Sonja showed up with the dress and a bag full of makeup and accessories. She braided some of my hair and curled the rest, using an iron rod just like she had done for the fancy ball days—or had it been weeks?—ago. Then she picked three roses from the bouquet Mildred left and carefully weaved them amongst the crown of braids and curls.
Sonja wore a tight black dress that flared out at the bottom. Not surprisingly, it was very low cut, almost plunging to her belly button, and had a slit up one side. She teetered around again on impossibly high black heels.
“There, what do you think?” she asked, holding up a hand mirror.
I studied my reflection in silence. I looked so different. She’d made up my eyes with grays and blacks. The dark colors made my usually boring hazel eyes sparkle and look a lively green. She’d painted my lips with a bold red color. I don’t look anything like myself. A cool, stylish young woman stared back at me, much older and more attractive than I remembered.
I wondered for a moment how much of it was makeup, and how much I’d really changed over the last year. Had I turned eighteen yet? It felt like late summer, but I didn’t remember experiencing spring. A wave of nausea and disorientation washed over me. I was drifting, lost, and normal concerns like missing my birthday seemed unreal. I was almost an adult. My mother and father had not been around to see me reach this crucial point in my life. They wouldn’t be around for the years to come, either. I wanted to cry, but held back the tears.
“Do you like it?” Sonya looked anxious.
“It looks great.” I restrained a scream of frustration.
“I know what Gage likes.” She looked away. “Tonight is a special occasion and you should look your best for him.”
I tried to play the part of the lovestruck girl. “I…like your dress.”
She spun around instantly to show it off, a pleased look on her face. “It’s custom-made.” Her hands slid down the sides of the dress, accentuating generous curves way more on display than I would be comfortable with. The overall effect was impressive…and a little desperate. She was too beautiful to need so much staging. But I was becoming more and more sure that I knew why she was so desperate. I felt sorry for Sonja. If Gage corrupted this poor girl like he had me and then tossed her aside for a newer and more powerful model… It made me hate him even more.
I put the mirror down on the dresser. “What now?”
“We go up. It’s almost time. They’ll be waiting for us.”
“Do we have to walk all the way out into the woods dressed like this? These heels don’t seem designed for forest trails.”
She smiled. “The party is being held in the center of town. Too many people wanted to come, so we’re having it in the town square. You’ll be so surprised how much effort Gage put into transforming the place into something quite enchanting.”
I wondered what a crazy like Gage considered enchanting. A path of dead bodies circling the square? “Lead the way,” I said, waving my hand toward the door.
I followed Sonja out of the room and down the tunnels. The way outside was almost familiar to me now. It took forever, but we both made it to the top in one piece.
I looked up into a cloudless sky. The night was calm—not even a slight breeze marred its perfection. The moon was bright and full overhead as I lifted the skirt of my dress and followed Sonja past the abandoned buildings.
I could see the twinkling of lights through the trees. It wasn’t candlelight this time—I could hear the generator that powered it all quietly running in the distance. The old courthouse was lit with bright spotlights, showing in vivid relief the damage of neglect and age. But it was a grand dilapidation, like a fallen Greek temple. The columns on the front stoop seemed very tall and dramatic, and the long run of stairs up to the broad porch glowed with the gleam of old marble. Whatever was about to happen, the porch was the obvious stage.
Where is everyone? The place was still empty—there wasn’t anyone in sight.
Then the smell of flowers hit me. As I got closer, I saw dozens of bouquets placed all around the steps in five-foot, free-standing centerpieces.
An altar had been set up on the porch. A black silk shroud was draped over it, with a large pentagram stitched into the fabric in red thread. A dozen black candles sat in a row on the altar, and nestled in the middle of them was one red candle. I saw a glass bowl, a golden cup, and a small dagger. A more acrid smell replaced the scent of flowers as we approached. Incense. I could see the smoke from an incense stick curling up in the air above the altar. A few rows of ornate chairs sat near the stairs, obviously placed for the dark community’s VIPs.
On the opposite side of the square, the huge bramble looked impressive. Someone had pointed red-tinted spotlights up through the branches, making the whole mass glow as if on fire. Long, vicious thorns stood out in stark relief, and the massive bushes hung over the back of the square, creating an oppressive backdrop. Deep red splashes of light accentuated the black shadows they cast, giving the entire clearing the impression of clotting blood.
