Lucas? He’s the one who caused all this?”
“Probably.”
“And I can go home then?”
“Sure.”
“And it’s over? I can have my life back?”
Seven laughed. “If you really want it that bad.”
There was an electronic beep, and the sound of the videogame resumed. Erin stood there thinking. She did want her life back. That was exactly what she wanted. She couldn’t quite grasp how to return after everything that had happened—how to deal with her parents, Isaiah, the apartment manager. But she would find a way. She would find the right words. And she would have her life back. Everything but her sight.
“Is there food in here?” Erin asked.
“None of it’s good,” Derek said. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know,” Erin said. She was so hungry she didn’t care.
“How’s steak?” Seven asked.
Erin felt a warm rush in the back of her mouth. “Yeah.”
“Or,” Derek said in a slightly conniving tone. “Pork parfait.”
“Genius.” Seven hopped to her feet and picked up the phone to call room service.
“You two seem perky for being recently shot,” Erin said.
“Just the healing light of your presence,” Derek said.
Erin grinned a little. “I’m going to take a shower before the food gets here.”
“Oh, good, I was just headed there myself,” Derek said.
Erin shook her head. “Which way?” she asked.
“On your six. Watch the lamp,” Seven said.
Erin thought it over, rotated her body, then began to feel her way across the wall to the bathroom. She found the bathroom and eased inside, then locked the door. She kicked off her boots, stripped her clothes, felt around for the shower and stepped inside. Turned on the water and let herself melt under the warmth of its touch.
It had to be over.
She pushed her face into the water.
It had to be over.
She felt a stinging sensation in her eyes.
It had to be over.
Then a siren went off.
Erin listened long enough to realize the siren was inside the hotel somewhere. She managed to get out of the shower and put on her underwear and shirt before Derek burst through the door.
“How do your hands feel?” he asked, grabbing Erin by the wrist and dragging her toward the center of the hotel room.
“Um. Okay. Why?” she said. Then she recognized the smell of smoke. “What’s going on?”
“Good. Hold this,” Derek said, placing something in her hands.
Rope.
“What’s burning?” she said.
“The sixth floor,” Seven said.
“Isn’t that our floor?” Erin asked, alarmed.
“Yep,” Derek said.
Erin felt a thud of dread in her chest. “It’s not the Elemental?”
“Think so.”
“But why? I thought it was done?”
“Probably hasn’t gotten the memo yet.”
“Memo? What?”
“Memo that Sauth Rahn’s either dead or got what he wanted.” Derek grabbed Erin by the shoulders and walked her out onto the balcony. Erin heard the tight hiss of rope extending at incredible speed. “I’ll help you over the edge.”
“What!?” Erin said.
“You’re climbing down.” Derek took off his belt and buckled it around Erin’s waist with the rope looped around it near her navel.
“The outside of the building!?”
“Meet you at the bottom. Take your time.”
“Derek, I can’t see.”
“Yeah, so no worries about looking down.”
“But where are you going?” she asked.
“Gotta find the Elemental—in the fire somewhere.” Derek lifted Erin up and placed her feet on the railing. “Just don’t let go. You’ve got this.”
“There’s got to be another—”
Just then, Erin heard a hard thud and the sound of the door slamming against the wall. A wave of heat and smoke flooded the room. The blast of hot air was strong enough to cause her shirt to flutter around her bare hips.
“Get going!” Seven yelled.
Footsteps.
They were gone.
Erin took a deep breath and slowly worked her foot to the bottom of the railing. Then she stepped down with the o
ther foot. She took another deep breath. Then took another step, carefully easing the rope through her clenched fist inch by inch, and found the side of the building. Erin reached down with one foot, tucking in her chin in case she missed and hit her face on the balcony, then found the wall. She stayed there for a second or two, breathing, then took another step. Then another. And another.
She could do this.
It would take all day. The entire building might burn down by the time she made it to the bottom. Would the rope catch on fire?
She could do this.
Erin took another step down, then gently released several more inches of slack.
