by Rose O'Brien
“You might be able to do this on your own. But this is his life we’re talking about. Why risk it? Why not get a guarantee?”
The demon was right. If Xander said yes, they’d have their best chance to make it out of here. Theron had to survive. He was the good one. He was the one who held everything together. If he died, not only would Xander be lost, it would kill Alayna and their mother.
And without Jen, Theron would be a broken man. She had to make it out, too.
Xander considered his own dark soul. It wasn’t worth saving, couldn’t be saved. Throwing a demon on top of that wouldn’t change a thing.
“On one condition,” Xander said quietly. “When we reach Earth, you don’t leave my body. I’m not letting you loose.”
The demon was silent a long time and Xander thought the creature may have gone when it finally spoke again.
“You see, mage, I have no grand designs on invasion and conquest like Lilith and Falak. I just want free of this place. I will gladly live quietly within you until your death, feeding on the fear of the people you kill. I have no doubt that I will never go hungry, and you’ll never even know I’m there. I could even give you a small portion of my power to control fear in others. Think of what you could do with that.”
This was about saving his brother. Xander took a deep breath.
“It’s a deal.”
***
“I have someone I want you to meet.” Lilith’s words echoed in Jen’s ears as she turned to see a figure standing in the living room of the dream house the demon had created from her thoughts.
He looked just as he had in the moments before Bridget put three bullets through his chest. Those bottomless indigo eyes were just the same, the perfect combination of blue and violet. The hair was just the same, that mix of blonde and red, the color shifting as he moved, looking for all the world like the flames he controlled. He was just as tall, just as broad and just as overwhelming as he had been.
The copy was perfect.
And it made her want to scream and vomit at the same time.
Turning away from the facsimile of Theron, she came face to face with Lilith’s excited grin. The grin quickly turned to a frown when she saw Jen’s face.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“It’s not him! He’s not here!” Jen didn’t mean to scream in the demon’s face, but that’s exactly what she found herself doing.
Lilith put out a calming hand and tried to quiet her.
“Of course not, sweetie. I made him. Just for you. From your memories. It’s my gift to you.”
“Send it away!” Jen could feel hot tears streaking down her face.
A frown creased the demon’s face, and Lilith’s eyes narrowed angrily for a moment. But like a cloud passing in front of the sun, it was there and gone in a moment, the bright light of a smile returning to her impossibly beautiful face.
“I’m so sorry,” Lilith said, waving her hand and causing the not-Theron to disappear in an instant. “I should have realized it was too soon for you. Ugh, I’m so fucking stupid sometimes. I don’t get to hang out with living humans very often. Can you forgive me, sweetie?”
Jen tried to breathe through the pain that had taken up residence at the sight of Theron here in this dimension. The only thing that was keeping her from being a blubbering pile on the floor was the sure and certain knowledge that while he was dead, he was not here.
He’d been a hero. Her hero. And if there was any justice in the universe, he was in a much better place than this one.
“I just need a minute, Lilith. Can you just give me a little time alone?”
“Absolutely,” the demon said, backing up toward the door of the little beach house. “If you need me, just call my name.”
And then she was gone and Jen was alone.
Sinking to her knees, she tried to stop the flow of tears, to find her center, to be the strong person she knew she was and that Theron would want her to be. But the tears just kept flowing.
***
Theron looked down at the pistol in his hand. It whispered a dark promise of relief. He looked up into Jen’s exhausted eyes.
“This is what you want?” he asked softly.
“I want the pain to stop,” she said, her voice crackling. “Don’t you?”
The thought that he had done this to her, put her here, clawed at him. The thought of their dead child tore his heart out. But the thought of losing her, going on without her, that was killing him.
He raised the gun slowly. And stopped. And frowned.
This wasn’t right. Something about this wasn’t right. A little bell was chiming in his skull, trying to tell him that something wasn’t right.
It was the eyes. Jen’s eyes, his Jen’s eyes, had never held defeat. That woman had faced pain and adversity, had walked into the teeth of a war zone and out the other side. If he hadn’t convinced her to work with him, to trust him, he had no doubt she would have eventually found a way to defeat him.
His Jen wouldn’t give up, not as long as there was a breath left in her body, and maybe not even then. That meant this wasn’t his Jen.
He leapt to his feet springing back from the creature. In a split second he called his fire to his left hand, directing a blast squarely at the thing that dared to wear the face of the woman he loved.
The ferocity of the flame startled him for a moment, but he recovered. It was electric blue, like the hellfire around them, and it erupted from him in a roar that knocked the creature back.
It screamed with an inhuman voice, morphing into a shadowy form twice as tall as he was. The flames covered the thing as it writhed in pain.
Theron hit it again, pressing his advantage and pouring everything he had into the torrent of flame that came roaring from him. His anger, pain, fear and sorrow he kept back, shoving them away for fear it would feed the demon. Instead, he fed the flames with a sense of righteous justice.
