by Trudi Jaye
I feel used up, old and tired, ragged.
I don’t even have enough moisture inside me to cry the tears that are struggling to get out.
42
Everything feels heavy, like I can’t push against gravity the way I always have. I watch the demons speeding toward me as if from a distance. Like I’m not really part of the scene, just a watcher. I can’t even make myself care about it. I can’t find the anger that was sustaining me. I can’t find fear, or sadness.
I can’t find anything.
Some part of me wants to close my eyes and let the demons devour me. It’s all too much. I’ve had too many blows, both emotional and physical, the last few days. My life isn’t what I thought it was, and all I really want to do is curl up in a ball and cry.
Except I can’t close my eyes.
I can’t let it be over, not while I’ve got a breath in my body.
A breath.
I remember the way the demon glow came out my mouth and filled my stick. Was it just because it was magical? Or was it something else? I wasn’t thinking, I was reacting. It was instinct. Maybe that’s what I’ve been missing. I’ve been trying too hard. Thinking more than acting?
I need to calm my thoughts and simply act by instinct. The thought of it is so mind-bending, so against what I’ve done my entire life, I hesitate.
But then, what do I have to lose? This is it. If I do nothing, I die. Nelson dies.
I take a deep breath and then another. My heartbeat slows to normal, and everything inside me feels calm. This is it. My last moments on earth.
I can control how I feel in those moments, and I choose not to be terrified.
I choose to be calm.
I lean over and grasp the magic bar. It glows more brightly as soon as my fingers wrap around it. I use the bar to pry myself into a standing position. I might not be successful in killing the demons. But I’m not giving up.
I can’t give up.
I breathe in, a gentle breath that pulls air all the way into my chest and down into my stomach. I relax my thoughts. I relax my face. My demon flitters around inside me.
“Help me,” I whisper to it. And then I let out a breath. Feeling a little like I might be making the wrong decision, I open my thoughts to the demon. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I try to let it know that I need its help.
A warm light fills me, hesitantly at first and then brighter and brighter, until it hurts my eyes. I squeeze them shut, but the light isn’t dimmed, if anything it feels brighter.
The light becomes so bright that it’s painful, and for a terrible few seconds, I know that I’ve made the wrong decision. The demon isn’t going to help me, it’s going to kill me. It’s been stuck inside me all this time, and now that I’ve opened myself up to it, the demon is going to take its chance and kill me.
And then suddenly the light dims and I feel lighter than I have since the first demon’s energy entered my body.
I open my mouth, and an icy blue mist comes out of my mouth, fizzing with magic. It creates a magical fog around me, maybe a few feet wide. The first of the demons is bearing down on me, but as soon as it sees the mist it changes direction, swerving to the right, away from me.
The second demon isn’t so fast. It touches the mist and immediately turns to ash. The next two demons meet the same fate.
I feel a rush of exaltation that’s quickly drowned in overwhelm. There are still six demons floating overhead.
And the glowing orbs of the three demons I just killed are heading for me. I take a step backward, and another. My heart thuds with foreboding, but it’s no use. My body is working on instinct, and it absorbs the demon energy yet again. It slides easily into my body as if I’ve done it a thousand times before.
The heavy feeling is still there, but it’s no worse than it was before. Is it because I’m using the energy of the demons? Am I emptying the demon energy when I breathe out the blue mist? Is that how it’s done?
I don’t know the answers, but right now, that’s okay. Taking a breath, I summon my remaining strength and hold up my magic stick in a fighting stance. I’m not going to go down without a fight. I’m not. I stay calm, blocking all the thoughts of how crazy it is. My focus is on letting my body do what comes naturally. I let out a breath and more of the icy magic flows out. It swirls around me like a moving shield.
“Hazel! Help me!” Connor’s frantic shout comes from where he’s hiding behind the cage. It breaks my concentration, and the magical mist disappears. Connor is pointing up, and I follow his finger to where one of the bigger demons is circling above him. Deciding I’m too difficult, the demon has obviously decided to hunt easier prey.
My legs feel like they’re standing in quick-drying cement, but I manage to take a couple of steps by using my magic demon stick. I let out a scream that makes all the demons pull back away from the bottom of the room. Even I can hear the raw note in my voice. I don’t have enough left to kill the remaining demons.
It’s lucky I have a magic stick to help me. I blow more air out over the stick, and it starts glowing blue again. As I blow out the mist, my legs become a little lighter. I stumble over to Connor, swinging the stick overhead. The demon moves away again, its target no longer so easy.
“You did it,” says Connor, his eyes bright. “Now you can put the magic into me.” He stands up, making as if to grab the stick I’m wielding.
“Oh no you don’t,” I say, stepping back out of his way. “I need this stick.”
His eyes darken and he stands up, his expression that of a petulant toddler used to getting their own way. “If you want Nelson to live, you need to give it to me,” he snarls.
Something inside me snaps. I’m sick of Connor and his unreasonable demands. Without thinking, I swing the stick around. The movement feels incredibly slow, like I’ve been switched into slow motion, but I can feel the magic spreading out over me and the stick. When it touches Connor, he slides to the ground, unconscious.
