The world is based on the Yin and Yang principle—light and darkness weigh each other out. A tip of the scale in favor of evil could have unforeseeable consequences. And I’m not just talking about more wars, mayhem, or demons and other evil creatures flooding the world. I’m talking about upsetting Mother Nature which, if you look at history, never ends well.
“Amanda.” Clyde’s smoky voice roars through the dungeon. “I understand you’re scared, but it must be done.”
Heat flushes my veins. “Why?” I narrow my eyes at the Knight of Hell. “Why do you crave destruction, Clyde? Don’t you understand this book will be the end of all things?” I eyeball his minions. “Including hell?”
He blows out a pained breath. “Destruction is an ugly word, love. I’d like to think of it as a new beginning.” He smiles. “A new world order.”
He’s insane. The Knight of Hell has lost his damn mind. “A new beginning?” I slam my hands on my hips, before I jump over the altar to cut the stupid grin off his face. “How is opening the gates to hell a new beginning?”
“We’ll be free,” he replies, matter-of-factly. “Free to go wherever we please, to do whatever we want. To be with—” He stops himself.
He truly is delusional. “Have you read the First Grimoire?” I don’t think he has. Or else he’d know what happens when I do the last of the six rituals. “There’ll be no freedom for you and your kind, only death and—”
“Enough.” Clyde’s voice shakes the walls of my prison. “You will do as I say, or our deal is void and your lover boy will go to hell.”
I love Alex. Gosh, I wish I didn’t, but he’s the only man I ever pictured a tomorrow with. But this…it’s no longer about the lives of a few in exchange for his. It’s Alex or the whole fucking world.
Clyde is done being patient. “Amanda, finish the bloody ritual.”
I’m sorry, Alex. I’d die for him. Fuck, I would have gone to purgatory for the hunter who hates my guts. But I won’t do that. “No.”
Whispers roar through the dungeon. The five faceless demons are frozen.
Clyde slowly rises to his feet. “Come again?”
Balling my fists, I dig my nails into my palms. Warm crimson traces down my wrist. “I won’t do it.”
He laughs. “Oh, yes. Yes, you will.” The bastard is so sure of himself, he doesn’t even blink.
He forgot whom he’s dealing with. Broken or not, I still invented this game. No one will beat me at it. “I said, no, Clyde.” The jugular vein in my neck pulsates. “If you want to end the damn world, you better do it yourself. I’m done being your bitch.”
I halfway expect him to snap his finger and kill Alex and me right away. When his expression softens instead, I’m even more worried. “Tell me, love. Is it really wrong for me to aspire freedom? You, of all people, should understand how it feels to be locked away in a dark place, knowing everyone else can roam around freely and carelessly.” He’s in front of me, squeezing my hand. “Can’t you see we’re not that different? You broke out of your prison. All I want is to get out of mine.”
“How do you even know all of that?” Last time I checked, I didn’t advertise the reality my mother locked me away in the attic, or how I swore to myself no one would ever cage me up again when I grew up.
His liquefying amber eyes pierce mine. “I know everything about you, Amanda Bishop.” He inches closer, his sulfur breath beating against my cheek. “Help me,” he pleads. “And I will honor our deal. Alexander Remington can go on living his life. He’ll grow old and gray with a pretty girl, raising his own family. Isn’t that what you always wanted for him?”
Sure. There’s just a tiny problem. If I do as Clyde asks, there won’t be a future for Alex. There won’t be a future for anyone. “No,” I say, standing my ground. “I won’t become the destroyer of the freakin’ world. Take my contract and set it on fire, send Alex to hell, and ship me to purgatory. I. Don’t. Care.”
He sighs heavily. “You leave me no choice.” He nods at faceless demon number two. “Show her,” Clyde demands.
The creature floats toward me; his hooves never touch the ground. An iPad rests in his massive palm. “Press play,” he orders.
I hesitate. Judging by the nasty, dark red surrounding the minion’s whole being, I’d say I won’t like what I’ll see. The thing is I don’t have much of a choice. My thumb connects with the display.
