by Anya Bast
“Nooooo!” she screamed as the doorway slammed shut.
Chapter Ten
Silence.
Shock.
The wind died and Serena stared in complete and utter numb distress at the space of air where the doorway had been.
Near her, Ashmodai laughed.
Serena gasped and scrambled back away from the demon. Ashmodai floated toward her, now free. She cringed as he leaned in so close to her, she could smell his foul breath. “The witch is in pain, fear. The Ashmodai enjoys,” he purred. “It is like a fine wine to the Ashmodai’s senses.”
“Wha-what happened?” she whispered, more to herself than the demon. Then she pushed toward him in sudden fury. He floated backward and laughed. “What the hell did you do to him?” she demanded to know.
“The Ashmodai plays,” he hissed. “The Cernunnos was easy to dupe. The witch was depressingly easy to fool. The Cernunnos and his human incarnation are gone now. In my dimension. No one left to hamper the Ashmodai here. The Ashmodai must now go find new playmates. Playing with the Cernunnos was fun. The Ashmodai is sorry it is over.”
“Goddamn you,” she screamed. “You bring him back!” her voice broke and cracked in her fury.
Ashmodai purred in the back of his throat. “Mmmm, the Ashmodai likes the Serena’s pain and fear. The Ashmodai will leave the witch alive for now to savor it. But the Ashmodai will be back. The Serena should not expect to stay alive much longer. Live in fear of the Ashmodai’s return and what the Ashmodai will do to her then.”
He disappeared.
Serena stared into the air for a few moments, then fell back into the grass, curled herself up into a ball and sobbed.
Cole was gone.
Cole was in hell.
No way was she going to let him stay there.
She slammed her palm against the earth and pushed up from the grass. Something, somewhere had gone terribly wrong. She thought she knew just where.
Serena ran back into the house, grabbed her purse and Cole’s car keys. Another minute had her in Cole’s SUV, racing to the university.
The tires squealed as she turned the corner into the parking ramp. She slowed, not wanting to draw the attention of any security guards. Man, she could use Morgan’s invisibility spell right now.
She parked the car in the ramp, leapt out and hit the ground at a dead run. If any security personnel took issue with her being on campus at one in the morning, they’d have to catch her to make her aware of it.
The door to the ancient languages building was locked, of course. Her magick was greatly depleted from the summoning spell, but she had enough left to call up a spell to unlock it. The inside of the building was pitch-black and quiet as a morgue. She winced at that last thought, but the creepiness of her surroundings still didn’t stop her from racing up the stairs and hitting the professor’s office door at a run. Chest heaving from exertion, she turned the doorknob and entered.
A small light burned on a corner desk, near a row of crammed bookshelves. Glancing around, she determined that the office was empty. The computer was on. The light flickered blue, clashing with the soft white light from the corner lamp. Serena cautiously inched toward it. If what she suspected was true, she just had to hope the correct translation of the ancient text had been completed and was now stored somewhere on the professor’s hard drive.
If it wasn’t… She shook her head. No, she wouldn’t let her mind go there.
She pulled the office chair back to sit down on it. A thick, sickening, sliding sound met her ears. She screamed as the professor’s desiccated, sucked-dry and prematurely aged body slid off the office chair and collapsed on the floor with a sick-making thud.
Suddenly, there was a loud, high-pitched, irritating sound in the room and she realized it was her, still screaming. She slapped both hands over her mouth and backed away from the corpse, breathing hard in near hyperventilation.
God. It was exactly as she’d feared. When they’d gone to see the professor this morning, it had been Ashmodai in the professor’s body. Ashmodai had given them a fake translation. The one the demon had given them had been designed to send Cernunnos to Ashmodai’s dimension.
And they’d performed it, never even fucking suspecting a thing.
She pulled her hands away from her mouth. “God, I’m sorry, Professor,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m so sorry.” She pushed him out of the way with her foot and there was a crackling sound of dried-out flesh. Serena screamed again and backed away.
“Okay, come on, Serena, girl,” she talked to herself in a shaking voice. “Let’s do this.” Moving slowly and trying not to touch the body, she sank down into the computer chair and got to work.
Meticulously, she searched through his computer with a fine-tooth comb. It was no easy matter. The professor had a huge hard drive, filled with all kinds of texts just like the one she was looking for. For the first time in her life, she was beyond grateful for her geeky streak because she knew how to sift through all the files.
Time passed and the night wore on. The screen blurred in front of her and morning light lightened the sky. Panic started to fill her.
It wasn’t here.
Goddamn it.
The file was nowhere on the professor’s computer. Maybe he hadn’t even completed the translation before Ashmodai had possessed him. Tears pricked her eyes.
What the hell was she going to do?
She ran both hands through her hair and fisted them at the top of her head. Calm down. Think, she told herself, squeezing her eyes shut. If I were a file that the professor thought was something for a computer game, where would I be?
Not a flicker of intuitive help came to the fore. She sighed and dropped her hands. “Professor…where’d you put it?” she wailed out loud.
The professor’s voice entered her mind. It’s in the file drawer on your left.
