by Lucy Auburn
We head towards the back door, Ezra and Sebastian leading with Yohan, the shifters last in line because of how large they are. The back exit is locked with a keypad; Yohan punches in the six digit code and opens it up, revealing a wide black swath of energy that forms a portal door to the prison colony.
One by one we go through: Yohan first, then Ezra and Sebastian, followed closely by me, Mateo, Lynx, and finally the shifters. Lynx yanks the door closed behind him.
Walking through the entry of the prison, my eyes go to the hallway where Meyer is being kept. But the front door is in the opposite direction, so the military-like precision pace Ezra sets leads us further away from him as the seconds tick by. I can sense the danger as we approach it: untold Grims, getting closer second by second to coming through the door.
And I can sense the danger all around us: countless Grims in their individual cells, all of them eyeing us, moments away from being released by their brethren.
We’re halfway to the other end of the prison complex when I feel them open a breach in the door. All my danger senses tingle at once, screaming at the pending doom we’re facing.
“They’re here.” The air around us seems to become heavier the closer we get; Yohan grips his long hunting knife, looking diminished without his phoenix wings. “Get ready. I don’t think they’re here for a square dance.”
Ezra says, “I can feel them summoning through the veil. Since their powers won’t work in here, they’re preparing an army of demons. It’s... bad.”
What else is new. “We’ve got this.”
That’s what I say before we turn the corner to the final stretch of hallway and face the main entrance head-on.
It’s chaos.
A dozen siren-like humanoid demons with pale skin and brittle black hair are tugging on the bars to the Grim cells, using supernatural strength and frighteningly long nails to tear them down. It takes me a moment to place the demon type: voltari, sharp-teeth monstrous demons who come straight from the bowels of Hell and feast on blood. They were once a plague in parts of Europe and Asia when Grims used them to hunt and kill mages, but were supposedly sent beyond the veil of summoning by a rogue Grim centuries ago. That banishment put them in the bowels of Hell forever, beyond the reach of normal magic.
No one is supposed to be able to summon them.
But one glance at the white-haired woman, who moves among their midst snapping orders at them, makes it clear that she’s somehow pulled off the impossible. She’s dragged these demons all the way from the innermost circle of Hell, so far beyond the mortal plane that no Grim is supposed to be able to summon from it—except she can and she did.
Her eyes flick up and meet mine. She smiles. In a loud voice she calls out, “Get them.”
As one, the voltari turn, their too-long limbs and thin frames swaying monstrously. They peel their pale lips back to bare their teeth and approach us, steps slow and laborious despite their strength, as voltari have heavy bones that work wrong. But they gain speed with every step, lumbering and stomping, limbs outstretched.
Nothing has ever been quite so horror-movie frightening as the sight of them coming for us. Even Mateo looks a little ashen-faced at the sight of all the monsters before us. Yohan grips his knife, and the shifters growl low in their chests.
The voltari are more than a little frightening.
But this isn’t the first time I’ve faced demons being controlled by a Grim, and I know a thing or two about dealing with them. Grabbing Sebastian’s knife tight in my hand, I aim the tip at the flesh of my thumb and prick until blood flows down. Then I let all my rage fill me—rage at Reena’s useless death, at the voltari freeing so many Grims, at yet again being hunted for my heart—and use the power of that rage to speak the words of a spell.
“Take what is hers. Break what is bound. Unbind, reforge.”
At first I’m not sure it’ll work. I have some of my powers, after all, but not all of them in here. One of the voltari gets close enough to us that Sam breaks away and leaps on it, his tiger teeth and claws sinking into its eldritch body. For a moment it seems like we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way, even if it costs us casualties.
But then I squeeze my hand and press on the wound until more blood flows out. Sam roars in pain as the voltari grabs his leg and twists it, the sound fueling my anger. And I feel something move through me and outside my body, an otherworldly power that can break the very veil between this world and Hell itself.
I'm drawing on the power of my soul bond with the demons, since my own Grim powers are beyond my reach.
“Break what is bound,” I repeat, teeth gritted. “Unbind, reforge.”
