“Why am I here? Send me back, you fucked up perv!”
Sid grunted and twisted out of my hold and away from my strikes. “Crazy wench! Relax! You’re not really here right now, either. You’re frozen in your living room, slitting your palm to give yourself to Bola.”
I hesitated. Had to give Sid an “A” for his summarizing skills.
“I can’t let you do that.”
“So what’s happening right now? Have you possessed my body and locked me in this memory?” My scalp prickled like a deranged Martha Stewart wannabe stabbed my head repeatedly with sewing needles. “My friends are dying.”
“No, they’re not. Time is frozen in the mortal realm,” Sid said. “You and your gaggle of lover-boys have retreated into your minds, to your safe places. They’re alive and will stay that way for the time being.” He paused. “What a surprise to learn your safe place is the sacred moment you bonded to your first feras. Touching.”
“Fuck you.” The idea of Sid in my happy place…Warning bells didn’t go off in my head; my entire entanglement of dendrites screamed a cacophony.
Sid held his hands up. The supplicant gesture somehow genuine.
With a deep breath, my heart beat slowed down. The boys were safe. For now. Sid was up to something. Pay attention, McNeilly.
I narrowed my eyes at Sid. “What’s going to happen now?”
“Now?” Sid asked. He took a step closer.
“Yes, now.”
Sid took another step, now only a couple feet away from me. “You will owe me for this intervention.”
“Isn’t it too late?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve voluntarily drawn blood.”
“It’s not a deal until you utter the words to bind the agreement.”
“Oh. Okay.” I wrung my hands together and looked at my feet. “Can I put limitations on the payment?”
“No.”
“Will it involve rape or sexual intercourse or ownership in any way?”
Sid sighed. “Those would be limitations. Wouldn’t my ownership be more favourable than Bola’s?”
I let my death stare speak for me. How much worse would servitude to Sid be compared to Bola? I didn’t know what Sid would do or what he was capable of, but I knew the answer for Bola. A shiver racked my body. Better the Demon I know, than the Demon I don’t? To hell with that. I’d take unknown Sid over the atrocious and sadistic Bola any day.
Sid watched my face a moment longer before speaking. “No, little one, I will not ask for sex or ownership of your mind, body or soul.”
“Can I have your word?”
Sid slit his palm with his talon without hesitation. “By my word, I, Sidragasum, swear not to ask for sex or ownership as the favour Andrea McNeilly owes me for my aid.” He winked at me. “Your turn.”
What other options did I have? Slowly, I nodded.
“Say it.”
My fingers tingled with sharp prickly pain as I shifted a nail into a talon and repeated Sid’s actions. “I, Andrea McNeilly, will owe you, Sidragasum, for your intervention and help to successfully return Bola to the demonic realm, before he kills my friends or enslaves me.”
Sid smiled and silence fell over the forest, or at least, the imaginary forest of my safe place.
“Do I have to play twenty questions before you tell me how we get back? Does it involve me clicking my heels three times?”
“A Wizard of Oz reference? Really?”
“For a Demon, you’re incredibly judgemental.”
“You should talk.” He took a step closer. Now only a foot of space separated us, and I didn’t like it one bit. “I need your blood,” he said.
My blood turned to ice, and I shivered. “Is this my payment?”
Sid’s eyes narrowed and then he shook his head. “No. I need your blood to return us to the mortal realm.”
“Bullshit.”
“I do.”
“You didn’t need it to bring me here. How’d you do it, anyway? I had no idea you wielded that kind of power.” Keep him talking. Keep him distracted. If he wanted my blood, all he had to do was insist. He had a favour he could claim. I owed him.
Sid’s gaze cut away.
“Sid?”
When he didn’t answer, I crossed my arms. If I had been frozen in the real world along with everyone else, I could afford the time to wait for an answer.
The sounds of the forest grew louder as Sid shuffled his feet and hesitated. “I didn’t bring you here.”
Nausea gnawed at my guts as a feeling of apprehension slid over me. “Then who did?”