There was a snapping noise to the left. The sound of a sliding glass door. Then something grabbed her by the ankles and jerked her through the opening. Erin rolled across the carpet and felt a human body tumbling beneath her. The rope yanked on her arm, burning the skin as it slid across her wrist. Erin found herself on her back with a man who smelled of gasoline pinning her to the ground.
But it wasn’t just a human.
It was a demon, too. She could feel that strange energy buzzing beneath his hands as they clenched her arms.
He wrapped his hands around her head and slammed her skull into the floor. Once, twice, three times. Erin felt the world tilt and sway. Felt her body slip away. Just for an instant. Then the demon—and the sensation of static electricity—engulfed her body. It was so sudden, she didn’t understand what was happening at first. She felt the demon working its way into her body, sliding along arteries, following the channels to her core. Ripping through her like a fleet of soundless lightning bolts.
And Erin was burning alive. A blinding flash of heat rose up within her heart and stole through her body. Her bones felt like fire—like glowing hot steal beneath her flesh. She cried out, but the heat intensified, and she thought she would die of it. Simply burn away. The heat and pain filled her mind, and inside it she saw tendrils of spectral light gracefully draping themselves around a skeletal human figure, its cavernous form illuminated from within, its eyes so dark and depthless there could be no end behind them.
Blackness.
Somewhere in the darkness behind her eyes, an image rose out of the shadows. Erin saw Coach lying on the floor of his living room in Las Cruces. Where she had left him. He looked worse than she remembered. His body was contorted. Limp. His head was bleeding.
He was dying.
Looking down at him, Erin realized she was not herself. She was someone else. She was the demon—who thought the damage to Coach’s body might be too severe. It was possible that even possession couldn’t save him. But it was worth a try. The dying man was connected to the girl—the girl with power—and he might be able to create an opportunity. There were important things to learn, and this man could be the key to that. It was worth a try. The chance of several lifetimes.
Then the demon simply stretched out over Coach’s mangled body, aligned its frequency of energy with his, and sank inside.
The images evaporated and darkness filled Erin’s sight once more.
Screaming.
The heat dissipated in an instant, but the screaming continued. It took Erin a moment to realize she wasn’t making the sound.
It was Coach.
She could hear him thrashing across the hotel floor beside her. Crashing into things. Gagging. Vomiting. And thrashing some more. Some part of his body must have caught on the rope because each thrash sent a hard jerk through the coil around her wrist and up her arm.
The sound of his writhing reminded Erin of something she had heard before.
The demon in France.
Coach’s demon was dying, and Coach was going through the death throws with it.
Erin started to untangle the rope from her wrist, then realized she didn’t know where the door was. The rope, at least, led to a sure exit. It just wasn’t the one she wanted. She tried to move to her feet, but Coach grabbed her ankle and pulled her to the floor. She felt hands on her knees, then her thighs. She kicked, but the hands tightened.
“I didn’t think you could do that,” Coach said, his voice raw.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he said, panting. “You killed it. The shadow. I know you did.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Erin scrambled backwards, but he just kept coming. “If-If it’s gone, then you can stop this. You don’t have to.”
“Have to?” he asked. “What don’t I have to do, Erin?”
“You stopped before,” Erin said, then felt the wall press against her back. “You could have choked me to death at my apartment, but you stopped. You fought against it.”
Silence.
“I saw it in the hallway,” she said. “I heard it.”
“That’s what you think?” Coach said. “That the shadow wanted you dead, and I saved you?”
“But—”
“I gave you a choice,” he said. “You knew what I’d do. You knew what you were choosing when you didn’t choose me.”
“But the demon—”
“The demon wanted you alive,” he growled. “He stopped me. He needed you breathing until he could figure out how to get the Nine.” Coach ran a hand across her face. “But you’ve fixed that problem, haven’t you?”
“But he made you—back then—when you—”
“He never made me do anything,” Coach said.
