by Krista Walsh
Contents
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1 - Molly
Chapter 2 - Zach
Chapter 3 - Daphne
Chapter 4 - Gabe
Chapter 5 - Molly
Chapter 6 - Zach
Chapter 7 - Gabe
Chapter 8 - Allegra
Chapter 9 - Vera
Chapter 10 - Molly
Chapter 11 - Zach
Chapter 12 - Daphne
Chapter 13 - Allegra
Chapter 14 - Gabe
Chapter 15 - Vera
Chapter 16 - Zach
Chapter 17 - Molly
Chapter 18 - Gabe
Chapter 19 - Vera
Chapter 20 - Allegra
Chapter 21 - Daphne
Chapter 22 - Vera
Chapter 23 - Molly
Chapter 24 - Zach
Chapter 25 - Gabe
Chapter 26 - Allegra
Chapter 27 - Molly
Chapter 28 - Vera
Chapter 29 - Daphne
Chapter 30 - Molly
Chapter 31 - Vera and Gabe
Chapter 32 - Gabe
Chapter 33 - Zach
Chapter 34 - Daphne
Chapter 35 - Allegra
Chapter 36 - Gabe
Chapter 37 - Molly
Chapter 38 - Zach
Chapter 39 - Vera
Chapter 40 - All
Chapter 41 - All
Thanks for Reading
Acknowledgements
Other Works by Krista Walsh
About the Author
Gods of the Stone Oracle
An Invisible Entente Novel
By
Krista Walsh
All Rights Reserved
This edition published in 2018 by Raven’s Quill Press
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this work are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity is purely coincidental.
Cover art: Ravven (www.ravven.com)
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher. The rights of the authors of this work has been asserted by him/ her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
For my readers, for your help in keeping the magic flowing
1
Molly Harris sat in front of her computer, tapping the side of her thumb against her desk. Every strike sent little vibrations through her left palm, which lay flat across the smooth wood, its fingers outstretched toward her braille display.
Calculus is the worst, she thought. She’d been hung up on the same homework question for what felt like hours, but was probably closer to thirty minutes. Exactly thirty minutes, she discovered when she guided her fingers over her watch face, the cool metal hands announcing the grand old hour of seven o’clock in the evening.
Only five hours to go, then she could climb out her window, make her way down her tree, and cross the city to spend time with Zachariel and his black cat, Dusty.
The wait didn’t help her concentration at all.
She scratched an itch behind her left ear, nudging her cochlear out of the way to satisfy the need, then returned her attention to the math question and ran her fingers over the textbook once more.
I wonder what Zach is up to? And what he wants for dinner tonight.
Her thoughts strayed away from the numbers toward the refrigerator downstairs. Last night, she’d brought the daemelus and Dusty some leftover Thanksgiving dinner. If she was smart about it, she might be able to whisk away a little bit more tonight, along with some of the strawberry ice cream her father had picked up on his way home. It was cold enough outside that she should be able to make it to the building where Zach was now hiding without the dessert melting along the way.
Giving up on her homework for now, Molly leaned back in her chair and crossed her hands over her stomach.
Should she bring them a housewarming present? She imagined bringing Zach, the half-angel half-demon who shunned all society except for his adopted black kitten and a handful of people, a houseplant for his new place, and couldn’t help but smile at his possible reactions. Likely, he would just grunt and set the thing aside to gather dust. Smarter not to waste her money.
She was glad he’d found a place, though. After a pack of demons had discovered and destroyed his temporary residence at New Haven’s abandoned trade college, Zach had jumped from spot to spot looking for a new safe house that was still close enough to keep an eye on Molly. Although the honor debt between them had been cleared, he still insisted on watching out for her.
“Something is coming,” he’d told her, “and I don’t want you caught in the middle of it because you can’t see where you’re going.”
Blind jokes. Right. Like she’d never heard that one before.
Despite his continued lack of sensitivity to her deafblindness, she understood where he was coming from. She’d been there when the demons had attacked. The memory of standing in front of the rotten-smelling gang, her arrow nocked and sorceress Daphne Heartstone at her side, had kept her dreams busy for the last three weeks. She’d actually seen when Zachariel had come into his full power, his angel-demon blood fusing together in a flash of red and white light, just as it had been intended when he’d first been created — by the people who were now trying to destroy him.
It was a lot to wrap her head around, and even after three weeks she was still trying to understand.
Which was why Zach felt it was so important to stand guard over her. Apparently he believed she wasn’t good at keeping herself out of trouble. In fairness to him, past experience supported his theory, but she didn’t think she needed a babysitter. She was sixteen years old — old enough to make her own mistakes.
