Shadow Demons (16 page)

“I’m Erick.” A short guy with spiky hair and a California surfer dude accent came close to the fire and introduced himself to me. “You already met Mordecai and Cristo and Lea, of course.”

I looked around the small camp. There was one more member of their group I still hadn’t met. A skinny Asian guy with glasses and a boxy hair cut stood off to the side, staring out at the ocean.

“That’s Joost,” Mordecai said, following my gaze. “He doesn’t talk much.”

“Where are we?” I asked. If Jackson didn’t have any answers for me, maybe these guys could tell me what the hell was going on.

“Oregon,” Erick said. “About as far from your little town as we could get without leaving the country.”

My eyes widened. Oregon? We must have been going a lot faster than I ever could have imagined.

I rested my elbows on my knees and propped my head up, staring at the fire. “Thanks for coming for us,” I said softly.

Mordecai smiled at me. “Sure thing,” he said, then laughed. “Although I might have liked to watch you fight the Order of Shadows. Something tells me a little thing like you might actually be able to screw some shit up when it comes to those witches.”

I shook my head. Fight the Order? No thank you. I had nowhere near the skill and training most of those women had.

“Don’t look so worried, mate,” Cristo said, coming to sit by the fire with us. He had a beer bottle in his hand and he tipped it up, the liquid flowing into his mouth until the bottle was completely empty.

The three guys started talking about some party they crashed the weekend before. I zoned out, lost in my questions and trying to figure out how exactly we were going to get out of this mess.

I have no idea how much time passed before Jackson and Lea joined the group at the fire. Jackson sat next to me on the driftwood, and the touch of his knee against mine made me feel almost sane again.

“Thanks again for helping us get out of there,” Jackson said.

“No worries,” Mordecai said.

“The hardest part was riding away without getting rid of any of those witches,” Erick said. “I mean, a whole tent full of them. We could have brought some serious pain.”

Everyone around the fire laughed. Cristo tossed his bottle at Erick and rolled his eyes.

I tensed. Was he talking about killing witches? I looked to Jackson, hoping he would have some answers. He reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. The subtle shake of his head told me to keep my mouth shut, no matter what the group had to say.

“We still could,” Lea said. She stood with one foot propped up on a large rock. She was staring at me across the flames. “We could end the Peachville coven right now if we wanted to.”

I started to stand up, but Jackson put his hand on my leg. I stared at him. Was he seriously expecting me to just sit here while this girl threatened to kill me?

“She’s joking, Harper,” he said. He turned to Lea. “Harper’s been through a lot tonight, can’t you just give her a break?”

She narrowed her eyes, her gaze still firmly on me. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Come on, Lea,” Mordecai said. “Let up.”

“What do we do from here?” Cristo said. “Are we just going to hide out here for a spell? Won’t the Order send someone after her?”

“Well, we can’t take her with us on our planned mission next week, that’s for sure,” Erick said.

“I’m cool with taking a break, to be honest,” Mordecai said. “It’s been a long time since we took a week to just chill.”

Lea stomped her foot down on the ground. “We didn’t come to this world to chill,” she said. “This isn’t a vacation, in case you’ve forgotten. These human witches have stolen thousands of our brothers and sisters, making slaves out of our loved ones. And for what?” She looked straight at me, her mouth twisted in a gruesome snarl. “For their own selfish power.”

I had to practically bite my tongue off to keep from giving her a piece of my mind. She was treating me as if I had purposely chosen this life. As if I were somehow responsible for the Order’s actions.

An uncomfortable tension hung between us. Cristo grabbed another beer from a cooler on the side of his bike while everyone else just stared at the fire. Joost had finally come over to the fire, but he sat behind the rest of the group without a word.

“We’ve kept out of your business in Peachville,” Lea said to Jackson. “Out of respect for you and your family. It hasn’t been much of an issue since their power was diminished. Without a Prima, those witches were nothing to us. But you know as well as I do what they’re going to do now. We can’t just sit by and let that happen.”

Jackson ran a hand through his hair, then leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

“What is she talking about?” I said, not able to keep my mouth shut for long. “What are they going to do?”

Jackson shook his head and looked up at Lea. “You had to bring that up now?” he said. He turned his body toward me, his shoulders tense. His eyes dark. “After what happened tonight, they’ll consider you dangerous. It won’t take much for Lydia Ashworth to convince the rest of the council that extreme measures need to be taken.”

I sat up straight and tried not to show fear. “What kind of extreme measures?”

“They’ll either wipe your memory and initiate you early,” Jackson said. “Or if they have the crow’s spell books, they’ll kill you and use your blood to initiate a new Prima. My guess is that Mrs. Ashworth will be quick to want the job.”

“They have the books,” I said.

“How do you know?” Jackson asked.

“Because the earring I found down there in the library belongs to Brooke,” I said. “And I’m pretty sure the only way they were all able to get down there was because Mrs. Ashworth pledged a blood oath to the crow’s coven a long time ago. I think Brooke’s family and Mrs. Ashworth’s family have all been working together.”

No wonder Brooke was suddenly dating Drake. They’d obviously made some kind of alliance.