The thing screamed again, climbing up the octaves to ear splitting frequencies. Theron felt a warm body press against his leg and looked down to see Sparky at his side. He felt heat flowing up his leg as the hellhound fed some of his energy into Theron.
“The demon took flesh, and now it’s trapped. Finish it!” Sparky said.
Dropping the pistol, Theron raised his right hand and released a second column of flames. He brought the two streams together at what he guessed was center mass on the vaguely human-shaped form.
The shadowy form began to dissolve from the middle out, the screams fading to a gurgling choking sound. Suddenly, Theron found himself thrown back by the force of a blast, his feet leaving the ground for a moment before his back slammed into the rock wall behind him.
Sparky hit the wall beside him and he just hoped the hellhound was okay.
Theron shook his head and looked around trying to get his eyes to focus. The creature was gone, and Xander was running toward him, the hood of his cloak blown back.
“What the fuck was that?” Xander shouted as he skidded to a stop, his eyes wide.
“I think that was a fear demon getting roasted,” Theron said.
“Well, yeah,” Xander said, waving a hand to dismiss the comment. “I’m talking about your fire, man. You’re normally more flamethrower meets roman candle. That was more firestorm. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Xander’s voice was a mix of amazed and worried.
Theron looked over at Sparky.
“You know anything about this?”
The hellhound shook itself as he rose, tilted his head and raised a shoulder in a gesture that looked disconcertingly like a shrug.
“When we connected, it appears you picked up the ability to control hellfire,” Sparky told him. “And I might have given you a little extra energy.”
Theron shook his head.
“Just glad you’re on my side.”
A few minutes later, the three of them were moving down the path at a good clip, nervous that something might have been attracted to the lig
ht and noise of the battle with Agramon. Theron wasn’t sure the demon was dead. Wasn’t even sure if demons died. It was probably a good bet they wouldn’t hear from him for a while. Still, best to clear out.
Xander explained that he hadn’t been able to see Theron. He’d thought he was alone until Theron had hit the demon with his fire, then he and Sparky had reappeared.
Theron told him everything the demon had said, it’s last ditch attempt to get him to take his own life. And how it had almost worked.
Xander stared at him, something dark moving in his eyes.
“That’s fucked up, man,” was all he said.
Silence descended between them and they walked on.
Chapter 20
Jen sat on the bed in the sunny bedroom of her beach house, her back resting on the headboard while hugging her knees to her chest.
What the fuck was she supposed to do now? Lilith was trying to tempt her with the things she wanted most in exchange for her help. She could see that. Ultimately, she had two options in front of her: fight and probably die in the process, or let the demon give her everything she wanted in exchange for using her gift to lure spirits of the dead into becoming food for demons.
Hell of a choice.
She smiled a little at her unintentional pun. Suddenly, Theron’s smile popped into her head, and she felt a stab of pain.
Damn it. For a few short days, she’d had something so good and so real. She’d held love in her heart, had felt the edges of it, learned the shape of it. And now it was gone, but her heart still remembered the shape, would always remember.
As she sat, lost in her thoughts, a shadowy shade floated through the room, passing through the walls as if they weren’t there. The walls weren’t actually there, she supposed. Her head started hurting every time she thought about it.
Shades had been periodically drifting through the house since Lilith had left her. That was going to take some getting used to. She wished they’d steer clear. Things gave her the creeps.
“Jen,” a man’s voice whispered beside her.
She jumped and turned to find Jeremiah, the spirit of the dead mage from Damascus, standing beside the bed.
“Fuck! Give a girl some warning next time,” she shouted, her hand pressing to her chest to slow her hammering heart.
“Sorry to startle you. I’m still getting the hang of this taking solid form thing.”
“What do you want?” she asked him.
“To keep you from making a terrible mistake.”
“What mistake would that be?”
“Taking Lilith’s deal. I’ve been talking to a few of the other spirits that are still lucid. Lilith has been feeding you a line. She’s not trying to stop Falak’s invasion of our world,” Jeremiah said. “She’s trying to beat him to it.”
“What does that change?”
“You mean you’d still take the deal?”
Jen blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m not sure I have much of a choice, not if I want to survive.”
For just a moment, Jen sank into all the feelings rushing through her. She was scared, more scared than she’d ever been in her life. She was at the mercy of powerful beings that she didn’t understand, beings that wanted to use her.
Grief was like a heavy stone, pulling her under dark waters. It threatened to drown her. She’d lost everything and everyone she’d ever loved. Because she’d been betrayed at every turn. For a few brief hours in Theron’s arms, she’d learned to hope again, hope for a future that had happiness and love in it. She’d been so stupid.
Anger raged within her, a black bonfire that threatened to consume everything she was, everything she would ever be. For the barest moment of time, she thought about what it would be like to give in. Join the demons. Go full dark side. Let them give her everything she’d ever wanted. Take her revenge on the people and things that had hurt her.
