I watched in horror. How long could the spell last under such an onslaught? The wind began to blow. Towering thunder clouds rolled in, and cold air washed over the battlements. Lightning lit up the sky from horizon to horizon. Rain fell on the roof in heavy drops and splashed on the stone flooring in widely spaced patterns. A large raindrop smacked into my cheek, feeling like a tear as it slid down to my chin. The atmosphere felt electric and dangerous, as if a storm of world-shattering proportions would overtake us at any minute.
All the precautions we had taken, all the preparations we had made… None of it mattered now as chaos reigned around us. Gage gained strength from the bloodshed. The demon powered itself using the banshees. The portal was wide open. If the demon broke the barrier, he might kill us all.
Darla screamed in frustration. I turned and watched her run to the table, grab the knife, and kick the flimsy table out of her way as she turned toward Gage. Spell ingredients and tools flew into the air, crashing down onto the rock floor with a clatter. The pot that held the remains of the potion that had saved me rolled on its side in a long arc, its contents running out in a flickering red line.
The demon immediately kneeled down at the boundary of the pentagram, staring down at the red liquid. It reached out a clawed hand, beckoning to the potion that had saved my life.
I hesitated for a fatal second, unsure how the potion could possibly help the creature. By the time I moved, it was too late. The potion flowed as if sucked by an invisible force. When it touched the lines of the spell, the salt flared blood red. Heat and flames expanded out, burning away the last of the candles in a split-second. The flames faded away, throwing the roof into a shadowy darkness. The only light came from the pillar of flame that burned behind the demon.
The demon stood, visible as a huge dark shadow against the pillar of red light. And I watched in despair as the beast slowly stepped out of the area that had previously contained it. I tried to run toward the demon to do who-knows-what, but Gage was between me and the beast, and as I ran by Gage, his arm came out and grabbed me. I screamed in frustration and tried to get loose, but Gage held on tight.
And then the demon roared, and all the fighting stopped. Everyone turned and looked at the towering demon, now freed, fed by dark magic, ten times stronger than when we brought it forth. With a horrid, resounding roar, it broke loose from the pentagram and charged into the line of death dealers.
The demon jammed its clawed fists into the guts of the closest death dealer, ripping the girl’s guts out through a gaping hole in her stomach. A looping line of small intestine hung over the beast’s arm, caught on a spur jutting from its elbow and trailing behind it as it ripped the soul from its next victim. The empty body dropped at the creature’s feet, the man’s soul screaming as the demon greedily sucked it in.
It turned, looking for another victim, and came face-to-face with Mildred. My heart thumped hard in my chest as I watched the old woman square up against the demon. She had powerful magic, but was it enough to keep her alive?
She smiled a dangerous smile and spread her hands in front of herself. The rain fell around her but seemed not to touch her. “You’ve had your fun, demon. You have two options: you may take your new power back to the other side and exist as a centurion in the Legion, or you can stay here and die.”
The beast let out a wicked laugh. “Centurion? With the souls we can harvest on this rooftop, the Legion will become unstoppable. We will have such a lead on the others that none will be able to stand against us.”
Mildred stood unfazed. “If you stay, we will kill you. You can’t stand against us all.”
“Death dealers cannot stand against me; their powers only make me stronger. And you, druid, might have been a match for me a millennia ago, but age has dulled your powers and you are the last of your kind. We will eat your soul and become a match for any of our brothers.”
“I may not be a match for you,” Mildred admitted, “but I’m not alone.” She raised her hands to the sky, and sheets of lightning began to rain down on the roof. Several struck the demon, rocking it back and forth with the force of the impacts, but most of the bolts chose another target: Dean.
Plasma rippled along the steel of his armor, arcing to reach the ground as he began to move forward, his eyes glowing bright yellow. He stumbled into a crashing trot, still throwing arcs of electricity every time his feet touched the ground. The long sword he’d stolen came up, moving lightly as he gripped it in one hand. As he neared the demon, he flashed forward, lightning sliding down the sword’s length. He struck the demon on the top of its shoulder, slicing downward at an angle and out through its armpit. The arm flopped to the roof, twisting and clawing as if it were still attached.
