by Red, Lynn
“What’s that? Are you crying?” His voice was so soft, so tender, that I could hardly believe it. “Do you trust me?”
I sniffed and intercepted the drop halfway down my cheek. “I just can’t imagine anything happening to you. We’re so… I just…”
“Hush, Lily,” Damon said. He had the same kind of tone I imagined he’d use to talk to a baby. It was so calming, soothing, and so heartbreakingly vulnerable that I just had to kiss him again. In that instant, I knew he was as scared as me, but he’d never show it.
He was being strong, for me.
Strong like I was going to be for him.
“Let’s promise each other something,” he whispered in between desperate, hungry kisses. “Okay? I probably don’t have very long before that demon takes my mind again. Promise me before it happens.”
I nodded, concentrating on not falling apart.
“This is you and me, right?” he asked.
“Well there’s Wilton and Hunter and—”
He shook his head insistently. “No, no, they’re not here right now, are they?”
“I guess not.”
“It’s just us. You and me. Right?”
I sniffed. “Right.”
“We came all the way out here to do something – to figure out some murders. And… it’s so much more than that. I feel like Poko sent me here knowing full well you weren’t going to let me go alone. I feel like—” he stopped short, and blinked twice then shook his head. He was confused, I saw. He was being taken again but he fought back fiercely.
“He wanted to teach us to rely on each other?” I finished for him.
For the first time in a half a minute or so, I pulled back far enough to see Damon’s face. He opened his eyes and studied mine. “I’d be dead if it weren’t for you,” he said. His words pierced straight through me. “You’ve saved me more times than you can possibly know.”
“I… I don’t know what to say about that, I just… you’re the strong one,” I said. “You’re the big one. I rely on you too much.”
I don’t know why it all came at once, but there it is. Once I get started with a train of thought there isn’t much I can do to stop. “I should be stronger. I want you to be able to rely on me just like I do on you and…”
All Damon did was smile. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “And you’re kind and you manage to keep yourself going way after I’d give up. I don’t say it enough, anywhere near enough, but I do rely on you. I need you more than anything in the world, Lily.”
If him kissing me and breathing on my neck got me a little wobbly in the knees, that sent me into a full on swoon. Could all of that actually be true? He wasn’t just saying things to make me feel better, or to shut me up, right?
“That’s…” I stopped myself. After all, he was the one tied up with silver chains and about to be burned like absolute hell. All I had to do to be strong was to wait.
“Yes,” he said in a soft whisper that was like velvet leather on my ears. “Remember. I’m the Skarachee Alpha. I finally actually feel like I am. I’m sacrificing for my pack. I’ll hurt for my duty. But you’ll hurt worse. If anything, you’re the one who is making this all possible.”
Damon paused and cleared his throat. “If it weren’t for you, I would be… well, I guess I wouldn’t be me anymore. You’re the only reason I’ve still got a mind.”
“Oh stop it,” I said. “You’re trying to flatter me. It’s working beautifully, but still, you’re trying to flatter me to get me to stop blubbering.”
“I’d never do that,” he said with a very serious tone in his voice. “I never want you to shut up, not ever. Unless I’m trying to fix my bike and you’re confusing me. Smile.”
Damon’s the sort who doesn’t joke very much, but when he does you know it’s actually from the heart instead of just a defense mechanism like, well, me.
“Don’t make me go into this without seeing my Lily’s beautiful face. Come on.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can do this. We can do this.” Then, adding it for my own benefit, I said: “This is going to work.”
“Kiss me,” Damon said. “One more time. I feel myself slipping again. You need to leave before I do. Smile and kiss me. You’re going to keep me safe.”
I bent low and as soon as my lips touched his, Damon sucked my bottom lip between his teeth, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him as close as I could. For a moment, we breathed together, our hearts pounded in time. We were one soul with two bodies.
A second later, I felt that awful ripple from earlier run through his mind. I pulled away, watched his face one last time, and smiled through the tears as my Damon faded.
