by Donna Ansari
“Where’s the fourth vampire?” Amy asked us, frowning.
I looked at Alex and that’s when I noticed Cora had somehow joined us without me noticing.
“There won’t be anyone else,” Alex said. “You will have to make due with us.”
“Ugh,” she groaned. “Tammy, can I borrow your sweater?”
Tammy had been talking to Gregor, but stopped and came over to us. She handed Amy a dark red sweater and faced me. “How are you doing, Em?”
I shook my head and looked away, not wanting to hypnotize her by accident.
“Thanks,” Amy said dismissively to Tammy. “Come on, guys, let’s find a bench or something.”
She started walking back out the way we had come, away from the crowd of witches and former witches. It was a nice, warm night, so all the park benches were taken. Amy pointed to a couple who were making out on a bench. “Get them to leave,” she asked me.
“Hey!” I yelled. When the two people looked at me, I said, “Go away.”
They obligingly got up and Amy sat in the center of the bench. “Can you guys just go all at once?”
“You want us all to bite you, right?” I asked.
“Yeah. The idea is to confuse him with my blood, so you’ll all have a little in you.” She held out her arm. “Just a little though.”
Cora sat on one side of her, and Alex and I were on the other. “Emma, don’t lick after you’re done. I need some extra blood.” She took a deep breath. “What are you guys waiting for?”
I leaned down and licked and then bit her wrist. It was a bit awkward as Alex was biting her inner elbow of the same arm. You might think three vampires biting an underage girl in a public park would draw some attention, but there were a lot stranger things going on in Washington Square, and no one seemed to bat an eye at us.
Before I could really enjoy what I was doing, I felt Alex’s hand on my shoulder, and stopped drinking. Amy immediately pulled her arm away and blotted her wrist with Tammy’s sweater. Then we all stood and began going back to the others.
Alex and Cora were talking to each other in hushed tones, probably about Henri, so Amy held her wrist up to my face and commanded, “Lick this.”
I did as I was told and watched the wound heal. “You weren’t afraid of having us all bite you at the same time?” I asked.
Amy waved her now-healed arm at me. “Please, you’re just vampires.” I guess compared to a demon, we were not very intimidating.
Back at the May pole, Amy called to Tammy, and held out the sweater. “Here, put this on and stand over there.”
“What?” Tammy asked. “Why am I doing this? I lost all my powers.”
“It’s okay. I just need him to be confused by my blood.”
“Your blood?” Tammy asked. “What the heck are you talking about?”
“I smeared some of my blood on your sweater.” Amy handed it to her. “Put it on.”
Tammy gave Amy an incredulous look, but nevertheless put the garment on. “You’d better have an allowance to pay my dry cleaning bill.”
Amy looked around the circle and said, “Okay, let’s arrange everyone. Tammy, you first. And then girl vampire, then boy vampire, then Emma vampire.”
We all went to stand where she had indicated, and then she stood at the last point of the circle, between Tammy and me.
“Ooops, I almost forgot.” She dug around in her pockets and pulled out Diana’s cat toy. Then she walked around the circle, giving everyone a bit of what was inside. “This is his hair. My mother kept it to use in the ritual she was going to sacrifice me in. Put it in your pocket or somewhere on your person. It should further confuse the issue as to who he’ll go after.”
Once she was done handing out the golden strands of hair, she raised her voice and said, “Now, after I cast the circle, I want everyone here to start chanting this.” Then she said something difficult to repeat that ended in the demon’s name.
“How will that help us to get our powers back?” I thought I recognized Marie’s voice.
Amy chose to ignore her question. “Keep practicing for a few minutes, and then when I cast the circle, those of you who are still real witches should pour as much power into the chant as you can. Everyone else who isn’t a witch anymore should keep chanting too.”
Amy got out her athame and started tracing around the circle, which was drawn on the grass in salt. Once she was done with that, she started on the sigil in the center. Finally, she took her place back at her point of the pentagram.
“Is everybody ready?” she asked. “Then let’s start chanting.”
Amy began saying the words in a normal speaking voice, but it seemed to carry, so that even though she was about ten feet away from me in the circle, it sounded like she was directly in front of me. I wondered if even the people in the back could hear her just as clearly. As I looked around, I realized that even Alex and Cora were chanting. A second later, I realized that I was chanting as well. It was almost impossible not to.
I couldn’t be certain how long we chanted for. It seemed to go on for hours and hours, but when we stopped, it also seemed like no time had passed. At first it was unclear to me exactly why we had stopped chanting, but then I saw him in the center of the circle.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The demon looked exactly as he had the night I had first met him—beyond beautiful, but still human as far as physical appearance. If you weren’t in his presence and just saw a photo, you might think he was somewhat attractive, but you had to be here to experience the way his presence seemed to draw people to him. But then, of course no human could just appear like that out of nowhere. He spun around the circle with an almost amused look on his face.
