B00AO57VOY EBOK

by Myers, AJ

  As he started to chant the first part of the incantation, in Latin, I joined in without thinking about it. Rather than think about the words, I let his voice lead me through the parts I had consistently messed up in practice as we called on our elements.

  Elementum spiritum vitae essentia,

  inquisitio perducere nos in hac nocte.

  Elementa aqua et terra,

  eaque operamur ut protegat.

  Elementa aeris et ignis,

  accendunt modum et refrigeret iras.

  I translated the words of the incantation in my head as we went, loving the more poetic notes it had in English.

  Element of spirit, essence of life

  guide us in our quest this night.

  Elements of water and earth

  protect us as this spell we work.

  Elements of air and fire

  light our way and cool our ire.

  Give it a slow, dark-sounding beat with some guy with a gravelly, yet sexy, voice singing it and it could have been the next great Goth album.

  Before we could begin the second part of the incantation, though, Bastian finally made his move. He threw back his head and let out a roar that nearly punctured my eardrums and the floor began to quake. The black light suddenly flickered and then blinked before going out altogether. The circles immediately disappeared, leaving us with nothing but the flickering candles to light the room. Laughing triumphantly, he headed straight for…Kim.

  “No!” I screamed, unable to break the circle and too afraid not to.

  The sound that came out of my mouth was definitely not my voice. It echoed eerily around us and suddenly the room was filled with bright golden light. Just as Bastian reached for my friend, an invisible string seemed to pull him back. He frowned and tried to step forward again, but that string just tugged harder in the opposite direction.

  I looked down to see what was stopping him and found that the light around me was racing along the paint the circles had been drawn with, lighting them up again. It was beautiful to watch as those little licks of golden heat raced along, recreating every single letter, every sigil and rune, with flickering light.

  “It doesn’t burn,” Kim said, distracting me for about half a second. She was staring down at her hand—that I had only just remembered my dumb self was still holding—with a smile of relief. “It doesn’t burn, Em. It feels…wonderful.”

  I followed her gaze to find that my hand looked like it was actually made of fire of fire. And so was my arm. And so was the rest of me.

  I had actually become fire.

  “What the hell?” Bastian muttered, looking around at the fiery trap that held him bound.

  “Funny you should mention Hell,” I told him. “It’s fitting, seeing as that’s exactly where we’re about to send your sorry ass.”

  Concentrating every bit of power I could come up with on the words I was speaking and what I needed them to do, I began to recite the second part of the incantation.

  Sacra cinis, sanctificetur pulverem,

  animas nunc ad te committere.

  Bastian, malum quod praedas in amantis spes.

  Sacred ashes, hallowed dust,

  This soul we now to you entrust.

  Bastian, evil that preys on the lover's hope.

  Immediately a hurricane force wind began to blow around our circle. I stopped long enough to see that the ashes from the urns were rising into the air and beginning to form a swirling, tornado-like cloud over our heads. Looking up, I saw faces in the dark, dense cloud and realized I was seeing the faces of my own past, the lives I had never gotten to have.

  Weirdest. Experience. Ever.

  Feeling very proud of myself, I let my head fall back and looked up at the women I had been and the men who had been forced to kill them. But, it was the beautiful face at the forefront of the hurricane of ash that I really saw. Gabriella was staring down at Bastian, her expression sad but determined. It was to that face, the face of the woman the demon had once loved, that I whispered the last of the incantation.

  Ducti per virtus unita,

  eos iam illa hora.

  Haec spiritus numquam libero,

  Id enim volumus, et sic fiat semper.

  Or, as we like to say in English…

  Guided by our united power

  take him now, this very hour

  never again to be set free

  for such is our will, and so mote it be.

  “It is over now, mon ami,” Gabriella’s voice whispered around the room. “At long last, I can rest.”