His eyes went black, pupil-less and haunted, and I heard that Goddamn laugh again. With so much power that I thought he might break the chains, he jerked, writhed, twisted in the chair.
“Pull… the cloth…” he said in a halting, pained voice that hurt me to hear. “Do it… Lily…”
I hesitated for just a moment, touched his cheek.
Damon’s skin was on fire, but not with passion, or love. It was burning with the fight he was having with the demon in his head. I turned away, I just couldn’t look.
Outside, the full moon watched, an unblinking protector. I knew that when I pulled the cloth away, that Damon was going to burn where every bit of silver touched his skin. At the very last second, I had an idea.
“Will this help?” I opened the curtain and let the moonlight stream inside the cabin’s loft. The pale comfort pooled around Damon’s feet. He’d got himself sweating with all the straining and pulling, and the moon bounced off the beads of moisture, making him glisten… almost glow.
He hissed, then let out a low, loud groan that shook me all the way to my toes. Damon’s whole body stiffened, his neck arching so harshly against the bonds that I thought for sure he’d broken his neck.
“Lily… now…” he whispered. “I feel her, she’s in my head… she’s… here… pull the cloth and run.”
I wrapped one sweaty hand around the fang pendant sticking to my chest and with the other I grabbed the corner of the fabric. One tug, and then I had to run all the way to the scrub brush where Wilton and Hunter waited. “I’ll be back for you,” I said. “Don’t worry one bit. Okay?”
Damon roared. The muscles on his forearms flexed and swelled, and his jaws fell open, creaking as they stretched. Hard, wiry hair pushed out of his skin. He writhed back and forth as his legs thickened, but the bonds held.
I gritted my teeth, let go of the fang, and pulled as hard as I could.
Instantly, everywhere the chains touched, Damon burned.
Every cord in his body went taut, every tendon stood hard and tight.
I couldn’t watch. Couldn’t believe I’d just done what I did.
“Li… ly…” I heard.
Clamping my eyes shut, I turned back to him with one hand on the rope ladder we’d hung from the window.
“I’m here,” I said.
I opened my eyes. I just had to see him.
As the chains burned into his flesh, Damon smiled.
“I love you,” he said. “Get out of here.”
Tears streaming down my face I ran back, kissed him, one last time, and whispered, “I love you too, forever and ever,” into his ear.
Down the rope, out the window, onto the ground I went. I yanked the rope down, and dragged it behind me as I ran.
It wasn’t until I was almost clear of sight of the cabin that Damon stopped holding it in. He roared with such force that it was almost an explosion.
And then he screamed.
But it wasn’t just anything that came out of his mouth; no indecipherable, mumbling pain.
No. It was one word, drawn out into eternity until his voice faded.
“Lily!”
His voice echoed through the clearing and through my mind as I ran, as fast as I could.
Twelve
“Now what?” I whispered, huddling under a scrub tr
ee between my two accomplices.
The space between Hunter and Wilton was small, but the close quarters made me feel a little safer.
“Well,” Wilton said, his beard trinkets jingling a little against the mat of fallen tree stuff underneath us. “Can’t say I’ve ever done much of this myself.”
All three of us winced when Damon shrieked again.
Please show up soon, I can’t take more of this, I can’t stand how badly he’s hurting.
“This can’t go on forever,” Hunter said, reaching past me and grabbing Wilton by the beard. “It’s gonna kill him. Those chains are going to kill him! You better not be part of this or I’ll kill you, old man.”
“Why would I want to hurt the Alpha? I defended him,” Wilton said, prying off Hunter’s fingers. “If you would have let me finish, I would have said I’ve never done it myself, but I’ve read plenty. What I think will happen is that when the demon was initially summoned, she was bound to some kind of object… a phylactery is the word for it.”
“And the point to all this?” Hunter asked. “My friend is in there screaming. Unless you convince me that we’re not doing this for nothing, I’m going in there and getting him out before something happens.”
