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THE NIGHT BEFORE DOOMSDAY

If the world was going to end in flames, there was one person Dru desperately wanted at her side. Whenever an apocalyptic menace threatened, he was always there for her, just when she needed him most. No matter how many sorcerers Dru had met, how many monsters she had fought, or how many curses she had broken, she had never dreamed that there could be anyone as courageous and loyal as Greyson.

Or anything as dark and dangerous as his demon-possessed car, Hell-bringer.

The heat of the vanished summer sun still radiated up from the empty road long after dark, baking the parched blades of grass and shriveled weeds on either side. A glimmer of headlights spread across the black asphalt, bleaching it silver, illuminating the pitted double-yellow lines that stretched into the distance. The long, black muscle car roared past, burning-hot exhaust pipes cackling as Hellbringer kicked up a haze of dust. Darkness instantly returned to the road, except for the lava-red slits of taillights dwindling into the darkness, like the eyes of a demon descending into the abyss.

In the passenger seat, Dru shifted beneath the weight of the warm white plastic bag in her lap. For a sorceress who spent a distressing amount of her time getting splashed by magical potions, blasted by fiery spells, and slobbered on by foul creatures, even a single quiet, romantic evening like this was a blessing.

So she had made the most of it. Gotten her hair done. Spent extra time on her makeup. Picked up a brand-new blue dress with short sleeves and a nice V-neck. Let Greyson take her out to dinner at her favorite neighborhood Chinese place. Laughed and talked about everything except doomsday until the sun sank below the mountains and the stars came out.

Now, the quiet calm of this deserted road made her feel like the two of them were the last people on Earth, and she couldn’t be happier about that. She wished this rare moment alone with Greyson would never end.

As if sensing her thoughts, he lifted his palm from the gear shift and took her hand, holding it tight. Then they hit a bump in the road that nearly toppled the contents of the steamy plastic bag. She let go of his hand to catch the bundle and make sure it stayed upright.

Just like that, the moment was gone. She could almost see the gears shifting in Greyson’s head as he looked at the bag. As desperately as she wanted to hold onto this dreamy evening, to make it last, she felt it slipping away. And it was all her fault.

His eyebrow quirked up. “Are you sure about the chicken soup?”

She sighed and pushed her glasses back up her nose, mentally cursing her own overextended sense of professional responsibility. It had kept twinging in the back of her mind all through dinner, and just before they had left, she had made a split-second decision that she now realized was in danger of ruining their date.

“I just want Salem to get better,” Dru said, hoping that she wasn’t making a mistake. “He may be one of the most powerful sorcerers around, but he’s still human. And he’s kind of a friend. Sort of.”

Greyson’s leather jacket creaked as he turned toward her. The dashboard lights illuminated the stubble on his chiseled jaw and cast his broad chest into shadow. “The fact that he’s injured could make him dangerous.”

“I think the word I would choose is crabby. He did almost get crushed to death beneath a rockslide. That would put anybody in a bad mood, right?”

Greyson grunted. “Not just anybody in a bad mood can flick his wrist and flip a car over.”

“He’s not going to flip the car over,” Dru said with a confidence she didn’t entirely feel. Quietly, she added, “I hope.”

Greyson turned the steering wheel. Hellbringer’s headlight beams swept across a desolate parking lot, briefly illuminating glimpses of tall dead grass, windblown candy bar wrappers, and the sparkling scattered glass of broken bottles.

Like everything else around here, the parking lot was deserted. The only car actually parked there, in the exact center of practically an acre of abandoned asphalt, was an old black hearse. All the long bits of its chrome trim shone for a moment in the passing headlight beams, like shooting stars streaking across a night sky. Creepy as that particular vehicle was in the daytime, it was downright spooky at night. Especially since the layer of tan dust coating it indicated that the hearse hadn’t been driven in a while.

“Well, Salem’s home,” Dru said brightly. “That’s good news.”

The look on Greyson’s face said that he didn’t agree. “Hope he likes soup.”

Hellbringer drove across the cracked asphalt, crushing dead grass and weeds beneath the tires. Ahead loomed a sprawling industrial building, the entire ground floor covered in graffiti. Empty holes gaped where windows had been smashed out long ago. Under ordinary circumstances, Dru would have been scared to set foot anywhere near this place. But more than anything, she wanted to help Salem recover from his injuries. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t appreciate it, but she had to try. In a way, she felt responsible.

From the driver’s seat, Greyson cast a sidelong glance at the bag.