“Someone invoked me?” he laughed. He faced Tammy first and said, “I already ate you, witch.” She fell to the ground heavily. That’s when I realized I couldn’t move. Looking around the circle, I saw that everyone else, even those on the periphery, were totally still. Amy looked like she was in shock.
Zanyepherthiaklion turned to the next person, who was Cora. “Vampire.” She fell down as well.
Alex was next, and the demon just repeated the word, “Vampire,” and he fell.
I tried to scream then, but I couldn’t move my mouth either.
Then he turned toward me. “Vampire,” he said again. But then he paused and said, “Haven’t we met before?”
Suddenly I felt like the ground was pulling me down, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled out on it. But I was still conscious, which was more than I could say about the others.
The demon looked at me for a few more seconds before he turned to Amy.
“You! What are you?” He walked over to her and looked into her eyes. I could see her lips trembling, but it didn’t seem like she was actually able to say anything.
“You are….” he began. “Well, I’m not sure what you are, but it is your blood that is calling to me, isn’t it? You must be the one who brought me here, to this circle.” He looked around. “And all you humans—half of you have already had your souls feasted upon. Well, consider yourselves lucky. This girl has more power than the lot of you combined. And why would I continue to pick at crumbs when I can have this feast?”
Amy was enveloped in an odd cloud of light, and her legs lifted off the ground. Zanyepherthiaklion looked at her and said, “But why would you call me here? You must have known what I am and what I am going to do.”
I realized then that I could move a little. My hand trembled as I attempted to place it in front of me. It was very slow going, but at least something was happening. I glanced at the rest of the people in the circle, but they all appeared to still be unconscious.
Amy was now up in the air in front of her father, and he walked around her, as if analyzing her from every angle. “There is even more power in there than you think. That’s what happens with young things like you—so much potential. If I took away all your potential, I would never again have to worry about being banished to my
realm. I could use it as a gateway to open up doors to all the realms. Nothing would be closed to me again.”
My hand had finally found its way forward. Encouraged, I picked up the other one and tried to do the same. Eventually, I was very slowly inching forward. The demon’s attention was entirely taken up by Amy, and he didn’t appear to notice me at all.
“And you’ve created such a nice little circle for me, with my name inscribed in it. What do you think, girl, should I split you open and use you to recreate the world to my liking?”
Amy was shaking, but it still didn’t look like she could move voluntarily. The light around her got brighter and I felt my ears pop. The demon was glowing now as well, and I felt a kind of pulling toward where he and his daughter were. I found I was able to use this forward momentum to launch myself at him and use the only weapon at my disposal—my fangs.
When I bit into the back of his neck he jumped in surprise, but I held on. His concentration broken, Amy dropped from where she had been floating in the air and landed with a thud on the ground. His blood tasted like any other blood I had drunk, so I held on as long as I could and kept drinking it. Unfortunately, the element of surprise only gave me about two seconds, and then he easily flung me to the ground.
Fortunately, I had given Amy enough time to sit up and retaliate. She muttered a few words and held out her hand, and Zanyepherthiaklion stood still. I found myself uninjured, and was able to stand up.
“Can you banish him now?” I asked.
“I guess I could,” Amy said. “But before I do that, I think I would like to do to him what he said he was going to do to me.”
She was still glowing, and it seemed to be getting brighter. Maybe it was because I was so close to them, or maybe it was the pure demon blood I had drunk, but I started to feel nauseated.
“Amy! Stop!” I yelled. “You’re going to rip everything apart!”
“Yeah, but it will look cool,” she said.
I thought that I would try to bite her too, but as soon as she saw me launch myself at her, she put up her other hand, and I was flung backward. I felt a change in the air around me, and found myself on the other side of the circle. That is, I was outside the circle that was made in salt on the ground. The actual magic circle, the ephemeral one that was invisible to human eyes, was broken by someone using magic to push me through it.
Amy screamed as she realized her mistake.
“Zanyepherthiaklion, Zanyepherthiaklion, Zanyepherthiaklion,” I yelled. “I summon you.” It was a long shot and shouldn’t have worked, since I was no longer a witch, but I thought I might have ingested some raw power along with the demon’s blood. Besides, as I had witnessed that first night I met him, blood tends to call to blood. I must have been right, because the demon suddenly appeared next to me, free from both the circle and his daughter’s influence.
He appeared a bit startled by his sudden freedom, but recovered quickly, and looked at me. “Why did you do that? I’m just going to go back to what I was doing.”
Amy was currently standing still in her glowing cocoon, so I guessed he was holding her again.
“I know, but just give me a few moments to explain what happened.” I said.
“Now I remember you,” he said. “I met you right after I was summoned. You smelled like my blood and I thought you were the one who had called me. That was before I noticed this one. She’s so strong with my blood I felt it must be some kind of trick.”
“I was one of the ones who summoned you. But I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know what you were. I thought you were human.”
He frowned. “Why would you think that?”
I pointed at Amy. “I was trying to help her find her father.”
“Her father?” he asked. “Who is her mother?”
