Tempting the Dark

by Michele Hauf

  She started to walk away, and Savin searched his brain for a way to tell her what had just happened to her without having her flee from him thinking him insane. If he let her go, that poor child...

  A car pulled up to the curb and she waved to the driver. A man leaned over and opened the passenger door.

  “Wait!” Savin called, but the car rolled away. He fixed the license plate in his memory, then pulled out his phone and tapped the info in a note. He would need to find her if the rift was not closed.

  He could stop the damned thing, which had likely come from Daemonia, by closing the rift. Because when he was closing it, all the escapees would be sucked back inside even if they did occupy a human host. The door would be slammed behind them, and all would be returned to normal.

  As normal as this crazy realm could get.

  He couldn’t protect everyone. But how many more innocents would be taken over by demons? He’d never been taken to task for protecting the city from demons such as Ed did. But he could not stand idly by and allow this to continue.

  “This has to stop.”

  Savin dialed up CJ. The connection crackled, and he only heard CJ say he was “still looking” before it cut out. The Archives was many stories below ground. Cell reception was always iffy there.

  “Still looking,” Savin muttered.

  Not good enough to close the rift. But he did have a spell he’d tucked away in a drawer at home that would drag the bitch inside him out, kicking and screaming, and send her back from whence she had come.

  One queen was as good as any other.

  With a decisive nod, Savin dialed his mother.

  “What’s up, mon cher?”

  “Hey, Maman, just wanted to call and tell you how much I love you.”

  * * *

  Jett walked outside Savin’s building and found a place on the sidewalk where passersby would not bump into her. Projecting a morsel of her influence outward, she ensured that they wouldn’t notice her beyond yet another uninteresting tourist. And then she spread out her arms and closed her eyes. With all her senses, she sent out a message to any demons close enough to hear: Beware. Do not challenge me.

  Suddenly she was gripped by the upper arm and hurriedly moved toward the building door. “What are you doing outside?”

  “I couldn’t sit idly by,” she said to Savin. “I had to let them know they could not come near me without a fight.”

  “You risk being seen by humans.”

  “I am half human,” Jett protested. She tugged her arm from Savin’s grip as they entered the building lobby. “Or did you forget that?”

  “No. I’m just—I’m worried for you.”

  “I can take care of myself. As I did with Drav. Besides, I influenced those in the area to only see what they expected.” She pressed her hands akimbo and met his blue gaze. He was only concerned, but if she allowed him to be her knight, he would lose himself. And she didn’t want that sacrifice. Savin was supposed to live. “Where were you?”

  “Out for a walk. I saw something disturbing. A pregnant woman hosting an incorporeal demon. It’s probably in her baby. Hell, Jett, we need to end this.”

  “You said we. Does that mean you are willing to work with me?”

  He winced. “I don’t know how you can help.”

  “I can communicate with those who have recently come from Daemonia.”

  “What about the ones after you? Let’s go inside and talk about this.” He glanced around them. “I can’t risk anyone walking by hearing us.” He pointed up the stairs and she started upward. “Please trust me, Jett.”

  At his front door she took his hands and kissed him. “I will trust you if you will trust me.”

  “I do, I swear to you,” he said, closing the door behind him. He took a moment to reinforce the wards and Jett hissed at the intrusion to her system. “Too strong?” Savin asked.

  “No, I’m good.” But not really. She wanted this to end as much as he did. Dealing with having to worry about her sheen and Savin’s wards was driving her mad. This was no way to normal. “So what do we do now?”

  “I’m heading to the rift later with Ed and CJ. And CJ is still searching for a spell to draw out Fuum.” He thumped his chest. “You hear that, bitch?”

  Of a sudden Savin’s body thrust backward and his shoulders slammed into the wall. He cracked a smile at Jett. “She heard me.”

  “Don’t cajole her,” Jett said. “I need you in one piece if we’re to...” Could she say it? She’d confessed she loved him. But how to surrender to something so untouchable as that normal life they both wanted.

