by E G Bateman
Kira was in shock and couldn’t make her body move.
The door’s right there. We should run.
The monster took a step closer, then froze and tilted its head downward. Her eyes followed its gaze. One of its feet was planted in the salt. It vibrated and a moment later, it burst and covered Demeter in ooze.
She caught Gaia’s arm. “It’s the salt.”
They looked at the protective ring of salt. It was too close to afford them any protection, though, as the creatures could still reach them with swipes of their talons.
Kira took her cell out and sent a message to Jess.
A clicking sound drew their attention to the rear of the store, where more creatures now climbed out of the hole.
She stooped, snatched a handful of salt, and threw it at the nearest monster. The grains caught it squarely in the face and it exploded.
“Hey, it’s better than slugs.” She heard herself laugh with a little too much hilarity.
“Is this right? Aren’t they the goddess’ creatures too?” Freya asked. Everyone suspected she was still a Christian. She’d only joined the coven to embarrass her husband, a pastor who was screwing his secretary.
Demeter faced her. “Oh, fuck off, Carole.”
Freya looked at her feet. “I see. Well. I mean, I thought we don’t use our mundane names.”
“I’m sorry, Freya.” Their leader sighed. They were all terrified.
One woman raised a hand. “Couldn’t we simply step out and lock the door?”
“Maybe there were only a couple of them,” one of the ladies squeaked.
The clicking resumed, and a scramble for the salt on the floor ensued.
Kira put a pile of salt into Freya’s hand. “Think of your husband and throw this.”
The creatures retreated as the women scooped handfuls of salt from Gaia’s bag and the poured circle. They scattered it across the floor to stop the creatures from creeping forward.
One of the witches laughed. “Ha! Now you’re stuck.”
The creatures stepped onto the wall, then the ceiling.
“Well, shit!” Kira looked hastily around her for a weapon, but all she could see were dead flowers.
The women were being herded against a side wall.
Her cell rang and she risked a glance at it.
Either get out or stand against the wall.
One of the creatures stood between them and the exit, and they were already pressed against the wall. She shrugged.
A hazy, swirling light appeared in the middle of the room and turned into an arched doorway.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God.” Freya crossed herself.
Demeter pursed her lips and her gaze slid to the woman. “I knew it.”
An object appeared out of the haze, landed, and rolled across the floor.
“Grenade!” Demeter dived on top of as many of her coven as she could.
No explosion followed, but Lexi burst through the fae door with her katana in one hand and a nerf gun in the other.
Scott appeared at her side. He turned to her and smiled. “Alexa, play ‘Mr. Brightside’ by The Killers.
A voice came from the object on the floor. “Here’s ‘Mr. Brightside’ by The Killers.” An incredibly loud noise issued from the speaker, and Demeter covered her ears “What the hell is that?”
They watched as the creatures covered their eyes, shook their heads, and stumbled into each other. One plummeted from the ceiling, landed on its back, and exploded in the salt.
Kira stood again. “I believe that’s Mr. Brightside.”
Lexi aimed the nerf gun and fired at a demon on the wall. Several salt-covered sponge balls bounced off it, and a moment later, it popped in a spray of goop. Scott began to bring salt rocks into existence and slung them at the enemy. His partner moved to the back room and fired as she moved. After shooting a few more salted sponge bullets, she was out. She dropped the nerf gun and put her katana to use to skewer the creatures that writhed on the floor, incapacitated by the music.
She turned to Scott and grinned. “I like your music.”
Dolores came through with bags of salt and passed them to the women. They dove into them without hesitation and hurled the contents everywhere.
When Lexi glanced over her shoulder, a demon dropped from the ceiling between the fae door and the witches. Demeter threw herself in front of the other witches as it lunged. A sharp pincer pierced her in the chest and she slid off it and fell, lifeless. The creature moved in to attack another witch. Opening its huge maw, it revealed row upon row of pointed teeth.