The bonds snap, untethering the demons from their Master. Eyes widening in shock, the white-haired Grim takes a step back, her expression making it clear she didn’t expect so much from me.
Then the second part of the spell kicks in. Power flows into me, a dozen demons bonds soaring my way all at once, whipping into my center and searing across my skin. I hiss in pain and fold in the middle, grabbing onto Sebastian’s arm for balance and support. It’s all I can do not to throw up right here right now, like a drunk sorority girl at her first party.
“You okay?”
“About to be.”
Concentrating on the slimy, unnatural feeling of those bonds, so different to the soul bond of my quartet, I grab them and shout, “You are dismissed!”
The voltari turn to me, teeth snapping, a howl of anger starting in their throats at being dismissed back to the bowels of Hell. Before they can do anything—like disembowel me and waste one of my eleven remaining lives—the power of the bond tears them away from the mortal plane for good.
Leaving us alone with the Grims, including one very powerful white-haired lady and a handful of recently-released prisoners who don’t look like they have particularly good feelings about being captured. All this time on the island and they’re not any more in love with phoenix than they were at the start of their imprisonment.
Apparently Stockholm’s Syndrome doesn’t work on genocidal supernatural psychopaths.
“Let’s do this thing.”
Ezra steps up front, sword at the ready. “Me first.”
He rushes the Grims, and faces the first escaped prisoner, who doesn’t even have a weapon. It’s not anywhere close to a fair fight—until the Grim picks up one of the broken prison cell bars off the ground and swings it up in front of him. Ezra’s blade squeals as it hits the metal; grimacing, he turns the blade, aims it at the Grim’s neck, and hacks at it.
The attack isn’t pretty, but it does the job. Blood bubbles up in the Grim’s mouth and he falls to his knees.
But it’s not over. More Grims move into the hallway, which is wide enough for maybe two at a time. Sebastian steps forward, poison knives in his hand. He flicks them out in two smooth motions and hits the first set of Grims, one in the chest, one in the neck. The latter goes down fast, while it takes the former a few seconds to turn pale, fall to his knees, and slump over dead.
Meanwhile, Sam is recovering from the voltari attack, shaking out his paw as his shifter healing abilities kick in. He and Liam shoulder the demons and I aside to take center stage, two hulking predatory forms with hundreds of pounds of muscle. As they face off against the hallway full of Grims, three of them already dead, it’s impossible to imagine how we won’t win.
Then the white-haired Grim lifts her hands out in front of her, murmurs words I don’t understand, and lets black-colored power leave her fingertips in a cloud of dark energy. The dark cloud moves sluggishly out in front of her, making the shifters’ tails twitch—only instead of settling on them, it settles on the dead bodies of the Grims.
I watch, horrified and transfixed, as the black fog stuffs itself into the recently-dead corpses through their ears, mouths, noses—anywhere it can get in. Bit by bit it fills them, transforms them, and gives them new life, not as the living but as the undead.
“They’re Risen.” Lynx reaches ou
t and grabs the back of my shirt, tugging me away from the corpses as they sit up inch by inch. “Stay back, Dani. We have to retreat.”
“She shouldn’t be able to use her power.” I glance at the white-haired Grim, and a shiver of revulsion goes down my spine at the triumphant look on her face. “Grims can’t draw on their magic in here.”
“I can’t explain it, but we need to fall back,” Lynx insists. “The Risen can’t be killed by physical weapons. We don’t stand a chance.”
Ezra says, “I hate to admit it, but he's right.”
“I’ve got this.” Yohan steps in front of us, shoves his way between the two shifters, and brandishes his hunting knife in front of him. “Get back, all of you—fall back to the second sector. I’ll hold them off and join you later.”
I open my mouth to protest, but the white-haired Grim speaks first. “You really think you have a chance against my soldiers, weakling? In here you’re nothing more than human.”
“Only a fool thinks that there’s something weak about humanity.” He glances back at us. “Dani, get out of here.”
“But Yohan—”
“Now.”
