Demons Are Forever

by Marianne Morea

“Positive thoughts, Daniel. Let’s try that considering this islet is smaller than five acres long and only half as wide. Plus, we’re nearly there.”

  The ground felt sturdier under my feet as I stepped where Daniel stepped, trying to minimize noise. The trees and their accompanying gloom thinned to just scrub, and soon the cemetery was visible ahead.

  This tiny hamlet of the dead carried a pall of sadness. As though the inhabitants knew they were forgotten. Iron gates hung broken at the opposite end from where we stood, and I envisioned a battered sign dangling by a creaky hinge with the words from Dante’s Inferno, abandon hope all ye who enter…

  I murmured the original revelation spell I used on the ley lines, and they glowed hot and bright straight to the central crypt.

  “Bingo.” Daniel pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “Showtime, babe.”

  Chapter Nine

  Daniel took my hand and moved from the scrub, but I tugged him back. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “We got this.”

  “Curiosity doesn’t just kill the cat, Daniel. Over confidence does as well. We need something before going in there.” I pointed to the cemetery. It’s consecrated ground, and we’re…” I swept my hand past us both. “You know.”

  “Demi-demons. I get it, but we have nothing to worry about, Linz. Trust me.”

  “Let me try a thing, please? If it doesn’t work, no harm no foul, but if it does, the better to protect you with, my dear.”

  He smirked at that. “If it makes you feel better, then go for it.”

  I tried a quick confounding spell to camouflage us before stepping foot onto the consecrated ground. Not that ground would still be considered consecrated while housing vampires, but hey. Respect. It seemed to work, and we moved quickly.

  Would my spells backfire at some point? Who knew? I was untrained, but hanging out with Tabitha my whole life seemed to rub off, and I wasn’t about to question my osmosis luck.

  The central crypt was larger than the adjacent tombs, and we used their shadows to conceal us further. The front doors of the mausoleum were a weathered-copper green, but like the limestone, the patina was false.

  The ley line revelation spell bled over onto the crypt, showing it for what it was. A ramshackle shed. I found it funny, actually. The gorgeous plantation house on Bumfuck was glamoured to look like a shack, and this was just the opposite. Vampire logic. Go figure.

  Daniel stepped to the corrugated aluminum door and reached for the handle, but my hand shot out, yanking his arm back. “Vampire blood!”

  The sneaky bastards had smeared the door handle with their own blood, knowing even a drop was fatal to witches.

  “We’re demi-demons, Linz. It’ll be okay.’

  I didn’t let go of his arm. “Really. And you know this how?”

  He met my eyes, and I knew. He already tried it on himself. Reflex kicked in, and I punched him square in the chest. “Of all the stupid, selfish things to do! What the hell were you thinking?”

  “First of all, ow! Second, I’ve been here a month. I was sent knowing what Carol and Roy suspected. I figured this would end up in a showdown of some kind, so I took a leaf out of your book. Forewarned is forearmed. Vampires hold a trump card with their blood. It’s on-the-spot fatal for full witches, but for us, not so much. We’re also demi-witches, yes…but our demon blood negates that so it’s a wash. It’s the trafficking loophole Carol and Roy talked about.”

  Without a second’s hesitation, he eased his arm from my hold and wrapped his hand around the door handle. I held my breath expecting the worst, but nothing happened. The skin on Daniel’s palm became slightly discolored. Mottled, as if dirty, but that was it. No pain. No sickness.

  We slipped through the door into complete darkness. I pulled my cellphone from my back pocket and flipped on its flashlight. Ahead was a circular staircase leading into more total darkness.

  “We should have brought garlic with us,” I mumbled, grabbing hold of the back of Daniel’s shirt as we descended.

  “Garlic doesn’t work. Neither will your magic. Or mine for that matter. You keep saying you’re untrained. I’m worse. I had the chance, and chose not to be taught.”

  “So what then? According to Carol, you and I are main menu items, and we’re walking straight into the commercial kitchen.”

  Daniel didn’t answer. He knew me well enough that talking more would risk me spiraling. Besides, we needed this to be done and dusted.

