by Lucy Auburn
As we wait, the conversation finally turns back to the only topic I've been thinking about. Mateo is the one who speaks up, his voice surprisingly contemplative. "If our hallucinations were memories, then do you think..."
"No," Sebastian cuts in, voice harsh. "We can't even consider it."
Lynx murmurs, "It does seem like, if the poltergeist could tap into our memories with trauma, maybe we could figure out a way to die and come back with them intact."
My heart leaps, and I lean towards him, biting my lower lip. "You really think it might be possible?"
"I have no idea," he admits. "This isn't something I can really research. Malavic is the only one who's ever done it, and he's a slippery bastard. But he shouldn't have been able to lie to someone who summoned him, so it seems that he was telling the truth. If he did it..."
Sebastian's expression could cut through stone. "After everything, you really think this is something worth considering? The risk isn't worthwhile."
"How would you know?" Lynx shoots back. "Maybe it isn't as risky as it seems. I don't remember the world ending when Malavic freed himself."
Ezra mutters, "You're being foolish." He cuts his eyes at Lynx, a rare menace in his green gaze. "It would be immensely selfish of us to free ourselves and take even the tiniest risk that there are consequences. A demon dying and coming back without losing their bodies or memories... it's too close to necromancy. To what created the soulless man we just fought. Do you really want to risk turning into that? No, it isn't worth it. We can't free ourselves."
There's a heavy silence on the plane. Into it, I clear my throat. "And what if I freed you?"
Four sets of eyes look to me. Green, blue, honey brown, and dark as freshly poured coffee. To say that they're all dismayed is an understatement.
"You can't risk anything more for us," Ezra insists. "We're going home, dealing with that bracelet, and things are going back to normal."
Lynx says, "If you're considering summoning Malavic again, don't. The last thing you need to do is risk yourself with that troublemaker again."
"I have the seven immortals' power in Gaugin's bracelet," I point out to them. "It can protect me. I feel it. And what if we have this one opportunity to figure things out and free you from your contracts, but we don't take it?"
Sebastian's blue eyes are sorrowful but insistent. "It absolutely isn't worth the risk to you. We made our beds. The lives we had before we died were awful enough that we didn't deserve the rest of the Great Beyond. Whoever we were before, those people agreed to a contract with Hell. There's no going back now."
Mateo says, "It's stupid, anyway. How would keeping our memories intact change anything? Malavic must've gotten something wrong. Or it was all some kind of trick or riddle or something."
Biting my lip, I point out, "It could be the memories you had from when you were alive that you need. And you saw those. If getting them back can free you—"
"No. You won't even think of it." Ezra's voice is firm, and I bristle at his tone. Just because he's often the leader of the quartet doesn't mean he gets to boss me around. Narrowing his eyes at me, he adds, "I know you don't like it when I tell you what to do. But right now I don't care. This is for your own safety. Messing with Hell isn't like anything you've done before. No matter who you've fought or how many times you've died, that'll always be true."
Sighing, I turn to look down the street, mouth sealed firmly shut, forcing my thoughts down inside.
I have to free them. It's what I set out to do, and despite everything, I'm more determined to do it now than I was before. All of this—the fighting, the betrayal, lives lost—can't be for nothing. There has to be a light at the end of the tunnel, some answers beyond the golden brick road.
I'll do what it takes to find out how to free them. Just as soon as this messy business with the bracelet is taken care of.
Soon enough, our liaison here at the secondary gate arrives, and we receive the call that the inside is going to be unlocked. It's time to go through, and head back to campus—which is hopefully still intact, a fully healed Petra somewhere on the other side of the wrought iron gates.
I don't know what I'll do if it turns out that the bloodshed I caused with my foolishness spread all the way to here. It was one thing to see those innocent lives taken because the Manslayer managed to take me on a ride. If my friends or teachers suffered for it, I'll never stop blaming myself.
