by Riley London
Wicked Hot Magic
Salem Academy Book One
Riley London
Wicked Hot Magic
Book 1 in the Salem Academy Series
Copyright @ 2019 Riley London
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Salem Academy is a university-aged academy series and it contains steamy scenes and complex themes. It’s intended for mature readers.
Cover Design: Coverluv
Image attribution: Photo By Alex Volot, Shutterstock.com
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Created with Vellum
Contents
Where to Find Riley London
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Where to Find Riley London
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In odorem suavitatis. Tu autem effugare, diabole; appropinquabit enim judicium Dei.
1
Satan possesses a tiny Italian grandmother.
Day three of the Saporetti case: Maria Constantina Saporetti is eighty-three years old, five foot nothing, and just punted me through a fucking wall without breaking a sweat.
What rushes by next is a series of impressions as I fly through the wall. Plaster board explodes behind me as I plunge through its peeling wallpaper. The sound of my leather jacket ripping on splintered wood. Can’t breathe. Pain detonates through my body on impact. A cloud of dust. Indignation.
The fuzzy blue slipper she kicks after me just adds insult to injury.
In other words, everything’s more or less on schedule.
The whites of her eyes bleed to total black, fractured through with rivulets of glowing ember red. Alien-fast blinking looks disconcerting in her otherwise pleasantly wrinkled, gnomish face. Stray white hairs escape from her bun, giving her an Einstein-from-Hell vibe. Her flowered housecoat is smeared with streaks of blood.
My blood.
Another demonic rumble rips its way from Mrs. Saporetti’s lips - guttural, primordial, terrifying – and shakes the floor. Instinctively, my hand flies out to steady me. I can’t stop a hiss of pain when a shard of glass stabs into my finger.
“Ut habeas vitam aeternam,” roars Father Gabriel somewhere out of my sightline. Deep in the throws of the exorcism still.
Strange shifting shadows creep around the edges of the room. Wherever I landed hasn’t been cleaned recently and I’m choking on dust. And this is definitely broken glass I’m sitting on.
Place is spooky as hell. Even without the demon.
Hotter than Hades too. It’s 120 degrees in the attic apartment, despite the fact it’s a late October night in Boston. Her building’s so old, the wide oak slats of the floor have original colonial iron nails. Wood splinters and the iron pries itself out of the beams in protest at the beast’s howl. The Historic Commission’s going to be pissed.
Mrs. Saporetti doesn’t look too pleased either.
Blink hard. Focus. An image comes into view, superimposed over the woman’s tiny hunched body. Normally when you’re talking a basic case of demonic influence, I’ll get a sense something’s off. Sometimes there’s visuals. Tendrils of power seeping out of the flesh of the afflicted, for example.
This? This is a full-on demonic infestation.
A glowing, twisted demonic body undulates behind her. Around her. Through her. Her actual body – the flesh one – jerks unnaturally in a puppetlike way that twists my gut. Demon fuckers have no respect for their elders.
My elders. Whatever.
Something else moves in the shadows just beyond Mrs. Saporetti and her ride-along, but when I squint to get a better look, it evades me.
“Max, I need you!”
Father Gabriel’s voice cuts in, urgent. He’s prayed over this lady for three days, and it’s the fourth exorcism in two weeks. Usually we do one a month, tops. They’re calling it the Scourge of Boston. That’s what the Vatican emails say anyways.
Struggling to my feet, I lunge forward, launching myself through the me-sized hole in the shitty plasterboard. Landing on my feet in the next room: Not far from the priest. Not far from the demon.
“Rot in Hell, Sacerdos,” the thing growls through Mrs. Saporetti.
That’s when it happens. One second, it’s in her, moving her mouth and arms in a contorted horror. A dark theater of an underworld puppeteer. The next second, the old woman’s body crashes to the floor like a discarded vessel. I half expect it to shatter.
There’s a blur of motion, an exodus, and the demon’s on the move. Once it’s out of her, its energy coalesces into something more corporeal and by the time it reaches the door, you can hear feet pounding the floor.
It is flesh then. Good. That makes it easier to kill.
Instinctively, I move toward the old woman, wanting to make sure she didn’t get hurt. Make sure she’s still herself. Make sure she’s breathing. But instead I slam into Father Gabriel, who moves to block my way. Broad shoulders and the muscles of a weightlifter’s arms strain his priest’s frock. The guy’s a brick shithouse.
I try to duck around him.
“No, Max,” his dark eyes bore into mine. Intense. Determined. Every second of your pity costs us critical time, they seem to say. Not angry exactly, but alight with the fervor of the work he’s been doing. His face looks so tired, dark circles carve hollows under his eyes and his Sicilian accent is more than the usual trace below the surface of his words. “Get it. Now.”