Freya snatched the salt lamp in Daisy’s window display, stepped in front of it, and wedged the huge salt rock into the creature’s mouth. “Take that, you cheating bastard.”
It exploded, and the woman, now covered in goop, shouted, “Yes!”
Lexi refocused. The creatures continued to emerge from the hole. She picked up the Bluetooth speaker, held it out as she fought her way closer to the hole, and thrust her katana into their skulls when they appeared.
As she perched over the aperture, more of the floor fell away. She jumped back, but the chasm now separated her from the others. Pots of flowers slid along the floor as the back of the building lurched. More of the creatures spilled out.
“Lexi,” Scott shouted.
She turned as a twenty-pound bag of salt appeared in the air over the breach in the floor. Reflexively and with no thought at all, she met it with her katana and sliced the bag open.
It released its contents and the majority of the salt went into the unnatural entrance. The top three demons burst, followed by a loud rumble.
Demon goop surged out like a geyser.
When it died down, she peered in to see that most of the demons had been destroyed. She put the speaker into her pocket, looked at Scott, shrugged, and jumped in.
“No!” he cried, but it was too late. She slid down the goop-filled tunnel.
It was about twenty feet long. Lexi glided through the foul-smelling gunk and killed the creatures methodically along the route. She emerged covered in slime, but it had been worth it for the fast descent. Scott’s state when he climbed out of that tunnel would be a real reason to laugh in all this.
She now stood in what appeared to be a natural hollow in the wall of the pit. Her unhealing scar itched so badly, she wanted to rip her arm off. One wall of the little cave was covered in iridescent, undulating light. The dimensions were aligning, and she stood exactly where the demon would appear.
When she looked across the pit, the first person she saw was Scott. He and the witches had come through the fae door. Lexi looked at herself—she was covered in slime and he was not—and rolled her eyes.
The clicking in the cave was deafening. Demons scuttled frantically in every direction as shifters poured out of the fae door with axes and salt. Both packs fought the creatures with weapons. Some had shifted to distract the demons, but none of them dared bite them.
The brainwashed citizens in the pit attacked the shifters with shovels and picks. Scott had already begun to put them to sleep in an effort to keep them safe and out of the way. Dolores shrank any monster she could get close to and stamped on them.
Lexi didn’t have to search to find Caleb. He stood facing her with Kate at his side. With the witches’ protection broken, she was merely another victim of hypnosis and stared into space.
The air crackled, and a slow, nasty smile spread across the sorcerer’s face.
She looked at the sea of demons between her and her enemy. A reckless voice in her head told her to simply attack and start slashing.
A sudden pain through the empathetic link made her look back quickly. The bride in her dirty wedding dress had struck Scott across the head with a shovel. He sent her to sleep but stumbled, his hand on the back of his head.
Lexi leaped to a ledge running along the side of the pit. She had to jump down a short distance later and plow through a few demons before she could climb again and finally return to h
er friend. When she reached him, she healed his head, then pulled the speaker out of her pocket. “What happened to the music?”
He held his phone up. “We’re too far underground and my sounds are in the cloud.”
“Can’t you boost it with magic?”
“I don’t think so.” He tried to take the speaker from her hand.
“It’s worth a try.” She touched her hand to her scar and the device began to play the next song on his playlist.
The demons began to show signs of confusion again, but both wolf packs turned to Lexi as “Barbie Girl” rang out. She passed the speaker to Scott and disassociated herself from it. He face-palmed.
“Look at that. Even Caleb’s horrified. You’ve embarrassed us in front of the bad guy.” She shook her head.
“Well, it’s doing the job and I like it.” The words were barely out of his mouth when a man who had crept up behind them pushed him into the sea of demons below. While she knew he was most likely hypnotized, she punched him in the face. The speaker was crushed under the panicking demons and she honestly couldn’t say she was disappointed. She moved to vault after Scott, but Dolores held her back. The creatures weren’t hurting him. They were ferrying him to Caleb.
