by Kiki Howell
“Think,” he said. “Something went wrong with that spell. It took us away from the woods.”
“Away, sure, but—”
They had no time for denial. The faster she understood—accepted—where they were, the faster she could figure out the magic to take them back. Taking her hand, he squeezed it tightly.
“Kirsten, have you ever wondered where the demons come from?”
She frowned at her hand in his. He loosened his grip but didn’t let go.
“Of course.” Her voice trembled. “Everybody has tried to figure it out. Nobody knows.”
Nobody knew for sure, that much was true, but Jacob had had suspicions for a while. His mother’s diary had mentioned ‘opening the door to another world.’ He’d thought about it for hours upon hours, spent entire nights reading and re-reading her words. Another world. Another dimension. The place where the demons had come from.
The place where he and Kirsten were now.
Years ago, he’d told her about his fathers being vampires. He’d told her his mother had used magic to get pregnant with him. He’d even intended to tell her what he suspected—what he knew, deep down, to be true—about the magic that had given him birth and how it was linked to the appearance of the demons. He’d never managed to say that much, though. Shame and guilt had always stilled his tongue.
And they stilled it again now.
“Well...” He fumbled for words that wouldn’t give away his darkest secret. “We’re there, aren’t we? We’ve got to be. What else could have happened? Whatever way the demons come through into our world, your spell must have activated that door. It drew us into their world. Look at the sky. That’s not our sun.”
He gestured toward the sun with his free hand, but Kirsten’s eyes never left him. She was staring at him as though he’d just told her—
“You’re saying... you’re saying we’re on a different planet?”
—that.
It was her turn to tighten her grip on his hand, as though clinging to him would help her cling to their world. It was too late for that, however.
“Call it a different planet, a different dimension, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the door goes both ways. We can go back, you just have to do your spell again.”
Or at least, he hoped it worked that way. He didn’t know enough magic to be certain. But Kirsten had to know, and now he looked at her questioningly, waiting for her to shake off the daze that had fallen upon her at his words.
“Do the spell again?” she repeated, no louder than a murmur. “I... I don’t know if—”
A harsh grunting sound cut her short. At the same time, she and Jacob turned toward the sound, and Jacob could only kick himself for not keeping a closer eye on their surroundings.
“Demon,” he said, although she probably could see it just as well as he did.
Letting go of her hand, he picked up his sword again and stepped in front of her. On Earth or in this place, wherever it may be, one thing remained the same: he’d do anything to keep her safe.
EVERY TIME THE DEMON’S blade swung toward him, Andrew’s nostrils flared and his anger grew deeper still. Had he not been so angry, he might have killed the demon already. It was taller than the average, but it moved as though it were hurt, and Andrew certainly had enough experience to dispatch it.
But clinging to that swinging blade was a long smear of drying blood—Jacob’s blood. And every time Andrew got another whiff of it, his anger flared right along with his fear and his fighting skills became a little sloppier.
“Come on!” Nicholas growled behind him. “Finish the damn thing off.”
Andrew was aware that Nicholas had killed his own adversary moments earlier, although he’d been too focused on his own demon to check. Often enough, they fought side by side to kill demons faster, but when Nicholas had started approaching, Andrew had snapped at him to stay away.
This thing had hurt Andrew’s boy, had made him bleed. Andrew wanted to hurt it in return, more than he had ever wanted to hurt anything or anyone before.
With a yell, he swung his sword again, hacking it with both hands toward the demon’s thighs and slashing both of them to the bone. The demon yelled and stumbled, though by some miracle it didn’t fall.
“Andrew! Snap out of it so we can find Jacob!”
It was the sound of Jacob’s name that pulled Andrew out of the red haze that colored his entire world. He glanced back at Nicholas, and could see more than annoyance in his eyes; he could see worry, too. Worry for Jacob, but also for Andrew. Turning to the demon again, Andrew firmed up his grip, took two steps closer and dealt the killing blow.
The demon fell to the ground and rolled onto its back. Blood bubbled to its colorless lips as it took its last, rattling breath. Its yellow eyes glazed over. Andrew continued to stand over its body, unable to take his eyes off that still form. He was startled when Nicholas rested a hand on his arm and slowly guided his sword down.
“Are you okay?” Nicholas asked quietly.
Andrew didn’t know how to answer. He wasn’t hurt, but that wasn’t what Nicholas meant.
“Jacob’s blood,” he murmured. “It’s on the demon’s sword.”
Nicholas’ hand tightened a little more on his arm. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
Andrew shook his head.
“No. You want to believe he’s fine, but you don’t know that. All we do know is that he’s hurt. And not here.”
Tugging on Andrew’s arm, Nicholas made him turn away from the demon. He planted himself in front of Andrew, seeking his eyes.
“What I know,” he said in a low voice, “is that he’s our son. That we trained him well. He’s hurt, okay. So let’s find him.”
After a beat, Andrew nodded once. Keeping his sword in hand, he half-closed his eyes and turned his head slowly, sniffing the air. At his side, Nicholas was doing the same thing. Neither of them spoke, but they started in the same direction at the same time, following not just Jacob’s scent anymore, but the smell of his blood.
