He groaned, trying to push out the agony and stay upright. Norie held on to his neck even tighter and balled up, as though she knew he might take a dive. She didn’t seem inclined to actually let go, and he was glad. So as long the woman remained in his arms, he could protect her. She wouldn’t be alone. She wouldn’t be in danger.
He managed to stay upright, but he was swaying, his legs threatening to buckle; sweat beaded his brows and dripped down his temples.
“Can’t,” cried Ant. “Shit!”
He was driven to his knees, his arms dropping to his sides. He was breathing heavily, as if he couldn’t get any oxygen into his lungs. His eyes rolled until the whites showed; then he threw back his head and screamed. His voice held such an awful sound of suffering that it rived the pain away from Taylor’s own head. He staggered backward, his hold on Norie viselike, and tried to think about what to do.
How did he save them both?
“Ant!” he yelled.
The bubble around them burst, the colors slithering off like multicolored snakes into the awful darkness that filled the house with its vile thickness and stench. He watched helplessly as his little brother fell forward, his body seizing as though someone had touched him with a live wire. After an endless moment of quaking torments, his brother lay still. Horror filled Taylor as he realized his brother wasn’t breathing.
“Release the sacrifice.”
The sulfuric tones pullulated, filling the foyer with hissing demands.
Demons.
He didn’t think it was possible for Norie to cling to him any tighter, but she managed to fasten to him like a barnacle on the underside of a boat. He didn’t think he could shake her off if he tried. But if demons wanted her, they well could separate the sheriff from his charge.
“Release her.”
The commands issued in a multitude of sibilant tones, and the darkness seemed to push in on them, as hard and unyielding as obsidian stone. Still, there were no attempts to take Norie from him. He wasn’t even sure there was anything out there.…He could detect no real forms, clawing and writhing. It was the pervasive feeling of evil that made the hairs go up on the back of his neck. He edged closer to his brother, unsure about what rescue he could attempt. There was no way for him to carry both his brother and Norie, and certainly not through the oppressive blackness. He knew without a doubt that touching that darkness for even a second would mean getting sucked into it, getting lost in it, getting the forever kind of gone.
“You and your brother’s freedom for hers,” offered the voices.
“Fuck you.”
The laughter echoed all around him, and the joyless sounds made his stomach knot in gelid fear. Something bad was gonna happen. He wouldn’t be able to stop it.
“Your brother lives, but he’s injured. Would you trade his life for hers?”
No, he wouldn’t.
But he would trade his own.
Maybe if he blundered into whatever hell had snuck into his house, Norie and Ant would have enough time to escape. He gazed down at his brother, relieved to see him stirring. Ant groaned, obviously in pain, but at least his limbs were twitching and his lungs working. Then Ant rolled onto his back, took a huge breath, and opened his eyes.
His expression was seven kinds of pissed off.
Good. Ant would know to get Norie to safety. He wouldn’t waste any moments gained from Taylor by leaping into the black madness twisting around them like a demented band of ghosts.
Taylor looked at Norie and offered her a reassuring smile. She studied his expression and frowned. He didn’t know what she’d seen in his eyes, but she practically leapt out of his arms. He tried to hold on to her, but she was light as a bag of feathers and fluid as sunshine. She was on her feet, arms akimbo, staring at him. She pointed at his brother and shook her head. Then she pointed at him and shook her head again.
She blew him a kiss, then turned, fully intending to walk into the arms of demons.
“No.” Taylor grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back. “I won’t let you.”
She whirled and gave him a look of disbelief. Then she waved her arms as if to say, “Hey, moron, what choice do we have?”
The voices started in again, demanding the sacrifice be given to them. Taylor realized they weren’t taking her because they couldn’t. He had to hand her over freely. That was why no one had tried to reach out and pull Norie into whatever wasteland lay in the darkness. He wondered why…and then he figured it didn’t much matter.
These demons were almost wheedling now, and those awful voices took on the ferocity of a thousand toddlers whining.
