Her fingers latched onto cracking wooden studs as the exterior wall crumbled away, letting in flashes of light from the stormy clouds above.
Petra licked blood off her lips, the demon staring out of her haunted, pained eyes.
“Done yet, my dear?”
I lunged for her, but she ducked my grasp, driving her forehead into my collarbone and knocking me back a step. I tried to recover but moved too slowly; she grabbed one of my arms and spun me in a circle, taking my feet off the ground and sending me spiraling to the floor. I hit the tile amongst the kitchen rubble unharmed and quickly rolled away from her, creating some space and rising to my feet.
She hit me in the face with the refrigerator.
If I’d been prepared I could have stopped the impact, and in retrospect I probably should have been. Instead, she sent me flying across the room; I hit a wall and staggered. That damn fridge followed me, propelled by super-Moroi strength, driving me deeper into the wall. And she followed it before I could push the appliance free, a flying drop kick crushing it against me and shoving us both through the wall and back into the living room.
I shielded myself as she lifted the mangled metal mass off me, the steel warping in her grip, and hammered me with it, the heavy object warping further as it battered itself apart against Strigoi flesh. I shifted and swatted it aside like she had earlier, tearing it from the possessed Moroi’s grasp, but she simply fell on me with her bare hands instead.
Her eyes alight with a crazed, exhilarated gleam, Petra’s body straddled me, pinning my arms with her legs, raining down punches into my face, rocking me and bouncing my skull off the floor, making it hard to think. I felt my jaw start to give, felt blood dribble from my nose as her mortal hands broke and regenerated with each punch.
Muscles straining and creaking like steel cords, I pushed her up, tried to throw her off.
She slammed her hands down on my arms, pinning them in place, stopping me cold.
“Sorry,” the demon hissed, eyes bleeding ink. “It really was fun, but our playtime is over.”
The room darkened with shadows my eyes couldn’t penetrate, oily, inky blackness dripping down the walls and crawling toward me from the corners, emerging even from the shadows beneath my own body as she held me still. Something in me recoiled in existential terror, the last of my rage vanishing, but there was nowhere for me to retreat to. I could only watch, helpless, as her halo of tenebrous tendrils manifested from the edges of Petra’s body and reached for my flesh.
“You know,” Charles said, “it’s not like you to let down your guard.”
Petra’s eyes went wide, but it was already too late; the wizard hit her with a baseball swing even as he spoke, the silver inlay of his staff glowing like white hot magnesium as it buried itself in her borrowed neck.
A blinding flash, blazing brighter than the sun at noon, rent the screaming shadows apart. The world trembled a little as the impact tore the demon off of me like the backhand of an angry god, the force of her wake rattling the battered house with a roar of not-sound.
As my vision returned, bits of wood, stone and plaster were still trickling down from the ceiling.
I looked through the hole where one wall had once been, but I couldn’t see Petra.
Just a smoking furrow in the dirt about fifty feet long that tunneled through an entire other house.
“We should really be going,” Charles said, his breath coming slowly but heavily. “We can’t really hurt her like this. She could come back any time.” He held a hand out to me, his face a thin mask of stone painted over conflicted emotions.
“Are you okay?” I rasped. I took his arm, and between us, we pried me free of the floor and set me on my feet. In the background, I saw everyone else collapsed on the floor in a pile, slowly stirring, grasping their heads, and groaning.
He stared at me for a moment, as if accessing me anew. “No. But the wounds she inflicts there only come Home with us if she chooses.”
His flesh was seemingly intact, and I didn’t smell his blood, so that sounded legitimate. “Well, mine was real enough,” I rubbed at the underside of my jaw, and my hand came away smeared with dark, viscous blood.
He frowned, then nodded. “She wants me to suffer, not become a paraplegic, after all. Unfortunately, she’s not so...merciful...towards others.”
My mind burned with a bundle of about a hundred questions, but I knew there wasn’t time for any of them right now. I was just glad he was okay, along with everyone else, and we needed to get away before that monster returned. But as he turned away, I paused.