I hear crying. A child sobs uncontrollably. Someone—a woman—screams, “Don’t make him watch, I beg of you.”
It takes a second, but I quickly realize I’m well acquainted with that voice. “Melinda?”
The camera swings to the left, exposing a scene right out of a Saw flick. Melinda is chained to a rusty hook in the ceiling. She’s naked except for a steel head-cage sitting on her shoulders. Her body is covered with cuts and bruises, and she’s forced to stand on the tips of her toes, or else the chains around her neck will suffocate her.
Pressure builds in my chest. I’m going to kill the bastard. I swear, I’ll—
The cameraman turns the focus on a playpen and my heart stops beating altogether.
Clyde grins. “I told you I’ve been around for a very long time, love.” He traces a finger over Leandro’s red face. “Did you really think I hadn’t considered resistance from you?”
I’m drowning in Leandro’s tears. His bloodshot shamrock eyes crush my lungs. Breathing is no longer an option. Clyde has Melinda and Leandro. My sister and my little boy are prisoners of a freakin’ Knight of Hell.
What have I done? Striking a deal with hell was supposed to keep the people I care about safe. Clyde swore he’d protect Melinda and Leandro from the Malleus Maleficarum Order gunning for me and therefore my family. But what was it Grams used to say? It’s all about the wording, Manda. How freakin’ right she was. Because Clyde never once said he’d keep my family safe from himself.
Clyde snaps his fingers. Minion number two floats back, taking his place in the circle. “So.” The bastard lifts my chin. “What do you say, love? Shall we finish the ritual?”
They say you always have a choice—get up or stay down, live or die, love or hate, destroy the world or watch your family die. I’d gladly accept eternity in purgatory. But I wouldn’t trade the life of my little boy for the world. Literally.
“I knew you’d come around,” Clyde says as I reach for the bone of a saint sitting next to the evil tome.
Don’t do it! Once the gate is open, all will be lost. You can’t save them. They’ll perish regardless. Maybe so. But I have to try.
Once the circle is complete, I lift the bone above my head. “Tsud ot nrut llahs yloh sgniht lla.” I pierce the ulna into the blazing book and watch as it turns to ashes and dust before my eyes.
Clyde and his minions clap and cheer.
Mother Nature responds, too. Her wrath moves the ground. Her scream sounds like extended thunder, but the vibrations come from below.
Walls crack, pieces of ceiling come down, and the lights of the seven black candles flicker rapidly before they finally go out.
Clyde’s hands are on either side of my shoulders. “You did it, love.”
Yeah, I have become death.
“We can’t lose the crescent moon.” He glares at his watch. “The third ritual must be done, now.”
“I’ve read the book,” I grumble. The second and third ritual are connected. One tips the scale, the other summons Clyde’s legion. The bastards will bring chaos and murder once they escape hell.
“Would you like a moment before we continue?” He almost sounds worried.
A moment to think about what I just did? Who I’ve become? “Nah, thanks. Let’s get this over with.”
Chapter 20
Alex
The City of Dreams is reduced to rubble. Carter, Jesse, and I stood outside Dorian Gray’s gazing at New York’s dark skyline, when a petrifying rumble from deep within the belly of the earth struck fear in every living and breathing creature.
At first, I couldn’t figur
e out what the terrifying noise was. Someone, I believe an elderly man, screamed, “We’re under attack!” He waved his hands frantically. “Everybody get off the streets!”
Images of falling twin towers and folks leaping to their death flickered across my mind. Terror seemed a valid explanation for a city wrapped in darkness, a city hit by the snarl of a beast. Then the ground beneath our feet shook. Cars tossed about. The earth cracked right in the middle of the street. The building across from us collapses like a Lego brick tower. A dust avalanche came down. Screams echoed through the night. People ran like headless chickens—into the buildings, away from the buildings—looking for safety when there was none.
I turned and watched concrete rain down on the folks in the sports bar—the same bar I just had a few drinks in. Until the day I die, I will never forget the look on the waitress’ face when a heavy chunk of ceiling crashed onto her head, splitting it in two.
