Demon Bewitched

by Jenn Stark

  It did pretty well, as it turned out.

  The moment the demons struck the force field she’d sent out, they didn’t just fall back, they were incinerated into a wet, smoking heap of black ash. Startled, Cressida pivoted and struck again, and then again. She couldn’t force the fire past the reach of her outstretched hands, but anything that she touched, she could destroy. She spun again, trying to find Dahlia in the crowd, desperate to protect her friend. She didn’t find the captain, but she did see the head lawgiver, and her heart froze solid.

  Fraya stood in the midst of easily a dozen demons, her hands up as they advanced, her face hidden in the wild tangle of her hair. Seeing the head lawgiver disheveled was almost more alarming than seeing her being attacked, and Cressida rushed forward, thrusting demons out of her way. Around her, spell casters seemed to be gaining on the army, evoking the strength of their ancient bonds, and the outer ring held—no demons were breaking free to terrorize the city beyond their sacred grove. Then again, none seemed to be attempting to break free.

  Cressida burst from another knot of demons in time to see Fraya lift her hands high, cowering back from her harassers, and Cressida screamed, “No!”

  She flew into their midst, her fiery hands driving the closest demons into ash while leaving the rest so she could take up a position in front of the head lawgiver. This was the woman who’d always said she’d sacrificed everything to bring Cressida into the coven. This was the woman who’d taught her everything she knew…and who’d also taught Marcus all he knew as well.

  This was the woman…who had not forced Cressida to master the skills she needed to be strong, regardless of the abilities of those around her.

  This was the woman…who had ordered the sacred grimoire to be erased of the old language Cressida had researched as she’d prepared to take on Ahriman.

  This was the woman who even now placed her hand on Cressida’s shoulder, the weight of that hand suddenly and fearsomely strong.

  Cressida realized her error too late.

  Fraya drove her to her knees as two of Marcus’s foot soldiers stepped forward and hauled back her arms, pulling her hands wide and covering them with heavy blankets to douse the lingering flames before the head lawgiver grabbed her hair and yanked hard.

  “You have done well, high priestess,” she said into her ear, her tone the same voice of the kindly woman who’d lifted her into her embrace more than two decades earlier, the same voice that had patiently and sternly taught her the ways of the sacred grimoire. “Perhaps a little too well. Yours was a place of power in this pageant, but not the place of highest power. That belonged to Marcus.”

  “Marcus,” Cressida gritted out, her eyes going wide.

  “Of course.” Fraya tightened her grip on Cressida’s hair as the demons in front of her parted, giving her a clear view to the space before her. While demons and witches still fought on either side, the passage was cleared to reveal Marcus standing alone, his face to the sky, his arms outspread. He was in profile to Cressida, so she could easily see him speaking words, even though she couldn’t hear him. “It didn’t have to be this way. The grimoire didn’t specify whether the witch who confronted Ahriman be male or female, only that he or she was willing to lie with a demon for the glory of Ahriman’s power.”

  “But why?” Cressida protested. “The wedding of a witch and a demon was to stop Ahriman, not glorify him.”

  “In the sacred grimoire, yes. And woe befell the witches throughout the ages who made the attempt. Demons are an untrustworthy lot, and it takes the greatest strength to withstand them when you let them get too close. But the sacred grimoire was not the only ancient tome in the Scepter Coven’s library. It was Marcus who found the correct book, Marcus who read it, and Marcus who called the demon Belessunu to him, that he might subjugate her to his will. He took the demoness as his consort years ago, and his power increased a hundredfold.”

  As Cressida’s horror grew, she twisted in Fraya’s grasp, but the combined power of the head lawgiver and the spells from Marcus’s foot soldiers were more than a match for her, particularly with her hands covered and the nascent flicker of power she’d gained from Stefan effectively dampened.

  “There’s no other tome. I would have found it too,” she gasped as Fraya’s hold tightened, though, unbidden, the words of the demoness raked through her mind, mocking and twisting. “Those who control the present, control the past.”

