“That sounds like a better plan.” Michael let out a breath.
“Except the supernaturals gathered at the cottage may tear you apart themselves if they see you alone.” Aunt Anastacia knitted her brows together.
“What?” Michael, Emily, and Dad blurted all at the same time.
Aunt Anastacia just shrugged.
“This is not the time to be making jokes, Aunt!” Emily retorted, angry and panicked. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
The rove woman pressed her lips into a line. “Just be ready for whatever you meet at the cottage. Remember, we were more than a little harsh to these guys. Some of them might just be coming to sabotage our ranks. Some of them may be coming to kill us. You know, whatever makes us fail or makes the Alfreds win.”
“That’s highly unlikely,” Everet exclaimed.
Aunt Anastacia snorted. “If you think any of these supernaturals care one bit about helping New Haven, you’re nuts. Yeah, some of them have friends and families in the town that they want to help out and such, but the majority of them don’t.”
Everet blanched.
“And how do you think the Alfreds are amassing supernaturals to their cause? How are they spreading their information? Of course, it’s effective enough to have pulled in hundreds of them. Even roves got the message.”
Color continued to drain from Everet’s face as Anastacia spoke.
“Don’t be surprised if a number of the supernaturals on this list are already working for the Alfreds. Maybe they’ve been positioned as spies for when you reach out to them for help.”
Everet’s eyes darkened. “I never thought of that.”
“Well, I did,” Aunt Anastacia said condescendingly. “And that’s why I’m wary of my sister’s only child flying into harm’s way all by herself. I would suggest she go with one or two of you, but that’s just like adding salt to a wound.”
“So you’re saying if she goes alone, it’s dangerous, but then if she goes with protection, it’s even more dangerous?” Everet asked, sounding confused.
“Exactly,” said Aunt Anastacia. “Only if the protection is vigilantes. Of course, Michael and I will do most of the work from here. I’ll try my best to determine if each ‘living’ willing supernatural on this list is uncompromised. But there’s only so much that can be done over the phone.”
“Hopefully, when they realize that Emily is one of them and that she’s an Owl shifter—since these are very rare shifters—they’ll submit to her leadership,” suggested Everet.
“Which is exactly what we want,” Michael said. “Aunt Anastacia told me that Owl shifters are so rare that many lists of supernatural creatures don’t really include them. And also, they’re so powerful that some hierarchies list them at the top of the food chain, even above roves.”
“So, when they see an Owl shifter, it’ll be easier for them to follow her!” Everet sounded hopeful.
Emily didn’t know how she felt about this. “So you want me to lead these supernaturals into battle?”
Michael shook his head. “Not just these supernaturals. Our entire supernatural element. In fact, all our elements.”
Emily frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Emily, you’ll lead the charge. Nothing affects you. No supernatural weapon, no magic, nothing can affect you when you’re in Owl form.”
“That can’t be true. I seem to recall when Aunt Anastacia’s magic affected me once,” Emily said, throwing shade at her aunty. “The time the fire demon took over and controlled my Owl form. After destroying the horde, it was about to head over to the Alfreds’ mansion on Main Street when you latched on to it with your powers and took it down.”
“Operative word there is fire demon,” said Aunt Anastacia. “The fire demon was in charge, not you. You were in the back seat. If you had taken over in that moment, my magic would have been broken.
“That’s your limit. That’s why you have to learn to master the skills of these entities in your consciousness. But anytime the fire demon is in charge, magic affects you. You become vulnerable.”
“So, be in charge,” said Michael. “For this, you have to. You’re not going to be alone out there. So just be you. Bring the fire. Raise hell.”
Emily didn’t really feel encouraged by what Michael had obviously designed to be a pep talk. She knew that just couldn’t work. Not like that. Still, she nodded at him. Then she looked at her aunt. “I know what you’re thinking, Aunt.”
Anastacia pursed her lips and nodded.
Everyone else looked confused.
“I’ll do it,” Emily muttered reluctantly. “I said I would, and I will. I will let you perform the Adoption ritual on me.”