“Enough!” The sorcerer’s voice echoed around the huge chamber and distressed the demons again.
Scott was dropped in front of him, and a monster placed its pincers around his neck.
Everything stopped.
The creatures had the shifters surrounded. Lexi realized that all the humans Scott had put to sleep were back on their feet and now stared disconcertingly at her.
Caleb gestured arrogantly, and Dolores’s portal vanished. He turned his face to the cave. Lexi ran along the ledge, stopped when she was about level with him, and glanced at the hollow area. It was almost completely filled with iridescent light, and a figure moved slowly toward the front. The man grasped Kate by the back of her neck and shoved her to her knees. “A fitting welcome gift for my new friend.”
The beast couldn’t be seen clearly through the veil of the worlds, but Lexi could make out that it was at least ten feet tall. Its body glistened red as though it was covered in blood. It roared, and the black creatures throughout the cavern shrank away. Earth began to slide down the wall to the left. She wondered if the whole place might be about to collapse and her gaze returned to the demon.
As it moved closer to the front of the cave, she again tore her gaze away and looked at Scott. Since he lay face-down, she couldn’t see him clearly but she saw Caleb. His face was a mask of terror. She smirked. It was small consolation that he’d clearly bitten off more than he could chew.
The demon reached the front and began to enter the human world.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A guttural voice boomed, “Why can I not enter?”
Caleb looked at the creature in horror. “I don’t understand. She signed the property over to me. You should be able to step through.”
After a moment’s silence, he clutched his head and screamed. “Azatoth—my Lord, please.”
He twined his fingers in Kate’s hair and pulled her up. “You signed the papers. It’s mine.”
She was unfocused but she answered truthfully. “It wasn’t my property. I already sold it.”
“What?” Caleb screeched. He looked from her to Azatoth and back again. He slapped her and screamed in her face, “To whom? Who owns it?”
More earth shifted beside the wall of the large area.
“Ah! That would be me.”
Lexi spun to where Dick stood at the entrance to the pit with three shifters. Her jaw dropped.
“Close your mouth, dear. The wind might change and you’ll be stuck like that.” He winked at her, then looked at Caleb. “I swore I’d ruin you when I discovered what you did to Harv. I meant it.”
“Get him,” the sorcerer screamed, and a sea of black demons moved as one toward him.
The side of the cave that had first shown signs of the veil now looked like a normal cave wall. The dimensions were beginning to move out of alignment. Azatoth noticed too and howled in frustration.
“My Lord, I can still bring you over,” Caleb assured him hurriedly. “I’ll use my power—our power—to draw the edge of the veil out. It would only be a few feet.”
Lexi felt the power of his magic. Fully unleashed, it was so much more than mere sorcery. The veil shifted and undulated, then began to move.
Azatoth took a step.
The earth shifted down the side of the underground space again.
She glanced at Scott again and knew she had to get him out of there. Perhaps she could drop while the monsters pursued Dick, who raced at vamp speed around the cave and dismembered the creatures around the shifters.
The huge demon took another step. She tried to gauge how far he was from the land owned by Caleb. It could be mere inches now.
Something touched her shoulder and she turned, ready to behead whatever it was. She gaped when she focused on Scott’s face. She peered at the version who was on the ground in front of Caleb and in the grip of a demon, then back at the one who stood before her.
“Yeah, that won’t last for long.” He grinned.
Sure enough, the other Scott faded, and the demon holding him skittered around in search of him.
Lexi wanted to hug her friend. Instead, she clutched his arm. “I think we’ll need a miracle.”
He smiled and pointed upward. She grinned when she realized that the roof was covered in bags of salt. “Shall we make it rain?”
“Going somewhere?” Caleb asked. Scott and Lexi turned toward him.
Dick had been racing past the sorcerer, probably to free Kate, and his feet seemed frozen to the floor.
