by Jenn Bennett
“Lon!” I called out.
Angry grumbling filtered from beyond the fence, over which Lon had climbed and was now leaning across the top, tugging at a nearby tree branch in the neighbor’s yard. One strong wrench and something loosened. “Aghh!” he cried out in victory before he leapt to the ground, shotgun in hand. Lon shouldered the butt of it and aimed it at Ms. Forsythe’s stalking figure.
“Gracie, if you can hear me, try to fight him,” Lon said between labored breaths. “I’d hate like hell to kill you.”
If the teacher could hear him, she sure didn’t show it. The person striding toward us had a purpose. Lon aimed low and squeezed the trigger. Boom! If no one had called the police about the shots at the scene of Merrin’s wreck, they would surely be dialing now. Ms. Forsythe’s body tilted, then faltered. The shot had landed just above a kneecap.
Although a good chunk of her lower thigh was gone and dark blood splattered across her pant legs, she attempted to take another step and stumbled. Lon pumped the shotgun and fired at the opposite leg. Her knee exploded. That did it. The teacher’s entire lower body fell out from beneath her and she went down like a rock, her face slamming into the grass.
Movement on the roof tore my attention away. Merrin was tightening his hold on Jupe as he stepped to the edge of the roof. “Too much noise,” Merrin said, looking over the roof to the street below. “Chora, finish up quickly and join me. That’s a command.”
The magician jumped off the roof and descended several feet. While floating in place, he shifted his grip long enough to slice through the striped tenting with his metal disk. A flap fell open, exposing a second-story window. He murmured something to Jupe, who struggled to push the window open. They were going inside.
I took one look at the teacher’s body on the ground and figured she wasn’t going anywhere, then raced across the yard and stopped beneath the window. Merrin was stuffing Jupe inside, legs first. The golden thread vibrated. It was taut and glowing brighter. My finger throbbed as if there was an actual piece of string tied to the tip.
Magick is directed energy. It can be formed, shaped, and molded. I took a chance, acting on instinct. With gritted teeth, I made a fist and pushed Heka into the golden line, then tugged on it. Resistance. Weak, but it could be enough . . . if only my body didn’t feel like a gas tank running on fumes. I needed more juice. Had to risk it.
I reached out and siphoned electricity from the house—not much, just enough to kindle what little Heka reserves I had left—and sent it down the thread. Raw, burning Heka.
“Brace yourself!” I called to Jupe as the thread lit like a fuse.
Jupe yelped. Merrin shouted in fear as gravity suddenly weighed him down and he plunged, dropping Jupe.
I tugged on the golden thread as hard as I could. Jupe’s body jerked and sailed toward me like an angel—long arms and legs and a mass of volcanic hair whizzing through the darkness. I held out my arms and braced myself for collision: his elbow knocked my jaw sideways and he crashed into my ribs as he body-slammed me to the ground.
Everything hurt except my heart, which was thundering with surprise and relief.
Jupe let out a dopey groan. His eyes opened. He blinked rapidly. “Cady,” he murmured with a scratchy voice.
“Got you.” I scrambled to shove him off and hauled us both to our feet. The kid might’ve saved his own damn life with that stupid tattoo.
Merrin howled in pain a few feet away, writhing in the grass. I couldn’t tell how badly he’d been injured from the fall, but if he recovered his wits and hijacked Jupe’s knack again, we’d all be in trouble—how far was far enough away to ensure we were outside the knack-stealing sigil’s range? I didn’t have a clue.
Jupe cried out in surprise at something he saw over my shoulder. I spun. Across the yard, Ms. Forsythe’s limp body remained sprawled on the ground. Unmoving. But that wasn’t the cause of Jupe’s anxiety. Chora now floated above her, dressed in his military coat, tail whipping.
And that wasn’t all.
Lon stood in the same place I’d left him, but his green-and-gold halo danced like a crown of gilded flames over his head and spotlighted the two spirling horns that jutted from his hairline.
He looked devastatingly menacing and shockingly demonic—
And Jupe had never seen him transmutated.
“Dad?” he croaked.
“It’s okay,” I assured Jupe, squeezing the back of his neck. “He’s still your dad, it’s—I can’t explain now. I need to help him. Stay behind me.”