Wilton took a deep breath, letting it out in a long sigh. “The point is, she’ll be drawn to an object, probably one in the house. This is where the ritual was performed initially. I can feel the darkness emanating from it. Lily, do you notice anything?”
I closed my eyes and stuck my tongue out, concentrating.
“Anything at all? You’re our secret weapon.”
My brain started humming, started buzzing. My senses seemed to crawl across the ground like tentacles exploring their surroundings. “I’m trying,” I said. “Purple… purple smoke… swirling out the door, kind of… floating.”
“I don’t see shit,” Hunter said. “You mean to tell me all of this is actually happening, but—”
“There’s more to the world than the things we can see, young man,” Wilton said, cutting him off. “As I was saying, there will be some object to which she is anchored. That will be Carrell’s key to controlling her. Think of it like a bind that holds her to our reality. If we destroy that, we destroy her.”
“And that’ll kill Carrell?” Hunter asked. “Right?”
“Again, I’m not sure, I—”
“It’s gathering,” I whispered. “All the smoke, it’s coming together.”
Damon howled again, either in rage or pain, it was hard to tell. My ears rattled when he did, and my whole body ached to release him, to be with him, to hold him until everything was back to normal.
I felt myself drawn to something in the cabin. Some awful gravity pulled me toward itself.
“Lily?” Wilton’s voice had started shaking. I guess that was the end of his strength. It was my turn. “Lily, are you… no! No, get back down here! Hunter, hold her down, she’s falling under the demon’s charm. Er, I think she is anyway.”
I felt hands on my shoulders, pinning me to the ground, but every thought in my head was of moving. The house, or something in it, tugged me. The purple smoke from inside slipped around me, a fragrant, alluring blanket. It was so warm, so safe…
“Hold her!” I heard shouted behind me, or maybe next to me, it was hard to tell. Reality was a swirling vortex, water going down a drain, and I was going right along.
Laughter, soft at first, grew louder and louder until it filled my brain. I didn’t hear it though, I felt it, pounding against the boundaries of my thoughts, pushing inward, poking through me.
Hooks… hooks piercing and dragging a projection of me to the house…
“Lily!” Wilton shouted. “Come back to me!”
My soul shuddered. All at once, the tentacles of my senses snapped back into my head, punching me in the stomach with a shock that brought me back to reality.
“Wh – what are you doing?” I gasped. “I can hardly breathe!”
Hunter rolled off me, sweating. “Sorry,” he said. “You were about to get up and go. It’s Wilton’s fault.”
Wilton grunted. “What happened?” he asked.
“I…” my throat clicked when I swallowed. Being pulled out of my body really took it out of me. So to speak. “There was all this purple smoke. It smelled like burning leaves, or patchouli or something.”
“Of course demons smell like patchouli,” Hunter said, snorting a laugh.
I shot him a sidelong glance and continued. “It was definitely coming from somewhere inside the house but I couldn’t tell where. All I could hear was Damon screaming at first, but then that got drowned out with this laughter that wouldn’t go away. It just bounced around my head.”
Wilton looked back and forth, studying my face as I spoke. “You’re back with us now, though? No visitors in there?”
A noise burst through the bushes that ringed the house and all three of us looked over at once.
“It’s him,” Wilton said. “I haven’t seen Carrell in years, but I’d know him anywhere. He must have somehow communicated with his thrall… or she did with him. He knows Damon is here, but hopefully the succubus keeps your presence quiet. If things are as I expect, she will. She wants him dead.”
Wilton fell silent as the lanky wolf walked behind the cabin and emerged into view fully clothed.
“How did he do that?” Hunter asked. “I wish I could dress that fast. That’d eliminate a whole lot of the trouble I get myself into.”
I had to crack a smile, but Wilton shushed us before it could go further. “Watch,” he said.
We did, silently staring at the door as it closed. Just then, as if on cue, swirls of purple slid down the window of the loft where Damon was still howling in pain. “Lily!” he called out into the night, his voice getting strained and obviously painful. His throat was raw, his breathing ragged.
I touched the wolf fang around my neck and imagined it beating with his heart, imagined my breath matching his.
