by Lucy Auburn
"Dani—your heart!"
I ignore Ezra's shouted warning, even though I know what he's worried about. The energy knife the monster threw at me has exposed my chest. My beating heart is right there for the taking. If the explosion knocks it out of my chest completely, I'll die in a very mortal way. Even if it doesn't, I'm going to die, this close to a bomb my Mateo built.
I have three lives left. That's plenty. Especially if it only takes one of them to end this motherfucker right here, right now, for good.
Here's to hoping I'm just as much of a hot piece of ass when my phoenix body heals and I come back to life again. Explosions aren't exactly a regular part of my skincare routine.
I dive towards the bomb anyway. My motions take the Manslayer's eyes off it for just a moment, and he misses the slender opportunity he gets to disarm it with his magic fucking bracelet. Because Mateo is an absolute nut with a taste for things that go boom, the bomb doesn't have any kind of a clock, and it barely has a fuse. As soon as I get close, wings curled forward, it goes off.
The heat of the explosion is like the fire of the sun falling down on me.
I feel it tear through me. My ears ring. My feet go out from under me. Dust and light fill my eyes. I go down, and so does the Manslayer.
But I refuse to stay down, to not get up and fight again. I've died enough times by now to work through the pain of a body that's bleeding from a dozen wounds.
Immortal asshole that he is, the Manslayer isn't used to fighting. He took most of his victims without much effort at all, picking the weak. And he's been in that coffin Gaugin made for him so long—pain is foreign to him. Despite his supernatural abilities, he's been weakened, and I hear him cough and groan as he draws his limbs around his vulnerable center.
That's all it takes. My wings sputter and die at my back as my body loses blood and other things I don't want to think about, but I manage to crawl to him. There are distant voices in my ears, and I know my guys will be there when I die, and when I come back.
Before that, though. While I still have the chance to right this wrong I've made. I grab the monster's hand, look up into his dark eyes, and use the last bit of my still-fighting phoenix furnace to make a knife of pure energy, just like his.
Then I slice his hand off at the wrist, just below the bracelet.
The last thing I see as I die is his blood. The last thing I hear are his screams of pain. And his hand is still warm and gushing in mine as my quartet grab my body and drag it away from him.
Death closes over me, and I smile.
For a while there's peace. Warmth. I don't see my mother's spirit—maybe I did once, that time I died seven times in a row, or maybe that was just a fever dream. I don't know if my deaths made a crack in my psyche that the Manslayer exploited, or if I saw into the spirit realm once, and he took advantage. Maybe Ari or Auerbach can tell me when I get back to campus, or maybe I'll never actually know.
When I come back this time, there's agony, like always. But it's a distant burn of pinpricks all over my skin instead of an all-consuming pain. I've died enough times, and been wounded to death besides that, to know that the feeling is temporary. So I fight through it, force my eyes open, and look over at my left hand.
And I laugh. "I didn't imagine it."
"No, you didn't." Sebastian raises a wry eyebrow. "Gonna keep the hand?"
"I might," I respond, smirking a little at the way the monster's fingers are almost lovingly curled around mine, like we're two middle schoolers on a first date holding hands. "I think for sure I'm keeping this."
Despite how incredibly fucking gross it is, I grab the bracelet Gaugin made and yank it off the disembodied hand. The thing fights me—how dare it, given that it was made for my blood, or at least for Gaugin's—but it does come off. As soon as it does, I slide it up my forearm and sigh as it nestles against the inside of my elbow.
I'm never going to take that power for granted again. Now that I have it, maybe I have a fighting chance against the goddamned monster I released—especially if he's still in agony over as minor a flesh wound as a severed hand.
It's not like it was his dick.
That'll be next, if I get the chance.
Looking up at Sebastian, I ask him, "The others?"
"Keeping him at bay. He's howling mad, but far less powerful than before. And apparently regrowing a hand takes a while, even for an immortal soulless Grim. But, Dani—I don't think he's done with tricks up his sleeve." A troubled expression crosses Sebastian's face. "I was thinking, there has to be a reason why he killed all these people. Other than the obvious, of course."
