by Celia Kyle
I finally lifted my head and met her eyes. She could visit the tween, but never stay, trapped in a place of eternal torment. She hadn’t wanted that for me. She hadn’t wanted me to be damned.
I’d always assumed that, just by being her daughter, I was destined for Hell. But my human Crusader father—the first of the five—gave me a gift that saved me from that fate. I had mortal blood, human as well as demon. I had a soul, unlike my mother. Being mortal meant that I had free will.
I had a choice.
I’d never made that choice. I’d lived life as a sinner since I figured I was destined for Hell anyway. I might as well embrace my future and enjoy the present, but I wasn’t stuck on that path. I could fight for redemption or I could let myself be damned.
Even more important, I could walk the line and remain balanced between the two. There was no reason I had to decide now, either. I had eternity to walk that path.
“You wanted me to be able to choose,” I said, my voice a bare whisper.
She touched my arm. “And today, you get to make one of the most important choices you’ll ever face.”
More tears. They weren’t real, but the emotions that coursed through me were. I didn’t think anymore. I wrapped my arms around my mother and held her tightly, taking comfort from the woman who’d always given me anything but.
“Thank you.”
“I would do anything for you, Caith.” She stroked my hair. “Even when it meant hurting you in the process.”
“I get it,” I rasped. “I don’t like it, but I get it.”
“Then you’re ready.” She faded, her body melting away from my grasp like vapor.
I spun, searching for him, and watched as Reggie turned into nothingness. The ground beneath me faded as well and…
It wasn’t them that disappeared, it was me.
My chest burned, the pain flaring into overwhelming agony. A hard pressure pounded me in a steady rhythm. Lips touched mine, air passing into my mouth, and I gasped as the stale oxygen filled my lungs.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Keller was kneeling over me, fully human once more, his hands pressed down on my chest while he pumped up and down to restart my heart.
He sneered at me the moment my eyes popped open. “You thought you could get away from me in death?” He snorted. “Your escape won’t be so easy.”
I kicked the motherfucker in the face. Even half-dead, I was my fathers’ daughter.
Keller fell back, landing hard on the frigid concrete floor of the morgue. I kicked and flipped onto my feet, landing in a fighting crouch. A quick touch to my chest confirmed that my wound was gone, healed by Keller’s magic. The feel of his mouth against mine lingered, the stink of his breath clinging to my lips. I couldn’t have been dead for more than a minute or two but it felt like my journey in the spirit world had taken weeks, months, maybe even years.
I guess time really didn’t have any meaning there.
Keller rolled to his knees, muscles bunching and straining while he fought to stand. I pulled my sword from its sheath strapped to my back. My real, tangible, deadly as fuck sword. I swung at his neck and he grabbed the blade to block the blow. His power coated his palm, shielding him.
Asshole.
I jabbed with my free hand, pummeling my silver-backed gauntlet into his wrist. He screeched in pain—like a little bitch—and lost his grip on my sword. So I swung again and dug the blade deep into his shoulder. A rush of blood gushed from the wound and he staggered away, hand pressed to the gash.
He staggered, pain glazing his features as he frowned at me. At least I wasn’t the one frowning for once. “You got your strength back.”
Damn. I rolled my shoulders. I really had. I didn’t feel so drained—exhausted—any longer. I lifted the side of my shirt and glanced at where the phantom wound should have been. Except it was gone. My skin was pure and unbroken. No hint of wicked blue in sight.
“I didn’t heal that.” Keller’s voice trembled, eyes wide with shock. “Only your heart, not…”
I poked my side, testing the muscles. No pain. Fuck yeah, motherfucker. “No,” I grinned. “The sigil healed me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You found it.”
My chest warmed and I touched the skin over my heart—right where the athame had pierced my flesh. A pleasant burning, like the gentle tingle of hellfire over my flesh, wrapped around me in a sweet hug. I pulled my shirt down, stretching the neck of my top, and focused on my chest.
