Born to Raise Hell: The Owl Shifter Chronicles Book Three

by Qatarina Wanders

  He’d never seen her like this. No one had ever seen her like this, except, of course, Jo, Mom, and Dad. It was a side she never liked to show. That only came out when she’d reached her breaking point, which was almost never.

  It was just that Michael was being a whiny asshole. She had to put him in his place. Otherwise, he’d keep talking to them as though they were his slaves. Who did he think he was anyway?

  “This is what the evil rove wants,” Rina said next. She spoke deliberately, picking her words with care. “He wants us to fight each other. He wants us to be divided. He doesn’t want us united against him. We shouldn’t let it happen.”

  Naturally, Emily felt Rina was siding with Michael.

  “Tell that to your boyfriend,” Emily snarled. “He’s the one acting like a tool.”

  “The question now is, what do we do?” asked Joanna, trying desperately to change the subject. “We’re about five minutes from the safe house, and there’s no one following us. When we get back to the house, what’s our next course of action?”

  “We know the name of the evil rove,” said Rina. “We need to learn more about him. Surely, there’s something in the texts that talk about him.”

  “Nothing,” Michael croaked. He didn’t look at anybody, just straight ahead. They waited for him to say more, but he said nothing else.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s true, you said your aunt doesn’t have any texts on demonology.” Rina thought for a moment, and then turned to look at Emily.

  “Emily, you asked Marion a very curious question,” said Rina, “about if he’d be willing to give up his family if we were able to defeat Astaroth.”

  Emily nodded.

  “You sounded like you had a way,” Rina said. “Correct me if I’m wrong.” Rina was still talking to Emily as though she were walking on eggshells.

  “Yes, I have an idea,” said Emily. “But it’s a stupid idea, and I don’t know if it’ll work.”

  “Right now, we’re at the phase where any idea, no matter how uncertain, is welcome,” Michael said in a solemn tone.

  Emily was surprised that he’d speak to her after all she’d said to him. Nevertheless, she didn’t reply to him. She was still upset with him and had no desire to make up with him just yet, or even ever. If he was able to bring out the worst in her, then she didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

  “I’m just thinking about my dad is all,” Emily said. “I think my dad could be the key to unraveling this demon rove mystery.”

  Joanna looked at her through the rearview mirror. “Why do you say so?”

  “Think about it,” said Emily. “Why did the demon rove attack my father by himself? Why not send one of his emissaries? Or why didn’t he put a cloak on his mind? It’s not like my dad is a threat or anything.”

  At this, Joanna twisted her face in contemplation.

  “Like, I can understand why he’d attack Aunt Anastacia and all, but why my father?” asked Emily. “And why hex him? We know the evil rove has no qualms about killing. So why not kill him?”

  “Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” Joanna suggested.

  Emily shook her head. “I doubt it. I think there’s something there. Something very important. If we look hard enough, we’ll find it. I believe my dad is the key to defeating Astaroth.”

  It was a bold statement to make as much as it was a terrifying one to admit. Emily knew from experience that being the key to a problem was not necessarily a good thing, especially when the problem was otherworldly. It usually meant you had to sacrifice something, maybe your life, to make it work.

  If Dad was the key to stopping the demon rove, it didn’t bode well for him. He might have to give his life in exchange for saving the world and destroying Astaroth or something. It was something Emily would never agree to or even allow. Yet, she felt very strongly in her heart that this was the way to go.

  Marion had failed them. Yes. The Alfreds were still in play. Quite true. But even if Marion had acquiesced and given them his blood, even if they’d taken out the Alfreds, the demon rove would still have been a problem. So this wasn’t a total bust. As long as Astaroth was still in play, they were still in the game.

  Admittedly, defeating Astaroth was supposed to be a thousand times more difficult than defeating the Alfreds. That’s one reason they’d gone after the Alfreds first. But they weren’t going to sit around and waste their time when they had a lead on getting rid of him. Perhaps, maybe, just maybe, if they got rid of the evil rove, the Alfreds would back off.