“Charles—your staff.”
What was once a masterpiece of rune-carved, silver inlaid wood was a ruined, smoldering wreck. The runes were charred, the head blackened, the wood warped, cracked, and still smoking. The silver swirls and sigils were molten or missing, a few scattered liquid beads still dripping to the floor, and there was no eagle feather to be seen anywhere.
He glanced at it and nodded, but even under his impassive facade I could see his face fall, just a little. “Like I said, we need to go. Now. I can’t do that again.”
Chapter Ten
If things were different
We retreated to Charles’ sanctum.
We couldn’t think of a safer place, though everyone seemed uncertain that even Charles’ sanctuary could hold against such a foe as the one we’d just faced.
And that was without them seeing what I had seen.
Jason didn’t waste any time. Without anyone saying a word, he broke out one of Charles’ tall bottles of whiskey from wherever it had been hidden, to a disapproving glance from Rain and a grateful glance from Charles. He took one long draft straight from the bottle, coughed and shook his head as he swallowed, then set it on the coffee table.
“Okay, vatos,” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, his blue-gray eyes a bit wild. “What the hell was that?”
“A demon,” Tamara said quietly.
“No.” Charles cut in, drawing all eyes. “An Ur-demon.”
“A what?” Tamara, Rain, and I asked the question in near unison. A coincidence that would have normally sparked a laugh went unnoticed.
“To the best of our knowledge, there are only four of them. Thankfully.” Charles sat slumped forward, elbows on his knees, his eyes fixated on the floor. Before continuing, he claimed the whiskey bottle and spent several seconds chugging what seemed like a ridiculously unhealthy amount. “The Magisterium keeps tabs on them as best as we can, but it’s...difficult, to say the least.”
The rest of us traded uneasy looks. Rain and Jason shared Charles’ surprisingly uncomfortable tan suede couch with the wizard himself. While Rain seemed fearful but curious, Jason seemed more edgy, claiming the very corner of one of the couch’s arms as if ready to run. On the other side of the stumpy hardwood coffee table, Tamara and I shared the battered, soft leather sofa I’d hauled in off the street two months ago. For once, the Moroi shifted close to me for comfort instead of being the one to provide it. Meanwhile, Kitty alternated leaning against one of the leather arms with pacing and fidgeting nervously.
I glanced around at the haunted faces of my friends. “Uh, okay. But can you tell us what that actually is, chief?” I rasped. How aware had any of them been while under the demon’s suppression?
Charles met my eyes, his own eyes hard and dark. “There are demons, like the Rawhead. Then there are Ur-demons. Like her.” He glanced around the room until everyone met his sharp, cynical cinnamon gaze. “You should have listened to me. It’s all fun and games to ignore my warnings until it suddenly isn’t.” He looked my way again, and again I felt him reassessing me. “If Ashley hadn’t been able to break free? To wake up? Each and every one of you would be dead.” He considered the whiskey in his white-knuckled grip. “That or wishing for death to come,” he finished quietly.
Now everyone stared at me instead.
“Thanks, chica,” Jason said after a moment. He gave me a thumbs up as everyone else opened t
heir mouths to follow suit.
“Ah, no, stop it,” I complained at them. “Any of you would have done the same thing for me.”
“Except we obviously couldn’t,” Tamara said, her voice subdued. She glanced across the table, and Charles passed her the rapidly diminishing whiskey. “I’d have thought… After all I’ve…” She shook her head. “I didn’t expect to be such a pushover.” She gave me an appreciative look, but there was apprehension beneath her shaky smile.
“No one ever does,” Charles said, not unkindly, directing the statement toward everyone but me.
“So, yeah. Ur-demon,” I continued, eager to change the subject. “Some sort of proto-demon? Or greater demon? Or what?”
