Demons Forever (Peachville High Demons #6) (25 page)

I stared down at the butterfly in awe. I was wrong. Zara hadn't betrayed us. She must have put some kind of protection spell into the stone. How had she known back then that I would someday need it?

Tears of gratitude stung my eyes.

She had saved my life.

You Won't Remember A Thing

"She got it from me," Zara said.

She stood with Jackson at the bottom of the steps. The sight of the two of them together and safe made my heart soar. Hope filled me from head to toe. Were we actually going to make it out here alive?

Honora stood up, then stumbled against the wall, her power drained from the intensity of the fight. "You'll pay for this," she said, daggers in her eyes as she stared at Zara.

"Maybe," Zara said with a shrug. "Then again, maybe not. Jackson, can you hold her for a second please?"

Jackson sent coils of smoke at Honora, wrapping them around her. She struggled, but her strength was gone.

Zara stepped closer to her sister, then pulled a tiny vial from the small white purse she carried. Honora's eyes grew wide.

"What's that?"

"This?" Zara stared at the potion, then cut her eyes back toward her sister. "This is my insurance you won't tell mother about my trick with the butterfly pin. You won't remember a thing."

She lifted one hand toward her sister's throat in a claw like motion. Honora's head snapped backward, her mouth pulled open. Zara uncorked the small vial and poured it down her sister's throat, then forced her mouth shut until she swallowed it down.

"Good girl," she said. "Now, why don't you lie down and get some rest. You look tired, sister."

Honora went limp in Jackson's coils. He set her down gently, her eyes closing the moment she hit the ground.

I ran up and threw my arms around Zara. "Thank you," I said. "I would be dead if it wasn't for you."

Zara hugged me back. "I'm so glad it worked," she said. "I'll explain everything to you later, but we really need to get out of here as soon as possible. Selene is locked in a similar sleep upstairs, but I don't have a potion strong enough to hold my mother."

She turned to head back up the stairs.

"Wait," I said, crouching down to where Angela lay on the floor. "What about my sister?"

"I almost forgot," she said. She looked inside her little purse again, then pulled out a larger vial that glowed with an orange liquid. "Here. This potion should pull her from her sleep."

I took the vial and gently opened Angela's mouth. I poured the liquid down her throat and waited.

"How long will this take?" I asked. I felt the ticking of the clock.

"It should only take a moment," she said, glancing back up the stairs. "We need to hurry."

"I can carry her," Jackson said.

"What if the potion doesn't work?" I asked, tapping my foot.

Beside me, Angela stirred and my heart leapt. Her eyes fluttered open and she stared into my eyes. I nearly cried with joy.

She smiled and started to lift her hand toward my face, then her body went completely limp.

"What happened?" I asked. I shook her gently. "Angela, wake up."

Jackson turned to Zara. "The potion isn't working."

Zara shook her head. "It worked," she said. "She wouldn't have opened her eyes if it didn't. She's just too weak. I think she passed out."

"You'll have to carry her," I said. "We need to hurry."

Jackson nodded and picked Angela up into his arms. He shifted, flying up the stairs and around the corner out of sight. Zara nodded to me, then morphed into a small butterfly. With a silent prayer of thanks and disbelief, I looked down at Honora's still form, then shifted to smoke and followed them up toward the Hall of Doorways.

She Couldn't Have Taken That News Well

The four of us flew high above the tree-tops toward the crow village.

Zara flew as a butterfly and Jackson and I were in our demon form. Angela was still too weak to shift or fly, so Jackson carried her. We flew as fast as we could, careful to stay high enough up that we could pull energy from the growing leaves rather than something on the ground that would be much easier to track.

When we reached the crow village, Mary Anne paced, waiting at the entrance.

My body tingled as I passed through the barrier into the protected zone. I couldn't believe the difference in the village from the last time I'd been here. While some of the houses were still burned and in ruins, four of the houses on the far side of the circle had been completely fixed up. Mary Anne and Essex had been busy.

