by Alina Banks
Alex didn’t seem too bothered about walking in the darkness, but James still created one of his balls of light, which was something I was more than grateful for. The forest was darker than it had been, as if the choices that were being made within the forest were changing it. I didn’t know how likely that was, and yet, as we made our way through the trees, I was certain I could feel the black magic that had been used by the demon’s minion. Magic that was there to open a door to the demon realm.
I breathed in deep and focused on putting one foot in front of another. Each step I took was one step closer to the cabin and one step closer to the monster that had tried to kill Sabrina. I was going to kill it, because I really didn’t believe there was another option.
Upon reaching the cabin, I could feel the waves of magic emanating from it. Whoever the minion had killed must have been strong. I raked a hand through my hair before forcing myself to reach for the handle. As I touched it, I felt a spark of power, the same as before. I didn’t focus on it. There was no reason to. I knew what it was, what it meant. Instead, I pulled the door open so we could look into the cabin once more.
There were sigils everywhere, but this time, they were pulsing with power. My heart pounded heavily in my chest and I stepped over the threshold. I felt the power wrapping around me, as though it knew exactly who I was. My attention shifted to the sigils. I inspected them closely and remembered the time I’d spent reading my grandmother’s book on demons, and I realized I knew what almost all of them meant. It was tempting to scrub them away with another magic, but with Alex there, I knew I shouldn’t.
James and Alex were both in the cabin with me, so I took a moment to send out my senses, to check to see if there was anyone, or anything, around. Then, I looked at the two of them. James gave me a nod. I knew he could feel something similar to me, but Alex…he was staring at the sigils in a way that worried me. I took a step closer to him, gently touched his shoulder, and he looked at me. “I’ve seen these before.” He pulled the sword from his sheath, and the way it lit up almost blinded me. From the way Alex stared at it, I didn’t think he could see it. “Is this a bad sign?”
I carefully took the sword from him. In my hands, it wasn’t anywhere near as bright. I looked at the sigils on it. I could see what Alex meant when he said they were similar, but they weren’t the same. I ran a finger over them.
“You don’t have anything to worry about. This sword, I think, was created specifically to deal with the kinds of beings who use the darker sigils.” My eyes met Alex’s. The way he stared at me told me I’d probably said too much. “Mom taught me a little bit about what those sigils meant, if I needed to take her place. I’d need to know stuff like this.” I gestured at the cabin. “These are incredibly dark, and from the looks of things, set up to gather the power of those who died.” I looked back at the sword. “These are light, strong, and mean something entirely different. I can’t tell you exactly what, but I could look into them later on, if that would help put your mind at ease.”
“I’d like that.” He smiled at me. “You know so much more than I do about these kinds of things.”
“Yeah, she does.” James stepped over to the two of us. “I don’t know if you guys noticed, but something opened when Alex took the sword from its sheath. I heard the tiniest of clicks. We should look into what that is.”
I gestured for James to lead the way and handed the sword back to Alex. “Keep it out for now, just in case we still need it. Once we’ve found whatever it is, you should be able to put it away.”
If not for James, I’m certain we wouldn’t have found what we were looking for. He was the one who opened the hidden trapdoor, and it filled the room with a scent I never wanted to smell again. The three of us looked at each other. “We don’t have any other choice.” Fortunately for us, we were looking down a set of rough stairs, rather than a ladder. If things went wrong, it would have been much harder for us to get back up the ladder. “Let’s go down there, and see what we can find.”
I was the one who led the way, and one of James’ balls of light bounced in front of me. Had it not been there, I’m certain I would have fallen down the steps. The further down we got, the worse the smell became. It was blood and brimstone and so many other things I’d never smelled. I did question how I knew it was brimstone. Somehow, I just knew.
Finally, we reached the bottom of the steps, and the moment we did, I immediately wished we hadn’t. Right in front of me was the door that led to the demon realms. The magic coming off it made me feel sick, but I pushed aside that feeling as best I could.
I stepped towards the door and focused on my power. Maybe that’s what drew the demon closer, because moments later, it was in front of me.
“Oh, how nice. A Conway witch.” When I glanced back, I was relieved to see that neither James or Alex were paying any attention to the demon. “They can’t see me. You’re the only one who can, because of what you are, and I can see you, because you’re in a place that’s closer to me than you realize.” It laughed. “You’re in a very dangerous position, young one. I know who you are and how much you know about what you are, and I know exactly why you shouldn’t be down here where my minion could easily kill you. With your power, he could easily pop this door right open, and the annoying coven isn’t here. I can do whatever I want to this town, finally, should this door be opened.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
It laughed. “You aren’t going to be able to stop it. You are young, and you are weak, and my minion is going to kill you. Or maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll drain you just enough to open the door, and then, when I come out, I can claim you.” It smiled. “You are related to my first born, you know? My first true daughter, born of demon and human. I was hoping she would be much more demon than she turned out, because if she had been, I doubt I’d be in this position now. I would have been able to use her to claim this town for my very own, and then I would have been able to do whatever I wanted to the demon realms. But she turned against me, along with all the others, and now I’m alone, apart from my minions. You may well be the one I’ve been searching for all this time. My Princess. My true heir.” It shrugged. “Or maybe you’ll just be another disappointment, like all the rest.”
