Soul Survivor (25 page)

“No! Oh, fuck, Drew,” I cried. He coughed and blood ran down his shirt; his head turned to the side, he stared at me, reaching a hand out to mine. I shimmied over to him and the smell of a fire crackled in the air around us. The circle was almost complete. I closed my eyes and incanted a spell. Carman's laugh sounded around me—a noise that made a shiver run down my spine.

I looked into Drew's eyes, repeating the foreign words over and over again. A new ripple of power coursed through me and I licked my lips, still tasting some of Dother's blood. Had I ingested some of his power, too? Drew's wound began to close, starting on either end and slowly stopping the gushing blood. I smiled through a sob and kept repeating the incantation. The cut was almost healed when I looked over to the circle. Dother stood around it with his hands in the air, wind swirling around him, grabbing his hair and blowing it around his face. In the center of the circle, I could see a transparent Carman materializing.

Drew snatched my hand in his, squeezing it, and I met his eyes again. Both filling with tears. “Whatever you are . . . ,” he whispered and I put a finger to his lips.

“Sh, don't try to talk.”

He shook his head. “Whatever you are
. . .
it's—it's incredible.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and a tear rolled down my cheek landing on Drew's face. “Oh, Drew. You don't know the half of it.”

A laugh from the circle brought my attention back. Carman stood in the center, not entirely materialized yet. Wind outside the house howled, and Dother looked around at the ceiling and the one small window.

“He's here, Mother. The prodigal son returns,” Dother said with a psychotic laugh.

A clomping sound came from the top of the stairs, where, in a blink, Damien stood at the bottom. He chewed the inside of his cheek, his eyes narrowed, as he scanned the room.

“Ah, Dian!” Dother gestured in an exaggerated welcoming way. “Come, brother. You're just in time.”

M
y heart wrenched into my throat. It couldn't be. Not again. I squeezed my eyes shut. The man I'm fucking cannot be here to kill me.

“Let them go, Dother.” Damien fisted his hands at his sides, and his cracking knuckles sounded through the room.

Dother cackled. “Dian, you're telling me that you'd choose a human and Hell's whore over family.” He put a palm to his chest, his melancholy tone a gross exaggeration. “Over your brother and mother? The woman who is responsible for the magic you use daily?”

“It's Damien. Not Dian. Not anymore.”

Dother's eye roll was so big his neck mimicked the movement. “Come now, don't be ridiculous. This ruse you keep up of being human must be growing tedious by now. Masking your powers. Hiding your true nature. Your name . . . your very essence means violence.”

Damien snorted. “So, we'll just be one big happy family again, will we? And just how do you plan on completing this circle, Dother? I believe you're missing an important facet.”

Dother's smile was tight and thin-lipped. “How could it be missing when it's standing just before me. Besides”—he darted a glance over his shoulder at Drew and me—“I don't know how she saved him, but the human must die.”

“As must I, isn't that so?”

“Well”—Dother's voice was a hoarse whisper—“you were the one who arranged for our family's defenses to be down the night of the summoning.” They both growled, chests puffed out, ready to strike.

Damien—Dian—whatever—had been part of that night in Ireland centuries ago? I thought back to the start of the evening. The pebbles that had splattered against the window with no one around to have thrown them. Carman wasn't only a sorceress . . . she was an elemental. It made perfect sense, though. She and her sons controlled the elements—the weather.

Dother leapt at Dian, a crack of thunder sounding outside the house, shaking it all around us. Carman stood in the center of her circle, watching. Observing quietly with the smallest pleased smile curving her lips. She was as beautiful as I remembered her to be. A hardened, vicious beauty.

Damien and Dother charged each other, their movements so fast and violent, it was a blur. Wind swirled around the basement, a bolt of lightning striking the stairs, splitting the wood. Baxter yelped and cowered in the corner, shaking.

With the brothers busy fighting and Dother's blood still fresh in my mouth, I attempted another spell to free my hands. The incantation whistled from my lips and lashed at the dark magic binding my limbs. They snapped open and my stomach flipped inside my core. I hated the fact that I had some of Dother's dark magic in me, but fuck if I was going to turn away the help when I needed it most.

I tugged Drew to his feet, his weight not an issue. With his arm around my shoulder, I looked up into his eyes. “C'mon.” I ran for the stairs, slowed down by the extra weight on my back. I was still faster than any human but not fast enough.

Without so much as a word, Carman's arms stretched out, aimed directly at us. The wind knocked us backwards, pinning us once again to the wall on the other end of the room.