  “We’ll have it.” Savin pulled her into his embrace and kissed her. “I know exactly what you’re afraid to say. But I’m not. I’m going to fix things for you, Jett.” His phone buzzed with a call. He silenced the ringer and kissed her again. “Let me hold you.”

  But he didn’t say, out loud, One last time.

  * * *

  The phone on the bedside stand buzzed, indicating a message. Savin ignored it and nuzzled his face against Jett’s neck. Her hair felt like silk, her body like home. Was he doing the right thing?

  “I want you to be happy,” he whispered.

  “I am.” She was drifting into reverie, perhaps even sleep. They’d exhausted themselves with each other, and life was not more perfect than it was in this moment.

  Fitting.

  Holding her until he felt sure her breaths were now those of sleep, Savin carefully slipped off the bed and pulled up his jeans. The skylight beamed in moonlight that illuminated the room with an eerie quiet. He wandered out into the living room and, slipping his hand in between the couch cushions, pulled out the vial and instructions CJ had given him the other day.

  Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Savin set the items beside him and took a moment to look across the shadowed display of guitars on the wall before him. The diddley bow he used for musicomancy leaned against the end of the sofa. He owned a Rickenbacker that had been signed by Tom Petty. The Flying V had Ace Frehley’s signature scrawled in black Sharpie across its silver-speckled body.

  Good times, that. He’d miss music. But then again, how would he know what to miss if he was not even alive to think that?

  With a decisive inhale and exhale, Savin opened the paper and read the spell. It involved drawing a circle about him, so he chanted the words as he drew that circle with his finger and then arched it up over his head to enclose his seated figure in a sort of cone that now glimmered with the activated magic.

  Savin’s skin prickled. The Other sat up at attention.

  He hastened the ritual.

  Reading the final words silently to fix them to memory, he uncapped the vial and tilted the sludgy ingredients down his throat. It tasted...not terrible. Then, bringing his palms together to unite the moth halves, he spoke the words...

  ...and the demon within him clawed for hold at his soul.

  Chapter 30

  Jett rolled over on the bed, awakened by the cell phone vibrating on the nightstand. Savin was not in the bed—he must have wandered into the bathroom. She grabbed the phone and read the text. The dark witch Certainly Jones reported: I’ve found an option. Coming over right now.

  An option? For what?

  Sitting up, she noted the bathroom door was open. He wasn’t in there. Had he left? It was late, but not early-in-the-morning late. Must be around midnight. She’d dozed into such a blissful sleep after their lovemaking. There was no man she desired more than Savin, and when he kissed and touched her, he made her believe she could be whole again.

  Human.

  She shouldn’t have challenged him so outside the building. She didn’t want to alienate him. They needed to work together. She needed him as much as she suspected he needed her.

  A strange noise sounded from the living room. Scratching?


  “Savin?”

  Instinctually, she spread her senses through the air, mining for demonic presence. Nothing.

  Sliding off the bed, Jett grabbed the T-shirt Savin had been wearing earlier and pulled it on. It smelled like him, rugged and wild. But as she wandered into the living room, her footsteps quickened to race to Savin’s side. His pores emitted a thick red smoke that coalesced in the air above his prone figure.

  Jett screamed and shook him. He murmured something. She saw the paper on the floor with spell sigils drawn on it and the empty vial that reeked of foul things. “What have you done?”

  Of a sudden the red smoke sharpened and began to form. Jett’s heart dropped because now her senses felt the demonic presence. And she knew who this was. The former queen, Fuum. The one demon who had destroyed her life, and Savin’s as well, had been freed and was taking shape.

  An insistent knock on the front door was followed by a man’s call to let him in. Jett sprang up. It must be the dark witch. She started for the front door, but an arm lashed out and caught her across the neck. Jett’s feet left the floor and she tumbled backward, landing painfully on hands and butt.

  “CJ, she’s out!” Jett called. “I can’t get to the door.”

  “You have fouled everything,” the now-solid form of Fuum growled at Jett. She stood tall and regal, her long midnight blue hair flowing out as if blown by the wind. Her black flesh hugged tight to her skeletal bone structure, and the bits of red mist surrounded her like fabric from her shoulders to her knees. “I will not go back!”

