by Lucy Auburn
"I have my gun." Mateo hefts it in one hand, then helpfully adds, "And about a dozen grenades in my belt, plus an incendiary device with a remote trigger in my pack. Don't look at me like that, Ezra. You knew I was going to take it, no matter what you said."
"If you blow yourself up, that's on you," Ezra shoots back.
Sebastian snarks, "I'm just saying, he's a Florida Man and we all know it."
I smile briefly—a tiny flicker of a thing in the midst of all this darkness and sorrow. It leaves in an instant, and we all sober up. "What's the plan?"
Step by step, we figure it out. And we prepare ourselves to take him on.
Just in time. As soon as we've sketched out the details of our plan—and a backup plan—I hear a scream. And go racing to respond, desperate to stop the monster I've unleashed before he kills another person.
Chapter 5
It doesn't take long to find our victim and killer—or the daeschund nearby, hissing and spitting because it wants its reward. I toss it a length of beef jerky and dismiss it with a thought, focusing in on the Manslayer himself.
He has a little girl in his hands. She struggles, but he's stronger. And we're still so far away, stalking up on him from an angle.
I want to jump in, but Lynx holds me back. "Wait. He's not killing her. Not yet."
My book smart demon is right, as usual. The Manslayer likes to toy with his food. He's looking at the girl with his head tilted to the side, a sly smile on his face, the handsomeness of his jawline and cheekbones ruined by the cruelty that lights up his eyes.
I've never seen someone look so eager to kill, or so ready to do it, but he's slowly torturing the girl. Playing with her almost. His poltergeist flits around in the shadows, making her scream as it touches her with its cruel fingers. It makes my heart twist for Ari, who's related to a bastard just like this one, a biological father who took her family members from her.
Even Meyer isn't as much of a piece of shit as this guy, and that's saying something.
The Manslayer—Childslayer too, it turns out—is near the shadow of a house, the front door and windows broken, a man and a woman's body strewn by his feet. He's saved the girl for last, maybe to make her watch her family suffer. Anger stokes the furnace inside me that fuels my phoenix fire, and I feel it crackle along my palms.
It's time to fight.
Sebastian draws back from us and takes another way around, heading towards a row of houses to our left. The plan is that he'll be at the monster's flank to weaken him with his strongest poison. Whether or not it'll work remains to be seen—but at least we'll be trying something, anything, to stop this madness and mayhem.
I feel a lump in my throat at the thought that we might fail. All of us will come back if we die, but my guys won't remember me. And if the Manslayer pulls my heart out of my chest, if he decides to truly kill me and not just toy with me—I'll never see them again. They'll live out the rest of their demonic contracts with Hell utterly oblivious to the fact that I even exist. It'll be like that night on the cliffs never happened.
We have everything at stake here.
Even so, as we head towards battle, Mateo pulls a grenade out of his belt and shoots me a charming smirk. "See you on the other side."
All at once, the monster becomes aware of our presence, his cruel smile turning towards us. His hands tighten on the girl, who struggles and hopelessly sobs. The anger in me turns into a hot knife. Without hesitation—knowing that he'll kill her if I don't—I form a blade of pure phoenix fire energy in my palm and throw it at him. My fire slices across his cruel arms. The wound that opens is temporary, but it's enough that the girl struggles out of his grip and runs away like a frightened rabbit.
The monster considers her for a moment. His soulless eyes narrow. He could pursue her. Hunt her down. I'm prepared to stop him. Instead he turns towards me, and I feel the suffocating presence of his soul-turned-poltergeist fill the air around us.
It's now or never. Gaugin's final, dying spell is going to be put to the test. Stepping forward with far more bravery and conviction than I actually feel, I stare down the Husk, the Manslayer, the soulless Grim, and let the full strength of my phoenix wings unfurl at my back.
They're fed by the forge of my anger.
My resilience.