"How are things back at the academy?" I ask our guide as he ushers us through a hidden door and into a magic tunnel that'll lead us to the school. "Everything okay? No cataclysmic events we should know about?"
"Actually." He clears his throat, looking nervously at me and my guys as he pulls the door shut behind us and locks it thoroughly. "About that..."
As we step through the tunnel and onto the other side, at a doorway near a back part of the campus that hasn't been kept up, I let a little phoenix fire pool in the palm of my hand and cautiously survey our surroundings.
"You don't have to do that," our guide says, frowning at me. "There's no threat inside the campus gates. Professor Auerbach says his wards have contained the problem."
Our guide back to campus is a third year student that the headmaster apparently decided she could do without, despite the current demonic threat to the entire campus. Looking at his string bean body, I find myself agreeing with her assessment—especially if he's this foolish about walking back to a campus with demons attacking on all sides.
Yep, demons.
Apparently they started attacking early yesterday morning, hours before I'd gotten Gaugin's bracelet. Michael, our guide, says that Professor Auerbach has pinpointed their presence to a disruption in the spirit realm that he believes has been caused by a leak in demonic energy into the mortal realm. A leak, he says, that is somehow connected to the presence of Ari, our Blue Phoenix, on campus.
Something to do with a trickster demon needing a witch-turned-phoenix to help him escape into the mortal realm untethered.
As in, not summoned by a Grim, or a misplaced mortal plea for revenge, or even by a dark spell and a sacrifice, like the one those assholes used on that cliff the night I died. No, this demon wouldn't be tethered by contracts or deals or even blood magic. He would be fully, completely free—even freer than Malavic. Capable of causing destruction.
And he plans on bringing an army with him.
The threat, our guide seems certain, is contained. But I know demons. They're not exactly put off by a bit of a challenge. Freedom is their biggest desire—and one mage standing between them and what they want isn't nearly enough.
"Bring me to the headmaster," I tell him. "And Auerbach. And, well, everyone else."
Ezra arches a brow at me. "What are you going to do?"
I hold my arm up. "Figure out what the fuck this thing does."
I've got the power of seven immortals now. Surely that's six immortals more than is required to beat a demon horde back from the campus gates.
"How did you let this happen?" I stare Auerbach down, ignoring a twinge of guilt at the tired expression on his face. "I've barely been gone a few days. I mean, maybe five at the most."
"It's been a week," he says, which surprises me. "I know cell reception was bad on that island you were on, but surely you saw the sun rise and set."
Rubbing the back of my neck, I admit, "I was on a plane for a lot of it. And inside the spirit realm. Didn't Petra tell you?"
Raising her upper body off the cot she's been forced onto, and ignoring the protests of the medic trying to tend to her cauterized skin, Petra glares me down. "I can still shift into a bigass fucking wolf and tear your throat out with my teeth."
Mateo quips, "You shouldn't. She'd probably give you rabies."
They both guffaw at this, and I just roll my eyes, turning back to Auerbach. He's sitting at a chair by Ari's side, tending to her in the magical coma she's entered in between bouts of refreshing the wards around the campus. It looks like he hasn't slept.
&n
bsp; I study his face. "What happened? The guide who brought us through the tunnel seemed to know just enough to confuse the fuck out of me. Did she really bring the demons to our doorstep?"
"I don't know," he admits. "She was... taking care of an issue with a poltergeist. I'm afraid that I pushed her too hard. Or expected too much of her. I don't know which. But she went into the spirit realm, along with her three shifter familiars." He winces. "They didn't come back. She did. But before she could tell us what was going on, she collapsed. That was the day before yesterday."
Pacing over to Ari's side, Lynx looks down at her and comments, "Her eyes are moving rapidly beneath her eyelids. Almost like she's dreaming."
"I believe she is in a state of REM sleep, yes. Whether it's physical, mental, or magical... well, I have the feeling it's the latter." He sighs, pushing a hand through his hair. "I never should've encouraged her to deal with a poltergeist's energy. What I thought was a simple spirit turned out to be something more. And she went into the spirit realm to deal with it. When she came back, something slipped through the door with her. Some things. Demons. I managed to push them back, to wrap them in wards and keep them from getting onto the campus. But I can't banish them from the mortal plane."