As I took in the eerie scene, a couple dozen people dressed in black gowns and suits flowed out from the surrounding buildings and made their way into the square. Someone grabbed my hand, and I looked up to see Gage, who’d appeared out of nowhere. His suit was all black, even his tie. There was not a bit of color on him anywhere except for the streak of white in his hair.
His eyes lit up when he looked at me, and he squeezed my hand. “You look breathtaking.”
My heart thumped hard, but not in fear. He still had that crazy hold on me. A tiny part of me was thrilled he held my hand, but somewhere deep inside I could feel myself panic when his body slid up against me.
That voice screamed at me to stop the madness. This is the man I hate!
No, another voice cried out, this is the man I love.
My thoughts were befuddled and my knees quavered. Nothing made sense anymore.
I whipped my head around, desperate to find Mildred. She’d save me from this situation. She promised to keep Gage distracted.
“Where is Mildred?” I whispered, trying to keep the desperation I felt from my voice.
“She sends her regrets. She wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t make it tonight.”
Mildred wasn’t here. What happened? She promised to keep me safe. Her plan was to escape during the ritual. Why wasn’t she here? “She didn’t look ill when I saw her earlier,” I said.
A brief look of annoyance crossed Gage’s face, but it was so fleeting I wondered if I’d imagined it. “My dear, I don’t want to stand here and talk about Mildred. I want to talk about us.” He raised my hand, opened my palm, and kissed its center.
I went weak in the knees at his romantic gesture. Desire coursed through me again. A battle raged inside as emotions of both love and hate fought for supremacy. My head felt as though it would explode.
“You look a bit pale. I have something that will make you feel better.” Gage raised his hand, and a woman carried over a tray of fluted glasses filled with red liquid. Gage whipped one of the glasses off the tray and held it in front of me. “It’s a special punch. I know you’ll love it. Drink.”
My fingers wrapped around the stem of the glass. I watched in horror as my hand raised and my lips touched the glass’s edge. I struggled to keep myself from drinking it, but my fingers tipped up and I felt the cool, bubbling liquid slide down my throat. Was he trying to poison me again? What was in this drink?
Gage gave me a wide smile. “Are you ready, my love?”
I looked around, confused. “Is the party going to start?”
“I wanted to keep it a surprise.” He leaned in and gave me a kiss. When he pulled away, he said, “We aren’t having a party tonight.” He waved his arm out toward the square. “We’re getting married. This is our wedding.”
The glass slipped from my fingers and shattered against the ground. For a moment, I didn’t seem able to speak or move. And then I forced out, “I don’t understand. Our…wedding?”
“Yes, my heart, I did this all for you. Our friends are here with us tonight to watch us come together as husband and wife.” He waved his hand again and music filled the air.
The spell seemed to reassert its influence on me as Gage guided me up to the altar, positioning me next to it. Or perhaps Gage slipped something in my drink to make sure I was docile for the event. Whatever it was, I felt different this time. I could still think in a slow, muddled way, while inside I struggled to regain control of myself. I was like a drunken fool trying to walk a straight line. For a second, I felt like I was pushing through—I almost made myself turn and run away from the altar…away from him—but then I slipped back into that oppressive fog and forgot why I wanted to run.
The ceremony began, but I was having a hard time focusing my eyes. We stood up on the altar, and the air around me was thick with the smell of smoke and blood. A bell rang, and when I looked down at my stinging wrist, I saw I was bleeding.
Gage stood in front of me, a dagger in his hand. Blood dripped from my cut wrist into the golden cup I’d spied earlier. Then Gage cut his own wrist, and his blood dripped into the cup to mix with mine. My blood was red—Gage’s was black. He reached over the altar and handed the cup to a young girl. The demon, I thought foggily.
She stood in front of the altar wearing a black robe with her dark hair braided into a crown around the top of her head. A red cord dangled from her hands.
Gage pulled me down until my knees hit the ground. He knelt beside me, holding my hand.
My temples pounded. I tried to shake my head, tried to clear my thoughts, but it didn’t help. I felt as though I was looking at the world from behind cloudy glass. I could see what was happening, but my reactions weren’t coming through. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
The only clear thought pounding in my head was that I needed to find Mildred.
The demon stood in front of us. The smoke from the candles and incense gathered around her, wreathing her in shadow and making her form indistinct. In my fogged vision, she seemed to morph back and forth from one shape to another—from an evil creature made of shadow to an innocent girl raised from the same family as me.