A life spent surviving in foster homes, then on the street, then dying and actually coming back to fight again. Every bit of me—my anger, my heartache, and my love and belief in the four not-quite-men at my backs—pours into the black and orange of my wings. I feel their heat and light beat against my shoulders as they expand, their fire crackling like a thousand bright-burning feathers. They're like two burning suns that slice through the shadows and make the air swelter with heat.
I can't fly, but I almost feel as if I could, in this moment.
Maybe surviving the fall is a type of flight all its own.
Fuck knows I've survived plenty.
"You came back for more." The chuckle that leaves the Manslayer's mouth is inhuman. It feels like fingers crawling up my spine or scraping down a chalkboard. "How sweet. I see you've managed to summon your menagerie of fools again. Let's fix that, shall we?"
The poltergeist looms, its dark energy swarming around us. Chitters and screeches echo in the air, and despite the heat of my wings, I feel a chill. For a moment I swear I even see sharpened, spike-like teeth hovering neat my head, snapping at my throat.
I force myself to remain calm. The tattooed runes on my shoulder blades will anchor my quartet to me. I might not be able to fight the poltergeist, but I can fend it off—and send it into the Manslayer's body to make him mortal again.
As it tries to sink its nefarious, incorporeal claws into my body and rake the very bond I have with my demons from my soul, I grit my teeth and blast my wings at it. Their heat—from the fire, and from my spirit—makes the poltergeist shrink back, its shriek echoing as it tries, and fails, to weaken me.
"How interesting." The Manslayer takes a step towards me, eyes narrowed, and at my side the guys tense. I make a hand motion towards Mateo, urging him not to use his gun or grenade just yet, knowing that no injury will be permanent as long as the monster has no soul. "You've changed somehow. Some kind of... magic has been performed on your body. Anchored into your skin where those wings of yours burst out. But I wonder, what will happen if you lose their fire?"
I force myself to stare straight at him, even as a figure moves stealthily in the shadows at his back. "I'll never lose my fire. It's connected to my spirit, my soul—my very being. Not that you'd understand anything like that."
"No. I severed the connection to my soul long ago. It's been useful for me." The shadow of a smile curls his lips, and he stalks towards me, making Ezra tighten his grip on his sword and Lynx wrap cords of rope around his fists. "I can't help but notice that you're down a buffoon—and I don't mean that pitiful wolf shifter I disemboweled. There's one missing among your number, which must mean..."
As Sebastian is moving in close to deliver his poisonous blow, the monster flicks his wrist, and energy surges out from the bracelet against his skin. He throws a pulse of white-hot lightning at my beloved Poisoner, who flicks a wrist out to slash a poisoned knife against the monster's calf—only to be thrown back before his blade connects. My heart jumps into my throat as Sebastian goes flying at least thirty feet back, skidding against the ground.
There's a low curse behind me, and Lynx takes a step forward, eyes narrowed in hate, mouth twisted with anger. I hold a hand out to urge him back; even now, the poltergeist is regrouping to go at us again, and the Manslayer has the power of six immortals at his fingertips. We have to be smart about this.
Let him toy with us like he toyed with the girl. We don't need to overwhelm him with power. We just need to select our moment.
I spare a brief glance to Sebastian, who groans as he gets up but is at least alive. Then I round towards the Manslayer, my wings at my back, and curl them forwards until their heat glows against his nec
k.
"You shouldn't have done that," I tell him, heart in my throat as I take a step forward, then another. "We don't want to fight you, but we will if we have to."
"Bullshit." Those dark eyes narrow at me. "You're aching to fight me. Come at it, then, Daniella. Show your precious mother what you think of her—if you dare."
My wings burn as the heat of my anger rushes through me. Eyes on the bracelet, I take another step towards my target—and the poltergeist rushes into my body all at once at the Manslayer's command.
The previous attacks from his aching cold talons are nothing like this one. Even with the heat of my wings behind me to burn at his shadows, the spirit is aged and relentless, driven mad by time spent unanchored from a body, desperate to leave the mortal plane and rest in the Great Beyond.
