by Cat Devon
Looking nervous and remorseful, Gram said, “I’m working on it.”
“Work harder. Meanwhile tell me what this book looks like.”
“It’s beige calfskin with gilded edges along the pages. It’s not as thick as our family Book of Spells,” Gram said. “We only saw the outside of the book. Once we heard the howl, I snapped it shut again. I don’t know what’s inside.”
Without speaking, Damon moved on to the living room, which he ransacked with the same disrespect that he’d displayed in Gram’s room.
His search was meticulous. Beneath furniture, behind it, inside couch cushions.
He went through the kitchen with similar thoroughness. There wasn’t much to go through, as Gram hadn’t unpacked those boxes yet. Damon ripped them open with vamp speed, rummaging through them.
“Be careful. That belonged to my mother.” Zoe grabbed the ceramic soup tureen out of his hands.
He grabbed it back and tore the lid off to check it inside.
Finally satisfied that he’d covered the main floor, Damon announced, “The upstairs is next.”
Zoe tried to get there before he did but could not compete against his freaky fast speed. He’d already wrecked half her workroom by the time she walked in.
Using his arm, he swept her soaps from the shelves, dumping them all on the floor.
“Be careful,” she cried out as she saved a bottle of rare and very expensive essential oil from shattering on the floor.
It took a moment or two for her to realize that she’d used magic to prevent the bottle from breaking, freezing it in midair.
Damon noticed her relapse immediately. “So you don’t use magic, huh? What do you call that?”
“Necessity.” She wished she could freeze him in place.
“What’s this?” He reached for an old book sitting in the middle of her worktable.
This time she didn’t stop him. He swore as his fingertips were singed. “Shit!”
She opened the book for him. “It is an ancient book of recipes for making soap and lotions.” Pointing to the botanical drawings, she said, “This book is much thinner than the one you are looking for.”
Unconvinced, he made her show him every single one of the thirty-three pages.
“I can read Latin,” he warned her.
“Goodie for you.”
Damon speed-read all the concoctions written on the pages before moving on. She put her foot down when he confiscated her laptop.
“Give that back!”
“After our tech geek has checked it out,” Damon said.
“There is personal stuff on there.”
“Too bad.”
Zoe felt tears coming to her eyes. She’d written her thoughts after her mom’s death in a journal she’d kept on her laptop. The idea of someone else reading them was like being stripped bare for all to see.
A powerful and dark hatred for the vampire was taking hold deep within her. She’d never felt this way before. Not even when her ex-fiancé had dumped her.
No, this emotion was fierce and incredibly violent. She narrowed her eyes at Damon’s condescending smirk—and an instant later the lamp fixture above his head burst into flames and fell to the floor, missing him by inches.
“Shit!”
“Kill the vampire.” The words came from her lips, but the voice wasn’t hers. “Death to the Demon Hunter.”
She was levitating above the floor.
“Don’t kill her!” Gram cried from the doorway. “She’s been possessed by a demon, but I can fix it.”
Pointing to Zoe, Gram recited the spell.
By forces of day and spirits of night
By solemn vow and powers strong
When evil lurks or harm be in sight
Be you safe from all evil forever long.
Zoe collapsed into Damon’s arms.
“What happened?” she asked shakily.
“You just tried to kill me with a light fixture,” Damon said.
She looked for confirmation to Gram, who nodded.
“What do you remember?” Gram asked.
Zoe said, “I felt this intense hatred toward—”
“Me.” Damon finished her sentence.
She tried to scoot away from him, but he was not letting her go.
“I don’t remember much after that,” she said. “I heard Gram casting a spell.”
Damon freed one hand to show her his smartphone. “The camera caught it all.”
She stared at herself levitating off the floor. Shivering at the weird and terrifying image, she whispered, “That’s never happened to me before.”
“You probably never sounded like Darth Vader before, either,” Damon said.
“I could hear someone talking but it wasn’t my voice.” She nervously looked around her workroom. “Where did the demon go?”
“Probably back to the tunnels. The demon slipped into your mind and fed off your anger and hatred for me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Don’t you?”
“No, I just intensely dislike you.”
He let her go. “The feeling is mutual.”
“Then why didn’t the demon possess you instead of me?”
“You’re a weak witch.”
She wasn’t sure if she should be insulted by his comment or not. She only knew for sure that she’d never had anything like this happen to her before. And that was saying something. After all, she was a witch and had been exposed to magic since birth, but nothing this dark and dangerous. Demonic possession was never something she’d ever worried about … until now. She was trying not to freak out, but it wasn’t easy.
“I’m a Demon Hunter,” he continued.
“I thought you were a vampire.”
“I am. I am also a Demon Hunter.”
“So maybe the demons are here because of you. I have no previous experience with demons. Gram doesn’t, either. This is totally unfamiliar territory for me,” she said.
“I didn’t set any demons free,” Damon said. “The two of you did that, recklessly disregarding the consequences. You don’t know a damn thing about demons. One just took possession of your mind and there was nothing you could do to prevent it.”
