Reaper (37 page)

Clarice laughed, but didn’t dare moved since she was sandwiched between Hunter and the orb. She muttered something in Latin again, drawing on the strength placed on the exits. Something rippled in the antique mirror hanging above the fireplace.

The demon.

It would be perfect to have a nice, long chat with him, but I didn’t want to risk him giving Clarice more power. With a swift flick of my wrist, the orb went flying into the mirror, shattering the glass and burning the wall behind it. “Oops,” I said innocently. “Now, let’s see if your demon is man enough to actually appear and save you.”

“Save me, from what?”

I extended the dagger. “Me, duh.”

Clarice laughed, weakened even more by calling on her master. “Anora Benson doesn’t kill humans.”

“She doesn’t, but I do,” Ethan’s voice came from behind me. I hadn’t heard the door open over the sound of breaking glass. Ethan looked around the destroyed house, his jaw set, appearing calm. Anyone else would have thought he was under complete control, but I could see the fear in his eyes. He struggled to keep his attention on Clarice. Gun aimed, he moved closer.
 
“I suggest you answer her.”

Clarice rocked herself onto her butt. “Ethan,” she cooed. “Anora’s savior. You’re always there to save her, to make things right. We just can’t figure out how. We want to know all about you.”

“I’m sure,” Ethan said, totally unamused.

“We know all about, you, Anora,” Clarice rambled. “You’re special, you know,” she told me. “The Coven of the Sacred Guardians is very selective.” She shuddered as she faced Hunter. “And you…I don’t even know where to start. You look so normal but have so much power.” She drooled over him for a few seconds.

I resheathed the dagger. The wound on my arm was starting to feel tight and prickly. “What does the demon want with me?” I repeated.

“He’s watched for one like you for years, you know. He’s waited for one to come along with enough power.”

“Enough power for what?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered and began crying again. I looked at Ethan, raising my eyebrows and biting my lip in an ‘I don’t know what to do’ expression. He lowered the gun.

“Get up,” he ordered. Clarice stared blankly. “Get up!” he demanded again. She listened that time and clamored to her feet. Using the gun, he motioned for her to sit on the couch. “Who is the demon?”

“Someone wonderful,” she replied, sounding absolutely love struck.

“You’re an idiot,” Ethan spat. “But you know who is wonderful? Anora.” He looked at me for a brief second. “You’ve put her in danger, and I don’t like that. So start talking, bitch.”

Clarice was cornered, she had to know it. Was she afraid of this demon? Maybe her disturbing ooey-gooeyness was a cover up. Or maybe he was still in her head, urging her to keep up her front. “I’ll be right back,” I told Ethan and ran into the kitchen. The rotting smell was overwhelming. Oh, God! What if there was a body in here? I really didn’t want to find out.

 
I rummaged around in the cabinets, discarding items on the counter or floor. They house was already trashed, so what was it gonna hurt? Finally I found a canister of salt. I hurried back into the living room and poured a circle around the couch, topping it off with the small amount of black salt that I had. Clarity sank into Clarice. Complete abhorrence marked her face. She took a ragged breath.

“It’s too late,” she whimpered.

“What’s too late?” I asked gently, annoying Ethan.

“I failed.”

“How?” I pried and almost felt sorry for her; she was beyond pathetic.

Tears filled her eyes. “You should be dead.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” I said softly.

“Don’t be,” she cast her gaze to the baphomet on the floor. The ugly horned goat began to vibrate. Ethan, Hunter, and I all looked, expecting something big to happen. Big in a demonic way, that is. Clarice used our distraction to her advantage. She lunged at me, grabbing my dagger and twisting around so she was behind me, the dagger against my throat. Ethan drew his gun with super human speed.

“Move one inch and I’ll cut her throat,” Clarice threatened. Hunter circled behind, growling. “Same goes for you,” she spat.

I met Ethan’s eyes, trying to tell him everything will work out just fine; I couldn’t get hurt with my own dagger. He looked terrified and his hand shook ever so slightly. My brother and René raced into the house, skidding to a stop behind Ethan. René squeaked and grabbed Harrison’s arm.