A sound came from the top of the stairs, and I shared a look with Alex and James. “We aren’t alone.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Moments later, a creature charged down the stairs on all fours, almost like a dog. The three of us stepped closer to each other, so we were in a small formation. From behind me, I could hear the demon laughing, but I did my best to ignore it, because if I paid too much attention to him, it was going to distract me from what I needed to do - kill the minion, and slam the door shut on the demon.
The creature stopped at the base of the stairs and looked almost amused at the three of us. Hours before, Alex and I had done what we could to protect James. Now, the three of us were standing in the lair of the minion, and I knew it thought it would have a fun time of killing the three of us.
Instead, my own certainty in what I was doing greater than it had ever been before, I took a step towards it, and threw out a spell. All I needed was to say one word, and then the magic was hurtling towards it. Magic created by two generations of Conway witches. Unfortunately, it realized what was coming at it, so it moved to one side, making the spell hit one arm instead of the whole body. That arm became human. Naked, and human.
With a shake, the arm was back to how it was before. Fortunately for me, I wasn’t alone. I had two companions who both had their own magic, even if one hadn’t quite realized it yet. Alex stood, sword still in the sheath.
“You aren’t strong enough down here, little witch. This is my space, and you will come to understand what that means soon enough. You are one of my strongest descendants. I might even say you are the strongest, and turning you to darkness…it would well be worth the time it takes to do such a thing. Do not kill the witch. I want her. She belongs to me
now. You can kill the other two, and then I want to be out of this door. The sooner the better.”
As I expected, the minion threw himself at us, and the two guys went in two different directions. Somehow, I managed to grab the sword from Alex’s sheath as he moved, standing my ground as the minion sprinted for me, hoping the light from the blade would blind it for a moment. Fortunately for me, it did, giving me that same moment to prepare for what was coming next. Seconds later, I was literally underneath the creature, looking up into its face. it looked back down at me, and I saw the slightest hint of humanity still in his eyes. Maybe it was enough. Tossing the sword in the direction of Alex, I studied the minion. Right then, my job was to distract it for as long as possible, while James and Alex worked out what to do next.
“Do you really want to do this?” I kept my voice quiet. “How did you even end up on this path? If I’m right about who you are, you have a good job and no reason to throw it away to help a demon.” I shook my head. “You’re killing students, because that’s easier than killing adults, considering where you are most of the time. I assume it makes it easier for you to work out who your next victim should be, but you made a mistake with Dante. Him being with Wayde…it’s something you should have expected. The two of them were always together, and yet you still made your move, which drew attention to you. Maybe not from other people, but from me, and that is something you shouldn’t have done. I have nothing against killing you. I have no connection to you, and whatever mercy the witches showed before isn’t something I’m likely to show, because of the choices you’ve made. I want you dead, so that everyone else can be safe.”
“Choices are an illusion.” A slightly mutated version of Principal Woods’s voice come out of the minion and sent chills down my spine. “I did what I had to do, Miss Price, which is something you will soon come to understand.”
Before he had a chance to do anything to me, either James or Alex grabbed him and pulled him away from me. With my new freedom, I took a moment to think of Miss Cane, in the hope I’d learned enough about being able to send messages to other witches to be able to get her to where we were, before focusing on the minion once more, who was doing what he could to attack both James and Alex. James not being in his other form wasn’t entirely a surprise, but he was still moving the same way a kitsune would. Alex was moving in a similar way, even being a human, which was something I put down to the sword more than anything. I didn’t yell at them, not wanting to distract them. Instead, I turned to the door. Getting that closed had to be my priority. It was almost open.
“Let me out.” The demon stared at me, as though that was going to do something more than just its words. “I could teach you so much. You could have anything you want, Ana, if you just let me into your world. I can teach you how to open the door without having to sacrifice anyone, because all the power you could ever need is within you. You could be amazing.”
“I don’t need you to be amazing.” I thought back to the lesson Grandmother had given me and looked at the sigils that created the door, which was a part of the wall. Someone had done a lot to create the hidden space below the cabin, and from the looks of things, it wasn’t new. It had been there for a while, making me wonder who’d built it, why they made that choice, and whether or not someone had deliberately constructed it to help the demon into our world. “All I need do is to learn how to wield the magic I was born with, which really shouldn’t be that hard.”
Breathing in deeply, taking a couple of seconds to glance back at Alex and James, I thought once more about how I needed to close the door. What I needed to do was take the power from them one at a time, in the right order. Otherwise, I was probably going to end up blowing myself up. I bit down hard on my lip. I remembered the first three sigils, but after that, my memory was a little fuzzy. I could feel the demon trying to steal enough magic from the room to shove himself through, and I couldn’t let that happen.