“More than either,” the wizard replied. Taking up the wreckage of his staff from where it leaned against his shoulder, he laid it across the coffee table as solemnly as if laying a friend to rest. “Hell, more than both.” He half closed his eyes. “From Downstairs, bleeding ink, stealing friend, breaking link. Answerer. Harbinger. Problem-solver. Bound in chain, bound in vain.”
“Sounds like you two have history,” Tamara commented.
I nodded my agreement. I’d figured he’d been the one in the pain-chair for a reason, after all.
“I’ve met one of them before,” he replied simply. Tamara raised an eyebrow. “Met her before.” He hesitated a moment. “...It did not go well.”
“Downstairs?” Kitty asked, her voice firmer than I would have expected. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“Some demons simply manifest, like what the Blood Man became. Ur-Demons, much like lesser demons such as the Rawhead, may originate from Downstairs.”
I blinked at a terrifying monster like the Rawhead being a lesser anything. But after the night I’d had, the truth was undeniable.
I’d just stared that truth in the face, after all.
“She’s one of only four to escape from being locked away Deep Downstairs,” Charles continued. “Those are the ones you worry about. The ones nightmares are made of. Sometimes literally. They can make manifest any form they desire, but it quickly exhausts them, forcing them to return to their personal realms Next Door to recharge, often for many years at a time. So they possess someone or something else instead, use them as a vessel.” He glanced around the room. “And if they do take over, the body has some of the power of the demon and the amplified powers of the host combined.”
“Super-Moroi,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “Super-Moroi.” He looked back at Kitty, who absently fiddled with the jade cat amulet around her neck. “As for Downstairs? It’s just a word. Interpret it as you like. Many cultures have, over the millennia. You’ll find a few grains of truth anywhere you look.”
“So what is she the demon of?” Rain asked, light brown eyes gleaming with a curiosity that overrode the fear. “Sloth, anger, or something?”
The weary magician shook his head. “It doesn't work like that in the real world. I mean, yes, the Magisterium has demonic categories, and you could classify something like the Rawhead as a demon of hunger. But Ur-demons are different. She transcends any categorization or boundaries. The only thing she truly shares with humans is boredom.”
I frowned. “So she's doing...whatever she’s doing here...because she's bored? Why doesn't she go play video games or something?”
Charles took a deep breath. “You don't understand the sheer scope. Nothing made by humans could challenge her. I’m not certain that the entirety of the human race is a challenge to her. And that's what she wants, a challenge.”
“Wow, not even Dwarf Fortress or Dark Souls?” I shuddered. “Well, now I'm intimidated.”
Tamara laughed softly and nudged me with a playful elbow. Then her smile faded away. “Well, at least there’s one good thing to come out of this.”
“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow.
She nodded. “It proves there’s no collusion between the Sanguinarians and my people.”
Charles choked on the second bottle of whiskey Jason had found. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
Tamara narrowed her sapphire eyes at the wizard. “You said it yourself. She’s controlling them. The only question is why.”
Charles’ bushy brows furrowed in irritation. “And you said it yourself. It would take a hell of a problem solver to get them to work together. And that’s what she does. Solve problems. Except it’s always she who comes out the real winner, and the solutions eventually show themselves to be somehow worse than the original problems. Don’t stick your damn head in the sand.”
“I said negotiator, not problem solver,” Tamara snapped. “And you're one to talk. You rode the denial train to the very last stop on that thing being involved. You think I didn’t notice how weird you were being when we brought some of those details up?”
The wizard’s eyes flickered for a moment, but he only breathed out a deep breath instead of escalating further. “You’re right. I was...scared.” That admission took everyone in the room aback, myself included. “I didn’t want it to be true. But it was.” He gave Tamara a significant look. “And look what it almost cost us.”
She opened her mouth for a retort, then closed it again, de-escalating along with the magician. “Okay. Point taken.” It didn’t sound like she agreed, though. “So, what is she doing here, then?”
“That’s a damn good question,” Charles said. “I wish I knew the answer. Likely, if we ever find that out, it’ll be far too late.”