She took the cup and pressed it to my lips. My mouth opened and I choked down the warm liquid of our mingled blood, gagging and choking as my body struggled to reject it even as my mouth forced it down. The taste of salty copper and rotten meat assaulted my senses.
The demon girl held the cup into the air and began turning. Left, then right. Front, then back. Each time she turned, she chanted words that echoed with the dark chorus of the demon’s voice. I thought I heard other voices screaming and wailing in horror. My mind immediately jumped to my father and brother. Through my mental haze, I knew they were somewhere in there, fighting like I was, but powerless to change the outcome.
The demon lifted the cup high into the air. She looked up, and my head rose with hers. I could clearly see the full moon up in the sky, low on the horizon.
She put down the cup and unwound the red cord from around her wrist. She grabbed my hand and then Gage’s, placing mine on top of his and then slowly winding the red cord around them. The cord sucked up the blood from my still-bleeding wrist and the darker black blood from Gage’s. Where the trails of blood met, they seemed to recoil, refusing to mix. Her words floated on the air around me, and I struggled to understand what was going on. I found myself focusing on unimportant little details—the wispy smoke drifting slowly in the still air, the smell of blood and brimstone that seemed to radiate from the demon, and the murmur of the watching crowd each grabbed my attention in turn. My mind was having a hard time making sense of it all.
And there was no one to save me, no one to stop the madness.
A small group of people rose from the front row and gathered around us. Chanting, they circled us slowly. The demon began shouting and drowned out their words—I could just barely hear them murmuring. She shouted at the moon in a language I couldn’t understand, a language I somehow knew was not meant for human ears. It made me want to cover my ears and hide from the awful noise, but even that amount of control was beyond me. It droned on—the sound of horror and pain tearing through the night air.
I watched in wonder as the honey-colored moon began to change. A red haze slowly slid over its surface, covering it—turning it into a blood-red moon. I shivered at the dreadful omen.
It continued shifting in color until it gave off a true, vibrant red. Mist slid across the ground, though it looked like the earth was oozing thick blood in the moonlight. The mist slithered up the stairs until it curled around our bodies. I felt goose bumps rise on my skin everywhere it touched me.
I looked at the girl demon—she was still shouting at the moon, but the fog surrounding her was darker, more solid. It grew and turned from mist into a solid shadow. To my horror, the shadow grew bigger and bigger behind her until it towered over her, morphing into a shape that resembled a horned monster.
And then it disappeared.
The circling people faded away from us—whatever role they were supposed to play was done. Gage rose to his feet and pulled me up until I was standing next to him.
In his hands was a necklace. He lifted it into the air, and I watched a large tear-shaped red jewel twinkle in the candlelight. It was bright in the moon’s red glow. Gage gently placed the necklace over my head. I felt a warm, tingling sensation when the stone fell against my chest.
There was a roar of voices shouting loudly as hands clapped in celebration.
Gage leaned in and kissed me on the lips. Lips that were cold, like a serpent. The cold spread from that point of contact all the way through me. But there was a part of me that relished the kiss…that felt desire hum through me at Gage’s touch.
When he pulled away, a wide smile lit his face. His fingers came up and brushed against my cheek. “There, now you’re finally mine. Now you are my wife.”
The portion of me that was free from the spell cried out with shock and horror. But another part of me was thrilled to finally be his, forever.
Gage pulled me down the altar steps, his arm possessively wrapped around my waist. The wedding guests came up to congratulate us, but he kept us moving purposefully through the crowd toward a building across the square. Gage wasn’t rude—he was charming, greeting each guest in turn—but he never stopped moving.
I looked back. The demon girl stood alone in front of the altar, her doll clutched in one hand. As I watched, a look of surprise crossed her face and she turned to the sky.
I followed her gaze to see that the moon had lost its red haze—it was honey colored again. On the horizon, storm clouds raced toward us. Already, wisps of cloud crossed the moon’s path and blocked out the stars. The storm front was only moments away, and it had appeared out of nowhere.
Gage pulled me tight against him and we began to run toward a building on the side of the square. The wind whipped past us fiercely, the sky full of dark clouds now, and drops of rain hit my skin. The night had turned from calm to chaotic in a matter of seconds. Gage and I ducked into the building just as the rain began to pelt us in earnest.
Wendy was tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Jacob stood to the side, surrounded by two men. His right eye was swollen shut and blood dripped down his face from a long red gash on his temple. Through my haze, I lazily wondered why he didn’t wipe the blood away before noticing his hands were chained together.
