by M. J. Scott
I fought to clear my mind of rage and fear and denial, and suddenly a flicker of reddish black surrounded the demon, swirling like blood. The color flowed around Nat too, and my heart stuttered at the sight. Its field surrounded her. Engulfed her. I saw no hint of any color that could be her. That could only be bad.
"Such a pity Sara died," it said, then pushed Nat to her knees as easily as a man folding a piece of paper. She didn't resist, just knelt, shivering and blank. "She was amusing. But I couldn't risk her changing her mind."
It took a moment for me to realize what it meant. "You did it. You caused that accident." It had killed my mother. Taken what it had wanted from her and then destroyed her without another thought.
"Witches are so arrogant. They never think they'll lose. Like your friend in the trees."
Shit.
A gunshot cracked through the night, but the demon didn't react. Antony had missed.
Another shot, and this time the demon ducked as wild yowls came from the trees. I didn't even think, just bolted forward and grabbed Nat, hauling her up to her feet. A bullet whizzed just over my head as I heard the demon grunt. I ran, dragging Nat with me. She didn't resist, but she didn't move quickly either. I pulled her along, my shoulder straining as I headed for the trees.
The yowls in the woods grew louder, and an all-too-human scream joined them. My stomach roiled but I kept moving.
"Natalia, stop." The demon's voice rose from behind us and Nat froze. My arm wrenched with a fiery throb as I skidded to a halt too.
"Nat." I tugged at her, ignoring the pain as another scream came from the trees. A male voice filled with agony.
"Antony," I whispered. Fuck. Somehow I didn't think he'd be riding in to rescue us.
I yanked at Nat again. "Come on." She wouldn't budge, which made no sense. She was smaller than me, lighter than me. I should’ve been able to move her.
"I can't," she whispered. I turned back to the demon. Its left hand was clamped over its right shoulder, but otherwise it looked unhurt. Whatever the bullets in Antony's gun had been supposed to do, it hadn't worked.
"Natalia prefers to remain with me," the demon said as its energy field flared blood red. "In fact, she wants to help you understand why you should too."
"What do you—"
I didn't get to finish the sentence because Nat exploded into life beside me, her fist connecting with the side of my head. I fell backward, stars pinwheeling behind my eyes.
Nat crashed down on me, hands clawing for my face.
I grabbed for her wrists desperately as the demon's laughter rang in my ears.
"Nat. It's me. Stop."
She ignored me, struggling wildly. I managed to hold her off—just—but I wasn't sure how long I'd be able keep it up. I had the weight and height advantage, but I wasn't being fueled by a demon's will.
I twisted and writhed, trying to get on top of Nat as she fought me. Her knee hit my thigh with more force than I would've thought she could muster, and the pain arcing down my leg loosened my grasp on her hands.
Her right hand hit my face like a cannonball, fingernails raking my flesh. I screamed as I reached for her again. I had to stop her, had to break the connection with the demon. But first I needed her to stop trying to kill me.
I managed to catch her hand as she took another swing and then desperately twisted upright as she fought for freedom.
One of the daggers dug into my thigh, reminding me of its presence. It could break the connection, but I couldn't risk reaching for it while she was fighting me. So I did the only thing I could. Took a deep breath, then slammed my forehead into hers just as she'd taught me to do years ago when we first gamed together.
For one agony-fueled space of time, I wasn't sure that I hadn't knocked myself out. Only the pain told me I was still conscious. It took a few seconds to register that Nat was limp underneath me.
I pushed myself to my knees, swaying as I tried desperately to focus.
The demon had moved closer but stopped out of arm’s reach. "I can still reach her, still use her, even unconscious," it said.
"Really?" I snarled. "Try using her after this." I pulled the dagger out and it stepped backward, lip curling.
"Recognize this, do you?" I hoped so. If it knew what demon stone was, maybe it wouldn't just charge me and try to snap my neck.
"You could kill her, little witch."