All eyes look to me. Petra says, "You can do that, Dani. Especially now that you've got a fancy ass bracelet. Demons are nothing compared to that fucking thing you abandoned me to fight."
I frown at her. "I did not abandon you, I saved your life. And the Manslayer is dead now."
"You sure about that? He was kind of being held together by a shit ton of gnarly magic."
"I mean, I severed his head from his body and had the villagers burn it in two separate pyres, so yeah, I'm pretty sure he's dead." To my surprise, the Danish villagers took on what I told them to do with aplomb. Maybe tiny Danish villages see more bad mythical magical shit than I realized. "I can deal with demons. I think. I mean, I've never dismissed one I didn't summon."
Leaning up against the wall near Ari's bed, Sebastian points out, "You dealt with that poltergeist pretty well, and you didn't summon it."
"True." Turning to Auerbach, I ask him the one question that's on my mind. "First, though, how do we save Ari?"
He looks up at me with a drawn and sober expression. "You can't. She's already lost."
Chapter 9
I glare him down. "She's not dead. Her body is right here. You can't honestly tell me that her soul can't be saved."
"Dani, she's—"
"I just learned this rune from Gaugin that puts a spirit back in its body," I tell him, thinking quickly. "I can use it on her. And before you object again, just know that there's no fucking way I'm letting the only other rare phoenix around here die like it's no big deal. Especially after all the terrible shit she's been through. Ari deserves someone to fight on her behalf."
Holding a hand up, Auerbach patiently tells me, "I wasn't saying that you should let her die. What I'm telling you is that only Ari can save herself from the predicament she's currently in. Trickster demons are a sticky thing. Luckily, she has her familiars with her—body and soul. And she was born a witch, with all the learning that entails. The spirit realm will be a labyrinth for her, yes, but I'm certain she can get out of the demon's hold."
I blink at him. "I thought you said the demons followed her through the door."
"Some of the trickster's army did, yes. But before she slipped away, Ari managed to tell me that she made some kind of deal with the trickster. They're battling it out now in the spirit realm. She did what she could to protect us from the demonic threat—now I just need you to help me save the campus before my wards fail. And Dani," he adds, a grave expression on his face, "my wards will fail."
"How do I do it?" I ask him, looking around at my guys, who are preparing themselves for another fight. "Do I just dismiss them all? Is that it?"
Headmaster Towers walks into the infirmary, where we're all gathered, her bright red hair in a messy greasy bun, her clothes disheveled, looking nothing like the put-together headmaster I know.
She tells me, "The only way to save the academy is to close the door to Hell."
Well, fuck.
Welcome back to Phoenix Academy, Dani Carpenter.
Here's another supernatural mess for you to clean up.
Lynx has a book in mind. Of course he does. The Melisandra Library upstairs doesn't have it, because it's rare and dangerous—of course it is. But Auerbach, well-connected with the Council of Mages, is able to call in a favor, perform a spell that looks like it ages him a month in a single moment, and summon the book from across continents.
First, though, I eat dinner. With two desserts, just in case. Everyone in the dining hall looks drawn and wary—I guess they're tired of going to a school where your life is threatened more often than you take final exams. If things don't settle down soon, Towers won't have enough rich shifter families' tuition money to keep this place up and running.
Thankfully I'm back, and I've got power at my fingertips, my guys thoroughly at my sides, and a dweeb like Auerbach around to make important books pop onto the surface of his desk. The sudden change of pressure in the air makes me grimace and rub my fingers in my ears, but it's certainly easier than dealing with the Head Librarian.
That woman is likely to kill me in my sleep one of these days.
Staring at the book, Lynx exclaims, "That's so exciting! Where did it come from?"
