by Jenn Bennett
The sound of the crash was monumental. Deafening. Everything went white. Pain shot through my face—the air bag.
As it deflated, I sat in my seat, stunned. White, powdery dust released from the air bag clung to me and filled the car like smoke; I nearly choked trying to cough it out of my lungs. I glanced around, waving away the haze. The front end of the car was crumpled like an accordion around a tree trunk. The windshield wipers continued on high speed, as if nothing had happened, and the dashboard lights were still on.
I forced myself to test stiffened muscles, but nothing appeared to be broken. Every inch of my body throbbed as I unlatched my seat belt. Then a ghastly cry echoed around the woods from somewhere behind me. The demon. It must have been thrown off during the crash.
My hands fumbled for the door handle; it took me several tries to open it. I swung my leg out the door, then stumbled out, falling onto my hands and knees in the muddy ground beside the car.
Branches broke in the dark trees just past the wrecked car. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it crashing through the woods, coming for me. I scrambled to my feet, then sloppily ran around my car and took a sharp left to follow the road down the hill.
Soaked from head to foot within seconds, I pushed the rain and hair out of my eyes, pitched forward, and bolted down the steep incline.
The wooded road blurred as I ran; the sound of creaking metal resonated behind me. The demon was trying to find me inside my car. Maybe that would buy me some time. I whirled around the next sharp turn, then sped back up and busted ass.
Several seconds passed before I heard a new sound behind me. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Dull smacks against the wet pavement … something loped in the distance; the demon had abandoned the car. Once he rounded the curve, he’d spot me on the road. Terrified, I veered sideways and tore into the bushes lining the pavement. I exploded through the underbrush and into the woods, attempting to plow a straight path down the mountain instead of sticking to the zigzagging road.
That might’ve been a mistake.
The woods were too thick, the ground below rocky and uneven. Branches lashed across my face like barbed whips. I might as well have been a buffalo galloping through the trees—he’d be able to easily hear me now. I tried to concentrate hard enough to activate one of the sigils on my arm, but I couldn’t do it while running; it was just too hard.
I stumbled and recovered, and continued to race.
Don’t fall, don’t fall, I repeated to myself, as if that would help.
Up ahead, where the woods ended, I broke through and vaulted down onto the dark pavement. Though I’d bypassed one loop of the winding road, there were probably four or five more loops to go. I hustled down the road, listening to the sound of the demon in the woods behind me. I cleared one sharp turn, then went for the next patch of woods again. Either path was doomed; the woods slowed me down, but the road offered the demon a clear shot at me.
I stumbled through the dark underbrush again, crying out as I plunged through a thick spiderweb. My arms frantically brushed away the clinging web as irrational fear made me batshit-crazy for a moment. Scared of a damn spider when a bloodthirsty demon was chasing me down. Ridiculous. Just as I calmed down, the trees opened up again, and I floundered to hurdle myself out onto the road.
As I did, two bright lights lit up the rain in front of me and brakes squealed on the wet pavement. Before I could slow down, I ran smack into the front of a parked car like a line-backer doing drills. One leg slipped out from under me; I fell backward onto the pavement with a brutal thud.
I lay in the mud with my mouth open, unable to move for several seconds. Car doors opened and footsteps raced toward me. I lifted my head and glanced back to see the demon storming through the woods. With long arms and spindly, webbed fingers, he was swinging himself from tree to tree like an overgrown green monkey.
When he spotted me, he swung himself up higher into a tree at the edge of the road. Mad, crimson eyes glowed in the headlights. The scaly monster sniffed the air, then opened a mouthful of sharp, mangled teeth and bellowed out a bearlike roar.
He reared back in one final swing and propelled his body toward me, muscles straining and taut. My body stiffened, but I couldn’t scream. All I could manage to do was roll to one side and cover my face.
10
A shotgun blast revived me.
The green demon landed at my feet, belly-flopping against the pavement with a boom that scattered a puddle of muddy water over me in a wave.