Right. Fucking focus on my job. He presses a satchel at me, which I instinctively clutch before looping it over my shoulder. My other hand moves by rote, by training, to the sword strapped to my side. Time to do this.
For some reason, I linger. Something’s off. Father Gabriel doesn’t look right. Something about the room doesn’t look right. When I make to shift into my demon hunter sight, to see what’s happening, Father Gabriel gives me a rough shove toward the door and barks an order.
“Go now, Max. If you don’t send that demon back to Hell, this woman’s soul will always be at risk. You know that. Stop it. Go!”
That’s not like him, but I need to get moving.
He’s right. I can’t waste time, not at the end of a grueling exorcism like this. Once a demon possesses a person, they’re at constant risk of repossession until it’s cast out and sent back to Hell.
Exploding into motion, I slam into the doorframe and burst out onto the small landing at the top of the stairs. It’s four flights down to street level, straight down steep and narrow death stairs; they seem to specialize in these in old New England houses. Taking them two at a time, my heart hammering against my chest wall, I stop
and gasp for air. It’s at least fifty degrees cooler outside.
Holy hell.
I’m on the move again. On the hunt. Squinting into the darkness, the narrow streets of the North End. A crowded labyrinth of old buildings, winding streets, some of them cobblestones. The air has a permanent pasta and cannoli aroma I can’t resist during the day.
Even at three in the morning, there’s traffic here. Cars searching for an open spot in the bumper to bumper residential area. People staggering home from the bars and nightclubs littering the area.
Keep scanning, scanning, searching for the familiar trace of power in the air. Then I see it, just a streak of light in motion that swirls out of sight around the sharp corner of a brick building.
Picking up speed, I put my head down and run as fast as I can. Icy air burns my lungs and my calf muscles scream in protest. My boots might look badass, but they’re not made for running on cobblestone.
At least not discreetly. Every footfall thunders loudly into the quiet night. How much pasta have I been eating?
I rocket around the corner and see an empty street. A straight fucking climb up into one of the fancy rich neighborhoods that look down on the rest of the city. The trail is here, an essence the stronger demonic entities leave behind. The job of the hunter is just to follow.
To mark. To track. To hunt. To slay.
Digging in, I lean into that extra something – hard to describe, impossible to command – but just there beneath the surface at moments like this. It’s like jet fuel when I’m fighting demons. Preternaturally fast, I reach the top of the hill. The road levels out in front of one of the biggest brownstone mansions I’ve seen here. Regal. Imposing. The numbers “666” are wrought into the iron gate.
Charming. Going to have to investigate that little bit of information later.
The demon’s on me before I get oriented, claws tearing into my arms. The leather of my jacket normally gives me some protection, but this creature has razor-tipped talons. I let out a growl of pain when they cut into my flesh. Fury fills me.
Absolutely not. This demon will not mark itself with my blood.
It will not escape me tonight.
Anger, rage, something more primal – some connection with a deeper demon hunter collective consciousness maybe, at least that’s what I like to think – roils up and pushes me into motion.
Wrenching my arms away, I step back a few paces putting distance between us. The demon’s eyes glow red in the black night, which is suddenly pitch tar black as though all the light around us is suppressed. My ragged breaths come out in icy curls, as the temperature goes arctic.
Great. Location party tricks. That means we’re dealing with a serious bad boy.
Under my breath, I begin to whisper remembered prayers, not even thinking. More a talisman, a charm, a protection.
The beat of a demon hunter’s war drum.
There’s a crackle in the air, a hiss, a settling sound. The demon thinks he’s gathering his power? Yeah, not tonight asshole. Not on my watch.
I release my sword from the scabbard and slide my hands along the hilt to heft it. She’s a two-handed demon slaying sword, and she’s fucking beautiful. A faint amber glow has already begun to form and dance along her edges.
Lethal. Celestial. Mine.
The demon’s misshapen form twitches away from me, making horrible sounds of fear at the sight. Old enough to recognize her then? This is a very old demon indeed.
“Maximiliana Pale-Ryder,” the demon suddenly hisses, its raspy voice defiling every syllable of my name. There’s nothing more I want than to plunge this sword through its heart, take its head, and send it back down to the pits of Hell.
Its tongue gives a lizard flicker and the rasping continues. “I can give you what you want. Everything you want. You’re so much closer than you realize.”
Rage boils within me, rooting itself deep in the pit of my stomach. Always the same with these ones.
“You don’t know what I want, brimstone slime!”
Recoiling at the insult, his interest renews. The banked embers of its eyes glow brighter and the frenetic moves of a demon on the surface pick up pace.
“I know more than you can imagine, Maximiliana Pale-Ryder,” he breathes. But I don’t listen. I watch the hand that’s growing brighter as it prepares to hurl some demonic filth my way.
