Shadow Demons
Authors: Sarra Cannon
By Sarra Cannon
Published by Dead River Books
This book is dedicated to my father. You always taught me that I could do anything I set my mind to. You have always believed in me, and because of that, I believe in myself.
I love you, Dad.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Sarra Cannon Bittmann
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Find Sarra Cannon on the web!
www.sarracannon.com
www.twitter.com/sarramaria
http://www.goodreads.com/sarra_cannon
www.facebook.com/sarracannon
Cover Design by Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.
http://www.rldprint.com/
Thank you so much to all of the Peachville Demons series fans. You’ve been extremely patient with me through all the delays with this book. I hope with all of my heart that you find Shadow Demons worth the wait.
A huge thank you goes out to my critique partners - Erica Reeder, J.D. Robinson, and Alok Baikadi - you guys are my heroes. Thank you for all of the late nights working with me to help make this a better novel.
Thanks also to all my Monday Panera writing group friends. You guys keep me motivated!
And finally, all my love to my amazing husband. You are my soul mate, my sounding board, and my biggest cheerleader. I love you.
Beautiful Demons
Inner Demons
Bitter Demons
Shadow Demons
Table of Contents
A Pair That Looked Just Like This
I Was Afraid You Would Say That
Who Knew Being A Cheerleader Could Be So Stressful?
Someday, I Would Have To Choose
This Is The Way Of The Order Of Shadows
I Can’t Tell You How Disappointed I Am
Windows stared out at us like dead eyes.
The houses in the small village were burned and blackened, their roofs collapsing.
Beside me, Mary Anne sank to the ground, her silent sobs sending a dull pain through my chest. I kneeled next to her.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, putting my arm around her shoulders.
I couldn’t completely understand how she was feeling. I’d never had a home I felt particularly attached to in any real way. I’d moved around so much, it had been pointless to get emotionally invested in a house or even a neighborhood. But Mary Anne had spent her childhood here in this secret village.
In the past week, she’d become an outcast and a traitor in the eyes of everyone she’d ever loved. Now this. I held her tighter.
Glass crunched under Jackson’s boots as he walked to the nearest house. The sound echoed through the silence.
“What happened here?” I asked.
“The Order of Shadows happened,” he said. He kicked at a broken fence.
“How can you be sure it was the Order?”
“I’ve seen this before,” he said. A darkness spread across his features. It was such a painful expression, it twisted my insides.
“Where?” I almost didn’t ask. I almost didn’t want to know.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “All that matters is that they’ve been here. They probably took anything of value they could find and then torched the place. I doubt we’ll be able to find any of the old spell books.”
“Why would they do this?” I asked. “What’s the point?”
Jackson turned around, surveying the area. “Vengeance,” he said, his voice calm for such a passionate word. “And to make sure the crows can never come back.”
Mary Anne’s sobs turned to deep breaths. She lifted her head and wiped the tears from her pale face. “I’m going to look around.” Her voice was soft. Injured.
“Okay,” I said. “Do you want me to come with you?”
She turned to me, her blue eyes glassy with tears. “No thanks,” she said.
I watched her walk up through the middle of the village, her steps slow and deliberate. She glanced at the houses on either side of her, then stopped in front of the next-to-last house on the left side. After a moment, she walked up the stairs of the ruined house and disappeared inside. My heart ached for her. She would have been the Prima Futura right now if she hadn’t stood up to her family. She saved my life. I hated to see her hurting.
“I don’t know if this was such a good idea,” Jackson said to me. “What if the Order placed traps around the village to keep the crows out?”
I touched his arm. “It’s her childhood home, Jackson,” I said. “Give her a few minutes to deal with all this.”
He sighed and placed his hand over mine. “I know,” he said. “But something doesn’t feel right. It feels like we’re being watched. It’s not safe here.”
