by Melody Raven
Claire and Angela both frowned. Claire started to push herself with her good arm. “What does that even—” Before she could get the words out, Dante set a hand over her injury and she gasped in shock. Even though her mouth was open, it seemed as if no air was getting in.
Dante closed his eyes and let his head fall back. When he finally removed his hand, Claire and he were both blinking rapidly. She reached up to her shoulder and Dante shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t heal anything. I just made it feel like your arm isn’t going to fall off.”
She nodded even as she continued to raise her hand to the injury as though to test the boundaries of her newfound freedom. “You guys really didn’t need to track me down.”
“And you didn’t need to go to one of the busiest hospitals in the city to avoid us,” said Angela.
Claire looked down and her face contorted in guilt even as she remained silent. “You don’t know what happened.”
“No, but I know Abigail is planning something,” said Dante. “Sam needs you and she sent us to bring you back.”
Well, she technically sent Angela, not Dante, but Angela decided not to correct him. He had a deeper personal connection to Claire, no matter the end result of their relationship, and she didn’t want to get in the middle of that.
“She’s coming? Is Sam okay?”
“We don’t know because we’re here talking to you and not with her right now,” said Angela, going heavy on the guilt trip. She was taking a page out of Dante’s book. They didn’t have time to play fair right now.
“I....” Claire took a shaky breath. “You don’t understand. I can’t go back. I can’t be around Derek.”
“All right,” said Angela carefully. “But you and Sam are close, right? Really close? So if you’re going to bail on her, don’t you owe her an explanation?”
Claire let out a bitter laugh. “It’s too late for explanations.”
Angela shifted her weight to stand closer to Dante, and lowering the crystal, she let her hand brush his until he realized what she was telling him. Instead of simply taking the crystal from her, he turned his hand and intertwined his fingers with hers, the crystal warming against both of their palms.
“Well, you’re going to have to tell her that yourself.” Dante put his other hand on Claire’s good shoulder. And before the girl could even ask what was happening, the three of them were shifting through space together.
Derek stood next to Bastian as he watched the man shuffle forward. He looked at his phone, but there was no word from Sam. She’d been so damn interested in what was happening with Garrett just a few minutes ago and now she was MIA. He knew her well enough to realize that she wasn’t running from a fight, but he wished she’d told him what she was thinking.
Though, in this case, it might be a time-sensitive thing. Garrett just reached the gate then and put his hand on the wrought iron. Bastian said that the sentries had helped to spell it so it should be stronger than it looked, but that by no means made it impenetrable. Bastian pulled his sword out and Derek could hear the successive unsheathing of the five sentries who stood behind them. Derek was more hesitant to draw his Glock because Garrett was someone he actually knew, but he wasn’t willing to take any chances.
Physically, Garrett appeared to be fine. There were no wounds or signs of injury. His eyes were vacant and dark, and his steps were staggering and just a smidge off from human. Derek braced himself as Garrett kept reaching through the gate. And then.... He just stopped.
Derek wanted to see whether Bastian and the new guys were as weirded out by this as he was, but he refused to take his eyes off the strange sight of the possessed man standing motionless.
From where Derek was, Garrett didn’t even seem to be breathing.
There was finally motion, but it wasn’t from Garrett. Derek whipped around to see Sam slowly approaching the group of men. He narrowed his eyes at her but didn’t see any evidence of her recent excursion. So he didn’t beat around the bush and flat out asked her, “Where did you go?”
“I was looking for Claire. I don’t want us to be separated right now.”
Derek felt a chill race up his spine at the mere mention of her. Not fear, but a visceral memory that seemed to be etched into every nerve ending about what had happened the last time he’d been with the girl.
“Any luck finding her?”
Sam just shook her head as her eyes bounced back to Garrett. He could tell she was trying to remain dispassionate, but a flash of concern crossed her eyes before she found her center. “What is he doing?”
“Trying to throw us off our game,” said Bastian, his sword still gripped tightly in his hand. “He could be a distraction.”
Derek was inclined to agree, but.... “One guy isn’t that much of a distraction.”
As though the man could hear him, Garrett fell to his knees on the driveway, landing so hard the soft thud echoed through the eerily quiet night.
He fell forward, a palm landing flat on the concrete, and, curling his fingers, gouged deep rivets into the driveway. Derek winced. Even though there had to be magic assisting him, it still looked damn painful.
Then he started to cough. That wasn’t a strong enough word. His entire body convulsed as the darkness started to ooze out of his body, falling into the gouges he’d made.
Nope. Derek knew Garrett and Sam had a past, but he had already waited too long. He held up his gun and fired off a shot into his chest.
It was like shooting a tree. He could see where the bullet hit, but the man didn’t move at all. Just kept pumping more of the dark ooze into the ground.
Derek aimed his Glock once more, but the ground beneath him started to tremble, and he couldn’t get a good aim. The sentries and Sam all took a step back as various mounds started to form under the concrete, pushing up until the hard rock crumbled.
“What the fuck....”
One by one, the mounds grew until barely defined man-shaped objects remained.