For a long second, nothing moved but the twitching arm. Every eye was trained on the demon. The beast still stood, even after taking what should have been a fatal blow.
As we watched, the arm reformed. The demon seemed to shrink slightly as the arm grew back out of its side.
Dean flashed back into motion, swinging the long sword in a flashing arc that should have cut the demon in half. But it never connected. Instead, it passed through empty air to strike sparks on the stone of the floor.
The demon had moved with shocking speed—speed that I had only seen Dean capable of while in his berserker state. The demon quickly reached another group of death dealers. It reached out and swiped at them and they fell to the ground, bleeding. Dean increased his speed to catch up to the creature.
Lightning suddenly rained down again on the beast, holding it long enough for Dean to close the distance. The sword was a blur of flickering light, leaving sprays of black blood in the air. Parts of the demon flew off piecemeal, tumbling through the air and bouncing against the stone and surrounding death dealers.
Gage let go of me and moved to join in the carnage. He held his blood sword high, darting in and out to punctuate Dean’s wild swings. Soon, the demon was a steaming pile of meat, loosely scattered in a pool of spreading blood. Dean and Gage stood ready, looking for more targets as the rain turned the roof into a shifting puddle. Seven dead death dealers lay on the roof, turning that puddle blood red.
“This is your fault!”
Darla’s voice was shockingly close, and I turned to face her as a burning line of pain appeared on my upper arm. I looked down to see a long gash. A flash of movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I raised my hand in a last-minute attempt to block the blade that I saw coming toward me again. I felt it bite into my forearm but continued my swing. The blade flew out of Darla’s hand, skittering away on the stones of the roof.
With a scream, she threw herself at me, knocking me onto my back and sending me sliding across the roof. I struggled to stand, sure that Darla would not stop until I was dead.
“Darla, enough!” Freddy dashed forward and stood over me, facing the enraged death dealer. “You’re just making it worse! The only way to fix this is if we all work together.”
But it was already too late. As I stood at Freddy’s shoulder, I felt the pillar of fire still burning in the middle of the pentagram blast suddenly higher. Its heat pushed me back, as I was much closer to it than I had realized.
I looked down to see a line of flame flickering at my feet, floating on top of the rainwater and growing with each drop of blood that fell from my arm. The line led to the pillar of flame, and with each passing second it grew larger.
My blood was crossing into the pentagram. My blood was somehow feeding the flames. I quickly scrambled back, pressing my hands to the wounds on my arms.
Freddy didn’t seem to notice; his face was focused intently on Darla. Not until her expression filled with shock did he turn and look at the portal.
He turned just in time to take a crushing blow from the first demon to cross over.
An inky black wing struck him across his chest. The leading edge of the wing was razor sharp, laying Freddy’s chest open and making a horrible crushing noise. Freddy crashed to the ground next t
o me, falling bonelessly and hitting his head with an audible crack. I dropped down next to him, calling out his name, but he was unconscious. A bloody froth appeared on his lips, and his breath came in short, labored gasps.
Demons large and small poured from the portal, flowing like ants from a disturbed mound. Screams of anger and pain rose from everywhere at once, and I knew people were fighting for their lives all around me, but it didn’t seem to be real. Only one thing seemed real. Freddy lay dying in my arms.
There was nothing I could do. I was as helpless to heal him as I had been to heal Luke in the alleyway.
But that wasn’t true. I had found some healing power then. I had pleaded with the universe, begged for the power to come to me. I had reached into the ether sea, and a tiny spark of healing power had run through my body, down my hands and into Luke’s wound. It had stopped the blood flow. It had kept him alive.