“I did,” a woman’s unfamiliar voice answered.
I spun around and froze.
Feradea.
Chapter Thirty
“I wanted to have an all-female band that took over the world.”
~Courtney Love
Piercing obsidian eyes under dark sculpted brows assessed me as I stood frozen, regarding the deity for all Shifters. Feradea, the goddess of beasts and the hunt. She had strong cheekbones and a straight nose, like Cher in her younger years. Thick orange hair surrounded her head like a lion’s mane, highlighted with lighter yellows and fiery reds.
A fringed triangle bra made of soft leather barely covered her ample breasts, and she wore a matching fringed thong and metallic arm bands. The outfit looked more like something from a politically incorrect lingerie catalogue than the attire of a goddess. But damn, she had a great body.
Atop her unruly mane sat a crown, or maybe she called it a headdress. Five roe deer skulls with blackened antlers adorned the piece, with the largest in the center. Embedded underneath each skull, sat polished brownish-red stones, probably cornelian, surrounded by sculpted oak leaves. Jagged teeth strung on a coarse thread hung around her neck; a large canine sat in the center and plunged into her cleavage.
She wore a quiver across her back, but clutched the bow in one hand. With a knife strapped to her waist, and another at her thigh, stories of her fierce brutality resurfaced. Legends and myths told of her swift accuracy with her weapons of choice: the bow, the dagger, and her hands.
A white stag, larger than a bull, with shining translucent horns walked up to stand beside the goddess, and she reached out to rest her hand on its haunches.
She smelled of the forest.
Internally, my body warred with conflicting emotions. My throat grew thick as my heart beat heavy in my chest. This goddess watched over all Shifters and was responsible for bestowing my considerable “gifts.” She’d also stood by while norms slaughtered the majority of Shifters during the first few years of the Purge. A hard goddess to like. A hard goddess to hate.
She oversaw all beasts, all Shifters, but she also looked after the men and women who hunted them. My mind and body reeled with how to respond to her presence.
“Should I bow?” I asked. My tone made it clear the answer in this case should be no. Seconds passed, and despite Sid’s reassuring words, my mind kept drifting to the image of Tristan and Wick under Bola’s feet and Ben slumped against the living room wall.
Feradea tilted her head. “We came to help, and you respond with attitude? With sarcasm? Should we leave and let Bola destroy your lovers and friend? Or perhaps allow you to sell your soul to the sadistic Demon so you can live out an eternity in hell? By all means, we could leave.”
Well, damn. When she put it like that…
I bowed.
The goddess snorted. “Mortals,” she said, as if it provided all the explanation in the world.
I straightened and ignored the warmth spreading across my cheeks. This was no time to be intimidated by a deity. Wick and Tristan may sit frozen under the control of Bola, and Ben lay in a pool of his own blood. The only reason I wasn’t jumping up and down like a five year old needing to pee was I knew Bola was also frozen, and the men were in no imminent danger. Not until something happened here.
Focus, McNeilly.
“What should I call you?” I asked.
“I have been called many names. The Greeks called me Artemis; the Romans, Diana; the Egyptians, Pakhet; the Celtic, Arduinna; The Navajo, Hastseoltoi; the Semites, Aspalis; the Thracians, Bendis; the Finnish, Mielikki; the Hindus, Banka-Mundi; the Inuit, Pinga; the Slavic, Devana. I could go on. Shall I? I think not. Some have wrongly called me the Great Mother. There is only one mother, Gaia, and she is the reason all Shifters are bound. But I digress.” She squinted at me. “Does this answer your question?”
“Unless I’m supposed to conclude, ‘hey you,’ is the best course of action, no, not at all.”
“You may call me Feradea. My name matters not. It is my essence that is worshipped, not the label. I am of the hunt, of the forest and of all wild things.”
Before she continued on another monologue, I asked, “How come no one figured you were all one and the same?”
“Well, they did. The ancient Greeks and Romans caught on. Damn them. I’d grown complacent. But generally, I revealed myself in different forms, and slightly different roles. You wouldn’t recognize me in my Chinese guise.”
I raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t elaborate. “So what I’m seeing now is one of many disguises?”
“No child. What you see now is the truth.”
After working for the government for fifteen years, I had a new understanding of the word truth. I bet she used that line with all her worshippers.
Her fiery mane shone under the moonlight.
“Homer did refer to you as a lion among women,” I said.
The goddess’s lip twisted up into a half-smile. “Homer! Now, he was a man.” Her expression flattened when she refocused on me. “I’m surprised you know of his words.”
My hands flew to my hips. “I read. It’s a hobby.” Or so Tristan had informed me on our first date. Tristan… Enough of this chit-chat. We needed to get back and kick some Bola ass.
“Fera,” Sid said. I’d forgotten about him. His tone came out higher pitched and my head snapped to him. Why did he sound so weird?
“You,” Feradea said. “Are not allowed to call me that.” Her tone turned cold, and her lips compressed. “I’m only working with you out of necessity, Satan’s spawn. Never forget that.”
Sid nodded and stepped back.
Weirder and weirder. Call me a genius, but I sensed history between these two, and it didn’t end amicably.
“Can we go now?” I asked, squeezing my eyes against the broken and bloody images of Tristan and Wick. My mouth dried out. “Do we hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’?”
Feradea’s eyes narrowed. “No, child. We hold hands and return to the mortal realm.” She reached out and clasped my hand without hesitation. We both turned to Sid. He held his arms out to each of us with his palms open. He looked entirely too content. When my hand slipped into his, his skin tingled against mine, sending shocks up my arm.
I gasped, and my arm instinctively retracted. Or tried to.
Sid tightened his hold on my hand and met my wide eyes. “Sure you don’t want to rethink that restriction?”
“Ugh,” I said. “Get over yourself.”
Feradea chuckled, and Sid’s darkened gaze focused on her. “I don’t know why you’re laughing,” he said to her. “You enjoyed my attentions.”
Feradea shook her head, her fluffy orange mane padding against her cheeks. “And like all lovers in my past, I bored of you quickly. I’m glad to find another woman is impervious to your charms. Are you done with your seduction attempts? May we go now?”
Sid grumbled and clasped her hand.
Feradea smirked, and the world folded away.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”
~Mark Twain
My eyelids scraped against dry lenses. The blur in my vision cleared to reveal the expectant look on Bola’s face. Leaning forward, arms spread wide and talons extended to rip into flesh, he looked ready to snatch me up as soon as I closed the deal.
Wick and Tristan sprawled in frozen positions, in a struggle to get out from under Bola’s taloned feet and stop me from agreeing to Bola’s deal.
Snap! The air crackled as movement, sound and time resumed.
Bola straightened, and his eyes widened. With tense muscles, he dropped his arms to his side.
Tristan and Wick both sagged and somehow frowned at the same time. The wheels in their heads visibly running on overdrive to figure out what had happened. They were alive, and they’d heal, if given time. A quick glance over at Ben and his shallow moving chest, told me he lived as well. Thank Feradea!
“Sid.” Bola’s voice slithered and captured my attention. “I should’ve known you’d interfere.”
The “good” Demon’s presence vibrated to my left.
The air crackled again and another body appeared on my right. She radiated an inferno of heat and smelled of a pine forest under a fresh winter’s snow.
Bola’s head snapped in her direction. “Feradea!”
Feradea’s lip twitched up, but she shuttered her face from showing any further emotion. She stepped forward. “Bola. I’d say it was a pleasure, except, well, it’s not.”
She extended her arm, palm forward, fingers splayed. Bola gasped, dropping to his knees. He clutched his head and moaned.
“You have reaped enough havoc with my child,” she said.
Her child? More like grandchild to the power of infinity, but who was I to correct her with semantics?
I cracked my knuckles. Time for some Bola ass-kicking.
“Sid.” Feradea’s command stopped me in my tracks.
