Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
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About the Author
Books by Andrea Pearson
Demon of Darkness
Koven Chronicles Book Six
By Andrea Pearson
Copyright © 2018 Andrea Pearson
Book design and layout copyright © 2018 Andrea Pearson
Cover copyright © 2018 Andrea Pearson
Series by Andrea Pearson:
Kilenya Chronicles
Mosaic Chronicles
Koven Chronicles
Ranch City Academy Series
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction, and the views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author. Likewise, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are represented fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
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Dedication
To
To Jane Clarkson
and
Katrina Yarber
1
I stood outside the door to Mount Koven, more nervous than I was the first time I’d been there. So much hinged on the outcome of this visit. My reputation. The lives of millions of innocent people. I held the globe tightly in one hand, hesitating to put my other on the square box in the door.
The circumstances that led me there weren’t an example of my finest hours. My friends and I had tried—and failed—to defeat Lord Kenan. It was an absolute miracle none of us had been mortally injured. Abel had a gash on the side of his face that had required stitches, but other than that, and a lot of exhaustion, we’d come out unscathed.
The globe I held was a device that helped me find hounds so I could destroy them or wipe their memory. I’d only been given twelve days to do it, and I’d missed my deadline.
My cheeks flushed as I stared at the door. I’d originally been given eleven days, but the device’s owner had been kind enough to grant me an extra day.
So why was I standing there, about to ask for more allowances?
Because I was desperate.
Resolving to go forward with my plan, knowing my friends were waiting for me in the Amsterdam airport, I firmly placed my hand in the square box. The familiar pin-pricking sensation made me jerk away. It didn’t matter how often I did this—my first reaction would always be to pull back.
The door opened, and I entered, leaving my physical body behind. It didn’t take long until the appropriate ghost found me.
“His answer is no,” the woman said. “He absolutely will not stop the plagues and grant you more days. You’ve already been granted a one-day extension. Do not ask for more time.” She looked at me, a shrewd expression on her face. “You don’t have to return the device right now, you know.”
I tilted my head. “I don’t?”
“You may keep it longer, but you will endure the ten plagues of Egypt, as promised.” She met my gaze for a moment. “Nothing you do at this point will stop them. Be wise, Miss Ashton.”
The ghost walked away, disappearing as she mingled in the large group of shades. I turned and exited the room, mulling over what she’d said. I could keep the device longer, but the plagues would still happen. So, even if I’d handed back the globe just now, I would still suffer as promised. Good to know.
Unfortunately, we still had no idea how many hounds there were. Lord Kenan had been drawing them to himself, but when he tried to seduce me, he lost his grip on many of his forced followers. And as soon as they’d realized how much under his control they’d been, they left him, and their glowing green dots appeared again on the globe.
There were forty of them. Lord Kenan had hidden forty hounds from me. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I’d been lied to, and not just by him. I’d been promised the globe would show me the locations of all the hounds. It hadn’t. Sure, it had given me locations for ones that weren’t under Lord Kenan’s control, and I did appreciate that. But still, it was a slap in the face to feel like I was so close to winning only to find I had that much further to go.
I shoved the device in my pocket and exited the room. Abel was standing on the other side, waiting anxiously. He hated being separated from me.
He took one look at my expression, and his own fell. “No luck?” he asked, wrapping his arms around me.
I shook my head. “No. Well, sort of. I can keep the globe, but the plagues will start anyway.”
“They haven’t begun yet, and the deadline was over an hour ago. Are we sure it’s going to happen at all?”
“Oh, they’ll happen all right. I’m sure they’ll wait, though, until they can do the most damage.”
Maybe that wasn’t really the goal of the man who’d cursed me with them, but it was hard not to feel that way.
Somewhere above Maine on our flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, people on the plane started screaming. I looked up and down the aisle, trying to figure out why everyone was freaking out, hoping a hound wasn’t there to attack. Abel tapped my arm, pointing to the cup on my tray. It had previously held ice water, but now the only liquid in it was crimson red.
Abel lifted the cup and took a sniff, then cringed. “Blood,” he muttered.
My stomach dropped.
They had finally begun.
2
As far as I remembered, water turning into blood was the first plague of Egypt. And it was going to be awful. People were freaking out, screaming, and not just passengers, but the flight attendants too. I knew that nothing I could say or do would calm anyone, so even though it made my heart do flip-flops, I didn’t even try.