My trembling hands reached out and touched the wound in Freddy’s chest. There was so much blood. I could feel his heart beating weakly underneath my fingertips. Blood was spurting out in time with his heartbeat. It would only be a matter of minutes before he died. Only a true healer might have the chance to save his life.
A small cry escaped my lips as I took in the chaos around me. Humans and demons were clashing together in battle. Flames flew past me, scorching my hair. Screams of pain filled the air as others fell and died. There was no one to help Freddy. No one but me.
My mother had said I still had light inside me, but I could only feel darkness. The darkness had consumed me, filled my mind and my body. I felt a wave of fear rise from the pit of my stomach, paralyzing me with terror that overtook all reason.
There is nothing I can do to save him. Freddy is going to die. At the thought, darkness flooded through me. I was helpless, drowning in despair. Within the darkness, I heard my mother’s voice.
“The light burns bright inside you, Colina. Find the light.”
Why would my mother keep saying that if it wasn’t true? Was there still light somewhere inside me?
As the thought echoed through me, I felt hope. And with that thought of hope, the darkness, for one brief moment, loosened its grip. A surge of strength raced through me.
And then it came to me.
Fear gives darkness its power. I had a moment of clarity—fear had been fueling the darkness within me all along. I had been fueling it with fear that I wasn’t strong enough to withstand all the challenges I faced. Crushing fear had blazed inside me ever since the day of my family’s murders. I held it tightly to me—fear that I would die a horrible death like my family, that I would never be able to right the wrongs I’d committed.
All these poisonous thoughts were constantly swirling through me. They filled my spirit with indecision and weakness. When I had gone through the rituals and taken on the role of a death dealer, I’d been so conflicted. The Death Arts went against everything I’d been raised to believe in. Even though at the time I thought it was the only way to survive, a part of me still despised myself for taking the dark path and allowing myself to become what my parents had abhorred.
And the thing I feared most of all, the nightmare that kept me up at night, the thought that was pounding through my skull right now—I would lose Luke and be alone forever.
I whipped my head around, searching for Luke. He was standing strong, feet apart, arms raised as hellfire flew from his fingertips, but he was outmatched. He was fighting a demon three times his size.
None of us will survive. We’re all going to die. I choked at the thought. I felt my blood turn cold.
Fear. The darkness feeds on it.
I closed my eyes. I could feel the wind on my face. I opened my eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out. Fear was my greatest enemy. In that moment, I had realized it was the one thing truly holding me back.
I took one more deep, calming breath, and as I let the breath out, I released it. I forced it all out—the fear, the worry. I forced myself to believe like I never had before that we would survive, that we would prevail. I believed for the first time that there was still light within me. When I had been faced with the choice of killing young Jamie during Darla’s ritual, I realized there was a line I couldn’t cross. I hadn’t crossed. The small spark of humanity still shining inside me wouldn’t let me kill her. The light was there if I could just find it. I just had to believe.
“Colina.” I heard my name whispered. It was my mother’s voice. I looked up, and her spirit was there, floating in the air before me. Mama reached out, and as her ghostly fingers slid across my skin, my mind filled with memories. Memories of love, of laughter, of light.
“It’s time you remember, baby,” she whispered. “Remember who you used to be.”
I thought back to the times I had spent outside on warm summer days, planting herbs in the garden, and the feel of earth between my fingers.
I remembered Sundays and our raucous family dinners. Papa, Mama, and my brother, Jamie, sitting around the table. Everyone talking, laughing.
I remembered my mother sitting on my bed at night, her fingers brushing gently across my forehead as she told me stories, lulling me to sleep.
I remembered my father scooping me up into his arms and giving me a kiss every morning before he left the house.
They loved me. It was time I remembered not just who I used to be, but who I am.
I am Colina, the born healer. A person brought up to fight against death.
And with the thought I saw it—a spark of light that appeared in the darkness of my mind.
If fear fuels darkness, then love must spark the flame.
I filled my mind with thoughts of Luke, pictured his lips on mine, thought of the way he made me feel, let my heart cry out with joy over how much I loved him and how much he loved me back.
