by D. G. Swank
The doglike things stopped several feet from the door, their massive heads swiveling from one side to the other—sniffing the air.
“They are smelling for her,” Tsagasi murmured.
I was prepared to fight them, but also prepared to send them back to hell using the power in the mark on my hand. If Collin would agree to combine his power with mine, we could recite a chant that would destroy them completely—which was how we’d earned our ‘destroyer of life’ titles—but he’d only agreed to it once. Apparently, even Collin had an ethical line in the sand.
Maybe he’d change his mind for this one.
I held out my right palm. “Collin . . . ?”
His jaw was set, and a determined look filled his eyes. “We don’t have enough time.”
At the sound of our voices, the demons lowered their heads and focused their attention on us, their eyes glowing with a golden light.
“But,” he said in a low tone as he leaned forward, his arm bending slightly in preparation to attack. “If it looks like we can’t handle them, I’ll keep them busy while you send them away. We can’t let them leave the cemetery.”
I started to protest, but he was right. Sending them away with one mark would only be a temporary fix, but better that than the alternative. “Okay.”
Collin took a breath as though preparing to run toward the dog things, but before he could launch off, several more demons emerged from the still-glowing crypt. These were even squattier—about three feet tall and about two feet wide—but they stood upright. They had short arms and legs and looked ridiculous, until one of them opened its mouth, revealing multiple rows of shiny teeth. I counted seven in total.
“And what are those?” I asked Tsagasi.
“Those are the Botageria’s foot soldiers.”
Great. “Anything important we should know about them?”
“They love to destroy for the sake of it.”
Even better.
“We need Tsawasi,” Collin groaned. “He may not be ready to bring his army, but we’ll make him come anyway.” Turning to me, he said, “You need to call in a favor. Make Tsawasi come to us and bring the Nunnehi. We cannot let them have her.”
“Piper?” That caught me by surprise. While Collin wasn’t a monster, he seemed surprisingly protective of Piper. “What do you know that I don’t? What was in that drawing, Collin?”
He shot me a dark glare. “For fuck’s sake, Ellie. Call them.”
Releasing a growl of frustration, I said, “Nunnehi and Tsawasi, I need your help.”
The two Nunnehi warriors and Tsawasi, armed and ready to fight, appeared in the blink of an eye.
“Would they have come to our defense without using one of my favors?” I asked Tsagasi.
He shrugged and gave me a smug glance.
Yes. “Dammit, Tsagasi,” I said. “I thought we wanted the same thing.”
“We do, Curse Keeper, but the Nunnehi and my brother hate the yoke you’ve chained them with. They are eager to shed it.”
At the rate I was going through my favors, it would be a matter of days before they were free. Then what? But that was presuming we survived this attack, which wasn’t looking as dire as I’d expected. They’d been spouting doom and gloom about an army. Ten demons wasn’t ideal, but it was manageable.
I didn’t have time to dwell on it—the Botageria’s foot soldiers bolted toward us like dogs let loose on a hunt. They ran surprisingly fast given their short legs and wide bodies, and they reached us in a matter of seconds. When they were close enough to tackle us, they leapt into the air, claws extracted on both sets of limbs, and aimed for our abdomens. I begrudgingly admitted it was an effective means of attack—eviscerate your opponent before the fight even begins.
Unfortunately for the demon attacking me, I was prepared. I thrust my sword through its belly, and the weight of its body pulled my sword to the ground. The damn thing was impaled.
With the heel of my boot, I stepped on the demon’s lower abdomen and pulled out my sword. The demon flung itself upward, aiming for my leather-boot-covered lower leg with a wide-open mouth and gleaming teeth, and even though I was at an awkward angle, I managed to swing my sword in an arc and remove the demon’s head. It fell to the ground, its body flopping but its eyes already glazed over. One down.
I glanced up and saw the rest of my group had already dealt with the remaining foot soldiers. This had been too easy. Then I realized the Botageria were bolting across the cemetery, knocking over century-old tombstones in their haste to get to downtown Asheville.
Where Piper was being held at the police station.
“Collin!”
He glanced up from the demon he’d just killed with his spear. “Fuck.”
The Nunnehi were already in pursuit, sprinting after them at superhuman speed.
“Go after them!” Tsagasi shouted.
There was no way we could run that quickly. Collin must have been thinking the same thing because we both headed for the car at the same time.
“I know a way to get to the back of the cemetery faster,” David shouted, keeping pace with us. “I studied the site map in case of a situation like this.”
Collin started the car and swung it around in a wide arc, narrowly missing a tombstone. Once he was headed in the right direction, he punched the gas pedal, throwing me back in the seat. He took the sharp curves at speeds that threw me around the front, making me wish I’d belted up, but I could see the Nunnehi up ahead, plus the three demons trying to evade them.
Collin skidded to a halt and we jumped out, withdrawing our swords as we advanced on them, Collin holding up his spear at his side.
“We should use our power,” I said, the mark on my hand burning. There was no doubt that they were powerful. “I’m not sure we can fight them.”