“We’ll just drop it off and go. I promise.” Dru pulled the knot tighter at the top of the white plastic bag, hoping that would prevent anything from spilling out. The old demon car filled with the mouth-watering aromas of chicken broth, green onions, fresh cilantro, and spicy garlic.

At the top of the bag, wax paper crinkled under the pressure. “Ooh, look at that! Mrs. Xin slipped in some bonus egg rolls. She’s been extra nice ever since we saved her from those nasty spirit-possessed shi shis.”

But Greyson wasn’t listening. He suddenly sat up straighter in the driver’s seat, frowning, and his chest swelled with an intake of breath. His blue eyes scanned the darkness outside. All at once, swarms of tiny sparks flared to life in his irises, as if a raging fire had been struck inside him. His eyes began to glow a hellish red.

He was sensing danger. “Something’s out there.”

Eyes wide behind her glasses, Dru turned to follow his gaze. Greyson’s danger sense had never been wrong before, but she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just graffiti, trash, weeds, and some broken bits of concrete. Still, she turned and pushed down the little chrome knob in the door, locking it.

“Let’s take a look around.” Greyson turned the big steering wheel and slowly circled the building. The headlights played off of the crumbling concrete walls festooned with indecipherable spray paint. To the casual observer, the place looked dead and abandoned. But Dru knew firsthand that the entire top floor of the old building was Salem’s personal lair. As a sorcerer, he was probably second to none. But when it came to his curb appeal, he had plenty of room for improvement.

The steady rumble of Hellbringer’s engine thudded off of the grimy walls and reflected back at them. If there was somebody—or something—out there in the darkness, they had to know exactly where Hellbringer was. The demon car was as subtle as dropping a ton of bricks. About as quiet, too.

Dru leaned forward in the seat, staring out through the windshield, scanning the night. She saw a flicker of movement and pointed. “There!”

Greyson turned Hellbringer toward it and goosed the gas, making the engine bark with barely contained menace. But the headlight beams revealed nothing. Just an expanse of broken, windblown asphalt. Greyson turned his burning red gaze toward Dru with an unspoken question.

Her heart beat faster. She shook her head, worried. “There was something moving out there. I know it.”

He nodded grimly. “Maybe we should get out of here.”

“Not if there’s any chance Salem is in danger.” Fighting down the clammy fear that threatened to paralyze her, Dru set the bag of soup and egg rolls down between her feet, and quickly dug into the cluttered depths of her purse. Beneath a thick wad of expired coupons, some little pencils from IKEA, and a snarl of headphones currently wrapped boa constrictor-like around a necklace she hadn’t seen in six months, she found what she was looking for. It was a rectangular crystal about the size of a Tic Tac box, with rounded edges.

Dru pulled out the ulexite crystal, which resembled a frosted piece of sea glass, and pressed it to her forehead. Instantly, her vision swam as her magical energy flowed through the crystal.

Outside the car, the black of night grew deeper. Yet at the same time, the air filled with a luminous glow, making her feel as if everything had suddenly plunged underwater. The world around her lit with an eerie inner light. Using the ulexite, Dru could pick up ethereal auras that were invisible to the naked eye. She could also spot magical spells, invisible lurkers, and most supernatural creatures. All of the horrifying, sanity-stealing things normal people weren’t meant to see.

She swiveled her head left and right. There was nothing immediately in front of them, as far she could tell. Then she turned around to look behind them.

A slender, luminous figure slipped through the night. It didn’t walk so much as glide through the darkness, and the eerie movement made her skin crawl.

As if sensing her gaze, it jerked its head to look straight at her. But its face was hideously wrong. It had no eyes. Nothing but twin pools of impenetrable blackness.

For a moment, Dru couldn’t get any words out. In her admittedly brief career as a sorceress, she had faced down all manner of disturbing creatures: demons, shape changers, web-spinning undead, and on one particularly disturbing occasion, a colossal evil clown statue. But those staring pools of darkness left her struggling to breathe through her tightening throat.

The thing disappeared into the gloom of the ground floor just before Hellbringer turned the corner, circling the building.

Dru pointed and forced the words out: “It’s back there!”

Greyson slowed the car. “It?”

She struggled to put what she’d seen into words. “Some kind of…ghost?”

Greyson studied the look on her face, and nodded slightly, as if making a decision. Instead of turning the car around, he nailed the gas. The tires chirped, and the sudden acceleration nearly toppled the bag of Chinese chicken soup onto Dru’s feet.

“Salem’s ladder is on the other side of the building,” Greyson said, referring to the only way up to the sorcerer’s top-floor lair. “We’ll go in that way. Get to Salem first, make sure he’s okay.”