Silence all around.
“That will make me powerful enough to withstand magic even with Zee in charge, right?” Emily asked her aunt hopefully.
“That, I don’t know, to be honest.”
“What!?” Michael barked. “Why even bother then?!”
“Because it might be our only shot at overpowering them.” Anastacia fixed her nephew with a scrutinizing stare. “If she is Adopted by The Owl, her consciousness will merge with it. But I don’t know what will happen to the fire demon. None of the ancient texts ever mentioned anything about a third entity. I always understood The Owl and the fire demon to be one in the same. But, according to Emily, Selena and Zee are two entirely separate forms of consciousness.”
“Um . . . so you’re saying . . . ,” Michael started but trailed off.
Anastacia crinkled her brow in concentration. Then she looked at Emily again. “Your mother’s Owl was named Hadassah. She was known as the Healing Owl. I started studying Owl shifters as soon as I could read. I knew Bernice would manifest on her sixteenth birthday just like I knew you would.”
Emily swallowed. So it was just as she suspected. Anastacia had known Emily was a shifter way before even Emily knew.
“There are only a handful of Owl entities out there. And they reincarnate over and over in different shifters. That’s why Owl shifters are so rare. And so powerful.”
Emily nodded even though this was the first she was hearing of this.
“But I misunderstood and thought Selena was the fire demon—she’s not, though. It’s Zee—who isn’t an Owl at all.”
“So what is Selena then?” asked Michael.
“I don’t know.”
“And Selena said Zee is her brother. How is that possible?” questioned Emily.
“Don’t know.”
“I thought you knew everything!” Emily exclaimed, albeit sarcastically.
You could always just ask me, you know, Selena suggested.
Emily jumped. Oh! Okay . . . what kind of Owl are you?
I have no idea. My nature hasn’t manifested yet. But we will find out soon enough. We may be ancient forms of consciousness, but we don’t come into our current incarnations with all our memories.
Emily’s shoulders slumped. Thanks for nothing then.
Now, now, Selena chided. I can tell you I am still in cahoots with Hadassah.
“What!?” Emily cried out loud.
Everyone jerked to attention and stared at her in confusion.
Emily blinked a few times and looked around the room. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “My Owl is just full of surprises.”
Aunt Anastacia raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean by that?”
Emily repeated what Selena just told her.
The room grew so quiet one could hear everyone’s breathing in surround sound.
“Selena can communicate with Hadassah, as in, your mother’s Owl?” Aunt Anastacia reiterated, biting her lip.
Yup, Selena assured Emily. Emily nodded, still dumbstruck.
“Interesting.”
The questions spread through Emily’s mind like wildfire. If her mom’s Owl consciousness still existed, did that mean so did her mom? Or at least her consciousness? And what did that mean exactly?
We can talk about this more later,
Selena interrupted her thoughts. For now, let’s focus on the task at hand.
Emily just gulped and nodded at her aunt to continue.
Her brow still crinkled, Anastacia continued, “We will revisit this issue . . . and the Adoption.” She squared her shoulders and stood up straighter. “But let’s talk about our plan of attack now.”
Everyone in the room nodded. It was obvious not everyone fully understood what the female supernaturals of the room had been talking about.
Simon cleared his throat. “While Emily leads us into battle, we’ll need a subcommander,” he said. “One who can marshal the vigilantes together on the ground. One we can communicate with. I suppose there will be times when Emily would be out of reach.”
Emily nodded. “I agree.”
“There’s no better person to do that than Michael,” said Dad. Everyone looked at him, surprised.
“Yes, John is right,” Kendrick said, beaming with pride. “He is one of us. And the vigilantes will be more comfortable following him as their leader.”
Michael jutted out his chin. “Okay. I accept. But everyone does things according to my way. No dissension. No disagreements.”
Everyone nodded.
“Now that we have a structure and a team—hopefully . . . what is our actual plan to destroy the Alfreds?” Everet wondered aloud.
