Chapter 5
For two years, I had never defied Davis. I was the perfect girlfriend, always giving in to his whims and trailing after him like a love struck fool. No wonder our relationship had worked so well for so long.
But my perfect record was about to be broken.
I couldn’t wait around the house until nine o’clock and play the dutiful girlfriend. If I did that, then I’d miss the comet ceremony with my coven and probably be banished from the group. They took their ceremonies seriously and this was literally a once in a hundred years opportunity.
Davis would probably kill me when he turned up and I wasn’t there, but he would have to find me first. Hopefully, it would take him a while to do that.
And hopefully I’d be able to talk my way out of it.
I grabbed my ceremonial robe and left the house. I drove to the woods, clenching the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white. A part of me still wanted to turn back and wait for Davis. But I had made my decision and I was going to stick with it.
The rest of the coven was already there when I arrived. Mandy rushed over when she saw me. Her face was full of concern. “You’re late. I thought something might have happened to you. I was about two seconds away from raising the alarm.”
I gave her a quick hug. “Sorry, I… was running late.” I wasn’t going to worry her even more by telling her about Davis’s date request. This was my decision and I would deal with the consequences alone.
Heidi called us over to start the ceremony, leaving any further conversation on the tips of our tongues. I pulled my dark blue robe around me, enjoying the familiar feel of the velvet cocooning me. I wished it made me as safe as it made me feel.
We stood around the circle as Heidi lit the candles. The flames danced in the darkness of the night. The moon was full above our heads, casting shadows of all shapes and sizes onto the wood’s floor.
“In this sacred circle, we call to thee Mother Nature,” Heidi started, her eyes glazed over as she fell into ritual mode. “Tonight we celebrate the power of the comet and all the energy it radiates. May it fill us with eternal light, bask us in its beauty, and surround us with its protective arms.”
We all spoke in unison, “Blessed be.”
She moved around the circle, lighting candles on the ground to represent the four elements of the spirit. Air. Water. Fire. Earth. One after the other, the flames flickered into life, burning strong and bright in the glow of the moonlight.
“The comet is upon us,” Heidi yelled, her face upturned to the sky. We followed her gaze, getting our first glimpse of the orange ball of light. It was like a small sun, speeding through the galaxy with a less bright tail following it.
“Blessed be.”
“Let us feel the power of the comet. Let it wash over us like Spirit’s shadow.”
“Blessed be.”
Laughter suddenly erupted from behind me. I jumped with the fright before spinning around. I was breaking the circle, something I should not be doing but I had no other choice.
Davis stepped out of the trees. He was dressed in a black shirt with black skinny jeans. He had even combed his hair down. My Aethien ex-boyfriend was ready for a date.
“Davis, I-“
He put a hand up to stop me. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, lover.”
“I command you to leave,” Heidi shouted. She was still using her ceremonial voice, the one that intimidated the hell out of me.
Not Davis, however. “And I command you to shut up. But I guess we’re both going to be disappointed.” He dragged his gaze back to me. “You are going to pay for this, Lace. I hope you’ve said your goodbyes because you’re about to die.”
Before I could react, or even try to process what he was doing, Davis lunged at me. Our bodies collided as he swung me around, his arm snaking around my neck and holding me tighter than a boa constrictor.
Breathing was quickly becoming an issue. I clawed at his arm, digging my fingernails in to inflict any kind of pain I could. Davis didn’t even feel it.
“Let her go!” Mandy yelled. “You’re going to kill her.”
Davis laughed again, his hot breath skimming across the back of my neck. “That’s the point, little witch. Nobody makes a fool out of me, especially my girlfriend.” He shifted us around so I was facing the rest of the coven. “And now you all get to see for yourselves what happens when someone betrays an Aethien.”
There was horror written all over their faces. None of my fellow witches were moving, completely and utterly helpless against a demon as powerful as Davis.
Heidi moved first, holding up her hand and incanting a spell under her breath. A fire ball appeared in her palm, growing with size the longer she spoke. When it was as big as a basketball, she threw it.
Davis stopped it mid-flight. With a twist of his free hand, the fireball turned and headed directly back to her. She shrieked, jumping out of the path just in time. The ball only managed to singe her sleeve.
More spells were spoken around me, each of the witches trying their best to get a hold of the situation and wrangle the power back from Davis.
They wouldn’t succeed.
Thousands of years’ worth of history told me a witch had never beaten an Aethien. They had tried, many times. But the magic of the darkness was too strong for the magic of the light. Evil won every time.
Stars were starting to swim in front of my eyes as the edges of my vision started to blacken and creep in on me. It was all I could do to stay on my feet and remain conscious.
I was going to die.
If I didn’t do something, I was really going to die. My life would be over. I would never get to do all the things I always imagined I would do. Graduate, go to college, get a fantastic job, get married, have children. It wasn’t my past that flashed before my eyes but all the things from my future.
I could not die.
The comet was now blazing overhead. It lit up the sky with a flaming red brilliance that eclipsed the silver of the moon. It radiated as much power as Rudy had promised. I could almost feel it coursing through my blood like it was a part of me.
“Let her go or we will kill you,” Heidi continued to shout. She had thrown every spell she had at Davis and nothing worked. She was resorting to threats that we all knew were impossible.
Davis pulled me backward. He wasn’t going to strangle me to death, not in the circle. He wanted to draw it out, make it as painful for me as possible. He wanted to enjoy it.
My feet dragged on the ground, unable to keep up with him. Once he got me away from the meager protection of the circle, he would take me somewhere. From that moment onwards, the clock ticking on my life would start its countdown.
Instead of making it easy for him, I started fighting. My legs kicked out, managing to collide with his shin just once and his knee once more. I clawed so much at his arm around my neck that my fingers were soon covered in his blood.
“Bitch!” His arm fell away as he pushed me forward.
I stumbled but refused to fall. I caught my footing and gasped in the fresh night air. For just a moment, there was nothing I could do but breath and enjoy the sensation of having full lungs again.
Davis was bleeding from dozens of deep scratches on his arm. I didn’t feel guilty. He wouldn’t feel the pain, only the indignation I had caused him.
He stepped closer, coming for me again. I only had a few seconds and I was going to use them wisely.
With the comet burning above, I had only one weapon in my arsenal. It probably wouldn’t work but it was all I had. I called up the words of the spell I had found in the library’s fairy tale books. It didn’t even mention a comet, but someone had drawn one next to it. It was a straw I grasped with both hands.
“Inspir perai shudo bren. Gra theus incai perai.” I repeated the words from an ancient language over and over again. I didn’t know their translation but I didn’t need to. The ancient spirits of our ancestors would know what I said.
Davis’s face twisted with rage as realization hit him about what I was doing. He grabbed both my arms, using them to shake me. “Shut the hell up! You frickin’ bitch!”
I didn’t stop. The comet’s power still sizzled through me, vibrating with energy. “Inspir perai shudo bren. Gra theus incai perai. Inspir perai shudo bren. Gra theus incai perai.”
Through Davis’s shaking and yelling, more voices filtered through to my ears. My coven sisters were repeating the words with me. Our voices rose higher, drowning out the demon’s protests.
“Inspir perai shudo bren. Gra theus incai perai.”
Davis let go of my arms and I stilled. His hands moved to my neck, both of them gripping tight and starting to squeeze. I could no longer talk as I clawed at him again. This time, he didn’t care about the scratches.
I looked up into his eyes. They burned with anger, leaving no trace of the Davis I used to know. Staring back at me was an Aethien demon, a spawn from hell.
And he was going to kill me.
The spell had not worked.
Celestial Page 37