Demi's at Stake

by N. L. Hoffmann

  Cathal got there first, shoving Seth to the side, taking a bite to the arm. The wolf strained, chains beginning to break as he transformed completely, bones snapping as they reformed. Cathal quickly grabbed the wolf’s scruff, like he was a disobedient pup. Gary struggled, but Cathal held firm, shaking him.

  “You have just done something I know your kind looks down upon—cursing someone else with your disease. How can you do such a thing when we are trying to help you?” Cathal demanded.

  Gary stopped struggling and whimpered, turning his head to watch Ruby wrap Blair’s wound. Blair was pissed. Suddenly, she pushed away from Ruby.

  “Stupid motherfucker! Look what you did to me! Look what you fucking did to me!” she screamed, tears streaming down her face as she pulled the gun from the back waistband of her pants. “I will make sure your daughter is saved and given a new home. But you won’t have the same ending.”

  Before I could shout for her to stop, she pulled the trigger, bullets dipped in silver flying toward him, striking his chest. The silver immediately attacked the bloodstream, overloading his system.

  When he screamed and his body slumped, Cathal set him on the floor, looking over at Blair, who shook. She dropped her gun and fell to her knees, looking up at me with pleading eyes.

  “Tell me there is a way to cure this. Please, tell me there is a way to cure it!”

  I felt my own tears trickling down my face as I choked out, “No, Blair. There’s nothing we can do.”

  Rage filled Blair as she scrambled up and started kicking the wolf’s body. “Fucker! Stupid fucker!”

  I felt bad for the both of them. Gary just wanted to save his daughter, but now he was dead. And Blair because, well... She had to deal with being a werewolf now.

  “How the fuck are we supposed to go after her now with one of us injured?” Seth asked as Ruby grabbed Blair around the waist and pulled her away. “You should have stayed away from him!” he snapped, then winced. He often lashed out when he was under stress. We were used to it.

  “I’ll go,” Cathal said, squaring his shoulders.

  “Demi, Troy, and I will, too. Ruby can stay with Blair.” Seth turned to Ruby, who hesitantly nodded as she bandaged Blair’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  At night, you could usually hear crickets and frogs. But tonight, everything was quiet. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound. The moon was nearly at its peak, faint light illuminating our surroundings. But we still carried flashlights, hoping it would help us navigate through the woods.

  Behind me, I heard Troy whisper something to Seth, but before he could reply, Troy cried out in surprise.

  We all spun around, our weapons ready, watching. Troy was nowhere to be seen, which only made me more uncomfortable. Why was she playing with us? Why not come out and trade the girl for the cure? Maybe she realized Gary wasn’t with us.

  Cathal frowned as he gazed into the woods, slowly looking around, his nostrils flaring to take in the scents around us. At least it seemed the arrangement he had made with Ming-Na was now null and void. We needed him more than ever at this point, since he was stronger. I didn’t even know how to use my moon magic yet. I could feel it flowing through me, filling me with a cool wave of power. How to use it was a question I wished I had an answer for.

  “You killed my mate’s savior, so now I will kill you...”

  The whisper echoed around us. The sound was so eerie, almost unnatural, I was tempted to run back in the direction we had come. But I had to be strong. We needed to take her down before anyone else died.

  Something heavy landed on my shoulders, causing me to stumble. I tried to scream, but its warmth covered my face. I struggled hard, but it wouldn’t budge. In all directions, I heard inhuman screaming, almost as if in pain.

  “Demi!” Cathal screamed, but sounded like he was some distance away. Weren’t we just standing next to each other?

  The weight was suddenly lifted off me just as my brain began to shut down from lack of oxygen. I may have been immortal, but I still needed to breathe. I gasped.

  “Get off of her, you nasty bitch!” someone shouted. I didn’t recognize the voice, but I was grateful for the help.

  Retching at the sight of a spider on the ground at my feet, black blood pooling out of it, I looked up, seeing a man who looked somewhat familiar. He had dark hair and eyes. His goatee was neatly trimmed, framing full lips. The way he tracked my movements, the eerie shine in his eyes, told me he was something supernatural.

  He smiled down at me, offering a hand. “Spiders are terrible creatures.”

  I reached up, allowing him to help me to my feet.

