by Sarra Cannon
I bit my lip and frowned, checking the clock. Kai stifled a laugh.
“Lenny, come out here, please,” Martin called, and my stomach flipped nervously.
Kai and I exchanged looks, and then we both practically ran into each other trying to cramp through the kitchen doorway at the same time.
I laughed as I pushed in front of him and he bumped my arm with his, but when he reached the foyer, his eyes grew wide.
Almost scared to look up, I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the worst. I expected the detective or maybe Blythe Greer, but instead, a group of five people wearing harsh expressions stood in the entryway, their eyes trained on me.
I gasped and then screamed as I ran forward. A tall woman with long, red hair in a high ponytail stepped forward, her arms wide open as she leaned forward to pull me into a huge bear hug.
“Gianna,” I said, wrapping my arms around her.
My mother’s best friend. I hadn’t seen her since the funeral.
“What are you all doing here?” I asked, finally pulling away to look at the group of five Slayers whose presence was surely not sanctioned by the Council.
“We’re here to help you banish this demon, once and for all,” Gianna said. She smiled, her eyes darting from me to Kai. “But first, we’re going to show you a few tricks to help you stay alive, next time you get yourself into trouble.”
I smiled, excitement rushing through me like it was Christmas morning.
Five of the most powerful, deadliest Slayers in the Witch's Council were going to teach us how to fight. Our chances of saving Peyton and the others just grew exponentially.
A Lot To Learn
True to Martin’s style, he invited everyone back to the kitchen for fresh coffee and cookies. None of the Slayers were about to say no to that, so we all made our way to the back room of the house.
After a few minutes of getting everyone situated and making introductions, everyone found a seat at the worn antique table that I’d come to think of as the coziest place on earth.
I cupped the warm mug between my hands and breathed in the earthy aroma of the coffee.
We actually had a chance now to save Peyton and the others, and I couldn’t help but smile. In so many ways, I’d felt alone after the death of my parents. I had Martin, of course, but it had taken time to get comfortable with him.
Now, though, I remembered I wasn’t alone at all. The people who truly loved my parents would always be there for me when I needed them.
“Does the Council know you’re here?” I asked, breaking up the casual conversations going on around the table.
I was hopeful and all, but we were pressed for time here. We could talk about casual things once this demon was gone.
“Alright then. Let’s get straight to the point,” an old Slayer named Gowan said, winking at me before taking his seat.
Gowan’s white hair and beard seemed freshly cut, and he wore a black t-shirt that stretched over his huge muscles. He was about six feet tall, and except for the color of his hair, he didn’t at all look his age. Though to be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure how old he was.
He’d been around for a very long time, according to my parents. Longer than Martin, even. He was the oldest, most powerful Slayer I knew, which probably put him over a hundred and fifty years old as a conservative estimate.
There weren’t many Slayers his age still around, despite the slower aging of our kind.
It was a dangerous job.
“We didn’t exactly advertise we were coming here,” Gianna said.
She was sitting next to me on the left side. Kai sat to my right.
“I doubt our presence can stay secret for long, though,” Asher said. “But as far as it stands right now, no one has expressly forbidden us from getting involved.”
Unlike me.
“And if they do?” I asked.
I had my concerns about the Council. I wasn’t sure why they wanted to allow this demon to free his brother, or why they didn’t seem to care about the girls who’d been taken, but I had no doubt they were hiding something.
Asher shrugged.
He was the youngest Slayer in the group, besides me if I even counted yet. His long brown hair fell over his very light blue eyes. He wore a dark navy suit jacket that looked very put together and mature, but underneath the jacket was an old Metallica t-shirt and a pair of faded jeans.
I’d only first met Asher about five years ago when he first became a Slayer, officially, and had been mentored by my dad. He’d lived with us for a while when Dad had first taken him under his wing, so I kind of saw Asher like an older brother.
I hadn’t seen him as much over the past year, though, because he’d been on some secret assignment in Japan. I hoped we’d get a chance to talk more while he was here. I was dying to hear what he’d been up to.
“If the Council has a problem with us coming here to stop Algrath from killing five more innocent girls with magic in their blood and releasing his brother into the world, then there’s going to be a lot more to discuss than a few rogue Slayers,” he said. “The entire coven will need to be contacted and told about this. The Council needs to answer for their actions in this case.”
“Their inactions, you mean,” Britta said, standing. She never had been one for sitting still.
Britta was a petite, dark-eyed Slayer who’d once acted as my mother’s mentor decades ago. Her black hair was cut in a pixie-cut hairstyle, and she almost always wore dark red lipstick that contrasted sharply with her pale skin.
She was short and small, but she was fast and feisty.
“The Council has failed us all in this matter,” she said with a slight German accent. “We all should have been alerted to Algrath’s reappearance a decade ago when the seal on the first mirror was unlocked. They knew this was happening, and they’ve purposely done nothing to stop it.”