  An earsplitting shriek filled the room as the words faded away and our circle finally broke as everyone hurriedly clapped their hands over their ears in the hopes of keeping their eardrums from exploding. The glass in the windows shattered and sprayed us all with tiny glittering fragments and the floor beneath us began to quake violently again as the dead descended in a sucking whirlwind of suffocating ash and stinging bits of bone. Squinting against the onslaught, I peered into the dark cloud and watched as Bastian finally got what was coming to him.

  The ash people drifted over and around Bastian, their blank expressions almost as scary as the demon they were there to take. Bastian’s mouth opened in a silent scream, his face a mask of stark terror, as Gabriella’s arms reached for him. He wasn’t going down without a fight, however.

  I understood Tyler’s explanation about the merging of the demon’s essence and that of my friend as I watched the ashes try to take him. I would see the outline of his true shape drifting away from Jack for a few seconds and then it would snap back into its host only to be pulled forth again and again.

  And, in the process, they were killing my friend.

  Without thinking about what I was doing, I ran into the dark cloud of ashes. I heard the others shouting at me to stop, but all I could see was Jack’s pale gray, sweat-drenched face. His eyes were rolled back so that only the whites were showing and he was convulsing violently. He was going to die and I was going to have stand there and watch it, knowing that, in part, it was my fault.

  That was something I just couldn’t do.

  I grabbed hold of him and pulled with all my strength just as the ash people managed to pull Bastian forth again. It was the ultimate game of Tug-O-War. The harder I pulled on Jack, the harder the ash people pulled on their prey. Bastian’s form was suddenly revealed in horrifying detail as they began to win their war against his bond with his host—thanks to me. His eyes found me, and I saw his claws extend as he opened a mouth that was full of razor-sharp, pointed teeth and let out a howl of rage.

  The six inch talons on the tips of his fingers dug into my back and I screamed in agony as they ripped at my skin as he tried to anchor himself to me instead of his host. The ash people didn’t care that he was trying to rip me apart, though. If they had to, they would take me and Jack right along with the demon they had come for. It was what we had commanded them to do, and they were bound and determined to see the job through to the end.

  No matter the cost.

  Within seconds, I knew I was in serious trouble. Like Jack, I was starting to choke and it felt like something was…pulling away from me. There was a sucking sensation in my chest, in my head, everywhere.

  As the whirlwind of ash closed in around us, cocooning us from the rest of the world, I saw a sight I will have nightmares about until the day I die. At the top of the ash cyclone, a portal began to open. A long tunnel of monstrous-looking creatures waited to greet our arrival in the lost plane. Their too-pale faces looked grotesquely misshapen. They watched us approach with eager, hungry eyes and reached out to take us as the ash people directed us toward their world and away from ours.

  I knew in that moment, that I was going to die. I would never get to hug Grams again. I would never get to see my friends again. And I would never be held in Nathan’s arms again, would never get to see the love in his eyes when he looked at me, would never get to give him all the love I had kept from him for so long.

  As my
eyes filled with tears, I felt my mark begin to throb like it never had before. It felt like a hummingbird had somehow gotten trapped beneath my skin and was trying desperately to get out. Then, I felt this wonderful warmth fill me from my head to my toes. It was the warmth of Nathan’s touch, the warmth of his love.

  Close your eyes, baby, Nathan’s calm, silky voice whispered suddenly in my mind. Close your eyes and listen only to my voice. Follow it back to me. Please, baby, don’t leave me. Come back, Em. Come back to me.

  I let my eyes drift closed, glad to have an excuse not to see those hungry souls reaching for mine. As I listened to Nathan’s heavenly voice, I saw a silvery stream of light form in the darkness behind my eyelids. It was dim at first, but as my mark continued to throb and burn, it got brighter and brighter. I grasped at that light with everything inside me, I held on to it, my only light in the darkness. As I grasped at it, following it back to the sound of that sweet, encouraging voice, I felt myself drawing away from that terrible tunnel and the monsters waiting to devour me. I felt myself drifting back to the world I knew.

  Back to the man whose love had just saved me.