He whirled Norie around and pulled her tightly against him. “I won’t give her to you.”
“Nooooooooo!” the voices protested. The noises of their dissent rose and fell like ocean waves crashing against the shore. “She belongs to the master. To him alone. Give us the sacrifice!”
“Go fuck yourselves.”
Howls issued, and the atmosphere changed. It got darker, and the suffocating heat dissipated into a wretched chill. The stench became so foul, Taylor found himself breathing through his mouth to keep the stink out of his lungs. The howls faded into a silence that offered far more menace than the petulant yawps.
“Give me the woman,” intoned a resonant male voice, “or perish.”
Norie shrank against Taylor, her fear as palpable as the evil pulsing around them. He didn’t know if she recognized the voice, or if she was reacting to the final-offer tone it emitted. Whoever this new asshole was, he meant business.
“We’ll perish anyway,” said Ant. “So, like my brother says…” He trailed off. Then he jumped to his feet and made a show of picking lint off his T-shirt. “Go fuck yourself.”
Ant’s moment of defiance ended quickly. He lost the color in his face, and his eyes bulged.
Taylor clutched Norie as he watched his brother once again go to his knees. His eyes rolled around like those of a wild animal trying to escape a snare. His entire body went still, and then it was almost as if he were being squeezed by an invisible python. He seemed to get smaller; then he lost his breath, and blood started to drip from his nose and his ears.
“No!” Taylor held firmly on to Norie as he reached down and tried to pull Ant free of whatever tortured him.
He couldn’t stop the attack. Hell, he couldn’t get to Ant. His hand was bouncing away before he could grab his brother’s shoulder and try to haul him to his feet.
Pain shot through Taylor and electrified him. He couldn’t keep his arms around Norie. Instead, he felt as though a big metal hand were pressing against his skull, forcing him to his knees. The excruciating sensations attacked every nerve ending, invading his lungs and stealing his ability to breathe. He felt something in his brain snick, and then he felt the blood dribble from his nose.
Goddess almighty! He felt as though he’d been wrapped in a net of bee stings and set on fire. He couldn’t move; he couldn’t tell Norie to run, to just fucking run. He sought her out, and she was like a beacon of light in the terrible darkness of his nightmares.
“Come to me, Lenore,” said the single voice again, as patient as a father trying to corral an errant child, “and I will stop their suffering.”
Tears streaked Norie’s face, and, from her expression, Taylor knew it was her compassion, not her fear, that drove her to turn around.
He wanted to cry out, to grab her, to protect her.
She was important. It shouldn’t be true. Shouldn’t mean so much for a woman he didn’t know, for a woman who stirred in him emotions he had no right to feel. He’d made a promise, and he wanted to keep it. He wanted to keep her.
Over her shoulder, she cast him one last glance and wiggled her fingers in that childlike good-bye.
Then she marched toward the realm of demons and dark magic.
Chapter 6
“Gray!”
Gray Calhoun crawled through the foggy layers of sleep and found his fully dressed wife leaning over him and s
haking him.
He sat up, exhaustion disappearing under the weight of his wife’s panic. “Baby, what is it?”
“Ember and Rilton are downstairs. They said we have to get to Taylor’s right now.”
“What? Something wrong at Taylor’s?” He frowned. “I should’ve gotten a warning if my protections were broken.”
“I don’t know,” said Lucy, her gaze worried. “If whatever-it-is got to Taylor, it got through the town’s spells, too.”
“Shit.” Lucy moved back as Gray threw off the covers. Then it hit him hard. The spells he’d created to protect his friend were being wormed through by a much more powerful, darker magic. He was connected to his magic, to what he’d created. The spells that protected the town seemed intact. But how could something get to Taylor, all without setting off Nevermore’s alarms?
“Gray?”
“It’s okay.” It took less than a minute for him to pull on jeans and a shirt, and slam his feet into a pair of Vans. Together, they hurried out of the bedroom. “Let’s use the portal in the living room. It’ll put us right in front of Taylor’s house.”
