The Demon-Born Trilogy: (Complete Paranormal Fantasy Series)

by L. C. Hibbett

  Chapter Ten

  Grace

  The vision melted away but it felt as though Niamh’s guilt and regret had burned a hole through my chest. Sam wrapped his arm tighter around me, and I let him pull me from my chair onto his lap. I pressed my face against his chest, grateful for his firm warmth. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Cat was gripping onto Brandon and Cain’s hands. Gabriel wrapped his arm around Eve’s shoulders.

  Aza was the first to move. Her chair squealed on the tiled floor as she pushed it away from the table. Niamh’s eyes were closed, and her arms were clenched across her chest like a suit of armor. Aza stretched her hand out. “Niamh?”

  “Don’t.” Niamh didn’t open her eyes. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Aza. Elizabeth was right. I ruined her life. I was too frightened to go on my first mission alone, so I asked my superior to give the order for her to accompany me. Even though she had taken leave of service to be with her baby. I made him pressure her into leading the mission, but I asked him to pretend it was nothing to do with me. It was only supposed to be a few days . . .”

  I squeezed my lips together, and the taste of salt coated my tongue. Niamh unwrapped one arm from around her body and brushed the tears from her cheeks. “When I realized what I had done, I couldn’t bring myself to tell Elizabeth that I had requested her presence on the mission. The guilt festered inside me like a sore for two thousand years until Mathas saw into my memory when I was sharing a vision with him.”

  “And Lizzie couldn’t forgive you?” Cat’s voice was hoarse.

  Niamh opened her red-rimmed eyes and raised one frail shoulder. “Could you? If Grace’s lie separated you from Dawn for eternity? Waking every morning in the hope of seeing your baby’s face again, and going to sleep each night with that hope unfulfilled—for two thousand years? Could you forgive that, Catherine?”

  “I don’t know.” Cat’s honesty tore at my heart, but Niamh merely shrugged. The silence that lingered in the air was suffocating.

  Brandon was the first to speak. He tilted his head to one side apologetically. “Do you think Lizzie could have used Jonah’s work to track the Elders down and seek them out? Maybe they’ve promised her a way home?”

  Cain rubbed his jaw. “That could explain how the other side was always a step ahead every time we tried to emancipate the captives in the Silent Homes.”

  “Was it Lizzie that Grace and Sam disturbed in Shadow Hall tonight, then? I thought Lizzie was in prison with the others in Switzerland—can the High Council not contain Demons?” Brandon looked around the table.

  Aza responded to Brandon with her eyes still fixed on Niamh’s rigid frame. “She was still in Switzerland this evening. We watched a live feed of her session in the exercise yard.” Eve cocked one eyebrow, and the Demon tilted her dark eyes toward the ceiling. “Satellite feed. The exercise yard has no roof—we get clear images.”

  “So, the High Council has strong enough magic to contain an Original Demon?” Brandon reiterated.

  Gabriel pursed his lips. “The prison was built inside a magical vacuum—Demons can’t create portals, Angels can’t slip. Nobody is escaping from that prison without help.”

  “If what you suspect is true, and Elizabeth is working with the Elders, she is free to come and go from the prison as she pleases. No prison in this world can keep the Elders in or out.” Niamh stared at her feet as she spoke.

  I shook my head. “No. It wasn’t Lizzie at Shadow Hall, I’m certain. The energy was well concealed, but it was an Angel.”

  Sam smacked his fingers against his forehead. “Grace, it was a Demon-Born! I felt the flicker when our magic was bonded.”

  “Deirdre.” I snapped my body in Eve’s direction. She straightened the pile of letters in her hands. “Angel and Demon-Born—Deirdre and her unborn child.”

  I met Sam’s eyes, and he nodded. It made sense. “What was she doing? Gathering information for Peter? Why come alone, then, and why not confront us?”

  “She could have been looking for anything. Maybe she isn’t going back to Peter. Maybe she really does want to escape the Elders?” Cat twisted the handle of her Spirit Blade between her fingers as she spoke. I chewed on my bottom lip.