Kayce ran down the stairs, directly to us, and she was lifted off her feet, back slamming into the ceiling before she was dropped onto the cement floor. Blood splattered from her face, which she quickly shifted away. Carman laughed, her voice cracking with the foreign sound. She lifted and dropped Kayce like she was her own puppet. With a final slap to the floor, Kayce whimpered, still managing to shift her wounds closed. Her limbs trembled as she pulled up to her hands and knees, glancing at me from the floor. “It wasn't what you think,” she whispered and even I could barely hear her over the roaring wind around us. “When they contacted me for the hit, Lucien told me to accept. Because we wanted to learn who was behind it.”

I nodded at her, unable to say more as the wind swirled around my nose and mouth, sucking all the air from my lungs. I looked to Drew, eyes blinking, fighting to stay conscious.

Adrienne, George, and Raul rushed in, Raul sweating and pale. George shifted into an animal—a tiger—and lunged at Dother, ripping his flesh open. A finger flew across the room and Dother's screams outdid the howling wind. Even Carman, from inside her circle, seemed to be tiring. How long had it been since she had practiced magic? In her imprisonment, magic certainly wasn't allowed.

Dother put George, who was still in tiger mode, in a head lock, cutting off his oxygen, and Carman shot another bolt of lightning to Adrienne, who fell through the cracked stairs.

I had Dother's blood—if I tried, just maybe I could counter her spells. I looked to the fight where Kayce was pinned to the floor. George was flickering back to his human self, exhausted. There just simply wasn't enough energy to feed the power. Dother's eyes flared, angrier than ever, skin hanging open in raw, angry gashes. Blood covering his entire body.

Raul opened a book—John's journal—reciting the spell. I recognized it from long ago. The spell that had initially bound Carman and Dother to their circles. His magic crackled around the existing elements in the middle of a war. He had clearly undersold his abilities. His powers were practiced. Eloquent. The flick of his fingers perfectly sending the magic to the circle. But he was expelling a lot of the force in the spell. He was sweating, his legs trembling, and something flickered around his person. As if he wasn't able to maintain two spells at once, a mask lifted, and quivering behind the beautifully sculpted Cuban face, I could see John. Lord Buckley performing a spell.

I clamped my eyes shut, cursing both Dejan and myself for being so stupid. Of course after a few centuries of practicing magic, he was able to use glamour. There was no twin brother to Luis; it was simply an alias formed to mask Lord Buckley.

Carman's laugh pulled me back to my present situation. Pinned against the back wall with crushing winds sucking the air from my lungs. It would be so easy to give in. I glanced again at Lord Buckley—Raul—and his gaze met mine. He flickered again and his eyes turned from dark brown to green. His mouth twitched into that infamous half-smile that made the stomach acid burn in my guts.

The ancient Indo-European language came easier this time, and against Carman's winds, I raised a hand pointing the elements back to her. The wind caught in my hand and I felt the gust enter my body, rushing through my blood and brain. It was like a hit of ecstasy and I felt invincible. I fell to the floor, landing in a crouch, and Drew crumpled to the ground coughing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adrienne run to Drew, who braced his body around her as she cried into his shoulder, holding him.

Carman's face registered what was happening, and those beautiful Greek features twitched with uncertainty. She darted a glance to Dother, who was still in the throes of battle with Damien. She threw a lightning bolt, which I caught, and it oscillated through me. I chanted the ancient language and threw the elements I had absorbed back to her. Wind and a lightning bolt entered her circle, and she doubled over as the tunnel of air swirled around her, lightning flashing a sliver of light above her head. Using the last of her energy, she calmed the elements, falling forward, hands on knees. She wheezed between her legs, and I, too, was unable to stand any longer. I fell to my knees in an effort to catch my breath. She couldn't keep up. . . . I knew it—she wasn't so practiced anymore.

Drew, Adrienne, and Baxter were in the corner, and Adrienne was applying pressure to Drew's bleeding cuts.

George limped over to me, helping me to my feet as well. The wind still swirled around us from Dother and Damien's fight. Thunder clapped inside the basement.

“I'm okay,” I said to George. “Go help Kayce.”

“Kayce will be okay. I still have some energy—let's fight,” he whispered.

“Don't deplete yourself entirely—”

“I'm not.”

He helped me to my feet. When Carman blew another tunnel of wind at us, I managed to hold it at bay.

