Demons Forever (Peachville High Demons #6) (33 page)

Jackson ran a hand through his hair. His jawline tensed. "I don't like this."

"Can you do it?" I asked, turning to Lea.

"Yes," she said. "I've recreated memories of places and events from much farther back than this. But Jackson's right. It will take way too much power. I would be drained for days. Maybe a week. We don't have that kind of time."

"Courtney," I said, turning to Mary Anne. "She's at Lark's right now, but she would be able to recharge Lea's power. Can you go get her? You should be safe once you get past the Chen's security system."

Mary Anne nodded. "Should I bring everyone? Or just Courtney?"

"Bring Lark and her mom too if they're willing to come," I said. I'd been dying to see Lark ever since we first got back to Peachville. "We could use their help too."

Mary Anne and Essex ran off to get three more wristbands from inside.

"Will we all be able to go see the vision?" I asked Lea.

She shook her head. "It's easier if it's just you and me," she said. "It would take too much energy to bring everyone."

I looked at Angela. "Are you okay with that?" I asked. "It's your family as much as it is mine."

Angela stood. "I'm not sure I want to see what happened that day," she said. "To watch my own grandfather be murdered is a memory I don't really want, to be honest with you."

Her words weighed heavy on my heart. I hadn't even considered the emotional impact of watching his death. I was too focused on getting the information to even think about how it might affect me. Would I be able to handle this?

I swallowed down any doubt and turned back to Lea. "Then it's just you and me," I said. "Please do this for me. We need to see what happened that day."

She looked to Jackson and their eyes locked. My heart beat faster as a silent conversation passed between them. Finally, Jackson slowly nodded, then lowered his head.

Lea turned to face me. "Alright," she said. "You owe me one."

I Came To Set Her Free

Lea and I stood together in the center of the village. My heart beat double-time in my chest. She placed her hands on my shoulders.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

I pressed my lips together firmly and nodded, trying to control the roller-coaster in my stomach.

She spoke in her demon tongue. Chills rippled down my arms.

We turned to black smoke, disappearing from the crow village and landing in a large room. Dim lights buzzed overhead.

I brought my palm to my forehead and squeezed my eyes shut. Even after all my practice shifting into demon form, I wasn't prepared for the violence of Lea's time travel. I felt as if I'd been slammed against the ground.

"The demon gate is in here?" I asked, finally able to open my eyes and look around. We were in some kind of basement from the looks of it. The floor was gray cement with dirty boot prints and water stains. A set of metal stairs led up, but Lea pointed in the opposite direction.

"Yes," she said, and motioned for me to follow. "In the bigger demon gate cities, there aren't large open fields or deep woods anywhere like in Peachville or Aldeen. The Order needs to hide their portals away from the rest of the world, so in cities like this or D.C. or New York, the gates are deep in the basements and bottom levels of buildings. Sometimes they're in houses, like in Winterhaven, and sometimes the portal is in the basement of a normal-looking office building, like this one."

"I thought you said Clement was a small town."

"It's more like a wealthy suburb of Nashville," she said. "Lots of attorney's offices and banks and such."

"You've been here before?" I asked.

"I've been to them all," she said.

My eyes widened. "Them all? As in all of the demon gates that were closed?"

"No. Them all as in all of the demon gates in the world."

I swallowed. She'd been to every gate? But there were thousands. I guess I hadn't really given much thought to what Lea had been doing for the past fifty years. She'd originally come through to the human world to find Jackson, but when his power had been entombed in the statue in Peachville, she'd moved on to look for other ways to fight against the Order.

I knew she and the other shadow demons in her group had spent a lot of time visiting demon gate towns and trying to convince the witches of the Order that what they were doing to the demons was wrong. I hadn't realized how extensive her travels had really been.

"It's just down this hallway," she said. "Can you hear them?"

I listened, at first hearing only the sound of our footsteps. Then, in the distance, the hum of words spoken in unison. My skin began to tingle.

"I hear it."

"We're close."