“What is this?” Clarice bellowed, pressing the edge of the blade into my skin. “Your backup?”

I tried to say ‘no’ but any movement might lodge the dagger into my skin. Clarice inhaled sharply. “Oh, this keeps getting better and better. Harrison…You might not have magic but you have the blood. Oh! Mel will be so happy when I give him the famous Benson twins!”

“Mel,” Ethan repeated. “So he has a name.”

I could feel Clarice’s shock of her mistake. Mel was familiar; it brought back a memory but I couldn’t place where it came from. The baphomet. Mel was connected to the baphomet. I told Hunter to check it out but he refused, telling me that he was not leaving my side.
Thanks, boy
. Harrison nervously stepped closer.

“Take my blood then,” he offered, holding out his arms, wrists up. “Let my sister go and come get my blood. I can guarantee I’m easier to deal with than Anora. Like you said, I have no magic.”

Clarice’s grip loosened. “No!” She cried, holding me tighter again. “You’re trying to trick me!”

“No, I have no tricks,” Harrison promised. “No weapons either.”

“Is this a trade?” Clarice asked.

“Yes!” Harrison stepped closer, taking all of Clarice’s attention. Ethan moved slowly, inching around us. I knew he’d take the first chance he got to shoot Clarice.

She jabbed her fingers under my ribs, pressing deep into my lungs. I gasped in pain. “And you, witch, you’ll sacrifice your brother?”

“Not willingly, but he offered,” I choked out.

“Hmm, interesting,” Clarice murmured. She relaxed a bit, just enough for me to head butt her. I hit her hard, causing her nose to instantly bleed.
 
I grabbed her wrist, elbowed her in the stomach and spun around, the dagger now in my hand. Warm blood dripped down my neck. My hand immediately flew to it. My skin had been broken, but I wasn’t in danger of bleeding to death before it healed. Clarice laughed. I thrusted my hand forward and sent her crashing into the fireplace. She slumped to the ground, unconscious.

With my hand still raised, I stared at her limp body. My breath came out in uneven spurts and my heart was racing.

“You’re not getting anyone’s blood, you psychotic ass-wipe,” I muttered through gritted teeth. The dagger clattered to the floor. I let my hand fall to my side. Hunter stood next to me, fangs still bared.

“Anora?” Ethan said quietly, asking his sentence in one word.

“I’m fine,” I told him. “No major damage done.”
 
I turned and smiled to convince him I was ok, placing my hand on the back of my neck. The bleeding had already stopped. “Harry,” I began and stepped forward to hug him, getting blood on his pale blue polo shirt.

“You freaking scared me,” he confessed. “I thought she was going to kill you.”

“Nah,” I let him go. “It takes more than a demonically crazed human to stop me.”

“Ok,” Harrison said, not knowing what else to say. René walked over, taking hold of Harrison’s arm. Ethan put a hand on my waist. I leaned into him, finding his presence calming.

“What the hell happened?” he asked.

“We got into an orb fight,” I replied.

“You did?” He gently took hold of my left arm. “Is that how you got this?”

“Yeah.” I winced as he touched it. “Ow.” I pulled my arm away.

“It looks like an electrical burn,” he stated.

“Essentially, it is.” I looked at the wound. “I don’t think it’s too bad, though. It might not even leave a scar.” Ethan nodded and wiped the blood from my neck with his fingers, wiping them clean on his jeans. He dabbed at a cut on my forehead, one I didn’t remember getting. Hunter brought me the baphomet. I turned it over.

“This symbol,” I showed everyone. “I know it. And the name ‘Mel’…I’ve seen this all before. I think it’s in my demon book.” Uh! It bothered me to no end that I knew it but couldn’t place it. I sat on the couch and sighed, drained of energy. “I need to take her altar apart.”

“Where is it?” Ethan asked, meaning he’ll do it for me.

“Upstairs. The first room,” I stood, “it’s destroyed. We got into a fight up there too.”

“Another orb fight?”