“I think it’s possible they’ve even been helping Algrath set his brother free.”
This came from the final Slayer of the five.
Darius. He’d been my father’s closest friend since they were young boys. Their fathers had fought together as Slayers, too, once upon a time, and the two families had been inseparable for a long time.
His black hair was shaved close to his head, and there was a bit of white hair that had grown into his dark beard over the past few years. He wore black pants and a white t-shirt. I couldn’t help but glance again at the scars crisscrossed against the dark skin of his arms.
Darius had been through some difficult times in his life, but he was one of the strongest men I’d ever known, both mentally and physically.
He pushed his chair back from the table and crossed one leg over the other, placing his hands together in his lap.
“I’ve been doing some research since we got the call from Martin saying it was time to come,” he said. “I’ve talked to a few of my friends, as well. When the mirrors were hidden, they were specifically cloaked with a powerful spell that should have been impossible to detect, even for a powerful demon like Algrath. So, how did he find them all so quickly without the help of someone who knew where they were?”
“Maybe he’s grown more powerful over time, though,” Gianna said. “Most powerful demons can see through illusions and invisibility spells. Maybe he’d grown strong enough to see through whatever cloaking spell was placed on them.”
“Martin, you were part of the crew that first captured Regmothean,” Darius said. “What do you think? Is there any chance the cloaking spells just weren’t strong enough?”
Martin stroked his chin for a moment.
“It’s always possible, but it’s unlikely,” he said. “To gain that level of power, Algrath would have needed to increase his power exponentially over a relatively short period of time. That would have taken massive human sacrifice. Thousands of lives.”
Everyone in the room grew quiet. No one wanted to believe that could be a possibility. If thousands of humans had died by the hand of this dem
on, the Council would have known.
I shuddered.
“Let’s say that isn’t the case,” Gowan said. “How else could Algrath have found the mirrors, if he couldn’t locate them with his own magic? Are there other options than a member of the Council telling him where to look?”
Silence again, but beside me, Kai tensed and leaned forward, letting his head fall into his hands.
“What?” I asked, placing a hand gently on his arm.
He shook his head, then cleared his throat before sitting back.
“Some angels have the ability to see the actions of the purest souls,” he said, his voice strained. “The Slayers placing the mirrors had the best, purest of intentions when they did it. It wouldn’t be that difficult for a powerful enough angel to see where they placed those mirrors, even if it happened a hundred years ago.”
My hand rose to my mouth.
Had his father helped Algrath find the mirrors? Why would he do that?
“Zuriel would never have helped a demon,” Darius said, leaning forward, his jaw tight. “Not willingly.”
“I don’t want to believe it, either, but I followed my father here about six months ago,” Kai said. “A few weeks later, the first girl was taken. That isn’t a coincidence.”
Darius clenched his fists and stood. He paced the floor and muttered to himself, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Kai had said his father was close to my parents. He must have been close to Darius, too.
“What do you know about your father’s disappearance?” Gianna asked. “You tracked him here, and then what?”
Kai closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I had a strong lock on his energy, so I knew he had come to this town. Knowing my father’s connection to the Thorne family, I thought maybe he’d come to visit you. That’s why I came to Martin when I first arrived in town.”
Martin nodded.
“Kai’s information is part of what led me to believe Algrath had made it to the final mirror,” Martin said. “Sadly, Zuriel never made it here to visit me.”
“I don’t know what happened to him when he arrived in Newcastle, but before I even got here, his energy simply disappeared,” Kai said. “He was here, and then...nothing. I’ve tried over and over to locate his energy again, but nothing has worked. For a long time, I refused to believe that he could really be gone, but what other explanation is there?”
“Can an angel really be killed?” I asked, not wanting to believe it, for Kai’s sake. “There are other ways to mask energy signatures. Maybe Algrath has him locked away.”
“Angels can be killed,” Gowan said softly. “It isn’t easy to do, but it is possible.”
Kai grew very still, and he didn’t say another word. I wanted to throw my arms around him. The death of my own parents was still really fresh, too, and I knew exactly how he was feeling.
Except that maybe it was harder not to have all the answers. As horrible as it was, I had seen my parents die with my own eyes. I knew what happened to them, and I would have to live with that memory for the rest of my life.
How hard must it have been for Kai over the past few months? To not know?
“We have to assume Algrath used Zuriel to locate the mirrors before killing him,” Gowan said. He winced and glanced at Kai, obviously hating the words he had to say. “I hope it isn’t true, but for our own safety and the safety of those missing girls, we have to assume Algrath has consumed Zuriel’s power.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, studying the somber faces of the rest of the people in the room.
“It means Algrath will be impossible to kill,” Kai said.
“And it might mean we don’t have enough firepower at this table to stop him,” Britta said, sitting down.
“Who else can we call in?” Gianna asked, looking to Martin.
He slowly shook his head. “There’s no one else,” he said.