It takes everything in me not to shrink into a little ball on the ground as pain bright and sharp enough to drive the breath from my lungs tears my body in two. It's as if there's an ice pick in the middle of my skull, rattling around in my teeth, making a low groan of pain leave my mouth. My bones ache, pierced through by thousands of tiny, invisible needles. Every muscle that holds me up goes tense and useless with agony, and my tendons feel like they're on fire.
I can't hold it back. Curling towards myself, my wings flagging as the furnace that feeds them grows cold, I open my mouth and scream in pain. That's all it takes to make my guys forget every plan we made, every word I used to caution them, and choose brute force over cleverness and deceit. Tears of pain stream down my face as, one by one, they attack the Manslayer—without me able to move, much less stop them.
The poltergeist is in my head. My body. My very soul cringes back at its putrid, twisted touch. It's hard to focus, to remember what Gaugin taught me about dismissing it. This is nothing like when I learned to dismiss and summon the demons. They weren't ever crawling around in my head, pushing into dark places like the poltergeist is now.
I fight against it, reaching through the darkness it's suffused in me to find the burning furnace of my phoenix spirit deep inside, but it's so strong. And so all-consuming.
It shows me things. Dark, terrible things that its soulless body has done. Pain, suffering. Lives ended—all because I was too curious, too reckless, too power hungry not to see the trap I walked into. It laughs as it shows me the image of my mother that it fed me as a lie to get my compliance.
Whatever this soul once was, before the young boy died and was resurrected, there's none of that left now. All that's left is pain and cruelty. Anger and a desire for revenge.
And with it in my body, even though my bond doesn't break and I hold on to some semblance of my power, I'm helpless to do anything but watch as my guys face the Manslayer and are brutally cut down one by one.
Lynx tries to tie him down, and the monster sends dragon fire at him, making the rope in his hands burst into flames until blisters boil up on the surface of his skin.
My sweet, dear Ezra comes at him with a blade, and the Manslayer only laughs, raising a hand to catch the blade, blood running from his palm. He twists it into two pieces, the Hellfire forged metal bending easily in his grasp, then throws a burst of energy at Ezra that sends him stumbling back.
Mateo, of course, shoots him. Expertly. Over and over in the chest. One bullet in each of his knees, to bring him down, even if only for a minute. He pulls the pin on his grenade and throws it right at the monster—who catches it and holds it in an iron grip, cruel mirth on his mouth as the thing detonates uselessly in his hands and crumbles to dust.
As he does it, the bracelet on his wrist glows with power.
And the poltergeist sinks its claws deeper into my mind, trying to take over, to bend me, to break my will and my spirit until there's nothing powerful left of me.
My guys aren't done yet, though. Lynx surges forward and punches the monster in the face despite his burned hands. Sebastian comes at him from behind, a whirling storm of knives slicked with poison nicking at the monster's skin, turning his veins grey and black beneath the surface. Ezra pulls a second sword from his back, its blade brightly gleaming, and rushes the Manslayer with fury in his eyes.
They'll fight him to the death if they have to.
But I won't let them do it alone.
Reaching deep into my center, where the last bit of my stubborn will resides, I find the furnace that fuels my power. I let my mind flash back to that moment on the cliffs, when I fell onto the rocks and died, in complete agony, only to come back to life in even more pain.
The ocean waves lapped the cliff above me.
I tasted salt water on my tongue.
Overhead, the moon stared down, silver and far away, unconcerned with my human—and supernatural—worries.
I was reborn that day, and though that rebirth bound to me four men, and forged me in fire, it also freed me completely. I was no longer Dani Carpenter, the girl with blue streaks in her hair who ate food out of the trash and mistrusted everyone she met. I was Dani Carpenter, daughter of a Grim and a woman with phoenix blood, fighter with a dozen lives.
No way in fuck am I wasting all of that by succumbing to Casper the goddamned ghost.
