| |
Moxie noticed that everyone was sitting a little closer to Mary. They looked like they needed each other to stay calm. She retreated deeper into the chair she was sitting on, wanting them to know she wasn’t a threat.
“Bullet loves cuddles,” Mary said.
“He does.” She smiled at the women, at all of them.
“He came into my room this morning, and for unknown reasons, I felt like I was having a conversation with him,” Rada said.
“He’s much better at talking than Puck,” Joy told them.
“Puck is more like ‘you dare to look at me with your beady eyes? Hell for you!’” Larry slashed his hand across his throat. They all laughed.
“He’s not the best communicator except with Rose, and strangely he and Silas seem to have an understanding,” Lisa said.
“Bullet told Rada that he doesn’t believe the mark I carry is from Kilryn, one of the demons after me.” Moxie spoke up, slightly disturbed that everyone seemed to be talking to cats and dogs and believing they talked back.
“He’s right. When I was growing up, before I was stolen from the streets, and my name changed. My grandma knew about the occult. She would say there were demons on the street mislabeled as the ones who came from hell or the demon spawn of humans.” She stood with her legs trembling as she pulled the sweater she was wearing tighter around her body. Then she crossed the room to stand in front of Moxie.
“The mark you carry on your neck, the same one Rose carries is from a third-tier demon. There are six tiers, and then the lower demons are below them. A fourth-tier demon would rule a town within a city. The fifth would be like a mayor; the sixth would have some small providence. That mark comes from a third-tier demon.”
“What would a third-tier demon rule?”
“A state.”
“Do you know the name of the demon this mark belongs to?” Lisa shook her head and retook her seat.
“Thank you, Lisa. Thank all of you. I didn’t go through what you did, but I lived through hell. Thanks for helping and being strong enough to help others.”
“Our being here isn’t helping anyone,” Mary said.
“Isn’t it? How did you survive long enough to get here?”
Mary looked at her friends. “We believed that Rose was somewhere out in the world living her life.”
“And someone, they might not know your names, but someone will believe you’re out in the world overcoming what you went through. What they are going through. Every time you breathe, hope scents the air. Believe me, someone is breathing it in.”
Rada stopped her after they left the cave. “Do you believe what you said?”
“I do. We run not away but to find something better in life. If we didn't believe there was better, we wouldn’t run. I believe that freedom, decency, a better tomorrow is in the air because of those who came before us and fought for those things. I believe if one person survived, the scent of hope permeates the earth, causing a second and a third to strive to achieve the same goal and more.”
“Let’s go move your things.”
Moxie stared at the cave she could no longer see. The word freedom beat around her head, and she realized that she might not understand that word for the first time. Five people hid in a cave because someone had the freedom to chain them up and use them like they were soulless beings. She could argue it was demons, but demons weren’t the men and women paying money to be with them. The demons weren’t doing the gang-raping Leif talked about. No, those were humans with a moral compass and supposedly a soul. They were the defender of freedom and the American dream. Was she the only one who wondered where freedom ended and morality and love to all mankind began?
“Aren’t you supposed to be waiting for me?” She called to Rada’s retreating back. He started running, and she gave chase.
They packed up her room, and she gave him a lesson on gun safety and a lecture not to touch them.
“If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t pick one up.” Then she went online and ordered a gun safe. She’d rather be safe than sorry and leave a gun lying around that could hurt someone.
“Where can I practice weaving?” She didn’t want to grow rusty, and she was still too new not to practice.
“I found you the perfect place.”
They went behind the house walking for about fifteen minutes until they were in a wide-open space with nothing around them. He took on his hell beast form lying down as she began to go through weaving moves.
_____
A sound of thunder went through the air. There wasn’t any lightning or rain on the horizon.
“What’s happening?” She lost herself in the weaving as hours passed without her realizing it.
“Something cracked the barrier.”
She stumbled when she realized he was talking to her while still a hell beast. She thought that only worked while they were outside of time.
“Moxie.”
She started running, realizing that he never outpaced her. When they got back to the house, his brothers, Rose, Ellie, and Malik were out front.
“Silas went to the cave. We were waiting for you,” Asa told them as he took off running. They followed, fearing the worse.
When they made it into the small cavern that kept the demon at bay, Silas was channeling energy into the wards. Leif’s hands were on his pouring his energy into his mate. The demon was battering at the wards, determined to break them.
“I’m coming for you and all the lambs in this town.”