Erin felt a rush of nausea, suddenly understanding that the images—the memory she had found in the darkness—belonged to Coach’s demon. And they meant Coach hadn’t been possessed until afterward. Until after she had already tried to kill him.
After he had tried to rape her.
Coach’s hand circled her neck.
“Why are you doing this?” Erin asked.
“You should have chosen me, Erin.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I won’t let them have you.”
“Please—don’t—do this.”
“Do you choose me? Can you admit it? That you belong to me?”
Erin told herself to say yes. She told herself to lie. She told herself to say whatever she had to say to get out of this alive.
“No.”
Erin didn’t have time to register that she had even spoken. Coach’s hands clamped down on her neck with such speed and strength she gasped and felt her head slam into the wall. She punched in the direction of his face, kicked, scratched, twisted out of his grip and scrambled across the floor. Slammed into a wall. No, it was glass—the sliding door to the balcony.
Coach’s entire weight came down on her back. He flipped her over. Grabbed her arms and pinned her down.
“None of this had to happen,” he said.
Erin kicked toward his stomach, then punched again. She found her hands at his throat, but something was in the way. The rope. It had gotten tangled around his neck.
Erin gave another hard kick, shoving her right foot into his abdomen. She crawled backwards through the doorway onto the balcony. Felt the railing against her back. She checked the coils around her wrist.
Coach grabbed her ankle.
And with the other foot, Erin launched herself off the balcony and into the open air. For an instant, she felt absolutely weightless. She felt her body lean sideways. There was a single instant of resistance as the slack between her wrist and Coach’s neck ran out. Behind her, she heard a gasp and the sound of a body colliding with the railing before plummeting over. The air rushed by her face and bare legs with sudden, breathtaking force.
Coach screamed.
Then pain exploded in her arm. Her shoulder popped, and her body whipped around. Twisted. Above, the scream died with a sickening crack. Erin’s body slammed into the wall of the hotel, and she grasped the rope more tightly, coiling it around her other wrist. Once, twice, three times. She did the same with her ankles. Then she just hung there and tried to breathe through the pain.
Eventually, when the nausea passed, she heard a n
oise above her. An object dragging against the side of the building. She listened closer, trying to detect the sound of breathing or movement.
Nothing.
She didn’t know what to do next. She didn’t know how high she was. She didn’t know if Coach was alive or dead or currently dying. All she knew was she didn’t want to fall. Regardless of Coach’s condition, there was a good chance he was going to come untangled, and an even better chance he would knock her off the rope when he fell.
Erin grimaced and slowly freed her right arm. It fell limp at her side with a surge of pain. Then she released her ankles and slowly, slowly, began sliding down the rope. The sensation of rope burn was so intense that tears streamed down her cheeks. She gritted her teeth and kept dropping. Gasped against the pain. And kept dropping. Heard herself let out a muted cry. And kept dropping.
Then something touched her left foot.
A hand.
“Do you trust me?”
It was Derek.
Erin released and fell into his arms. Derek lowered her feet to the ground. Grass. She had made it down. Then Derek’s hand clamped down on her dislocated shoulder and shoved. Hard. Agony shot through her arm and chest, and Erin staggered sideways. Seven’s arm looped around her neck, steadying her.
“So, uh, did you just hang a man in midair?” Derek asked, gazing up at the body hanging suspended halfway down the building.
“Did I?” Erin asked, holding her injured arm against her side to ease the pain.
“Oh, yeah,” Seven said.
“Is he dead? For sure?” Erin asked.
“Absolutely,” Seven responded.
Erin felt relief. Then she felt guilt. Then anger. “Can we leave?”
“Just another minute,” Derek said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.”
“Nope,” Seven said.
“I’d really like to leave now.”
Derek took her hand. “She’s a keeper.”
“No doubt.”
Erin felt Derek pull her forward, but her legs collapsed on the second step. He drew her into his arms, carried her to the car, and placed her into the passenger seat. Within seconds, they were on the road. By the sound of it—mostly honking horns and squealing tires—they were speeding. A lot.