Soon, they reached a small clearing, and here Jacob’s scent was stronger again. It was accompanied by Kirsten’s and the demons’ scents, as well as something Andrew couldn’t quite identify.
Frowning, he looked around, trying to figure out what he was smelling. Nicholas gave him the answer when he asked, “What’s that smell? It reminds me of Julie.”
Julie. Kirsten’s predecessor as the agency’s mage for over twenty years. She’d always had a smell about her that had nothing to do with her herbal soap or the ingredients she used for her spell. It was simply the indefinable smell of power.
“Magic,” Andrew said.
Nicholas nodded at once.
“You’re right. It’s got to be. The girl must have done her bit of witchery, then. That explains why the demons were burned.”
Andrew turned his gaze back to him, confused.
“Burned? What do you mean?”
Nicholas’ eyebrows shot up.
“Didn’t you notice? Big red welts on their faces and arms?”
With something akin to shame slithering through him, Andrew looked away. No, he hadn’t noticed. He’d been so angry at that blood on the demon’s blade, he hadn’t noticed anything.
What else had he missed?
“They were here,” he said, looking around again. “But they’re not anymore. And I smell Jacob’s blood but—”
“It’s not enough of it for him to be seriously hurt,” Nicholas finished his thought. “So, where are they?”
“What could make him abandon the fight when there are two demons still standing?”
He could only think of one reason that would distract his son from a fight: Kirsten.
“Something must have happened to her,” he said, sniffing the air again. “Can you smell her blood? Maybe she’s hurt and he took her to get help.”
But the only blood he could smell was Jacob’s, and the demons’.
“His car is still there,” Nicholas reminde
d him. “He wouldn’t try to get to the hospital without it.”
Of its own accord, a low growl passed Andrew’s lips. He started back the way they’d come—back toward the demons’ corpses.
“What are you doing?” Nicholas asked when Andrew picked up the demon’s blade.
It was still sticky from Jacob’s blood; good. Julie had always said fresh blood worked best.
“Take out your phone,” Andrew grunted, already striding to get out of the woods, one sword in each hand. “We’re gonna need back up.”
Chapter Thirteen
IN HER DREAMS, Kirsten had watched Jacob fight a hundred, a thousand times. Every single one of those dreams had left her covered in cold sweat, her heart beating too fast, her mind groggy from her fears. It didn’t matter whether he easily killed the demons or struggled and was hurt; it was always the same bad taste left in her mouth when she woke up.
She had thought that moving far away from him would help, but she’d quickly learned it was wishful thinking on her part. Even living across the country, she’d known what he did most nights, and she’d been there, in dreams if not in real life, with the same fear gripping her.
Watching him fight for real wasn’t any easier, as she had discovered earlier that night when he’d confronted the two demons. She’d thought it would be. She’d thought that being able to help with her magic would temper her fears. When she’d seen him hurt, she’d almost felt his pain, almost forgotten everything that wasn’t him. She’d botched the spell because of it, hadn’t she?
Watching him refuse to fight, strangely enough, was just as difficult.
“What are you doing?” she hissed when he started lowering his sword.
Jacob didn’t reply. His entire attention was fixed on the two approaching demons. They were only twenty yards away now, and advancing more slowly, even cautiously.
“Jacob, they’re getting closer! Are we running or what?”
The most incongruous words came out of his mouth.
“They’re kids.”
Kirsten blinked and looked from him to the demons. They were smaller than the ones they’d confronted earlier, sure, but kids?
“What are you talking about? They’re demons! If we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us!”
He kept his sword down and gave her a wry smile.
“They will, huh? With what?”
When she looked toward the two demons again, she saw something she hadn’t noticed before: neither of them carried a weapon. Instead, the small one—it had to be four feet tall, maybe a few inches more—had a thin stick in its hand, about as long as Kirsten’s arm. The second demon was closer to five feet tall and it had some kind of bag hanging from its neck and resting against its stomach. The bag bulged with round shapes.
They had both stopped a few yards away, close enough that the bony spikes on their bodies were clearly visible. While they varied from demon to demon, the formations of spikes on these two were similar, with clusters on their forearms and three lines of three spikes each on their heads. They both wore some kind of sleeveless brown tunic that covered them down to their knees with a rough, woven belt at the waist. Of all things, they looked like dresses—ugly, poorly made dresses, but dresses nonetheless.
In Kirsten’s mind, all demons had always been male, maybe because they carried weapons and attacked senselessly, which her feminist side liked to believe were male tendencies. But these two... they might be kids, like Jacob thought. They might also be females.
“What now?” she murmured, unconsciously getting closer to Jacob.
Both demons were grunting in quick though quiet voices. It reminded her of how the demons in the woods had grunted at each other. As far as she knew, which was as far as the media reported, efforts to communicate with demons had failed every time they’d been attempted, but clearly demons could communicate. They simply chose not to do so with humans.