  Taking down Astaroth was the plan now.

  “We get home, we tell the others what we’ve found out, we focus on taking Astaroth down,” said Emily. “This might be our only chance to win this battle.”

  “You say that like it’s supposed to be easy,” Michael noted. “I might not know much about demonology, but from the few hints Aunt Anastacia has dropped here and there, they’re extremely difficult to kill. Heck, they’re practically immortal, if ever there was such a thing.”

  Emily shrugged. “There’s a way to take Astaroth down. No matter how juiced up on demon power he is, he’s in a man’s body—even if it is a rove.”

  Emily smiled. She expected another bout of resistance from Michael. However, the guy kept his mouth shut and his face set ahead. From the way his shoulders hung in a defeated manner, she could tell that he didn’t have the will to dispute with her. She didn’t terribly mind, anyway.

  Soon, they arrived at the industrial estate.

  “Look who’s waiting for us,” Joanna muttered, motioning at the figures up ahead.

  Standing in the road, just beside the ramshackle house that was their entry point into the safe house were Aunt Anastacia, Dad, Everet, and Kendrick. None of them looked even remotely pleased.

  “Uh-oh,” Michael breathed.

  Emily felt it, too. Her spine straightened, and her jaw clenched.

  “What’s ‘uh-oh’?” Joanna slowed down as they approached the house.

  “Aunt Anastacia is giving off a lot of magic,” Michael observed. He looked over his shoulder at Emily. “You feel it, too, don’t you?”

  Emily wasn’t listening to him. She was looking at Aunt Anastacia. Something was off. The magical energy she was feeling wasn’t coming from her aunt.

  “Get us out of here!” Emily screamed.

  But it was too late.

  17

  Joanna had barely slammed on the brakes when a large column of white, shearing light appeared right in front of the car. The brakes screeched into action, but the forward momentum of the car prevented it from coming to a halt immediately. The car drifted to its side and smashed into the massive pillar of light in the middle of the road.

  Someone screamed. Emily didn’t know who it was or if it was her. Everything happened so fast she didn’t have time to process any of it.

  The car was sheared clean in two by the pillar of light. Joanna and Michael tumbled to the fence in the front half of the car, while Rina and Emily tumbled into the side of a large building on the other side of the road.

  Emily was concussed. Everything blurred together in a cacophony of sounds and images. A splitting scream. Flashes of light. People, lots of people, walking out of the flashes of light—people she didn’t know, but she sensed they wanted to harm her.

  Emily’s mind screamed for her to move. But she was pinned down by something heavy. Something that had crushed her arms. She tried to scream, but her throat resisted her. She felt a cold liquid sliding down her head, and there was dark smoke everywhere. And something was on fire.

  Explosions erupted. Gunfire, too. Magic. It was a war. She heard screaming—Joanna’s and Michael’s voices shouting for her and Rina.

  Rina! Emily’s heart leaped to her throat. Her eyes focused a bit. She turned and saw that Rina was pinned hard against the wall of the building on the side of the road by the half of the car. Emily screamed, pushing the car, but it wouldn’t budge. “Rina!”

  It was difficult to see. So
meone had conjured thick smoke to abolish visibility. This was the only reason why she hadn’t been seen yet.

  The battle raged on, and Emily couldn’t stay out for too long.

  “Emily, if you’re hearing me, now’s the time to bring out the fire demon!” It was Aunt Anastacia’s voice, and she sounded muffled and far away.

  There were other grunts, groans, and war cries. Gunshots had stopped, though.

  Emily paced her breathing. She had to get into the fight. They needed her help.

  Emily searched around for something to use as a leverage. She could only see a few feet ahead of her before the darkness commingled with the fog hiding everything beyond. As she frantically searched for something useful, she saw Rina’s hand and an outline of her motionless body away to her right.

  She wasn’t breathing.

  “Rina!” Emily cried again, frantically pushing against the metal scraps that had once been Aunt Anastacia’s car. The thing banged back into her, crushing her arm and sending spikes of pepperish pain into her sinuses.

