by Trim, Brenda
My mind scrambled to make sense of the pain and their concern. A second later, the image of red eyes flying through my sliding glass doors surfaced, followed by the fight throughout my house.
The demon had attacked me and sliced me open with claws as long as kitchen knives, then slurped up my blood, taking my power as he ate. My eyes flew open, and I sat up in a rush.
My stomach burned like the pits of hell, and my head swam. “What happened?” We were at my house, and I was on my sofa. The grey cushions were intact and as soft as ever. The coffee table behind Thanos was unmarred and still had my family grimoire lying open on it.
Aislinn and Fiona hurried to me and dropped to their knees. Light reflected off the plate glass window that had been broken when Thanos threw the demon away from me. Fiona brushed the hair off my forehead. She held a damp cloth in her other hand.
“A demon broke through your wards and attacked you. By the time Bas and I got here, Thanos had thrown it out the window and was chasing it down the street.”
“Did you get it?” My hand flew to my throat. It was dry as the Sahara Desert and ached. Every part of me hurt. Lifting my hand took as much effort as if I were bench pressing fifty pounds.
Thanos left the room, and I tried to turn my head to see where he was going but gave up when it felt like a knife was lodged at the base of my skull. Fiona tugged her pink bag toward her and grabbed her stethoscope out.
“It escaped. Thanos and Sebastian almost had it when it suddenly disappeared into thin air. They weren’t pleased about that.” Fiona stuffed the buds into her ears and placed the bell on my chest.
A gasp flew from my lips, and I moved back, away from the torture device. The light pressure from Fiona’s scope caused pain to redouble in my chest. It took me a second to realize my blood seeping through my shirt when I looked down and saw the rapidly growing crimson stain there.
Someone had changed me. I used to have a peach top on, but now I was wearing a blue t-shirt. I sure hoped it was Fiona and Aislinn and not Thanos. Fiona lifted her hands and held them up with her palms out. "Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I think you tore some stitches open when you sat up. Let me check them. Zreegy would be pissed if you undid her work.”
My face heated even more at some point along the way. Thanos returned, holding a glass of water. “I thought you could use some water.”
“Thanks,” I told him before turning back to Fiona. “I’m fine. I want to know what happened. How does a demon disappear? Can they teleport?”
That’s exactly what we needed. A demon that could escape death and come back for more again and again until it finally beat us.
Thanos shook his head from side to side as he leaned against the bookcase that was no longer a mess on the floor. Several tchotchkes were missing from the shelves, but the books looked like they survived the incident. “Demons don’t have the power of teleportation. Very few beings are capable of such a feat. I don’t know anyone that can travel in that manner.”
“Some powerful Fae can. Vodor and Thelvienne acquired the skill somewhere along the way.” Sebastian’s voice echoed throughout the room while his words dropped like a bomb. It hurt to swivel around and look back at him. His expression turned my stomach sour.
I moved my torso around to face forward in a slow controlled movement. I felt more warm liquid trickling down my chest. I wasn’t about to undress with everyone present. My gaze landed on Aislinn’s concerned expression then moved to Fiona’s terrified, wide eyes.
“You don’t think they survived somehow, do you?” Trust Aislinn to ask what none of us wanted to even consider.
Bas’s heavy boots pounded across the floor as he moved to the new window in the living room. It was when he leaned against the frame that I noticed the raw wood surrounding the glass. Someone had already replaced it.
“There’s no way they lived. Fiona took, uh, their deaths hard. They shriveled and withered like a corpse once their hearts stopped beating. Their energy left their bodies. We all saw that process. There’s no coming back from any of that.”
Thanos’ eyebrows narrowed, and he scanned each of us before he sat on the arm of the sofa. “You need to drink,” he told me and waited until I sipped the cool liquid. “So powerful Fae can teleport. Can witches or other supernaturals? If not, we are looking at a Fae culprit. I could have sworn I detected witchcraft.”