Frantic, I shuffled against the asphalt like I was trying to pedal a bike and backed up from the pile of quivering flesh. It groaned and moved. I stumbled to my feet and slammed against something warm and solid behind me.
“Lon!”
He wrapped one arm around my shoulders and pulled me back. His other arm held a Remington Model 870 shotgun.
“Get away from him, Jupe!” he shouted.
Jupe’s wiry form darted in front of the headlights and headed for us.
“Take her,” Lon commanded, thrusting me into Jupe’s arms. Lon aimed at the demon and blasted him again in the back. The shot boomed in my ears and echoed through the woods. The beast jerked and let out a wail.
Jupe clung to me in fear, repeating “Oh shit, oh shit” several times before asking, “Is it dead, Dad?”
Lon took a step forward. Dark, brackish blood began pooling around the demon’s torso; it groaned and attempted to get up. “Not yet.” Lon’s face was composed and focused as he racked the shotgun.
“No!” I yelled, breaking away from Jupe. “Don’t kill it!”
Lon spun around with a snarl on his face. “What?”
“I can bind it—force it to talk.”
“Are you fucking crazy?”
“It killed my guardian! I have no protection in the Æthyr anymore—if I can’t get a lead on who did this, I’m a sitting duck.”
Lon’s initial angry expression momentarily changed to an alarmed one, then settled on emotionless deadpan. With his shotgun still aimed, he looked at the dying beast on the ground, then turned back to me, lowering his gun.
“What do you need?”
“I need something to draw a binding triangle.” My eyes darted around the mountainous landscape. This was going to be nearly impossible. The rain was beginning to let up a little, but it wasn’t as if I could use a pen to draw on the wet pavement—it would run and dissolve before I could even charge it. I needed something more permanent. “Oh! Do you have a pocketknife?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Pocketknife?”
“Don’t men your age always have pocketknives?” I asked in a high-pitched voice.
“My age? I’m not a fucking grandfather,” he snapped.
“There’s a knife in the SUV!” Jupe yelled as he ran around the door to lean inside. He returned with a gardening knife, serrated on one side and slightly curved to double as a trowel. Twine was wrapped around the blue plastic handle.
“Perfect.”
I snatched the knife and approached the demon; it lay facedown on its stomach. Keeping a wary distance, I leaned down and began scratching a rough triangle into the asphalt. The knife made a repulsive grating sound as it scraped the pavement. Jupe covered his ears with his hands.
The light gray trail that I made on the road dulled as the rain fell, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t have to see it gleaming in neon; the indentation I made was sufficient.
I finished drawing one side, then started on the next. Lon followed me as I went, training his gun on the dying demon. Second side done. When I started the third, my hand spasmed, weary from the scratching vibration, so I double-fisted the knife and pressed on until I’d closed the triangle. It was rough but workable.
“Hurry up,” Lon demanded when the demon twitched.
“Hold on. I’ve got to do the symbols.” I could draw them in my sleep … interconnecting circles and winding sigils with overlapping lines. The trapping magick is ancient and straightforward.
; Before I could finish, however, the demon became cognizant of what was happening. He groaned and turned his head, eyes struggling to focus on his surroundings. As I scratched the last sigil outside the triangle’s apex, the demon’s eyes went wide in fear. He pushed himself up with a growl, fell down, then frantically reached out for the triangle’s border in desperation.
“Arcadia!” Lon yelled.
I closed my eyes and sought out the nearest energy source, cursing the fact that the lightning from the storm was gone. Lightning is hard to control and certainly wasn’t my first choice for electrical energy—I pity medieval magicians who were forced to use it out of necessity. However, I had to work with something; it took a good bit of Heka to close a binding.
The lightning may have passed us by, but Lon’s SUV was there, and it was running, the engine generating a steady flow of energy. Good enough. Without a caduceus, the release was going to have to be raw again—twice in two days, and this needed more energy than the piddly imp portal.