“Run,” Carter yelled. “We gotta get away from the buildings.”
Jesse and I looked at each other, both sharing the same thought. Where do you run when the whole city comes down?
Carter seized hold of us, dragging us into the center of the street. “Stay away from walls and exits, you hear me?”
I’m not sure how long we stood there, but it was long enough to catch a glimpse of death and destruction, endless fear and desperation.
After the big one ended, we tried to help the ones that weren’t lucky enough to have a Carter by their side. The three of us pulled folks out from underneath concrete, secured a family trapped in a thrown over car, and tried to keep our own fears in check.
Soon, though, we’d be tossed into a pit of despair. A fire truck got to us. “The quake shook the whole world,” the chief said, after Carter showed him his badge. “London, Berlin, Moscow, Canberra—every country has been hit.”
“That’s impossible,” Carter said. “Seismic activity is usually confined to one area.”
“Don’t tell me, son,” the chief replied, gazing at the ashes of what used to be East Village. “Tell Mother Nature.”
Our boss didn’t feel like a chat with nature. Instead, he organized a satellite phone and called his boss, Agent Jack Melbourne, Director of the PAU. He confirmed what the chief had said. A magnitude nine earthquake had hit the world. The energy—an energy unlike any ever detected—according to specialists released from the inner core rather than the lithosphere. We all knew a quake like that couldn’t be natural and if it wasn’t natural it was most likely supernatural.
Melbourne sent a helicopter for Carter. He needed him back at headquarters to go over the data and coordinate the next steps. Jesse and I were offered a place, too. But we declined for the same reason. B was still in Green House. We had no idea if she was alive or dead. Neither my brother nor I would leave without checking on her.
So, that’s where we’re headed now. To Green House, praying the mamba made it out of there in one piece.
“Hurry up,” Jesse barks, jumping over debris. I understand his fear better than I care to admit. Even though B hates my face, and despite her annoying attitude, I grew to like her. Besides, after everything that happened today—Manda possibly stealing an end-of-world-grimoire, a power outage, and a world under quake attack—I’m not sure I could handle a dead mamba on top of it.
Green House still stands. A good sign.
Without a second thought, we move inside. Miraculously, the building is mostly unharmed. Except for a few pieces of cement that came down from the ceiling and a couple of unhinged doors, the student accommodation looks like heaven compared to the hell we just escaped.
The hallways are deserted. Books and papers scattered over the floor. I step on abandoned horn-rimmed glasses. It appears most students left their apartments when the earth roared to life. Grave mistake. The streets outside are death zones. Bodies strewn all across the ground. Houses reduced to ashes.
Jesse reaches the apartment first. He doesn’t bother knocking. He kicks the damn door down. “B?” He searches the place. “B, where are you?”
Faint sobs float through the common room. “Hey.” I seize hold of my brother’s jacket. “Do you hear that?”
We try to locate the source. “There”—he points to the room of the roommate—“see the light?”
“C’mon,” I say, wasting no time.
The Nun rocks in a corner. Knees tucked under her chin, she holds her phone in a death grip.
“You okay?” I ask, extending my hand.
Eyes glazed over with horror, she manages a nod.
“C’mon”—I pull her up—“let’s get you out of here.”
Jesse is between us in a heartbeat. “Have you seen B?”
“S-she…” Her voice trails off.
“Where is she?” My brother urges. “Tell me!”
“Basement. They all went to the basement.”
Why would B go to the b—?
“What are you waiting for?” Jesse barks, dragging me toward the hallway. “Let’s go find her.”
“Wait,” Chelsea half-screams, half-pleads. “Can I…can I come?”
Annoying or not, we can hardly leave her here. “Come on.”
Green House is a damn labyrinth and if it wasn’t for the Nun, we probably never would have found the damn basement.
It’s dark and shabby down here. The scent of mold wafts through the air. Our only light source is the flashlights on our phones. The farther we head into the blackness, the harder I’m hit by an odd sensation—something isn’t right. B is too smart to run through the whole building to hide out in a death trap. Let’s face it; the reality Green House is still standing is sheer luck. Had it collapsed like so many other houses, the basement would be the last place anyone wanted to be.