The tiny flame grew higher.
It grew and grew until it flared and became a bright flash of glowing white and gold in the sea of black. As the light grew, I felt—no, I saw the darkness shrink back.
I looked down at Freddy. His skin was pale and his eyes were closed. My mother took away sickness and pain when I was a child, and a part of my mother lived inside me. A part of my father, too.
I came from a clan that walked the path of light. The darkness truly wasn’t a part of me. It was something that had seeped into my soul. It had slithered inside of me when I was weak and scared, and my fear fueled it, and it had grown until it filled me to the brim. It tried to extinguish any flame of goodness inside me, but I realized now that goodness had never left. It was a part of who I was. It was a part of me like my arm or leg. I was Colina, the born-and-raised healer. I had become Colina, the death dealer, but the healer within me had never truly died; she had just transformed. I survived against the odds. I lived when everyone in my family died. I would stand, I would fight. I would be strong.
Freddy’s heartbeat thumped unevenly beneath my palm; he was very close to death now. With a new resolve, I reached out and pushed my fingertips into Freddy’s wound.
“Goddess divine. Mother of the earth. Thee, who brings forth all life, hear my plea. Help me.”
The words rang from my lips. I repeated the mantra over and over. I reached for the energy that swirled in the ether sea and, with sheer determination, pulled it toward me. I felt the old, familiar energy flow up my feet, through my legs, and tingle along my arms. It raced through my whole body and then surged out through my fingertips. I pushed my fingers deeper into Freddy’s wound.
Heal. The word took root in my very spirit as white energy flowed from me to Freddy.
Chapter 17
I peered down into Freddy’s pale face. His body was still against the gray stones. With trembling fingers, I reached out and touched his cheek. At my touch, he moaned. The sound sent my heart leaping in my chest with joy. Freddy was alive!
The color came back into his face, and he slowly opened his eyes. “Colina?”
I healed him. I wanted to shout out to the world—I can heal a
gain!
He sat up and looked down at his blood-soaked clothes. He looked over at the blood that coated my hands and arms—both his and my own. “You healed me.”
“I did,” I answered. I could feel the positive energy swirling through me, colliding with the darkness. Orange flames twisted around white light.
I rose to my feet and calmly studied the scene before me.
Demons continued to flow from the Hellgate, a constant stream that spread horror in a wave across the roof. Knots of death dealers fought for their lives. As I watched, a group of three went down screaming. Sprays of blood and viscera flew into the air as a dozen smaller demons tore them apart in a feeding frenzy.
I reached out and, almost as if they had been waiting just on the edge of the battle, my spirit pack flooded onto the roof. There were more of them than I had ever seen before. A flowing gray cloud of shadow washed over the roof, the spirit animals occasionally discernable as they took solid form to tear at the demons. Whole packs of wolves flowed into the fight, dozens at a time taking on each demon, but for every demon they dragged down, two more came through the gate, and fewer beasts moved on to the next fight. They seemed to lose form and shred back into formlessness as the demon’s attacks left dark gashes through their being.
The remaining death dealers rallied, attacking demons weakened by the pack. They fought on, but they, too, were outnumbered. I watched one after another die, falling to the floor.
The brand on my arm that marked me as chosen by the old gods flared with blue light. I looked at the totem shape of the bear, feeling the link to the pack with renewed strength. I pulled on that link and found the oldest and strongest of the old gods’ warriors, and I pulled him to me.
A large shadow made of mists of fog and spirit swept onto the roof like a low-lying and impossibly dense cloud. Slowly, the wisps of gray morphed into the shape of a huge bear. A bear made not of skin and blood, but instead of shadow and mist. Only its eyes seemed to have any real substance—they were a yellow glowing light of ancient power. It fell on the demons as they rushed from the gate, and dozens fell to its powerful claws and ripping jaws. The bear phased in and out of existence, hitting knots of demons that were felling its lesser packmates.
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