Jackson entered behind me, and Essex rushed over to help him carry my sister.

"Is she okay?" Mary Anne asked. She threw her arms around me. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you. I was so worried."

Essex nodded toward a small blue house up ahead. "We have set up a special room for your sister," he said. "It will be very comfortable for her while she is recovering."

"Thank you," I said. I started to follow them, then remembered Zara was still outside, unable to enter without one of the blue wristbands.

"What's she doing here?" Mary Anne asked, scowling.

"She's going to be living here," I said. "Do you have one of those blue bands I can give to her?"

"I'm not letting her in here." She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "She's one of them."

"You don't know what she did for us tonight. We can't leave her out there," I said.

"You're right. Now that she's seen this place, she'll probably go tell her mother where to find us," Mary Anne said. She looked around, a finger pressed to her lips. "We could set up a temporary jail down in the library."

I let my head fall back. "She's not going to tell her family," I said, anxious to get to my sister's bedside. "She saved our lives and helped us get out of there. Why would she have done that if she planned on turning us over to her family now?"

Mary Anne shrugged. "I don't pretend to understand everything the Order does," she said. "Maybe Priestess Winter wanted to know where your friends were hiding and sent her here as a spy. All I know for sure is the Winter family is our enemy, and I don't think we should let her in."

Outside the barrier, Zara conjured a small pink blanket out of thin air. She laid it on the ground and sat down, legs crossed. She fluffed her skirt around her and smoothed her hair, not looking worried or concerned at all. In fact, she looked happy.

I held back a smile, then turned to Mary Anne. "Do you really want to go there?" I asked. "If we were judging everyone here by the actions of their family members, would you even allow yourself in here?"

Mary Anne frowned. "Point taken."

She pulled a blue wristband from her pocket and held it out to me.

"Can you give it to her?" I asked, already walking toward the house where they'd taken Angela. "I want to be there when my sister wakes up."

Mary Anne rolled her eyes, then nodded and stepped through the barrier toward Zara.

I took off in a jog, anxious to see how my sister was doing. The potion Zara gave her had pulled her from the nightmare sleep, but she'd been unconscious the whole way home. I knew she'd lost a lot of blood and we didn't exactly have the means to give her a transfusion up here. We couldn't take her to a hospital either. Not without risking everyone's lives.

I prayed Jackson's limited healing powers would be enough.

I climbed the steps up to the blue house and walked through the open door. "Hello?" I called.

"We're in here," Jackson said, poking his head from a door at the back of the house.

My heart pounded as I stepped into the room. Angela King lay on a queen-size bed in the middle of the room, her eyes closed, but her breath steady and strong. Someone had placed a tray of basic medical supplies on the bedside table. Bandages. Alcohol. A bottle of painkillers. There was even a small vase of purple flowers on the table.

I was touched by their thoughtfulness, but held back my tears.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand in mine. "She's burning up," I said. I placed my hand on her forehead and was alarmed by the heat. "Did you find a thermometer?"

Essex reached into a small black bag and pulled out a digital thermometer. I took it and placed it under my sister's tongue, already knowing she had a high fever.

When it beeped, I pulled the thermometer from her mouth and cringed. 102.2. Not life-threatening, but high. Too high.

"Is there running water?" I asked Essex. "Ice? Anything we can use to try to bring her fever down?"

Jackson moved to the other side of the bed and pulled up a chair. He sat down and placed a hand on the wound on her head. He closed his eyes.

Essex came back carrying a wet wash cloth and a bucket of ice. "Will these help?"

"Yes, thank you," I said, taking the washcloth from him. I placed the cloth over Angela's forehead and motioned for him to set the ice down on the table.

I waited in silence as Jackson went over Angela's wounds one-by-one. He wasn't a powerful enough healer to get rid of them completely, but he was able to stop most of the bleeding and hopefully take away some of her pain.

