Callie.
I try to open my eyes and fail. I’m cold, so cold my fingers ache and my toes have lost all feeling.
Callie.
The voice is familiar. It’s close and far at the same time. I take in a breath, but it hurts. It would be easier to just stop breathing all together. To give in.
You have to wake up.
Leaves crunch under someone’s feet, and the sickening smell of sulfur wafts through the air. A soft breeze rustles my hair, and the sounds of twigs snapping echoes around me.
The woods. I’m in the woods. But why? I don’t remember anything. And I don’t want to. I just want the pain to end.
Open your eyes, Callie.
Whoever was walking by me pulls a dagger from its sheath, and the metal on metal cuts through the night like a harsh whisper. The tip of the blade presses into the flesh on my forearm. The cut stings, and the blade slowly slices through an inch of my skin. Blood trickles down my arm, warm on my frozen skin.
I’m so cold. So tired. The pain is overwhelming.
Wake up, Callie.
I can’t.
Yes, you can. Look at me.
My eyes are still closed, but slowly, my eyes begin to focus on the fuzzy outline of a man.
You are strong, my daughter. Look at me.
“Dad? Is that really you?” I don’t say the words out loud, but he can hear me.
Yes. You have to wake up. You have to break the spell.
“Spell?” What spell.
Ruth cast a spell that banished angels. Being only half angel, it didn’t physically banish you.
“Help me.”
I can’t. I’m not really here. Open your eyes, Callie.
“I can’t.”
Yes, you can. Do it for her.
“Her?” I ask, but Michael is gone. More leaves crunch, and I hear someone whispering a Latin incantation. “Dad?”
He doesn’t answer, but I’m becoming more aware of my surroundings. Ruth cast a spell to banish angels. That’s why Julian disappeared and why I felt like my soul was being ripped out of my body.
Do it for her.
Michael’s words echo in my head. Did I imagine him? No, I know I didn’t, and the her is my baby. A girl.
Lucas and I are having a baby girl.
I suck in a breath and take in the smells of the forest. The leaves. The dirt. The fire from the torches outside the Covenstead door. I can do it for her. For Lucas. For us.
More comes into my awareness. I’m standing with my back against something hard. Something that digs into the skin on my wrists. I’m cold because my jacket has been removed. I curl my fingers into fists but can’t move my arms.
I’m bound to something…a tree, I think. Yes, it’s a tree. I slit my eyes open again, and blue light from the Covenstead door glows before me. Ruth is kneeling before it, mixing something in a bowl. Two demons and three vampires stand behind her, unmoving as they wait for her next command.
I twist my wrists, pulling against the chains, and try to conjure energy balls. But nothing happens. Dammit, she’s bound my powers, and with the sigil keeping angels away, I’m powerless.
Come on, Callie, get it together. I blink several times, focusing my vision, and look around for the sigil. She did something…her hand were covered in blood. And then she…she…shit. I don’t remember.
“Open the door,” Ruth tells someone and gets to her feet. “Bring her to me.”
One of the vampire puppets turns around and grabs a young girl by the wrist. I don’t know her name, but I’ve seen her at coven gatherings before.
“No!” the girl screams and fights against the vampire. “No, please, no!”
Ruth picks up an athame and waits for the vampire to hold the girl still, forcing her arm out in front of her. Blood is required to open the door, and only those who are members of the coven can get in and out of the door.
Unless the protective spells around it are broken, which is what Ruth is trying to do. And if she succeeds, she’ll let the vampires and demons into the coven.
I yank against the chains, trying to muster up the strength inside me to use some sort of magic. The girl screams in pain as Ruth drags the dagger down her arm. She plunges the blade into the earth before the door.
“Say the incantation,” she hisses, but the girl can’t stop crying. “Say it!” she yells again and slaps the girl across the face. “Useless girl.” Ruth shakes her head, turning and picking up the dagger again. The vampire holds out the girl’s other arm. I can see the dirt on the blade as Ruth plunges it into her skin, cutting down to the muscle. She smears the blood all over the blade and holds it up to the door.
“Say it now, before it’s too late.”
The girl is sobbing uncontrollably, too hysterical to get a word out. Ruth throws the dagger down and gives the vampire a curt nod, telling him to bite her.
“No!” I shout right as the vampire’s teeth rip into her skin. She cries out in pain, and several other students who are on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs scream.
Ruth is going to keep killing witches until she finds one that can get the door open long enough to get her demons through.
“Wait,” she tells the vampire, who jerks away from the girl, blood running down his face. Ruth’s eyes lock with mine. “She’s awake.”
“Yeah, and I don’t know what kind of kink you’re going for, but I’m not one for bondage. Untie me now before it gets ugly.”
Ruth laughs. “What are you going to do? Your powers are bound, and I’ve cast the fallen angel from here.”
The fallen angel? What—oh my god. She thinks Julian is a fallen angel, much like Lucifer. She doesn’t know what I am.
“I’m going to make you regret ever laying a finger on anyone in this coven.”
“Yeah? Well, get on that. Because from where I’m standing, your powers are bound, your guard dog has been banished, and your vampire is nowhere to be found. All you’ve done is take a twenty-minute nap.” She picks up a jar full of blood.
My blood.
“Though you did provide me with this.”
Twenty minutes? If I really was out for that long, then Lucas and my friends will be here soon. I have no doubt Lucas drove a hundred miles an hour and can get from his house in Lincoln Park to Thorne Hill in record time and will run through the woods to find me.
And will be right where Ruth wants him.
“What are you trying to do?” I ask, pulling against the chains. I’m sure the metal has been enchanted with dark magic, but if I can figure out where the freaking sigil is, I can muster up enough strength to break free.