Fire spread up and down my chest and stomach along the path where my wounds were. It stole my breath and made me freeze in place. It reminded me of the fire that started after I returned from Eidothea rather than that associated with the agony I couldn’t escape.
It took a second for my mind to come back online, so I could respond. “I’ve never heard of a witch teleporting.”
Fiona removed gauze and a bottle of antiseptic. “What about the Pleiades witches? Can they?”
I considered that while Fiona drenched a square of cotton with the cleaner. “I don’t know much about them, but I would have to say that they can teleport themselves. But we aren’t talking about your average witch. You might not be wrong about what you sensed, Thanos. Blood magic changes a practitioner in ways we can’t predict. It gives them untold power, which is why they choose to go rogue. I’d venture to say Dark magic has the same effect.”
“Good point,” Fiona replied as she set the gauze next to me. “There’s too much blood seeping through. I’m checking this.”
Bas turned to look out the window, but Thanos didn’t move. “You could avert your eyes. I’m not into exhibitionism.”
His grey eyes held amusement when he turned a smile on me. “That’s too bad. I need to see if you’re septic. You should be at this point. A witch of average power shouldn’t be able to fight off the poison from demon claws. You shouldn’t have survived the attack, either. You should be lying next to Faye in your town’s infirmary.”
His gaze shifted faster than an automatic transmission in a car going sixty. Every trace of amusement and flirting was gone. He wanted to know why I was able to survive.
Fiona tugged my shirt up at that second with a slightly shaking hand. She was nervous about him discovering she was a nicotisa. I would never betray her by revealing those details.
Aislinn reached out and held up the fabric while Fiona brushed her gauze across the wound. “You’re assuming Violet isn’t powerful. The council has never cared for her because she has more talent in her little finger than most of them do in their entire body. You’d be stupid to underestimate her.”
Thanos chuckled, and the tension drained from the room. I was holding my breath while Fiona cleaned my chest. I hadn’t wanted to see the mess that used to be my body but finally caved.
Emotion clogged my throat when I saw at least eight thin lines extending from my throat all the way down to my stomach. I wasn’t wearing a bra, but that suddenly didn’t matter. I was being held together by magical sutures. Thankfully, they weren’t gaping, inflamed wounds.
A few were placed where the skin opened up, but for the most part, they remained closed and infection-free. “I’m powerful, like Ais said, but I thought I was done for. I felt my energy slipping from my body as he consumed my blood. How is this possible?”
Aislinn lowered my shirt, and my hand went to the flaming bird on my chest. It had somehow avoided being cut into. Thanos watched the movement. “Where’d you get that tattoo? There’s magic behind it.”
“I was injured by some jerk we fought against when we were in the Fae realm. It appeared at some point after I healed. I have no idea what it means,” I admitted. There was no harm in telling him that truth.
“That’s the hundredth odd thing about you, Lightning. Why is this demon even after you? It didn’t hunt you like it usually does its prey.”
Bas turned around and looked at Thanos. “What do you mean by that? What was different about the attack on Violet?”
Thanos braced his hands on his thighs. “First, it doesn’t usually talk to those it kills. And, it never takes action
in a home where it can be trapped. Usually, it stalks locations before victims and selects one that offers cover and some semblance of privacy. Next, it finds a tree to hide in while it watches for the perfect victim. I found the debris left behind in one of the tall pines surrounding the park where Faye was attacked. And then there is the fact that they act swiftly and don’t linger over a kill. They don’t ingest slowly and taunt their victims. They’re more of a smash and grab type. It’s good for you that this one took its time with you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here talking to us right now.”
I bobbed my head. I never thought about how much worse my encounter could have been for me. "It’s lucky that you were in the neighborhood. How did you know I was being attacked, anyway?”