  Niamh sagged against the kitchen counter. “She can’t escape the Elders. None of us can. We are doomed. They control the Veil—they control everything. We haven’t the first idea how to fight them. It’s too late, we have nothing.”

  I glanced from Brandon’s face to Sam’s before climbing off his lap and unzipping my jacket. My fingers fumbled with the scroll as I yanked it free. Gabriel and Aza pulled closer to the table as I turned to face Niamh.

  “We have something,” I said. Niamh’s pale hair shimmered as she lifted her eyes to meet mine. I shifted my weight onto the other foot. “It’s another piece of Jonah’s father’s book. Emmanuel had it.”

  Eve drew a sharp breath in through her teeth, and Cain leaned across the table to get a better view of the scroll in my hands. “Gods, I remember this. Emmanuel didn’t find it, I did. I took it from one of the Silent Homes, not long after I started active duty. Our team was too late to rescue the Halfling we had hoped to save, but there was a cache of artifacts being protected by the vicious bastards Guardians that ran the Silent Home. Jasmine’s Dad and I bound the assholes and stole the loot in the hope that they’d be punished with as much creativity as they’d used to torture the poor Halfling.”

  My chest loosened, healing a wound I hadn’t realized I had been carrying. Emmanuel hadn’t even known the scroll belonged to Jonah’s father. As if he had read my mind, Sam pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Emmanuel knew it was stolen from the manuscript. He told me once he knew he should return it to Trinity College, but he couldn’t bring himself to let it go. I helped him bind it for protection.”

  Niamh took a faltering step closer and reached a hand out to stroke the scroll. “Clever Emmanuel. Sometimes the heart knows more than the head can comprehend.” Her gaze sharpened and she lifted her eyes to examine Sam and me. “Have you read it? Did Jonah’s father leave another imprint?”

  I licked my dry lips. “We haven’t tried. We weren’t certain—”

  “Do it.” Niamh’s spine snapped straight, and the light of intensity sparked behind her eyes. I felt a wave of relief, as if the world had begun to spin on its axis once more.

  Eve grabbed hold of my sleeve and held it between her fingers and thumb. “Grace, this is an ancient piece of art. No charm will have been sufficient to protect it fully from the frailty of age—you might only get one chance at this.”

  I swallowed hard and eased my arm free of Eve’s grasp. Sam pressed against my side, and I felt my magic reaching for his, aching to melt into one fluid being. My hands trembled as I peeled the outer paper open to reveal the vellum. “Sam, I’m going to need your power. Are you ready?”

  His fingers crept under the back of my shirt in response and stroked the base of my spine. Our magic connected in a surge powerful enough to draw a gasp from my lips. I released the scroll and watched with wide eyes as the vellum unfurled itself and burst into life on the table top.

  This page was nothing like the one we had examined in the Long Room at Trinity. There were no intricate Celtic patterns, no mesmerizing creatures—the only markings on the page were a single picture of an eye and a jumbled passage of script beneath it. Eve squinted at the writing. “It’s not Latin or Gaeilge. Is it a Demonic language?”

  I saw Aza shake her head out of the corner of my eye, but I was unable to tear my attention from the delicate strokes of ink. Niamh’s voice barely pierced my consciousness. “None that I know.”

  “Shh, let them concentrate.” Cat’s reprimand drew a blanket of silence over the kitchen. Sam’s fingers slipped over the bare skin of my waist as he shifted his body so that he stood directly behind me, staring at the vellum over my shoulder. His magic enveloped me like a warm embrace as we focused on the indecipherable script.

  The ink stared back—daring me to bre
ak its code. I pressed my body against Sam’s flesh and drew the strength of our combined magic into my mind. The dragging sensation of rock on rock scraped across my brain, and I gritted my teeth against the pain. With a lurch, the magic burst free and the meaningless symbols danced in front of my eyes. Sam leaned over my shoulder with an open mouth as we watched the words form. My voice was raspy as I read them aloud.

  A man may Seek, a man may find,

  Yet all but truth is left behind.

  The Demons this world once battled to fight,

  Are a conjurer’s trick by man brought to life.

  Fear not the Spirits, mere puppets on a string,

  But Seek the darkness that in the shadows doth sing.

