by Devon Monk
Then the smoke created a rope that whip cracked around the demon’s wrist and mine, clicking down like cuffs.
The door burst inward, and a very angry unicorn charged.
“Asshole!” Xtelle yelled. She barreled at a full gallop, head down, horn in ramming position.
Aiming at me.
I made panicked eyes at the demon. If he didn’t let me control my body, I would be gored.
His eyebrows twitched downward, but he did not react nearly quickly enough.
Xtelle shifted the angle of her charge and rammed him in the nearest body part level with her horn—the side of his ass. Sparkles flew everywhere.
“Satan on a saltine!” he yelled.
Xtelle kept pushing, forcing him to take one step, two steps away from me.
His hand dropped away from mine. The spell broke.
No more smoke, no more hold over me.
Sweat covered every inch of my skin, like a fever breaking. I grabbed the Feather and Heartwood and ran to my bedroom where I had stashed my spare gun.
My hands shook as I pulled the weapon out of the safe, loaded it, then put the Feather and Heartwood back in the safe, slamming the door. I couldn’t call for help. My phone was in the Jeep, and I didn’t have a land line.
I glanced out the window, gauging my options. Run for back up? Go out guns a-blazing?
Luckily, I didn’t have to decide. Myra’s cruiser pulled into my driveway. The second it stopped, she was out the door, running up the stairs, her face a panicked white, her eyes blinded by past tragedy.
Oh, Myra.
I’d died here. She’d never forgiven herself for showing up just a second too late to save me.
That did it. I knew what I had to do. First, contain the demon-on-demon situation in my living room. Second, find a way to rent out the house.
I never wanted to see that look on my sister’s face again.
I wiped my arm over my forehead to get the sweat out of my eyes, then strode into the living room. “Freeze,” I yelled. “Police. That means you, Xtelle. And you, whatever your name is.” I trained the gun on the non-unicorn.
He was face first against the wall, spread flat, both hands up.
Xtelle still had her horn in the side of his butt. Blood darkened his trousers. “Oh, he’ll freeze,” she growled. “He’ll be so cold, hell won’t melt him!”
“Stop!” Myra yelled, coming into the room.
“Easy,” I told her. “I’m okay. Everything’s okay.” I didn’t look over at her. I wasn’t stupid enough to take my eyes off the demons.
Myra strode up to the new demon and pulled out cuffs with demon-trapping magic worked into them.
“Hands behind your back. Now.”
“I assure you, that will not be necessary,” he said.
“Hands. Now,” she barked.
He lowered his hands and grunted as she snapped the cuffs on them.
“Back up, Xtelle,” she said.
“I don’t take orders from you.” She leaned forward, horn inching deeper, and the demon grunted again.
“Xtelle,” I said, “step away from him. Now.”
“I don’t take orders from—”
“Back up or be arrested,” I said.
I thought she was going to push her luck, but wonder of wonders, she stepped back, grumbling the entire time.
“Back here,” I told her, “away from the demon.”
Myra pressed her hand in the middle of the demon’s back and kicked his legs wide. She went through a one-handed frisk. “Any weapons? Any magic items or substances?” she asked.
“I assure you,” he said, trying to twist around.
“Nope,” Mya said. “Not until I know you don’t have anything up your sleeve. Kneel.”
Every muscle in his body locked on that command.
The air felt charged, electric. Like atoms were banging into each other: collisions, sparks. It felt like he was about to make a very poor choice.
Bathin stomped into the room and made a quick assessment of the tableau. “I’d do what she says, Uncle, if you don’t want to be erased from this existence.”
“There is no need to…” he said, but Myra said a short, sharp, twisted word—magic—and followed it with: “Down.”
The air sparked between them, little fires catching and extinguishing.
He knelt. Slowly due to the handcuffs, but all the way to his knees.
Xtelle made a soft little gasp. I wondered if it was shock or fear. From the corner of my eye, she seemed…fascinated that he had followed the command.