“We need to call him.” Dru was already fumbling in her purse for her phone. She tried ringing Salem. But as many years as she had known him, he had never once answered the phone. And he didn’t answer now.

Resisting the urge to start cursing, she then tried her friend Rane, who was also Salem’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. Currently on-again.

The phone was still ringing as Hellbringer screeched to a halt at the base of the bare metal ladder. It stretched up the side of the concrete building to the roof, looking dangerously rickety and exposed. Dru swung the door open and got out just as Rane answered.

“What up, D?” Rane puffed. From the sound of it, she was running. But not in an emergency, run-for-your-life kind of way. More like the measured, steady strides of training. But just behind her pounding footsteps came the distinctive snuffling and panting of what sounded like a very large canine. Which was particularly worrisome, because Rane didn’t have a dog.

Dru couldn’t keep the panic out of her voice. “Are you okay?” she practically screamed. “Where are you?”

“Dude, I’m getting my cardio on,” Rane’s husky voice snapped. “What’s your problem?”

“There’s a ghost at Salem’s! Hurry!”

To Rane’s credit, she didn’t waste any time asking for details. There was a scuffling sound, like running shoes skidding through dirt as they changed direction. Her footsteps pounded faster. She swore under her breath. “I’m like twenty minutes out. Twenty-five tops.”

Rane was the strongest ally they could have at their side right now, but she was too far away to help. A hard knot formed in Dru’s stomach as she realized what that meant.

“D, listen. Whatever’s about to happen, it’s probably gonna happen before I get there,” Rane said steadily. “You have to hold out. No matter what.”

“I know.” Dru focused on keeping her voice from quavering. She suddenly felt the night closing in around her. “We’ll handle this.” Though she had no idea how. Or what this was, exactly. She only knew that whatever she had seen a minute before, it definitely wasn’t friendly. And it was already inside the building.

A few paces away, Greyson stood at the base of the ladder, red eyes glaring left and right, watching for danger. The metal snaps on his leather motorcycle jacket glinted in the glare of Hellbringer’s headlights. He caught Dru’s gaze and nodded his chin toward the ladder.

Dru nodded. “Okay. We’re going in. You’ll call Salem?”

“Just tried. Dude’s not answering.” Rane didn’t often sound worried. When she did, it sent shivers down Dru’s spine. “And D?”

“Yeah?”

Rane panted. “Be careful, cowgirl. When I get there, you better still be in one piece.”

Dru hung up without saying another word. Her knees were reduced to jelly, and it took a moment to force her legs to move. But if that thing was coming after Salem, she had to try to stop it somehow.

She crossed to the ladder and put a hand on the rungs.

Greyson stopped her with a puzzled look. “You’re really bringing the chicken soup?”

Dru looked down at the heavy plastic bag hanging from her hand. She had meant to leave it in the car, but she had grabbed it automatically as she was on the phone, and now its weight comforted her like a security blanket. A savory, garlicky, chicken security blanket. She didn’t want to let it go.

Dru cleared her throat. “Well, in case this thing is carnivorous. Maybe I can distract it.”

“By throwing chicken soup at it.” Greyson did not sound convinced.

“You should see some of the things I’ve fought monsters with. Light bulbs. Fire extinguishers. Air compressors. That kitty litter stuff in your garage.”

“Point taken.” He looked back over his shoulder at Hellbringer and made a circling motion with his finger. “PATROL,” he told the car in a commanding voice. His eyes blazed brighter red.

Immediately, Hellbringer’s engine roared to life. With a deafening howl, its rear tires spun, spewing out white smoke. The demon car shot backward, headlight beams burning brightly through the choking clouds of burned rubber left behind. With a squeal, the car’s long nose whipped around to face the opposite direction. Immediately, Hellbringer shot away down the length of the building, the slits of its red taillights staring back at them with barely restrained aggression.

Dru would have felt safer if she’d been able to stay inside the car. Hellbringer knew how to fight and was a formidable ally. For perhaps the hundredth time, Dru was thankful that the car was on their side.

But a nagging voice in the back of her mind made her wonder if relying on the car so much was wise. Though it generally obeyed Greyson, it was still, at its core, a demon. What would happen if she trusted it one too many times?

She pushed those thoughts aside. Now was not the time or the place. They had to get upstairs and protect Salem before that ghost—or whatever it was—got to him first. As Dru put one foot on the ladder, the heart-stopping sound of breaking glass cut through the night, coming from somewhere above.

Were they already too late?