“I’m still not entirely sure I know where ‘here’ is,” I said. “I mean, one second we’re levitating above the trees, and then boom, we’re in this town? I don’t get it. Where are we really? Did we go through some kind of portal?”
Mary Anne’s family had taken great care to make sure they remained hidden for all these years. Hiding an entire town and a whole community of people couldn’t have been easy.
“It’s an illusion,” he said. “A very powerful illusion that probably took decades to perfect and grow.”
“So you’re saying we’re still above the trees?”
“Exactly,” he said. “Did you feel that sort of electrical shock when we passed into the village?”
I nodded. When I thought about it, I realized it had been a slightly more powerful version of the shock I felt every time I passed through the wall in the girl’s locker room at school. A magical force-field of sorts. The same way the Order kept the training room hidden, the crows were keeping their village hidden all this time.
“The old witch and her daughters must have spent years building this place with magic and concealing it from the rest of the town,” he said. “There is great power here. Can’t you feel it?”
I shivered. I could feel it. There was a buzz running just under my feet. It was a particular sort of power. Evil. Definitely full of darkness and greed and jealousy.
Bitterness.
How had Mary Anne grown up here and still turned into the kind of person who cared enough to save my life?
“So why didn’t the Order just destroy it?” I asked. “Instead of burning the houses?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe they wanted to set it up as a warning if anyone ever came back. Or like I said, maybe they’re watching this place very carefully. I don’t think we should stick around much longer. It’s already after two.”
I had to admit, I kind of agreed with him. This place was getting creepier by the second.
“Let’s see if Mary Anne knows where they kept their spell books and ritual items,” I said. “Then we can get the hell out of here.”
Jackson followed me into the center of the small town. The houses were set up in a circle. In the town center, there was an outdoor pavilion with several rows of stone benches and what might have been an altar in the front. I didn’t even want to think about the kinds of things that went on in this town. It all felt very cult-ish. The witches had been so secluded up here, rarely ever coming in to town or having any kind of contact with the outside world. Mary Anne told us she’d never once left this place until the day they sent her to Shadowford. I couldn’t even imagine how hard that must have been for her.
She was obviously having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that her old home was in ruins. When we found her, she was standing in the middle of a large open room, her eyes staring straight ahead and her shoulders slumped.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly, not speaking.
“Was this your house?”
She closed her eyes and a tear rolled down her cheek. In her hand, she gripped a small doll. It looked like a rag doll of sorts with black yarn for hair. Its blue dress was blackened and torn.
“Mary Anne, we need to find the room where they kept any important spell books or ritual items that might help us,” I said. I hated to bring it up when she was obviously hurting, but the books were the whole reason we’d come here. The crows had access to forgotten magic. Dark magic. Books and spells that no one in the Order had even known existed.
If there was any chance one of those old books might be able to help us break the spell between me and Aerden, we had to at least try to find them.
Mary Anne made no move to answer. She just kept staring straight ahead, her eyes dark and unfocused. Jackson and I exchanged worried glances. What if we’d made a huge mistake by bringing her here? What if she’d changed her mind about helping us?
“Please, Mary Anne,” I said. Knots of fear coiled in my stomach.
Mary Anne looked down at the small doll in her hand, then hugged it close to her chest. With the back of her hand, she wiped away her tears. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll show you.”
Mary Anne led us to the center of the small village. We stepped into the pavilion and walked straight up to the smooth stone altar. “It’s here,” she said.
I looked around, unsure of what she meant. There were no books here. Only stone benches arranged in perfect rows before the altar.
She placed her tiny pale hands on the smooth stone and pulled up. The altar opened like a child’s toybox.
I peered inside, expecting to find a small compartment inside filled with books or daggers or potions. Instead, there was a set of narrow stone stairs that led down into a deep dark hole below. I gasped.
Hope welled up in me for the first time since we’d seen the damaged village. It was definitely possible that the witches of the Order had completely overlooked this secret room. I know I never would have guessed there was a library hidden beneath the shrine.