  With Bastian’s claws still sunk into my shoulders, I started tugging myself backwards. The pain was excruciating and I screamed in agony, feeling warm trickles of blood streaming down my arms. And then, with a terrible wrenching sensation, something inside of me ripped away completely. I felt myself go weak as a pair of strong arms wrapped around me, lending me their strength just as mine gave out completely. For one second, I could have sworn I was wrapped in something warm, something soft and silky. Something that felt like…wings.

  Holding on to Jack with everything I had left, I let those arms tug me away from the demon ripping me apart in his effort to save himself and the ash people sucking away my very essence as they tried to take him. Bastian’s claws literally scored my shoulder blades—and probably left inch deep gouges—as with one final yank my savior, Jack, and I all went flying back, landing in a pile.

  Another ear-splitting howl drew my eyes to the demon, and I watched, feeling oddly disconnected from the whole scene, as each of the ash people latched onto part of him. Then, with a mighty pull, they ripped him apart, each taking their piece of their tormenter. A ghostly blue-black light shot into the portal his victims had opened for him and, those monstrous creatures latched onto it, fighting each other for every particle. And then the portal snapped shut, trapping Bastian on the last plane once more.

  This time, hopefully for good.

  I had to close my eyes against the swirling ash as, with another hurricane force gale, the ghosts of the dead returned to their rest, taking a little piece of justice with them. The silence that followed was so loud it was deafening. For almost a full minute, nobody moved. Then, with a groan that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul, Jack lifted his head and gave me a bleary look.

  “Ember?” he croaked out, peering at me through narrowed eyes as if he couldn’t see me clearly even though we were so close we were practically nose to nose. “Is that you, Em?”

  I nodded and gave him a weak smile, not feeling so hot all the sudden. It was like I was watching it all from a distance rather than being an active participant. When Jack groaned again and pushed himself away from me, though, I felt an agonizing pain in my right shoulder that was so intense that the world grayed out for a second.

  I just barely managed to swallow the scream that rose in my throat, not wanting to scare him anymore than he probably already was. When his lips quirked up in a lopsided grin, though, I decided playing human suit for a demon really must cause brain damage.

  “What did we drink?” he asked, finally, trying to get to his feet and collapsing again before he even made it to his knees. “I don’t remember a damn thing. Must have been some party.”

  You have no idea, I thought as my eyes drifted closed. No idea at all.

  I heard movement around me, heard a soft cry of denial from somewhere beyond the darkness waiting for me to fall into it. I heard Tyler whispering to me, but nothing he was saying was making any sense. His arms were still wrapped around me, and I realized he was the one who had pulled me out of the ashes. Despite that, I couldn’t bring myself to thank him for saving me. Because, for some reason I couldn’t explain, I didn’t think he actually had. Not all of me anyway.

  I didn’t feel right. In fact, I felt a hundred different kinds of wrong. I had saved Jack. Bastian was gone. But I still felt like I was trapped in a nightmare.

  Or, maybe I had just fallen into a new one.

  I felt Nathan enter the room and run to my side, heard him suck in a horrified breath, but I couldn’t seem to force my eyes open again. Even when I heard Grams start to sob, I couldn’t bring myself to force my lids up.

  “Ember? Baby? Open your eyes, Em. Look at me,” Nathan whispered, hoarsely, his fingers caressing my cheek. I couldn’t help but notice that they were trembling.

  “You…saved me,” I whispered, mustering up enough energy to lift my hand to cover his. “You brought me back.”

  “I tried to stop her,” Tyler said, quietly, and I heard the tears in his voice. “I tried, Nate, but she… I’m so sorry.”

  “Why…sorry?” I whispered, forcing my eyes open.

  I meant to look up at Tyler, but instead my gaze locked on an unfamiliar face hovering over the crowd gathering around me. He was…well, hot. Not as hot as Nathan, but definitely running a close second.