“All right. Good. Just stay there.”
He cleared his throat but said nothing.
Myra took a step back and looked over at me. “You really okay?”
“Yes. He worked a spell.”
“What the—?” Bathin lumbered over to the table, pushing past his mother like she wasn’t even there. For one strange moment, I wondered if she was invisible again.
“It’s so good to see you too, son,” she snipped.
Okay. Not invisible. Just ignored.
“Heartwood, Valkyrie Feather,” Bathin said, somehow knowing what had been there, even though I’d already taken those two valuable items away. “And the tissue? This is… Oh, Amy, you didn’t.”
“Amy?” I asked. “Who’s Amy?”
“He is,” Bathin said. “My uncle. Amy.”
“Avnas,” the demon in handcuffs corrected archly.
“What are you doing here, Uncle? And how the hell did you even get into Ordinary?” Bathin glowered at the unicorn. “It was you, wasn’t it, Mother?”
Her horsey mouth fell open. “How dare you accuse me of such a thing? I followed all the stupid rules this time. Why would I risk my own neck to bring someone like him here?”
“Oh, don’t play the innocent. It’s never fit you well. I know he lov—”
“—loves to be spoken about as if he isn’t even in the room,” Amy said too loudly. “May I please turn so I can explain myself?”
Myra threw me a look. I frowned.
We had Bathin on our side if things went sideways. I was relieved to know we actually had one demon—and not just any demon, the Prince of the Underworld—on our side.
“I’ll stab you again,” Xtelle said as if she were ordering dressing on the side. “Make any move, Avnas, and I will stab you hard. And not in the ass this time.”
He cleared his throat. “So noted, my Queen.”
Xtelle’s head raised, and she did a mincey little trot in place. “Better,” she said.
“We’re not going to take off the cuffs,” I said.
Myra slipped her hand in her pocket. Whatever kind of root vegetable she had in there was locked and loaded.
“Turn around, Amy,” I said. “Slowly.
He smoothly stood, showing his hands locked behind his back didn’t make any difference for his balance.
His smile was brief and almost apologetic. If getting stabbed in the butt by a demon unicorn was causing him pain, it didn’t show.
Then I remembered his hands. The scars. The missing joints.
This was a creature used to enduring pain. A lot of pain.
“How did you get into Ordinary?” Myra asked.
He nodded toward me. “Her soul.”
Bathin growled, angry.
“Oh, you didn’t leave many marks, my Prince. For that I would like to commend you. But I was there, on the beach. I saw it just before you cut it away from your hold. I knew I could leave my own mark. Claim just enough to get my foot in the door, if you will.”
“You’ve had a part of her soul for all this time?” Myra asked.
“No. I marked her soul then. I have only just come to collect.”
“The mark makes it easy for him to find her,” Bathin explained, moving closer to Myra, shifting his huge bulk so that he was slightly in front of her, pushing himself between her and Amy.
“No matter where he is, no matter where she is, he can access her. Dreams
?” Bathin guessed.
“No,” Avnas said. “Her subconscious.”
Bathin crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at his uncle. He looked like a mountain, an entire range, the world itself. “Talk.”
Myra’s color had gone up a little. I caught her eye, thinking she was angry her boyfriend had just taken over our arrest. But that was not anger in her eyes. It was another kind of heat all together.
I mouthed the words, “So hot.” She blushed, then turned her attention back to Amy.
“What spell did you cast?” she asked.
Amy’s eyes shot over to me, then past me as if he could still see the magic items, as if they were not locked away in my gun safe.
“It’s something I modified,” he said. “You are the sister who guards Ordinary’s library, are you not?”
“It’s impossible to know,” Xtelle mumbled. “They all look the same.”
“Why does it matter?” Myra asked.
“If you are the sister who guards the library, I can assume you are versed in spellwork. Some demonology?”