Wilton stood up. “That’s everything,” he said. “Everything’s in place. Assuming no surprises, it shouldn’t be long until something makes an appearance.”
“I don’t like how you said that,” I grabbed his hand and stood. “Something?”
“I’d be lying if I said I knew what to expect. You and Damon both said you saw a woman, right?”
I nodded. “Didn’t look much like a demon, just looked like a woman in heels. I wouldn’t even call her ‘witchy’ exactly. Just heels, a pencil skirt and a half-open blouse. Okay, maybe the blouse thing should have fired off some of my neurons.”
“Witchy?” he said. “Hum. Funny choice of words.” Wilton cocked an eyebrow like he knew something. He opened his mouth, beard all jangling, but then before he could speak, a wave of heat radiated from the cabin, followed by a lick of purple flame that shot out the windows, enveloping the house.
Silently, the flames poured out, then sucked back.
“That’s… not normal,” I said, watching the flames caress the brown wooden planks, though they didn’t engulf the house. As much of it as there was though, it should have gone up in an instant.
Wilton started rummaging around in the old, age-worn leather sack he had slung across his shoulder. “Oh, don’t tell me I forgot,” he grumbled. “This damn brain of mine can’t keep anything straight these days.”
“Fuck this,” Hunter said. “I’m going in there. I don’t know what’s happening but while this old man bumbles with that sack, I’m going to save my friend.”
He was five steps away before Wilton called after him to wait.
“Boy! You don’t know what you’re doing! You have no idea what kind of forces are at work in that house. Don’t be a fool!”
Hunter squeezed his hands into fists and groaned as his bones creaked and popped, and his muscles swelled.
“No!” Wilton shouted. “This isn’t the way this works! You’ll set one foot in that house and your mind will either explode or you’ll suddenly find yourself enslaved!”<
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Something inside the house let out a huge, ear-splitting crack and Damon screamed again, this time much more desperately than ever before. It wasn’t any longer a cry of rage, or anything else. His raw-throated roar was agony, and there was no question about that.
“Then that’s a risk I’ll take.” Hunter crouched and unleashed his own horrible roar as the seams running down his jeans tore all the way to his waist. From head to toe, he shook with rage so fierce it threatened to tear him apart. Hunter turned his stretched, elongated face to the moon.
His lips peeled back, showing off those huge, dagger-like fangs, he threw his head back and let out a roar that put thunder to shame.
“No! You mustn’t do this!” Wilton grabbed at his arm, but Hunter flicked his wrist and almost sent the man to the ground. “You can’t, Hunter! Don’t be a fool, boy, you’ll get yourself killed.”
“Doesn’t matter… what… happens to… me,” he said. “You fiddle with your bag… I’m saving my friend.”
And just like that, he was gone.
“No, no, no, no,” Wilton mumbled. “Not like this. If he goes in there, we’ll never get either of them back. I can protect us from the demon, and possibly from Damon if she chooses to inhabit him… but two of them? And Carrell, should he turn nasty? It’s… Lily?”
Hearing Damon scream flipped a switch in my head. “I’m going in there,” I said.
“No! You can’t be serious!” Wilton grabbed my arm.
That’s not what I mean.
“I’m going in there in him. My weak little body would have blown up if I was any closer to that heatwave. But if I had a big, strong body?”
“You can’t,” Wilton said. “You mustn’t, you might be a witch but you’re young, you don’t know how to control yourself, or…”
“What did you say? I’m a what?”
He shook his head. “No time. I had my suspicions, but you being able to sense the demon, and calm our raging Alpha and all the other things you’ve done… but there’s no time for that now.”
I saw his hands were shaking as he pulled some kind of chalk out of his pouch. “You can’t do this, we have to…”
An explosion that had no visible effect on everything blew both of us back. Like those videos of nuclear explosions with all the different waves of power, first I felt a blast of cold and then warmth, then hellish heat. A concussive blast came next that knocked both me and Wilton backward in a heap.