A golden rune, almost like a glowing tattoo, scarred my skin—the sigil.
“Looks like I did.”
“That’s mine,” Keller growled.
I snorted and cupped one of my breasts, jiggling it slightly. “These haven’t been yours for hundreds of years, Lover.”
He lunged, shifting mid-leap, his body transforming from man to wolf. I dropped my sword and rushed him while I called on my own beast. Now that I was healed, the wolf answered me with glee. My body bulged, shirt ripped, while claws and fangs pushed through my flesh. I collided with Keller in a flurry of blood and pain, digging my claws into his flesh while I howled in feral delight.
I was back and I was a bigger badass bitch than I had been before.
I swiped at him and tore out great chunks of flesh, overjoyed as more and more of his blood coated the morgue floor. His wounds closed quickly thanks to Keller’s wolf and magics combined, but I was beyond my prime. I didn’t have an injury sucking the very life out of me any longer. So when he sank his teeth into my shoulder and I pushed him off, the injury closed almost instantly.
I’d always healed fast, but the energy from the sigil ramped me up to whole new levels.
“I should have left you dead.” Keller growled but that turned into a grunt when I dug another hunk of flesh from his chest. “I will get that sigil from you. Even if I have to rip it from your beating heart.”
I backed away and grinned, my mouth covered in his blood. “Come and get it. I owe you some pain.”
We clashed again, claws swiping and fangs snapping. Keller called on his dark magic and blue energy crackled around his claws. It shocked me like lightning when he struck. While the sigil protected me from another infectious wound, it didn’t help me regenerate as quickly against this evil magic. I stumbled back, bleeding from multiple tears in my flesh.
Keller advanced, his wolven maw sneering in a victorious grin.
What. Ever. The asshole didn’t realize I’d come back from Hell with a new trick or two up my sleeve. Or old tricks I’d finally accepted.
I caressed my wounds with my massive claws and called on my unicorn blood. That part of me leapt to answer my summons. Purifying light spread over the wounds, cleansing my body of Keller’s magic. Once that dark energy was gone, the torn flesh healed.
Keller’s grin faded and he narrowed his eyes on me. He raised his claws and rushed me once more. I braced myself and waited for the right moment—until he was committed to his charge and couldn’t stop his momentum.
I dropped to one knee and grabbed Keller, claws digging into his stomach while I hurled him overhead. I used his force against him, tossing him into the cinderblock wall. His body cracked the blocks and shook the building, sending pieces of the ceiling raining down on us. He slumped to the ground, dazed by the impact, and I didn’t hesitate.
I raced to him and seized the moment to strike. Hellfire wrapped around my claws in a familiar, intimate caress. With it came the glowing white flame of the divine, my Crusader father’s power of faith.
I hacked and slashed at Keller with my blazing claws. I sliced his flesh open and burned him with the unholy fires of Hell and the holy flames of On High. Two forces meant to oppose each other yet they coexisted within me. I had the strength of balance from my pixie father.
Keller howled in pain and fury, his claws swinging frantically in a desperate attempt to throw me back. He unleashed a wave of energy and the air rippled and shimmered. Just as it had when he cast the same spell over Sam and Je
zze. I froze in mid-air, trapped in a bubble of time. Keller scrambled to his feet and broke into a run.
He thought I was trapped.
I wasn’t. Papa Eron had bestowed the ageless power of nature upon me. The slow march of time couldn’t wear down the greatest mountains, and the ever-shifting seasons didn’t stop new life each spring. Time was relative to our perception and I couldn’t be frozen because I’d learned that time wasn’t linear.
I trembled and the air around me flickered. I pulled free of his spell and released a bellowing roar. I was as eternal as the Earth itself and Keller’s magic couldn’t contain me.
I raced into the hall, chasing him. The door at the end of the hall had been ripped from its hinges, and I rushed toward the opening. I leapt up the stairs and onto the ground floor. Bodies littered the hospital lobby, each one covered in bloody wounds. The glass doors had shattered into a million fragments as Keller escaped through the invisible barrier. I followed, the broken glass crunching under my paws. And outside…
I found a horrifying battle.