  The Veil and its keepers feed sickness and pain,

  Only their demise can end its reign.

  One spark can weaken, Seven can fight,

  Willing sacrifice of two halves can set order to right.

  As soon as I had uttered the final words, the vellum crumbled and disintegrated before our eyes. Brandon dashed to the kitchen counter and rifled through a drawer until he found a scrap of paper and a pen. His lips moved frantically as he scribbled. “Willing sacrifice of two halves can set order to right.”

  The others sprang to life around us, dragging chairs to the far end of the table as Eve attempted to gather the remains of the manuscript page into a pile. Only Sam remained still, his arms pressed tightly around my body. I could feel his heart pounding against my shoulder.

  “Grace? Sam?” Cat knocked on the wooden table and gestured for us to move closer to where everyone had gathered around Brandon and the scrap of paper. I shuffled a few feet closer to them but ignored the empty chairs—my limbs were too stiff to bend. Cat jabbed her finger at the torn page. “A man may seek, a man may find— that’s got to be Jonah’s father talking about himself, right? You said he was a Seeker too, didn’t you Niamh?”

  Niamh tipped her head forward in agreement. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the back of Aza’s chair. “Yes, all of Jonah’s people have the power to seek people and things they wish to find, but not everyone is granted with the same level of power. They call the most powerful Truth Seekers. Jonah’s father was chosen to track the darkness their people could sense because of the strength of his gift.”

  “And Jonah was sent to follow him because he was a Truth Seeker too?” Brandon scribbled on the back of his hand as he waited for Niamh to answer.

  Her lips twisted into a reluctant smile. “Jonah was sent because the rulers of his world knew that they could say nothing to convince him to stay behind once his father did not return. Stubborn donkey.”

  “All but truth is left behind?” Gabriel rested his hand on Cain’s shoulder as he shares stared down at the words. “Everything he found here was false?”

  Cain frowned and his lips thinned into a narrow line. “The Demons this world once battled to fight, are conjurer’s trick by mortal men brought to life.” He dragged his palm over his tight cut fair hair. “The Spirit Demons? Is he saying the Spirit Demons are an illusion? Makes no sense. I’ve battled the Spirits. I’ve watched them suck the life energy from a man with my own two eyes. The Spirit Demons are real.”

  “That’s not the point.” Everyone turned their faces toward Eve as she snapped the lid of a small wooden box closed, sealing the remains of the vellum page inside. “Just because something is trickery, that doesn’t render it powerless. But if this Seeker is right, and the Spirit Demons were created by men and women…”

  The wind howled through the garden outside and a branch wrapped against the window pane. Sam peeled himself away from my side and began to pace the width of the room. “The Spirit Demons aren’t the darkness. The Spirit Demons didn’t cause the Spirit War—the Elders created the Spirit Demons so they’d have a reason to start the war. A reason to sacrifice the Halfling race and create the Veil.” He turned and glared at Niamh, his hands balled into fists at his side. “Is that what this goddamn riddle is telling us?”

  I crushed my folded arms against my chest. Niamh answered slowly. “That appears to be the most logical conclusion, yes.”

  Sam closed his eyes as he released his breath. Brandon tapped his pen on the tabletop. “Fear not the spirits, mere puppets on a string—I guess that explains why Peter and the rest of the circle treat the Spirit Demons like pets? They’re not really creatures in their own right at all. What are they? They can suck life, and I’ve read that they can elicit an emotional response in their victims—”

  “And the Elders can use their energy during copulation with an Angelic host to reproduce offspring with uncommon magical powers. Let’s not forget that little gem.” My mouth curled bitterly around the words.

  Brandon stared down at the page again. “Yeah, but it looks like that might be our ace in the hole, right?” Aza raised an eyebrow at him, and Brandon ran his finger across the paper. “One spark can weaken, seven can fight—the Demon-Born with the seven lost powers. The Elders want to use them to annihilate the humans and strengthen the veil, or whatever, but if this dude is right, the same seven people can break the Circle.”