I raced my heartbeat across the shadowed lawn with Jupe dogging my heels. When we got closer, Lon, without taking his eyes or the aim of his gun off Chora, yelled, “Stay back!”
We came to a sliding stop.
Chora was staring at Lon, sizing him up. “The mage told me of this magick, this transmutation. He chose vessels for the ritual who were born with this magick inside them. He believes this will help them live long enough for the doors to open between the planes. Their blood is sweeter.”
“Why doesn’t he just summon seven demons from the Æthyr?” Lon asked.
“They must originate on this plane for the doors to open from this side.”
Chora looked weary. I guess if I’d spent thirty years trapped in some crazy gap between the planes, I’d be weary, too.
“The ritual matters little to me,” he said. “I only wish to fulfill my contract with the piggish mage and return home.”
Chora held one palm up, as if he were asking for a handout, and used a finger to trace an invisible mark over his open palm as he mumbled something foreign. The air crackled. A pink glow lit his hand from the inside out. Then his skin turned translucent and I could see veins and bones beneath it. Jupe made a wary noise behind me. I could feel his labored breath against the top of my head. I tugged him closer.
Chora floated down and landed on the grass. “If we were back in my homelands, I would not chose to battle you, Kerub,” Chora said, referring to the class of demon from which Earthbounds are descended. “Nor you, Mother.” He looked at me with the same familiarity that I had glimpsed in the Silent Temple. “But I do not have that choice. I am sorry.”
The demon’s scaly tail flicked as he held out the hand glowing pink with magick. He pushed back the cuff of his colonial coat, exposing his wrist, then sank two fingers into the flesh there. Slick, sucking noises made me grimace as he dug around inside his own skin. He extracted something skinny and straight. Once he was able to get several fingers around it, he tugged with more force.
A thin, whispery blade the length of a small sword glinted in the moonlight. He unsheathed it from the scabbard of his forearm. The grip of the weapon was ivory, and might’ve been constructed from bone, but the dripping blood made it hard to be certain. The blade was metal, though. And he wielded the disgusting weapon with determination as a new noise stole my attention.
Merrin was on his feet. Shoulders dropping, head lowered, he bowled toward us, only slightly impeded by his awkward limp. He was disoriented and pained, and his glasses were gone—lost in the fall. But he squinted into the dark and his eyes caught mine.
Chora raised the bloody blade, murmuring under his breath. It sounded calm and peaceful. Maybe a prayer. Lon racked his shotgun and fired. Chora jerked to the side. The shot hit his free shoulder, he cried out in fury, and dark blood flowed over the gray fabric of his coat. His tail whipped furiously around his legs.
Lon groaned and cracked his jaw. Despite the shot, he wasn’t happy. He’d been aiming for the heart, I realized, and missed his mark, not expecting the demon to move so fast. Worse, that was his fifth shot. Four rounds plus one in the chamber makes five total. He lowered the gun and held it by the barrel as he fished inside his pocket. More shells, I thought, thank God. When he pulled out his phone instead, I wondered if he’d gone loopy. His fingers danced over the screen. He spoke a single word into the phone, then tossed both it and the shotgun on the grass beside him. Maybe he was calling Dare. Or the p
olice. I’d take either at this point.
Chora groaned and tilted his neck to inspect the damage Lon had inflicted. Just a glance. His eyes refocused on Lon, who held up his hands in surrender. I silently called out for the Moonchild power. Not a request, a command. The telltale pinpoint of blue light manifested in my vision. It was ready, waiting to be used. But, like Lon, I might have only one shot to change things, and I didn’t want to miss.
I could either conjure up the Silentium seal I’d used in the cannery to negate Merrin’s knack-stealing magick, or I could bind Chora.
Merrin was now halfway across the yard.
Chora repositioned his blade to strike, ignoring the weeping wound in his shoulder.
Jupe’s hands were shaking on my back—from fear? Or was he readying his own power? If he used his knack, he’d use it to help his dad. A guess, but I was willing to gamble, and there was no time left to do anything else.
Merrin’s mouth opened and began to form a command.
Silentium.