I glanced at those in my group who had flown halfway across the world to stop Lord Kenan, trying to see how they were reacting. All of them looked serious. All of them except Vincent and Rauel. Rauel had a quiet smile on his face. He was leaning back in his seat, his eyes shut. Vincent was openly grinning, his cup already empty. He noticed me looking and motioned at me to pass over my cup of blood.
Disgusting.
I obliged, though. This was hands down the best way for him to feed.
Rather than watch him drink, I turned away, hoping he would do it discreetly. It wouldn’t be good to have anyone there r
ecognizing what he was, though I doubted they would automatically think “vampire.” More likely, they’d think he was just a really, really disgusting person.
Abel was surfing the internet and touched my arm again, pointing to an article that had just popped up from one of the major news sources. I glanced at it, dismayed to see that water was turning into blood in multiple states. It was early morning on the East Coast, so it made sense that they would notice the plague before anyone else. They were awake for the day first.
When we touched down in Detroit, the same pandemonium and chaos existed there that had been on the plane. Our layover was three hours, and I had time to contemplate the implications. Apparently, water in every beverage was turning to blood. Milk, juice, soda pop, coffee, tea. Every drink that had water as part of it was affected. Food with water in it didn’t seem to be affected. Thank goodness.
Abel and I watched the news while waiting in the terminal, dread filling my stomach as more and more reports of hospitals in panic started coming through. Not a whole lot of people had died yet, but I expected that would probably change as patients were rushed in, needing medications via IV or even transfusions. Apparently, the blood on hand was turning into the same type of blood across the board—O-positive. Luckily, it was the most common type of blood. Unluckily, it wasn’t the only type people needed.
“How long did the first plague last?” Abel asked, rubbing circles on the back of my hand with his thumb. “According to the Bible.”
I shrugged, unable to take my eyes off the TV. “I don’t know.”
He pulled his phone out and surfed the internet again. “It doesn’t say, but it sounds like they lasted for a long while.”
I closed my eyes. Not exactly what I wanted to hear right then.
Our flight was called for boarding, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d been worried they would cancel because of the situation. With how widespread the problem was, apparently they didn’t want to have to deal with helping people find alternate flights.
One thing that got my attention was that the states that had first been affected were already back to normal. That gave me hope that the plague wouldn’t last very long.
We finally touched down in Salt Lake City. All of us returned to our various locations, deciding to meet at my house in a couple of hours. At that point, we’d figure out what our next course of action would be.
Once my allies started showing up, I could see they were just as cranky as Abel and I were. Most of them were scowling, while others looked downtrodden and discouraged. I wasn’t surprised that none of the fire vampires showed up. They were probably gorging themselves. Gross.
No one wanted to talk about what happened in the Netherlands, so we turned on the news and watched as Utahns got hit with the plague. I was surprised it hadn’t affected them already until I remembered what the old man had told me—that the plagues would affect the countryside surrounding me up to the size of Egypt. It wouldn’t hit them until I was there.
“Does anyone know how big Egypt is?” I asked. “In comparison to Utah?”
Most everyone shook their head, scowling at the TV. Abel pulled out his trusty phone, and together we found a website that showed Egypt’s size when compared to other countries. I was shocked to see that the plagues would not only affect Utah, but half of all the surrounding states. In fact, all of Vegas would be hit.
That was a lot of people.
“What is this going to do to people?” I asked Abel in a whisper.
He shook his head. “It’s definitely going to be a downer.”
“For sure.”
“Now what?” Nicole asked. She had flown down to help figure out our next course of action.
I cleared my throat. “Since I missed my deadline, I’ve decided to keep the globe for a while longer. Continue using it as much as possible.”
“Wouldn’t returning it get the plagues to stop?” Austin asked.
I shook my head. “No—not according to the ghost I asked. It’s just not how these oaths work. The people who make them, who loan out magical devices, are strict about consequences. Giving back the globe would inhibit me in my efforts to stop hounds, and it wouldn’t put an end to the plagues.”
“Good to know,” Austin said.
No one had any ideas about what to do at that point. Instead, they were more fascinated by the news, and I ended up sending them all home. They could watch the news anywhere. I just wanted my house back.
When things settled down a bit, I tried contacting Rauel, hoping to get information from him on how to proceed—see if he knew anything more about Lord Kenan that he hadn’t already shared. He didn’t answer, which again didn’t surprise me. Rauel and his vampire friends now had all the blood they could possibly need for a long time, and no one had to die for them to be fed. It was a good situation for them.