"I know what I'm doing." I didn't, but I knew I wasn't leaving Nat under this thing’s control for one more second. Radha had showed me where to strike, the blade needing to go deep before I snapped it to release the demon stone. Whispering a prayer to whatever damn god was listening, I raised the dagger and stabbed it into Nat's leg.
Nat screamed as the blade sank in, and I twisted it to snap it as instructed. Her body arched off the ground, the sound she made unearthly. The demon echoed the noise, shrieking in furious pain. The combination of their voices made my head throb and my ears ring.
"Hurts, does it?" I said viciously. "I have another one just for you." I left the broken blade where it was. Radha had warned against trying to pull it free if I had to use it on Nat. Blood flowed out of the wound as Nat fell back, deeply red and glistening in the rising sunlight. Too much? I couldn't think about it.
The other dagger was already in my hand as I stood to face the demon.
"You'll pay for that," it snarled. "You're mine."
"I don't think so." I focused on its energy field again. Freeing Nat had to have hurt it, but I didn't know if there were other people feeding it.
I had to try and change its field. Break the bonds.
"I had plans for you, but now I've changed my mind. Now you can just pay." It raised its hand and light flared, something slamming into me. I flew backward and landed with a bone-cracking thump, pain blooming through me.
I couldn't breathe.
"Maggie!" Damon's voice was a bellow that broke through the pain.
I sucked in air desperately and twisted toward the sound. What was he doing here?
The demon laughed. "A new toy. How interesting." It turned toward Damon, standing at the edge of the clearing, the gun in his hand pointed at the demon.
"Damon, get out of here," I screamed.
He looked from me to Nat bleeding at my feet and back again. "Where's Antony?"
I shook my head. "Go!"
The demon started forward and I scrambled up. Every inch of me hurt, but I lurched into motion to get between it and Damon.
"Take Nat," I said to Damon. "Go. Run!" The last word left my throat as a shriek.
The demon howled again, and a rush of hate and fear filled me. "Just like the imp," I muttered and held out a hand. I heard Lizzie's voice whispering in my ear and fire erupted around the demon, halting it in its tracks.
"Take her," I yelled at Damon. "She needs a hospital." I put all my will into the order. He jerked suddenly and his face went weirdly blank.
For a second I thought the demon had him, but then he sprinted to Nat. The pool of blood left behind as he lifted her made me stomach lurch. So much blood. How could she survive that?
"Is that all you can do?" the demon said mockingly.
I pivoted to face it, my world narrowing back down to the threat in front of me.
My hand shook as I raised the dagger. Maybe I could throw it and hit the demon. Maybe not. All that mattered now was buying enough time for Damon to get away and call for help.
The roar of the flames disappeared suddenly as they winked out of existence. In the sudden quiet, I heard the crunch of receding footsteps behind me.
Good. Damon was getting away. He and Nat should be okay.
If I could just hold off the demon.
I stared at the creature. The blood red of its field was fainter. Maybe it was weakening?
It didn't matter. I only had this one brief chance to try to kill it. Once it recovered from the temporary shock of my fire—which clearly hadn't hurt it too badly—it would come for me again. And then it would kill
me.
I focused on the colors, focused all the rage and fear and will to survive into visualizing them as anything but red.
To my amazement, the demon staggered backward, shrieking again.
Triumph surged through me. It worked. I'd hurt it.
Then I saw the three imps running from the trees.
Fuck.
I was dead. One dagger couldn't take care of a demon and three imps.
I cast a look behind me, hoping against reason that maybe the cavalry might arrive. Instead I saw Damon standing frozen at the edge of the clearing, Nat in his arms. His eyes met mine and I knew something was wrong. He wasn't leaving. Was the demon stopping him, or had he decided to try and help? It didn't matter, really. I had to fight or we'd all die.
The imps surrounded the demon, looking up at it worshipfully like a sheepdog waiting for the release signal from a shepherd. The demon's expression turned savage, teeth bared in my direction, and suddenly I heard Lizzie's voice whispering again.