The pinpoint of light flattened into a disk. The lines of the magick seal formed in blue light. Heka and moon energy zigzagged in and out of me and poured into it, then I used every ounce of willpower I had to thrust the seal at Merrin’s galloping body.
Blinding white light whooshed around the magician. He hollered and tripped, thudding to the ground as Jupe yelled, “Stop!”
Chora’s eyes darted in our direction. He’d heard Jupe’s persuasive command, but it didn’t come fast enough. Though he faltered, his blade was already arcing through the air. As Lon ducked, the blade’s tip sliced, nicking Lon’s neck where it met his jaw.
Lon grasped his throat and fell to his knees. Blood seeped between his fingers and stained the neckline of his shirt.
“Nooooo!” Jupe screamed as he hurtled to Lon’s side.
Chora’s arm went limp, his hand still gripping the bloodied blade. A look of regret darkened his eyes. Regret and pity. The wound he’d delivered wasn’t deep, but it was precise. He looked like someone who’d just killed a stranger in a duel over honor. He looked human.
Merrin’s husky voice burred from behind me. “Finish him off, Chora!”
He was on his feet again, but the knack-stealing sigil was dead. And it wasn’t the only sigil diffused by my Silentium spell. The smaller tattoo over his heart that I’d glimpsed earlier? That was dead now, too. The ink was faded—the tattoo was much older than the knack-stealing sigil—but now that Merrin was bowling toward me like a peg-legged sailor ready to throw me to the sharks, I recognized its purpose. Egyptians marked their dead with a symbol to keep their mummified bodies from being invaded by evil spirits. I reckoned that Merrin used it to keep Chora from entering him. A little insurance, I supposed, after the demon nearly killed him during the first possession thirty years ago.
Partners. Chora and Merrin. That’s how Merrin described their relationship. I hardly agreed, but since Chora hadn’t realized that Merrin was now wide open and unprotected, I’d give him a little push.
Darkness blanketed my mind. The yard and everything in it faded to black, and the breezy night air stilled. I willed the moon power into action once more, conjuring the blue light, expanding it into a simple binding triangle, clear and strong. Moon-kindled Heka flowed as I tossed it like a lasso and slammed it over Chora’s body.
As I’d done with Jupe’s golden thread, I reached out with magick and pulled. Darkness receded. Sound and sight returned to me in a flash as the binding snagged the demon. Furious and unhinged, Chora howled as his body sailed through the air like a bullet headed for Merrin’s chest.
“Ride!” I commanded as he blurred by me.
I released the binding. Chora’s body slammed into Merrin’s without a sound, without the expected thud of flesh hitting flesh. Chora merely melted into the magician’s skin and disappeared like a specter.
Merrin’s eyes widened in horror. His body twitched, bristling with additional life. His torso jerked. A low rumbling started in his legs and spread upward. What little hair he had remaining on his balding head stood on end.
Then the shaking halted and his eyes rolled back in his head. Flesh ripped. A thin, bloody blade, glowing with pink light, poked out from his stomach. The blade quivered, then sliced upward, dissecting Merrin from the inside. His organs spilled out in a dark, shiny tumble half a second before a bright pink light exploded and geysered up into the air. Merrin’s body erupted along with it, sending up a grisly shower of blood and flesh that fell back like rain and splattered over the wet grass.
Merrin was gone. Decimated. Torn to shreds.
Chora was gone, too. No trace of pink magick remained. Whether he was dead or banished, or had slipped back into the gap between the planes, I didn’t care. I turned my back on the gore and raced to Lon, dropping to the ground beside him.
He lay on his back, his horns and halo gone. His hand still gripped his neck. Both of Jupe’s hands were pressed on top. So much blood . . .
I tore out of my jacket and ripped a strip of the lining, balling it up. “Let go, Jupe!” I said as my hands hovered over his with the cloth.
“I can’t!”
“On three, okay? One, two . . .”
Jupe jerked his hands away. I pressed the fabric against Lon’s neck, his hand still clamped and wedged under my makeshift compress. I saw the fear in his eyes as I pulled his hand away. “Let me, please,” I said. His blood-slicked hand drooped into the grass.