  We stepped off the last of the curved steps into a spelled underground room. Water seeped through, despite whatever charm allowed the subterranean crypt, making the whole place even creepier. Spells against Mother Nature were always iffy, and this one had multiple reinforced layers, obvious even to an untrained eye like mine.

  Daniel had his phone out, videoing for evidence. He panned the camera upward. “Holy shit.”

  I looked where he had the camera pointed, and my stomach dropped. Cuffed chains hung from the ceiling, and it didn’t take much to envision their purpose and the thought made me ill. This was a place people came to die. Or more accurately, a place people were brought to be killed.

  The residual tang of terror and desperation coated my tongue, and I turned to retch in a corner. Every nerve-ending screamed for us to leave, and I cursed Carol for sending me to do this job. Who was I to tackle this? The piddly spells I muttered could never stand against this level of evil.

  “Daniel, we have to grab whatever evidence we can, and then get out of here.”

  He nodded, but a faint whimper jerked our attention. The pitiful sound came from a crack in the spelled foundation. The fissure started at the ceiling and spread toward the floor, widening until it was big enough for a medium-sized animal.

  Or a small child.

  My mind spun.

  I looked at Daniel. Could the vampires be preying on demi-witch/demi-demon children? Everyone knew that children were innocents, and their magic raw. Pure but wild.

  I didn’t need anyone to tell me otherwise. Daniel took my cellphone and shined the light into the crevice. A muffled cry and sudden scrabbling answered back, and I grabbed the phone from him.

  Sinking to my knees, I hunched in as small as possible to peek inside the hole. There was a child wedged in tight, and all I saw were a pair of dirty feet and a glimpse of red hair. Red hair meant the child was female, and at least part healer witch.

  “It’s a little kid,” I whispered, glancing up at Daniel as his face hardened.

  I dimmed the flashlight to a kinder glow, worried a harsh glare would frighten the child even more. “Don’t be scared, honey. I’m not going to hurt you. What’s your name?”

  She didn’t answer.

  The child had stuffed herself into a crevice in the wall to get away from something terrible. Who could blame her for not trusting a pair of strangers and their interrogation light?

  I tried another tack hoping to coax her out. “My name’s Linzie. I promise, I’m not going to hurt you. My friend Daniel and I want to help get you out of here.”

  Nothing.

  “My best friend has red hair like you,” I continued. “She’s a healer witch. Me? I’m part green witch, like my friend Daniel.”

  “You’re a demi?” her thin, reedy voice asked, and it broke my heart.

  “Yes…are you?”

  “Uh huh. They told me I was special. That I was born to help give magic to people who didn’t have any. Then they took me and my sister here.”

  Daniel and I exchanged a look. “Your sister. Is she in there with you?”

  Muffled crying answered my question, and my blood boiled. I dragged in a calming breath. If I managed to coax the child out of her hiding place only for her to find my eyes black with anger, she’d scurry back and never come out.

  “What’s your name, honey?” I tried again.

  “Sam. It’s short for Samantha.”

  The lump in my throat made it hard to swallow, but I had to keep my cool. “Sam, please come out. Daniel and I have a boat.
We can get you out of here.”

  “What about Kasey? I don’t want to leave without her.”

  “Is Kasey your sister?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Okay then. We’ll help you look for her, and I promise, if we can’t find her tonight, we’ll come back with lots of people…powerful people, who want to help.”

  We heard movement, like rough scrabbling, and I could only imagine how tightly Samantha had wedged herself inside that hole. Self-preservation was as strong a motivator as any.

  She crawled out. Filthy, scraped and terrified. When she finally looked up, my breath froze in my throat. Her eyes. Blue eyes. Same shape. Same color.

  I spared a look for Daniel, and the set of his jaw told me he saw it, too. The little girl had to be my sister, and Hux Hellborne was up to his glamoured eyeballs in this horror.

  Vomit rose at the thought. If I got out of this alive with Samantha and Daniel intact, I’d beg the Goddess to rip the demon side from my blood for good. Even if that meant becoming human. Still, we needed to get out of here to safety, and as much as I loathed the thought, my demon side might be just the ticket.

