Chosen

by Connor Ashley

  Poe dove at Caleb, talons flashing, and Kiva gripped the chains in her mighty jaws and snapped the metal, freeing Dani from the chair. Dani rushed the young necromancer currently aiming a dagger at Jasper, catching him around the ribs and pummeling him into the ground near the cauldron. She hit the hooded man again and again and again until his eyes rolled back in his head. Dani stood and grabbed the cauldron, not caring that the metal seared her palms, and tipped the boiling contents over the man.

  The necromancer screamed, and she screamed with him. His pain and her rage filled the room as the potion slipped past the man’s lips and boiled his lungs.

  “Stay away from here,” Dani called to the remaining Ink, gesturing to the pool spreading underneath her boots. “Understood?”

  We must hurry, Danika, Poe snapped at her, and the comfort of his usual bossy attitude nearly had Dani in tears. There are more.

  Before Dani could ask what exactly there was more of, the cellar door burst open and wild demons and robed necromancers stormed down the stairs.

  A demon rushed Dani, fangs protruding past its lower lip. She ducked and used her subsequent upward momentum to power a vicious uppercut that caught the monster beneath the chin. It staggered back, right into Kiva’s jaws. Her fangs sank into his shoulder, puncturing his chest. The demon shuddered and fell still.

  “Dani!”

  The voice echoed everywhere around her, but she couldn’t place which of the Ink called to her. The voice came again, louder and more insistent this time, and she realized it wasn’t inside her head. It was coming from further in the basement.

  She glanced back at the fray, hesitant to leave. “Do you have this?” she asked Kiva, who was prowling before her as Jasper grew to at least twenty feet long and wrapped tight around one of the necromancers, squeezing the life from her body.

  We have it covered, child. Go.

  “Don’t kill Pam. Lana’s still in there. And don’t let Jasper eat Caleb,” Dani called and took off toward the sound of her name. At the far end of the cellar, a small hallway branched off to the right. She squeezed through, wishing she had more than her fists and her fury as weapons.

  When the hall opened up, she found a series of cells. The center cage was the only occupied one in the room, and on the other side of the bars was Raj.

  “Oh, thank god,” he said, crumbling against the bars. “You’re alive.”

  Dani stalked toward the cell, her arm burning with unbearable pain now that adrenaline wasn’t pumping so thoroughly through her system. “God had nothing to do with it.” When she got close, she noticed the blood on Raj’s clothes. The bruising already coloring his warm brown skin. The swelling around his eye. “You look like hell.”

  Raj ignored the poisoned barb in her voice. “You have to let me out.”

  “Why?” Dani tried to cross her arms, but the pain made her cry out. Her wounds weren’t healing, not fast enough.

  “What happened?” Raj looked her over, his gaze catching on her bloody arm. “What did they do to you?”

  Dani stepped away, suddenly wary. She didn’t have any of the Ink there to back her up. Was this all an act? Another trap? A failsafe in case their first plan fell through?

  “Let me help you, Dani. Please.” Raj reached through the bars. “Give me your hand.”

  Slowly, cautiously, she approached the cell. She raised her ruined arm as high as she could, and Raj caught the back of her wrist and supported her arm’s weight. “This might feel weird,” he said, but he didn’t give Dani time to question him. His eyes glowed white, and her burned skin went cool and started stitching itself back together.

  Before her arm was fully healed, Raj cried out and dropped her wrist. Angry blisters had formed along his skin, in the same places her burns had been.

  “You can heal?” Dani asked, incredulous. “How?”

  “Long story.” Raj grit his teeth and clutched his arm to his chest. “You have to let me out. There are dozens of demons here. You won’t be able to fight them all on your own.”

  Dani felt herself hesitate, but she looked from her arm to his, at the pain he’d willingly absorbed from her. “Where are the keys?”

  Raj pointed to a little nook in the wall behind her. “I think they put everything there.”

  Dani approached the shelving carved into the stone wall. While she didn’t see any keys, a beautiful sight glinted back at her. The Glock.

