Someone’s shaking me.
“Compa!”
I grunt and open my eyes, squinting up at Raul.
His face is tight with worry, his voice full of urgency. “Something’s wrong.”
I sit up, instantly awake. I turn to Kara, but she’s still asleep beside me, she’s all right. “What is it?”
“I think it’s that Rebecca girl,” he says. “I saw something, I saw her. Like how I see my death visions. Aidan, she was . . .” His voice chokes. “There was pain. You need to find her.”
I’m out of bed and pulling on my clothes before he can finish talking. “Can you call Connor?” I ask quickly. “Let him know he needs to meet us at her house. Fast.” It’s dark outside. Isn’t morning yet. I pull my phone out and see it’s only 2:00 a.m. There are also three missed calls from Rebecca’s dad. Ava’s letter, which was in my pocket with my phone, falls to the floor. I pick it up and open it. There’s a new message. I missed it with all the stuff going on.
I took my eye off the hovering ax.
Hey, Demon Dork. Tell Connor thanks for getting the green witch nice and upset for me. Barely had to tease her to make her cry. She’s about to be perfectly tormented. ;) Hint: What has white eyes, tar skin, and eats souls?
Ice fills my veins. “Oh, God.”
Kara slides out of bed without a word. I don’t have to say anything, and she doesn’t ask questions. She gets dressed, goes straight into the living room, and starts ordering the others to get up and get some supplies together, telling them to be sure to bring knives—which makes me wonder.
Raul stays behind at the apartment, not wanting to go. He’s scared. Whatever he saw shook him to the core. Kara drives so I can listen to the voice mails Rebecca’s dad left. It takes every ounce of focus I’ve got left not to let the dread take over. He got home after eleven and Rebecca wasn’t there. She missed her curfew, do I know where she is, she isn’t answering her phone. Can he get Connor’s number, in case the two of them are together? The last two messages are panicked, his voice shakes. In the third he says he called the police, he’s going to the station to fill out some papers.
“Why’re we going to her house if she’s not there?” Jax asks from the backseat.
Kara glances at him in the rearview mirror. “To see if there’s a hint where she might’ve gone.”
“And who knows what Ava has planned for her dad,” I add. “We need to keep him safe, put up new wards or something.” Not that it’ll matter if Ava wants him.
“What about cops?” Tray asks, echoing my own unspoken concern.
“It’ll be twenty-four hours before the cops get actively involved,” Holly says. “Rebecca’s only been missing for a few hours, technically. She’s a teenage girl who could’ve run off to her boyfriend’s house. They’ll let time fix it first, if they can.”
My heart clenches at the mention of a boyfriend. Connor’s going to be frantic.
When we pull up in front of the driveway, his Jeep is already there. I spot him in the yard, coming around the side of the house, toward us. He looks even worse than the last time I saw him, a few hours ago. His eyes are wild and rimmed in dark circles, his skin pale.
“What happened?” he asks. His anger comes at me in a rush. “Where the fuck is she?”
I flinch at the smell of his rage. So does everyone else, like they can smell the sharp scent, too.
“Her dad said she never came home,” I say. “When you dropped her off, did you see her go inside?”
“Yes,” he grinds out. “I walked her to the door, I . . .” He shakes his head, miserable, terrified.
“We need to get in the house,” Kara says.
“There’s a spare key.” I point to the pots by the front door.
Holly steps forward. “Wait. What if the dad’s back home from the station? I’d prefer not to be arrested.”
“I second that,” Tray says, sounding distracted. He’s looking around the yard nervously.
“Her dad’s car isn’t in the garage, I checked,” Connor says. “I was just about to use the key when you guys pulled up.”
Jax moves to Holly’s side. “And what are we gonna do when—”
“Shut up!” Tray hisses, his frayed nerves on the surface now. There’s a trembling in his skin. He leans in and whispers, “I hear something.”
And I realize, he’s talking about his ability. He said before that he hears the earth speak.
We all go still and look around. Except Tray, who’s now staring at the ground and focusing all his energy on breathing.
