Of Blood and Monsters

by D. G. Swank

  “Piper, are you okay?”

  “I killed him,” I said, looking up at her in shock. “I didn’t mean to do it. The demon hand…”

  “Don’t touch it, okay?” she said, sounding like she was negotiating a hostage crisis, only I was both the hostage and the captor. “I’m going to get Jack. He’ll know what to do.”

  Tears welled in my eyes. “I killed him.”

  “Piper!” she shouted. “Listen to me. Don’t do anything else…Oh, shit. The cameras…”

  She glanced up at it, and I just reacted, on instinct and pure adrenaline, jumping up from the cot and snatching the hand up from the floor. I sought out the camera and shot a flame toward it, sending electrical sparks flying throughout the cell, and the darkness inside the hand immediately took hold of me.

  Olivia released a shriek, but I turned to face her, feeling the demon’s anger and purpose coursing through my veins. Destroy the humans and make them our slaves. Take the slayer to the Great One. But I was the slayer and the Great One was destroyed and the demon in me was confused.

  Once again, I threw the hand to the floor, at once repulsed and vibrating with an unnatural fury.

  “I’m going to get Jack,” she said, then turned to look at Detective Lawton’s now-smoldering body. “Why hasn’t anyone come in yet?” she asked, sounding equally relieved and worried.

  I could feel the demon’s anger and purpose fading to nothing.

  “Olivia,” I said through clenched teeth as I began to violently shake.

  She glanced over her shoulder at me.

  “Tell Jack that I was momentarily possessed by the demon’s power and purpose. But it faded soon after I dropped the hand. Maybe we can use it to our advantage tonight.”

  “You can’t be serious! You want to use a demon’s power?”

  I got to my feet and walked to the bars. “At any time now, an army of demons is bursting out of hell with the sole purpose of tracking down me, Abel, the curse keepers, and likely Jack, to either kill us or drag us to hell to torture for eternity. We might have a supernatural army to help us, but I have no idea how many demons are coming nor how many supernatural creatures will help. The demons will be hungry. The entire city of Asheville is in danger, and we are the only ones to stop them.” My shoulders tensed. “I’ve never been more serious. I will do anything and everything I can to stop them.”

  The fear in her eyes made me question whether I should have been so blunt, but she had to understand the stakes.

  “I’ll find Jack,” she said in an expressionless tone. “But I have no idea how we’re going to explain him.” She gestured to the still-burning body beside her.

  “I’ll take care of that,” I said with a shocking amount of confidence. “Call Jack, then get out of Asheville. I’m serious, Olivia.”

  She shook her head. “You must not know me very well if you think I could just leave. I’ve sworn to protect the citizens of Asheville, and that’s what I intend to do.” Then she turned around and left.

  As soon as the door clicked behind her, the horror of what I’d just done hit me full force. There was no denying or sugarcoating it now—I’d killed a man. I could claim that it wasn’t my fault, that I’d been temporarily possessed by the demon, but I hadn’t tried to stop it. The ugly truth was that I’d wanted to kill him. I doubted it would have happened otherwise.

  Evil was brewing in my soul. Was it because I’d slept with Abel, or had the danger and violence drawn something that had been there all along out of hibernation? But I didn’t have time to examine my conscience or my soul. I had to get out of here before Adonis showed up. I had to find the others. I had to protect my friends.

  I had to get to Abel. He’d know what to do. He’d help me fix this.

  But then I realized I hadn’t heard Abel’s voice since I’d been locked up in the holding cell. I knew he still had the ring, and if ever there were a situation to use it without permission, this was one. He must have tried to communicate with me since I’d been tossed in here.

  So what did that mean?

  It meant I was on my own.

  But then a shimmer appeared outside of my cell, and Hudson came into sight, frowning at the still-smoldering body.

  “Hudson,” I cried out, rushing to the bars and wrapping my hands around them. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You have to get out of here, of course,” he said, turning back to me with a reassuring smile, only something about him looked different. “Use the demon hand to open the lock.”