“Her mother was Diana. We recently found her dead body.”
“Diana? A human witch? The powerless one I killed for thinking she could control me?”
“That’s her,” I confirmed.
Zanyepherthiaklion put out a hand, and Amy came through the circle and hovered in front of us.
“Is this the product of that union?” He walked around her again.
“Yup, that’s her. Your teenaged spawn.”
“For what purpose did she summon me? To steal my power?”
“No, I think she was just trying to do that because you pissed her off. And also because she’s a teenager, and they like to see what they can get away with. She really only summoned you because she wanted to meet her father.”
“That would explain why you used such an atypical method to summon me, and neglected to use a summoning circle.”
“She didn’t want to use one. She said it wouldn’t be right to use one with her own father.”
Zanyepherthiaklion didn’t say anything for a while, and I had run out of things to say to him.
Finally, he asked, “What name is my daughter known by?”
“Amy,” I said. “It’s short for Amaryllis.”
He scowled. “That’s not a proper name for any daughter of mine.”
“She doesn’t like her full name either.”
“It’s a flower, isn’t it? My daughter is no flower. She’s a dark star able to suck in all the forces of creation and destroy worlds.”
I blinked. “Is that a compliment, or what?”
Zanyepherthiaklion held his hand up and the glow around Amy intensified. “I name you once Aemyrthialdius. I name you twice Aemyrthialdius. I name you three times Aemyrthialdius.”
“I’m not sure she’ll like that any better,” I said.
Amy landed on the ground again, more gently and on her feet this time. She blinked and looked at us.
“Dad?” she asked.
He took her hand and looked at her with something that may have been admiration.
“Are you guys all good now?” I asked. “No bad feelings about trying to kill each other just a few minutes ago?”
Amy was smiling widely. “We’re demons. Almost killing is just how we get to know each other.”
“And can I assume that you guys are planning not to destroy this world now?”
They looked at each other.
“No,” Zanyepherthiaklion said. “We’ll leave this world as it is. Between the both of us, we have enough power to get back to my plain.”
“Both of you?” I asked. “Amy, you’re leaving too?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I never really fit in here, and now I know why. Maybe I just have more in common with my dad than my mom.”
“What will you do there? What’s it like?” I asked.
“As for your first question,” Zane said, “I’m going to train her to use her powers. And as to your second, maybe she’ll come back and tell you one day.”
I gulped, as that sounded vaguely like a threat. Zanyepherthiaklion and Aemyrthialdius lifted their conjoined hands and out of nowhere a hole opened in the air. It just looked like swirling blackness to me as I tried to squint to see in it to some other side.
“Can I say goodbye?” Amy asked her father.
The demon nodded with fatherly indulgence, and Amy came over and hugged me.
“Thank you so much for helping me find him,” she said. “And for letting me stay with you and making human life less miserable. And say goodbye to Tammy and David for me.”
I hugged her back. Maybe it was because she wasn’t all human, but for the moment my thirst wasn’t getting in the way, and I felt genuinely sad to see her go, despite all the trouble she had caused.
“I’ll miss you too,” I said. “But I need to ask a favor.”
“What?”
“It’s Tammy, and the other witches. Their power was stolen from them. Is there any way you can give it back, or get him to do it?”
She glanced uncertainly at her father. “I don’t know. Like I said, all I know how to do is take, not give.”
Zanyepherthiaklion nodded at her. “Yes, it is more difficult, and it goes against our natures. But try it
. It will be a good lesson for you.”
“Alright,” she said. “I’m just going to try with Tammy.” She walked over to Tammy, who was still lying on the ground, but appeared to be conscious. She stared at her for what felt like a long time.
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Please try,” I said. “Unless you think you’re going to hurt her.”
“No, it won’t hurt her. I’ll try again.” She closed her eyes and stood still for another few seconds. Her hands were balled up into fists, and I saw beads of perspiration dripping down her face. Then, her eyes shot open. Instead of their usual light hazel, they were blood red. Then she stumbled back, only to be caught by her father.
“Very good, my dear.” He patted the hair away from her face.
“Did it work?” I asked.
“Yes, your friend should have all her powers back, and the others will eventually get theirs back as well.”
I meant to ask about David, but remembered him saying that he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to be a werewolf anymore. Not wanting to make the decision for him, I kept silent.
Amy blinked and opened her eyes, which were back to normal. “Can we go now?”
“One moment,” the demon said. “I have a small parting gift for your friend.”
Unexpectedly, he walked directly in front of me and kissed me on the lips. I couldn’t help but kiss back, even though I could hear Amy making retching noises.
“Good luck.” Zanyepherthiaklion winked at me and then took his daughter’s hand and stepped off into another plain of existence.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As soon as the full and half demon went through the portal, the air around us changed, and I saw that everyone else was also able to move again. I walked back to Tammy and helped her to stand up.
“Are you okay?” I asked her. “Did you see everything while you were frozen in place?”
