Burning

by Carrillo, K. D.

  "How did you sneak up on me?"

  He pointed to himself. "Predator, remember? I'm built to stalk silently. What did Bridgett want?"

  "She needs to do some shopping for the bonding ritual. Ours was simple. Why does theirs need so much stuff?"

  I could tell he was thinking because his forehead always crinkled up. "Probably because their magic manifests externally. My magic only affects me physically. Elves draw their magic from nature, and the bonding rites have to recognize the source of power. She wasn't going to go by herself, was she?"

  I shook my head. "She said she is going to see what Leah and Jo are doing and ask them to go."

  "Good. We can't risk anyone getting cornered alone. She has seemed happier the last few days," Dean observed.

  "Yeah, she has. I actually think I might be starting to like her," I admitted.

  "Me too. Maybe once this is all over, she will consider sticking around."

  "Ready to be asked when we are going to have kids?" I teased.

  "Probably more so than you are. I'll tell anyone who asks when we are going to procreate that we are working on it." A smug grin pulled at his lips, and he knew he'd won that round of teasing.

  Finn

  "Have you seen my phone?" I asked Chloë.

  "Finn, our phones were taken when we were abducted. I'm fairly sure they were blown up during our rescue," Chloë answered.

  "Well that sucks. I wanted to see if the elf gathering thing was finished yet. I'd like my parents to come to our ceremony."

  "We could go into town and pick up new ones," she suggested.

  "I don't think the two of us count as going as a group. We aren't really strong enough to defend ourselves, let alone each other."

  "Bridgett needed to go into town to buy some stuff for the ceremony. Let's go find her and the three of us can go together."

  Bridgett wasn't in the house. In the garage apartment, Cooper and Jo were snuggled up watching a movie.

  "Have either of you seen Bridgett?" I asked.

  Cooper turned around and waggled his eyebrows at us. "Hey, look who's out of bed."

  "Bridgett?" I redirected him.

  "Oh, yeah. She was here about an hour ago wanting to go into town. We had just started this movie and didn't want to go. She mentioned going to ask Leah. Try over at Grey's. That's where Leah is."

  Without a phone, we couldn't call over there. I wasn't really interested in popping in unannounced and catch Grey and Leah in the act. I didn't want to know what kind of moves he had gained in a thousand years, especially since Chloë was intimately aware of them.

  "Let's get this over with. We are going to knock really loudly," Chloë said.

  "You aren't bothered by him being with Leah, are you?" I asked nervously.

  "No, but I don't want to catch them doing anything either. I also don't want to walk in on Dean and Anita or Cooper and Jo."

  We drove the short distance to his house because I didn't want Chloë to risk teleporting us there. We were stronger, but I wanted us to stay that way. I banged on the door like I was trying to break it down, and Leah rushed to open it. We followed her down to the basement, where Grey had an entire apartment set up.

  "Is Bridgett here?" Chloë asked. The tone of her voice told me that she was starting to panic.

  "No. She stopped by to see if Leah could go with her to the store. I didn't think the two of them should go out together. I said she needed Dean, Cooper, or Carlos if she had to go during the day," Grey answered.

  Chloë started to pace. "Call Dean or Anita and see if she is with them."

  Grey and Leah both pulled out their phones. It seemed to take an excruciatingly long period of time before they responded back.

  Leah shook her head. "Dean says they are both in Yakima at Anita's mom's church."

  Grey dialed another number. "Carlos, is Bridgett with you? We can't find her. She wanted to go into town but no one wanted to go. I'm afraid she went alone. Yeah, I'll call when we hear from her."

  "This feels really wrong. We should have gone with her, Finn," Chloë panicked.

  I wrapped my arms around her and rested my chin on the top of her head. "I know. Here she was making an effort for us, and I was too preoccupied to help when she asked for it."

  Grey turned his back on all of us and said, "We are all to blame here. Every single one of us blew her off today." A ping announced a new text message. He walked back to his sofa and picked up his phone. "Chloë, why are you texting me when we are in the same room?"