“What is it?” Holly asks.
Kara looks at me, like she’s trying to send a silent message. She mouths, “He can hear them.”
Them. Demons.
Jax stumbles back suddenly, gaping at something above us. “Holyshitholyshit.”
We all turn.
And see a very large demon crouched on the roof of the house, leering at us.
THIRTY-FIVE
Aidan
Holly screams, then covers her mouth to hold in the sound. Tray stares up in stunned silence at the hunched creature. Connor and Jax lurch back. Kara grabs my arm, gripping it like iron.
The creature is horrifying, with four spindly legs, pinchers for arms, the torso of a man and the head of a bird of prey, beak hooked and deadly. It sneers down at us, huge black eyes keyed on me. “Ssseeeer,” it hisses.
My power explodes out before I can stop it, chest burning white hot as light spills from my skin, brightening the night around me.
The demon springs back.
The others huddle closer, as if drawn to me like magnets.
“It’s huge,” Holly whimpers.
“Are we all seriously seeing this?” Jax asks.
Tray pulls Jax behind him protectively. “I heard it, like the ground was telling me it was here.”
The demon watches us all for several heartbeats, considering. Then it skitters to the side and jumps, landing on the grass several yards away.
Holly screams again and Kara hits her in the arm. “Seriously.”
“Everybody get behind me,” I say, moving to stand between them and the creature.
It’s as big as the bird demon that killed me in the club, maybe a little larger. Its skin is covered in reflective scales. As I move closer, they flicker orange and gold along its thin legs.
“Why are you here?” I ask it in demon tongue.
It tips its head at me and grows the distance between us. “I watch. I wait.”
“For what, who?”
Its beak clacks, like it’s annoyed. “The father. We wait for the father.”
We?
I look around the yard, but I don’t see any other demons, don’t smell any. “What else is here?”
A low chuckle rumbles across the yard.
“Tell me, dever,” I order.
“It has no name. But it knows you are here now, and it will perhaps eat you, Seer. Pick its teeth with your bones.” The demon sounds giddy at the notion. And even though it steps away from me a little more, it doesn’t seem as afraid as it should be. It glances behind me to the others. “You brought us treats?”
This thing is way too confident. It might be large, but once my power touches it, it’s toast. “Where is it?”
“Which?” the demon asks. But for a second I don’t understand, until—
A familiar cry rips through the air behind me and I spin, seeing everyone scrambling away.
It’s Kara.
She’s being held by the neck, tight from behind, in the claws of a second demon. It has insect legs like the other, but this one is more man than beast. Except for the long stinger-like spear coming from its arm; a ten-inch, barbed dagger.
A ten-inch dagger that’s beginning to slice into Kara’s side.
“Stop!” I choke out.
The spear pauses, but it’s already in her muscle. I look from one demon to the other, suffocating in the panic. I’m such a fool. How could I come here with them all? What was I t
hinking?
Kara gasps frantically, trying to see behind her to her attacker, trying not to move. Her skin dampens with sweat. Her pain fills the air like the smell of rotting fruit—it fills my nostrils, begging me to kill something. Everything. And my power surges with it, only compounding the rage.
“The queen said that one companion can die,” the first demon says from behind me as I stare helplessly at the black stinger ready to plunge deeper into Kara. I can’t take my eyes off it. “And you have brought us so many to choose from. But she is the prize, she will be the one. Because she owns your heart. And she will just be in the way for what comes next.” Its sinister laughter rumbles again, and it looks at its companion with a slight nod.
“No!” I rush toward Kara.
But I’m too late.
The stinger shoves up, into her flank.
All the air leaves my lungs.
I falter. Gape in horror. As I watch the thorny spear disappear into her body. She stares at me, a million questions on her face. The whole world seems to wonder: What just happened?
Then the spear slides back out. It glistens red. Shiny crimson. The bitter taste of copper in my mouth. Copper that came from inside her. Copper that drips down the demon’s scaly forearm.
I cry out and run to her.