  My mouth dropped open. “I can do that?”

  “You can do anything. You’re Piper Fucking Lancaster.” While it was supposed to be a confidence-boosting speech, something about his tone made me uncomfortable.

  He pointed to the demon hand that lay in the middle of the cell. “Pick it up.”

  I shook my head. Something was off about him, and despite my perky speech about the possibility of using demon power to our advantage, I was having serious second thoughts now that the power rush was fading. “Huddy, that hand is evil. I think I’m turning evil.”

  “No, Piper. You’re fighting to survive. The world is counting on you. You are Kewasa to all.”

  “But I killed him, Hudson. I killed the detective using power from the demon’s hand.”

  “You harnessed a demon’s power? Do you have any idea what you can do with that? This is great news!”

  “How can you say that? It’s horrible.”

  “You did what you had to do, Piper,” he said again as though I’d confessed to swatting a fly.

  I took a step back as I remembered Ellie’s warning about Okeus, how he’d created something that had resembled her father but wasn’t really him. “What did you give me for my thirteenth birthday?”

  He blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about? Why would you bring that up now?”

  Fear washed through me like thick sludge. “Hudson. Answer the question.”

  “That was a long time ago,” he said.

  “No. We were just talking about it a few weeks ago when we were discussing my birthday.”

  He stared at me for several seconds, and then his body morphed into that of another young man, the one I’d seen during the creation of the world, a young Ahone.

  “Well, it was worth a try,” he said, brushing his hands together as if trying to rid himself of Hudson’s cooties.

  “Why?” I asked, fighting back tears. Had I seen the real Hudson this morning or Ahone masquerading as my best friend? But this one felt different. His face looked almost plastic-like, and when I looked closely, his hair looked like a wig.

  “Why did I do any of this?” he asked, moving closer. “To best my brother.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “That’s okay,” he said with a patient smile. “You don’t need to, but here’s what you do need to know. You have a choice—be enslaved by Okeus or pledge your fealty to me.”

  When I started to tell him to go to hell, he held up a hand to cut me off. “No, I don’t want your answer now. It’s not time, but if you pledge fealty to me, rest assured I will save all who you hold dear.”

  I held out my left hand. “Can you stop the mark from appearing on my hand?”

  He grimaced and hesitated. “I suspect that alone would get you to drop to your knees and worship me, but I won’t lie to you, not in this. I cannot stop it. Nothing can.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  A slow grin tipped up one side of his mouth. “Which part?”

  “Any of it. You created the mark. You can stop it.”

  “The origin mark belongs to fate, creator of worlds. Some things are out of even my control.”

  Then he smiled again, then faded to nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jack

  The sun had sunk, setting his nerves on edge, but Jack parked his car on the side road south of the bridge. When he’d come here before with Piper to free Rhys from the Guardians, they’d pa
rked further away, but there was no need for stealth tonight. The demons would be here soon enough.

  “Helen,” he called out as he approached the bridge, hoping the ward the seer had created to help him see all things supernatural wouldn’t fail him.

  Helen’s long, sorrowful wail would have ordinarily filled him with fear and empathy, but tonight it filled him with hope.

  “Helen,” he said softly. “It’s Jack. Remember me?”

  She appeared to him then, swinging from the bridge by a rope around her neck, her white nightgown billowing around her. Tonight her face was grotesque in its death mask—her face a bluish-gray with bulging eyes, her swollen tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth. He didn’t see her as solidly as when he touched Piper, but she was real enough.

  “Helen,” he said again. “I think I can help you.”

  Her swaying stopped and the gentle breeze abruptly dropped off. “Why do you think I need help?”

  “Aren’t you looking for Margaret?”

  The haunting of Helen’s Bridge at the top of Beaucatcher Mountain was famous in Asheville, and people often climbed to the top of the hill at night to try to get a reaction out of Helen. To all those people, she was a sideshow freak, but to Jack, she was a suffering soul who longed to be reunited with her long-dead three-year-old daughter. The poor girl had been burned to death in a fire, likely set by the wife of her employer and lover. While the fire might have occurred over a century ago, to Helen it was still just as fresh as though it had happened yesterday.