  Grey

  "That must be from a few days ago. My phone was destroyed along with Finn's in the explosion," Chloë insisted.

  Granted I wasn’t the best with technology, but this seemed to be new.

  I stared at the screen. I could tell the line of text was a web address, but I wasn't sure how to access it. "Leah, can you help me with this?"

  She smiled at me. "It's so cute that you can't use your smartphone."

  "No, it's embarrassing. Can you open that address?"

  She touched it and my screen changed to a live web feed.

  I enlarged the picture. Well, I tapped a few times and it enlarged itself. I felt fear surge through my veins. "Leah, call Dean and Anita and tell them to break every traffic law they have to and get back here immediately. Then call Cooper and tell him and your sister to get over here now."

  "Grey, you're scaring me. What is it?" Chloë's voice trembled.

  "It's Bridgett. She is tied to a chair, gagged, and being held in a dark room. I think the auto-da-fé found her."

  Chloë's hand shook all the way up to cover her mouth. Behind her hand, she muttered, "This is all my fault. She wanted to make it up to me, and she put herself at risk."

  Leah continued to examine the text. She dialed a number and imitated Chloë's faint French accent. "Hi, this is Chloë Du Lac. I lost my phone a couple of days ago. I was hoping it would turn up, but my friends have been getting texts from my number. I have GPS on my phone. Is there any way you can track where it is being used? ... That long, huh? ... Yes. Please text the location to this number. Thank you."

  After she hung up the phone, she turned to us and said, "I'm not sure that will help at all. It is going to take them a few hours to track down the location. Can you do a locator spell?"

  Chloë shrugged. "I'm not sure if I can or not. My magic has been pretty hit or miss lately. I'm sure going to try though. It would be easier if Anita were here. Then we could combine to amplify my magic."

  I had felt trapped by the daylight many times over the centuries. When I had been buried in the woods after defeating Alexander was one of the most painful—until now. The physical pain was nothing compared to the impotence I felt knowing that I couldn't leave the basement to search out her scent.

  I was responsible for her. I was the one who had picked her up from Illinois. I’d promised her that I would keep her safe. Sure, she had often been a giant pain in the ass, but the last few days, she had been different. There was a shy sweetness to her personality that had previously been buried under a false sense of superiority. I had actually been starting to like her.

  Cooper burst down the stairs, followed by Jo. "Leah, c’mon. We are going to shift and see if we can track her scent."

  "Cooper, people might not think twice about deer, but a grizzly bear is going to be noticed," I cautioned.

  "We are going as wolves," Jo corrected.

  I tossed my hands in the air. "Wonderful! It won't be weird at all for there to be three fierce predators outside of their habitats."

  "I'm only going to partially shift to gain a better sense of smell. No one will be close enough to notice," Cooper explained.

  I nodded. He was right of course. Leah and Jo would be safer as wolves, and they could hide better.

  I grabbed Leah and kissed her. I’d meant it to be a quick peck, but my fear took over and I poured my emotions into the kiss. I gave her my fear, love, and hope through our joined lips.

  "Please be c
areful," I begged.

  She nodded and kissed me quickly again before racing out behind her twin.

  Chloë broke the silence. "Where is Carlos?"

  "The Council called him. Your mother instructed us to handle this and won't let him return just yet," I answered disgustedly.

  "I hope her cold heartedness doesn't harm Bridgett's chances," Chloë said softly.

  Dean and Anita came down the stairs about fifteen minutes after Cooper and the girls left. "Have we got a location yet?" he demanded the second his foot hit the bottom step.

  "No. We are waiting for Cooper to pick up her trail," I answered.

  Dean opened his mouth to argue when my cell began to ring. Cooper's name was on my display screen.

  "We found her. Those bastards must have had another series of tunnels even lower, because her scent disappears under the only surviving out building.”

  I began to pull weapons out of cabinets. I handed a sword to Finn and a crossbow to Chloë. "Without strong magic you will need these. Remember, getting killed won't bring her home so be careful."