The sorcerer grinned, although his face was red and sweaty. “What do your friends call you? Dick? Well, I’m afraid your luck’s run out, Dick.”
The vampire punched him hard. The sound of his nose breaking echoed through the pit.
He took a handkerchief out and wiped his hand. “Only my friends call me Dick.”
Lexi drew her hand down her scar. “Burst.”
Salt rained on the creatures, and they began to explode randomly on every side.
Caleb jumped at the chaos, then sneered at Lexi. “No matter. You’re too late.” His breathing was labored and sweat ran down his temples. His gaze slid to the cave.
Azatoth had begun to emerge from the portal.
The points of two huge horns appeared, followed by a hooved foot covered in red slime. Its veiled doorway was narrow now, but it looked like the beast would make it through.
The sorcerer pulled Kate to her feet. “I think you should be awake to meet your new friend.”
The woman shook her head, saw the creature standing before the ritual entrance, and screamed.
The side of the cave finally gave and a wolf with a metal collar around its neck burst through, howling and snarling. It collided with Azatoth, and both wolf and beast tumbled through the entrance of the portal. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the shrinking veil, waiting to see if anything would emerge again. The length of chain from the wolf’s collar which had dangled out of the mouth of the cave was cut off, and it dropped heavily to the ground.
“No!” Caleb screamed.
A new noise started to fill the space—the sound of chatter as people awoke from their state of hypnosis.
Dolores shouted, “Gas leak, this way to the exit,” to anyone who would listen. Her new fae door looked like a set of double doors with an exit sign above it. Beyond it was the storage company’s parking lot.
Lexi drew her katana and turned to finish Caleb but he had vanished.
Scott cast a spell on the room but there was no sign of residual magic. He wandered to the little cave, climbed up, looked around, and dropped again. “There’s no sign of the demon or the shifter.”
She looked at Dick. “You bought Kate’s land?”
“When Betsy told me what Caleb had done, I wanted to kill him. T
hen I decided it might be better to stop him from getting what he seemed to want more than anything. I went to Kate, and she signed it over then and there. Of course, when I returned home, they caught me with one of those portals.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Are shifters usually so trusting of vamps?”
Kate joined them. “We are when the vamp uses his own home as collateral.”
The vampire chuckled. “Of course, we promised to swap again if we were still alive at the end of this. We’re still doing that, right?”
The woman smiled. “I hear your place is really fancy.” She shook her head. “Is it over?”
“By my calculations, it will be at least another thousand years before that dimension aligns with any location on Earth again,” Dolores interjected.
“What about Caleb? Won’t he be angry?” Kate looked nervous.
Scott looked around. “I’m surprised he had the energy to get himself out of here. He’ll probably be depleted for months. Still, I’d rather know where he is.”
“I’ll work on that tomorrow. Let’s get the hell out of here.” Dolores looked at Lexi. “And you need a bath.”
Lexi stood outside with Scott and Dick. “What’s next for you?” she asked the vampire as he retrieved his cellphone.
“I need to make sure Betsy and Todd are all right when they return from Fae and sort out the paperwork with Kate to ensure I get my home back.”
“Well, I guess it’s goodbye, then.” She extended her hand to him.
He stepped back. “I’d hug you but you don’t smell very nice.” He turned to Scott. “Did you show her yet?”
“Not yet, but I’ve got it here.” Scott grinned. He took her hand and covered it with his own and she expected to see the little teardrop pendant appear. When he removed his hand, she gazed into her palm at the gold ring.
Her face lit up. “Is it mine?” She drew him into a hug and whispered, “Thank you.” When she released him, her eyes glittered.
He blushed. “Look on the inside.”
She turned it to the streetlight. Inside were two dates, May 16th, 1980, and September 23rd, 1990, and interlocking hearts.
Lexi looked at Scott. “I don’t understand. The September date is my birthday, but what’s the other date?”