She opened her eyes and glanced around wildly. “Professor?” Over by a bookshelf an ethereal form wavered. It seemed caught somewhere between this world and the next.
You should have asked me sooner, he said. You can talk with the dead, you know. His tone was chastising.
She was being chastised by a ghost. Could this week get any stranger?
“I know. I-I just didn’t even think about it,” she confessed. She should’ve, but she hadn’t. She frowned. The thought of finding the file had consumed all her thoughts. “Why are you even still here?”
His voice hardened. I’d really like to see my murderer get what he deserves. Can you do that for me? When that’s done, I’ll move on.
She opened the drawer and found a disk on top of the files. She snatched it up and stood. “That’s the plan.”
Go do it.
* * * * *
Serena slammed her fist against Alana’s front door and fought the urge to scream obscenities. “Alana! Get up!” You lazy bitch, she finished in her mind.
The door opened to reveal a sleep-roughened Alana. Her tangled long blonde hair framed a face wearing a surly expression. Mascara smudges marked both sleepy eyes. She held a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette dangled by its tip from her mouth. “What the fuck, Serena,” she said around the cigarette. “It’s the crack of dawn.”
She pushed past Alana and stood in the center of her living room.
Alana slammed the door closed, turned, and plucked the cigarette from her lips. “Sure, come on in,” she shot at her sarcastically.
“You have to call your coven now, Alana. Gather every up every last member of the Three Ash. We’ve got to form a circle to gather enough power to do what we need to do.”
“Now, why the hell would I do that? What the hell is it exactly that we have to do, anyway?”
Pacing the short length of Alana’s living room, Serena told her why—the whole sordid story…minus the sex scenes. “I need your coven to do what it did before,” she finished, “when you accidentally let Ashmodai into this reality. Only this time, I need you to bring Cole here.”
That actually wasn’t the whole reason why, but Serena wasn’t about to say it was mostly because she didn’t like Alana. Especially when she desperately needed the other witch’s aid. “I’m drained. It took a lot of power to call the demon to me last night.” She shook her head and her glasses slipped down her nose. She pushed them back up. “I need help.”
Alana snubbed her cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. She’d sunk into a nearby chair and listened with rapt attention, letting the cigarette burn down to the filter, while Serena talked. “Fuck,” she said.
“Call the coven, Alana.”
She ran her hand over her face and licked her lips nervously. “Okay. Okay, I’ll call them.” She reached for the phone.
It took an hour for all the members of the Three Ash Coven to filter into Alana’s home. By that time, Serena was near beside herself. What was happening to Cole right now? Where was he? A shudder went through her.
Was he even still alive?
In the hour that it had taken for the other witches to arrive, Serena had commandeered Alana’s computer and had printed out a copy of the correct text translation. It varied by what they’d used the night before by only a little. Just a few little words had been omitted, and a couple substitutions had been made.
Tiny little changes had sent the man she loved to hell.
She stared at the women milling the room and tears clouded her vision. She did love Cole. God help her, she was head over heels in love with him. This world seemed dimmer, darker and a whole lot worse minus his presence.
Serena stood. “Let’s do this,” she said in a voice loud enough to carry over the giggling, talkative bunch. The room went silent. The women looked at her and then at Alana.
“You heard her. Come on ladies,” Alana said. “Let’s go.” She clapped her hands and ushered them into another room.
They moved into the large room that the Three Ash used for spell casting and performing rituals. It was mostly bare, save for a profusion of already lighted candles, a corner shelf unit that contained some supplies and a long table lining one wall. The women instantly formed a circle and Serena went into the center, clutching the piece of paper with the translation on it.
The women clasped hands around the circle and Serena knelt in the middle. The instructions Alana gave them sounded muted to her ears as her power started to gather and pulse in the center of her stomach. She was exhausted, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—but her will was strong. That strength of will was enough alone to trigger the remaining bit of power she had within her, to gather it and fold it, prepare it to release with the words of the spell.
They would get Cole back first.
Then they’d call Ashmodai forth.
Then they’d send his demon ass back to hell.
Serena squeezed her eyes shut even more. She hoped.
The coven around her began to chant. The power the women created together was instant and intense. Serena felt it trickle in from the witches around her. It greeted her magic, laughed with it, danced with it…then it fused.
Serena’s back arched with a jolt of pure, sweet energy as it cavorted through her body. She opened her eyes. The women around her all had their heads tipped back as they chanted the words of the spell. They were like one being right now. One powerful magickal conduit.
A wind started in the room, making the candles first gutter and then blow out. Multicolored wisps of energy began to be visible. They flew around the room, buffeted by the wind. Slowly, they blended together in one big mass of blue. Within the blue was a spark of light.
The doorway was opening.
Serena closed her eyes and focused on that tiny little peek into the alternate dimension. The trick was bringing Cole back and not another demon. That was the danger here…and it was a big one.