I had one last chance, now while they were all together.
"You want my power?" I screamed at it. "Have some."
Then I threw my arms skyward, looking with desperation up at the perfectly clear early morning sky, and called the lightning.
The world exploded with heat and light around me.
I ducked to the ground, covering my head with my arms as my ears rang and my skin flared with acid-bright pain like I was the one who'd been struck. Everything swooped and whirled around me, and I thought I heard howls and screams of rage through the ringing in my ears.
Then nothing.
Nothing but pain and a buzz in my head like several swarms of angry bees.
I opened my eyes slowly, wincing with every hard-fought fraction of an inch my eyelids moved. I turned my head equally slowly to where the demon had stood.
No demon. No imps. Just four piles of greasy, smoking ash like the ones outside Cassandra's shop.
I'd done it.
Killed it. Or at least sent it back where it came from.
Relief surged, pushing back the pain for an instant. Then it returned, with an additional side of nausea and tremors. But I had to get up. Had to help Nat and Damon.
Damon was still at the edge of the clearing, but now he was kneeling, cradling Nat close to his body.
I staggered upright and somehow managed to move the twenty feet to reach them, pain shrieking through me with every step.
Damon looked at me as I dropped to my knees beside them, gasping through the agony.
"I think she's dead," he said brokenly, and I stopped fighting the pain and let it take me away.
When I woke, I was, once again, in a hospital. A steady beep came from a machine beside the bed, and the air smelled of disinfectant and laundry powder. My head hurt, and I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes again, but the faces of the members of the Cestis standing at the foot of my bed stopped me.
Only four faces.
"Antony?" I asked as the memory of screams in the woods came back to me.
Cassandra shook her head, echoes of pain filling her eyes. "He didn't make it."
Tears welled as my throat tightened. The memory of more than Antony's screams crashed into my brain. I had to swallow hard before I could ask my second question, the one I didn't really want to know the answer to. "And Nat?"
"I'm sorry, Maggie." Cassandra's face was a study in sorrow.
I couldn't stop the sob that broke from my throat. Or the tears that followed it. They let me cry.
"I killed her," I said when I could finally speak. "I killed my best friend."
Radha shook her head. "No. The wound wasn't enough to kill her. It was the demon stone. She was too far gone. Nobody could have saved her."
"The demon stone I stabbed her with, you mean," I said bitterly. "That's just semantics."
"You tried to save her," Ian said. "You did save Damon."
"You might’ve just saved the whole world," Lizzie added. "You have to try and remember that, Maggie. That's important."
A world without Nat. My best friend since that first day Gran had brought me home to Berkeley. The nearest thing to a sister I'd had. It hardly seemed worth the price. I wanted to curl into a ball and disappear.
"Is Damon here?" I whispered.
Lizzie shook her head. "He hasn't been to see you. You've been asleep for two days. Radha and Meredith and Cassandra have been working hard on you." She looked kind of guilty. Guilty but smug. "You did it. You summoned lightning." She sounded a little awed.
"Trust me, it's not something I want to make a habit of."
"Hopefully you won't have to. Damon's company has recalled the games. The demon won't be able to get to anyone else that way."
I winced. "What was the reaction?"
"Scandal. Outrage." Ian shrugged. "He's a strong man. He'll recover. Rebuild. People don't change. They’ll still want to escape into all the latest shiny toys."
I wished I could escape. Just slip on a headset and be someplace where none of the last few weeks had ever happened.
And never come back.
I closed my eyes as tears stung again.
"We'll let you rest," Cassandra said, one hand coming to rest gently on my arm. "Just rest. That's all you have to do now."
They let me out of the hospital the day of Nat's funeral. I took a cab straight to the service, made it through talking to her parents, who'd been told some of the truth but not exactly what had happened. They knew Nat had tangled with bad magic. They were pale and washed out with grief, but they thanked me for trying to help her.