I looked back and forth from Wendy to Jacob. I vaguely remembered telling Jacob to take Wendy and run. What had happened? Somewhere deep inside I felt a wave of panic, but the emotion seemed so very far away. Swirling on the surface of my mind were happiness and giddiness—they overwhelmed everything else.
I heard a moan and my eyes swung back to Wendy. A look of pure anguish filled her face as she struggled against the ropes binding her to the chair. Jacob lurched toward her, but one of the guards clubbed him hard with a forearm to the side of the head and Jacob fell to his knees.
The demon child appeared beside Wendy, laughed, and began to dance around her.
Wendy seemed unaware of what was going on. Her eyes rolled back in her head and a slew of words I didn’t understand flew from her mouth. Her body began to shake uncontrollably. When she looked at me again, I knew even through my mental haze that she was not Wendy anymore. Whatever was staring back at me was not human. It was something old, something evil.
The demon girl stopped in front of Wendy, reached out, and touched her forehead. At the contact, Wendy’s body immediately started to convulse. Her arms and legs whipped up as far as they could against the restraints. As I watched, the chair rose off the ground. It floated with Wendy still in it, her body twisting and turning as she screamed out obscenities. After a few terrifying moments, the chair fell back to the floor with a loud thump, and Wendy became still.
Was she still alive? I was still struggling to understand why she was tied to the chair and what was going on.
Wendy raised her head and looked directly at me. Her eyes were white. There was no color in them at all. A wicked laugh came out of her mouth, and green foam spewed from between her lips.
Even from behind the mental fog, my primitive survival instinct was pleading at me to run and get as far away from this place as possible.
The demon child moved away from Wendy and turned to Gage, seeming older and wiser somehow. “Bring your bride. It’s time.”
Gage turned and took my hand. “Darling, it’s time for you to use your magic.”
“It is?” I asked dumbly, trying to clear my thoughts. My magic?
He squeezed my hand. “You must do this one thing for me, and then we can go off on our honeymoon.”
My eyes met his and love washed through me. I’d never felt so content. Never so happy.
He is all that I want and need.
The world exploded.
A bolt of lightning struck a wall, blowing chunks of burning shrapnel across the room. I was thrown off my feet and slammed hard into the ground. After catching my breath, I sat up and looked around the room.
The guards and Jacob, who stood nearest to the point of impact, had flown through the air. Glass, chunks of wood, and plaster covered their bodies.
The impact had thrown Wendy backward across the room, too. She had slammed into the far wall, and the wooden chair had shattered, dropping her to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
The demon girl, on the other hand, stood unharmed, calmly plucking smoking debris from her robe. She turned and bent over the guards. I couldn’t see Jacob, but one of the guards was a mangled corpse. The other lay twitching in the throes of death. The demon girl reached down and dipped one finger into the blood seeping from an open wound on the suffering guard. She raised the finger to her mouth and licked it. A wide smile broke across her face and a shiver of revulsion sped down my spine.
Gage slowly turned toward me. That was when I saw that he had his hand wrapped around a jagged piece of timber sticking out of his gut. “No!” I cried out and reached for him, but he waved me back. With a grimace, he pulled hard on the piece of wood until it finally jerked free with a gush of black blood. Gage staggered for a moment, then caught himself. The flow of blood slowed, then stopped completely, and the hole in his stomach began to close. Relief filled me. Gage was healing himself. Gage would be all right.
He then turned and stared out through the opening in the wall.
I could see the center of the square through the smoking ruins. To my astonishment, Mildred stood there, her hands raised in the air. She wore a fancy gown—though it was torn—there were burn marks across her shoulder, and I could see a deep, long, jagged cut on her skin. The bottom of her gown was blackened and scorched as though she’d walked through fire. The rain washed blood and ash across her face and through her white hair in long streaks. Lightning flashed again in the near distance and white light shimmered around Mildred’s body as if in response—she glowed like a lit candle in the night.
When Gage saw her, a slow smile spread across his face.
Before my eyes, Mildred disappeared. I looked around frantically. There was a voice inside me crying out for Mildred’s help.
Just as I looked away, she reappeared outside the building’s crumbled opening. “Let her go,” Mildred commanded.
She was looking directly at me, but I felt so confused. My thoughts were so sluggish. Who? Me? I felt so perplexed by the turn of events. I don’t want to go anywhere without Gage…
Gage’s smile turned cold and calculating. “Think about what you’re doing, old woman. I’m not someone you want as an enemy.”