“That won’t happen again,” Gram said. “I cast a protection spell for her.”
“I have to cast the same spell to protect you,” Zoe told her grandmother.
“Do you remember the words?” Gram asked before repeating them for her.
Zoe nodded and recited the spell. So much for her claim that she would not be using magic here in Chicago. She could see the disdain in Damon’s eyes, calling her out for being a liar.
She tried telling herself that her magic wasn’t intentional or premeditated, but the truth was that she could have let that bottle of essential oils break. It would have cost her monetarily. But now that demons were involved everything was up for grabs, including her vow to be magic-free.
“We can give you a protection spell, too, Damon,” Gram said.
He appeared insulted by her offer. “I don’t need protecting.”
“I still don’t understand,” Zoe said. “What was the demon trying to accomplish?”
“To possess you in order to use your magic, turning it dark and aiming it at eliminating me,” Damon said.
Feeling sick to her stomach, Zoe wrapped her arms around her middle. “What do you mean ‘possess’? Do you mean like spirits did to Whoopi Goldberg in the movie Ghost?”
Damon said, “They didn’t possess your entire body. The demon slithered into your mind.”
She clapped her hand on her ear. “You mean they entered through my ear and took over my brain?”
He shook his head. “Not literally speaking, no. We’re not exactly sure how they do mind possessions.”
“You’re safe now,” Gram reassured Zoe. “I should have put a protection spell over you the moment demons were mentioned, but I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Were you thinking straight when
you let the demons out?” Damon said.
“All I did was open the cover of a spell book.”
Instead of answering, Damon completed his search of Zoe’s work area while Gram removed the remains of the broken light fixture with a wave of her hand.
“If the book really is lost, don’t you have a spell to return it?” he said.
“If it was lost, yes,” Gram said. “But it was taken.”
“And there’s no spell for returning stolen property? I find that hard to believe,” Damon said.
“I find this entire thing hard to believe,” Zoe said. “First I find out we’ve moved into a neighborhood full of vampires—and now we’ve got a bunch of demons thrown into the mix.”
“Thanks to your grandmother,” Damon pointed out.
“It was an accident,” Gram said. “Just like—”
Zoe cut her off. “It was an accident. Period.”
But Damon was not easily distracted. “Just like what?”
“Nothing,” Gram said.
Zoe nodded her approval of her grandmother’s answer. Unfortunately Damon caught her.
“Did you release demons in Boston, too? Is that why you were booted out?” he demanded.
“We were not booted out. We were semi-banished. That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Why is it different?”
“No, why were you banished?”
“Semi-banished,” she corrected him. “I told you earlier at the bar and grill that there was an incident with a motivational speaker.”
“That’s not enough to make your coven banish you. There had to be another reason,” Damon said.
“I never said our coven banished us,” Zoe pointed out.
“No one else would have the authority,” Damon said. “The mayor couldn’t banish you, as much as he might want to. Same for the governor.”
“They both forgave me,” Gram said.
“For what?” Damon demanded.
“Nothing.”
Zoe was getting the mother of all headaches. Probably an aftereffect of demon possession. She’d have to Google that.
She had no doubt that Damon’s ransacking her workplace had also ramped up her stress level.
Then there was her hormone level, which Damon had also knocked out of whack. There was no way she should find him the least bit attractive after his behavior. So why was she drawn to him? Had that demon messed with her mind?
“What are the aftereffects of demon mind possession?” she asked Damon.
“Most don’t survive long enough to have aftereffects,” he said.
“If that is supposed to make me feel better—”
He interrupted her. “It isn’t.” He looked around with those killer dark blue eyes of his. “Where’s your bedroom?”
Her jaw dropped. Okay, just because she’d been thinking he was sexy didn’t mean she wanted him in her bedroom.
Without waiting for her reply, he opened a door to his right. Bingo. Her bedroom. With her bed, a dresser, and nothing else.
He stepped inside and the sight of him, so dark and dangerous, beside her snowy white bed was strangely arousing. Was he trying to bring out her dark side the same way the demon had? Well, not exactly the same way, obviously, since Damon wasn’t messing with her mind. Gram’s protection spell guaranteed that.
But protection only went so far. Was Zoe really safe from a devilishly handsome vampire with a sardonic smile and bedroom eyes?
Probably not.
Chapter Six
The witch had only been in Vamptown a few hours and already all hell had broken loose. Damon couldn’t believe it when they’d referred to a book of spells releasing demons. He’d been searching for just such a book for over 150 years.
He’d honestly started to doubt its very existence. Of course, the witches could just be scamming him. Having the book disappear was a little too convenient in his opinion.
Damon looked around Zoe’s bedroom. There was a bed, a dresser, and nothing else. “Where is the rest of your stuff?”
She pointed to the closet.
He opened the door where her clothes were neatly hanging. She apparently liked red and black, as those colors were predominant. Maybe that was a witch thing.