There’s no arguing with that tone. So I start the retreat, backing up with the demons in front of me, watching Yohan step into the fight.
He moves so fast. Even without his powers, he’s incredibly strong and agile. That knife of his aims out and stabs one of the Risen Grims in the neck, then disembowels the next. The third gets a slash in on his arm, which doesn’t heal fast, but he ducks the second attack and stabs it in the back.
Just as fast as they go down, though, the fallen Risen get back up and come at Yohan again. He doesn’t stop to face them; now that he’s past their lines, he grabs the handle of his hunting knife, balances it, and whips it back to throw it at the white-haired Grim.
The knife hits her point-first in the middle of her chest, digging in by several inches. It’s a killing blow.
Lynx informs us, “Once she dies, the Risen will all collapse, since she’s their master.”
We watch and wait, prepared to dive back into the battle.
The white-haired Grim grabs the handle of the knife stuck in her chest, smirks at us, and yanks it out like it’s nothing.
As soon as it’s out, the wound it leaves behind heals over like it was never there.
“Nice try.” Smile spreading wide, she tells her army of reanimated corpses, “Kill them.”
They respond, “Yes, Lainey.”
And come right towards us all at once.
Chapter 29
There’s no time to think, no time to do much of anything except react. I draw on the power I still have here and pull it into my palms until black fire is gathered there. As one of the reanimated Grims throws itself at me hands out, reaching for my neck to choke me, I let the fire loose on it. But the black fire burns cold, and the Risen Grim barely seems to notice as its skin chars and burns away.
The dead don’t care about pain, after all. Just destruction.
It puts its hands around my neck, pressing down with impossible strength. But before it can do much else, a rope wraps itself nimbly around the Risen’s neck and tugs tight. With strong hands and impossible dexterity, Lynx yanks the undead monster off me.
“We can’t hold them back for long!” He steps between me and the Risen as it gets its energy back and lunges forward for another attack. Lynx ties it up at the knees and jerks it down, resorting to hobbling it since it won’t die. “We’ve got to fall back.”
“I agree,” Yohan says, somehow still alive despite the three Risen falling on him—he must’ve escaped their clutches while one of them was trying to choke me to death. Based on the dark look he sends my way, he’s the same old testy Yohan. “I told you to fall back.”
“We were, but... I couldn’t just watch you die. Also, these guys are fast. They take a lick and keep on coming.”
“Agreed. Whoever this woman is, she created unnaturally powerful Risen—and that’s saying something.”
The white-haired Grim, or Lainey as her monsters call her, is standing back and surveying the work of her Risen with pride. All the other Grims are crowded behind her, occasionally throwing her nervous glances or looks of adulation; clearly she leads them. None of them dare step around her to engage us without her say-so.
At first I don’t get why she’s just standing there instead of attacking, but it quickly starts to make sense when the Risen, despite all our attacks, refuse to die and stay dead. There’s no reason for her to risk her own life or the lives of more of her Grim when the dead bodies will do just as well.
Liam disembowels one, but it still tries to wrestle him even with its intestines swinging around its knees. The Grim that Lynx hobbled practically breaks its own joints getting out of his rope. And the third one faces Yohan with enough blood pouring out of the stab wounds Ezra and Sebastian have given it to recreate that scene in Carrie.
They’re managing to hold them back, but barely. And each of them gets wounded and wastes energy trying to kill what are essentially unbeatable walking corpses. At this point I’m not even sure cutting off their heads would do much, though Ezra looks like he’s about to try.
All in all, it’s starting to look like we’re outnumbered by just the three of them. And there’s something pathetic about getting killed by the undead.
I always thought if I was going to die for a third time, it would at least be at the hands of someone with all their guts still inside their body. Just a personal preference.
“I’ve got an idea,” I say, as Mateo shoots the Risen in the chest several times, despite the fact that they barely seem to notice. “I think I can take them out like I did Victoria.” I glance at Yohan. “Unless you still want us to retreat?”
Between severing a Risen’s hand and grimacing as it hits him with the bloody stump, Yohan spits out, “Just do whatever you’re going to do!”