She’d once had an idea for a spell... but what would be the point of communicating with demons? As a species, the one thing they seemed to care for was war. The only artifacts they carried with them, other than their clothing, were weapons. Surely no reasoning would convince them to stop attacking.
“Hello.”
Jacob’s gentle voice startled her out of her thoughts. She watched, perplexed, as he raised his empty hand palm out toward the demons and kept talking in that same quiet tone.
“We don’t want to do you any harm. If you don’t attack us, we won’t attack you. I’m Jacob.”
He pointed at his own chest and repeated his name twice, then pointed at Kirsten and said her name as well. Kirsten gripped his arm.
“What are you doing?” she asked again. “We’re not here to make friends.”
“No?” He looked at her with burning eyes. “So, we’re supposed to do what the demons who come to Earth do? Kill whoever we find in our way without reason?”
“It’s hardly the same thing,” she started, but even as the words passed her lips she realized that, in truth, it might not be all that different.
“Jacob,” Jacob said again, pointing at himself. “Kirsten.” He pointed at her. Now he pointed at the two demons and asked, “And what are your names?”
It was silly, Kirsten thought as he went through the cycle again. Demons didn’t communicate, and that was all there was to it. Besides, they ought to be working on how to return home. If they truly were in a different dimension, a different world, would her magic work the same way it did on Earth? And how was she supposed to open their way back when she had no idea what she had done to bring them here? What if it hadn’t been her magic at all that brought them here, what if...
She lost her train of thoughts again when a louder, clearer grunt rose from the tallest demons. It was pointing at itself as it repeated the same sound twice—its name?
“Getra?” Jacob tried to imitate it.
The most startling sounds Kirsten had ever heard rose from the two demons. It took her a few seconds to realize what the sounds were: laughter.
The demons were laughing.
Kirsten’s head was spinning. She wasn’t sure if she was going to laugh, too, or if her nausea would return full on. She wasn’t sure either if all of this was happening or if this was all nothing but a dream.
Or rather, a nightmare.
AS THE DEMONS LAUGHED, Jacob knew, once and for all, that he was right. These were kids. Siblings, maybe, since they looked so much alike. Out for a stroll, or maybe on an errand of some sort. But kids for certain. Intelligent beings capable of laughter. Not the ruthless killing machines that came into Jacob’s world to destroy anyone they stumbled upon.
“Gertra?” he tried again.
The tallest of the demons stopped laughing and said its name again, speaking slowly as though to a not very bright child.
“Ger-truh. Gertruh.”
“Gertruh,” Jacob said, and this time was treated to an actual smile.
A smile from a mouth full of fangs, but still a smile.
Kirsten’s hand tightened over his arm.
“Oh my God,” she breathed. “It’s smiling.”
“Still want me to kill him?” he asked quietly, patting her hand.
“I think it’s a she,” she said.
She sounded like she was about to get sick. Jacob looked at her. She was even paler than she’d been when they’d first arrived to this place. He slid his hand to her back and stroked gently, a gesture he’d done countless times before.
“Hey, you okay?”
It wasn’t until she shivered under his hand that he realized what he was doing. Without the history between them, that comforting stroking might have been fine, but too many memories were attached to it. He dropped his hand.
“No, I’m not okay,” she said, kneeling down next to her magic bag again. “We’re God knows where, and you’re trying to talk to demons like there’s nothing more natural in the world. I am definitely not okay. We need to get back.”
He agreed that they needed to go
home, but he didn’t see what was wrong with him talking to those kids. It wasn’t like they’d asked to be born demons; it was just who they were. The same way he hadn’t asked to be the son of a vampire. Rather than arguing with her, he asked, “So, do you know how to get us back, then?”
“No. But if I don’t try to figure it out, we’ll be stuck here. Now let me think.”
He watched her for a few moments. She had pulled a square of white cloth the size of a handkerchief from the bag and now she set it flat on the ground. When she emptied the contents of the metal shaker onto the cloth, Jacob couldn’t keep his curiosity quiet.
“What are you doing?”
“Recycling ingredients.” She was trailing her fingertips through the mix of powders, separating tiny, grayish stones from the rest. “Unless you think you can find moon stones somewhere around?”
“Moon stones? You mean, actual stones from—”
“The moon, yes.”
Jacob whistled softly. He’d never imagined Kirsten’s ingredients could come from that far.
The quiet grunts of the demon language brought his attention back to the children. They’d come closer while Kirsten and Jacob talked, and now they stood barely an arm’s length away, peering at what Kirsten was doing while chattering to each other.
“Here.” Kirsten held out the metal shaker toward him without looking up. “Could you clean this for me? Rinse it with a bit of water.”
Jacob picked up the water bottle resting against Kirsten’s bag. As he unscrewed the top, he couldn’t help but be aware of how small this bottle was. If they were stranded here for more than a few hours, water would become their most pressing need. Unless...
Crouching down, he set the shaker in front of him and looked at the demon children.
“Gertruh?”
Gertruh’s eyes settled on him at once, and she, if it really was a girl as Kirsten believed, said a few words that Jacob thought might sound like a question.