"A library in Morocco," Auerbach says, sounding like a kid in a candy shop as he strokes the cover of the book. "Normally they don't lend out, but considering the circumstances... I've never seen a book this rare in person." Leaning down, he sniffs the air above the book's cover, and Lynx actually does the same a moment later. "It even smells old."
"And like spices and pigment," Lynx adds. "I wonder what it's bound with."
"I believe the glue was..."
I tune out the rest of their nerd talk, incredibly grateful that my book-obsessed demon has amazing abs. He wouldn't get away with being such a doofus and a dork otherwise. That ass helps too. My eyes drift to it as Lynx and Auerbach get into the nitty gritty of the book's translator and the pulp of its paper, then even the embossed gold of the cover.
Eventually, though, it's time for brass tacks. "What will this help us figure out about the door to Hell?"
Lynx jerks his head up, blinking out of his book nerd stupor. "It's all about veils. Barriers between this realm and others—the spirit realm, Purgatory, and of course Hell."
"A book about doors, in essence," Auerbach explains. Raising a hand, he rubs his chin thoughtfully. "We've seen the door manifest itself beyond the north wall around the campus, just past my wards. And when I'm close, I can sense it: brimstone, heat, damnation. I'm sure you four would be able to sense it even more thoroughly."
In a dour voice, Sebastian says, "We've spent more time at the outskirts of Hell than a mortal mage like you could possibly imagine."
"It smells like unwashed balls," Mateo says, which makes me wrinkle my nose unpleasantly. He shrugs in my direction. "It's just true."
"You would know," Lynx gripes. "The only time you wash your balls is when forced."
"Technically, when we're incorporeal in that in-between place—which I guess won't happen much anymore—we don't sweat. And demons don't age. So. I smell like a newborn baby's butt cheeks, thank you very much."
I wave my hands in the air, holding back incredulous laughter. "Okay, okay! Enough talking about Mateo's balls. No offense babe, but we've got more important things to discuss."
Auerbach has an expression on his face that says he very much wishes he was never here for this conversation. "I agree. We need to discuss how this gate to Hell will be closed. After all, the runes on it..."
The mage hesitates, and I frown in his direction. "Runes? What runes?"
"If there's something you know, spit it out," Sebastian growls, while Auerbach's gaze wanders the room, distinctly uncomfortable. "We can't let the entire campus be floode
d with dozens of demons just because you kept secrets."
Auerbach sighs. "Of course. I'm hoping that we'll find more answers in our research, but this being so time sensitive... I have no idea how long my wards will hold, after all. I just..." He trails off, then straightens his spine, resolutely facing off—towards me, his gaze holding mine. "There were mage runes on the door. Almost as if it was forged by mage hands, centuries or... well, likely millennia ago."
I frown at him. "You think a mage made a door to Hell?"
"No, after some thought, I don't think a mage did it. Rather, I believe that the form of magic I practice—that every trained mage practices—must descend from something, well, otherworldly in nature. Something ancient, formed by immortals perhaps, or at least by a culture other than humanity. Which makes me wonder if perhaps the runes I use and the summoning circles you use are similar."
"Okay." I blink at him, frowning. "No offense, but how does that help us close the door? It all sounds very fascinating for you, I'm sure, just not useful."
"The runes on the door had an inscription." He's playing with the edge of his sleeve now, while next to him, Lynx is leaned over the book, worshipping its pages. There's something Auerbach won't just spit out, so I frown at him, hoping he'll out with it. "It said something about a... a sacrifice being required. Blood opens the door, and blood closes it."
"We've got plenty of that," I point out. "There are enough phoenix and shifters with regenerative powers here to fill a Floridian swimming pool."
"Not that kind of blood." Auerbach's eyes can't quite meet mine. "Demonic blood. Lifeblood, to be exact."
The room goes deadly silent. Panic crawls up my throat. A familiar fear fills me, one I felt when I was facing off against Lainey, whose chest only opened when enough lives were sacrificed, and my guys wanted to be the ones who died for me.