  She screamed out loud.

  “Emily?” It was Dad, and he sounded nearby.

  “Dad!?”

  Just then, a man stepped out of the smoke. A vampire—its teeth red with blood. Emily froze as it looked at her hungrily. The monster had just moved to pounce on her when a dart flew out of the smoke and struck its left temple.

  The vampire landed with a leap and a dull thud at her feet. Where the dart had flown out from, Dad emerged, running to her.

  “Dad!” Emily squealed.

  Dad came to her side. “Be silent. Aunt Anastacia put a cloaking shield on you and Michael. They won’t find you if you don’t make a noise.”

  Dad took a quick look at the car and her arm. Then he looked at her with amazement. “Can you feel your fingers?”

  Emily had not thought of that. She tried to wriggle her fingers, and they moved. She nodded.

  Dad’s amazement widened. “This should have shattered your bones.”

  “Dad, my bones are shattered,” Emily assured him. “With the amount of pain I’m feeling? I’ll say they’re pretty shattered all right.”

  “Come on, we have to get you inside the safe house,” Dad said, pulling hard on the metal scrap.

  Emily expected Dad to fail at pulling on the metal scrap, but he didn’t. The metal thing finally gave way, and Emily yanked her arms out. They fell to her side, pain piercing through the veil of her mind. Emily bit down on her lower lip, quivering.

  But immediately, the pain began to subside. She felt her bones snap inside the casing of her flesh. She looked down at her arm in time to see the gash close up. Emily flexed her arm. There was no pain.

  Oddly, she was surprised. With all the things she’d been able to do and experience—including healing her dad’s burn with her tears—self-healing still surprised her.

  “Come on, we’ve got to get you inside,” Dad said, helping her to her feet.

  The battle continued. She could hear Aunt Anastacia and Everet. But she couldn’t hear Joanna or Michael. Even Rina. It sounded like they were losing the battle.

  Then Emily glanced to her side and saw Rina’s motionless body. She made to move there, but her dad stopped her.

  “You’ve got to get inside,” he insisted.

  “Emily!” Aunt Anastacia called from farther away. She sounded strained. “We need you now!”

  Emily glared at Dad. “Protect Rina,” she demanded. “I need to end this fight.”

  Emily saw her father shake his head in protest, but she didn’t heed him. She shut her eyes.

  “Zee,” Emily muttered. The moment she called the fire demon’s name, he stirred, his power brimming inside her body.

  “We need you,” Emily pleaded. “I need you.”

  ‘Atta girl, Selena whispered into her mind.

  That was all she needed to say. Magic—Owl magic—exploded around her. A powerful wave of wind cut in from the south into the area and swept Emily into the air. The fire demon came bursting forth and immediately caught the magicked wind in its wings.

  I am the fire demon! The creature whistled, circling around the area. Magic flourishing through The Owl’s wings. The wind blasted into the street one more time, carrying the fog and black smoke with it and revealing the battlefield was bare.

  The Owl circled one more time and picked out targets and friends. Seeing through its eyes, Emily saw where Aunt Anastacia and Kendrick were perched behind the Beetle at the end of the road, and where Everet was hiding behind what was left of a building to the side. She saw the other half of the car, where Joanna lay and Michael lay covering her with a magic shield.

  She saw Dad, how he’d hefted Rina in his arms and how Rina was still motionless. Then she saw the ones sent to attack them. They were a tight cluster of seven people. One of them was a rove, while the remaining six were a motley crew of vampires, werewolves, and other bipedal beasts—oh God, were those zombies? Emily cringed. A few winged humanoid creatures flew above them as well—fae, she assumed.

  Rage exploded in Emily’s mind, flooding the fire demon with a single order: Kill.

  Yes, Ma’am! The Owl swooped in from the south with the wind. The attack team had made it easy. They were clustered together. The Owl swooped in low and unleashed its fire on the group.

  When the group realized that the larger-than-life Owl headed toward them wasn’t an ordinary shifter, it was already too late. Fire gushed out of The Owl’s beak and flooded the cluster. They were all burned to ash—except the rove, who’d created a shield to surround her and protect her.