“What’s going on?” demanded the scratchy voice of Orley Ryerson.
Gray didn’t have time to explain the situation to the Raven, especially since he wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Common courtesy, and the rules of Guardianship, had forced him to offer a room in his own house to the investigator; to his surprise and disgust, Ryerson had accepted.
“It’s a local matter,” he threw over his shoulder. “Sorry to wake you.”
Ryerson followed. “Perhaps I can offer my assistance.”
“No, thanks,” gritted out Gray.
Taking the hint, the guy stopped at the top of the stairs, glaring at him and Lucy as they hurried down. Gray resisted the urge to flip him off—soul-sucking bastard.
Ember had already opened the portal. Her one dark eye was filled with worry and sorrow, and that look, that awful look, made his stomach sink. Then she and Rilton stepped through the black oval that looked like a giant’s winking eye; Gray and Lucy followed.
There was a tingling rush of cold and color, and then they were stepping out into the front yard of Taylor’s farmhouse.
“Sweet Creator Mother,” murmured Ember.
Gray stared at the house in horrified awe. It looked as though the bottom half had been dipped in ink; it was thick with both substance and stench. He knew that feeling crawling like deadly spiders over him, and that terrible smell of dying and decay.
“What is it?” asked Lucy in a choked whisper.
“Demons,” said Gray.
“Dey after dat girl,” said Ember. “She important t’ ’em. Gather your powers. We must use all dat we have t’ disperse dis evil.”
Rilton stood back. Not being a magical, Ember’s husband could not help them conquer what was currently invading Taylor’s house.
Gray shuddered, old fears rising up inside him like ghosts. Then his wife took his hand and clasped it tightly within hers; strength flowed through him. With Lucy, he would not fall into hell again.
He gathered up his powers and felt the vibration in the air as Lucy and Ember did the same with their own. Magic was strong in Nevermore, and with Ember’s connection to the Goddess, the power of good and light streamed from all around them. They directed those sparkling beams of energy toward the swirling black morass.
The house shuddered.
The blackness yowled.
And a familiar male voice boomed, “No! She is mine!”
Kahl! Gray’s focus wavered, but he managed to keep it together. Still, he couldn’t completely shake off the shock of facing again the demon lord to whom he’d been sacrificed by his first wife. The very asshole who had tried to rend his soul from his corpse was after the woman named Lenore.
The sudden deluge of rage poured into his energy, throwing a red electric glow to the magic pouring out of the three of them.
Cries of fury echoed into the night, followed by a noisy array of hisses and screeches. It made Gray feel as though the gates of hell had opened up and let loose its minions. It made him cold with fear to think that might well be the case—as impossible as such a thing should be.
The darkness rolled off the house and boiled away, noxious streamers twisting into the sky like tossed ribbons.
Rilton was already running toward the porch. Gray, Lucy, and Ember had to take precious seconds to release their powers back to elements from which they’d been borrowed, and offer their prayers of thanks. It was necessary ritual for every wizard.
When Gray entered the house, followed closely by Lucy and Ember, Rilton was already kneeling among the three unconscious people lying on the floor.
“Holy fuck.”
The muttered expletive came from behind Gray. He whirled around and had his hand on the male’s throat before he’d even registered that it was Trent standing behind him.
“What are you doing here?” he snarled.
“Used the portal at my unc’s. Jeez! Chillax, dude,” the kid choked out. “I felt a disturbance in the force.”
“Real funny,” said Gray. He let go, trying to stamp out his anger, and within the red beat of that emotion, the bone-chilling fear that Kahl had somehow found a way into Nevermore. “There were demons here. How does that rank with your necro magic?”
“Not demons,” said Trent, rubbing his throat and staring stonily at Gray. “Ghosts.”
“Bullshit. We…I heard the voice of Kahl.” Lucy gasped, and Gray turned to grab her hand. “It’s okay, baby. He can’t hurt us.”