“Do you think the Order might have missed this spot?” I asked.
“
It’s possible,” Mary Anne said. “Our family was very secretive about its rituals, and this room in particular was always heavily guarded.”
Jackson came around behind me and peered down into the darkness. “Is it safe to go down there?” he asked. “Or are there spells to protect this place?”
“
There are a few traps,” she said. “But as long as I go first, they shouldn’t trigger.”
Jackson’s mouth thinned out into a straight line. “Maybe Harper should stay here.”
I leaned into him, pressing my leg against his. Ever since I’d almost died in that ritual, he’d been so protective of me. So worried.
“
It’s going to be okay,” I said. “Just this one last thing, and we’ll get out of here.”
He ran a hand through his hair and grunted. “Fine, but this is it,” he said. “We grab any spell books that look important and get the hell out of here.”
“
Deal,” I said. I nodded to Mary Anne. “You ready?”
Her blue eyes were clear and confident. “I’m ready.”
Mary Anne set her doll on the ground, then pulled herself up over the edge of the altar. She hesitated at the top of the stairs. “No light,” she warned. “It will set off another trap. Wait until we’ve gotten safely to the bottom of the stairs and I’ll light a candle.”
She took the stairs slowly and after just a few steps, she was cloaked in darkness.
“
You go next,” Jackson said, helping me up over the edge of the altar. “But be careful.”
I followed Mary Anne down into the shadows. A light breeze floated down from above. It was a cold Georgia night, but it seemed even colder the deeper we went into the ground. Of course, this wasn’t really ground was it? I shook my head. I still didn’t understand how all this magic worked. Even if this was just an illusion, it seemed awfully real. If we weren’t underground, where were we? Still above the trees? It didn’t seem possible.
I heard Jackson’s footsteps behind me, then soon after, a grinding of stone as the top of the altar sealed shut, leaving us in a darkness so complete, I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face.
I wanted to scream, but I somehow stopped myself, remembering that any small thing might set off a trap down here. It felt as though we had been locked inside a tomb. I suddenly wondered if we’d been wrong to trust Mary Anne. Had I done something completely stupid by coming here?
Fear gripped my heart and squeezed. I couldn’t breathe. What if she’d only brought us here as a sacrifice to get back in good graces with her family? I couldn’t face those witches again. I was lucky to have survived it the first time.
“
Mary Anne?” I croaked out. I couldn’t see her in the darkness. Was she still in front of me? Were we alone down here?
“
It’s okay,” she said. “I should have warned you about the door closing. It will reopen when we’re ready to leave.”
Her voice was so calm. I wanted to trust her, but how many times in my life had I really been able to trust anyone?
“
Any news on that light?” I asked, trying to laugh it off.
Jackson touched my shoulder. I reached out and gave his hand a squeeze, feeling instantly better and so very glad that I wasn’t here alone. “She’s very close to the candle,” he said.
“And just how do you know that?” I whispered.
He paused, his mouth coming close to my ear as he said, “I can see in the dark.”
If there had been more room on the narrow stairway, I would have twirled around and given him the evil-eye. “You don’t think you could have told me about this super power before I almost peed my pants?”
He laughed and the sound echoed through the dark room.
“Shhh.” A chill ran up my spine. Laughter felt all wrong in this place.
“
I’m here,” Mary Anne said. She struck a match and a cool red glow lit up the dark space.
The room was smaller than I expected. Barely the size of my bedroom at Shadowford. Several wooden bookcases lined the walls. My heart rose up. Whoever wrecked the village hadn’t touched this room after all. Maybe there was a still a chance we could find a way out of this mess. A way to be free.
“Are we safe to come down and take a look?” Jackson asked.
“Yes,” Mary Anne said, running her fingertip along the carved picture of a bird on the side of the table. “By lighting the candle, I’ve disabled the traps.”
