by Sara Snow
I peered around the door, just to make sure she was okay. That’s when I heard them yelling at each other about Georgia’s mother. I gathered from their heated exchange that Georgia wanted to find her human parent, and Carter was insisting on going with her.
Things were getting interesting around here. Especially when Georgia started throwing weapons at Carter—without touching them.
Kingston had told me that Georgia had special gifts, but he hadn’t told me she could fling a mace with her mind. That took talent.
My dad also hadn’t told me how hot Georgia was in a t-shirt and sweatpants, though I could have guessed that from the way she had looked in the game room that afternoon. When I killed the demon at the park, I had caught a glimpse of her topless, but under the circumstances, it would have been lame to stare.
Jose hadn’t been exaggerating when he said Georgia was gorgeous, with her long black hair, purple eyes, and stunning figure. It was all I could do not to grab her myself.
When Carter jumped out of the path of the flying mace and threw Georgia on the ground, I almost jumped in. Then, they started kissing and I backed away, still staring.
This beats the hell out of Netflix.
Obviously, Carter and Georgia had a love-hate relationship. My goal, though it was still a secret to everyone but myself, was to make sure it didn’t turn into a love-love relationship.
He wasn’t any good for her—I knew that much. Georgia was young and sweet, and though she’d been through a lot of pain in her life, she was still pretty innocent at heart. Carter, on the other hand, was as corrupt as the devil. He’d seduced women all over Chicago, sucking them dry and leaving them half-dead.
Sure, the old fart couldn’t help it that he was half-vampire or that he lived on human blood. But I happened to know that a lot of modern vampires had found ways to avoid traumatizing humans or animals. I heard that some of them had even found a way to go vegan.
When Georgia flipped Carter onto his back and threatened to kill him if he touched her again, I had to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from cheering. My chances of hooking up with the cambion were looking better all the time.
As Georgia marched across the room, I leaped out of the doorway and flattened myself against the wall, my heart pounding. I shouldn’t have bothered—she was too angry to notice me as she stalked down the hall.
Later, sharing a pizza with Eli in the kitchen, my dad came in to join us. His hair was mussed, and his reading glasses barely clung to the edge of his nose. As far as I could tell, he’d been locked up in his library all evening.
“What’s this I heard about Georgia leaving town to find her mom?” I asked, cutting to the chase.
My father looked up sharply, the glasses tumbling off his nose. “How did you hear about that?”
I couldn’t tell him I’d been eavesdropping, so I told him vaguely that I’d heard it from Georgia.
“Yes, that’s Georgia’s plan,” Kingston said. “I don’t like it, but she’s determined. Once Georgia makes up her mind, there’s very little that can stand in her way.”
“I don’t like it either,” Eli said. “She’ll be an easy target for the Tenebris. If they know what she’s doing—and I’m sure they’ll find out, if they haven’t already—Paimon will figure out how to get to her.”
“He knows this is an emotionally-charged time for her,” Kingston agreed. “He’ll play on that to manipulate her. I’m not as afraid for Georgia’s physical safety as for her soul.”
“We need to make a plan,” Eli said. “I get it that she needs to see her mother, make contact with her again. But there has to be a way we can protect her somehow.”
We were all silent for a second. Eli munched grimly on his pizza. My father poured himself a glass of red wine, then held the glass in his hands, swirling the liquid and staring into its depths. The demons must really be upping their game because I’d never seen him look so troubled.
“Why do you guys all look so serious?”
I looked up to see Jose standing in the doorway, grinning from ear to ear.
“Why do you look so happy? You must have had a good dream for once,” Eli remarked.
“Oh, yeah. It was awesome. And I learned an amazing secret about Georgia.”
Jose slipped into a chair. He reached for a piece of pizza and tore into it as if he hadn’t eaten in days. As he chewed, he looked around the table and beamed at all of us.
“Well,” Eli prodded. “Are you going to share this secret, or let us die of suspense?”
“I know what Georgia’s power is,” Jose said. “Each of them has one, but hers rules all.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. I was used to hearing the cryptic messages that came to Jose in his dreams, but this one made no sense at all. “What does Georgia have that rules all?”
“Fire,” he said, grinning. “She can set fires with her mind.”
“Fire?” I repeated. “Like in lighting things on fire?”
Jose nodded. “Yeah, you should see it. I dreamed that she could make the most incredible towers of flame.”
“What does ‘each of them’ mean? Who are they?”
“I don’t know that part yet,” Jose said. “All I know is that one of them is Georgia, and she has the power of fire.”
“When is this going to happen?” Eli asked. “We all know Georgia can move objects, but all this is news to me.”
“She can set fires now—she just doesn’t know it yet,” said Jose.
“What else happened in this dream?” I asked.
“I saw Georgia leaning over a woman lying in a bed. The woman was super thin, like a skeleton. Georgia kissed her on the cheek, and it made her power stronger.”
My father and I looked at each other. A light dawned in his tired eyes.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for,” he said. “I knew there was more to Georgia’s abilities than what we’ve seen so far. I just didn’t know what to expect from her. We knew she had the gift of telekinesis. Now we know that she has the power of pyrokinesis as well. She hasn’t used it yet, but she will.”