"That he's a psychopath?"
"I think there's a spell he wanted to perform... but I guess it doesn't matter if we kill him before he pulls it off. Especially now that you have the bracelet. It's just been nagging at me." He shakes his head, like he's shaking the train of thought off. "Ready to go?"
"Let's kill this fucker. Help me up." As he grabs my hands and pulls me to my feet, I half-jokingly ask, "Do I still look pretty? After getting a face full of Mateo's shrapnel."
"As beautiful as ever." He slaps my ass and kisses my cheek, then hands me a knife that's slicked with blood. "I got this out of him. Nice job with the phoenix fire knife, by the way—I wish I could do that."
Taking the knife, I crack my neck and tell him, "Let's go sever some dicks."
The other three demons are keeping the monster from regaining his footing too much, but I can tell they won't be able to run him ragged for long. And I can already feel—and taste—the heavy, harsh scent of the poltergeist in the air. My dismissal of the twisted soul won't last forever, and when it comes back it'll be far stronger and onto me. We have to strike now, while we've got the upper hand.
Stalking towards the monster, I smile as Lynx ties him down with an abundance of rope, Mateo shoots his kneecaps out a second time, and Ezra holds him from behind, arms looped through the Manslayer's armpits to grasp him tight. His missing hand is trying to grow back, the stump red and gnarly-looking, all of the energy of his life force flowing towards it with a soft white glow.
They'll only be able to hold him for so long. That much is clear. The monster thrashes in their grip, so Sebastian slashes him across his injured stump of a hand with one of his poisoned knives, black ooze gushing from the wound. His immortal body wants to keep going, but it's taking a lot of energy to heal him.
This may be my only chance to put the bastard's twisted soul back inside his even more twisted body. Summoning my power, I make a tiny knife of energy and hold it between my thumb and index finger. Then I crouch in front of the bastard, my eyes briefly meeting the pools of black that make up his gaze.
"I'll kill you for this," he says, twisting against his restraints, baring his teeth. "I don't know how you've managed to banish my poltergeist to another realm, but it'll be back soon. I feel it. When it is, I'll have it snuff the spirit out of your permanently—so you can never see these four filthy lovers of you again."
"Excuse you," Mateo says indignantly, "but I am a very gentle lover."
Snorting at his joke, I grab the Manslayer's injured arm, pull his collar to the side, and press the sharp hot tip of the energy blade against his skin near his shoulder. He doesn't flinch or wince as I start to carve the rune into his flesh, his dark eyes watching me, a snarl twisting his lips. I can feel him fight Lynx's ropes, but without the power of his poltergeist and the element of surprise on his side, he's not able to free himself. We have him.
But as I carefully carve the lines of the rune into his skin, I feel a dark and foreboding chill. The poltergeist. I dismissed it, but not for long. The monster senses his other half is returning and smirks at me. I ignore his expression and force myself not to rush this. Runes are very sensitive to how they're drawn; Auerbach made that clear time and time again. One like this, that puts a wayward soul back in its body, can't be hurried through. Even a little mistake in the intricate lines would be enough to ruin everything.
; Ruin. Rune. I'd laugh if I weren't so full of panic. The chill of the poltergeist's touch caresses my spine. The Manslayer's hand is almost fully formed; he's flexing his stubby fingers, stretching them out. Once the resurrection magic in his soulless body has fixed that, he'll be strong again, and capable of escaping. I only have a few moments left.
We all sense the tension.
Then. Pulling a long knife out of a sheath nestled against the middle of his back, Ezra grabs the Manslayer's uninjured hand, which is helpfully held down by Lynx's ropes, and swings his blade. The monster makes a muffled groan as his hand is severed from his body, and my green-eyed demon tosses it over his shoulder, ignoring the spray of blood.
"There. That should slow him down while you finish the rune." He wipes the blade on the short winter grass at our feet. "Let me know if you want to cut any other parts off."
My eyes flick to the monster's crotch, and I smirk, but there's no room for them to take his manhood, since I'm crouched over his body. Too bad—if it wouldn't cost us time, I'd have my demons play with him a little, severing parts and taking them just to see how much pain the Manslayer can live through. He deserves all that and more for what he's done.