  Zee circled again and swooped in low. He lined up the rove in his line of vision and came in for an attack dive. The rove was a girl, a tall, slim girl with narrow features. She had a look of disdain on her face, and a pride of accomplishment. There was no iota of remorse or regret in her stance. Worst of all, she stood without fear, twisting her arms and speaking a spell of some sort.

  The Owl whistled.

  The rove girl created a ball of electric white flame and sent it in a volley up at the fire demon. Emily flinched a bit, wanting to warn the creature. She held back.

  The fire demon responded in kind, spewing fire on the approaching ball long enough to cause it to disintegrate. Then it blasted through the remains and came out unscathed on the other side. Emily noted the look of horror on the rove’s face when The Owl destroyed her plan of attack.

  Emily felt it as pleasure passed through Zee’s mind right before it threw its claws forward and shot out its wings, cutting down its speed.

  The rove threw her hands in front of her face to protect it, but that wasn’t enough. The Owl’s claws grabbed hold of her face and yanked with a single rustle of its feathers.

  The rove’s head came clean off. Blood pumped out of the headless body, which fell to its knees first before falling to the side.

  Emily watched through The Owl’s eyes, horrified.

  The Owl let go of the head and flew, ascending. Then it stopped flapping and fell, spreading out its wings to catch the wind and soar with it. It came around to the decapitated body. The head was lying right next to the body. The Owl did a single swoop on the body and unleashed fire.

  The body caught on fire, as did the head.

  Mission accomplished, Zee announced, and suddenly Emily was back in the driver’s seat. She immediately transformed back to human form, landing on all fours a few yards away from the burning body.

  Vomit burst out of her like a volcano. Her breathing was erratic. Her mind in a blurred state of disgust and confusion. When she thought she had a control of her belly, she took one look at the burning body, and she erupted again.

  “Are you okay?” asked a voice beside her.

  It was Aunt Anastacia. The woman’s face was covered in a layer of soot. She didn’t look furious, even though she had a right to. She held a bottle of water in one hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she soothed.

  Emily nodded and took the water. She washed her mou
th first before taking a few sips. She was already on the verge of tears.

  “Rina?” she asked.

  Aunt Anastacia didn’t reply.

  Emily glanced up at her. Aunt Anastacia looked at her with intent and purpose. “Michael and Joanna are pretty banged up. But they’ll live.”

  “Rina?” she repeated.

  Aunt Anastacia said, “We’ll have to move out of here, obviously. Even if they don’t know exactly where we’re holed up, they can easily find us with a simple tracking spell.”

  Emily pushed herself to her feet and grabbed her aunt by the shoulers. “Rina!”

  Aunt Anastacia stared back at her with cold, unfeeling eyes. “She’s dead.”

  Emily staggered back, unsure of what she’d heard. “What?” she gasped. “That’s not . . .” She looked around. Close to where their part of the vehicle had landed by the wall of a building, she saw Rina’s body. Now that the air had been cleared of smoke, she saw Rina’s vacant eyes staring at nothing.

  Dad knelt there, right next to her, his head hung in reverence—or perhaps shame. Everet and Kendrick stood by and watched. They could do nothing.

  “I tried to help her,” Aunt Anastacia said. “But she was killed by the initial attack. There was nothing I could do.”

  Emily still couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She was still in shock. This had to be some dream. This had to be a mistake. Rina couldn’t be dead.

  She took a step forward. That was as far as she could get before she heard a groaning sound behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw Michael coming to. He’d been active during the fight, keeping Joanna safe. What would he think of her when he found out she had failed to keep Rina safe?

  “Emily?” Michael called out first.

  She turned fully, and she saw that he was just struggling to his feet. Joanna was stirring right next to him. They both looked fine, their half of the car shredded to pieces all around them.

  Emily felt inundated by a heavy, sinking sensation. The first name he called wasn’t that of his girlfriend, Rina, but of hers. And Rina had died under her watch . . .