“You’ve unpacked a lot in the short time you’ve been here. There were no moving trucks outside the house today. Obviously you used magic.”
She glared at him with those witchy blue/green eyes of hers but said nothing.
“Or your grandmother did,” he said.
He saw the truth flash across her face. “Keep my grandmother out of this,” Zoe said.
“Hard to do when she’s unleashed a horde of demons upon us.”
“I told you. It was an—”
“Accident. Yeah, so you say. For all I know you could have put a cloaking spell on the book to make it invisible to me.”
“Why would we do that?” she said. “Why would we want a horde of demons running around?”
“I don’t know. But I will find out.”
Just for the hell of it, he tried to compel her by looking deep into her eyes and softly saying, “Tell me the truth.”
To his surprise, she did. “We did not intentionally call upon any demons. Your eyes are too sexy for words. So is your mouth.”
Zoe clasped her hand to her mouth and slammed the door shut into her mind.
So she’d allowed him momentary access to her thoughts. She’d even spoken them aloud. But now when he tried to compel her again, he was met with the blank wall he’d expected from a witch.
He moved closer. “So you think I’m sexy?”
Zoe backed up until she bumped into her bed. “That’s irrelevant.”
“Not to me.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. He could feel the warmth of her skin beneath his fingers. The sound of her heartbeat echoed in his mind. The sexy swish of her pulse compelled him to lift her hand to his mouth. He licked her wrist.
He expected her to yank her hand away and stare at him with fear. Instead she grabbed his hand and brought it to her mouth and licked his wrist.
The feelings throbbing through him were powerful and totally new. Yes, he’d wanted women before. He’d wanted their blood. He’d wanted to bury his fangs in their veins and draw sustenance. He’d wanted to bury his body in theirs and have raw sex. But he’d never felt this fiery need. Not since New Orleans.
Dropping her hand, he pulled his hand from her tempting mouth and demanded, “Why did you do that?”
“Why did you?” she countered. “I’ll tell you why. Because you wanted to intimidate me. And no way would I let you do that.”
“So you thought you’d intimidate me?” He wasn’t about to tell her that while she hadn’t accomplished that, she had incited an unexpected reaction in him. “That will never happen.”
“Never say never.” Zoe flipped her long dark hair away from her face and sauntered out of her bedroom.
* * *
Damon was only a few yards from Zoe’s house when the first demon attacked him, swooping down from the roof’s gutter. Damon swiveled with vamp super speed and noted the look of hatred in the being’s bulging red eyes before he buried his demon dagger in his assailant’s throat. Quickly yanking the dagger out, he watched as the demon dissolved in a fiery cloud of sulfuric smoke.
The light color of the scales and the lack of horns on his attacker indicated the demon had been a recent inductee into hell and not a long-term member.
Damon made it to the street before another demon flew out from beneath a parked car and latched his claws into Damon’s leg. Slime slithered from the demon’s putrid mouth as he tried to take a chomp out of Damon. This demon was still light in color but had horns, although they were nothing to brag about. Damon told him so before thrusting his dagger into his assailant’s throat.
He barely had time to remove his dagger from that demon before another attacked. Blood streamed down Damon’s leg as he fought this much stronger demon. One swipe of the demon
’s arm and Damon was sent flying onto the hood of a black Mercedes.
“That’s going to leave a dent,” Damon noted.
“Death to the Demon Hunter,” the hatemonger proclaimed.
Damon leapt off the hood before the demon could pin him down.
Smacking his lips, the demon ran his claws through the pool of vampire blood that Damon had left behind on the car. The beast’s eyes glowed red with rage as blood dripped from his claws back onto the car. He rushed Damon a millisecond later.
Damon was ready for him. He threw his dagger with expert precision. The demon was dead before he reached Damon.
Removing his weapon, Damon turned to find an older woman sitting across the street on the bench at the bus stop on the corner. He could tell by her scent that she was human. He could tell by the look on her face that she was utterly horrified. He rushed to her side to compel her.
Looking deep into her terrified eyes, Damon said, “Forget what you just saw.”
She nodded her blind compliance.
While she did so, he instantly returned his dagger to its sheath. Demons had no blood in their bodies, but vampires did. Again using vamp speed, he yanked off his shirt and wiped his blood from the hood of the Mercedes. As he’d predicted, his landing on the hood had left a dent. Nothing he could do about that.
He was really pissed now. Yes, vampires were fast healers, but that didn’t mean that wounds and broken bones didn’t hurt at first. He cracked his left arm back into place.
Turning his head, he checked on the woman on the bench. The bus stopped and she meekly climbed aboard and took a seat.
Okay, so the human was taken care of, but the demons were another matter. And all because of the damn witches.
Damon watched the torn flesh in his leg quickly heal as he walked into the bar and grill and headed straight for the secret panel housing the voice-activated security system.
“To the Vamp Cave,” he said. A hidden door opened, allowing him to enter the underground room filled with the latest cutting-edge computer equipment and flat screens displaying camera footage from numerous sites. This was Vamptown’s communications and security center.