  Looking around, I saw hundreds of large spiders running around. The clicking sound they made creeped me out. When I started running in the direction I thought I’d heard Cathal last, the man grabbed my arm.

  “You’re human. You should be somewhere safe.”

  “I’m a hunter. This bitch needs to find somewhere safe because I’m about to cut off her legs, one by one.”

  I started running, hearing him following close behind. I kept trying to think of why he looked familiar.

  Seeing Ming-Na in the distance, I yanked out my machete and started swinging through the piles of spiders that suddenly swarmed in my way. They screamed, their insides spraying my body and face. I wanted to vomit, but there was no time for that. I had to remain focused.

  The man walked next to me, grasping the spiders and splitting them in half. They were the size of large dogs, so I wasn’t sure how he could do it. I was having a hard enough time slicing through their bodies with my weapon.

  I glanced up and saw Cathal lying on the ground, Ming-Na’s spider form standing over him. Her fangs moved toward his head, but he swung, punching her chest. She screamed so loudly it hurt my ears.

  “You can’t fight me in your human form, Ming-Na? Are you that weak?” Cathal snarled, scrambling to his feet.

  Ming-Na laughed, skittering away from him. Behind them were people I didn’t recognize fighting the spiders. When I looked at the man next to me, he nodded at them.

  “Those are my people.”

  “Your father said we had to help.”

  I turned again and saw my birth mother. She looked at the man next to her, the one she claimed was my father. Maybe that was why he seemed so familiar.

  When I turned to look at Cathal again, I saw Ming-Na holding him in the air by his throat. My father threw several knives into her torso, but it didn’t seem to have any impact.

  There was a loud snap as she broke Cathal’s neck. I screamed, running in their direction, ignoring my parents yelling at me to stop. I held my hand to the side of my body, a white light forming, bolts of lightning shooting through it. I screamed as it shot from my hand and right at Ming-Na. When it hit her, she cried out in surprise and dropped Cathal’s body as she flew backwards. The force of the hit pulsed out like the shockwave of a bomb, causing everyone to go flying in all directions.

  “What did you do?!” Ming-Na screamed as she climbed to her feet, staring down at her body she could no longer transform. “What did you do?!”

  Surprised, and relieved, to see him climb to his feet, I watched as Cathal walked up to her, yanked her head back, and pierced her neck with his fangs. She cried out, struggling, but her strength did nothing for her now. It seemed my magic had taken her powers. Then Cathal started screaming, foaming at the mouth. His eyes turned completely black as he fell to his knees, face contorted in pain, Ming-Na’s body crumbling next to him. He went face first into the grass, lying still. I ran over, falling to my knees next to him.

  One by one, the spiders began to burst into flames. Ming-Na’s body crumbled to ash seconds later.

  A woman, frail and sickly looking, stumbled toward her, sobbing, “My love! My love!”

  She turned to me and grabbed my hand. When I tried to jerk away, she held fast. “Kill me, too!” She placed my hand to her face.

  My power began to grow, but
I forced it down. Just as it began to dissipate, my father came up behind her and snapped her neck. My mouth hung open as I stared at him, no words forming.

  “She wanted to die.” He shrugged. It was odd how the happiness I had seen in his eyes was now gone, his expression dead and cold. Something was off.

  When I looked around for my mother, I saw her several feet away, collapsed on the ground. I started to walk over to make sure she was okay, but then Cathal stirred and shouted something in another language as he looked around.

  As I cautiously walked over, his gaze fell on me and he pointed. “Witch!” he said, repeatedly, getting increasingly louder each time.

  “What? I am not a witch!” I knelt and grabbed him by the jaw, looking him in the eyes. “I’m Demi, the love of your life. Come back to me, Cathal, before I slap you in the face.”

  He blinked furiously, as if waking up from some kind of trance. “I’m sure that counts as abuse. I should file a report on the threat alone.”

  I stared at him, not sure what to say. When he grinned up at me, I threw my arms around his neck.

  “It was the weirdest thing. I felt like I was back in another time. You looked like the witch who freed me. I’m not sure what to make of it.” He frowned, looking around. “I feel amazing, though. Much stronger than before.”

  He turned back to me, then looked over my shoulder, frowning. “Marcus.”

  I turned to look at my father, who finally had a name. “Nice to see you after so many years, Cathal.” Marcus smiled, eyes still emotionless.