“Do you know what all these books are?” I asked. I came down into the depths of the room and walked along the rows of ancient tomes. “Like which ones hold the really old or forbidden magic?”
Mary Anne frowned. I followed her gaze toward a black, shiny bookcase along the far wall. This bookcase was different from all the others. A glass door covered the front, strange carvings etched into it.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Someone’s been in here,” she said. She walked to the case and with a trembling hand, opened the door wide. “This is usually sealed, and look. No books inside.”
I crossed the room, not wanting to believe her. But she was right. There were no books in the cabinet at all. “Please tell me this isn’t the cabinet where all the really important books were kept,” I said, but I already knew the answer.
Mary Anne’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t understand,” she said. “None of the traps have been sprung down here. There’s no way the Order could have come down here without tripping those warning traps.”
“Maybe your family took the books with them before they left town?” Jackson said.
“I don’t think so,” Mary Anne said. “They wouldn’t have had time to come back here. I felt them leave the area as soon as the fighting was over. I would have known if they’d been back.”
“Maybe someone disarmed the traps, then reset them?” I asked.
“Impossible,” Mary Anne said, shaking her head. “These traps are bound by a blood oath. There’s no way to disarm them without being either a part of my bloodline or pledging an oath to my family with blood.”
Jackson turned to Mary Anne. “Who else would have had permission to come down here without setting off the traps? Did your family have someone else they trusted? Anyone you can think of who pledged that kind of oath?”
Mary Anne shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “But I only knew the things my mother told me. If they had some kind of secret alliance with another group or someone in town, I wouldn’t have known about that anyway.”
My shoulders tensed. In the wrong hands, those books could be extremely dangerous. We already knew they contained spells about black roses and instructions on how to kill the Prima and transfer the line to a new family. Who knew what other terrible magic there was inside?
“Whoever came down here knew exactly what they were looking for,” I said. “They knew where to find the most valuable books on dark magic. Who would do that unless they had every intention of using them?”
“I don’t know,” Jackson said. “But we’re not going to figure it out by standing here talking about it. We should get home before someone finds out we’re here.”
I turned around in the small room. “Is there anything we should take with us?”
“What do you mean?” Mary Anne asked.
“Any chance some of these other books might have a secret ritual that could break the spell that makes me the Prima?” I asked. “Without killing me, I mean.”
Jackson crouched down by a row of books. He shook his head. “I know these books,” he said. “Mostly standard magic books. Potions. Basic spells. Most of these books are in the library at Shadowford.”
“Library?” Mary Anne asked.
I threw Jackson a look and he shrugged. “There’s a secret library,” I said. “I’ll show you some other time, but for now, let’s finish looking through these books and get the hell out of this village.”
“Good idea,” Jackson said.
After a brief run through all the shelves, we had a stack of six books to take home with us. One rare book on shape-shifting. A book on powerful potions. And a few others written in a foreign language. None of the books held dark magic and none of them would free me from this curse of being Prima. Whatever important and dangerous magic had been housed here, it wasn’t here now. All I could hope was that whoever had those books had no intention of using them against me or Jackson.
“Let’s go,” Jackson said. “We’re not going to find anything else here tonight.”
“Stay behind me,” Mary Anne said. She blew out the candle and I followed the sound of her footsteps. My boot hit the bottom stair and I stumbled, throwing my hands out in the darkness to try to regain my balance.
I scraped my palm against the rough stone of the stairs and cried out. A warm trickle of blood ran down the side of my hand. “Crap.”
“You okay?” Jackson said, his hand on my back.
“Fine.” I gritted my teeth against the pain. A small rock had gotten pushed into my skin, but when I tried to brush it away, it wouldn’t budge. Great. It was really jammed in there and hurt like hell.
I cradled my injured hand close to my chest and made my way up the stairs. Once outside in the light of the moon, I held my palm up to my face and gasped. It wasn’t a rock stuck in my palm. It was a diamond earring.