The worry didn’t leave her gaze, and he lifted her palm and kissed the center of it. “Let’s get our friends walking around again, okay? Then we’ll discuss what to do.”
She brushed her lips over his, which sent a frisson right down his spine. If the demons got to Lucy, if anything happened…Fear invaded him. He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t. She was his heart.
He watched her walk to Taylor. She crouched down, and within moments, the gold glow of her healing magic emanated from her hands and swirled into the prone sheriff.
Gray turned back to Trent. “It felt demonic.”
“I’m not saying they were good spirits,” said Trent. “Maybe they were some evil motherfuckers. But the spirits of the dead aren’t demons. Not that all demons have corporeal forms. They don’t. But their energies are different, and I’m not in tune with that kind of juju. I’m a necromancer. Believe me when I say I know dead people.”
“Okay. So a bunch of evil ghosts descended upon Taylor’s house, probably to get at Lenore, and these spirits were somehow controlled by Kahl?”
“What does any of that have to do with Norie?” Taylor’s voice sounded like a bucket of rusted hinges. He sat up, sending Lucy a grateful smile. She brushed his brow, then went to Ant and began healing him. Ember was hovering over the girl, concern marring her brow.
“Who’s Norie?” asked Trent.
“Lenore,” said Taylor. He got to his feet, not looking exactly spry. He rubbed a hand over his hair and shook his head. “Her name is Norie Whyte.”
“She talkin’?” asked Ember.
“Nope. She wrote it down for me.” He looked down at Lucy. “Ant gonna be okay?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
Then Taylor turned and knelt next to the girl. Gray was surprised at the look of tenderness that crossed his friend’s features. He knew the sheriff felt a sense of responsibility for her; after all, she’d been found naked and beaten in his own woods. But that look…Oh, he recognized it. He’d seen it on his own face often enough, mirrored in the reflection of his wife’s love.
“Is she all right?” asked Taylor.
“She will be,” soothed Ember. “Rilton, I tink da sheriff needs some water.”
“Maybe some breakfast, too,” he said. “I’ll cook.”
Taylor’s lips thinned into a mulish line, but with just one look at Ember’s quirked eyebrow, he sighed. Gray empathized with the man. No o
ne won a battle with Ember, especially when she was in full mother hen mode. The sheriff got to his feet again and followed Rilton into the kitchen. Gray and Trent followed. When Rilton refused their help with fixing breakfast, the other men sat at the kitchen table.
“What happened?” asked Gray.
“I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I went and checked on her. On Norie. She wasn’t in her bed, and I just about broke my neck trying to get downstairs. She was in the kitchen drinking orange juice. I was gonna make her a sandwich and…shit. It was as though hell descended on my house. It blinded us, choked us with its stink. I was trying to get her away, up the stairs, to Ant, but he was already in the foyer working his magic.” Taylor stopped, and Rilton put a glass of ice water before him. “Thanks.” He drank it all, and then wiped off his mouth. “Whatever those things were, they just about killed Ant. They wanted Norie. Kept asking me to give her to ’em. That was when I realized they couldn’t take her. Why do you think that is?”
Gray frowned. “I’m not entirely familiar with protocols for human sacrifice. Maybe Ant did something. Or maybe they could encroach on your territory but not take anything from it. It’s possible there are different rules because we’re dealing with spirits and not demons.”
Then Gray and Taylor both looked at Trent, who offered a shrug. “Dudes. Never heard of anything like this. Ghosts working for a demon lord? It’s possible, I guess, but that’s a lot of spirits. Where did he get them? And how’s he controlling them?”
They contemplated those questions in silence. Gray didn’t have the answers. Between the suicides, his mother’s impending arrival, trying to get Banton’s gun secured in Dallas, and…hell, even the now almost-silly idea of hosting an All Hallows’ Eve party weighed on his soul like a stack of anvils.
“Hey.” Ant wandered in, waved hello to everyone, then headed to the stove to sniff at all the scrumptious food Rilton was whipping up.
Now or Never: Wizards of Nevermore Page 11