  “You guys know each other?”

  I couldn’t believe there was another vampire just as old as Cathal. When I saw my mother stir, I ran over and placed my hand on her back, helping her sit up.

  “You need to run, Demi,” she hissed. “Marcus is evil. You have to fucking get out of here.”

  Confused, I opened my mouth to ask her what she was talking about, but before I could, Marcus sped up to us, quickly reached down, and tore out my mother’s heart.

  “No!” I screamed.

  “She brought me to you. Now she can be at peace. No longer having to look over her shoulder to see if I’m watching.” He chuckled.

  “You act like you just did her a favor,” I snapped, scrambling to my feet.

  Marcus shrugged. “I turned her against her will. The least I could do is end it for her.”

  “But I just found her!”

  “You have me now. She served her purpose by helping that hunter open the cave in order to draw you out. Now that you’re here, we can be a family again.”

  “What?”

  “You are a sick bastard, Marcus. That was her mother!” Cathal raged, rushing toward him in a blur.

  Marcus winked at me and disappeared, along with all of his people. I spun around, looking everywhere. Where did he go?

  I STARED DOWN AT MY mother’s gravestone, tears running down my cheeks. I barely even knew her, yet I felt like I’d lost a piece of me. Everything that had happened over the last couple weeks seemed surreal. That maybe her being back in my life was a dream. But staring at the gravestone, I realized it was all too real.

  Cathal promised me we would go after Marcus, then warned me the vampire might even be older than him. The only reason Marcus wanted to find me was because I served some kind of purpose to him. I was afraid to find out what that was.

  We eventually rescued the girl from an abandoned building. Even though she wasn’t a wolf, the pack welcomed her. They also promised that it wasn’t the last we’d heard from them. I just rolled my eyes at that. I’d heard threats like that before, then took down the packs that said it.

  Seth told me he killed nearly a hundred spiders, yet they just kept coming. He was even bitten a few times. We weren’t sure if he would experience side effects, but as big as they were, he was lucky he didn’t lose an arm. I wasn’t sure how he survived, but when we found him, he was covered in their black blood and ash, breathing heavily.

  We discovered Troy passed out near a bench, a wound on his head. When he woke and we told him what had happened, he was pissed off he’d missed all the action.

  I knew I could have lost a lot more than I did. I was lucky to only lose my mother. I could have lost a brother, a friend, Cathal. Though, with everything that had happened to him over the years, he seemed to be immune to death.

  Then there was Blair, who Ruby told us had tried to kill herself with a silver bullet while we were gone. Luckily, Ruby stopped her in time. I wasn’t sure how my sister was going to get over the fact she was a werewolf now, but at least our minds had been opened to the good in some supernaturals.

  Cathal and I hadn’t known each other long, but experiencing what we did together... It had to be true love. When I asked him why I couldn’t feel his pain after he bit Ming-Na, he told me that all he thought about was shielding me. I had no idea that would work, but after sitting down and working through what I knew, I found that it was indeed possible. I wondered how many people had the same bond we did. Cathal said he thought we were the only ones, but even I knew that wasn’t true.

  “We’ll find Marcus,” Seth said, staring down at the headstone.

  “I’ll find anyone right now. I don’t care who.” Blair shook her head in anger. “Anyone will work right now.”

  Ruby and I both stared at our sister as she tried to work through her hatred. It would take a long time, but I hoped she would eventually come to terms with it.

  Sighing, I watched as my sisters and brother walked away. I saw Troy off in the distance, staring at me. He was still slightly pissed I had fallen for a vampire, but he gave me a small wave before turning around and walking off.

  Cathal pulled me to him, pressing his lips to my hair. It seemed our life had slowed down a bit...for now. I was afraid about what Marcus had planned. There was so much I didn’t know. Not even Cathal could tell me much about him, other than he had murdered thousands in the past. I didn’t want to know the gory details.

  “Just know that I will always be here for you, Demi. Always. You are my love, and my only goal is to be keep you happy and safe.”

  I smiled up at him, not thinking I’d ever hear those words come out of someone’s mouth. I could take care of myself, but having Cathal at my side made everything better.

  Looking down at my mother’s stone again, I pressed a hand to the top of it, shivering at how cold it was. Even though I didn’t know her very well, I would miss her.

  “We’ll get justice for you, Mom.”