“You know what I want,” she snaps and unscrews the lid to the jar of my blood. “Come here,” she tells one of the demons and dips her finger inside the blood and uses it to draw some sort of symbol on the demon’s forehead.
I know what she’s trying to do, and if I can figure out how to use my angelic powers, I can stop her. Because her plan just might work. She’s already gotten herself through the door after the warding was changed to keep her out. It was changed to keep me out as well, but she either doesn’t know or doesn’t care, and she’s tying to use my blood to cheat the spells and sneak the demon through the door.
But my blood isn’t witch blood.
“Hold her up,” Ruth tells the vampire, and I’m forced to only watch in horror, bound to the tree, unable to help, as she sweeps her hands over the girl’s neck, smearing her blood all over her fingers. “Now say the spell,” she tells the girl, who’s going in and out of consciousness. She’s lost too much blood. She’s not going to make it much longer. “Say it!” Ruth demands, and the girl opens her mouth but can’t get the words out.
“Bring the next one!” She holds up her hands, chanting, and the vampire discards the girl on the ground. She lands with a thud, eyes open and body still. My heart is in my throat, and I pull against the chains again, desperate to get out and put an end to this.
“Stop!” I scream when the vampire steps over the girl, going to bring Ruth another student. She’s going to keep killing them until she gets what she wants. “You want powers from Lucifer? I’ll get you powers. Just don’t hurt anyone else.” I slowly twist my wrist, feeling a hagstone pendant wrapped around the chains. If I can only pull it off…
“Now, if you could have done that from the start,” Ruth sneers, rounding on me, “none of this would have happened.” She takes a few steps closer, and something behind her catches my eye.
It’s Selena’s intestines, arranged in a specific way. A black candle is in the center of the sigil, with fresh blood dripping down with the wax.
That’s it. That’s the sigil that’s keeping Julian away and is repressing my divinity. It’s fucking disgusting, too, and thinking of poor Selena getting her guts ripped out while she was still alive makes my own stomach twist and rage burn hot inside me.
I grit my teeth against the pain from the chains. My skin is pinched and bleeding, but I can almost feel the hagstone.
“Call him forth,” Ruth tells me, eyes blazing. “Call forth Satan and give me power!”
“He doesn’t like to be called Satan,” I snap. “So call him Lucifer.” I close my eyes, trying to find some shred of connection to my uncle. He’s been bound to the deepest pit of Hell, but if he can lend me some power—just temporarily—then I can get out. I can stop Ruth and put an end to this.
He’ll help me, I know it. I shouldn’t trust him, but I do, and right now, I need him.
“Lucifer,” I call. “Lucifer.”
I wait, hoping to hear a voice in my head like I did when my own father was talking to me.
“The banishing spell,” I try, eyes flying open. “It’s keeping him away. You have to dismantle it.”
Ruth laughs. “Nice try. Lucifer is more powerful than a simple banishing spell.”
She’s right. He is. And my father is, which is how he was able to talk to me. Archangels are much more powerful than other angels.
Which means I am, too.
“Lucifer,” I call again and close my eyes. Please, talk to me. I need your help! Uncle Lucifer, please! I wait a moment, chest tight and heart racing so fast it almost hurts. Lucifer doesn’t appear before me. Doesn’t step from the shadows. He doesn’t say hello, niece like he usually does. I don’t see him or hear him anywhere.
I don’t feel anything at all.
“What is the problem?” Ruth demands, striding over. I shove my hand down, feeling the rough tree bark bite into my skin. “Where is he?”
“It’s…it’s not that simple,” I say through gritted teeth. My index finger graces the cool, smooth surface of the hagstone. If I can just get it in my grip… “He only comes to those he thinks are worthy.”
“I am worthy!” Ruth brings her hands to her chest, eyes wide with madness. She pulls an athame from her belt and lunges forward, putting the blade to my neck. “Maybe you’re the one not worthy and a dark sacrifice is what he’s waiting for. I’ll kill you to prove I’m worthy to sit by his side.”
“Please,” I huff, trying not to breath too hard and risk the blade cutting into my skin. “You are no match for him. Hell, you’re no match for me. No matter what, I will out-witch you. Dark powers or not, I’ve beat everything you’ve thrown at me. What makes you any more worthy to have the dark gifts bestowed upon you?”
I shove my arm back, jaw clenched from the pain. But I’ve got it. I’ve got the hagstone in my grasp!
“There’s only one way to find out.” Ruth raises the dagger. “Call him again.”
I tug on the hagstone and feel the rope it’s tied to start to pull free. Now if Uncle Lucy could actually do a me a favor…
“Lucifer,” I chant. “I call you forth from the depths of Hell. Come to me, come to us, bestow your darkness upon the earth.”
I’m bullshitting everything I’m saying but don’t think I’m doing a bad job. Ruth outstretches her arms, waiting for Lucifer to give her a special blessing. Even if I knew how to call upon Lucifer without being in that weird dream-like state, I don’t know if I can right now.
My witch powers are bound, and the banishing spell is making me feel so weak. Pair that with the exhaustion and nausea I’ve been feeling for the last week and even I’m starting to doubt myself.
Something rustles through the forest, and a familiar energy settles around me. Ruth spins, holding out her hands, and draws a line right as Lucas bursts through the trees, fangs bared. Ruth’s puppet demons and zombies rush over, growling and snarling like rabid dogs.
Lucas crashes into the wall of dark magic, eyes meeting mine for a fleeting second. Ruth extends one hand toward Lucas and sweeps the other through the air, drawing an upside down pentagram.
“Parere imperio meae,” she says, voice echoing off the surrounding trees. Lucas fights her hold, but the spell takes over. His eyes turn foggy, the dark blue fading to a muted gray as he falls under Ruth’s control.