Lea lengthened her stride, and I jogged to keep up. The humming grew louder.

"This is it," Lea said. She met my eyes in the semi-darkness, then opened a door labeled 'Employees Only'.

Light flickered across the walls inside.

No one looked up as we entered, and I had to remind myself that to them, we didn't exist. We were ghosts eavesdropping on the past.

The portal stone in the center of a five-pointed star glowed a deep ruby red. The witches of the Order all wore black robes similar to ones I'd seen in Peachville. The prima stood at the top of the star, hood drawn. I recognized her by the ruby necklace around her neck. It was identical to mine except for the color of the stone.

She chanted and the stone glowed brighter.

Screams echoed in the hallway and I turned, fear closing my throat and making it harder to breathe.

A girl, naked except for the red cloth draped around her middle, was carried into the room, her body trembling. Her eyes wide as saucers.

Her initiation ceremony.

It was so similar to the ceremony I'd watched in Peachville the day Brooke had been initiated. The fear in this girl's eyes was the same, too, and I knew instantly no one had prepared her for this night. I wanted to close my eyes, but I forced them open.

A figure in a blue robe stepped out of the shadows to examine the girl. She lowered her hood, and I gasped. Her white-blonde hair. Her pale blue eyes. This wasn't the Priestess Winter I knew, but then, it wouldn't be. She had only taken power eight years ago.

"Zara's grandmother?" I asked in a whisper, forgetting no one could hear or see us.

"Margaret Winter," Lea said. "A cold bitch if there ever was one."

This older Priestess Winter stepped toward the naked girl, her pale eyes gleaming. She lifted one pale, wrinkled hand to the girl's face, caressed it, then gripped her chin tight. Their eyes locked for a moment, then the young girl began to cry silent tears.

Priestess Winter released her, then waved her hand toward the red glow of the portal.

My stomach twisted. This woman took joy in the fear of others. She hadn't touched the girl to offer words of comfort or welcome. She'd merely gone over there to see her terror up close.

I shuddered and turned away.

"I have a feeling you'll want to see this," Lea said.

I took a calming breath, then returned my eyes to the ritual. "Do you know what happens?" I asked.

"No, but I have a good guess," she said with a sinister smile.

Her smile confused me. Was she enjoying this? She couldn't be.

The five witches on the pentagram knelt down at the points and began to chant. The initiate's body went rigid, hovering over the portal as the swirling mist of red over the portal stone began to glow brighter. My pulse quickened, waiting for the arrival of her demon.

The prima raised her hands high into the air, opening her mouth to speak the demon's name. But before she uttered a word, a bright light flashed like lightning across the portal. Witches all around the room gasped and backed away.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"Just watch," Lea said.

I trained my eyes on the red portal stone. Another flash of bright light, then a slow burn. White smoke rose up as if the portal itself were on fire. The prima threw her hood off and backed away from the stone, fear in her eyes.

Priestess Winter grabbed the prima's arm and shoved her back into her spot on the pentagram. "Finish the ritual," she growled.

The prima shook her head. "Something's different," she said. "Don't you feel it?"

"I said finish the ritual." Priestess Winter slapped the prima across the face. "Bind the demon, now."

"Calixto, demon of the shadow world, we bind you." Her voice trembled. "Enter into this holy vessel, we command you."

The red mist below the initiate's body seemed to bubble up. With a loud crack, a rush of white smoke poured forth. Only, instead of entering the girl's body, the demon wrapped itself around the neck of one of the witches forming the pentagram. She grabbed her neck, but her fingers went through the smoke as if it were only air. In seconds, she fell to the ground, a bloody mark around her throat.

Another strand of white flew from the portal, then another. The room erupted in screams and cries as more and more demons materialized. Witches tried to run, but a white demon blocked the doorway, slicing witches from top to bottom with a silver sword.

In the chaos, I didn't know where to turn my eyes. Blood rained down as more than fifteen demons sliced through the first row of witches.

I covered my mouth. I felt ill. I wanted it to stop.