The demon lets go. She crumples to the grass.
She’s so still. She’s . . .
Holly’s crying. Everyone’s moving. Tray lunges at the demon at the same time I’m hurtling toward Kara. He’s closer, though, and his large body hits the even larger beast, tackling it to the ground in a mess of alien limbs and hair-raising screeches.
When I reach them, Tray’s pulled a knife from his pants. He stabs the creature right in the eye with a crunch. Its legs twitch. As if it’s actually hurt by the blow. Just before it bursts into ash and cinder.
Tray killed it. He killed a demon.
Before I can process any of it, I see Connor run past me at full throttle, straight for the first beast. Jax barrels after, pulling his own knife—it looks like one from the apartment kitchen—as a war cry erupts from his chest like he’s gone insane.
Tray falls to Kara’s side, his expression frantic with confusion. “I killed it, Kara,” he says, thickly, “just like you said I would.” Holly is crawling to her, weeping openly. I’m almost there, I need to have Kara in my arms. But then I hear Connor grunting, and I turn to see the demon holding him in its pinchers as it kicks the approaching Jax with one of its long, spindly legs, sending him reeling. I rush toward them as Connor slices at it with a dagger. The swipe does nothing but make the demon squeeze him harder.
He bellows in pain as I leap, tackling the creature with a savage strength that cracks its sternum and knocks the air from my lungs.
It turns to cinder with a sizzle just before I hit the ground with its burnt-out shell in my arms. Ash flies up around me. Connor falls to the grass. He coughs and holds his chest where the pinchers had him. But there’s no blood.
Blood . . .
I scramble to my feet and rush back to Kara. Tray is picking her up but Holly is yelling at him not to move her. I don’t know what to do. My mind goes blank as I fall to my knees at her side, watch her hold the wound in her stomach, blood leaking between her fingers.
She gasps in air and looks up at me. “We n-need . . . in . . . side. H-hurry. P-people w-w-will see.”
I take her from Tray and yell at Jax to get the spare key and unlock the door. Connor does it instead when Jax has trouble finding the right pot, then Connor opens the door for me, looking like a ghost, he’s so pale.
I race into the house and set her on the couch. My thoughts roil, my heart unable to accept what’s happening.
She’s dying.
No!
I’ll bring her back, I’ll just bring her back.
But I can’t watch, God help me, I can’t watch her leave me.
“It’s okay,” I say to her, sounding more sure than I should. “We can fix this. We’ll fix this.”
She shakes her head slowly. “Don’t . . . d-don’t use . . . y-your power. N-need to . . . save it.”
“We need a belt!” Holly yells, “to slow the bleeding—do any of you have a belt?”
The boys all shake their heads and Holly growls in frustration, then takes off running for the stairs.
I reach out with shivering fingers to peel up Kara’s blood-soaked shirt. She whimpers in pain, her stomach moving with her stuttered breath. My heart falters in my chest. The hole is at least two inches wide. And I know it’s deep. Blood dribbles from it in a pulsing rhythm, her heartbeat pushing the life from her. Crimson seeps into the couch cushion, quickly growing into a dark stain.
The familiar horror closes in on me. The one that rips everyone I love away from me with greedy blood-soaked claws.
“She said Connor could heal us, remember?” Jax says, sounding desperate. He grabs Connor’s hand and places it on Kara’s thigh. “Do it! Heal her!”
The agony and fear in Connor’s eyes nearly undoes any shred of control I still have over my panic.
He shakes his head. “I—I can’t,” he whispers. “I don’t know how.” He looks at me with urgency. “How?”
Kara takes his hand and grips it, smearing her blood across his knuckles. “Y-you can’t . . . n-not yet.”
“We need to call 911,” Tray says. “Just sitting here is killing her.”
And I know he’s right. She’s fading before our eyes.
“I got one!” Holly yells from the second-floor landing. “I found a belt!” She rushes toward us, the belt held over her head. She tosses it at me. “Wrap it around her chest. Tight.”