“Who’s the skeleton?” Eli asked. He looked completely baffled. I felt just as confused. Jose’s riddles were making my head spin.
Jose shrugged. “I don’t know, I just saw a woman lying in a bed. Like I said, she was thin, and she had these crazy scabs and scars all over her arms.”
“I believe he saw Georgia meeting her mother,” my dad said. “Her mother has been a heroin addict for years—that could be where the scars and scabs came from. And if she’s neglected her health all this time, she could resemble a skeleton. I sensed that their meeting would be the first step toward her veritatem, but I had no idea it was this important. If it was foretold in Jose’s revelation, then we need to do everything we can to make sure it happens.”
“Do Paimon and the other demons know about this?” Eli asked. “Because if they find out what Georgia can do, they’re going to be on her tail more than ever.”
“It doesn’t matter if they know,” Jose said. “Georgia will be able to burn all their evil asses.”
My dad set down his glass of wine and walked around the table to hug Jose. The stress and fear in his face had been replaced by joy, and I actually saw hope in his eyes.
“Gentlemen,” my father said slowly, “Jose has given us the solution to our problem. I think we have a plan. Not just to help Georgia reach her goal or to save ourselves. We have a plan to save the mortal world.”
Eli grinned. “Are you going to tell us, or are we going to keep playing guessing games all night?”
My dad smiled mysteriously. “Give me some time to work out the details. Carter needs to hear this, too, and of course, Georgia. She’s the key to all this, our new weapon. We’ll meet tomorrow, and I’ll tell you what I have in mind.”
“Great, keep us in suspense all night,” I grumbled.
Jose polished off the last of his pizza slice. “Who wants to go upstairs and shoot some pool?” he asked.
Eli stood up. “I’ll go up with you, buddy. After all this, I could use a cold beer and a pool game.”
After Eli and Jose left the kitchen, I got up to clear the remains of our dinner. My father put his hand on my arm to stop me.
“Jacob, I have a favor to ask you,” he said.
“Sure, Dad,” I said, hoping he didn’t hear the reluctance in my voice.
“I know you have a busy social life here in Chicago . . .”
“Well, sort of.” I thought about Melanie in her tight jeans and felt a pang of regret.
“ . . . but I want you to put it on hold for a while. I need you to go on this road trip with Georgia.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. I know it’s a lot to ask, and you’ll miss out on some of your activities here. But this is important, especially with this plan I have in mind. Try not to be disappointed—I really need you to go.”
Disappointed? I couldn’t have been happier if he’d handed me a winning lotto ticket. A road trip with the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen—alone. The possibilities were dazzling.
“Of course, Carter will go with you, too.”
My joyful mood took an instant nosedive. “Carter? Why? They don’t even like each other.”
My dad must have seen the dismay on my face because he gave me a sympathetic smile.
“I think you mean that you and Carter don’t like each other,” he said. “But you’ll have to find a way to get past that. If we’re going to have any hope of keeping her on our side, Georgia is going to need both of you. We absolutely cannot lose her now.”
I knew my father was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow the idea of sharing a vehicle with an arrogant half-vamp for hours on end. Texas was a long way from Chicago.
“Does Georgia know that I’m going with her?” I asked. “Because she might not like the idea.”
I thought I’d been getting positive signals from the beautiful cambion—signs that she might want to be more than buddies. But I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about me tagging along on a journey that was so important to her.
“She doesn’t know yet. And I don’t know how she will feel about you going with her. I’m afraid she’s going to feel that we’re being overprotective, even possessive. The best approach is to convince her that it’s her idea.”
Remembering Georgia’s attitude with Carter in the training room, I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be easy to convince Georgia of anything, especially when it came to the possibility that she might need help.
“I’ll give it a shot,” I said. “But I have my doubts.”
Truth be told, this whole thing was getting overwhelming. If I’d known what my father was dragging me into when he called me at Grubby’s, I might not have gotten involved. Now it was too late—he was counting on me.
And so was Georgia, though she didn’t know it yet.
“Hey, Dad. I think I’m going to go out for a little while.”
My father looked up in alarm. “Go out? Why?”
“Just to get some fresh air. I thought I’d go for a run. I know it’s crazy in this neighborhood, but I need to work off some stuff.”
“Why not go to the training room? We have all the equipment you need right here, and you’d be safe.”
“Dad, you’re not going to treat me like a kid. I can take care of myself. Didn’t I prove that last night?”
“Fine,” he sighed, glancing at his watch. “But if you’re not back in an hour, I’m sending Eli after you.”
As soon as I stepped outside the warehouse, I felt like I was breathing the air of normalcy again. The demon realm seemed like an illusion as I ran through the darkened streets. The warehouse district was hardly a safe place for a late-night run, but at least I was familiar with the dangers here.
As my heart rate rose, the blood pumped through my body, clearing the funk from my head. Maybe everyone at the warehouse was going through some kind of group psychosis. Jose and his weird voices, Carter and his paranoia, my dad and his obsession with this epic battle the demons were preparing—it all seemed like a form of madness.