“I’ve been trying to pull apart the trail left behind in the locations it has been. The park wasn’t straightforward to our sensors or my ability. If not for your reports of a demonic encounter, I might have overlooked it altogether. Like I told you before, we’ve gotten spikes from your town. I’ve been frustrated by my inability to find reliable information about this demon, so I took to patrolling the streets at random. I was a couple blocks over when I sensed you were in trouble.”
“You sensed I was in trouble? Or you just got one of those alerts because he let his demonic side loose on me?” My stomach did summersaults at the thought of him being able to sense me somehow.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. It was likely the demonic thing. I haven’t given it much thought. After we chased him off, Fiona insisted that we fix your windows.” Thanos’ lips pursed. He didn’t like not knowing the answer to that. I wondered if he found the thought of being connected to me in any way alarming or alluring.
“How the heck did you manage to get ahold of new windows this late at night?” The hardware store closed earlier than my bookstore.
Sebastian shrugged his shoulders. “I paid Harry a visit at home and didn’t give him a choice about reopening for us to grab supplies.”
“Luckily, he had a warehouse full of windows, drywall, and other building supplies,” Thanos added. “It didn’t take much to replace them. I will still need to paint, but your home is protected against the elements. Speaking of which...”
“No,” I cut him off. I had a feeling where this was going. “I’m not leaving my house. It took me months to make this my home. Fiona will help me set better wards. Besides, I don’t think he’s coming back for a second round anytime soon.”
Thanos glared at me. “How can you be so sure?”
“Would you want to risk losing the demon it took you months to bring through the veil? You said the early murders weren’t the demon, but the practitioner gathering power to summon it. That’s a lot of effort to throw away, especially now that they know my powerful friends have my back.”
Thanos growled and clenched his hands into fists. “I tracked every step I could and haven’t been able to lock onto the magical signature of the culprit behind this. Whoever is behind this demon is smart and talented. The only reason I was finally able to pick up its trail was because whatever magic was used to hide it wasn’t able to cover every step.”
“Which tells me they’re possibly weakening. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it takes a lot of energy to control a demon and even more to conceal its presence from the Underworld. They don’t just have to mask it from wanna-be detectives like us. They have to keep you off their trail. That means they won’t risk losing even more when they can’t afford it.”
Fiona bobbed her head up and down. “And that’s not even considering how much they expended when they teleported their demon out of danger. That had to take a toll on them. Not that I plan on leaving you alone right now.”
I grimaced, but before I could respond, Sebastian took a step toward us. “Fiona and I will stay here tonight, Violet. Neither one of us would forgive ourselves if we left and something happened to you. Even though your argument dispels my concern about a return visit from the little fiend."
Thanos shook his head and looked at me for several long seconds. “Fine. You win. I still want to know what it is about you that draws people like steel to a magnet. There’s an inescapable aura surrounding you that makes you want to see more. Perhaps the witch responsible isn’t targeting you, and it is just the demon.”
Aislinn chuckled. “I don’t know about that, but I can attest to Violet’s appeal. Guys have drooled over her from afar as long as I’ve known her.”
Fiona’s head went up and down in agreement. “That’s true.”
“Anyway,” I interjected before my friends could try even more to set me up with the Underworld agent. I had no desire to get involved at this moment in my life. There was too much going on. I still hadn’t discovered the source of my curse so I could break it.
That curse had almost cost me my life tonight. If my magic hadn’t malfunctioned, I might have been able to maim the demon and stop him from hurting me so badly. “It’s been a long night, and I’d like to get some rest. We can regroup another time.”
Thanos reached over and took my hand in his. His warmth made me want to curl up beside him in bed while I healed. It was a dangerous thought. I couldn’t be that close to him.
“Call me if the demon comes back. I’ve changed my rental to a house just down the street.”
“My phone,” I gasped and looked over my shoulder. My head didn’t go far before agony made me stop. “It fell from my hands. I have no idea if it’s in one piece.”
Aislinn got up and moved toward the kitchen. I heard her footsteps move from the wood floor to the tile in the kitchen before returning. “We found it under the island. The corner of the screen is cracked. Otherwise, it’s intact.”