I reach out to lift Kara up so I can get the strap underneath her. But before I can get a grip on her shoulder, I’m yanked with a sudden jerk by an invisible hand.
My body lurches back. Then a heavy shove crashes me down.
My head smacks into the coffee table with a loud crunch.
Everything goes black for several painful breaths, the sounds of shock filling my head, until I’m blinking up at the ceiling, trying to get my bearings—
A low growl shivers against the air, bringing the world to a halt. The smell of rot and decay burst to life around me.
“Oh, shit,” Connor hisses. He’s gaping at something on the other side of the room. They all are.
“Oh, no,” Holly whimpers.
“Aidan,” Jax pleads, “get your ass up. It’s coming closer.”
My skull screams as I turn to look.
Bony legs stand several yards away. Legs that appear to be dipped in tar. My gaze travels up, over a slicked skeletal torso, to the elongated head of a specter with wide, opaque white eyes. Its skin makes an odd sucking noise as it shifts to look down on me. Its white gaze follows the path of my fire-filled mark, appearing unconcerned.
Ava’s message flashes in my head, her last hint: What has white eyes, tar skin, and eats souls?
White eyes and tar skin . . .
This is the nameless thing the demon outside was talking about. I thought it meant the demon that stabbed Kara—God, I’m a fool.
“I didn’t feel it,” Tray says, sounding confused as he looks at the thing, his eyes going distant. “The ground didn’t warn me.”
“That’s not a demon,” Holly says, sounding very sure even as her voice shakes.
“You are children,” it says. At least, I think that’s what it says. Its thin slit of a mouth hasn’t moved, and the sound of its voice isn’t traveling. “You are not the father of the witch. I was to devour the father.”
The others all slap their hands over their ears, groaning, as if the strange voice hurts them.
“Aidan, get up!” Connor yells. But he sounds far away. Everything seems very far away. I turn back to the creature and look into those snowy eyes, feeling them tug me closer. I can only stare. There is nothing else. What is this thing? some lost part of me wonders.
It seems to hear my thoughts, tipping its head at me. “I
have been imprisoned long. Time would have forgotten my name.” It points at my power, my arm that’s now molten with gold. “What are you that you are able to carry the Power?”
I look down and watch for a second as the fire slides over my skin. And then I look back into its white gaze and answer honestly. “I don’t really know.” I’m not sure why I’m not more afraid. It probably wouldn’t do any good to be scared, anyway. It would just pull my kidneys out through my gut and then eat my eyeballs for dessert.
The vivid image jolts a spark of terror through me, and I find myself moving, trying to clamber away.
The others have all gone still, each of them just staring at the creature, like they’re hypnotized.
“Don’t look at it!” I say, forcing my gaze to the rug.
A rumbling laugh comes from the creature.
Then a choking sound comes from beside me.
I turn to see Connor grabbing at his throat, like he’s trying to pull off an invisible hand.
“This one is strong,” the thing says. “I will devour him first. And then her.” Holly gags and starts flailing, a strangled sound coming from her chest. Then Jax and Tray start choking, mouths gaping.
“Stop!” I yell.
It tips its head again. “Why?”
And for the life of me I have no answer. I can’t formulate thought. I can’t breathe. I can’t—
A vise grips my throat. All the air is sucked from my lungs. I try to gasp, to breathe, but it’s as if I’ve been filled with cement. My muscles tremble, weakening, my vision blurs.
The black shadows around the edges close in. And just as I’m fading, I see the white figure of a girl moving to the side of the sticky creature that’s about to eat me. Mud and ash and blood cake her bare feet. Silver threads shimmer on the skin of her shoulders. She looks at me with her pale eyes, like she’s almost sad. Then she whispers in a singsong voice that I wish I could forget, Game’s almost over, Demon Dork. I’ve figured out how we can be free. As soon as the green witch gives herself over, I know you’ll see. You’ll do what you always do, you’ll save me. You’ll be mine, and we’ll be a family again.
Darkness Savage (The Dark Cycle Book 3) Page 20