“Spit it out, Amy,” Bathin said. “The Reeds aren’t basic.”
He gave Bathin a curt nod. Like a captain used to taking orders from his general.
“The original spell is a nasty piece of work built to latch and kill. It’s a parasite spell, where the host slowly loses control to the attacker and eventually is a zombie, fully controlled by the attacker. Then, of course, the host is ultimately devoured.”
“Of course,” Bathin went on like this was a discussion so pedestrian, he was waiting for the conversation to actually begin.
My stomach twisted. Was that what had been happening to me? Was Amy a parasite attached to my subconscious?
“But you modified it,” Myra said. “Tell us how. What does it do now?”
He shrugged. “It binds me to Delaney.”
“No,” Bathin said. “There’s more. It’s not just a binding. I can smell it. Too heavy. Too…death. You used some kind of death, didn’t you?”
“Very well done, my Prince.”
“Stow the compliments, Uncle. Out with the facts.”
“The sweat of Death’s brow,” he said with barely contained smugness.
Xtelle gasped again. She muttered a fluttery little “Oh, my” which Amy did not miss. He slid a look her way. This time his smile was wicked, dangerous, calculating, inviting her in on the fun. And yes, it was hot.
What was it with demons?
“Obtained non-violently,” he added, like that had been the easiest thing to pull off in the world.
“Oh. Oh, my. How very restrained of you, Avnas,” Xtelle cooed, making the “restrained” sound like a dirty compliment. “How very soft and thoughtful.”
From the way he was looking at her, from the way she was fluttering those ridiculously long unicorn eyelashes, this nice talk was more like dirty talk.
“Gross,” Bathin said. “I shouldn’t have to listen to my mother sweet-talk my uncle.”
“Then you should leave.” Xtelle had turned just a bit and was prancing sideways across the room toward Amy, her tail swishing.
“Stop,” I ordered. “Stay away from him, Xtelle.”
Myra moved in, the stubby red beet in her hand pointed straight at the side of Xtelle’s head.
“That’s a beet, not a gun. You do know it won’t actually fire bullets,” Xtelle said.
“I know you keep telling me that. Back up.” She gestured with the beet, and Xtelle lifted her lip away from her teeth.
“Stomp you,” she hissed.
Myra waved the beet again, and Xtelle grudgingly moved back my way.
“So you changed the ingredients,” Myra said to Amy, “or added to them?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“The physical element of Death’s sweat helped. I am bound to Delaney now.”
“No,” Bathin said again. “All of it.” He snapped his fingers. It sounded like stones striking. He said a word that slipped and slithered out of my mind the moment I heard it.
Amy stiffened, his eyes locked forward. He stared at Bathin as if the prince had just grabbed him by the chin and forced his gaze.
“The Valkyrie Feather renews the spell, a phoenix rising no matter how it might be worn down, attacked. The Heartwood locks it into the strength of her family, her blood ties. The sweat of Death’s brow makes it impenetrable to god interference. That is all. That is all of it.”
Bathin snapped his fingers again, and Amy swayed on his feet. A single blood tear dripped from the corner of one eye. “My Prince.” He bowed his head.
I didn’t know if that bow was out of obeisance or fatigue. He was breathing harder, his shoulders bent.
Whatever Bathin had done had left its mark.
Bathin was flexing his hand open and closed, like a fighter who had just punched a brick wall a dozen times.
“What does all that add up to?” I asked Myra.
“He’s connected to you, and he’s blocked the avenues through which most spells can be broken.”
“Well, Delaney could be killed,” Xtelle said. “That would undo the spell.”
“My Prince?” Amy said, talking to the floor.
Bathin grunted.
“May I speak?”
“No,” Bathin said. “Delaney, Myra, and you, too, Mother, I need a word with all of you. Alone.”
“The house isn’t really big enough for that kind of priv—” The rest of what I was about to say was cut short.
Because we were no longer in my house.