The demon was using his webbed fingers to pull himself along the asphalt. He was inches away from escaping my crude trap.
I concentrated and pulled from the car engine. Hard. No time for it to accumulate. The headlights dimmed as the engine struggled and resisted, playing tug-of-war with me. I barked the binding words, whacked my palm on the triangle, and released the kindled energy. My stomach lurched: the demon gave one last push and touched the edge of the triangle …
The air crackled near his fingertips. He jerked his arm back and wailed.
Too late. I had him.
I stood up and wiped my hands on my wet jeans, then I spoke to him in a dry, cracking voice. “You are bound by me now, and must answer honestly. Who sent you to find me?”
The demon made a gargled sound.
“Answer me,” I commanded. My stomach roiled from the raw magick; I hoped I wasn’t going to throw up.
“Kill me,” he replied in a rough voice.
Lon lifted his shotgun. “Gladly.”
“Not yet.” I put my hand on Lon’s arm, then stared down at the dying creature. “Demon, answer me. You are bound, those are the rules.”
He sputtered out a cough, then a low laugh. “Yes, those are the rules. All right, Mother of Ahriman.” A backhanded slur that meant demon queen; I’d been called that before by other summoned Æthyric demons. “The name you seek is Riley Cooper. She looks a lot tougher and meaner than you, Mother. I doubt that she will accept my failure and move on. She’s prepared to bring you to her people.”
Lon shot me an inquisitive glance. “Is there anything else you can tell me?” I asked the demon.
“I can tell you how you’re going to die … would you like to know?”
Without hesitation, Lon lifted his shotgun and blasted the demon in the head. Black blood sprayed across the bottoms of our jeans and over the wet pavement, only to be washed away by the rain seconds later.
The demon was dead.
“You could have asked me if I was finished,” I complained, staring down at the oozing green lump of grotesque flesh.
“You were.”
“Can I look now?” Jupe peered from behind the open car door. When his father didn’t answer, Jupe took that as a yes and sprang to our side. “Gross! Oh my God!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be looking at this,” I said.
“You’ve got to be joking. This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me!”
“Jupe—” Lon said in an exhausted voice.
“I mean, I’m glad you’re okay, Cady. You are okay, aren’t you?” He reached out to touch my cheek. I winced and drew back, then gingerly patted my face. When I brought my fingers back down, they were red with blood.
“Did you fall?” Lon asked, gently turning me toward the headlights for a better look.
“No. Glass from my side window. Or the air bag. I’m not sure.”
He tilted my chin and inspected my face. “Just a few cuts. Nothing major.”
“How did you find me?”
He pulled out my deflector charm from his jacket pocket and held it out to me. “Jupe found this in the dining room— looks like the clasp is broken. We were going to try to catch you before you got too far, then we heard the wreck. Sound carries up here.”
I took the charm from him, fisting it with a sigh and cursing my bad luck. “But how did you get in front of me?”
“There’s a side road that’s faster than the main one. Not so many twists.”
“I wish you had told me that when I came up here,” I grumbled.
“So, who is this Riley Cooper? She sent a Pareba demon after you. That’s nothing to ignore.”
“Someone from the Luxe Order, I’m assuming. You’ve read about this kind of demon?”
“Sure. See all those lesions on his back?” Lon broke the triangle and nudged the green corpse with the toe of his lowtop sneaker. “He’s a host demon. He carries insect babies on his back that he sends out—”
“As scouts, yes. My guardian told me. I saw an image of them attacking before the Pareba appeared.”
“You have a guardian angel?” Jupe asked, pushing his wet spiral curls out of his eyes. He looked like a drowned rat with his hair all flattened out on top.
“More like a guardian spirit. Priya. We’d been linked together since I was sixteen.” Not only had I lost Priya, but I’d lost my only connection to my parents. Raw emotion caught me by surprise. I blinked several times and shook it off.