We walk past the bike storage. Chelsea is behind us, shaking with fear. “Are you sure B went to the basement?” I ask, unable to shake the nagging feeling we shouldn’t be down here.
“Yes,” she said. “A few of the guys came for her. I heard them talk about the basement.”
Jesse thinks I didn’t see him flinch when she mentioned guys. I did.
“B?” he yells. “B, are you down here?”
She doesn’t reply. No one does.
Jesse’s calling grows more frantic by the second. “B, for fuck’s sake! Answer me!”
Water drips from the ceiling. The quake must have burst a pipe. The sound immediately takes me back to the basement of pedophile Walter’s lake house. I’ll never forget what went down there. I almost had to decide between my little brother and Manda—an impossible choice. Not to mention the sight of kids, confined to dog kennels, abused on a daily basis by Walter and his bokor friend Francoise. As I stood there gazing into horrified eyes of innocent children, I couldn’t help but think of Natasha. What if the witch that took her didn’t just kill her? What if she was tormented like the kids in Walter’s kennels? A fate worse than death. The prospect of my little sister enduring such things turned my stomach upside down. For the first time since she’d vanished off the face of the earth, I prayed she was dead rather than tortured alive.
“Alex.” Jesse nudges me. “Do you smell that?”
The hair on my neck stands on end. Something stinks. Literally. It smells like rotten eggs. “Sulfur.”
Adrenalin pumps through my system. Instinctively, I reach for my gun. Jesse does, too.
Alert, we move through the last door on the corridor. A bunch of cartoons lie around. Killer heels peek out from underneath. “Bonnie?”
Jesse runs toward the boxes, kicking them aside. “Shit. It’s her,” he says. “She’s bleeding.”
I’m all set to attend to them, but I never get a chance.
A snap echoes off the walls. Jesse drops like a sack of hot potatoes.
I spin around. “What the—”
A familiar face looks back at me. “Hello, hunter.” Demon-Boy smiles. “Nice to see you again.”
Then something wooden aims for my head. It looks like—
A baseball bat.
Chapter 21
Somewhere in the distance water drips onto metal. The only other noise, a remorseless high-pitched ringing assaults my scrambled brain. I will my eyelids open. They don’t comply. Darkness swallows me like a hungry T-Rex.
What the hell happened?
I don’t remember shit. My memories are obscured by a misty veil of pain and cluelessness.
The harder I try to recall how I got here—wherever here is—the worse my head hurts. It’s comparable to someone using my left temple as a voodoo doll. Last time I felt so fucking awful, I woke in a motel room wearing nothing but boxers and Manda’s bra. I’ve never been into crossdressing and didn’t have the slightest idea how I ended up in Amanda’s lingerie. Luckily or shamefully—depending on how you look at it—my little brother brought me up to speed. He shoved a video under my nose. Turned out, I was so wasted I voluntarily put on the witch’s bra to imitate Taylor Swift. My performance of “I Knew You Were Trouble” was epic, or so Manda said. Like now, I couldn’t remember the actual deed. All I knew was I should have never had that last drink.
Did I gulp down gallons of bourbon again?
I taste blood, not booze.
But if it wasn’t bourbon that did this, then what did?
“Alex, open your eyes.”
Manda? Is that her? How did she—
“Jerk-face,” she barks. “Open your freakin’ eyes. Now!”
Yup. It’s her, all right. No one else gives me orders. They treasure their lives.
“C’mon.” Soft fingers trace my aching jawline. “You gotta pull it together, hunter-heroic. They need you.”
They? Who are they? Need me for what? Fuck, what the hell is she talking about?
She cups my face. Her warmth spreads through my body like a wildfire. “Alex, please. You gotta trust me. Jesse and B need you. Just…open your eyes.”
Jesse…B…Jesse…B… Their names play in my head like a broken record. Shattered memories flash across my mind’s eye.
Dripping water.
Boxes.
High heels.
Jesse dropping to the ground.
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