Fortunately, his belief in her rashness hadn’t prevented her nighttime visits, although it was no longer every night. She’d finally accepted that she couldn’t maintain the facade of Healthy High School Student on three hours of sleep, but she still managed to spend three or four nights a week with Zach and Dusty, talking about the coming war and Zach’s discovery that he’d been created as a prototype for a military race — one that had been meant to help demons take over the otherworld. It had been a heavy revelation to take in. Kind of like finding out that the cause of your deafblindness was because a warlock had cursed your family bloodline sometime in the twelfth century. That although you couldn’t see or hear, there was some part of your brain that could, meaning you had hyper-sensitive spatial awareness you couldn’t explain to anyone. And that you were descended from one of the most famous archers of all time. No big deal. Whatever.
Molly pushed her hands through her curls, tugged her fingers free from the tangles, and rested her arms on the armrests of her chair.
Breathing out a huff of frustration, she slumped forward and returned to her homework. Five minutes later, before she was aware she was doing it, her fingers brushed over her phone, checking her text messages for the seven hundredth time since coming upstairs after dinner.
Still nothing. She kept hoping her best friend, Steve Bard, would message her to discuss their homework assignment or the weather or share his epiphany that he actually had been in love with her for the three years they’d known each other. Alas, no luck on that score.
She was also hoping to hear from Emmett Keddy, the sweet, awkward bad boy that had helped her save Zach when the demons had nearly killed him. Afterward, he’d driven Molly home from the battle and asked her out on a date. Following a very graceful pause, she’d oh-so-eloquently expressed her interest. In f
act, she’d expressed herself so well that she could almost think about it three weeks later without blushing and bowing her head in shame. But at least they’d somehow both ended up on the same page.
Since then, they’d texted back and forth a few times, but with the pre-holiday school project rush and her weak attempts to keep some sort of livable schedule between school, family, and time with Zach, they hadn’t been able to make any plans to get together again in person.
Checking her watch, she was horrified to find that only two minutes had passed. This evening was taking forever.
The thought had barely passed her mind when a draft brushed across her cheek and the air shifted around her.
Molly froze, her hands hovering over her braille display. She spread her awareness throughout the room and her mouth went dry as she realized she was no longer alone. The door was still closed, so it couldn’t be her parents, and the breeze on her neck wasn’t cold enough to be coming from an open window.
“Get her up,” a voice said. Masculine, unfamiliar.
Molly’s stomach dropped into her boots. She felt a pressure in the air as someone moved toward her, but she swung her chair to block him and darted across the room to get out of his reach. She wished she could go for her bow, but it wasn’t strung.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
The air tingled around her, raising the hair on the backs of her arms. She’d experienced that sensation before. Magic. Her harried brain ran through all the lessons Zach had taught her about magical beings in her world, but then her thoughts ended up jumping back to ten months ago, after she and the five otherworldly beings had escaped from warlock Jermaine Hershel’s magically sealed room. Gabriel Mulligan, the Gorgon-Fae, had claimed to have an ability to open portals in the air.
Had these people teleported?
“Knowing who we are won’t help you,” the man said. He sounded smooth and slimy, like one of those stereotypical used car salesmen on TV. “What would help is if you told us where to find the orb.”
Molly’s head swam as the blood drained from her face.
Had she fallen asleep at her desk and slipped into a nightmare? She wanted to pinch herself, but worried she would just be drawing attention.
Instead, she swallowed hard to get her tongue working and asked, “What orb?”
A growl. “Play stupid with us, little girl, and you’ll face the consequences. You may not have it here, but you know where it is.”
Although her hands were trembling, Molly crossed her arms. “What do you want with it?”
The man chuckled. “Your curiosity won’t save you. There’s no point trying to buy time. No one is coming.”
Molly sucked in a breath, ready to scream for her parents.
“Call for help and we’ll kill whoever comes through that door,” he said, and Molly choked on air. “Stop playing games and tell us where the orb is.”
She pressed her lips together.
Three weeks ago, in a fight with one of the demons who had come for Zach, she had killed a demon carrying an engraved rosewood box that contained what Daphne had described as a plain glass orb. When the sorceress had grabbed it, it had sucked the magic out of her veins. In Molly’s grasp, it had stripped away the gifts that allowed her to see what she couldn’t see and hear what she couldn’t hear. For the first time in her life, her deafblindness had been absolute.
According to Daphne’s research, the Stygian Orb was a centuries-old relic. It had been created as a safety measure — a way to punish otherworldly beings by preventing them from tapping into their power. Essentially, it turned them human.
Understanding how important it was to keep such an object safe, Molly had given it to Steve for safekeeping. He was a human who didn’t believe her stories about the otherworld, so she had decided it would be the best place to hide it. She’d been right. In the time he’d had it, not once had he asked her anything about it.
“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Here, boss. Isn’t this the box?” a second voice spoke up, this one gravelly in a way that scraped along Molly’s auditory nerves and sent shivers through her blood. The voice was so similar to the demon she’d stabbed through the heart. The one who’d been carrying the orb.
Silence stretched throughout the room, and she guessed their boss was opening the box. She knew what he would find inside.