Ghouls swarmed the hospital grounds. Dark, furry forms raced among them, moving as one as they took down the undead, one after another. The wolf pack. My instincts drew me to them, the feral part of me urging me to run and join the hunt.
But I had other prey.
I saw no sign of Keller as I tipped my head back. I sniffed the air, searching for his scent. The air was crowded by the mingled flavors of ghouls, wolves and humans, making him hard to locate. He could have been anywhere.
I closed my eyes and focused on my other senses, testing this new version of me. I’d always been able to sense a being’s energies. It let me differentiate human from tween, dem or gel. It had never been as refined and delicate as Jezze’s ability to locate magic, but it did the job. Now, with my newly awakened self, I had new, shiny gifts.
Images formed in my mind, a wraith-like being floating through the sky. A trail of unconscious women stretched to the horizon. Twin flames burned in the night. They muddled together, hard to understand—premonitions of things to come?
I pushed past those and focused on Keller’s face, on the magic that linked him to the ghouls. Hundreds surrounded the hospital and I knew they were all tied to him by the same glowing strings he’d tried to wrap around me. I followed them, tracing their path with my mind. They led me on, farther and farther from the city. Keller was on the run, no doubt hoping he could escape and recover his strength before he returned to finish the fight another day.
Fuck that. I wasn’t going to give him time to recover. I dashed forward, letting my wolf out to play in its entirety. I fell to four paws and put on speed, turning into a streak of black fur as I followed those strands into the night.
I ran on and on, deeper into the city, intent on running Keller to ground like weak prey. Except… Except my ties to him grew weaker and the distance between us stretched instead of lessening. He’d somehow gotten out of reach and… dammit. A teleportation spell?
Cheating asshole.
I changed course and ran for Momma R’s, leaping onto the front porch and shifting to two legs as I jogged through the house. I ripped off the tattered remains of my shirt while I snatched my jacket from the back of the couch. I tugged it on and zipped it up—Momma R had a thing about nudity in the house. Yes, I was in a fight to save Orlando but that didn’t mean my tits had to swing free.
I loved her so I followed her rules.
Momma R glanced up at my approach, still standing by the back door and attempting to unravel Keller’s magic. “I haven’t found a way to break them free.”
“I have.” And it felt damned good to be able to do something. It wasn’t often that I could bust magic when Momma R couldn’t. And by not often, I meant never.
I called on my new and improved powers—this seriously kicked ass—and broke through Keller’s spell with ease. Jezze blinked and looked to me, confusion on her face. Sam fell to the ground with a pained grunt and his gaze scanned the yard, his eyes dazed.
“Over here, good lookin’.” I blew him a kiss when his eyes finally found me.
“Caith.” He pushed to his feet and hurried to me, sword raised as he searched for Keller. “What happened? Where is he?”
I closed my eyes and sought my ex once more. “North.” I scrunched my eyes. “No, northwest.” I opened my eyes and focused on Sam. “We can catch him and put an end to this.”
He nodded and sheathed his sword. “I can get us there. Show me where.”
I placed my palm over Sam’s heart. Keller thought I’d loved him, but what we had was nothing compared to what I shared with Sam. He was my soulmate. My twin flame, burning brightly in the darkness that crowded me. Keller had tried to capture my soul, but Sam already had it, no magic needed. We were a part of each other. Now that I’d returned from the spirit realm, I could sense that tie in a way I’d never known before. I’d loved him, but now I could feel that connection as a real, tangible thing.
A bond that could never be broken.
A bond I used to share my thoughts and feelings with Sam. I couldn’t speak into his mind, but I could let him feel what I felt and explore my senses. I gave him a vision of Keller’s phantom threads and where they all led.
Sam met my eyes and nodded. “I know where to go.”
“Then let’s do this.”