My arms shook. Blood had soaked through the gray fabric way too fast. I pressed harder, using both of my hands. How long did it take someone to bleed to death? Minutes? How long had it been already? “Nine-one-one, Jupe,” I said with a strained voice.
He struggled with his cell phone. “I can’t dial,” Jupe answered frantically between sobs. “My hands are slippery!”
I heard noise behind us—traffic, brakes, car doors slamming . . . Jupe’s shrill voice carried in the darkness. “Help! Help us, please!”
I chanced a quick look over my shoulder. Several people were rushing into the front yard.
“Mr. Dare!” Jupe called out to one of the approaching silhouettes. “Help! Call Dr. Mick. My dad needs help!”
Dare jogged toward us. “Dear God,” he said. “Mark, get an ambulance here!” Dare yelled back at his son.
“No. Dr. Mick,” Jupe insisted. “It’s bad.”
“Can he speak?”
“Don’t you even try!” I barked at Lon as blood oozed between my fingers. “Stay still.”
Dare glanced at the carnage in the yard. “Are the kids—” Dare started.
“In the house,” I said. “Lon heard them.”
“Move away, miss,” one of the Dare’s people said, an Earthbound with a green halo. He kneeled beside Lon and tried to take over.
“No! He’ll bleed out.”
The Earthbound looked at my hands and winced. “Keep pressure on it.”
Any more pressure and I’d be choking him. I tried to keep my hands steady. Lon’s eyes were glassy and kept fluttering shut. His breath was becoming shallow.
“Stay awake,” I croaked. Hot tears welled and spilled down my cheeks. I dipped my head to his and pressed a shaky kiss to his brow. “I need you, Lon,” I whispered. “You’re the only family I have. Don’t leave me.”
His lips moved. He looked up me, dazed, and blinked.
“Police will be here soon,” Dare said. “I’ll handle them.”
Another car drove up. I heard talking outside the fence, commotion. I could spy a little of it through the open gate. A lone figure was arguing with Dare’s people, who were managing a growing crowd of neighbors on the sidewalk. Someone raced through the gate.
“Cady!”
“Bob?”
“Lon called me,” he yelled. The phone call before he surrendered, I remembered. Not Dare, but Bob? The Earthbound dashed out of the shadows, chest heaving, face red. “Oh, no,” he lamented when he spotted Lon.
“You’re a healer,” Jupe said.
“Yes, you can,” I pleaded. “You can help. Please, Bob.”
“Cady”—he shook his head—“I really can’t. I’m not my father. Small wounds, Cady. Not this.”
“Jupe, Bob is a good healer. He just doesn’t believe he is. Can you please persuade him?”
Jupe wiped away tears. “What?”
“Tell him how good he is, Jupe. You dad needs someone now. Dr. Mick is too far away.”
Realization cracked Jupe’s miserable expression. He swallowed hard, squeezed his eyes shut, and shouted, “You’re a good healer, Bob. Good enough to help my dad. Please fix him!”
Bob swayed on his knees.
Lon’s green-and-gold halo was shrinking. His eyes fluttered closed.
Jupe choked on a sob and tried to persuade Bob again. His body shook as he balled up his hands into fists. “Heal him!” he cried out. “Stop the bleeding!”
“I trust you, Bob,” I said, smiling and crying at the same time. “Please.”
He stared at Lon for a moment, then nodded once and took a deep breath.
Bob’s fingers touched mine and prodded. I didn’t want to let go. He prodded me a second time. I sobbed and jerked my hands away. I trust you, I trust you, I trust you. . . .
Bob removed the soaked compress from Lon’s neck and slid his fingers over the wound. He mumbled something to himself and closed his eyes.
I waited, talking to Lon in a whisper and gripping his limp hand. Jupe’s squatted next to me, his shoulder pressed against my arm as he nervously rocked on his heels.
I waited longer, barely breathing, as Dare’s people worked in the distance, rescuing the kids from the house.
Then Bob gasped.
His shoulders strained.
My heart pounded.
And as Bob let out a long, labored breath, Lon’s halo pulsed brighter. An ambulance wailed in the distance, and Lon’s fingers, slick with blood, flexed around mine.