Sure enough, a moment later he slammed the lid shut so hard, the wood snapped. Then came a crash as, she assumed, he hurled the box against the wall. Molly’s heartbeat jumped with every new sound. Sweat prickled under her arms and in the small of her back.
Before she was aware of anyone moving, a tight grip wrapped around her arm. Sharp claws poked into her skin through a furred hand, and her fingers throbbed as their circulation was cut off.
“Molly?” her mother’s voice shouted from downstairs. “Is everything all right?”
Molly’s heart jumped into her throat, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. What would happen if her mom came in here? These monsters would tear her apart. But if she stayed downstairs, what would happen to Molly?
“Tell her yes,” the man across the room snarled.
For a split second she debated, but the man’s threats lingered in her mind, and she knew she couldn’t take the risk.
“Fine, Mom,” she called back. “I just dropped something.”
“Good girl,” said the man. “Now, be smart about this and tell us what we want to know. Otherwise, your mother is going to have a fine mess to clean up when she comes to check on you.”
Molly’s tongue felt as though it had swollen to fill her entire mouth. The beast beside her carried a sour reek as it breathed on her neck with ragged wheezes. It tightened its fingers around her arm, and she didn’t want to think about what it might do to her if the head demon allowed it to happen.
“I — I don’t have it,” she said, each word a struggle to squeeze through the thickness of her throat. “I swear I don’t have it.”
“You know where it is. You have the box, so you must know where it is.”
Tears stung the corners of her eyes, and she bit down on her tongue to prevent herself from crying out as the nails around her arm dug through her shirt into her flesh. Experience told her how much worse things would get for her if she didn’t comply, but she’d made a promise. She’d taken the orb to prove she was up for the fight creeping toward the city of New Haven. This was her test. She couldn’t put Steve at risk by telling them what they needed to know. She couldn’t betray the promise she’d made to Zach and Daphne that she would keep the orb safe.
But he was threatening to kill her.
Molly tried to accept that the family dinner she’d just finished with her parents, as quiet as usual since her mother had revealed the truth about Molly’s deafblindness, was the last she’d enjoy with them. She thought about how she would never go on that date with Emmett, or be able to warn the others that these monsters were coming for them.
But if she kept her silence, she would make the demons’ war that much harder to start. That would be worth it, right?
Her throat spasmed so hard it ached, but still she forced out the words. “I don’t.” Pride swelled in her heart that, despite the waver, she sounded firm. She didn’t care if they knew she was afraid, as long as they understood she wouldn’t be easy to break.
“Very well,” said the leader. “Then where’s the daemelus?”
She imagined what Zach would do if he heard them use that word. But if they were asking, it meant they hadn’t found his new place yet. She clung to that theory in the hopes that it would keep Zach safe.
“If you’re determined to make this difficult,” the man said, “perhaps some time away from the comforts of home will loosen your tongue. Bring her. And grab the box.”
The hand around her arm jerked her forward, the nails piercing skin, and Molly couldn’t prevent the yelp that splurted from her throat. A second hand closed around h
er other arm, and the touch set a fire in her muscles. She wrenched away, twisting and flailing in every direction to try to loosen their hold. She raised her feet off the ground, but both demons tightened their grip and she barely moved.
She expected them to drag her toward the window or the door, but they only took a single step forward before the air around her changed.
Gone was the comforting draft of the furnace coming up through the vent, replaced by a dampness that sank deep into her bones. The sweetness of laundry detergent and her cinnamon air freshener melted into the itchy scent of mold, touched with the putrid aroma of stale urine and other things that she didn’t want to guess at.
Her stomach heaved, and still she kept fighting. She didn’t bother to keep quiet now, screaming as loudly as her strained lungs could manage, but the only reaction she got from the demon standing in front of her was a laugh.
“Scream all you want,” he said. “The only people to hear you will enjoy it.”
Molly slammed her jaw shut, narrowly missing the edge of her tongue.
Both hands holding on to her shoved her away. She slipped on something slick and crashed to the floor, her elbow slamming into cold stone. Another cry slipped between her lips, but she swallowed it, refusing to satisfy their desire to witness her pain.
Something slithered over her hand and she jerked away, scuttling as far back as she could until she hit a wall. Her brain scrambled to pick up cues of her surroundings, but beyond the size of the room and a few unidentifiable lumps on the floor, she couldn’t make heads nor tails of where she was.
A series of squeals and clunks vibrated through her head as a door slid shut and its lock turned. It sounded like the door was made of metal. Was she in a holding cell?
She couldn’t breathe. She refused to release her screams, so they remained trapped in her chest, pressing against her lungs in their desire to escape. Her stomach churned with a combination of fear and nausea, and her skin felt too restrictive. She wanted to tear at her shirt to free up space around her collar, anything to stop herself from feeling so closed in. But her hands remained against the damp stone, her fingertips curling into the cracks.