“That’s new,” breathed Sam. But she must’ve learned a lesson from Garrett too, because she didn’t wait around to see them move. She held her palm out to the one closest to her and let out a shot of fire. Although the man in front of her crumbled to pieces, the fire seemed to activate all the others as they rushed at their group.
Derek aimed at the first one and took a shot for center mass, but it only slowed the guy down for a second. However, when Bastian swung his sword at the thing’s neck, that seemed like a more permanent fix. The other sentries made short work of the rock soldiers, and then they all just stood there, waiting to see whether it was really that easy.
Garrett was lying motionless on the street and seemed to be in some state of unconsciousness. Derek was just starting to lower his gun when he heard it. “What’s that?” he asked.
It was a steady rumble, like a scratching. Then, out of the darkness, Derek saw them. More of the rock soldiers. Not just the dozen or so that had approached before, but this time there seemed to be hundreds. His backup magazine wasn’t going to be near enough to handle this. Bastian, as though reading his mind, tossed a sword to Derek. It was so unexpected that Derek’s delayed response almost led to a sword through the arm, but he just managed to catch it in time as he glared at Bastian.
“You’re going to need it,” said the guard.
“No, he’s not.” Sam stepped forward in front of everyone and put a hand through the gates. Then, instead of a spark of flame around her hands, her entire body seemed to ignite before she sent a plume of flame shooting down the drive. The light was so bright that everything around them was illuminated as though it were high noon for a moment, which also revealed the sheer number of enemies. Sam was able to hit almost everyone except for a few manageable stragglers.
Right before Derek could breathe a sigh of relief, he heard it again. The rumble of hundreds more. “How many could there be?”
“When magic is involved? Who knows.”
He turned in surprise at Dante’s voice, but bef
ore he even completed the turn, he was hit with a headache that made his knees forget what they were made for. As he started to sway, an arm went around his back and he saw it was Angela. Fuck. Whatever was happening with Claire was getting stronger.
Claire was in a hospital gown and appeared even paler than usual. Her injured shoulder was wrapped up, but Derek knew gunshots weren’t an easy thing. Every move had to be agony for her. “Claire,” he got out before he had to grit his teeth.
She stepped back with fear evident in her eyes. Not fear for the army coming after them, but fear for what she was doing to him. He tried to open his mouth to reassure her, but no sound came out.
“We were onto something before Garrett got here,” said Sam suddenly. “I think Bastian is right. This is a distraction. Stay here and guard the gate for as long as you can. They’ll get through it eventually.”
Bastian nodded, but the look he gave Derek was anything but reassuring. “What are you going to do?”
The question was out of character for him. Normally he was given an order and followed it blindly. But then Derek remembered that part of the price for bringing Bastian back was that he was doomed to follow every whim of the woman who brought him back—in his case, Claudia. Considering Sam had already tried to get him to agree to things he knew to be wrong, but he had been able to say no, that was one side effect he’d avoided. Hopefully. Who knew what tricks magic still had in store.
“The darkness isn’t going to be far behind. Those guys are just the warm-up. I’m going to make sure we’re ready for it.” Sam took Derek’s hand and led him up the driveway. Each step away from Claire allowed him to regain strength, and by the time they reached the house, he was basically himself again.
Derek moved his weight off Sam but kept his hand on her shoulder, not wanting to stop touching her. “So what are we actually doing?”
“We’re going to try to get the attention of the boss. Whatever is in Abigail right now has been messing up over and over again, right? So we need to get her in trouble with the man upstairs. Or downstairs. Don’t really know how this works.”
“How do you get in contact?” He assumed there wasn’t a phone or anything they could call.
Sam glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Well, that’s where you come in. You’re our way to contact the darkness.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“When Claudia brought you back, she used dark magic to do it. So theoretically, with you, I can get to the darkness. But it’s not going to be easy.” She opened the door to the front of the house and started to lead him deeper and deeper.
“What do I need to do?”
“Nothing.” Sam frowned. “At least I don’t think. I’ve never done this before.”
“What’s the first step then?” He was supposed to be pulling this off; he should know exactly what Sam was going to do. Even if she didn’t know, maybe he could help her. That was what he was there for, right? To help. He was sick of sitting back on the sidelines and being useless. Between not being able to do any work and being utterly useless against the darkness, he was ready to step up and earn his keep.
Sam opened her mouth, but before she could answer him, her eyes widened in fear, an expression he so rarely saw on her face. He reached for his gun, but it was too late. A second later, he smashed against the wall, his head bouncing off the hard surface. The last thing he saw as blackness creeped in on his vision was the pursed lips of Abigail Harris as she looked over him dispassionately.
Derek’s eyes opened and he pushed himself up, ready to fight. But the scene in front of him didn’t make sense. Sam was there and so was Abigail, but they weren’t right. Instead of yelling at each other or throwing magical blows around, they were utterly still. Standing as though frozen.
He glanced around him and closed his eyes. There was no sound. It wasn’t Sam and Abigail who were frozen. It was time itself.
“Wrong again,” said a familiar voice.