Lael put his hands against the wards allowing his energy to pulse and course through it as Silas directed it to the weakened spots. Rose placed her hands on him. Then Rada and Asa placed their hands on the wards. Moxie placed her hands on Rada. The cave disappeared from around her. She was standing on a platform that was floating in the air. She looked down, not seeing any ground underneath them.
The battle happening in the cave was only perceived as reality. The real one was happening here.
“Moxie, welcome.” The demon welcoming her stood tall with dark hair and white eyes.
“Rada?” She ignored the demon looking over her mate. He was once again a hell beast. She never realized how big he could get. He stood taller than her.
He leaped his back legs pushing him up as he flew through the air at the demon. The demon fell with a grunt changing his fingers into claws and he ripped at Rada.
Moxie weaved together several bullets firing them into the arms that were around Rada. The demon growled, changing forms until he was a beast tearing Rada from his body. He made the ground roll to put space between himself and the bullet.
“We have to keep his attention on us while Silas reinforces the wards.”
She nodded and began weaving strands of light to throw at him. Rada threw himself at the demon again, but the demon turned mid-run, heading for Moxie. He jumped, taking her down.
“Do you know what I love about this place?” The demon spoke not a bit winded.
Moxie was struggling to breathe. The demon was crushing her ribs.
“I might not be able to hurt you here, but you’ll feel the drain when you leave.”
Rada pulled him off, tossing him away from Moxie.
“He can’t hurt us here?” Rada helped her to stand.
“This is sort of like the plane we went to outside of time, but this battle is more mental, and the field is mental. Physically you’ll be fine no matter what happened here before you leave, but if you’re not careful, he can siphon off some of your energy. It won’t help him, but it will hinder you until you recover from the loss.”
Rada knocked her down, rolling until they got away from the demon who tried to take them down.
Moxie felt around, looking with her mental eyes to see what was real and what wasn’t. That’s when she realized there were several energy vortexes around. Getting caught in one of them would drain her. She didn’t know how much of her ability depended on the energy stored inside of her.
She tagged team with Rada keeping the demon's attention on them even as she felt small bits of her energy draining away when she got too close to a vortex.
When the demon began to speak in another language, she fashioned a bullet putting it through his head before the whole scene blinked away.
“Good thinking, Moxie.” Silas was leaning against the cave wall, his hair drenched in sweat. Leif was swaying. The only thing holding him up was his mate.
“This gets harder each time we do this. Soon he won’t be caged, and we’ll have to fight him,” Silas said.
“What happens if we don’t win?” Leif asked.
“He gets everything, our mates, and the people of the town.”
Asa placed his arm under one of Silas’ shoulders, and Lael did the same with Leif. They guided them out while the demon sat behind the ward laughing.
_____
Moxie walked into the room she was sharing with her mate. Mate was still something she was getting used to. She went to her bag in the back of the walk-in closet and sat on the floor. She reached until she felt the bottom then tugged at the small string that opened the false bottom. In there was everything she held dear to her heart before she fell in love.
Love, it too was one of those strange words like freedom. People killed because they were in love. She snorted: the longer she lived, the less she understood about mankind. There was a picture of her mom. She had the same curly brown hair, but her eyes were teal. Moxie had her father’s brown eyes. Next to it was a picture of her father when he was younger. Her parents were in love. She could see that from the picture.
She wiped at her eyes. Now wasn’t the time to cry for what couldn’t be changed. She was looking for something specific. Lisa drew the symbol in the air that she said was on her and Rose’s neck. Since she couldn’t see it, she never asked what it looked like. Watching her draw the symbol had triggered a memory, something she couldn’t catch ahold of. She was sure that she’d seen that symbol before.
The next picture was of her father holding her. The smile on his lips made her chest ache. He was so proud of her. Then there was one of her mother holding her. The love shining in her eyes made Moxie want to reach out and touch what she missed out on growing up.
The next was in a park. She was sliding down the slide when one of her parents took a candid shot of her; in the background edged on the slide was that symbol.
What did it mean? Why was it on the playground? Was the demon a pedophile? That wouldn’t be a big surprise, but he hadn’t come after her or Rose when they were children. There had to be more to it than that.
The next picture had been taken outside of a church. Her dad said they were just walking around, and her mom liked the pretty stained-glass windows, so they took a picture. That symbol was in the stained glass.
She ran to the bathroom, not wanting to throw up in the closet.