I bit my lip, clutching her hand in mine. "Should we take her back through the portal?" I asked. "Our father could heal her in an instant."

Jackson shook his head. "It's too risky," he said. "Every available witch is going to be searching for us. If anyone saw us pass through that portal, it would put the entire city in danger."

I lowered my head to her hand. He was right. I hadn't thought about what might happen if the Order found my father's secret portal. We couldn't risk it. Especially not so soon after we'd rescued her. Still, I knew I would have to at least try to get word to him that we'd gotten her out safely.

Maybe it would change his mind about what was possible in the fight against the Order.

I sighed. "I just want her to be okay."

"Thanks to you, she's going to live," he said.

"Thanks to Zara," I said. "I never would have survived down there if it hadn't been for her. Honora's power was so much stronger than I imagined."

"When I first saw her walk through the door at Winterhaven, I didn't know what to think," he said. "I had no idea if she was on our side or theirs, but she just walked right up to me and put her hand in mine. She told me exactly what we needed to do to make the memory potions and the one that would wake Angela up from that nightmare. I don't know how she found out I had experience with potion-making, but she knew."

"The Winters know everything," I said. "I think they must have spies everywhere."

"Maybe," he said. "When her sister Selene finally came to find us, we had the potion and everything ready for her. I think she was so surprised by Zara, she forgot to put up a fight. You were right about trusting Zara."

"For a minute there, I thought it was the other way around. It's so hard to know who to trust," I said. I thought about Lydia Ashworth's story. How she’d stolen her sister's life and how no one even knew or remembered. Who else was not as they seemed in Peachville?

I stared down at my sister. Even she had turned out to be someone completely different than I expected. I knew she was a good person, but she'd been one of the Order's trusted leaders for years. I smiled as I thought of how shocked Priestess Winter must have been when she found out the person training future initiates was a half-demon.

Probably not as shocked as she was when she found out we'd gotten away. She couldn't have taken that news well. So far, she'd avoided getting directly involved in my capture. She'd sent everyone from the tiger witch to hunters to her own daughters after me, but she'd never actually come after me herself. I had a feeling next time I wouldn't be so lucky.

Jackson stood and turned off the light in the room. He stood behind me and rubbed my shoulders. "Let me know if she wakes up," he said.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to help the others get the rest of the village set up," he said. "There's still a lot that needs to be done."

I knew I should offer to help, but I didn't want to leave Angela's side. I wanted to be here when she opened her eyes.

"I'll bring you some food in a little while," Jackson said. He kissed the top of my head. "Get some rest if you can."

I nodded and gave him a weak smile. "I'll try," I said, knowing it would be a very long time before I would allow myself the luxury of sleep.

I Don't Think She's Acting

Over the next few days, we each took turns sitting with Angela. I spent the most time there by far, but I took breaks to eat and stretch my legs every once in a while.

Essex came in late one afternoon and offered to take over while I got some dinner. "Mary Anne insists you need food to keep your energy strong," he said. "I will let you know if there is a change."

Reluctantly, I stood and stretched. I hated to leave her side, but we'd been here three full days and there'd been almost no change. I had already decided if she didn't wake up within a week, we were taking her through the portal to our father. Risk or no risk. We'd have to find a way.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," I said.

"Take your time," Essex said. He settled down in the chair next to the bed and opened a book he'd been reading. "Enjoy some food and you will be feeling better."

I smiled. He was really such a sweet guy. He was definitely a welcome addition to our group of friends.

I yawned and made my way outside.

I gasped. This entire side of the village had been transformed into a garden of pink and white blossoms. Zara walked among the flowers and as she placed her index finger on the petals, they lit up from within. Mary Anne stood off to the side with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"You realize this is basically blasphemy, right?" Mary Anne said. "If my family was here, they would absolutely die to see it turned into a pink flower shop."

"Well, your family isn't here, are they?" Zara said, not pausing in her work to light up the village. "Besides, this place is depressing. We need to stay positive if we're going to have the energy to fight."