  “Nor will I!” Finding her strength, Jett stood. An eye to Savin on the floor showed her he did not move, and she worried he might be dying. Edamite Thrash had said that the demon within him could not be removed without his death. “What have you done to him?”

  “I’ve kept him alive and well all this time.” The bitch grinned a shark’s smile.

  The front door slammed inward, and the dark witch stumbled inside.

  With a flick of her finger, the demoness pinned CJ to the wall. “This does not concern you, witch.”

  “Shit, he performed the releasement spell,” CJ said. “Savin?”

  “He’s there on the floor,” Jett said. “Is he going to die?”

  “Of course he is,” the demoness said. “He no longer has me to keep him alive. Men. They never know how much they need us women until it’s too late.”

  “With you out of this realm, he can live,” CJ called. The witch recited some Latin, and that allowed him to peel himself away from the wall.

  “I’m not going anywhere...” The demoness hovered in the center of the living room, then tilted her look directly at Jett. “Without taking Drav’s progeny with me.”

  “Oh, he’s dead,” Jett challenged. “Not that you’d care.”

  Fuum lifted a brow. “I don’t. The idiot served me one purpose. But I do care that you are not where you belong.”

  Knowing what was coming, Jett released her sheen. Horns curled out and back over her ears. Her skin tightened and the sigils glowed as her skin darkened. She drew up her protective wards just as she felt Fuum hit her hard.

  “Keep her busy!” CJ called. He plunged to the floor beside Savin.

  “Gladly,” Jett said.

  She pushed at Fuum and managed to shove her away from her. The demoness’s back hit the wooden support beam and she yowled. Releasing all the magic she could summon, Jett directed it toward Fuum. The old queen matched her. And Jett realized she was not so powerful as she had been in Daemonia. Truly, she was losing her demon. Yet Fuum could only match her. She had not so much strength, either.

  How easy it had been to destroy that which annoyed her while sitting on the throne. And to rip out a man’s heart. But she did not want to kill Fuum. She had to keep her alive so Savin could send her back to Daemonia.

  The witch knelt over Savin, reciting a spell. He dusted him with ash and salt. Dragging his gaze over the guitars on the wall, CJ asked, “Which is the one you use to perform musicomancy?” Savin did not respond. The witch slapped his face and joggled him, stirring Savin from the depths of death. “Which one!”

  “Single...string...”

  With a snap of CJ’s fingers, the diddley bow flew across the room and landed in the witch’s grip.

  Jett felt the demoness’s tendrils digging into her, seeking a space where her defenses might crumble. Her strength was growing; she must be feeding off Jett’s magic. And Jett’s energy was quickly depleting. She wouldn’t be able to hold her off much longer.

  She saw the witch hold the diddley bow over Savin, and her lover lifted a hand to strum the string. A sudden, nerve-biting tone filled the room. The demoness was whipped away from Jett while Jett was also flung away. Her shoulders hit the wall hard, and she dropped to the floor in a sprawl.

  “Continue!” CJ commanded the weak reckoner on the floor. “Let me help you up.”

  CJ managed to pull Savin upright and prop his back against the couch while the demoness dove for the diddley bow. Her fingers burned into the wooden body.

  With a spoken hex, CJ caused the demoness to recoil, but only momentarily. She lunged for the witch, gripping his hair and pulling him away from Savin.

  The reckoner leaned against the couch, immobile, yet his eyes were open. And when they met Jett’s gaze, she pleaded silently with him; she wanted him to know how much she loved him, that he meant the world to her. That she forgave him for not being able to save her when they were kids.

  “I love you!” she shouted.

  The reckoner dragged the diddley bow to his lap. Head tilted back against the couch, he plucked a few discordant notes, then a few more. The demoness dropped the dark witch, who rolled to his back and shuffled away against the wall to sit near Jett.

  Savin’s playing lured the demoness to him. Her form was at once solid and then wispy red smoke that hovered over him, her face fully formed, moving but inches from his.