  “You would have, had Marcus left it there for you to find. But fortunately, he is no fool. After that, it was merely a matter of seeing which of you was stronger. I had actually still believed it would be you. When I stole you from that waiting room at the hospital after I sent both your parents into surgery and you came to me so willingly, I thought you were the fated leader of the Scepter Coven, the one who would clear the path for Ahriman.”

  “You what?” Cressida suddenly felt dizzy, the ground rushing up to greet her, but the head lawgiver hauled her back in place.

  “Marcus came from such less dramatic beginnings that I felt you had the easy upper hand. But he showed promise early on, always pushing to learn more, always searching for ways to cheat. He yearned for the darkness in a way you simply never did, and so the path was set. His abilities have blossomed over time while yours, sadly, have not.”

  Cressida forced herself to keep staring at Marcus and not react, though inside, she wanted to howl. All these recent years, as doubt had slowly crept in to darken her thoughts, she’d thought it was her own doing. But now she saw the truth. The head lawgiver had worked to keep her exactly in the lane that she’d mapped out for her. Never allowing her to get too strong, always assuring Cressida that control of those around her was more important than control of her own abilities. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have trusted so much?

  Deep within her, rage sparked to life, and with it a flicker of heat along her fingertips, despite the quelling effect of the blankets over her hands.

  But it was far too late for her to stop what was happening now.

  The skies above Marcus opened in the way she’d first expected them to when she’d summoned Ahriman. The starlit heavens split wide, and smoke and fire billowed, revealing one enormous claw to the right and another to the left. The claws pushed the fabric of the sky apart and revealed a creature easily three stories tall, dripping with blood and gore, his face a mass of spiked teeth and curling tentacles, his body slick with a fluid that scorched the earth. The trees around the sacred grove instantly turned white, their branches and leaves withering away, and the spell casters nearest his presence didn’t die—they vanished, incinerated to dust.

  “Ahriman!” Marcus shouted. “Keep the promise you made to our ancestors. Stand with us and protect us in your mighty grasp.”

  “You…”

  When Ahriman spoke, Cressida couldn’t help herself. The tears that filled her eyes and flowed down her cheeks were as impossible to deny as her next breath. She wasn’t alone either. The foot soldiers to her right and left staggered away, and even the head lawgiver rocked back on her heels, choking on the sudden wave of misery that emanated from Ahriman’s voice, misery that he wielded like a weapon.

  “You dare to ask me anything,” Ahriman intoned.

  Marcus, at least, seemed prepared to meet the monster. “The terms of your entry into this world are inviolate!” he shouted. “You are summoned here to do the work of the Scepter Coven, and in return, the Scepter Coven is yours to command. I give you the greatest spell casters ever born to do your bidding, and a world filled with demons who will be your army. No mortal will stand before you, and all will kneel.”

  “Starting with you.”

  Ahriman reached out a long clawed hand, pointing at Marcus, but again, the spell caster had learned his lessons well. He lifted his arms high and shouted a spell Cressida had never heard before, let alone one she could follow, and whatever wave of power Ahriman sent his way was deflected into the forest surroundi
ng them—which immediately caught on fire.

  “No!” Cressida gasped as the sacred grove went up in flames.

  “Protect the trees,” Fraya demanded. She wrenched Cressida to her feet, and the foot soldiers freed her hands. Then the head lawgiver shoved her forward. “The spell casters will help. There must be no trace of the work we do this night.”

  Shaking with fury but bound by the compulsion spell the head lawgiver was laying upon her, Cressida turned her attention to the burning forest. She glanced at the spell casters by her side, her lip curling in derision. They followed her order now, but had they ever really pledged fealty to her? Or was she simply the tool of Marcus and Fraya, a wind-up toy they could set into motion at their desire?

  But she wasn’t that, she knew. Stefan had seen the strength in her and had coaxed it into the light, shifting her perspective from the inside out to the outside in and back again. She was bleeding and broken and scorched, but she was the high priestess of the Scepter Coven, and there was real power flowing through her veins.