And let the world burn.
Horrified, she pulled back from those thoughts. What was happening to her? Was she about to go supervillain?
Her fingers went to her throat, but her phoenix necklace was gone, lost amid the confusion. She’d even lost her talisman, but the thought of it still comforted her. She’d been reduced to ashes again, but she’d risen once. She could do it again.
“It’s not a choice between saying yes or no to the deal,” Jeremiah’s voice interrupted. “There’s a third option: run.”
“Run where?” Jen asked, rolling her eyes. “There’s no food or water out there. I’d be dead in a matter of days. And that’s if they don’t catch me first.”
“Maybe death is better than being a tool of the demons trying to invade our world,” Jeremiah said, his face twisted with anger.
“So I’d go from being their tool to their food. No thanks!”
“I’m just trying to tell you the score, what you do with that is your business. But don’t think I’m going to stand by and let you have any peace if you help them.”
Anger boiled within her.
“Get out!” she shouted at him.
As if a gale force wind had whipped through the room, Jeremiah was tossed backwards right through the wall and was gone.
***
They were fucked.
Theron stared out at the city that spread out below them. They’d made it out of the foothills of the Mountains of Terror. Obsidian spires of all sizes reached toward the starless black sky. Eerie blue-purple light from the burning sulfur seeped out of windows and openings of the spires and out of cracks in the ground.
Was Jen in that city somewhere? There was no way to tell exactly where or even if she was anywhere near here.
Theron started to voice his concerns when Xander started his descent from the ridge they were standing on.
“Where are you going?” Theron called. “We have no idea where she is.”
Xander remained silent. Theron dropped his boots onto the steep incline and started skidding down after his brother, black dust rising up at their passage. Sparky loped along behind them, casting glances over his shoulder periodically.
As they reached the outskirts of the city, the first formations—Theron couldn’t bring himself to call them buildings—just a couple hundred yards off, he grabbed Xander’s shoulder and spun him to face him.
“Where are we going? We need a plan here, or we’re going to get slaughtered.”
Xander stared at him hard for a long moment before he turned and gestured at a huge spire that towered over the city.
“I think it’s pretty obvious where she is,” Xander said, jerking his arm from Theron’s grasp and walking away. “And if she’s not there, someone there will know where she is.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to,” Xander growled, his hands clenching into hard fists.
That brought Theron up short. What the hell was going on with Xander? He knew better than to push his brother when he was like this; he’d just shut down completely. But this wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. Theron made a note to circle back to this when they were safe.
If they were ever safe again.
The formations on the edge of the city were like giant lava bubbles that had cooled to smooth obsidian glass. Small openings were peppered across the surface, and the blue glow that seemed to be the only source of illumination in this world emanated from them.
As they moved past the bubble formations, shadows shifted within. Were these dwellings? Theron couldn’t spare the attention to contemplate the architecture. His senses were on high alert, watching for threats from every direction. His pistols were holstered to keep his hands free. He wasn’t sure how much good bullets would do against these things, but he knew for certain that his new hellfire enhanced powers could get the job done.
If the demons took solid form, he reminded himself. Even now, a thousand invisible demons might be watching them from above. He shoved the thought away. Start thinking like that and he’d paralyze himself.
> The streets were eerily empty. Nothing moved but a hot wind that stirred around the cracks where liquid blue magma glowed.
The layout of the spires and bubbles made no sense. There wasn’t anything that could be called streets. Order was a foreign concept to this place, it seemed.
Suddenly, Xander, who had taken point, threw up a fist to signal Theron and Sparky to stop. They all crouched in the shadow of a spire that towered five or six stories above them.
Several shadowy, humanoid shapes moved along past them, seemingly unaware of the presence of humans or a hellhound.
“Shades,” Sparky’s voice spoke in his head. “They are used up spirits. No memories, no emotions. Barely have form. They serve the demons as mindless drones.”
“Are they a threat?” Theron asked.
“Only if one of the demons who controls them orders them to hurt you.”
Nodding, Xander motioned them forward and they set out again, Xander on point, Theron shifting his focus forward and rear, and Sparky watching their sixes.
***
“Go stand in that corner,” Jen said, pointing to the far corner of her illusory beach house.
The shade silently obeyed, then stood motionless with its spindly shadow arms by its sides.
In the hours since she’d banished Jeremiah, she’d been practicing her powers on the shades that wandered through her house. She’d captured and released several of them now, collecting as much data as she could. It seemed she could easily command them if she told them what she wanted and thought about it at the same time. Voice alone didn’t cut it.
It was time for the next phase of the experiment. She was going to test whether thought alone could control the shades.
Jen focused, picturing the shade moving to the opposite corner and standing there. She sent her thoughts in the direction of the shade. And it moved.
Her focus faltered for a moment in her surprise, and the creature halted. Resuming control, Jen was able to send the shade around the room at a whim.