Don’t wait to find out what comes next. I get a running start, wrapping my hands around the sword so I can bring it down on him as hard as I can. It cleaves through his head, staying embedded there halfway through his body. Black viscous fluid pours out onto the street below.
Have to keep that shit off my boots.
Leaving the sword, I unsheathe two smaller knives and wade into the mess, getting too close. Fast moves filet up the demon’s abdomen, and I block out its screams, carving the necessary runes into his skin. That part’s done.
Power leaks off from him in a sad drainage back to the underworld. Cutting the head in half works every fucking time. I plunge one knife into the leathery flesh of his lower belly, jerking upward until the knife hits collarbone. While he’s distracted with that, I use my second and longer knife – which is consecrated to this purpose - to take both sides of his head. Disconcerting with the sword having already cleaved it in half.
Whatever; it’s the job.
His form crumbles to the ground. Usually they put up a bigger fight. Usually….
The body continues to convulse when a voice comes from its mouth, moving the lips on one side of its head where they’re more intact. It’s the demonic laughter of a thousand entities blended together, and then just a few simple words. “We’ve got him. You’ll never get him back, daughter of the Ryder.”
Got him? Got who? My mind flashes and suddenly it’s like I’m standing back up in the apartment, watching the demon leave Mrs. Saporetti. Father Gabriel’s strange countenance. Whatever the fuck is with us in the room. My mind runs over the scene, again and again.
This looked, on the surface, exactly like every one of the hundreds of exorcisms that we’d done together over the last decade.
Yet, it isn’t.
It is a fucking trap.
The thought’s not fully formed, and my feet are moving again, charging back down the hill to the Saporetti house.
Cityscape flashes by, a mix of people and lights and indistinct neighborhoods, as I blindly make my way back to the small, old house in the North End. I tear down the hill at top speed, running so fast I can hardly breath. The demon will disintegrate at first light. Not my problem to clean up.
The front door of the house hangs off the hinges, and my voice already sounds tight, terrified and raw with emotion when I scream his name. “Father Gabriel. Father Gabriel. Gabriel, please.”
Hot tears burn my eyes and one fat traitorous tear slowly rolls down my cheek. I mount the steps as fast as I can, but time slows. When I finally burst through the door into the top floor apartment, I take it in.
Mrs. Saporetti looks terrified but sits up against the aging, sagging couch. Alive. The stench of brimstone fills the room, like patchouli on a herd of hipsters, cloying and close and making it hard to breathe.
“Gabriel?” My voice is soft, sad, a question.
He’s not here. Not anywhere. In the middle of the living room floor, a circle is burned into the beautiful old wood, and when I read the markings, I know what’s been done.
A rite to trap a warrior of God and take him down into Hell.
Fuck.
Without thinking I sink down next to Mrs. Saporetti, staring at the burnt remains of the ritual circle that’s already beginning to fade. Father Gabriel has been taken, stolen, wrenched from me, and brought straight to the depths of ell.
An exorcist in Hell.
My heart aches for the man that took me in, adopted me when no one else wanted me, and taught me everything I know. Waves of fear break over me at what might be happening to him. Doubt at the plan already forming in my mind. But I know as su
re as I know anything that I’ve been training for this moment.
All those times I’d ask Father Gabriel when I should use some move, some bit of knowledge, some piece of strategy.
“You’ll know,” he’d say, not unkindly, but with a little shake of his head at my impatience.
He’d been right. I fucking knew.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I hit a number on speed dial. When a voice answers on the first ring, I say, “Brother Dominic, it’s me. Gabriel’s been taken. Meet me at the Saporetti house.” Hanging up the phone, I dial 911 and ask for an ambulance for the old woman shaking beside me.
Sorting that out is going to be a good time.
As I sit closer to Mrs. Saporetti waiting for the EMTs to arrive, I wrap my arm around her shoulders, mindlessly murmuring comforting things while I watch the ritual circle slowly dissolve.
Father Gabriel has been taken to Hell. I am going to fight my way in and bring him back.
Even if it means death. Or worse.
2
If you ever need an exorcist that looks the part, that’s Brother Dominic.
It’s all I think as he circles the room, chanting low Latin phrases that I only vaguely recognize, his dark brown robes scraping against the wooden planks – seriously, are those robes horsehair? – and stares down thoughtfully at the remnants of the ritual circle.
Bone thin, blazing eyes, and a mop of unruly iron gray hair: he could be a middle ages zealot.
But right now, he’s my best chance of finding out how the fuck I get Father Gabriel back. And with the thought of Father Gabriel, my gut sinks again. For one agonizing second, I turn away and close my eyes just trying to block it all out.