  Jett’s body cringed at the sound, but the clasp of CJ’s hand about her wrist grounded her. “Don’t listen,” he said. “Listen only to me. I will speak quiet words of strength.” He began to whisper and Jett turned her focus from Savin’s music.

  Meanwhile, Fuum floated toward Savin, lured by the music. She bent, placing her face close to his as if to draw in his scent or position herself to lash out a wicked tongue to taste.

  And then Savin whispered to the demoness, “Kiss me...”

  “My lover.” Fuum pressed her mouth to Savin’s.

  The reckoner plucked out a trill of notes and, seeming to gain strength from the kiss, segued into a riff that took a life of its own and formed harmony at the same time. The instrument wailed at the demon and she coiled away from her contact with Savin and into a twist of yowling pain.

  CJ clutched Jett’s hand and began to chant louder. She felt his magic enter her. He was keeping her here, so she surrendered to his dark magic.

  A shimmery rift opened before them. The red queen screamed. Arms flailing and curses flying, she was sucked in through the rift, which then flashed and closed up.

  CJ dropped Jett’s hand. “It’s done. I’ve got to go.”

  She grabbed his wrist. “Where?”

  “To the rift at the edge of town. I’ll call Ed. We can seal it now that the queen has been sent back. But I have to hurry before she again escapes. You take care of Savin.”

  “Will he die?”

  “No. He...shouldn’t.” The witch winced. “He needs you now, Jett. Give him the strength that he once got from the incorporeal queen. Give it all to him.”

  With that, Certainly marched out of the place, closing the door behind him.

  Jett crawled over to the couch, where Savin held the diddley bow clutched in his embrace. She stroked the hair from his face and gently pried the instrument from his hands.

  Softly, she kissed his forehe
ad and then his mouth.

  “I’m not sure how to do this,” she said, “but whatever I have is yours. Take it all from me, Savin.”

  * * *

  Breaths came slowly. A monumental effort. Savin had mustered up the energy to strum the expulsion spell on the diddley bow. He was vaguely aware that the Other was now gone. The queen called Fuum. No longer inside him. And he felt...empty.

  Savin tried to lift a hand to clutch at Jett’s hair, but his extremities felt leaden. She straddled him. The weight of her lightness buoyed him. The sweetest kiss landed on his forehead. And then that softness touched his mouth. Like a redeeming elixir, she gave to him that which he’d never thought imaginable.

  Freedom.

  He was now free of the demon who had lived within him for twenty years. Because he had found Jett and had been forced to face the decision to give up his life to expel the demon inside him. Which he had done. And with every breath, he felt his life slipping away.

  “Don’t leave me, Savin,” she whispered against his mouth. “We have our whole lives ahead of us. I need you here. In this mortal realm. By my side. Your hand in mine.” She clasped his heavy hand and he wasn’t able to curl his fingers. “Just try, Savin. For me? Please, don’t die. CJ said...I must give you my strength. I’m not sure how. But I’m going to try this.”

  The press of her palms, one against his forehead, the other over his heart, felt like a zap from a life-saving emergency device. Savin’s body jolted, but the movement rocked his rib cage and he moaned. Was this how it had felt when she ripped out her father’s heart?

  Again, he was jolted. She was doing something to him. He wasn’t sure what it was. But she could take his heart. It belonged to her. When he opened his eyes, he didn’t see the black-haired beauty whom he had likely loved since he was a child. He saw red eyes and blue hair and horns that glinted like specularite.

  Jett. His Jett. In all her demonic glory. He loved her so much he wanted to tell her, but his tongue would not move.

  This time when he felt the jolt, it was followed by the intrusion of sharp, pricking tendrils that seemed to poke in through his every pore. Heat gushed through his system. It glowed red behind his eyes and flickered like flames. The vibrations he felt when a demon was near were pronounced, only tenfold. Jett chanted a demonic phrase that sounded deep and earthen and older than the stars. Her throaty hums vibrated in his bones. They entwined, their souls.