“Fire,” Michael said. “As I said, no more pussyfooting around. Emily will destroy every one of them until they’re nothing.”
“I get that.” Everet massaged his own neck as he looked at the ceiling. “But where? Where do we mount the attack? Do we do a frontal attack? Or are we going to draw them out? Or mount an ambush? What’s our winning strategy?”
Michael gave his father a tight-lipped smile. Emily could see the signs of strain in the sides of his eyes. He was under a lot of stress, she could see. Stress to perform. Stress to keep from getting killed—to keep from getting her killed. Emily knew he shouldn’t be carrying all this stress on his own, but then what could she do? Michael was the better strategist.
“I propose a simple strategy,” Michael said after a few silent moments. “One that doesn’t involve us wasting much time. One that embodies the urgency we know exists. And vengeance—a lot of that, too.”
There was silence.
“You want us to march on the house.” Everet said it more as a statement than a question.
Yet, Michael answered with a nod and a smile. “No strategies. This is not a side battle. This is the war. This is the end. We strike in the evening with all we’ve got.”
“They have more than five hundred supernaturals!” Everet exclaimed in shock.
“And we have a fire demon!” Michael replied with equal vehemence. “We destroy the building. We decimate their forces. We find the Alfreds and burn them to the ground.”
“A fire demon you won’t let Emily unleash!” Everet pointed out. “There is no way to know even half of what he can do without giving him full control.”
“She can do it,” Michael asserted with confidence.
Emily groaned and looked at the floor. Could she? She didn’t think she could.
You can’t, Selena confirmed. You need Zee. Even the Adoption won’t bind you to him like that. You have to let him take over.
Great. Emily’s last bit of hope disappeared.
“It will cost us many lives, even with the fire demon leading the charge anyway,” said Uncle Simon.
“That’s the way of wars,” Michael replied. “Lives will be lost. Maybe all our lives. Maybe some. I’m not going to lie and guarantee that no lives will be lost.”
“I’m not saying you should,” Uncle Simon argued, “. . . but I am saying that if we win, we will have set back the clock on the apocalypse for maybe a few more days.”
Everet bowed his head for a moment. “I never knew it would come to this,” he muttered. “When my father championed the cause of banishing supernaturals away from the city, I never knew there would come a time when we would gravely need them.”
“Well, that’s on you,” Aunt Anastacia scoffed. “If we had a vigilante force that was reinforced with supernaturals, the Alfreds wouldn’t have walked into town and wreaked havoc. It certainly would have made it difficult for the evil rove.”
“Maybe this was him all along,” Emily suggested. “Maybe he’s been pulling the strings from behind the scenes all along, just like he’s doing now.”
Everet snapped his head up. “Say this siege works. Say the Alfreds are taken out of the way; we know that they’re only tools in the hands of this evil rove. What do we do about the main evil rove? He can just walk out of his hiding and destroy all of us.”
Michael turned to Emily. “Your turn.” And he flopped into his seat.
Emily stood. “We have a way to defeat him.” She watched their faces carefully. Dad and Aunt Anastacia were the ones who reacted with astonishment.
“You do?” Aunt Anastacia whispered.
Emily nodded eagerly. “His name. We know his name.”
Aunt Anastacia’s and Dad’s surprise was even more at this point. She could see a slew of questions popping up in their faces. She desisted from smiling.
“Well, what is it?” asked Everet, amused.
“Astaroth,” Emily stated. And that’s when it happened. Dad seemed to jerk for a very, very brief moment, during which a light seemed to twinkle in his eyes. But no one else noticed it. Emily’s suspicions ramped up.
Aunt Anastacia, on the other hand, looked like she had just been struck with an idea. Her eyes became distant, leaving Emily wondering what her aunt was presently thinking about. As Emily examined Aunt Anastacia, she felt a brief tightness in her chest, followed by a tingling in her limbs—similar to the sensations she experienced when Michael put the cloaking spell on her. What the heck?