  Hux was hella amused at how I used demon-compulsion to get what I wanted, twisting Featherbutte for my own use. If his sick pride in me as a Hellborne gave me an edge, then I’d play that until I got what I wanted. His absolute end.

  A cool mask dropped over me, juxtaposed to the seething boil beneath the surface. I didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence stared me in the face. My father, A.K.A. sperm donor, had sold his child to the undead. Or gave. Didn’t matter. He was a pig among pigs, and he had to die. I wasn’t his to claim, and neither was Samantha. Nor was she his to dispose of for personal gain.

  I slipped my arm around the little girl and hugged her to me. Tabitha was the one who taught me common affection. Common love. If not for her, I wouldn’t have had a heart to bleed for this child. This little girl. My sister.

  Swearing under his breath, Daniel squeezed my shoulder. “We need to get her out of here and under wraps until I can get word to Roy.”

  I squatted in front of Sam and smoothed her dirty hair back. “Honey, where did you last see Kasey?”

  She pointed to one of the chains, and I didn’t need to ask anything else. Clearly, her sister had been drained.

  “You two wait for me up top.” Daniel glanced at his watch. “It’s close enough to dawn, so you should be okay. I’m going to look around some more down here.”

  His eyes connected with the congealed blood on the ground. It wasn’t much, but enough to gather as evidence.

  “Daniel, what we really need to find is where they’re distilling to pure witch.”

  “We will.” He nodded. “Now get. I don’t want either of you any more traumatized.”

  Too late.

  “Go.” He motioned to Samantha. “For her sake, then.”

  Shifting his backpack around, he unzipped the top. I watched him scrape samples as I put Samantha on the bottom rung of the spiral stairs.

  “Don’t make me wait too long.”

  He looked up. “Never.”

  “Just pictures and samples, Daniel. Don’t go all Dr. Jones on me.”

  He looked over his shoulder, and the dip of his hat over one side of his face was unbelievably sexy. “I thought going all out Indiana Jones on you was your fantasy.”

  “It was…it is.” I exhaled, avoiding eye contact. “Damn it, you know what I mean.” I slid my eyes to the child and gave him a no-dirty-talk-in-front-of the-kiddo look.

  “Linzie Hellborne, a prude. Who knew?”

  Samantha’s eyes went round, and her mouth trembled. “You…you’re…you’re with HIM!”

  I shook my head so hard my brain rattled. “No, honey. He hurt me, too. Not like you and Kasey. It was a long time ago, and since then he’s turned into a true monster. Once we get out of here, you will never have to see him again.”

  “Will you look for him?”

  Her tiny voice dug into my heart with a spoon. “Only to make sure he never does what he did to you ever again.”

  “Will you kill him?”

  I blinked. The question was so blunt for one so young.

  “Do you want me to?”

  Her lip trembled, and tears made her eyes shine, but there was a solid ring of black around her baby blues. Samantha’s trauma had awakened her demon side. She couldn’t be more than seven years old, and shouldn’t know that part of her existed, yet. Was she damaged? Who wouldn’t be? Still, she deserved a chance, and that’s what I intended to give her.

  “Answer me, Sam.”

  She nodded, and tiny tear drops scored the dirt on her face.

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s bad. I don’t want to be bad like him. I want to be good like you. Kasey wanted to be good, too.”

  I wanted the son-of-a-bitch deader than dead. If he was in front of me instead of Samantha, I’d rip his lungs out with my hands. I calmed myself. Revenge was not the path I wanted Samantha to learn, however sweet it tasted. I imagined Hux’s blood, then dismissed the dark thought before it took hold.

  “Sam, you can be whatever you choose, and being good is pretty, uhm…good!”

  With a ghost of a smile and a sniff, she turned to go up the stairs. I followed, exchanging a look with Daniel as he collected his sample.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” he said.

  In that split second, Samantha was gone. I had to scramble to get to the top of the spiral and out the door after her. “Sam! Wait. It’s not safe yet!”

  “No, Linzie. It’s not.”

  My heart stopped at the same time I did in the threshold…

  Chapter Ten

  “Where is she?” I stalked toward my father. “What did you do with Samantha?” Eyes burning black, every muscle clenched along with my fists. “If you harmed one hair on her head, I’ll end you where you stand!”