  “Stand back,” she said and slid the second clip she’d loaded earlier into the gun.

  “No. Wait!”

  She fired, the bullet shattering the lock on the cell. Raj flinched away and cautiously stepped out once he realized he was still in one piece. He moved gingerly, his body more badly beaten than Dani had first guessed.

  “Are you sure you can fight?”

  Raj turned and traced a pattern in the air, drawing another of his demonic shields. He shoved his hands forward, and his magic crushed the cells.

  “Why the hell couldn’t you do that before?”

  “There were wards inside the cells,” he said, turning and limping quickly down the hallway back toward the main room where the Ink still fought the onslaught of demons and necromancers. “I tried everything to get free when I heard you scream.”

  Tears blurred Dani’s vision, and she hurried past Raj so he wouldn’t see. In her haste, she was the first to emerge into the main part of the basement. The floor was littered with demons and necromancers, and Jasper was currently halfway through consuming what looked like the remains of a nightmare demon, its black talons still visible near its waist. Poe sat on Caleb’s still chest while Kiva prowled before a cornered Lana.

  “Huh,” Raj said, resting against the wall. “I guess you don’t need me after all.”

  “Guess not,” Dani agreed, but there was no malice in her words. The only emotion left in her was a bottomless well of grief. Silas should be there, fighting Jasper over the nightmare demon. Those were always his favorite. He said they tasted minty.

  Dani kneeled before Spencer’s uncle, and a cold wave of power shivered through her when he stared back with unadulterated fear.

  Still, he played at bravery. “You’ll pay for this,” he said, even as his voice trembled. “She will stop you.”

  “Who, Pam?” Dani glanced at the succubus, who kept trying to pet Kiva, despite the way the panther snapped at her hand each time. “Not once I take this.”

  Dani shoved her fingers into Caleb’s eye socket. Her blood-soaked fingers struggled to grip the slimy orb as Caleb thrashed beneath her, but she finally found the base and tore with all her strength.

  Her stomach clenched as the cluster of nerves and connective tissue ripped away, but Dani let grief wash away any guilt over harming someone who was technically human. She stood with Caleb’s eye clutch gently in her hand while the man screamed and writhed on the floor, clutching his face. “Think this will work for the amulet?”

  Raj nodded, looking a little queasy. “It should.”

  “Great.” She stood and pointed at Pam. “Let’s go.” Kiva led them all up the stairs, Poe riding on her shoulders, still breathing heavily.

  “I like this one,” Pam said, still trying to burying her hands in Kiva’s fur. “Come here, kitty.”

  Kiva growled and snapped her jaws. Jasper, finished with his demon, let out a moan and burst into Ink, wrapping back around Lana’s left arm, too full to move.

  Tears stung at Dani’s eyes as she took in the contrast between her arms. Her left bearing Jasper’s form, the right now scabbed over, a mottled graveyard where Silas once lived. She blinked the emotion away, forcing herself to swallow it down.

  She still had work to do.

  14

  Dani sat at Raj’s kitchen counter, nursing a glass of scotch. In a shining crystal wine glass, Caleb’s hastily extracted eyeball waited for his nephew Spencer to arrive. Dani glanced at it between sips of the amber liquid, trying to fortify her frayed nerves. The ex-necromancer had asked her to hit his uncle, but
that didn’t mean he wanted Dani to rip off body parts.

  “I can offer you anything,” a once-sultry voice begged from behind her. “Anything. Don’t do this. Please.”

  “You have nothing I want, demon.” Dani peered over her shoulder. The succubus had worked steadily through the stages of grief, her anger finally giving way to bargaining.

  “Ignore her,” Raj said, returning after a quick pop upstairs to shower and change. The blood had washed away, but the bruising remained. Dani’s gaze lingered over the fresh white bandages on his forearm, where he’d absorbed some of her pain to help speed along her own healing. She wondered what he bargained away for the ability to heal others at the expense of hurting himself.

  The more she learned about Raj, the more questions she had. And the more she realized the image she had of necromancers—an image that looked a lot like Caleb, actually—was far from the whole truth of who they were.