“Either way, Peachville is going to have a new Prima,” Lea said. “And that means restored power.”

I took a deep breath and stared at the orange flames. In both of those scenarios, the real me died.

“What about you?” I asked Jackson. “What will they do to you?”

“Now that they know I have my old powers back, they’ll try to bind me again. And this time they’ll recruit help.”

“Help?”

“The High Council,” he said.

I shook my head. We were totally screwed. How could we fight against that?

“So what now?” I said. “We run?”

“From the Order of Shadows?” Erick said. “Not for long. They’ll find you eventually. Best you come up with a good plan now so that you meet them on your own terms.”

“The Order has people everywhere,” Cristo said. “And access to magic more powerful than you could ever imagine. It’s only a matter of time before they find you.”

“Well, we can’t just give up,” I said.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Lea said. “There is no ‘we’. It’s you on your own, girlie. If Jackson wants to tie is fate to you, that’s his business, but don’t include us in your future plans. We’ll help you hide out, but only because Jackson and me, we share a past. I owe him my life. But you? I don’t owe you anything.”

“Give the girl a break, Lea,” Mordecai said. “Look at her, she’s terrified.”

I stopped wringing my hands together and lifted my chin in the air. I was scared, sure. But I didn’t want to look weak.

“Maybe we should just leave this until morning,” Joost said. His voice was quiet, but everyone listened and nodded. I met his eyes for a moment, but he quickly looked back down at the ground.

“Fine,” Lea said. “Cristo, conjure up some tents. Mordecai, put out that fire so the whole world doesn’t know where we are.”

The group dispersed, everyone busy with getting the camp ready for sleep. I sat on the driftwood log, my legs trembling too hard for me to trust them.

What had I gotten myself into?

Beside me, Jackson wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I leaned into him, my body and mind completely exhausted.

“We need to talk,” he said.

That was the understatement of the year.

“Yes we do,” I said. “And this time, no secrets.”

“I know a path to the beach,” Jackson said.

We stood together while the others conjured tents and cast spells around the perimeter in order to warn us if anyone approached. The grass under my feet shriveled up as Mordecai cast a spell near us. I stared at the ground and remembered the night we were attacked in the woods. The grass and trees around us all withered the same way.

“You’ve been here before?” I asked, stepping carefully as we reached a rocky path that led sharply down the side of the cliff.

“Many times,” he said. “It’s one of Lea’s favorite places.”

A sting of jealousy pierced my stomach. What exactly was his relationship to her? I wondered just how close they were. She’d said she owed him her life.

“It’s a good hiding spot, far from any city and so far up, it’s hard to get to with a regular car,” he said. “But we won’t be able to stay here long.”

We didn’t talk the rest of the way down to the beach. I had to squint to see where I was placing my feet as we walked. The moon was nice and bright, but other than that, there were no other lights out here.

When we got to the beach, we both kicked off our shoes and walked along the wet sand close to the waves. I lifted up the skirt of my dress so it wouldn’t get ruined.

“I have so many questions, I’m not even sure where to start,” I said. I thought of the dying grass near Mordecai’s feet. “Can you tell me how your power works? I mean, I saw what was happening to the grass up there where they were casting spells.”

He hesitated, then looked around. His gaze landed on a small patch of weeds growing from the side of the cliff. He plucked a small flower from the rocks and lifted it up between us.

I watched, breathless.

Jackson rounded his lips and blew. The weed frosted over with a thin layer of ice that extended all the way down to the tips of his fingers. I watched in surprise as the other weeds along the side of the cliff around us slowly turned brown, then gray. Within a few seconds, everything along the wall was dried and brittle.

I shook my head, not understanding. “What’s going on?”

“Pure demon power is dangerous in this world,” he said. “When I cast a spell, it siphons power from something living.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’m like a disease against life,” he said. “In order for my power to work in this dimension, I need batteries, in a way. And life is my battery. For simple magic, like a freezing spell, life will be drained from something small, like blades of grass or weeds. That night in the woods, I used a lot of power. It sucked life from the trees and every living thing around us.”

“That’s why you needed me to heal the trees,” I said, finally understanding.

“If anyone had come across that spot and seen the dead trees and grass, they would have known a demon had used their pure power,” he said. “I couldn’t risk anyone finding out about my powers.”

“What happens once all the trees and grass are dead? Would your power just not work anymore?”

He licked his lips nervously. “Then the power would come from other sources.”

I shivered. “Like human life?”

He put the frozen flower in his palm and it began to melt against the warmth of his skin. “If necessary.”

“So why don’t the witches of the Order die after the demons are trapped inside of them?”

“You know how you get tired when you use your power? Like it drains your energy?”

I nodded.

“That’s the demon magic pulling power from your body,” he said. “When you use the demon’s power, instead of pulling life from your surroundings, the demon’s magic pulls life from the witch.”

I thought about what he was saying and tried to make sense of it. “So if a witch used too much power without allowing her body to recharge?”

“She could die,” he said.

“Why couldn’t you tell me this before?” I searched his face, trying to make sense of this wall he kept up between us.