  Cressida held up her hands, and, in the shadow of ultimate evil, she began to heal the world.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Stefan stared in horror as the woman whose face had haunted him for millennia raced toward him, while he stood rooted to the spot. He couldn’t escape her. He wouldn’t escape her. She had died far away from him—he’d not known of her death, in fact, until he’d realized his body was beginning to change, his heart to wither, his blood to slow. He’d known Fallen angels who’d experienced the same in the midst of becoming a demon, but it wasn’t until he was already doomed that he’d realized it was happening to him. And when he’d cried out to the heavens for understanding, hers was the face that he’d seen.

  But how could she be here, now? How was that possible? She’d been a human, and she’d died at practically the dawn of civilization. Yet her simple shift looked freshly woven, her skin young and supple, and her face…

  Stefan realized his error a second too late. As the woman approached—her eyes wide, her face contorted in a mix of agony and fury—she transitioned into an entirely different creature. For a split second, he expected the demoness that had fought Cressida, Belessunu, to appear, but this was something else. Something different, but…recognizable. A demon he’d encountered before, somewhere.

  And then there were two of them.

  “What the hell?” Stefan muttered. “Who are these guys?”

  He hadn’t expected the question to be answered, but the Archangel Michael’s voice sounded in his mind anyway. “You are a member of the Syx, in great distress—”

  Stefan scowled. “I’m not in that great distress.”

  “As such, you are the easiest target these demons have faced in centuries. To kill a member of the demon enforcers, even one who is weak, broken, clearly distracted…”

  The two demons turned into three, and Stefan squinted with renewed concentration. “Wait a minute, I totally know that asshat. Warrick fought him in the Punic Wars. I thought he’d long since been sent on to his great reward.”

  “He should have been, but Warrick did not remain to ensure his work was completed, and so Rimush remained upon this earth, never again to be drawn out of his hole if there was any chance a Syx could be in play…until now, anyway.”

  The demons separated, moving to encircle Stefan. He turned with them, keeping his focus.

  “You know, you seem to be a little too certain about this little tableau we’ve got setting up here. It almost makes me think you’re playing fast and loose again.”

  Michael didn’t speak for a long moment, and then all he said was, “Be careful, demon.”

  Despite his predicament, Stefan grinned, continuing to mutter as he judged the space between himself and his attackers, weighing the angles, the area, the humans in the line of danger. He had this, no matter how old these demons were. He totally had this. “You are playing fast and loose! You summoned these guys somehow, didn’t you? That’s some seriously underhanded shit, you ask me. What is it you got against me, anyway? Is it the hair? Because I do have great hair. My ability to actually maintain a sun tan, o #archangelsowhite? My dashing good looks?”

  He paced the demons as they shifted, and the electricity built as the creatures drew upon the power rocketing around the sacred grove. “Okay, okay, okay,” he muttered. “One against three, and they’re not rushing me, so that means, what, they know I can take them out? They know I can kick their asses?”

  “Keep going,” Michael said drily, and Stefan pursed his lips. Because the truth was, the demons facing him should simply rush him. It would make the most sense of any move, and they should do it all at once. Demons did not have a sense of advanced strategy, not in the traditional sense. Their game was simply to end someone, and getting the drop on a member of the Syx was heady stuff indeed.

  “That what’s got you so jacked up?” Stefan demanded of the three. “A chance to take out a Syx? You guys have spent all this time in Ahriman’s back pocket, but now you’re ready to stretch your legs and play Whack-an-Enforcer?”

  They didn’t respond, but, to Stefan’s surprise, they didn’t not respond either. Once again, he’d expected them to rush him during his statement, but they didn’t.

  “You guys just going to stand there and stare at me all day?”