Sam called upon his divine power and in a flash of light, we were gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I was back in Louisiana, just outside Keller’s ranch. It looked just as shitty and broken down and the front door laid on the ground. I’d jammed it into place before I’d left, but obviously someone had kicked it in again. There were no lights on inside, but Keller’s fresh scent was unmistakable.
“Why would he come here?” Jezze held up a hand and summoned a small orb of light to guide us in the dark interior.
“I exposed his Orlando hideout.” I drew my sword and stalked through the living room, following Keller’s stink. “He needed someplace to run, so he came home.”
“Or,” Sam moved to my side and pulled out his own blade. “He came back for some kind of weapon or magic he’s held in reserve.”
I preferred to think of him as a whiny little bitch.
“The journal.” Jezze yanked it out of her purse. “I almost finished the translation. It’s tied to his power over the ghouls. I need to translate the last passage and I think I can come up with a counter-spell and cut him off from the ghouls. If he lost his source of power, he’d just be plain old Keller again.”
“Other than the leftover werewolf and warlock parts,” I mumbled and then held out my hand for the book. “But yeah, you’re right. Lemme see.”
I grabbed the journal and flipped to the last section—the one that was troubling Jezze. I stared at the symbols, their randomness confusing until I found the pattern. One I never would have recognized before.
I may have hated having five dads in the past, but I was loving all this extra juice.
I took Jezze’s pen and traced a curving line between the symbols, connecting them in a shape of a sinuous rune before I handed it back. “How’s that?”
“Oh shit. Of course. I was trying to read…” Jezze grumbled and mumbled to herself. “…different pattern… more sense… How did you know?”
“Magic bananas?” I raised both my eyebrows and grinned.
She glared at me. Apparently now wasn’t the time to joke.
I unzipped my jacket and opened it to flash the sigil burned into my skin in golden light. The shape I’d sketched on the page matched my new freaky tattoo.
“Oh, well dayum.”
“Work on the counter-spell.” I zipped my jacket. “Sam and I will keep the asshole busy.”
Somehow.
Jezze cleared off Keller’s desk and got to work on her spell. I knew—from experience—that It would take her a few minutes. As soon as Keller realized his little puppet strings were about to be cut, he’d come out of hiding. Sam and I need
ed to find him first.
Sam and I headed through the kitchen and Keller’s scent led me to a door to the basement. I opened it and peered down the stairs, wondering what we’d find down there. Keller had to have returned to the ranch for a reason and I imagined that reason was in the basement.
“We could wait.” Sam spoke softly so his voice wouldn’t carry. “Let Jezze work and cut off Keller’s power source. He’ll be easier to handle if he’s wounded.”
“If we wait, he could finish what he’s doing and make himself more powerful.” I hated having to be rational. I just wanted to kill something.
“Your call.”
It took a split-second for me to weigh my options. Patience and waiting for Jezze or decisiveness and kicking ass now?
My gut—and wolf—wanted me to run in with claws flashing.
“Let’s go.”
Swords raised, we silently moved down the steps. At first the basement looked like any other neglected part of the house—old junk, a worn workbench and a washer and dryer filled the space. At the far end was a break in the cinder block wall, an opening I’d missed the last time I’d been at the ranch. The sound of chanting came from that dark hole and the staircase filled with a deep red glow.
I took a bracing breath and headed down the second set of stairs into the sub-basement—and Keller’s real workshop. Shelves loaded with spell components lined the walls and a desk in one corner overflowed with grimoires and loose paper covered in runic writing. A rotting dead body was chained to the far wall, guts spilling from a large gash and the poor soul’s flesh was carved with runes. In front of the body, a pentagram had been painted on the floor in blood. Probably his own.
Keller sat cross-legged in the center of the red design, naked and his own body was painted with runes. His chanting continued, fingers dipping into a clay jar of blood at the edge of the circle. He used the red liquid to draw another symbol on his forehead. It flashed with light and then burned into his skin, and his body jerked as it suffused him with power.