  Helen’s ghost disappeared from the bridge, and he felt his hair stand on end with a current of electricity stronger than what he’d previously felt in her presence. He was either more sensitive to her energy or she’d gotten a power boost, and as far as Jack knew, the only possible power source for a ghost was a demon.

  “Why do you think you can help me, priest?” she sneered in the air around him, still invisible.

  “I’ve been researching, Helen. I think I can help you find Margaret.”

  “She’s not waiting for me in the light,” she said with venom-laced words. “Her soul was cursed.”

  “I know,” Jack said softly. “A seer told me.”

  She reappeared then, only this time she wasn’t hanging from the bridge. Rather, she stood in front of him in a simple turn-of-the-twentieth-century dress. “A seer?”

  “The seer’s grandmother was the one who cursed your daughter.”

  Rage filled Helen’s eyes and she released a scream that shot through the night sky, shaking the leaves. He expected to see birds take flight, but he realized that all the birds were gone. The demons had scared the remaining wildlife away.

  Helen’s eyes glowed as she directed her anger toward him.

  Jack held up his hand, his heart hammering in his chest. “Helen, I can help you. I think I can break the curse.”

  “Margaret is in hell,” Helen wailed. “And my soul wasn’t stained enough to go to her. You cannot help me.”

  “I think I can,” Jack said, taking a short step closer, “but we have to do it soon. The demons are coming.”

  A soft smile lifted the corner of her lips. “I know.”

  His breath stuck in his throat, but he pushed out, “How do you know?”

  Then it hit him. Her increased power. Her desire to go to hell.

  “Helen,” he said, blood pulsing in his ears. “You do not want to go to hell. Trust me. I’ve seen it. No one wants to willingly go there.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “My Kieran wants to go.”

  “And you don’t want him to go either, do you?” Jack said. “So why would you want to go yourself?”

  “Margaret.”

  “I know,” Jack said, instinctively reaching for her. To his surprise, he felt the rough weave of her dress sleeve under his hand, something he wouldn’t have thought possible without Piper. “But I found a way to break the curse and pull Margaret from hell. Then Piper can send you both to the light.”

  Her eyes darkened. “Piper. She wants to kill my Kieran.”

  “No.” Jack shook his head. “She’s doing everything in her power to save him. She’s trying to stop the mark.”

  “She wants him for herself,” Helen said, “but he loved me first.”

  A heartsick ghost. Jack hadn’t seen that one coming. “Kieran cares about you.”

  “But not enough.” Her haunting eyes pierced his. “Piper must die.”

  Fear raced through his blood. “Okeus won’t like that,” Jack said. “He wants Piper for himself and very much alive. He won’t let you into hell if you kill her.”

  An evil grin lit up her face. “I never said I made a deal with the god of war.”

  Oh shit. Icy dread washed through him. “Ahone?”

  “Kieran will be mine. Kieran and I can both go to hell, but first I must purchase my admission. I must kill the slayer.”

  “Helen,” Jack said, trying to figure out how to reason with her, but her plight had clearly driven her mad. “I’ve seen hell twice. It was a horrible, horrible place. You do not want to go there. Let me bring Margaret.”

  She studied him for a moment, which he took as an encouraging sign.

  “Think about Margaret. I’m sure she doesn’t want to stay in hell. She wants to go to the light.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “My baby needs me.”

  “Then let’s get her, okay?” Jack asked, feeling his confidence return. He’d been studying this for weeks. He hadn’t planned to try it yet, but if the demons were coming, he wasn’t sure Helen’s tenuous grasp on sanity would survive. He had to do this now. “I have the things I need to draw Margaret out of hell, but we need to hurry.”

  An amused look filled her eyes. “You truly believe you can do this?”