Then, suddenly it did. Demons froze mid-motion, trapped between smoke and beast.

Priestess Winter stepped to the middle of the room, blood coating the bottom of her robe. She held up a tight fist, her face gnarled in anger.

The witches of the coven slowly backed away from the frozen demons, terror in their eyes.

"Don't fear them," Priestess Winter said. "Bind them."

A few brave witches stepped forward, binding the demons with their magic. Some of the demons became trapped in boxes of ice while others became bound with fiery rope. Each of them were brought to their knees, their demon form forced to become human and powerless.

All were bound except one. A tall powerful form hovering over the portal stone. The first to come through. A silver sword in his hand, its hilt decorated with jewels. I gasped. I'd held that sword in my own hands.

Priestess Winter walked to the front of the pentagram, her eyes trained on him. Keeping her right fist clenched tight, she reached out with her other hand, putting it straight through the heart of the smoky form.

He crumpled to the floor, forced to become human.

I instantly recognized his silver eyes. They were just like his son's.

"King Ryen," Priestess Winter said. "I should have known you would show your face here eventually. Did you think you could save her after all these years?"

The king struggled to stand, but the priestess pushed him back down with only a flick of her wrist. Iron shackles appeared out of nowhere, rising up to clasp his arms and pull him further toward the ground.

"No," he said, struggling against his chains. "I came to set her free."

The priestess cackled, throwing her head back. The sound filled my body with terror.

"Free? She will never be free," she said.

The king lifted his chin in defiance. "Death is freedom."

Priestess Winter held her hand out to the shivering prima at her side. The woman pulled a silver dagger from her robe and placed it in Priestess Winter's hand, a red stone sparkling in the light.

"You alone will find such freedom today."

"You're wrong about that," the king said. "You will join me."

He pulled his arms tight to his chest, then raised them up with a terrible force, the chains shattering like glass. He shifted into white smoke, moving so fast my eyes couldn't follow. Then, with a cry that shook the walls, he reformed behind the priestess and plunged his sword deep into her back. Its tip pushed through her gut and came out the other side.

I gripped Lea's arm. Had he killed her?

Priestess Winter dropped to her knees, her hands grasping for the sword, as if trying to pull it from her body. Her face began to change and wrinkle, aging rapidly as blood the color of burgundy poured from her wound.

The king lifted his boot to her back, using it as leverage as he pulled the sword from her body. He raised it again, this time aiming for her heart.

Feast Of Souls

I wrapped my arms tight around my body, breathless.

I watched as the king's sword moved toward the witch's heart, my own cheering him on, forgetting for a moment the reason we were here.

Priestess Winter dodged his sword before my mind could comprehend what had happened. The king stumbled forward, then attempted to shift. Her spell caught him mid-way between man and demon. His body turned to stone. Only his eyes were still human. A stormy silver, darkening to a deeper gray as he watched the priestess.

Her face wrinkled and changed as she stepped toward the town's prima. The woman bowed her head, her lip trembling.

Priestess Winter put a bloodied finger under the prima's chin and lifted it up, meeting the woman's tear-filled eyes. "Your family has been loyal to the Order," she said, coughing. "This line has been filled with powerful leaders who never wavered in their faithfulness, and I hate to end your reign so abruptly."

The prima's head pulled back slightly, her eyes searching the face of the aging priestess. "I don't understand," she said, her tone uncertain.

"I need power to heal," Priestess Winter said. She placed her wrinkled hand on the prima's cheek, stroking it slowly. "Such a shame."

She began to chant in Latin, words I had heard before. In Aldeen.

How would this ritual heal her? I didn't understand.

With one quick motion, Priestess Winter raised her ritual dagger to the prima's throat. The blade sliced clean across her skin.

Priestess Winter held out one hand and a silver cup flew across the room toward her. She lifted it to the prima's neck, catching the blood inside.

I turned away, covering my eyes with my hand.

Lea gripped my shoulders and turned me back toward the scene. "I know it's difficult, but this is the part you came to see."