Navi
"You spent the night with Alec?" Konstanz squeal-whispered as soon as I walked into my bedroom. She grabbed my hands and bounced around like when we were teenagers.
"Shhh!" I laughed, disentangling my fingers so I could dig through my dresser for a clean outfit. My clothes still smelled distinctly like demons, and I needed a shower. I'd never found the ones that escaped last night. Which meant they'd made it into society. They'd shifted. They could be anyone right now, and I wouldn't be able to find them until darkness fell and forced them back into their asuwang forms. Who knew what kind of damage they could do between now and then. I'd only quit looking this morning because the sun had risen. I was worthless when the sun was up.
Stupid sun.
I'd never found Jesse, either. She'd either been captured or she'd gone rogue. But Elizabeth had promised to look all day, taking time out of her busy ghost-schedule to search for shape-shifting demons.
"Details, woman! I want details!" Konstanz blocked the doorway, arms crossed over her chest, and raised an eyebrow. Her hair was tied back into two braids, so she looked about as threatening as my bunny slippers.
"Nothing happened. We slept. And had breakfast. That's all." And I was going to spend tonight fighting demons, which meant that was all for the entire weekend. And tomorrow, it was back to reality and work and school and…
The thought made my chest hurt. I liked spending every waking minute with Alec.
"Well that's disappointing." Konstanz flipped her braids over her shoulder. "How is Bryson handling it?" She flopped on her bed and watched me pull out the rest of my clean clothes.
I shook my head. "Not well, I don't think. He was plastered last night and super weird today. Which is why he's here"—I smashed on my most cheerful smile—"to teach you guys to cook. Pretend to have fun, okay?" I pushed her out the door toward the kitchen. "And don't let him and Alec rip each other's heads off."
A day spent on the couch, writing a paper on the meaning of Faulkner's works, with Alec next to me studying layouts and blue prints, and kitchen fires and screaming in the background was still a day that was better than all the days of the last month combined, except for yesterday, of course. And last night. And the night before. I tried to focus on my paper, I really did, but knowing the asuwangs were loose in the city was a tad distracting. I kept flipping through the local news sites on the Internet to see if there had been any attacks yet. And then I tried to figure out how to find them. So the paper… wasn't my best.
As the sun went down, I saw Elizabeth's form shimmer into the room, near the back door. It was time to go. My blood hummed, like it was excited for the fight. "I've gotta go to work. I'll see you guys all later?" I stood up and stretched. Sitting with a laptop propped on my legs for hours on end was not advisable.
"You sure you can't stay home tonight?" Alec's lips quirked in a teasing smile as he rose too, gathering his papers.
"I wish I could. I can think of nothing I'd like better." I slid my hands around his waist and peered up at him. He dropped the papers and swallowed hard.
"Alec, you should stay a while. Sometimes she comes back after an hour or two. And Bryson isn't done here." Konstanz barely looked up as she attempted to mix batter in a large cracked bowl. She was covered in flour, as were Reese and even Bryson.
Elizabeth paced. There wasn't much time. More of my ghosts' outlines were beginning to appear. "Yeah, you should stay." I nodded too enthusiastically, nearly knocking my neck out of place. "I'll probably be back soon."
It was an outright lie. But it couldn't be helped. I had to go. I tugged on my tennis shoes and nearly hopped out the door, pausing only for one long, scorching kiss. Someone cleared their throat in annoyance. I wasn't sure if it was Reese, Bryson, or one of my ghosts, but it was time to go.
"Any sign of Jesse at all?" I asked. We'd been prowling the city streets for hours while the rest of my ghosts were on full lookout at the beach, to make sure nothing else came through. I didn't like the city at night. It gave me the creeps—demons were scary but bad humans? They were worse. However, the fact that I was walking, seemingly by myself but constantly chattering, seemed to keep the bad guys away. Acting completely insane will do that, sometimes.