“We can’t contain them long enough,” Collin said. “If we try, we might send the Nunnehi back by mistake. We need the Nunnehi too much to risk it. Besides, the Botageria aren’t interested in us—or them. They’ll take off running toward Piper the first chance they get.”
“We need to go to the police station,” David said. “Now.”
“He’s right,” Collin said, turning and running for the car.
“I thought we weren’t letting them leave the cemetery!” I shouted after him and gave a quick look at the fight in front of me.
The Nunnehi and the Cherokee Little People were fighting all three demons, but it was obvious the demons weren’t interested in killing the supernatural beings for the sake of it. They were only engaging because the Nunnehi were in their way. Once they slipped past, there would be no stopping them.
David was right. Our best chance of helping Piper was to make a stand outside the police station.
When I jumped into the car, it was already moving toward the cemetery exit, Collin at the wheel. I grabbed my phone and called Abel.
“They’re loose and about to head your way,” I said, trying to look at the fighting through the back window.
“Did he send the Botageria?” he asked in a solemn tone.
“Yes.”
“And the foot soldiers?”
“We killed them.”
“There will be more.” He sounded so sure, a rock formed in the pit of my stomach.
He was right. We’d been promised an army, and this was far from it. “Collin, David, and I are headed toward you. Jack’s at Helen’s Bridge.”
“Why is he there?”
“I have no idea, and it’s a long story, so I’ll fill you in later. Are you still at the police station?”
“Yes. Send the priest here.”
“I’ll message him. We’re coming too.”
“But not soon enough,” he said in a flat tone.
“Are you going to break her out?”
“I should have done it hours ago. I will not let my father have her.”
I considered his options—our options. We would be Piper’s last line of defense at the police station, which didn’t
look that promising since the Nunnehi could barely hold the Botageria back. “Just focus on getting her out. We’ll hold the demons off as best we can.”
“Thank you.” I was surprised they weren’t empty words.
“Where will you take her? To a world?”
“I’ll try to get her out of the cell first. If Okeus and the demons know what she can do, they’ll wait there until we return, and we won’t have the element of surprise we had in the warehouse. We’ll be captured.” He paused. “But she’ll insist on fighting. Running from things is not her way.”
“We’re a lot alike.”
“That’s what worries me,” he said. Then he hung up.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rhys
“He’s still here,” Rhys said as Olivia parked her car behind Jack’s. “So why won’t he answer his phone?”
“That’s what we’re about to find out,” Olivia said with a confidence Rhys wished she felt.
After being kidnapped twice, every little noise set Rhys on edge, and the fact that they were approaching a gate to hell? She was beyond jumpy.
“You can stay in the car,” Olivia said reassuringly. “You don’t have to come.”
“Are you kidding me?” Rhys said. “I’ve seen enough horror movies to know the person who stays back gets it first.” She shook her head. “I’m not getting skewered in the car. We stick together.”
Olivia looked like she was fighting a grin. “Okay. We’ll go together.”
They got out and walked up the road toward the bridge in silence.
“Is there really a ghost up here?” the detective asked.
“I’ve never seen her, but Piper and Jack swear she’s real.”
“And Jack came up here to see the ghost?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Rhys said.
“Do you know why?” Olivia asked.
“No, but we went to a seer today and she mentioned Jack had come to see her. It would be just like him to go out of his way to help Helen.” Then Rhys added, “Plus the demons feed off Helen when they emerge and there’s no wildlife left to feed on. It’s totally a Jack thing to want to help her before the demons emerge.”
“But your friend Ellie doesn’t think the demons will come out here?” Olivia asked.
“Ellie has more supernatural friends than Piper, so if anyone would know, she would.”
“Is it wrong that I’m more than a little relieved by that?” she asked with a laugh.
“No,” Rhys said. “This way I feel like I’m doing my part but not in the thick of the action.”
They stopped in the middle of the road in front of the bridge.
“So where is he?” Olivia asked.
“Jack?” Rhys called out in a half-shout. It was night and their voices carried in the quiet.
They waited for a few seconds before Olivia asked, “Will the ghost bother us?”
“I don’t think so,” Rhys said with more bravado than she felt. “Helen’s harmless. The worst thing she does is make it so cars can’t start.”
They exchanged a look.
Rhys gave Olivia a reassuring smile. “But Piper says that Helen loves Jack, so he can probably persuade her to leave your car alone.”
Olivia glanced around the hills surrounding the sides of the road.
“Jack!” she called out louder than Rhys had.
Nothing.
“I think we should check the woods,” Olivia said.
Rhys was terrified of going into the woods—anything could be hiding in those trees—but it was obvious Jack wasn’t on the road. “Yeah, good idea.”
They stayed on the south side and headed up the dirt path to the bridge. The gate over the bridge stood open. The owner tried to keep it locked, but the bridge was too big of a draw to paranormal enthusiasts. Especially since the Lost Colony of Roanoke had reemerged several months ago. Trespassing was an inevitability.
Voices rose up from below, and Rhys looked down at a group of teenagers walking on the road beneath them, slightly less than a dozen by her guess. They giggled as they staggered toward the bridge, some of them loudly shushing the others.