In her mind’s eye, she called up every image she had of Cole. Every smile she’d seen cross his face. Every look of lust in his eye. As she concentrated on the sliver of that alternate dimension, she called to mind his laugh, his groan of ecstasy as he released himself inside her, his voice as he said, “C’mere, beautiful.” Everything about him that was burned into her memory she brought to the forefront.
Feeding the images and memories magick both from herself and the coven, she wove it all together in a beautiful pattern of love and intention. Then she sent the mixture out and through that doorway. Mentally, she trolled that huge, horrible dimension to find the one she wanted and draw him near.
Finally, she reached out and stuck her hand into that sliver of a doorway, grabbed onto the object she hoped she had called forth and pulled.
Chapter Eleven
Cole figured he’d been wandering through this damn murky forest/bog for at least a couple hours. He’d been traveling aimlessly through the gloom and over the foreign terrain. Bog mud now covered every inch of him and he continually had to wipe it out of his eyes. He didn’t know where he was, or why he’d been sucked into this place, but it really riled up the Cernunnos part of him.
Hell, it riled up the Cole part, too.
Even worse than being sucked into this alternate reality and landed ass deep in a disgusting, smelly bog was the fact that he didn’t know if he’d pulled Ashmodai along with him.
Had Serena been left alone with a bloodthirsty, game-playing demon? If she had, what had the demon done to her? His stomach clenched tight at the possibilities.
He pushed a moss-covered branch aside and shied away from the massive black and red spider that hung from it. He was getting used to the spiders here. That was a bad sign.
He hadn’t been able to get his mind off Serena since he’d “landed”. Her smile haunted his mind. Her laughter, and memories of her moans of pleasure when he had her beneath him occupied his every breath and thought. Her smile and all those damn lip balms she had stuffed everywhere. He missed her laugh, her scent, and the feel of her corn silk hair between his fingers. Damn it. He loved her so much, and he could barely stand the thought of her being hurt.
God, he hoped she was all right. He could be trapped forever in this damned miserable place where it seemed to be perpetually dark and where spiders seemed to thrive, so long as she was all right. If given the option, he’d trade his life for hers. Too bad no one was giving him that option.
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and fingered the ring he’d made of some bog tree gum. If ever got back and if Serena was still alive, he was going to ask her marry him. It was rash. He knew that. It was silly since they’d known each other for such a short time. It was a completely crazy idea.
It was the only thing in the whole universe he wanted to do.
He shook his head. He was growing delirious. There was probably no way he’d be able to get back from this place. Not to mention, he was stupid. He was going to offer her a ring made in hell? Yeeeah…not ideal. Not exactly every woman’s dream.
He’d only been in this place a couple hours and he was already losing his mind.
The only thing was, the thought of giving Serena this ring was the thought that kept him putting one foot in front of the other at this point. He held onto it like it was a magickal charm keeping him alive.
Cole stopped dead in his tracks, as a sliver of white light appeared right before him. What the…? A hand snaked in, grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled.
He tumbled for what seemed like forever and finally landed with a whoof on his back. Wind blew everywhere in this place, and there was a strange chanting all around him. He rolled to his feet and stood in battle stance, wondering if he was going to have to fight another of those damn green scaly things.
Feminine screams filled the air and Cole blinked. He couldn’t see anything with this bog mud in his eyes.
“Wait!”
Serena’s voice.
“Everyone, wait. It
’s okay. Calm down. It’s Cole.”
Serena? Hurriedly, he wiped the mud out of his eyes and the room came into view. The women of the Three Ash Coven, the ones who’d called Cernunnos forth, stood all around him. Cernunnos growled, enraged.
“No!” Serena’s voice. “It’s okay, Cole. It’s okay!”
Serena.
The rage retreated at the sound of her voice. He found her and pulled her to him, his hands fisting in her hair and tears mixing with the mud in his eyes. He found her mouth and kissed her. “Serena, you’re all right. You’re okay,” he said over and over.
Serena sobbed into his neck and fisted her hands in his shirt. “Oh, God, Cole. I thought I had lost you forever.”
He pulled away and cupped her face in his hands. “You’ll never lose me, baby. Never. I’m yours.” He kissed her deep, tasting bog mud. He didn’t care and it appeared neither did she.
Serena backed away. Tears tracked down her face. Her glasses were crooked on her face and she was covered with mud. Cole thought she’d never looked more beautiful.
He glanced around and saw the coven witches watching them. Some of them looked like they thought they were crazy. The rest appeared to think it was incredibly romantic. He blinked. Sunlight streamed in through the window.
“It’s daylight already?” he asked.
“You were gone for almost twelve hours, Cole,” said Serena.
“Really? It didn’t seem that long at all.”
“Time runs much slower there,” said Alana. “And there are huge canstin spiders. Not very many nice playmates in that place.”
Cole ripped his mud-covered shirt off and dropped it on the floor. He’d help them clean up after… What Alana had said finally registered. Huh? He looked up. “Hey, how did you know—”
Ashmodai separated himself from Alana, who collapsed to the floor. “The Cernunnos found a way back,” he snarled as he rose above them. “The Ashmodai can’t allow this.”
The coven witches screamed.