"She was not taken, Navi." Elizabeth was more than a little disgusted. "I looked for her all day. She has joined those in limbo." She'd never liked Jesse, and I could tell it bothered her that brave ghosts were taken by the asuwangs back to their sea witch master while Jesse hid in the shadows and did nothing.
It bothered me, too. I needed to talk to Death.
"The sea witch seems to be attacking more frequently. Taking more souls. Many of the souls in limbo that haunt your city have been taken. They are all on lookout, as well. I suspect she may be planning an attempt to rise from her ocean lair. They've been testing our response time. And how quickly we leave when the fight is over." Elizabeth didn't look at me as she said it; her gray eyes instead roamed the city streets. As if she knew her words would rock me to the depths of my being.
See, sea witches were the masters of asuwangs. They survive on fear. Like, somehow, that's what they eat. Their asuwang pets eat human flesh, which is just as creepy. So they come, attack my ghosts, take their souls, and then escape into civilization to attack more souls and breed fear.
The sea witch can't leave the ocean. Not without a lot of souls. They make a sort of shell for her to live in. But once she's out, there's no stopping her. For one reason: She can live in the day—when I can't fight her. She takes all those souls she's captured, and she uses them to form a shell that, when the sun hits it, melts and becomes impenetrable. She'd be practically unstoppable.
That was how my grandmother was killed. She tried to fight a sea witch during the day. She was killed, but my mother and my aunt hid until the moon rose, and then they attacked and drove the creature back to the ocean.
Even so, hundreds lost their lives that day. The government blamed it on a tsunami. There were a few who claimed to have seen her, but they were laughed into hiding. The rest who did see her were taken.
Ironically, the only way to free souls the sea witch has captured is by waiting until she comes to land wearing them. Cut them from her shell and they can escape to limbo or the afterlife or my army, if they'd so choose.
Probably not though, given what they'd just been through. I'd suspect hell is nothing compared to her lair.
There were nine sea witches living all over the world at specific latitude and longitude points. And they're immortal. They can be killed, but only if they rise from the ocean, and as far as anyone knows, only one has ever actually died. Mostly they just go back to their lair and recover and plot and plan.
Seeing as how this one killed my grandmother, I'd really like a shot at her. Plus, she'd stolen my souls.
And I wanted them back.
"Look, there." Elizabeth pointed through the darkness. There, scrabbling through the cute little garden, was one of my missing asuwangs.
I nodded, eyeing the monster. "One down."
She smiled grimly. "One to go."
I unsheathed my swords and sprinted through the shadows. I leaped from the car to the house roof, skidding down loose shingles until I was right above it. It had captured one of my souls—Don, I was pretty sure, judging by the face it wore. But this was good, because I could kill it before it took Don back to the sea witch, and he would be free.
Raising my Golly, I jumped from the roof. I landed on its back and felt my blade slide through the thick neck. It wore the soul like armor, and now I could see it had another soul as well—not just one of mine. The thing screamed at me, bucking like a wild horse, and I wrapped my legs around its hairy body and jerked Kali out of my sheath. I jammed it down next to the other sword and threw my weight back, using them both like a lever.
The head popped off with an awful ripping sound, and the demon collapsed to the ground. Don flew free, and the other soul, too. Before I could tell them to run or fight or anything, another scream tore through the air. I whirled around, but too late. The sharp claws of the last missing asuwang tore into my stomach.
I gasped at the pain and shoved away from it with my feet, falling hard on the ground. Elizabeth and Don attacked, but it had several souls wrapped around it and their swords could barely penetrate.
The thing reared back, coming after me again. I dove out of the way, spinning and slicing with Kali and Golly. I hit it in the head, but not hard enough. It screeched, half-shifted into a weird combination of dog, spider, and human, and took off through the silent neighborhood. I risked a glance at the sky. The sun would be up soon. I had to finish this tonight, or someone would die.
Wrapping one arm around the wound, praying it would heal completely before the moon set, I raced after the monster.