The guilt almost brought me to my knees on the spot, but I'd been forbidden from telling them the full story.
The sun warming my back as they lowered Nat's body into the earth felt like a travesty. I shivered despite the warmth, wondering if I'd ever feel anything again but cold and sad and so very, very full of regret and guilt and shame. The Cestis were there, each of the four adding protection to the grave on top of the blessings of the priest.
I didn't talk to them. It was too hard. Magic had brought me nothing but pain. I didn't want anything more to do with it.
Not yet.
As I turned to leave, I saw Damon standing alone among the graves, about fifty yards back from the group of mourners, and knew my pain wasn't yet done. He hadn't come to see me in the hospital, hadn't called.
I knew it was over, but I still couldn't help the way my heart bumped when I saw him, the way I automatically moved in his direction. I wanted to talk to him, even if it was only to say a final goodbye.
"Hello, Maggie," he said as I reached him.
I tried to smile but my mouth didn't obey. My eyes burned from too many tears, and my hand throbbed where I'd gripped the white rose I'd brought to lay on Nat's coffin too tightly and been bitten by the thorns. "Hello, yourself."
He looked tired. The shadows under his eyes rivaled mine, and there were lines on his face that hadn't been there before. I wanted to reach up and smooth some of them away. Instead I clenched my hands and put them in my pockets.
"How are you?" I asked.
"Not great," he admitted. "I'm sorry I didn't come to see you. It's been . . . hard."
I couldn't imagine the chaos he'd been dealing with. Chaos I'd brought into his life.
"I didn't expect you to come," I said honestly. Hoped like hell, yes. Expected, no. "Is there any point in apologizing again?"
He looked away. "I'm sorry, Maggie. It's just too—" He stopped, cleared his throat, then brought that bright blue gaze to meet mine again. "Too much. The magic. Demons. Lightning from clear skies."
I understood. I didn't blame him, but oh, I wanted to change his mind. "That wasn't just me," I said. "I had help."
"The part where you made me leave was you though, wasn't it?"
"What?" I looked at him blankly.
"You told me to leave and I had to. You did something to me."
My heart plummeted. Had I? Made him do something against his wil
l? The one person I wanted to trust me. The fight in the clearing wasn't exactly clear, just a blur of fear and pain and confusion. "I-I don't remember. If I did, I didn't mean to."
"I'm not sure that makes it better. If you did it without thinking."
"I was trying to save you. You and Nat."
"I know. I just—"
"Can't trust a witch," I finished for him. "It would've been easier if you'd worked that out before you made a witch love you."
His eyes widened. "Maggie—"
I shook my head. I had to finish this conversation before I cracked wide open and crumbled in front of him. "Goodbye, Damon. I am sorry. I hope you believe me."
I turned and walked away. One step became two, became twenty and then thirty. When I'd almost made it back to Nat's grave, I stopped, heart pounding. I didn't want to turn back, but I couldn't stop myself.
But there was nothing to see. Damon was gone.
I bit my lip, forced myself to look back at the grave. Lizzie stood back beyond the clump of Nat's relatives closest to the now-filled hole in the earth. She gave a little wave as I caught her eye, then drew an S in the air with one finger.
I knew what she meant.
I'd saved the world. It should mean something.
But it didn't. I'd saved the world, sure.
Problem was I'd destroyed my life in the process.
And I had absolutely no idea what to do next.
* * *
THE END
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About the Author
M.J Scott is an unrepentant bookworm. Luckily she grew up in a family that fed her a properly varied diet of books and these days is surrounded by people who are understanding of her story addiction. Her other distractions include yarn, cat butlering, dark chocolate and watercolour. When not wrestling one of her own stories to the ground, she can generally be found reading someone else’s. To keep in touch, find out about new releases and other news, sign up to her newsletter. She also writes contemporary romance as Melanie Scott and Emma Douglas.