  Raj stopped on the other side of the kitchen island and poured himself a drink, tossing it back with a hiss. “She’ll be gone soon enough.”

  “But I know things,” Pam insisted. “I can help you fight the underworld! I know more about demons than a hundred necromancers could ever hope to know.” She paused, and Dani could feel the demon’s gaze on her back. “I could teach him how to make your toes curl in bed.”

  Despite the concerned—and more than a little embarrassed—look Raj gave her, Dani swiveled to face the succubus. “Can you bring back Silas?” she asked, her tone flat.

  Pam’s lower lip trembled. “He’s gone. There’s no bringing him back.”

  “Then you have nothing I want.”

  “Sorry I’m late!” A moment later, Spencer came careening around a corner, his dark curls—back to their original deep blue—lay in a haphazard mess on his head. He sat a still-bubbling vial on the counter. “This stuff does not travel easily. Do you have the blood?”

  Dani knocked against the counter next to the wineglass. “Will this work?”

  Spencer’s gaze traveled from Dani’s hand to the torn eyeball, and he let out a low chuckle. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.” He picked up the glass and tipped it over his potion, the eyeball flopping this way and that as it rolled down the bowl and landed with a hiss in the potion.

  “How can you even do all this?” Dani asked, watching as the liquid consumed Caleb’s eye. The potion glowed a soft pink. “I thought you gave up being a necromancer?”

  “I did,” Spencer agreed, pulling a golden charm from his pocket. “I knew I wanted to leave, but I hadn’t had the courage to tell my parents before my eighteenth birthday. I had to summon a demon and claim another power, so I chose something I could take with me.”

  Spencer paused and dipped the gold charm into the jar. Almost like a straw, the amulet sucked up the viscous liquid until it had all been absorbed into the gold. “That ritual left me an alchemist of sorts.”

  “I . . . don’t have any idea what that means in this context.”

  “Magic is kind of like science to me now. If I study something long enough, I can recreate it without begging for help from a demon. Not everything, of course, but my family hates it, which more than makes up for its limitations.” Spencer grinned and pulled the amulet from the now-empty jar. “That should do it!” When he looked up to hand the locket to Dani, he finally looked at them. Really looked. “What the hell happened to you two?”

  “Your uncle happened.” Dani snatched the amulet from Spencer, but he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Her bad wrist. His gaze traveled up her arm, the wound now a patchwork of raised red scars, and when he finally met her eyes, there was something close to pity there. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, unable to stop the hitch in her voice.

  “You don’t have to,” Spencer soothed, pulling her off the stool and into a fierce hug. “I’m so sorry.”

  Dani sank into his embrace, allowing herself a moment of warmth, allowing all her pain to bubble up to the surface. As Spencer held her, she realized she couldn’t remember the last time someone touched her like this, the last time someone offered comfort with no strings attached. Loneliness threatened to crush her, but she forced herself to pull away. She had a job to do. On the other side of the island, Raj watched her carefully, his expression schooled into a neutrality he clearly didn’t feel.

  “Well then,” she said, clearing her throat. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The succubus wailed and begged as Dani approached. Promised to bring her riches, make her body sing, grant her any power she could dream up. As Dani raised the amulet to place the chain around Lana’s neck and give the woman control of her body again, Pam raised her hands. “Your mother!” she cried, the words stalling Danika’s hands. “I can help you find the demon who hurt her.”

  Fresh pain stirred inside Dani’s already broken heart. The past few days were the first time since the attack she’d been able to focus on anything besides the demon that ruined her life. She would have given anything to find that monster and rip his head from his shoulders.

  “You can?”

  “Of course, darling. Demons are such gossips. There’s no way whoever tampered with your mother’s mind would be able to keep their mouth shut about it. Taking out a Carrier is worth decades of bragging rights.”

  She was tempted, so fucking tempted, to say yes. To let the succubus take over Lana completely to save her own mother. But Dani thought of Cassie, of the young girl’s worry over her big sister.