“I didn’t want you to be afraid of me,” he said.

I lifted my hand to his face. “The only thing that scares me is losing you forever.”

“How do you know Lea and the others?” I asked when we’d walked down the beach a ways. “Did you meet them here? Or do you know them from home?”

Jackson moved away from a larger wave, then came back to my side. “I’ve known them all my life,” he said. “Lea came to this world shortly after I did, then the others followed over the course of the next few years.”

“How did they get here?” I asked, thinking with dread of the way Jackson had gotten here.

“I know it’s not what you want to hear,” he said. “But they came through by force. When a powerful demon comes through in a normal initiation ritual, sometimes they are too powerful for the host to handle. Especially when the demon is coming through with a mission. The others weren’t bound like me. They didn’t stick around the ritual room trying to get vengeance. They killed only those they had to kill to go free.”

“Why did they come?” I asked.

“When I found out where Aerden had been taken to, I told them,” he said. “They were our closest friends in the shadow world. They came over expecting us to form an army together. They came to fight the Order.”

The air coming off the ocean was cold, and I shivered. I knew I should probably get my toes out of the wet sand before I ended up getting sick, but the cold made me feel better somehow. “But you couldn’t join their army,” I said. “Because you were bound to Peachville with no power.”

“My first priority was finding a way to free my brother. At first, Lea and the others helped me track down any whisper of a chance in freeing Aerden. Our thought was that if we could find a way to free Aerden, that also meant freeing all of our shadow demon brothers and sisters. Then, about ten years ago, the gang decided they had had enough of watching demons continue to be pulled through the gates. Their focus changed.”

A knowing chill spread through me. I thought of Aldeen, Kansas and all the witches who had died. If that was what these demons had resorted to, I didn’t want to hear about it. It was madness.

“They wanted me to join them,” he said. “Fight against the Order’s influence. But I had no power. I couldn’t do anything to help. Besides, I didn’t always approve of their methods, you know?”

I trembled. “I know.”

“Anyway, no matter what my friends did, nothing worked to stop the Order from enslaving our kind. The Order retaliated to every move by creating more demon gate towns,” he said. “They started initiating more and more witches every year.”

I understood why the demons wanted to stop the Order, but killing all of the witches wasn’t the answer. “Why didn’t they just try to sit down with High Council and explain how what they were doing was hurting the shadow world. Maybe the Order doesn’t understand what they’re doing.”

Jackson stopped. “You never really want to believe they’re evil, do you?” he asked. “Harper, the Order of Shadows presents themselves to their initiates as this helpful organization. A club where they use their power to build better communities. But there’s so much you don’t see.”

“Like what?”

“Like the way they manipulate the media and the government to get what they want,” he said. “The way they walk all over anyone who gets in their way.”

“That doesn’t make everyone in the Order evil,” I said. “Misguided maybe. Or power-hungry. But not evil. That’s a strong word.”

“What do you call people who willingly enslave another race for personal gain?” he said. His voice grew louder and louder, and I could tell he was getting angry. “You don’t think the shadow demons here on earth have tried to explaining to the Order what they’re doing? I’ve spoken to the High Priestess and the High Council several times, pleading with them to stop bringing more of my kind over to this world. They don’t care, Harper. They can’t imagine letting go of their precious power.”

“Okay, so the Council is corrupt,” I said. “But what about the initiates? When they’re first brought onto the cheerleading squad, they don’t understand that demons are being used as slaves. They’re treated with respect and taught to use their magic. They’re taught to trust the Order. Then, on their eighteenth birthday, they’re brought into that initiation ritual without a freaking clue what’s happening.”

Jackson went silent. He turned out toward the vast ocean, the moonlight illuminating each crest as the tide continued to come in.

“I was there when Brooke was initiated,” I said. “She fought so hard against it as soon as she realized what was going on. It was like they tricked her. That doesn’t make her evil.”

“No, but do you think she’ll stand up and protest the next time a girl is brought into the Order?” he asked. “Or do you think she’ll be there, helping them hold her down?”

His words sliced through me like a knife. He was right. The girls on the squad might not have much choice in the matter once they’re brought to the initiation, but what about afterward? Why didn’t anyone stand up and speak out against what was happening? If it was something they didn’t want for themselves, why did they willingly allow it to happen to the next girl?

“Power changes people,” Jackson said. “They may not like the idea of what’s happening to them at the time, but once they get a taste of that power, they feel like it was worth it, no matter what the cost.”

I stood at the edge of the surf, letting the rising waves rush over my bare feet. Jackson was right. Power did change people. And no matter how they tried to package what they were doing as a good thing for their communities and for their world, they were taking away our right to choose. They were stealing demons from their homeland and forcing them into a lifetime of slavery.

The act of initiation made those witches victims, but the act of sitting back and watching it happen - no, helping while it happened - to someone else? Well, that was unforgivable. I could never be a part of that.

“So what do we do from here?” I asked. “Now that lines have been drawn.”

Jackson put his arms around me and held me close.

“The only thing we can do,” he said. “We fight back.”