  They all raced up the stairs, and I paced the basement, powerless.

  Dean

  I peeled out onto the gravel road before anyone had a chance to buckle in. Anita sat studying her phone.

  "Did Grey forward you another video?" I asked her.

  She answered without looking up. "No, it's the same one from earlier. But something about it is bothering me. I just can't figure out what." She passed the phone back to Chloë. "Take a look and see what you notice."

  After a couple of seconds, I heard Chloë gasp. "Finn, look at this. It isn't what I think it is, right? I mean, it isn't possible."

  Finn took the phone and watched for the same length of time Chloë did before he shouted, "Floor it!"

  "What did you guys see?" I demanded.

  "Evil," they said at the same time.

  "That isn't vague," I muttered to myself.

  "You don't understand. What is in that room with her is evil incarnate. I can't be one hundred percent sure, but if I saw what I think I did, we are dealing with a demon," Chloë explained.

  Anita took back her phone and cued up the section of the video that they were all worried about. "That dark shadow? That is what you noticed too, right?"

  "That isn't a shadow," Finn commented.

  "It's a wing," Chloë finished.

  "Oh come on. Are you saying the witch hunters are working with a demon?" I scoffed.

  "I would bet they don't know he is a demon. We have magic, so we can see what humans can't. His demonic aspects could be easily hidden from them," Chloë explained, unfazed by my outburst.

  We were running out of time. Everyone could feel it. With the time it took to find the entrance to the tunnel and navigate the twisting corridors, we might arrive too late. Almost arriving on time wouldn't be good enough.

  Cooper and the girls walked out of the tree line. "We've been searching for the entrance, but we can't find it," Cooper announced.

  "Demonic magic. It's strong. I can smell it. Can't you, Anita?" Chloë asked.

  Anita nodded, her nose wrinkling.

  I could smell a burnt-rubber smell, but I’d assumed it was a result of the explosion.

  "The demon is using his magic to hide the entrance. We won't be able to sift through the layers in time—not with how my magic is working right now," Chloë admitted.

  "Point me to the general location," Finn commanded.

  Cooper, Chloë, and Anita all pointed toward the northwest corner of the property. Finn took a deep breath and used what was left of his magic to force the earth to split open. The ground began to shake and rumble. With a great crunching sound, the bedrock opened to the outer layer of the preserved bunker.

  Before I could stop her, Anita ran at full speed toward the hole and landed with a resounding crack. She jumped straight out of the one-hundred-foot hole and landed right next to me. "One more jump and we are in," she announced.

  I gritted my teeth as she launched into the air for the second time. This time the crack was followed by a deafening boom, and Anita disappeared with the cement into the hole she’d created. I went to jump in after her, but Cooper grasped my shoulder.

  "You can't enter the same way she did. We are going to have to find a way down."

  "Does anyone have a knife?" Chloë asked. Cooper, Finn, and I each pulled a pocketknife out of our pockets. "Okay, here goes nothing," she mumbled.

  I wanted to question her when she began to braid her hair, but it seemed to be growing right in front of us. In about a minute, she had a braid over a hundred feet long, and that was beyond her already waist-length hair.

  She held it out from her body. "Cut it."

  Finn sliced through her hair and tied knots on the loose ends. We tied the improvised rope around a tree and tossed it over the ledge. It was short by five feet, but we could all jump that far.

  "Can you handle this, or should you stay up here?" I asked Finn and Chloë.

  "Try and stop me," Chloë said defiantly.

  "I go where she goes," Finn added.

  One by one, we descended the rope. My anxiety swelled as I frantically searched for Anita.

  "I'm right here," she whispered down the corridor near the corner.

  Cooper kicked down the heavy, steel door, and we rushed inside the windowless, cement cell. There were two men in the room with Bridgett and something else. Large, greasy, black wings spread behind the being. He leaned over and whispered something in the professor's ear.

  "Yes, Mr. Astaroth." He turned back to Bridgett and began to advance on her.