“I can’t thank you guys enough for cleaning up and fixing the windows. It makes dealing with this so much easier.”
“We will always be here to support you,” Fiona promised. “Womb to tomb.”
I chuckled. “Womb to tomb.”
Thanos gave me his phone number and left the house a few minutes later. Aislinn was right behind him, saying she left her back door unlocked or she would stay. Fiona helped me to my bedroom, where I removed my shoes and jeans and slid beneath the covers.
It had been a night from hell, and I just wanted to go to sleep. My magic wasn’t reliable, and I was a target. If Fiona had arrived any sooner, she would have jumped into the fight and been hurt. My stomach clenched at the thought of me bringing danger to their door.
I drifted off listening to Fiona and Bas setting wards around the windows and checking the locks. I would add more with her in the morning. My body had reached its limit.
Chapter 12
“Do you think she’s alright?”
I glanced at my best friend and wished I hadn’t turned so fast. Last night’s attack was brutal, and I still hurt all over. My body felt as if I’d fallen from an airplane and hit several trees on my way down. I would be comatose if Zreegy didn’t use her healing magic to help me along. Unfortunately, for me and my middle-aged body, there were limits to how much she could do.
“I really hope so. I’ve been worried she might have caught a Fae disease when we were in Eidothea. She should be immune as a half-breed. And yet, she’s been sick for weeks since we got back.”
Fiona tapped a finger on her steering wheel as she drove us to Aislinn’s house on the cliffs. She’d called this morning and asked us to meet her there for lunch. “I assumed she was depressed about being away from Argies. They got close, and he stayed there when we came back here. Lately, I’ve wondered if you might be right. She seems to have lost weight, and I’ve seen her physically ill several times.”
My chest constricted, making it difficult to breathe. “We will find answers if something is wrong. We can’t let anything happen to her.”
Fiona pursed her lips as she watched the road ahead. “My worst fear is that there is something wrong that we can’t help her with. Not that I would simply accept that. You know I’d drag you around so we can knock on cou
ntless doors to get the answers we need.”
Some of the tension in my chest uncoiled. She would do the same for me. I should trust her with my malfunctioning magic. I opened my mouth to spill my guts, but nothing came out. She pulled up to Aislinn’s house, and I lost my nerve. Later.
I climbed out and inhaled the salty air. Aislinn lived in a two-story house on the cliffs above the ocean. Her yard was mainly plants and trees. She had a front lawn, but there wasn’t really grass in the backyard. The large wooden deck covered most of the area behind her house.
I joined Fiona, and we climbed the four steps to her covered porch. She had painted the entire thing dark green while her house was light green with the trim in the same color as the porch.
Fiona knocked and opened the screen door. “Ais! We’re here. And hungry.”
Her home smelled like herbs and roasted garlic that made my mouth water. “Did you make your spaghetti?”
“It’s my claim to fame. And one of the few things I know how to cook well,” Aislinn called out from the kitchen down the hall.
Aislinn’s spaghetti was precisely what I needed to help me heal. The prospect of eating the garlicky goodness put a pep in my step as we passed her clean living room. Aislinn decorated in a theme that fit with the sea. Her colors were light blues and greys, and white. The wood entertainment stand was whitewashed, and her coffee table matched it.
A picture of the three of us standing in front of Fiona’s garden with dirt streaks on our faces and margaritas in hand was on Aislinn’s mantle. These were my people. And one of them was possibly in trouble.
Aislinn glanced over her shoulder and gave us a smile, then waved the sauce-covered spoon to the butcherblock island behind her. “You look like you need to sit down, Vi. How are you feeling?”
I shrugged, happy that excruciating pain didn’t follow. The steady ache I could deal with. “Better than last night. My turtle neck and leggings are doing a spectacular job of hiding the purple covering my body. And they’re comfy, as well.” I sat on the stool, happy to be off my feet again.