"Almost there," I tell the guys, as the monster shoots me a resentful look, now edged with panic. "Just a little more..."
There's a tenseness between my shoulder blades from the poltergeist's presence. It pushes its cold spirit into my body, seeking dark places, creeping back into the mortal realm bit by bit. I dismiss it with difficulty; the thing is growing stronger. So much time without a body has made it resistant to others' wills.
"Dani." Lynx's voice has an edge to it; he reties one of his ropes as the knot breaks. "The poltergeist. It's trying to free him. And I'm not sure how much rope I have left."
Mateo frowns. "You didn't bring enough?"
"Well, some of it was burned—"
"I'm almost done," I tell the guys. My eyes flit to the bracelet on my wrist; I have no idea how exactly to use the power, but maybe... "This should help."
Pausing in my rune-carving, I put my left hand against the Manslayer's forehead and focus inward. He struggles back from my touch, but the ropes hold him still enough, for now. Tapping into the bracelet's power with hesitancy, I think about the creatures I just released: the three-headed Cerberus who guarded the gates of Hell, an ancient dragon who watched the world from clouds up above, even an actual honest-to-fuck unicorn, complete with the shining white fur and piercing horn. The world forgot them in their time as immortal captives, until death was the only release left to them, but their power is anchored here. To this bracelet, which responds to the blood flowing through my veins—Grim blood.
The Manslayer is powered by the resurrection spell that brought him back incomplete, without his soul. His body repairs itself over and over again; that's why he won't die. But the magic that powers him is familiar to me. I use it every time I summon demons, my quartet or otherwise, and play with the barriers between the living and the dead.
Necromancy. It's not something I've done myself. Apparently it has a history of going poorly. My now-dead half-sister Lainey, Gaugin himself, Ari's father the Heretic, and the Manslayer struggling in my demon's grip are all proof of that. The dead should stay dead.
When I took Lainey's stolen phoenix heart from her chest and unbound the spell that animated her, I felt the gasp of necromantic power release, its taste as cloying as grave dirt. Whatever spell was used to bring the Manslayer back, I have no idea; the Grim father and rogue witch who cast it are both long dead. But I bet I can drain enough of his necromantic energy to weaken him so the guys and I have time to put his soul back and kill him for good.
Tapping into the bond with my quartet, which anchors me and my power here, I lick my lips and blindly reach for words that might work. Certain types of magic are improvisational in a way, its power set more in intention than anything, so I hope this does something.
"Drain the necromantic hold on this man's body," I murmur, uncertain of myself. "Release him from his undead bond to his body, and weaken him."
The Manslayer chuckles, low and cruel. "Do you really think that—"
A moment later he's gasping in pain, as the bracelet around my elbow warms up against my skin. I sigh at the feeling of power flowing through me, releasing a little of the bonds that hold the Manslayer's undead body together. Recently healed wounds open up on his body, making him moan low in his throat. The poltergeist, meanwhile, shrinks back as I mentally dismiss it again, stuffing it back into its cell in Purgatory for a while longer.
"Whoa," Mateo says, his tone impressed. "I think you really gave him one there, Dani."
"Let's hope so. I need him to be still so I can finish this rune."
"I'll help."
"Me too."
Sebastian and Lynx kneel and grab the shoulder I've been carving into. They push his arm and neck down, keeping him from struggling as he finally feels the pain he should've been reacting to all along. I'm not sure how much longer my improvised spell will hold, but thankfully I'm halfway done with the rune, and it looks like I'll be able to finish it.
As I dig the point of my red-hot knife into his skin, forming the last line, I ask the monster, "Any final words?"
"Happy dreaming."
I don't understand what he means. Skin sizzles, and the lines of the rune are finished at my touch. The mark I've made glows as it reaches completion, and there's the sudden acrid scent of magic in the air. Gaugin's bracelet heats up against my elbow, so hot it's nearly uncomfortable, forming a ring of white light.
The monster's eyes roll back in his head.