  “You’ve changed,” growled the closest demon, one of the throwback demons who could have been one of Botticelli’s muses for his Divine Comedy illustrations. Smaller than the others but nevertheless imposing, his copper-colored skin stretched over an animalistic, horned head and down over a thin chest, bulbous belly, stocky legs, and huge taloned feet. Wings stretched out behind him at sharp angles, twitching uselessly in agitation.

  A second demon shifted, the one Stefan recognized as Rimush. He was a heavily built bull of a demon with the face of a rat and long-fingered hands and feet, who sniffed the air, his teeth hanging over his lower lip. “I smell a witch.”

  Stefan’s brows shot up, but of course he should have thought of that. The fact he hadn’t merely proved he was almost as dumb as the demons he was facing. He couldn’t have experienced all he had with Cressida without having some of the starlit magic of the human rub off on him—he had breathed her in, reveled in her, body and soul.

  But had he really changed?

  Cressida had transformed, certainly. He’d seen the purplish-red fire dancing over her skin both when they’d been wrapped in each other’s arms and now, deep in the fight. It marked their connection and perhaps even spoke to a source of power she could now access, even though he hadn’t had time to understand what that power might be, exactly. He couldn’t see her now because a curtain of mist now hung heavily between him and the coven leadership, who were no doubt dealing with the arrival of Ahriman, but because it was looking so quiet, he suspected the major fireworks hadn’t started happening yet.

  Which was good, because he kind of had his hands full at the moment.

  “Witch,” rumbled the third demon, a long, skinny creature who looked almost human if you didn’t count the horns and tail or bright red, glistening skin. That level of body oil almost always indicated poison, and that meant he was the demon most likely to attack first. But he hung back, assessing and watching, and finally, Stefan caught on.

  They wanted him to make the first move.

  Why?

  Then the last demon split again, and a new terror emerged.

  “Yo, I totally called this. I just want everyone to know that.” Stefan rolled his eyes, then slanted his gaze toward the final, all-too-familiar demon. Most demons chose to manifest as male for the simple reason that males tended to scare humans more. It took a real nightmare of a demon to manifest as female and still command the respect of mortal nightmares.

  Belessunu managed to carry it off.

  “Looks like they’ve got you both on human and Syx duty, today. You pull the short stick?” he taunted as the dragon-shaped demon coil
ed in obvious irritation. Her tail swept around her, flicking and twitching. No witches remained in this section of the clearing, which was a good thing, since with four archdemons ready to tango, Stefan was pretty much going to have to set the place on fire.

  But Belessunu didn’t say anything, just seethed at him, and he leaned forward. It was his turn to sniff the air, and the scent he picked up was…jealousy?

  And another scent too, which made his eyes flare wide. He didn’t understand it, but Belessunu was by far the strongest demon of this set. That she wanted him dead was no great surprise. But the reasons why she wanted him dead bore some investigation.

  “You were summoned here by Marcus, weren’t you?” Stefan challenged, and Belessunu hissed, even as the other demons turned and growled at her, showing fangs and forked tongues.

  “I was summoned by no human,” she snarled back. “I am here for one reason. To kill you. It will be my pleasure to remove one of the Syx from this world. It is a death that is long overdue.”

  During her little speech, however, Stefan’s brain was working overtime. He’d edged toward her, and his knowing grew more overwhelming the closer he got to her. Surely, he couldn’t be mistaking this. There was an energy about the demon that reminded him of his ill-advised attraction to Cressida and yet—

  And then it came to him. Belessunu hadn’t been summoned by Marcus, exactly…or at least not solely to fight.

  “Son of a bitch,” he exclaimed, barking a crack of laughter. “You’re porking him!”

  The deliberately crass language struck the female demoness exactly the way Stefan wanted it to. The demoness stretched her lips back from her fearsome jaws and roared, fire leaping from her throat to shoot across the open space. Because he was expecting it, Stefan ducked quickly, but the other demons weren’t idiots. They too avoided the blast of fire, and as if on cue, they all rushed forward, finally taking the fight to Stefan, as he needed. If he’d acted first, they would be reacting to him and able to move against him. With all four of them lunging forward, however—