“No, a telekinetically-throwing-things-at-each-other fight.” I took Ethan’s hand.

“Oh,” he said. He handed his gun over to Harrison. “She probably won’t wake up for a while. But watch her just in case.”

Ethan and I searched the room, breaking anything remotely occult-like into unfixable pieces. Before we went back downstairs, Ethan took me in his arms again. “When she put the dagger to you, Anora…” he trailed off. “I told you, nothing bad can ever happen, ok?”

“Agreed. Same for you. I don’t want to live without you,” I whispered.

He kissed my forehead, let out a deep breath, and released his embrace. We went back down stairs. René and Harrison were sitting close together on the couch with their eyes fixed on Clarice. René yanked her hand out of Harrison’s when we came back into the room. I walked over to Clarice, nudged her with my foot, and knelt down.

Hunter let me know that she had a pulse and was breathing. I grabbed her ankles and slid her into the middle of the floor.

“What are you doing?” Ethan asked.

“Making her more comfortable,” I explained.

“Annie…” he trailed off.

“Yeah?”

“You threw her against a wall hard enough to knock her out and now you’re making her comfortable?”

“It’s the decent thing to do,” I told him and grabbed a pillow off the couch. I stuck it under her head and stood back. “Ok, good enough. We can go now.”

“And you’re sure it’s ok to leave?” René asked.

“Yes, the demon was using her to try to get to me. I destroyed her altar and took my hair, so she can’t invoke him…I think. And I’ll take the baphomet, which seemed to be her main line of communication. She won’t be getting demon powers anymore.”

“Well, at least not from this Mel,” Ethan corrected and headed for the door.
 
“But I think it’s safe to say she won’t mess with Anora anymore.”

“I’ll check back tomorrow too,” I informed them. “If she tries anything else, I
will
take her home as a hostage. She can survive locked up in the old barn until it’s over,” I threatened.

 
As we exited the house, I wondered if the neighbors had heard the commotion. I doubted Clarice would go to the police, but if she did, she could easily have a case against me. She was beat to hell and her house was destroyed. In that instant, I decided that I would fight back with magic. I wasn’t going to let her bring me down, in anyway. Not now, not ever.

~*~

“Found you,” I said to a picture. I was sitting cross legged on my bed, hair in a dripping wet braid down my back. As soon as had I showered, ate, and had taken care of my horses, I grabbed the demonic encyclopedia and began leafing through the brittle, yellowed pages.

 
Melcovel was a powerful demon who enslaved lost spirits to do his biddings. He ruled two gateways and was popular in the late nineteen hundreds. His followers worshiped him through child sacrifice. Along with that lovely tidbit of info, the book went on to say that he enjoyed inflicting chaos. His specialty was making people see things that weren’t real.

 
The picture of him was a crudely drawn pencil sketch. Ethan had told me that demons usually have control over their appearance, and most choose to look somewhat human. Mel had a human-shaped body, dressed in something Luke Skywalker would wear to a winter formal, hiding his boney body in the fabric. His face was slender and rather feminine, with sunken-in dark eyes. He was wearing a pendent, and though hard to tell in this poor drawing, I could tell it was the same symbol that was on the baphomet.
 

A large ‘X’ was drawn over his description. “Banished September 21
^st
, 1971 to the Nether” was written in messy handwriting at the top of the page. I knew the Nether was some sort of dimension; I’d seen it before in the BOS. I reread Melcovel’s info and thought everything over.
 
A witch of my Coven banished him. Clarice said he’d been waiting. I was guessing only a Coven witch could undo the banishing. He couldn’t appear in our world, but he could let Clarice tap into his power.

Whatever gates he was in charge of must have had something to do with the alternate reality I was pulled into. Ok, so he was banished to the Nether, but that didn’t make him dead. Wasn’t he still dangerous? He lost his human contact…for now. What if some stupidly ignorant kids get their hands on a spirit board, call the Nether and Mel answers? Wouldn’t it be just a matter of time before he finds another pathetic follower to try to kill me? I closed the book, not wanting to look at Mel any longer.