But that monster you killed in the park was real.
That was what happened when you lived with one foot in the human world and the other in the world of angels and demons. You never knew where you really stood.
I picked up my pace from a jog to a run. On the empty streets, the rhythmic thud of my shoes hitting the pavement echoed against the walls of the warehouses. I ran faster, starting to sweat. The further I ran, the more distance I put between myself and the weirdness back at the warehouse.
The sense of speed felt fantastic, exhilarating.
Until I turned a corner to head back to the warehouse and came face to face with a gang of shadows.
In the darkness, I couldn’t see how many of them there were. All I saw was a group of hulking black figures standing motionless on the street in front of me. Their faces were shielded by floppy hoods, so I couldn’t tell whether their features were human.
My spidey sense told me they were from the demon realm. Mortals would have jumped me by now.
I stood there panting, trying not to panic. Adrenaline was on my side—I was already pumped up from my run. My heart beat faster as I tried to figure out what the fuck to do. I could try to outrun them, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t work. They had already followed me this far undetected.
“What do you want?” I asked. Between the run and my fear, I had to gasp out the words.
Hey, Dad, were you serious when you said you were sending Eli after me?
The tallest of the figures moved forward, separating himself from the mass of shadows. He pushed the hood off his head, revealing a long, bone-white face that looked like the skull of an ox peaked with small horns. Red orbs glowed in the skull’s eye sockets.
“You killed my soldier last night. His body is mist now. No use to me.”
What was I supposed to say to that? Gee, I’m sorry. I’m sure that revolting demon with the branding iron meant a lot to you.
The rest of the horde moved in, surrounding Skull Face in a tight circle. The sound of steel on steel sliced the night air. I recognized that sound: a blade being drawn from a scabbard. Then I heard it again. And again.
These demons were drawing their daggers. I had a sudden vision of them jumping me, ripping off my sweatshirt, and slicing my guts to ribbons like a gang of sushi chefs.
Here I was with no weapons, not even a set of keys that I could jab them with. I wasn’t bad at hand-to-hand fighting, but I was no match for this crowd. A few more had joined the horde, materializing from the alleys and the shadows behind the buildings.
“Who are you?” I managed to croak. If I had any chance of getting out of this alive, I wanted to know who or what had tried to kill me.
“I am Bebal of the Tenebris. When all of our legions have joined us, your world will become Hell.”
Bebal raised his arms. The sleeves of his cloak fell down over his arms, exposing enormous hands tipped with talons. He didn’t need a dagger to slice me open—those fingernails would work just fine. He’d apparently given the crowd a signal, because they swarmed me in a single motion.
Before I knew it, I was engulfed, swept into a vortex as powerful as the center of a tornado. Their blades whirled around me, slicing through my clothes straight to my skin. The pain was unreal. In the paralyzing force of that dark centrifuge, there was nothing I could do to defend myself.
Except scream.
“By all the seraphim of Heaven, I banish you to Hell!”
It was a banishing invocation that I’d heard my father use before when he was faced with demons. It had never occurred to me that I might have the same power, but with my life on the line, I was ready to try anything. The words burst from my mouth in an agonized shout, as if they’d been ripped from my throat.
To my total amazement, it worked. In a chorus of shrieks and screams, the funnel cloud of demons dispersed. A
mass of smoke and tattered black fragments filled the night sky. I landed with a thud on the asphalt. I rose up on one elbow, gasping for air. Blood slicked my clothes from the wounds made by the demons’ blades, but I was still alive.
If demons aren’t real, how did they cut me a million times?
Their knives hadn’t cut me deep, but they had cut me everywhere. My sweatshirt and track pants were shredded. My arms, legs, and torso were ribboned with lacerations. They hurt like hell, like a thousand papercuts.
To my overwhelming relief, Bebal had vanished. If he’d been there, I had no doubt he would have finished me off.
I wasn’t going to bleed to death, but I was going to need a lot of bandaids.
On the street beside me, a car screeched to a halt.
“Jacob! What the fuck?”
Eli jumped out of the car and ran to me.
I struggled to sit up. Eli stared down at me in horror.
“Dude, you look like you took a bath in blood!”
“Yeah. They cut me everywhere.” I managed to get up on all fours. I was making some serious progress now.
“Who did?”
“Bebal. The demon Jose was talking about. I thought maybe you’d all gone psycho, but this is real. They were all here.”
Eli took my arm and helped me stand up. His eyes scanned my tattered, bloody clothes.
“We need to get you to the ER,” he said.
I shook my head. “They sliced me up, but I’m not going to bleed out or anything. No gut wounds. They were just having a little fun before they got around to killing me.”
“So, what did you do? Fight them?”
“No, I banished them. I yelled an invocation that I’d heard my dad use to banish demons, and they disappeared. I don’t even know how I remembered the words, but they were there when I needed them.”
“And you didn’t know you could do that?”
“Nope. No clue,” I said. “You’d think my dad would have told me I might have the ability to send demons back to Hell, or taught me how to use that power. He taught me how to tie my shoes, after all. And how to drive.”