Damien was bleeding now. His eyes were puffy and red. Lip was split open. And even though Dother was just as bloody, he seemed to have more energy. Their magic still swirled through the basement, but they had resorted to a brotherly fistfight on top of that. Dother circled Damien, arms outstretched. He smiled. “What now, brother? I was attacked by a tiger and still am stronger. Evil wins every time.”

Adrienne rushed Dother's back with a flashing speed, launching herself at him. He caught her in a wind tunnel, slamming her body to the ground. I whispered an incantation, lifting her body and bringing her over to George and me. “You okay?” I asked.

She nodded. The wind had been knocked out of her, but she didn't seem to be bleeding.

Drew was on his feet, bracing his body against the wall, he walked over to where we gathered, me still holding Carman's blasts at arm's length. It was getting more and more difficult to hold her powers back. “We need to get Dother into the circle,” I whispered quietly, hoping that elementals' hearing was not as good as ours. She nodded and a flash of red caught my eye.

The Banshee! She had been there that night, too. Her murky tears stained her cheeks, and she stood before Drew, hand hovering over his face. “Drew's your descendant,” I said, more to myself than anyone. Her head snapped to me, eyes shimmering as much as they possibly could in their milky state. Her face was twisted, and Drew's breathing seemed more labored. The Banshee's chest sobbed, but her tears were a silent wheeze. Slowly this time, slower than I'd ever seen her before, she unhinged her jaw.

“No!” I screamed and she looked to me first.

The distraction was all anyone needed, and a flash of blond hair and muscle ran past all of us. Drew slammed into Dother's body, throwing him into the center of the circle with his mother. The Banshee followed him, her scream shaking the walls of the house.

The ground beneath us trembled, the circle turning into a swirling black hole. I screamed, leaping to jump in after Drew, but Damien caught me around the waist. “Don't be stupid,” he shouted.

The ground swallowed Carman, Dother, the Banshee . . . and Drew. The house was still; all that was left was a singed floor, smoking in a perfect ring.

Adrienne fell to the floor, face dropping into her hands. Her shoulders shook.

“How did that fucking happen?” Lord Buckley—still glamoured as Raul shouted, running over to the circle. “The tears of an angel were needed to banish them to Hell!”

“Oh, no.” Adrienne's voice was a whisper. Her cheeks still stained with dried tears. “It was me. I-I cried.”

“You cried in the circle?” Lord Buckley rushed to Adrienne, his eyes swirling with anger and authority.

“No!” she countered. “I cried on Drew—but he . . .”

“He ran into the circle,” John finished for her. “Angel tears were shed on the sacrificial lamb.” His voice was void of emotion.

We all stood around the smoking circle, bleeding, panting, mouths agape. “We've got to get him back,” I whispered. “There's got to be a way to get him back!”

“He's in Hell,” Damien said, eyes unblinking, staring at the ground.

I advanced on John, grabbing him by the collar of his perfectly starched dress shirt. “Cut the shit, John. Get him back!”

“You can fight me all you want, angel. It won't bring him back.” His facade flickered until finally fading, leaving me nose to nose with the man I'd wanted to hunt down and hurt all these years.

“Don't you ever call me angel. I'm not a fucking angel anymore,” I spat.

His mouth tilted into a half-smile and I slapped him. My sudden outburst only made his grin widen.

“Monica—” Damien touched my arm, but I just slammed John harder against the back wall.

John took my hands in his, removing them from his lapel and brushing it off as if I had dusty hands that needed to be cleaned. “Why is it you think I came when I felt the magic in my sector, Monica?” His eyes flashed and he glanced around the room at the other faces surrounding him. “Do you think I cared at all about the lives of any humans? That I cared whether or not Dian was sacrificed by his own brother? I came for
you
.”

“You have a funny way of showing love.”

He shrugged. “Don't you see? When you were an angel, we could have never been together. But as anything else—” He stepped in closer, my reflection glimmering in his green eyes. They were a similar shade to Drew's, but maybe a touch darker. “I knew Dejan's obsession with you. I knew he would save you back then. As he would save you now. Of course, even I couldn't have anticipated that you would transform into a succubus.” John took one more step, his hand outstretched, aimed for my face. “Think of the power couple we could be, Monica.”

I flinched away from his touch, stepping back toward my friends. “You can bring Drew back. I know you can. And if you don't know how yet, I will make your existence a fucking misery until you come up with the spell that will save him.”

Sorrow twisted John's face for only a moment before he clicked his tongue and rocked back on his heels. “I see,” he said. “The funny thing about that . . . is you'll have to find me first. You will come around to me again, Monica.” He snapped his fingers—and then he was gone.