Coaxing my fire to life, I grit my teeth and push outward at the spirit. Like a feral cat being forced into a cage, it claws for purchase, desperate to stay where it is, but I don't let go. As its terrible presence leaves my body, I feel a sense of relief—and then I prepare to fight more.
"Get gone," I tell the thing, which coalesces in front of me as a dark specter, a cloud of black sinister energy merely shaped like a man. "I'm not going to tell you twice."
My wings unfurl behind me. The guys keep fighting the Manslayer, only to be pushed back again and again. I have to get this done, now. Taking a deep breath, I imagine the poltergeist going back to Purgatory, like a genie being forced back into its bottle.
I clench my fists and make it so.
At first it seems like it'll be able to resist being dismissed. But then it starts to howl as its shape is diminished, siphoned off as my Grim powers let me force its dark energy into another realm. It's something I've never done before to anything except a demon, but at this point, the poltergeist's spirit isn't that far away. It claws and fights, but I put it back in its cage, then shut the door and lock it for good measure.
Just in time. Grabbing Ezra's wrist, the Manslayer breaks bones with his power, then bends his blade back and forces it through his body. Lynx attacks him with his fists—and gets his feet yanked down into the earth for his trouble, freezing him in place. Mateo and Sebastian are exhausted, both bloody and looking worse for the wear, but the former reloads his gun and the latter slicks his knives in poison, prepared for another round.
The anger that fills me at the sight of them so injured, yet still fighting, makes my wings unfurl like beasts at my back, their light glowing all around me.
"Let him go," I tell Manslayer, "or you'll regret it."
"This thing?" He contemptuously pushes Ezra back, releasing his broken wrist, my beloved sword piercing his body. "Have it if you want it. I don't know who they're picking to turn these days in Hell, but I've fought lower level demons that were more powerful."
I force myself to simply confirm that Ezra is alive before I turn back to the issue, and the enemy, at hand. "It's me you want," I point out, "so let's fight."
"Gladly."
He raises the hand with the bracelet on it, and a wall of power surges towards me. I push my wings forward, their Grim magic and phoenix fire curving and reaching, and the two forces collide between us.
My feet slide beneath me and I lean forward, feeling like I'm facing off against a powerful, impossibly windy storm.
The Manslayer's mouth thins into a line, and I inwardly cheer at the realization that he's actually having to put some effort into this.
Maybe we really can win.
But before I can get too excited, he flicks his wrist, releasing the wall of energy. I stumble forward, against nothing—and cry out as the basta
rd forms a knife of pure energy and throws it directly into my chest.
It sinks through my ribs and towards my beating phoenix heart.
The cry of anger and pain from my right is immediate. Mateo surges to his feet. Lynx and Ezra are at his heels. Snarling, a wounded Sebastian draws a knife and prepares a throw.
As the Manslayer stalks towards me, my wounded, battered, nearly defeated men converge around him, ready for a final stand.
Chapter 6
I can't let this be the end. They've fought so hard for me, risked so much, sacrificed continuously. Our love is all that matters. I won't let them lose their lives, their memories, and our connection because of a mistake I made.
As they fight, I push my hands over the wound in my chest and force myself to focus. Ezra narrows his green eyes and shouts a battle cry, knifing the Manslayer in the side. Lynx draws another length of corded rope from his belt and wraps it around the immortals throat, yanking down. My beloved Sebastian throws knife after knife into his back, until his sheaths are empty. And Mateo lays a bomb at his feet, yelling at the others, "Fall back!"
It isn't enough, though. We all know it. Even as Lynx yanks him down, ties him up, and double-checks the knots, I meet the Manslayer's dark eyes, and see in their emptiness that he knows he's won. Just like Ari's soulless father, he'll be able to survive anything. A shotgun round. A bomb. Even a semi ramming into him probably wouldn't leave a dent for long.
The only way to kill him is to give him back his soul.
So, as the guys fall back, as Ezra reaches towards me, I duck his hand and run forward. Towards the bomb. Towards the soulless beast.
I made this mess.
I'll die fixing it if I have to.