  Her change in demeanor caused him a moment of pause. “Yes. At least let me try.”

  She nodded her acquiescence, and he started to climb the north hill, into the woods. He knew it would be easier to walk around to the other side and cross over the stone carriage bridge, but he didn’t trust Helen. She seemed less excited to save her daughter than he’d expected.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I have to call her to the gate.”

  Helen looked less sure now, but she walked with him, or more like floated.

  “Can you show me where the gate is?” he asked once he knew they were close. “I know the general location, but Deidre says I have to be at the mouth, and I can’t see it.”

  Helen eyed him curiously as though wary of a trick, but she led him to a small dip in the ground. He dropped to his knees and slipped off his backpack, pulling out the supplies Deidre had sold him. Jack had hoped to have Piper help him when he did this—he would pull Margaret out and Piper would send them both to the light—but this couldn’t wait. He’d altered his hasty plan to ensure he could still protect Helen and her daughter. Now that he knew Ellie could cross into Piper’s pocket universes, he hoped she’d be willing to bring Helen and her daughter up to the protection of the attic before they left to face the demon army.

  He could only hope there was time.

  Jack set out his supplies and laid sage sticks in a foot-by-foot square on the damp ground. Once that was complete, he used a piece of red yarn to make a circle inside the square. He set small votive candles in the corners of the square, then sprinkled holy water on everything, saying a prayer to St. Michael, the archangel etched on Piper’s dagger, asking for his protection and assistance guiding the lost spirit from the depths of hell.

  Helen watched in silence, and he was relieved that he’d convinced her to at least try this his way.

  Lighting the candles and then the sage, Jack prayed to other angels to lend their guidance. Then, when he was sure he and Helen were as protected as possible, he began the chant Deidre had taught him last week, opening the mouth of hell just enough for him to call inside.

  A small black hole appeared in the air, a swirling mass of death and chaos that coated his
skin with hopelessness and despair. He prayed to his guardian angel to boost his faith as he then called out, “Margaret, your mother waits for you.”

  A small girl’s cry grew louder and closer. Helen dropped to her knees across from Jack, shouting, “Margaret, Momma’s here, baby. Come to Momma!”

  Jack pulled some herbs from a pouch and sprinkled them around the square. “Using the power and the blessing of Deidre, from the Savannah line, I break the curse that binds you to hell and call you forth, Margaret. Come to your mother.”

  A small girl’s face appeared, golden corkscrew ringlets surrounding her face, but worms crawled from her empty eye sockets and her mouth was lopsided, as though it had been removed and put back on crooked.

  “Momma,” she said in an innocent voice, but a surge of power came with it, full of malice and hate.

  Helen screamed, “That is not my daughter!”

  Jack stared at the girl, wondering if he’d done something wrong, but then he reminded himself that the child had spent a century in hell. They could figure out how to fix her after they got her out.

  “I need your help, Helen,” he pleaded. “You have to be the one to pull her out.”

  “That is not my daughter!” she screamed, flinging her finger toward the horrifying face.

  “She’s been in hell, Helen,” he said, trying to make her understand. “We’ll save her and then ask Kieran how to fix her,” he said, thinking on the fly.

  Her face softened at the sound of Abel’s name. “Kieran.”

  “That’s right,” he said as the girl made agonizing sounds. “Kieran cares about you. He’ll want to help Margaret. To help you.”

  “Kieran never comes to see me anymore,” she said, clutching her hands to her chest as tears welled in her eyes. “He loves her now.”

  “He still cares about you,” Jack insisted. “I know it. Now, let’s pull Margaret out and ask him what to do.”

  She cast a dark gaze at the girl, her brow lowering. “He said you would do anything to save her. You would go so far as to trick me.”

  “Margaret?” Jack asked. “It’s not a trick, Helen. I swear to you that I want to save her. I’m a priest. Helping people is what I do.” And in that hellish moment, all his agony about whether he’d made the wrong decision to join the priesthood washed away and new conviction flooded him. This was where he needed to be.