Pressing the first three sigils was easy. I could feel the power beginning to leave the door, which was exactly what I wanted, but then, the fourth one…I closed my eyes for a moment, watching as Grandmother went through the sigils, and as I did, I connected with the magic that was used to create the door. I could feel how it had been gathered. I could feel that it had been there for a long time, far longer than anyone had known, and that was part of the reason Principal Woods had been chosen. I probably wouldn’t be able to remove the door for good, but I could work on bringing it down for now, and that would be enough. At least, for the time being.
Suddenly, I was being pinned to the wall in front of me, and I knew it was Principal Woods. “No.”
Before I had time to think, I lashed out with my elbow, hitting his bony ribs. Granted, it took me another couple of seconds to remember where I was, and then I gathered my power again. Only I was far closer to the door than I wanted to be, and the demon, with a chuckle, started to steal some of that magic. Pushing aside my anger, I focused on my belief that I was making the right choices, in the hope that would mean the demon wouldn’t be able to steal my power, and then, not even certain what spell I was using, I pushed my power behind me. Principal Woods was no longer pinning me to the wall after that. It wasn’t until I turned, that I realized I’d managed to throw him across the room. Now, he was furious. I knew that his anger would make him even more dangerous. Yet, I knew I couldn’t focus on him. I needed to focus on the demon, on the door, and on how I was going to keep him from being able to push his way into Clermont.
“There was a time in the not so distant past when I killed your grandmother. She was strong. Almost as strong as you. And I remember a time when I used to visit her dreams, to convince her she was meant to work with me, but she was never willing to listen. What she wanted was to kill me, even though she knew how hard it was to kill a demon. Knowing that, I decided to kill her instead. The same way I’ll kill you, should you choose to work against me. You might be my favored one because of who you are related to, but that doesn’t mean I won’t kill you in order to find my way back to Clermont. Did you know, the town was actually mine to begin with? I was the one who found the power source and drew people here, so that they would strengthen it. Only then, the first of the Canes was born with the ability to use that power, and they made the decision to protect it. At the time, they didn’t even know I existed, but they still made that choice.”
“If we had to make that choice again, things would work out the same way.” It was a relief to hear Miss Cane’s voice. “You are not coming into this world, I promise you that.”
“Don’t make choices you may later regret, Rebecca. You still have a chance.”
Miss Cane took my hand and laughed. “The only thing I want to do is close this door.”
Gently, she guided my hand around the sigils and murmured their names in my ear as she did. Finally, the last of the power left the door, and I stood there staring at a wall, every part of my body aching in a way it had never ached before. I knew that closing the door would take everything I had, but I didn’t know how that would affect me physically. Miss Cane supported my weight and helped me turn, which was when I saw Principal Woods on the ground, his head a couple of meters away from his body. When I looked at Alex, he was frozen as he stared down at the sword. Its bloody blade glinted in the candlelight. I breathed in deeply. It was over. Somehow. I looked at James, and he gave me a relieved nod.
“Clean the blade, Alex.” I didn’t even realize I was speaking until I heard my own voice. “I know this is a lot to take in right now, but you made the right decision, and I don’t know how to thank you for that.”
“You did.” Miss Cane sounded like she was smiling, but I didn’t have the energy to look. “He would have killed you if you didn’t kill him first. This is not a choice to feel guilty for.”
“What happened?” Alex looked at me. “What did I kill?”
At that point, it would have been so easy for me to babble out the whole truth, because I didn’t have the energy to stop m
yself. Fortunately, I think Miss Cane realized that, because she started to lead me toward the stairs. “That is a conversation for us to have away from here. I’m not sure if you noticed, but Ana isn’t feeling too good right now, and the best thing we can do is to get her out of here.”
Nodding, Alex cleaned the blade on a piece of fabric he seemed to have pulled out of his pocket, and then he was next to me. He wrapped an arm around my waist, taking my weight from Miss Cane. She let him do it, which wasn’t something I had a problem with. I knew she had to be as tired as I was after closing the door on the demon, but she was noticeably better at dealing with it. Slowly, the four of us made our way back up the never-ending staircase until we reached the cabin where Mom was waiting. From the looks of things, she’d been gathering up books and a few other trinkets that Principal Woods had probably used to give the door more power. For a few seconds, she just stared at me, and suddenly, she was hugging me.
“I was so worried about you, Ana. Please don’t do something like this without warning me again.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
From the way my arm looked, it was obvious that I’d been too focused on doing what needed to be done to notice that Principal Woods had managed to do quite a bit more damage than I realized. It was healing quickly, fortunately. That was helped by the magic of Miss Cane, because the sooner it healed, the better it was for all of us. There was still so much we needed to do - partly to make sure that door could never be used again. We’d need all three of us to work on shutting it down entirely. All I’d done was slam it closed for a little while, so the demon wouldn’t be able to come through that specific door. There were other doors he could use, but Miss Cane didn’t think that was going to happen any time soon. By slamming the door the way we had, we’d taken a lot of the power he’d managed to gather. It would take him a while to gather up enough to connect with someone in Clermont.