“Sure there is,” Asher said, standing. “There’s Luther and Yvonne and—”
“Sit down,” Gowan said.
“I have contacted everyone I felt might be loyal to our friendship over the Council’s rule,” Martin said. “You five are the only ones who agreed to come. We are alone in this.”
Asher closed his eyes and sat down hard in his chair.
“How do we know, then, that no one else has already told the Council what we’re planning to do? If they’re working with Algrath, he could already know we’re here.”
“We have to trust that even though our dear friends aren’t willing to risk their lives or their place in the coven for this cause, they are not so far gone that they would betray us,” Martin said. “We have limited time to worry about it, I’m afraid.”
“Martin’s right,” Gowan said. “It’s useless to think about what we don’t have. We need to work together to maximize the strength of those who are here now.”
With that, he looked at me, a smile spreading across his face. My stomach knotted.
“Time to train?” I guessed.
“Like never before,” Gowan said. “Let’s get going. You both have a lot to learn before tomorrow.”
I Needed You To Understand
For two hours, we trained in the woods alongside Gianna and Gowan. By the end of it, I was exhausted and slightly bruised. My stamina still wasn’t fully restored from the encounter last night, and fighting the trap demon earlier had nearly wiped me out.
“I hate to admit it, but I need a break,” I said, doubling over to catch my breath.
Gianna agreed and called for Gowan to join her by the car so they could discuss our progress in silence.
Kai slumped against a tree and slid to the ground.
“I can’t believe I still have to go to work now,” he said. “I’m sore all over.”
We both took long drinks from our water bottles.
“Any word from Martin?” he asked.
Martin had gone back to the Peterson house with Asher to search for the portal we’d discovered earlier.
I pulled my cell phone from my back pocket and shook my head. “Nothing yet,” I said. “Do you really have to go to work? Can’t you call out sick or something?”
Kai shook his head. “Martin wants me to go in and see what I can find out about Julie Peterson from Melvin,” he said. “Apparently after Ms. Julie divorced her ex-husband, she and Melvin got together for a while. He even lived with her for a few years. I’m going to ask a few questions and see how much Melvin is willing to tell me.”
“Will you come back out here with me tonight?” I asked. “I have a feeling they’re going to keep this up long after dark.”
Kai looked around. “Sure,” he said. “But won’t it be dangerous out here? This doesn’t look so different from the area we were attacked in last night.”
“No, come with me.” I held my hand out to help him up. He nearly pulled me down, and I laughed as I straightened my knees and tugged harder. “Here, let me show you something.”
I walked him out about fifty feet in one direction, studying the trees as I went.
“What are you looking for?” he asked, following my gaze.
“Here,” I said, finally, stopping in front of a large pine tree with a symbol branded into its bark.
A circle of thorns with crossed daggers and a rose in the center.
“What is that?” he asked as I traced the burned symbol with my fingertip.
“It’s the Thorne family sigil,” I said.
“What does it do?” Kai asked.
“It protects this place, somehow,” I said. “Martin’s used this as a training ground for Slayers and even Keepers for over a century.”
A twig snapped nearby, and I immediately grabbed the dagger from my back pocket.
“Incendium.”
In an instant, flames surrounded the blade of my dagger.
Martin appeared from behind a tree, smiling. “Impressive reflexes for someone so tired.”
I released the spe
ll with a sigh of relief. “You scared me.”
“Did you find the portal?” Kai asked.
“I’m afraid not,” Martin said. “There are police crawling all over that house now. We won’t be getting anything from there in time.”
I groaned. That meant one of two things.
Either Ms. Julie had returned from wherever she went and found the place a mess, or Olive had come home from school to that horror show.
I still didn’t know for sure if Olive was involved in this whole mess, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. She’d been so nice to me.
I quickly took out my phone and sent a text to the number she’d given me the other day.
Hey, it’s Lenny. Are you okay? Someone said the cops were at your house.
I waited for a second, but there was no response.
“How does your sigil protect this place?” Kai asked. “Does it keep the demon from entering or something?”
Martin smiled and started walking back toward the others. We followed.
“I wish I had the power to do something like that out here, but no. The sigil does not protect demons from crossing the barrier,” Martin said. “It’s a glorified warning system that’s triggered when anyone magical gets too close.”
He explained more about the sigil and the training ground as we made our way back to the clearing where we’d both been training earlier. As we approached, however, I saw a sixth person in the center of the circle.
A man on his knees with a black cloth over his head.
Darius knelt beside the man, whispering something in his ear that was too low for us to hear from this distance.
“Martin, what aren’t you telling me?” I asked. “Who is that?”
Martin raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Don’t you recognize him?” he said. “We discovered him trying to leave the neighborhood just as we arrived, only moments after the police had gotten there.”
At that moment, Darius pulled the cloth from the man’s head and punched him in the face. The blow turned the man’s head sideways, and I gasped.
The man on his knees in the clearing was Bates.