At least I didn’t kill him.
A flash to one side of me is the only warning I get before a demon flies past me, claws bared. It scrapes the outside of my hazard suit, momentarily catching and pulling me upward before it rips and allows me to thump back to the ground. I stumble before regaining my balance and then swish my magical stick over my head. I miss the demon by a mile and fall on my butt. The demon speeds through the air, turning round and coming back in for another swipe. It’s figured out that I’m not the most agile opponent in the world, and that it just needs to stay away from the stick. Another demon comes down and joins it in swooping over my head, playing with, but managing to somehow stay away from, my slow and awkward swipes with my glowing stick.
One of the demons lands on the ground and merges into its full humanoid shape, diamonds glittering over its body like an ad for Tiffany’s. It snarls at me, daring me to attack. The second demon lands to the other side of me, equally covered in sparkles.
They’ve finally figured out how to work together. I can’t attack both at once.
I raise my magical stick, still determined to fight, when a dark shape leaps from the metal walkway at the top of the room. In a flash of speed, the shape lands behind the demon, and a knife slices into the demon’s back.
Blade.
I’ve never been so glad to see someone in my life.
The demon screams, loud and horrifying, and then falls to ash at my feet. My legs wobble, and it’s only by sheer force of will that I stay standing. The blue mist emerges from the pile of ashes and I immediately lurch backward, but instead of coming toward me, it spirals off toward the knife that’s hanging limply in Blade’s right hand.
My gaze moves up from the knife to Blade’s face. His eyes are dark and distant, and his body stiff. He might be my rescuer, but he’s not here for a reunion. He’s spitting mad at me for leaving him at the university.
The second demon circles away from Blade and me, before turning back into its glowing form and leaping into the air again. It
starts swirling around the smelting cauldron in the middle of the room.
I open my mouth to say something, anything, and all that comes out is a croak. I don’t know what to say to him. I know I was wrong not to tell him. I know I was wrong to meet with Connor on my own. I can’t think of a single thing to say in my defence.
Blade shakes his head at me and moves away, toward the only demon that’s anywhere within range. It’s swishing back and forward around the cauldron, creating a strange whirring sound, along with a breeze that’s getting stronger and stronger. The pot starts to sway back and forth, rocking in its cradle.
Usually the pot is tipped as part of a controlled maneuver by the factory workers. There are controls in place that stop the possibility of accidents. Except there’s something about what the demon’s doing that’s making the cauldron rock back and forth.
I follow Blade across the floor, attempting to see what the demon is doing. I might be moving at about the speed of a one-hundred-year-old sloth, but I’m not going to let Blade face the demon on his own.
I’m still a few yards away when Blade charges, throwing his weight behind an attack with his knife. The demon evades Blade easily, moving with a grace that belies the years it’s just spent in a cage.
The fight continues with Blade striking and defending, moving with his own cat-like speed and grace. He’s able to move out of range when the demon moves forward suddenly, and Blade slices out with his knife. The demon screams, but it’s not a killing blow, and it moves away from Blade.
It speeds past the pot of ore again. This time the wind it has created is like a tornado inside the warehouse. The pot moves back and forward in its cradle, spilling pieces of ore onto the floor. Splashes drop near Blade, and I want to scream at him to be careful. But even I know better than to distract him in the middle of a fight.
The other demons join the first one in racing back and forth past the large metal smelting pot. Their energy is swirling up in front of the cauldron, raising a wind that’s blowing my damp hair over my face. There’s magic in the tornado they’re creating, and it’s filling the air around the ore cauldron, making it jump about in its cradle. The wind builds up into a crescendo, and suddenly the ore pot topples over, spilling molten metal down over the floor like lava coming out a volcano.
Blade sprints back to me, lifts me up, and leaps for one of the nearby ladders. I can only hold onto him—still clutching my magic stick—and hope that the weight I feel over my whole body doesn’t translate into actual weight that Blade has to carry. With one arm around me, he climbs the ladder, steadily getting us closer to the metal walkway at the top of the room. Below us I can hear the bubbling of the boiling metal as it courses across the floor. It’s only when I hear screams that I remember about Connor.
“Connor!” I scream. I glance back over my shoulder. He’s climbed onto the magical demon cages, with the metal lava flow heading straight for him. I pound on Blade’s shoulder and point at Connor.
His expression darkens even further, and he shakes his head. “He deserves every second of his painful death,” he says as he pushes me up and onto the walkway and then follows behind.
“He has Nelson,” I gasp out. “They have orders to kill Nelson if he doesn’t contact them.” Nelson’s smiling face flashes in front of my eyes, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.
Blades face becomes even more grim, if that’s possible. He turns away from me and searches around us. There are still demons flying around overhead, and the lava flow is filling up the floor space. There doesn’t seem to be a way to get him out of there.
The lava has almost reached Connor. He’s on his hands and knees looking down at the lava flow inexorably heading his way. There’s no way to escape and there’s no way to get down there. He looks up to where Blade and I are watching him.
“Help me,” he yells. “Help me or the boy dies.”
Blade glances back at me. “Can I leave you here? You won’t run away?” His words sting and I wince. But I give a resigned nod. He’s got reason to talk to me that way.