  Dani couldn’t destroy their family, even if it meant she might never get her own back.

  “I don’t need your help,” Dani said at last and fastened the amulet around Lana’s throat.

  The woman’s head fell back against the chair. Her body trembled and fell still. Then Lana, the real Lana, looked up. “What did you do?” she said, breathless. “What about Cassie?”

  “Cassie will be fine,” Dani promised. “Your deal with the succubus isn’t broken. She’s still here, still inside of you. But now you get to drive.”

  “Come with me,” Raj said, stepping forward like he’d promised. “I’ll take you to your sister.”

  Lana nodded, still dazed and a bit unsteady on her feet. Dani and Spencer trailed them to the front door, where Lana paused, panicked. “What about my job? How am I supposed to take care of Cassie?” She started to spiral right before them, increasingly panicked worries falling off her lips.

  “You’ll figure it out.” Dani laid her hands on Lana’s shoulders in a gesture she hoped was soothing. “The important thing is that Cassie’s going to be okay. You’ll be there to take care of her and watch her grow up. You’ll get to argue about what shows you watch and ground her when she tries to sneak out when she’s a little older. You have your family back, Lana. Everything else will fall into place.”

  Lana reached up squeezed Dani’s hands, tears sparkling in eyes that matched her young sister’s blue irises. “Thank you. For everything.”

  “It’s what I do.” But Dani’s broken heart warmed all the same.

  The four of them climbed into Raj’s car and made the quick drive to Lana’s house. Dani texted Cassie to tell her she was coming over, but she didn’t mention Lana. She wanted it to be a surprise.

  Cassie was waiting on her front porch when they arrived, sitting on the top step.

  Before Raj could even shift the car into park, Lana flung open her door and raced up the driveway. Cassie burst into tears when she saw her big sister, standing in time to be crushed in Lana’s hug.

  Raj finally got the car in park, and Dani climbed out, leaning against the hood. She could feel Kiva’s approval purring through her, and she imagined Poe reluctantly admitting that his earlier assessment had been wrong. She’d saved Lana and Cassie both.

  Silas would be proud.

  Dani’s eyes filled with tears, so she didn’t notice Cassie’s approach until her thin arms were wrapped tight around Dani, hugging her. “Thank you,” the younger girl said, over and over, a mant
ra of gratitude that only made Dani cry harder.

  Lana made them stay for food, whipping up the best damn vegan pancakes Dani had ever had. The sisters loved Spencer, who regaled them with embarrassing stories of the antics he and Raj pulled as kids. Dani was positive he manipulated the stories to hide the demonic parts of their shared past, but she did her best to put on a brave face and laughed along with them anyway.

  Raj smiled, but he kept shooting worried glances at Dani. And when she excused herself to the bathroom—where she also borrowed Lana’s face wash and scrubbed away some of the grime and grief of the evening—she found Raj waiting for her in the hall.

  “What did Pam mean,” he asked, his voice achingly gentle. “When she said she could help your mother?”

  The question caught Dani off guard. She glanced down the hall to the dining room, where laughter and life spilled out. She wanted to be there with them, not reliving more of her grief with Raj.

  But he had helped her. Without him—and through him, Spencer—this reunion wouldn’t be possible. And maybe it was the hole in her soul that had belonged to Silas or the grief over losing a lead to her mother’s cure, but some small part of her wanted to tell him. Wanted to rip open her heart and let it bleed, if only to see if he’d help stitch it back together.

  So, she told him. Not everything, not even close, but she told him that there had been an attack. That her mother’s mind was no longer her own. That Dani was all alone in the world.

  “Except for the Ink,” he said, reaching for her hands. “You still have them.”

  “Not all of them,” she whispered back, fighting the rising tide of her tears.

  “You have me.” Raj pulled her close, tucking her head under his chin. “And Spence.”

  The absurdity of it all made her laugh. Her only allies in Blackthorn were a disgraced former necromancer and the head of the Dasari clan. Men she’d known barely a day yet could already feel the beginnings of trust starting to stitch between them.