“That’s...not good,” Rain commented, shifting nervously.
“Hopefully, the rest of you simply aren’t on her radar,” the wizard said, glancing at me. “Believe me, it’s better that way.”
“But what can we do if we are? Is there any way to know if she’s got somebody under her spell, or whatever?” Jason asked. “I mean, this is some scary shit, homes.”
Kitty nodded, tucking the long strand of ruby red hair behind an ear. “I’d like to know that as well. Peace of mind, if nothing else.”
Charles took a long moment to answer. “This is a case where knowledge can be dangerous,” he warned. “Remember, you don’t want to catch her attention. But still...” He took a deep breath. “When an Ur-demon possesses someone, you can sometimes hear it in their voice or feel the pressure in the air as they draw Next Door near to them by their very presence. They don’t use magic, so you won’t feel a surge of static; they enact change by sheer will as their true forms watch from just Next Door, using our eyes as their windows.” Rain shuddered. Kitty followed suit. “As for this one in particular, her eyes bleed an inky darkness and she likes to go barefoot. So those are good clues.”
We fell silent, digesting the information. Jason frowned. “So...what if she’s not here alone? Could there be more than one of these things?” Rain shuddered again.
Charles just laughed, a sound drained of its intended meaning. “That’s the best case scenario.”
“Seriously?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket. “How so?”
“Because they’d get busy trying to kill one another and leave us alone.”
“Huh.” I looked down at Lori’s texts. I’d missed some while my phone had been off earlier.
Are you okay? I have a bad feeling.
Text me when you get this, Ash.
Please, let me know you’re okay.
Then another one, just now.
Hey. I really need to see you. Want to see you. Are you okay? Please come home if you can. I need you.
My phone vibrated in my hands.
...I really want you here with me.
I looked up, looked around at my friends. No one seemed to have anything else to say, everyone devoured by their own thoughts, none of which seemed positive.
“So you’re saying there’s nothing we can do?” I looked at Charles.
He nodded. “Of course there is. You can all stay out of her way.”
I sighed. “Then I’m going home.”
Tamara glanced up as I rose, my battered bones creaking a little, like an old chair. “Everything okay?” She glanced at my phone.
I forced a smile. “Yeah. She just wants to see me, that’s all.” I paused, remembering the seething, hungry darkness. Remembering the demon. “And honestly? I think I need that right now.”
“There you are.”
I clicked the door closed behind me and looked into my lover’s sparkling slate gray eyes.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been so glad to be home.” I grinned, strode across the room, and lifted her effortlessly into a hug—being extra careful not to crush her, of course. “Well, maybe after the tangle with that crazy Sanguinarian. Or that ancient-ass Strigoi. Or those two trolls…” Not that I’d been able to really come home after any of those, not like I could now.
“Well, you look intact,” she smirked. “Was I worried over nothing?” As I dropped her back onto her feet, Lori looked down at the mess of blood spots and dirt smudges my embrace had left on her thigh-length Ride the Lightning tee. “Okay, that’s a no.” She eyed the grime with a raised eyebrow.
“Sorry.” I smiled again. Here with her, the expression was easier to come by. “It was...a rough night. To put it mildly. Do I smell...omelettes?”
She snorted. Cutely. “Yeah, well. I was going to fix something we both liked, then realized it didn’t matter.” As I laughed hoarsely, she stepped up onto my boots, wiggling her toes, and evened out our heights. Grabbing my jacket, she pulled herself against me, ignoring the dirt, blood, and splinters, and kissed me full on the lips.
Any rush of surprise was buried quickly under another kind of heady rush. My heart thundered, one heavy thump propelling desire through my veins as I relaxed into the kiss. I managed to hold back from grabbing her, from holding her tight, from doing anything that might make her feel trapped.
At least, until she grabbed one of my hands and stuck it to her waist, then seized the other and placed it on the small of her back.
Shattered Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 3) Page 12