Sid leapt forward, grabbed Bola and dragged him away from Wick and Tristan. Sid had to clasp both his arms around Bola to hold him tight. Despite Sid’s powerful seven foot frame, Bola in Demon form was considerably larger and more powerful.
“Shifter, make a circle, and make it quick,” Feradea ordered. “The dog fights me even now.”
I watched as Bola writhed in Sid’s arms. Could Sid hold him? Why did Sid need to hold him if Feradea could do her awesome brain pain thing? The goddess’s voice had somehow stopped me from jumping in and delivering much-deserved cheap shots. When would I get a turn? Bola needed to feel my knee driven hard into his groin. Again and again.
A red flame vibrated beside me. I turned to find Feradea looking at me expectantly. She’d asked the Shifter to make a circle. The Shifter…
“Oh! You were talking to me.” I stumbled forward and scrambled to pick up the box of salt. I ran around Sid and Bola like an excited puppy and poured the salt in a circle. No time to waste. I wanted the men safe from Bola more than I wanted revenge. My hand throbbed as I cut it again for the blood offering and sprinted another lap around the struggling Demons.
“That okay?” I asked as I completed the circle.
“That’s perfect,” Feradea mumbled. She held her hands out again and uttered some gibberish in a language that sounded clipped and archaic, as old as time.
Bola head butted Sid in the face and broke free of his hold. He threw himself against the circle and bellowed. Blue sparks flew up as the circle formed an invisible wall and kept Bola contained.
“Too late, Demon scum,” Feradea said. “It is done.”
The Demons both howled as a portal opened. The air whipped against their bodies and lashed at their skin. The dark power of the demonic realm snaked out and ripped at their forms, piece by piece until they dematerialized into nothing and winked out. The gaping vortex snapped shut, and the stormy air in the room settled.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“If confusion is the first step to knowledge, I must be a genius.”
~Larry Leissner
As the dust settled to the floor, a collapsed form appeared in the circle. Emaciated and huddled in the fetal position, Christopher’s breathing was shallow, but visible. He would be okay. Wick and Tristan lay sprawled in their animal forms outside the circle beside him, also alive.
Feradea stood beside me and contempla
ted whatever a deity contemplated, while I tried to process recent events. Sid took one for the team. That looked excruciating. Feradea must’ve needed his help to subdue Bola long enough for her to work whatever magic mojo she did to send them to hell.
Wick and Tristan’s chests rose and fell as their healing bodies cracked and snapped, slowly shifting back to their human forms. Their proximity to the vortex must’ve knocked them out. Or maybe the pain from their injuries. My breath caught, and I squeezed my eyes shut. A shudder crawled up my spine.
I’d almost lost them.
My feras howled a sorrowful tune in my brain, in complete harmony to the stabbing pain in my heart.
Pull yourself together, woman! There’s time to sink into self-pity later. You’re alive. Your men are alive. Your fr—Ben!
I turned to the Witch to find him slumped against the wall. His wounds had sealed up, and he looked like he slept, in a deep, restful, slumber. Mr. Sleeping-Fucking-Beauty. Was he dead? I reached forward to check for a pulse when Feradea’s words stopped me.
“I healed your Witch for you.” Feradea broke her silent contemplation. “Free of charge. He’s in a restorative sleep and should not be disturbed.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. The urge to go the men ran like fire in my veins, but the presence of the deity froze me in place. She wasn’t to be ignored. Survival kicked in. Somehow my brain inherently knew ignoring her to rush to mortal men would be a mistake. For everyone. “Do I owe you for Bola?”
“No child. Renenutet and Sobek do. But they consider their debt to you paid and asked me to convey that to you.”
“Message received.” The ancient Egyptian gods had owed me a favour for helping them reunite. Guess I used my favour after all. Guess I’d never know about my family. I pressed my hands to my temples and tried to massage out the sudden ache in my skull. My heart spasmed as if giving up from the whirlwind of emotions and shrunk inside my chest cavity.
An eerie quiet settled over my apartment as we stood and observed the blood drying and caking onto the rug.
Carpe Demon (Carus #3) Page 20