Nicole, Austin, Abel, and I decided to use the ambulator again—a magical device Nicole had found that attracted hounds. This time, though, we’d set it up to bring good hounds. Nicole, being a guardian of magical items, found a way for it to work continuously without us having to recharge it once every two days. That ended up being fairly easy because apparently, it required a lower dose of magic to attract good hounds and a higher dose to attract the evil ones.
When I voiced my question as to why that was, Nicole said, “Good hounds fight it more easily.”
I seemed to remember her explaining that at some point. “Why does it require less magic to bring them in, then?” I asked, taking a seat next to Abel in the Russells’ basement. “That doesn’t make sense. It should need more.”
Nicole shrugged as she finished setting up the trap before leaning against a wall next to Austin. “I’m not sure. Either way, the device was created to allow you to call in good hounds for longer than it allowed you to call the bad ones. Maybe the person who created it knew how difficult it would be to get good hounds to come at all, so he designed it to have a trickle of magic gently leading them without them noticing.”
“Regardless, I’m grateful for it.”
I pulled the globe from my pocket, watching as the little glowing dots began moving closer. They were coming so slowly. Some weren’t very far—they would probably arrive within a few hours to a day—but others were so far, I didn’t see how it would be possible for me to get rid of them before Lord Kenan showed up.
Speaking of Lord Kenan, when would he be on his way? And would he come here directly? I needed Omar to let me know, but he hadn’t come to visit in a while. Actually, he hadn’t come since that whole fiasco where he and Alexander tried to drag me off to Lord Kenan.
I really hoped they’d been able to get away from the demon. Something told me they had, when Lord Kenan’s control had weakened.
Yeah. The guy practically lost his mind over me. Score to Lizzie.
From what we could tell, Lord Kenan’s more reluctant supporters hadn’t rejoined him. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was still weakened from his experience with me. Something told me not to hope for that, though. It was more likely that he didn’t see having them on his side as necessary anymore.
“Why aren’t they coming through corners?” I asked, still watching the glowing dots.
Abel apparently had a theory for that. “They’re fighting it too much and refuse to go the easy way. Instead, they’re coming on foot, unable to resist the magic, but resisting enough not to travel the way they usually do.”
That made sense. I wish they wouldn’t fight it so much. It sure would make my job easier.
3
I leaned back in my seat, folding my arms across my chest, and glaring at the trap where it sat on the table in front of us. “Stupid thing.”
Nicole chuckled. “If it wasn’t for that ‘stupid thing,’ you’d still have hundreds of hounds to deal with.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I am grateful for it. I just really hoped to have been done with all of this by now. And it’s agonizing to see how slowly they’re coming.”
&nb
sp; Everyone murmured their agreement, and after staring at the device for a little while longer and realizing there wasn’t a lot we could do in the meantime, we turned our conversation to the plagues.
“Every single bit of water has been affected,” I said. “Even the water in the Russells’ food storage is contaminated.” My mouth parched even more just saying the words. What a mess.
The elderly couple was due to get back soon. They’d volunteered to drive to Utah Lake and up the canyons to the springs, creeks, and rivers there to see just how much water was being impacted.
I continued. “If the Russells find that our reserves are now blood, we’re in big trouble. Utah is already a desert state. Once the plague ends—whenever that is—we’re going to have to see if we can fix things with magic. Because there’s no way we can wait for it to do it on its own like the Eastern states did—we don’t have enough water sources as it is.”
“But how?” Austin asked. “The amount of water it would require to keep this state and the surrounding ones hydrated is astronomically high.”
All of us turned to Nicole, and she held her hands up, a smile on her face. “Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll see if I can figure something out.”
She excused herself to one of the interrogation rooms, and not wanting to feel like I was spying, I headed upstairs to find a bathroom.
When I finished, the Russells had returned. I could see from the expressions on their faces that it hadn’t been a good trip.
“Everything is blood now,” Mr. Russell said. “Everything. Utah Lake, Hobble Creek, Provo River, et cetera.”
“I don’t know how we’re going to pull through this one,” Mrs. Russell said. “And I hate to think of what’s coming next.”
I tried not to show my discouragement. It was a struggle not to. It was also a struggle not to start apologizing repeatedly for the mess I’d gotten us into. I clamped down on my tongue, though, determined to be strong for my friends.
Moments later, Austin, Abel, and Nicole came upstairs, their expressions grim. I turned to them expectantly, hoping the news wouldn’t be as terrible as it looked.
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