  “With a willing sacrifice of two halves—what does that even mean?” Cat swiped a lock of silky copper hair out of her eyes and glanced around the table.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but Sam burst across the room and stepped between the rest of the group and me, facing Cat. “You seem to have skipped over the part where Jonah’s father tells us the Elders are just pawns in a bigger game. We’re not fighting the Elders, we’re fighting whatever blackness all the Demons were chasing across the realms. That’s what’s here, in our world, being fed by all the misery the Veil has created. Even if we manage to smash the Elders and tear the veil down, how are we supposed to fight the darkness the Demons couldn’t even find?”

  I sank down heavily onto one of the empty chairs and cradled my head in my hands. Eve’s fingers rested on my shoulders as she stepped forward to answer Sam. “We will fight this darkness the same way we have fought every other enemy we faced, Samuel—with love in our hearts and our friends by our sides. There is no other way to fight and win.”

  Sam dropped his glare to the floor, and Brandon pushed his chair away from the table. He twisted his body so he could address both Niamh and Aza. “Sounds like it’s time for a prison break?”

  Aza glanced at Niamh and straightened her shoulders. Her eyes flashed like polished ebony. “Next stop, the Shadow City.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Grace

  The wind caught my hair and whipped it across my face. Sam tugged my hand and pressed me against the trunk of the towering tree, misshapen by decades of relentless Atlantic gales. He stepped closer to me, and my hair fell back around my shoulders as his broad body shielded me from the strongest winds. I licked my dry lips, tasting the salty sea air.

  Sam’s eyes were fixed on my mouth. I tried to keep my focus on his face, instead of the skin tight black combat gear Aza had insisted everyone must wear. “Sam, Aza wants to run through the details with everyone before she opens the portal—”

  “We should go, Grace.” Sam moved even closer so that his hips were only an inch away from mine.

  I shook my head. “What are you talking about, Sam? You’re the one who dragged me out here! I said we needed to stay inside.”

  Sam’s fingers closed around my biceps. “I don’t mean we should go inside. I mean we should go somewhere else, somewhere far from all of this.”

  “You want me to leave here?” I glared at him with my mouth agape. “You think that I would leave my friends in prison and my family alone so I could run away with you?”

  I lifted my hands to push Sam, but he grabbed my wrists and pulled me against his chest. “No. I know that you’d never leave them. I know you’ll stay and fight to the death, but I had to try. I had to ask.”

  “And if I said yes? If we managed to hide somewhere and escape the war and genocide by some miracle, do you think we’d be happy?�
�� Sam’s face was so close to mine that I was practically whispering into his lips.

  He wrapped one hand behind my neck and twined his fingers through my hair. His green eyes searched every inch of my face. “Grace, the willing sacrifice—two halves of the one whole . . .”

  “It’s us, I know.” Sharp needles of pain pricked the back of my eyelids. “Or Dawn and Ozzie—one of the pairs of Lost Powers. Peter and Jonah both called our powers two halves of the one whole. If our side can break the Elder Circle, then you and I can destroy the Veil.”

  “By sacrificing ourselves.” Sam’s eyes were unnaturally bright in the early morning light. I squeezed my lips together and lifted my chin, but my attempted show of bravery was marred by the tears trickling down my cheeks. Sam crushed his mouth against mine, wrapping his arms around my body and lifting me off the ground with a ferocity of his passion. I snaked my legs around his waist and buried my hands in his hair.

  Emotion swirled inside me like a hurricane—love, anger, sadness, fear, bitterness. Lust. I channeled every ounce of my pent-up fury into our kiss and shivered as Sam moaned into my mouth in response. I slithered out of his arms and pushed him into a seated position on a tree stump a few feet away. He stared up at me with parted lips as I climbed onto his lap, one knee on either side of his hips so that our chests were pressed together. His heart slammed against mine.

  “Grace?” Eve’s voice carried on the wind, and my head swung from side to side as I scanned the garden.

  Sam cupped my face in his hands and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “She can’t see us, Grace. She’s at the back door.”

  My head fell back as Sam traced his fingers along the side of my jaw and trailed them down my neck and onto my shoulder. His breath warmed my skin in ragged bursts.

  “Grace?” Eve’s voice was sharper now, and I sensed her presence moving closer.