“You’ll scare her,” one of the girls said.
“Yeah, right,” a guy said, his words slurring.
Olivia scowled. “They’re drunk.”
Rhys shrugged. “It’s not all that uncommon.”
Olivia looked torn between going down to question them and walking over the bridge to the other side. The need to find Jack must have won out because she started over the low-sided bridge, crouching in an obvious attempt to avoid detection by the group below. Rhys followed, but halfway across, a boy shouted, “Look! There’s the ghost up there!”
“That’s not a ghost,” another guy said with a laugh.
“No,” Olivia called down as she rose to her full height. “It’s a detective with the Asheville Police Department.”
“We didn’t do nothing!” one of the boys called up, lifting his hands in surrender.
“Looks like you’ve been drinking to me,” Olivia said in disgust. “Lucky for me, I’ve got something more important to deal with. Are any of you designated drivers?”
When no one responded, she released a loud sigh. “I’ll let you go, but you’re not allowed to drive. Call a friend or relative who is sober to come pick you up or start walking.”
The teens grumbled, but a couple girls and a guy shouted up, “Thank you!”
Olivia nodded with a grim look. “Stupid kids.”
“It’s not like we wouldn’t have done something like that as kids,” Rhys said, forcing a chuckle.
“Not me,” Olivia said.
“Then when this is all said and done, we need to have a girls’ night out and loosen you up, Detective Powell,” Rhys teased.
“That’s assuming we survive the demon apocalypse,” Olivia said dryly.
“I chose to be positive,” Rhys said, despite her shaky nerves.
“After the things I’ve seen the last few days . . .” She let the statement trail off as they reached the other side of the bridge.
When Olivia pulled out her phone and used the flashlight to sweep the area with light, Rhys did the same. Nothing.
“Do you think he’s up here?” Rhys asked. She was scared he was and scared he wasn’t.
“I don’t know,” Olivia said. “But I’m worried that his car is here and he’s not. I could call the station and see if someone picked him up thinking he was a burglar, but I doubt they’d haul in an Episcopalian priest. They’d likely just tell him to go home.”
“Unless they saw him carrying a sword,” Rhys said.
Olivia cursed under her breath, then switched off her flashlight and started to place a call as Rhys wandered deeper into the woods, still sweeping the area with her flashlight.
“Jack!” she whisper-shouted, then gasped when she saw a backpack on the ground. “Olivia.”
Olivia headed toward the backpack, Rhys on her heels. An assortment of items covered the ground a couple of feet away.
“Rhys, what is this?” the detective asked, pointing to the yarn circle within the smoldering square and the still-lit votive candles.
A cold chill ran down Rhys’s back. “I don’t know, but Piper and the curse keepers have that mark on their hands. It represents the intersection of the spiritual and physical realms.”
“Do you think Jack put it here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Olivia made a sweep of her flashlight, then squatted next to the backpack. She swept her fingers across the ground, and when she lifted them back up, they glistened red.
“Oh my God,” Rhys cried out. “Is that Jack’s?”
Olivia stood upright and put her phone back in her pocket as she pulled out her gun.
“A gun won’t kill a demon, Olivia,” Rhys said, her heart leaping into her throat.
“We don’t know that a demon did this,” Olivia said, pointing her gun at the ground. “I just found out that Lawton was part
of the Guardians, so it could be anyone. Shine your flashlight on the ground in front of me.”
“The detective that has it out for Piper is with the Guardians?” Rhys asked in shock.
“Was,” Olivia said in a dull tone as she started to follow the dark spots on the ground. “He’s dead.”
“What? How?”
“Let’s focus on finding Jack,” Olivia said, her voice breaking. “We’ll deal with the rest later.”
They followed the trail, the drops becoming smears along the ground.
“There’s so much blood,” Rhys said, her voice breaking.
Olivia didn’t answer.
“Oh my god.” Rhys could see the sole of his shoe poking out from behind a thick stand of tree trunks. “That’s his foot.”
The women hurried around the tree and found him lying on his stomach, his head tilted to the side and his eyes closed. His shirt was drenched in blood.
“Is he . . .” Rhys couldn’t finish.
Olivia squatted next to him and pressed her fingertips to his neck, scanning the trees before returning her gaze to him. “No. He’s got a faint pulse. We need to call 911.”
Rhys pulled out her cell phone and started to press buttons when Jack’s eyes fluttered open.
“Helen,” he whispered.
Rhys dropped to the ground beside him and started to cry. “Jack. What happened?”
“Helen.”
Olivia’s eyes widened. “The ghost?”
“I tried to help . . . ,” he forced out. “She . . .”
“What did she do, Jack?” Rhys asked.
“Piper . . . she plans to kill Piper.”
Rhys lifted her horrified gaze to Olivia, who started sending a text, then stopped. “Who do we tell? Jack . . .”
Rhys handed her phone to Olivia. “Text Ellie and hand me your phone to call 911.”
But the ground began to rumble before she made it past the nine.