All around me the world plunges into darkness.
Chapter 7
I feel it in the darkness. The poltergeist. A terrible thing, formed of anger and misery, made from a connection to a body severed through dark means. Souls shouldn't feel like this. Spirits shouldn't be this way.
The presence of the thing is suffocating. Air, light, they all disappear. So does my hope. I taste iron and salt on my tongue, pressing down on me. It's like having my mouth covered in a heavy cloth dampened with blood. Maybe it is blood.
Maybe I've been imagining everything that happened since I left the cave with the seven immortals. Gaugin coming to me. Petra surviving. My guys returning, and the bond being anchored to my body permanently. It could've all been a fever dream.
This is the truth, then. Blood in my mouth. Darkness all around me. A terrible, suffocating sense of foreboding. And nothing, nothing but despair at my side. No quartet bond within me. No phoenix fire furnace. My soul quivers and shrinks like a dying moth.
I should give up. I have nothing, am nothing. Death—a real death, a clean death—would be better than this.
I should've died that night on the cliffs.
And many other times after.
I'm so very, very tired. Tired of fighting. Of falling and having to get back up again.
Maybe this is what it feels like when you've reached above your abilities. Maybe I'm treading water, when I should just give up and drown. I can feel how it's drained me. I'm hollow inside, empty and worthless, absolutely no one and nothing.
Nothing, nothing, nothing...
But the sense that I'm not alone in the darkness.
There's something out there.
Something that's waiting for me.
I force myself to my feet, even though they feel wobbly, like a newborn foal's uncertain legs. Looking around myself, I search for the something in the pitch blackness. Some sign that I'm not imagining someone is with me.
Someone... or something.
I hear it before I see it. There's a strange and heavy breathing in the distance. The sound of an object hitting the ground, softly. A light chuffing noise. Deep breaths in a barrel chest.
Squinting my eyes, I walk through the darkness, towards whatever it is that I hear. The blood taste filters out of my mouth. A light warmth suffuses me. Slowly, I pull the cobwebs of darkness from my eyes
. Blinking through the last of the suffocating despair, I realize that all this time it's been the poltergeist convincing me that I was worthless and should give up.
It was never true.
I've always been a fighter. Always will be one, in fact. Whatever the poltergeist put in my head, the doubts and the fear and the trauma, I'm not nothing. I'm Dani fucking Carpenter, badass Black Phoenix, one of a kind, with four guys who will always be there for me, and friends who risk their lives on a semi-regular basis to save my ass.
My very cute, very pert ass, thank you very much.
No one and nothing will hold me down for long.
I just have to figure out how the fuck the goddamned poltergeist pulled off this last-minute Hail Mary and fight it off so I can cut the Manslayer's head from his body and be done with this once and for all. As soon as the beast is dead, my quartet and I will head straight back to campus, where we'll find out if the whole thing is still standing and hand over the keys to this immortal-life-filled bracelet once and for all.
First, though, I need to figure out what the Hell is in the darkness with me. I don't think it's Ezra, Lynx, Sebastian, or Mateo, that's for sure. I'm pretty certain that breathing isn't coming from anything human at all.
Seeing a gentle white light ahead of me, where the breathing sounds have been coming from this whole time, I head in that direction. As I get closer, I nearly groan, because I can't possibly be seeing what I think I'm seeing.
"Unicorn." I frown at the thing, which blinks its wide, docile eyes at me—eyes that no doubt hide its supposed bloodthirsty interior. "What are you doing here? Or your spirit, I should say? Because you're dead."
Instead of answering, it bobs its head at me, turns around, and starts walking off into the distance. I scoff in its direction, but it turns back and gives me a very clear, meaningful look.
"Follow the ghost of the unicorn through the suffocating darkness. Why in the world would I do that?"
I swear, the thing makes an expression that seems to suggest I don't really have any other options. It's communicating to me through eye blinks and lip twitches, I guess. Or maybe something more—the feeling in my chest seems to suggest comfort and warmth, with a little bit of impatience, like a border collie is nipping at my heels to try to get me to go where I'm supposed to go.