  My anger boiled, spilling over me in hot cascades enough to sprout snakes around my feet like a full demon. I didn’t take my eyes from him. Not even to scan for signs of the little girl.

  “Ah, that. I’m afraid little Samantha is no more.”

  His tone sent live current scalding through my body, and I ached to torch his condescending ass. Tabitha’s fingers only sparked when angry. Mine looked like Storm from X-Men ready to fry.

  Tabs told me Zelda’s spark popped demons like popcorn with the help of her familiars. I was barely a witch, but enough voltage crackled from my fingertips to zap Hux like a bug.

  I cocked my fingers and fired off a shot. The startled look on Hux’s face was worth the backlash jolt up my arms. Still, the energy ball deflected, exploding an adjacent tomb.

  “Keep feeding that anger, little girl. Stop resisting. Like it or not…Linzie, I am your father.”

  He did NOT just drop his voice mimicking Darth Vader. “Not cool and not funny. Now where the hell is Samantha?!” I lobbed another energy ball at him, only this time it blew up a cypress.

  Behind me I heard Daniel clamber up the spiral stairs, but I didn’t dare lose my concentration. I heard him race through the shack’s corrugated door, stopping short of the showdown.

  Before he could react, Hux sent him crashing into a decaying tomb. He hit square, slumping along with a pile of bricks and old stucco.

  “Daniel!”

  I spun on my heel, rushing to him. He was bleeding, and out cold. Warm blood coated my palm as I smoothed Daniel’s hair from his face. I jerked around to Hux, while cradling Daniel’s head. “What the fuck? You’re even more twisted and insane than I thought.”

  “He’s still alive, Linzie, and if you want him to stay that way, you’ll listen to my proposal.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I can manipulate you any way I want.” Hux’s stance was overconfident as he stared at me. “Just as you manipulated that sad Kestrel at yesterday’s soiree. Samantha was nothing more than a figment. A play on your emotions planted by yours truly, using your o
wn thoughts against you.”

  Bile rose in my throat. Revulsion warred with disbelief and the impulse to attack. How could he be so vile? My breath came short and shallow as I struggled to wrap my head around his words and still keep my calm.

  “Visceral illusion is quite a talent, I must say,” he continued. “Still, refuse me and the scenario could become real, with you dangling from those chains.”

  “Nice try, asshole. You don’t have the ability to cast that kind of illusion. Even if you’re back to your full demon self, and have some poor witch glamouring your repulsive exterior, you don’t have any magic because demons have NO magic.”

  He laughed at me, lifting one hand, and in a hot second, I glimpsed seven fingers and a hint of long, sharp teeth. His glamor was faltering.

  “I know why you’re here, Linzie. The Baba Yaga and her pet wizard, Bermangoggleshitz, sent you. You and your lover, both.” He gestured toward Daniel in the rubble. “I’ve known since the fashion-don’t-of-the-universe approached you at your friend’s wedding.” He nodded, and that same amused sick pride showed on his face. “By the way, it was very enlightening watching you toy with that Texas gatecrasher. Of course, his appearance there was all me.”

  I blinked. Did he mean Dallas Crowe?

  “That meathead shifter was so easy to compel.” Hux nodded, pleased with himself. “He had no intention of crashing your friend’s wedding. I planted the idea. Your loyalty to your friend did the rest.”

  “How?” Suspicion narrowed my eyes. “I’ll say it again. Demons have no magic.”

  “Didn’t you wonder why Carol sent you? Every witch knows there’s no magic that can hold the Baba Yaga. She could’ve come to Bumfuck herself to deal with me, but instead she sent you and skippy to do her dirty work.”

  I didn’t reply, and he zeroed in on that.

  “Ah, I see. You didn’t know that about the Baba Yaga because you were never trained.” He tsked. “So much the better to train your demon side without a witchy taint. Or I could just kill you.”

  “If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”

  “Still, why waste such promise?” It was like he was talking to himself. “You like playing in the dark. It calls to you. I saw it through that pathetic shifter’s eyes in Boston, and I watched it when you compelled that Kestrel into giving you what you wanted regardless of his will. You are more demon than you think.”