The sensation passed as quickly as it came, and Emily blinked and shook her head. Every other person in the room looked at her attentively. They waited for her to proceed.
Emily returned her attention back to her dad. The man had recovered. He was visibly shaken, and he had that look about him that suggested he knew what had happened to him. Apparently, whatever Astaroth had done to him was deeper than what Aunt Anastacia had done to release him from the hex. Aunt Anastacia had definitely missed something.
Emily could understand how this could have happened. Astaroth was a demon rove. Aside from that fact, he was a lot older than Aunt Anastacia. So even if he wasn’t possessed by a demon, he most probably would still be able to elude Aunt Anastacia’s magic.
This brought a ray of hope to Emily. Why was Astaroth so interested in Dad? Why had he come himself to their house the night Mom died? Why didn’t he just kill Dad—and it couldn’t be because he’d developed a heart, because Emily had seen firsthand that the evil rove had no value for human life.
So what was it about Dad that the evil rove didn’t want them to know? Emily felt in her bones that the answer to all their questions had to do with her father. And they were going to need Aunt Anastacia to extract them.
For now, she had to explain to all of them what she thought and why she thought that way.
Emily was about to continue speaking, when Aunt Anastacia interrupted. “How did you come by that name?”
“Our mission to meet up with Marion was twofold,” Emily explained. “We not only wanted him to give us his blood, we also wanted him to tell us about the evil rove that his family served. Before you tell us that he might have lied to us, you must know that we never really got to ask him that question . . . he sort of told it to us. He sounded very scared of this entity.”
“Entity?” asked Kendrick. “So he’s not a man like the other roves?”
Emily shook her head. “No, Sir. Astaroth is a demon rove.”
Aunt Anastacia whimpered, her eyes flying wider with shock. “What? A demon rove? Please tell me you’re kidding!”
“You heard me right, Aunt. Demon rove.”
Aunt Anastacia suddenly turned to loo
k at Dad. “John, how are you feeling?”
Dad frowned. “Funny you should ask, Ana,” he replied. “I don’t feel too well. A little burning started inside my skin when she mentioned that name.”
Emily exchanged a look with Michael. They were on to something.
“What’s going on?” Everet asked. He looked at Dad with concern and alarm.
Aunt Anastacia said to Emily, “You’re already thinking what I’m thinking, right?”
“Yes.” Emily didn’t have to ask for clarification. Then, addressing the rest of the room, she said, “On the night my mom died, Astaroth visited my father. For some reason—I still don’t know why. Even my father doesn’t remember what transpired that night. All we know was that after that meeting, he was left as a vegetable.”
Everyone in the room nodded.
“Until I brought him to Aunt Anastacia, who noticed that the cause of his situation was not the trauma of my mom’s death, but a magical hex, which she dismantled without a problem. But it seems that that hex was a distraction. It seems that the real damage was deeper.”
Everyone listened with rapt attention, even her father. Aunt Anastacia nodded at every statement she made, confirming it.
Emily continued. “There’s something hidden within my father, maybe knowledge or an experience or whatever, that Astaroth does not want us seeing. I believe this might be the key to defeating this demon rove. If we can somehow unearth that thing, whatever it might be, we’ll be one step closer to finding and defeating this evil being.”
Emily glanced at Aunt Anastacia. “Aunty, you released him from his previous hex. What do you think?”
Aunt Anastacia exhaled for a second. “I don’t know, Emily. I’m obviously out of my depth here. I mean, I believe what you’re saying. But whatever magic the demon rove used is beyond my scope. I remember when I cast a revelation spell on him, I only found that one hex. After dismantling the hex, I did another spell again to be sure, and he came out clean.”
“So there’s something in him, and we don’t know how to get it out?” Uncle Simon growled.
“We need to get it, Aunt,” Emily pleaded. “He’s the answer to the Astaroth problem. I know it.”
“He’s an answer,” Michael corrected from his position on the chair, drawing everyone’s attention.
Born to Raise Hell: The Owl Shifter Chronicles Book Three Page 15