Standing in the previously empty space between Sam and Abigail was the woman from earlier. The woman he’d seen in the vision at the ghost town. “Is this real?” He blinked, trying to make the line between magic and reality clear, but it did nothing to answer his questions.
“What’s real anyway?” asked the woman, obviously not caring to clear anything up.
Derek reached for his gun, only to find his holster empty. The woman stared at him dispassionately, and he had the feeling that she knew his every move. Screw this. He wasn’t going to beat around the bush any longer. “What do you want?”
She blinked a few times as though he’d actually managed to surprise her. “What do I want? It’s not my wants that drove us here, Detective.”
“Then let me go.” He pointed to Sam. “She’s going to need me.”
“Their fighting goes on as we speak. She doesn’t need you to help her die.”
At the thought of Sam dying as he stood there doing nothing, Derek lost it. He charged at the woman, only to be consumed by a sudden burning in his chest. No, not his chest. It was now radiating out through his entire body as though every one of his veins had turned to molten lava and was inching through his system.
He collapsed to his knees.
The woman looked down at him with a blank expression on her face. “I made you. I break you. Stop pretending otherwise.”
Derek winced through the pain and forced his leg muscles to work. He pushed himself up one leg at a time, and he stood, staring down the woman. “Break me if you want. Let me get to Sam.”
The woman tilted her head. “Your witch would never do the same for you.”
“If you think that, then you’re stupider than you look. Sam has gone to hell and fucking back for me.”
The woman tilted her head and curled her lips, her amusement the first real expression she’d shown since he’d seen her. “Hell is relative.” A second later, she was in front of him, her hand pressing against his chest. Unlike the fire shooting through all of his nerves, her touch was cold, like a bucket of ice water being poured on the flame. Still painful but in an entirely different way.
Derek winced but tried to hide how much it was affecting him as he stared her down. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“You came here to ask me to cut down one of my own. I’m here to strike a deal. If I kill my own, what do I get in return?”
Derek found himself frozen, and not just from her ice-cold touch. What could he offer the devil herself?
“Derek!” shouted Sam as he fell to the ground.
“He’s fine,” said Abigail, not even looking in his direction. “He is important. You, on the other hand.... Did you know that she’s still here?”
Sam wanted to run to where Derek was lying still, but on the other hand, she figured that the less attention on him, the better. His chest was rising and falling, so she had to hope that whatever Abigail had done to him was only temporary.
“Yes,” continued the thing in Abigail’s body. “Your mother is still inside, screaming for attention. She didn’t know what she was getting into when she agreed to work with me. And, out of a sign of gratefulness, I allowed you to live and exist. That was me being nice. Well, I’m not going to be nice anymore, Sam. You’re no longer necessary.”
And, as much as she hated to admit it, she had a much more pressing problem to deal with. She was alone in the house with the darkness. No Derek. No Claire. No Bastian. Just her and her possessed mother, who she had never stood a chance against so far.
She took a gulp and swallowed down her fear even as she could feel a tremor start to race through her hands.
But it wasn’t just fear. Sure, she was afraid, but it was more than that. It was anger that she was put in this position. She felt guilt that she’d put Derek in danger yet again. Love that he’d followed her through thick and thin, even when he should’ve known better.
And then, beneath all of those emotions, was the rush of power. She had never stood a chance against the darkness be
fore, but she had never been as flush with magic or in control as she was right at this minute.
Which meant this was the perfect minute to kick the darkness right back to the hell it came from.
She held out a hand and sent her power shooting out, focusing the magic like a punch. This time, the darkness didn’t hold her ground. Abigail slid back a few feet before she waved a hand through the magic.
Sam felt it like a ripple effect and a burning going up through her arm that ended in an electrical shock that reverberated through her whole body. She blinked in surprise, and that was all it took for the darkness to send a blast of energy at her powerful enough to have her flying across the room and sending her body careening into the wall.
“Even Claudia herself wasn’t strong enough for us.” Abigail approached.
“Is she strong enough for me?” A second later, a wooden beam crashed down on Abigail. Sam was able to push herself up in time to see Claire walk in. She looked rough. Not only was her bandaged shoulder bleeding, but her forehead was bleeding and she was coated in a black dusting, which had to be remnants of whatever army Abigail had sent in.
“What happened?” asked Sam.
“Dante managed some barrier spell that’s holding them back. But it’s only going to hold for so long. They keep on coming, Sam. Whatever mojo she worked, I don’t think the few of us are going to stop it. We need to stop her.”
Sam’s heart leapt in her chest as she looked down at where Abigail lay unconscious. In sleep, she didn’t look like darkness incarnate. She looked like her mother. The woman who had stood by her through all the years of failed magic attempts and through the tragedies that followed. Even though they hadn’t always agreed on everything, there had been a deep love there.
But maybe it was finally time for her to admit defeat. She couldn’t win this war. She couldn’t get her mother back. She couldn’t give Claire the happily ever after she so desperately wanted to.
“Claire, I—” Before she could even consider trying to say the words she knew she would never be able to find, the flames started. In one big whoosh, all the walls around them ignited. Sam sucked in a breath. She and Claire both stepped toward the center of the room and away from the flames.