Pushing my thumb against the still-bleeding wound on my palm, I tell the guys, “I need your power.”
Ezra slices a clean cut against one of the Risen’s necks, and makes a noise of frustration as the wound heals almost as quickly as he made it. “Just tell us where to be, Dani. We’re with you.”
“Always,” Sebastian adds.
Forever. Always. There are new words to me, and they mean everything. Especially when a dead dude with his guts hanging out keeps lunging for my neck, and I have to duck him and his hanging entrails.
With a confidence I’m only kind of faking, I tell the guys where to go, defaulting to the get-shit-done voice Fisk trained me to use in Group Combat drills. “Ezra, get in front of me. Sebastian to my left, Mateo to my right, and Lynx you’re behind me.”
They move, fast and smooth, their speed still superior to the Risen despite the undead creatures' strength and disgusting inability to die. I reach out to their bright spots of energy that live inside me, bonded inexorably to me despite—or because of—everything we’ve been through.
Patient Lynx, impossibly sexy and strong, like a wall behind me. Mateo’s fast wit, great kisses, and fiery ability to blow through burdens, standing to my right. At my left, the quiet, torn bit of pain and pleasure alike that is Sebastian. And always the leader, Ezra in front of me, his blade at the ready and his strength guiding me.
It’s so easy to grab hold of their bright spots of light and wrap their souls around me. Licking dry lips, I say the words I’ve spoken only once before but know by heart. “Use your dark energy to weaken the second soul of the Risen.”
The white-haired Grim makes an angry, frustrated noise. My eyes fly to her, and as my quartet raise their right hands and aim them directly at the Risen, I spare a brief moment to summon black fire to my palm. Leaning past Ezra and splaying my fingers out, I aim it right at the Grim’s face. She screeches and claws at her skin as it sinks into her mouth and eyes, slowing her down for a moment.
As she’s weakened, so are the undead at her command, who moan and sway on their feet. I can see t
heir second souls now: dark, newborn smudges, barely awake long enough to have any strength. Spindly web-like trails lead back to the white-haired Grim, a connection clumsily forged and easily broken.
She may be powerful, but she’s too arrogant to put much effort into her work. No doubt she didn’t realize she’d be facing someone like me.
Slipping into a stream of time, I slow down the world around me and approach each of the three weakened Risen Grims. It takes effort to get close to their managed, recently-dead bodies, but I have to pull off the remains of their Halloween masks to press a bloody thumbprint to each of their foreheads. As I do so I feel their second souls fold into the bonds I have with the demons, like black slicks of oil sliding across a pond of fresh water. The feeling of them adding to our soul bond makes me queasy.
Meanwhile, Lainey the Grim’s burned face is healing, and she’s starting to signal to the Grims at her side, preparing for a second wave. Yohan was right—we have to fall back. As soon as I’m done with this last task.
“Spirits of darkness, second souls, your time is done. Your burden is over.” My voice rings out even as the demons and I pace back through the hallway, watching the Risen’s faces contort in pain as their bodies become a little more human again. “I cut your connection to the everlasting power of the arcane. You are Risen no more.”
They cry out. They stumble. As a last futile move, one of them turns and snarls in the other Grims’ direction, clearly angry at being brought back to life to be tortured and abused. But their no-longer-undead bodies can’t take the beating they’ve gotten; unlike Victoria in her White Phoenix form, they have no regenerative powers. There’s no coming back from their wounds.
As their bodies fall to the ground, I signal to the group around me, and we fall back. Run back is more like it—with well-armed angry Grims at our heels. But at least that white-haired Grim Lainey doesn’t have any more dead bodies to bring back to life with necromancy, or voltari demons to summon.
Racing around the corner into the second quadrant of the prison complex, we come to the fallback doors that close off sections of the prison in order to prevent escape. My lungs burn as I slide past them, four demons, a tiger, a lion, and an ornery teacher on my heels. Mateo shoots a few bullets at the Grims to slow them down as Yohan punches the code into the security pad, hitting the red button to shut the doors quickly.