  That was when I noticed that he was holding a large hunting knife. Usually I would have noticed it first, but the demon in the room seemed like the bigger threat.

  "Your light is dimming, pretty little witch. You'll be mine soon," the demon hissed.

  The professor continued to head toward Bridgett, but Anita moved so quickly around him that he never saw her. She untied Bridgett and pushed her towards us.

  Recognition flashed across Dr. Tuttle's face. His complexion turned an angry red. "You!" he shouted, pointing a thick finger at Chloë. "You brought those demons to my lab and they destroyed it! The world needs to be purified of your kind. We will cleanse the world in fire!" he screamed.

  His sidekick rushed toward Anita. I turned to protect her. Cooper and the girls focused on the demon Astaroth. The professor, though, never lost focus on Chloë. I should have recognized the divide-and-conquer tactic. The fact that I didn't would weigh heavily on me for eternity.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the professor pull his arm back. It took my brain a second to realize that he was about to throw the knife at Chloë. She threw up a barrier, but her magic faltered almost immediately. Blood trickled out of her nose, and she swayed slightly. Finn's first reaction was to grab Chloë before she hit the floor, which kept her in the path of the knife.

  It seemed like I watched the knife fly through the air for hours, but it was only fractions of a second. Anita didn't see it fast enough to stop the knife either. That split second, I watched helplessly as one of my best friends prepared to die. She accepted it. There wasn't time to move, and she was out of magic.

  Mere inches before impact, I watched Bridgett leap in front of the knife. It hit her below her heart with a wet thud. Suddenly everything sped up, and the room fell into chaos. Bridgett gasped for breath, and there was a sucking sound around the knife.

  "I think it hit a lung," Finn shouted.

  Astaroth's eyes gleamed. "Would you believe he had never personally committed murder until this moment? It is always wonderful when I can claim another soul."

  I hadn't realized I was stalking the professor until Cooper's large hand landed on my shoulder and held me firm. "Not in revenge," Cooper warned.

  Chloë grabbed Anita's hand, and together they sent out a blast that knocked the professor and his sidekick out and even forced the demon to stumble.

  Cooper gen
tly picked up Bridgett, and we began to run. Chloë took two steps and started to list to her left. Without missing a step, Finn allowed her to fall into his arms and continued running.

  The sun was setting behind the trees as we neared the opening Anita created. When the last of the light slipped under the Earth, a whoosh sounded overhead. Grey dropped down from the top. I noticed slight burns on his cheeks and hands, but every other inch of skin was covered. He took Bridgett from Cooper without a word and leapt back up top.

  Anita went to Finn. "Give her to me."

  He gently transferred Chloë into Anita's arms, and she jumped up like Grey had done. The rest of us climbed back up the rope. Anita gave Chloë back to Finn.

  "Grey said to meet him at his house."

  I kicked the tire of my truck.

  "We can't help her if we stand here," Anita whispered so only I could hear her.

  I nodded stiffly. "Is Chloë going to be okay?" I asked Finn.

  He exhaled a ragged breath. "I think she is better off than Bridgett. She'll be okay. They both will. They have to."

  "If only it worked that way," I muttered grimly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Regrets

  Grey

  Holding Bridgett, I swept everything off my dining room table. Then I placed her gently on top of it. "You are not allowed to die," I told her.

  The front door flew open, and the rest of the coven filed into the living room and dining room. Anita rushed to my side and helped me rip Bridgett's shirt open.

  "Shit!" I said on exhale.

  Tiny bubbles pushed out of the wound in her chest. She started wheezing and gasping. There was a wet, sucking sound in her chest.

  "I'm...not...going...to..." she struggled to say.

  "Stop. You are not going to die," I demanded. But she was. I'd been a field medic in dozens of wars, and nothing I could do would save her. Wouldn't stop me from trying though.

  I opened my medical bag and removed a scalpel. I cut into her chest and saw that her lung had collapsed and her chest was filling with blood. My hands blurred as I rushed to repair the damage.