“We need to move the body,” Lon said. “His Æthyr energy could be tracked. Not likely, but we shouldn’t take chances. How bad is your car?”
“Huh? I dunno, pretty bad, I think. Wrapped around a tree a couple of loops up the road.”
“Why don’t you stay with us tonight? We’ll call a tow in the morning.”
“No. I’ve got to work on …” I tossed a wary look toward Jupe. He’d seen more than I would’ve preferred already. “… what you gave me earlier and I’ve got to feed Mr. Piggy.”
“You’re being hunted. It’s not safe,” he argued.
“My house is heavily warded. I’m safer there than here.”
Jupe snorted. “I doubt that. My dad put up a gigantic protective circle around the house last spring,” he said proudly. “We used to have imp problems, but not anymore.”
Lon closed his eyes and flexed his jaw.
“You put up a ward? You … practice?” I asked, taken aback.
“Nothing major. I dabble.”
A strange tightness took root in my chest. Though he was the first demon I’d come across to do so, I could understand his wanting to study demons; for him it was like studying history. But a demon practicing magick? It just didn’t happen. Humans practiced magick, demons succumbed to it. At least, that’s what I’d always been taught. Granted, that rule was meant to apply to Æthyric demons, not Earthbounds. But I’d never once run across an Earthbound who practiced magick. Never. I don’t know why this shocked me so much, but it did.
And why didn’t he tell me earlier? If I was going to be honest with him, then he damn well better be with me. His face tightened, then I remembered his empathic abilities. “I’ll explain more later, okay?” he said in a low voice. I knew what he meant: not in front of Jupe. I swallowed and nodded.
“Let’s get this body in the back of the SUV. We can dump it in the ocean. There’s a private road on my property we can take—”
“I need to get my purse out of my car and call a cab—”
“—then after we dump the body, we’ll take you home,” he insisted.
I was too exhausted to protest.
11
I glanced at the clock on Lon’s dash. Almost 2 a.m. We were only a few blocks away from my house. Lon was quiet and thoughtful, eyes on the road and one hand draped over the top of the steering wheel. His hair and jacket were smudged with dried black blood; the two of us had weighted down the green Pareba demon with rocks and dumped him off a low cliff into the Pacific a few miles from Lon�
��s house. That was a new one for me; I’d never had to kill anything, nor get rid of a body. When I apologized to Lon for dragging him into this mess, all he said was, “Shit happens.”
Jupe sat in back of us with his head stuck between the front seats, talking nonstop the entire trip to Morella. “Hey,” he said as we made the final turn onto my street, “do you think that’s what our ancestors looked like before they were stuffed into human bodies?”
“Invoked into human bodies,” I corrected. “Not stuffed.”
“We’re not descended from Parebas. We’re Kerub. They aren’t green,” Lon added.
Jupe blew out a hard breath. “That’s a relief. I was imagining myself with scales and red eyes. That’s kinda cool in a way, but kinda gross too. He looked like an alien. How old do you think he was?”
“I don’t know.” Lon gave me a sidelong glance in the dark car before pulling into my driveway. I’d been sort of numb during the drive, but now that I was home, my stress level was rising again. From the inquisitive look on Lon’s face, I guess he must have sensed the change in me with his empathic ability.
He instructed Jupe to stay inside the SUV while he walked me to my side door. I was glad to have a few seconds alone with him. “What about Jupe?” I asked.
“He’ll be fine,” he answered.
“No, I mean … don’t take this the wrong way, but he’s pretty chatty. Will he go back to school after the weekend and tell all his friends that he watched his dad shoot an Æthyric demon who was chasing a magician from Morella?”
His lips curled up into a muted smile. “He’s a loudmouth, that’s for sure. But he’s good at keeping quiet about things that count. You’re not the only one living a lie, you know. Earthbounds hide their abilities and identities around humans every day.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him,” he assured me. We stopped at the bottom of my steps. “Are you planning on summoning the albino demons I found for you tonight?”