  The first thing I really noticed was that he was dressed all in black—black t-shirt, black jeans, and a long, black trench coat that made him blend into the shadows almost effortlessly. His golden blonde hair looked windblown—and not in that fashionable I’m-too-cool-to-brush-my-hair kind of way, either, but like he’d been running through hurricane force winds himself. He was almost as big as Nathan and his face had that same chiseled quality. But, where Nathan’s hazel eyes always seemed so warm, so welcoming, this guy’s emerald green eyes were cold and remote. Honestly, he looked almost…bored.

  You would think, after what I had just been through, that I would have been at least a little uneasy. But I wasn’t. I knew who he was. I knew it deep down, in that place we all visit when it’s our time to check out.

  Death was an underwear model. Who knew?

  “No!” Tyler whispered behind me. I looked up to find him staring at Death with a look of pure hatred. “No! You can’t have her!”

  “It’s her time,” Death told him, his voice as smooth as silk—and cold as ice. “You know the rules, so please don’t try to play the hero. We don’t make exceptions.”

  With that, he dismissed Tyler like he was about as significant as a gnat and gave me his full attention again. We stared at each other for a long moment as the people around me started to panic. I had stopped breathing. Weird. Death just smiled at me, though, and started to take a step forward. Then, just as suddenly, he stopped and turned to look behind him as a geeky little guy in a bad suit and glasses appeared out of thin air.

  Taking his arm, the Nerd King pulled him a little ways away and started jabbering away a mile a minute. The blonde god guy turned and looked at me and his eyebrows rose in a way that clearly said, “Oh, shit. Sucks to be you, babe.” Then, shrugging, he started to walk away. Before I could blink, he was gone. His friend stayed behind another second, giving me a pitying look.

  “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, sadly. “I’m afraid we can’t take you.”

  “W-what?” I choked out, weakly.

  “You’re tainted,” he explained, already backing away. “I’m so very sorry.”

  With that, he turned and disappeared the same way he had appeared. I laid there for a second, confused. Then, I got it. Even as I felt my heart thud extra hard and then stop, felt myself drifting away into the darkness again, I wanted to laugh. No exceptions, my ass!

  I had just been rejected by Death.

  It doesn’t get any funnier—or any more pathetic—than that.

  Hi there, everyone! S
o, you came back for more of the World of Weird, huh? Well, welcome back! It’s been one hell of a ride, right?! :)

  As much fun as Something Wicked was to write, I couldn’t have done it without the help of some really special people. Sara King, who never ceases to amaze me with how many different things she can do at once. Chancey King, who makes brainstorming look easy. Sarah Liu, who puts up with my continued need to drive her crazy with my refusal to use commas properly. And Rose Bethancourt, who keeps me organized and makes me laugh—and who isn’t afraid to say “Woman! I need it NOW!”

  But what really made it fun was you, the people reading this note. The support I’ve received from my readers has been both touching and overwhelming. I can’t tell you how much it has meant to get your emails telling me how much you loved Witchy and begging for more. It made every hour spent in front of my laptop worth it.

  If you want to keep up with what’s coming next, you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ajmyersnovel or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AJMyersNovel and on the Web at www.ajmyersnovel.com, or, feel free to drop me an email at ajmyersnovel@gmail.com.

  And be sure to check Parasite’s website, www.parasitepublications.com, for more great novels to fall in love with.

  And keep an eye out for our next journey through Ember’s messed up life, Something Wanton! Trust me, you’re not going to want to miss what happens next! :)

  AJ Myers

  AJ Myers lives in her own little world—but according to the IRS, she actually resides in Mississippi—with her husband, who she loves more than life, her four amazing kids, and a crazy cast of family and friends who keep things interesting.

  Meet Stuey. He's our mascot here at Parasite Publications. Stuey is a brain parasite. Stuey burrows into people's heads and stays there. He takes over your body. He shuts you away from your senses. He talks to you in the darkness. He makes you do things you would never do while you can only watch in horror.