Chapter Sixteen
The sky, the ground, and the distant walls were all made of a gorgeous, smoky blue with shots of gold burning through it. I’d been in a place like this before.
I sighed. “You planted a stone in my house?”
“Lapis lazuli,” Bathin said. “It’s good for wisdom, intuition, and clarity. A place where we can talk. In private.”
Xtelle had morphed into her human form here, a tall, elegant woman with pink-flame eyes. “I don’t recall asking to be a part of this conversation. Nor to be kidnapped.”
“You’re here because I don’t trust you out there with Amy,” he replied.
She crossed her arms, her fingers tapping, sharp, pink fingernails clicking against her skin. She turned to me. “Is this allowed in Ordinary?”
“Usually, not without permission. But in this case, I agree with his choice. So why did you need all of us out of Amy’s hearing?”
“Can’t he hear us through Delaney?” Myra asked him. “Through his connection to her soul?”
I stilled. A sick kind of horror settled in my gut. I didn’t want to be used against them. Didn’t want to be used at all.
“No,” Bathin said. “What he’s done is more like a hook that ties him to her, not a possession that gives him ultimate awareness of her.”
Good. Good. That was at least one silver lining on this horror hurricane.
I puffed out my breath and pushed my hand over my stomach to try and settle it.
“Okay,” I said. “So spill. What do you want to tell us?”
Bathin’s eyes narrowed as he gazed at his mother. “You’re a random factor I don’t trust. You could be on his side.”
“I’m always on my side,” she said. “You know that.”
Bathin held his breath a moment, then started pacing.
“He’s modified a very powerful, very damaging spell. He’s covered his tracks thoughtfully and well. If there is a way to break the spell, I believe it will be damaging. To Delaney, or Ordinary, or the gods, or the Reed family.”
“We’ve taken on soul-possessing demons before,” Myra said. “You, for instance.”
The smile he gave her beamed. “And you prevailed.”
“Thanks to me,” Xtelle said. “I made the scissors that cut her soul free. I made the way to break that binding. Not you.” She poked one thin, pink-tipped finger at each of us. “Not any of you.”
“Can we mo
dify a spell breaker?” I asked. “We are a town of gods and supernatural people, magic, and knowledge. If someone makes a new lock, we find a new key, right?”
Myra rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I’ll go to the library, talk to Harold and the other volumes. See if anyone knows anything that might help.”
Xtelle’s eyes lit up—literally—and she licked her lips. “Myra, my dearest dumpling. I shall come with you to the library to help speed your search. I am an expert in breaking demon bindings as you may have noticed.”
Myra’s eyebrows had lifted so high they were completely hidden beneath her bangs. “I would never let you into the library. Never.” She said it like that was the most obvious thing in the world. “Never.”
“That makes two of us,” I added. “Anything else?” I looked at Bathin.
He shook his head slowly. He had a smile for me, too. We’d been connected in a way that allowed him to know more about me than I sometimes preferred. But it also let me know things about him too. I knew he really was trying to change his ways, become something other than what he was expected to be.
He was, at the core of his being, learning to be kind. And thoughtful. And I would hope to say, more human.
He was, at the core of his being, hopelessly in love with my stubborn sister. She was hopelessly in love with him too.
That made me happy.
“What?” I asked.
“I forget how well you deal with things of this nature. Soul possession. Hell’s spells cooked up without your permission. Demons threatening everything you love.”
“Life’s full of roadblocks. You can let them stop you or you can find a way around them, or you can take option three. Option three is blowing right through them. I always go for three.”
“He wants something,” Bathin said.
Xtelle hummed and studied the back of her nails. “Ordinary?”
He planted his hands on his hips. “Not Ordinary. He could have signed the contract to do that. This is a much riskier action, tying himself to Delaney’s soul.”
“Maybe he didn’t think I’d let him into town if he signed the contract.”
“Would you have?” Xtelle asked.