43
Blade climbs up and over the railing of the walkway, then swings down onto a chain that’s hanging nearby. He uses his momentum to carry him across the room to the other side where the hoist mechanism for the cage is placed. He grabs hold of the opposite wall, just managing to keep hold of the chain he swung over on and presses the button to lift the cage that Connor is on back up into the air. The cage lifts slowly, shaking side to side unsteadily. Connor is lying flat across the top of the cage, clinging to the edges with his fingertips. Blade climbs back up a little higher and swings back across through the air.
One of the remaining demons flies toward Blade. Without thinking, I scream, high and loud. The noise reverberates around the room, rattling the metal and making the molten metal swirl in strange patterns across the floor.
Blade’s face is scrunched up like he’s in pain as well, but it doesn’t matter because it’s worked.
All the other demons explode into black ash in the air. The ashes float gently to the ground, covering the molten metal flows with a black sugar coating, as Blade lands lightly back on the walkway.
All the glowing demon energy orbs dart toward me. I can’t even crawl away, I’m so wrecked. Inside I’m desperately wishing I didn’t have to absorb them, but there’s nothing I can do. Blade stands watching as, moments later, my body takes demon energy inside, and the weight of their demon magic pushes me back into the metal of the walkway.
I lie back, breathing heavily and trying to get my strength back. My little demon is fidgeting inside me, and I try to let it do what it did before, helping me to get rid of the demon energy. I’m so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone focus on anything else. But I clutch my magic stick, and let the demon energy flow out of me and into the stick. I roll my shoulders and turn my head to look over at Blade.
He’s staring at me like I’ve just grown an extra head. Not exactly promising.
I look down; I’m glowing all over, everywhere there’s visible skin. I’m still in my ripped hazmat suit, and I’m sweating like a pig that’s just finished a marathon. Beside me, my magic stick is also glowing blue.
Am I a demon now? Or has the possession taken hold?
Am I being ruled by the tiny demon? Is this where Blade has to take me out?
I let out a strangled breath. Would he really do that to me? I stare at him through narrowed eyes, until finally I relax. I trust Blade. I know him well enough now.
He wouldn’t hurt me. He knows I’m still me, even though I’ve got a demon inside me.
“It’s fine,” I say, my voice craggy and rough from overuse. “I’m still me. I’ve just got a whole heap of demons inside me right now.” I test out moving, pushing myself up into a sitting position.
Blade’s expression is still grim. I’m going to have to grovel to get back in his good books. “Thanks for saving me,” I say softly.
“You don’t make it easy. You know that?” says Blade. His eyes are dark and wild, and he’s pacing along the walkway.
I want to soothe the wild beast in him, to make him promises and figure out where we’re going from here. But first, we need to save Nelson. I glance around to where Connor is balancing precariously on the top of the demon cage. “We need to get Connor to tell us where Nelson is.”
Blade steps closer. “Nelson’s fine. Connor stashed him at the quarry. Detective Capello and I freed him.”
The relief is so great, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’m shaking all over, and the metal is rattling around me. “He was here all along?”
Blade nods sharply. “Nearby.”
“Where is he now?” I look around as if Nelson is hiding in the shadows.
“The Detective took him home to his mother. We figured that was more important than keeping him here.”
I nod. That makes sense. “Was he okay?”
“He was fine as soon as he saw me. Told me he’d been expecting me.”
Blade makes an uncomfortable face, and I lift one corner of my mouth in a half smile.
“I’m glad he had faith in you.”
“More than some people I know,” says Blade darkly.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” I sniff, trying not to cry. I feel battered and bruised, and all my emotions are crowding up to the surface, trying to get out. “Connor texted me, and said if I told anyone, he’d kill Nelson.”
“You could have told me. We could have worked it out together.”
“I didn’t think….”
“You could have died.” The words sound like they’re wrenched from Blade.
“How did you find me?” I whisper.
Blade’s eyes sharpen on me, and he pushes one hand through his long dark hair. “We’d already guessed it was Connor. And when the Director sent me the coordinates of the demon explosion, it was the same as the ones Damien had given us.”
“And you came for me.”
Blade crouches down beside me. He puts one hand up and cups the side of my face. “No matter what you think, no matter what happens, you’re important to me. I’ll always be there for you.”
I grab Blade’s face and kiss him, hard, on the lips. I’m probably dirty, bloody, and gross, but I don’t care.
He came for me.
44
“What do you mean, Connor escaped?” I ask from my position on my sofa. I’m still edgy from having had so much demon energy inside me. With the help of my demon, most of it has gone into my magic stick, but there are still pieces of it floating around somewhere near my solar plexus. “He was barely in a state to hold onto the cage.” It’s been less than a day since Connor kidnapped Nelson and me, and I’ve showered and changed at least three times since then, but I can still feel the heat of the molten metal on my skin.
“Best guess is that he called someone in to help him before our backup agents arrived,” says the Director. He’s standing in my living room, wearing an expensive suit and a smug expression. He’s looking surreptitiously around my apartment like he’s on a trip to the museum and can’t believe what he’s seeing.