Mildred’s hands rose into the air threateningly. “You think I’ll just stand by while you let the legion loose?”
Gage laughed out loud. “You think you can stop me?” He calmly turned and walked over to the dying guard. Without any sympathy toward the moaning, gasping man at his feet, he bent down, placed his hands into the growing pool of blood, and…the blood began to disappear. I watched in astonishment. Somehow, he was drawing the blood into his hands, absorbing it into himself.
The still-healing wound in his stomach flared with red light, and I watched in confused wonder as the injury completely disappeared, as if it had never existed. When he stood back up, his hands were covered in blood, which slid down his fingers to drip to the floor. Then the dripping slowed and the blood began to stretch and grow, morphing until Gage held a red blazing sword in his hand. For a moment I wondered if any of this was real. Was I hallucinating?
I looked over at Mildred. She was staring at Gage with wide eyes. Whatever I was seeing, Mildred was seeing it, too. This was real. Gage had just created a sword out of blood.
Gage began swinging the sword back and forth. The air sparkled with red and orange light as it moved.
Mildred’s expression didn’t change. There was no fear or insanity glowing in her eyes—she simply looked determined.
Without warning, there was a loud crash and shouting. Mildred, Gage, and I turned toward the source of the noise in unison.
Dean burst through a section of the bramble bush, sliding to a stop in front of Gage. His eyes followed the movement of the bloody sword, narrowing as Gage smiled at his caution. He looked around for a weapon as people streamed out of the buildings on either side of him. Without taking his eyes off Gage, he walked sideways to where a long truss from the broken building laid on the ground and stooped to pick it up.
Mildred refocused her attention on Gage. “Maybe I can’t stop you, but I swear by everything holy, I’ll die trying.” She disappeared again, only to reappear at the edge of the bramble bush. I watched as she got down on her knees and pushed her hands into the dirt below the bush. After a moment’s pause, the ground began to shake and the bush began to grow. Its branches reached out and headed toward Gage’s men. The ones closest to it screamed as thorns pushed into their clothes and skin.
With no reaction to the chaos, Gage headed outside with the demon child on his heels. I started after him and found myself outside, standing in the rain by his side. I tilted my head back and felt cool drops fall on my face. There was fear inside me—but it was centered on Gage’s safety.
The red decorative spotlights glittered in the rain, making the entire scene outside glow like a vivid sunset. All the while, lightning bolts streaked through the sky, hitting the ground and flinging bodies into the air.
Gage lifted his free hand, conjuring a black cloud in the air before him. He waved his hand and the cloud shot off, racing toward Mildred.
She saw it coming, wrenched her hands out of the dirt, and a bolt of lightning blasted inches from me. I felt an electric punch as the air around me came alive. I screamed as I was thrown off my feet for the second time that evening and smashed into the ground. My skin hummed—the hair on my arms and neck stood on end, tingling with energy.
I lay on the ground, stunned. My whole body felt as though a truck had hit me. But…something was different. When I got to my feet, I realized, finally, I could think. Thoughts of Gage were still there, but all the love that had overwhelmed my reason was shoved to the back of my mind.
For the moment, I was in control again.
On the spot where Mildred had stood there was only the dark cloud. It was twice as big as before and still growing. My chest tightened with worry. Was Mildred inside it? Did she use her magic to teleport away before it hit her?
Anger roared through me, blasting away the last remnants of confusion and doubt that clung to me. I felt the strength of it pumping through my blood. Gage had turned me into his plaything. He forced me to marry him. I felt sick all the way to my core. He needs to pay for what he did to me. With lethal intent, I raised my hands, and after a moment, heard howls on the wind. My spirit pack. I was finally free to use my powers.
In the back of my mind, I felt something else answer my call—not the pack, but something not alive, something mystical and strangely familiar. I could feel it closing in from several directions. After a moment, it clicked—I was sensing the zombies. Those that were still able and intact were coming to my aid.
Dark, misty shapes whipped through the air. As they neared, I felt their excitement building, pounding in my head. They will protect me. They will keep me safe. I focused everything in me on one figure: Gage. He was wielding the blazing red sword in the middle of the square, hacking away at the growing bramble.
In a rush, my pack surrounded him, their howls and deep growls ringing out into the night.
“Colina!” I heard my name called out and searched for the source. It was Dean. A group of men surrounded him. He was on the ground, and a dark-haired man sporting a goatee loomed over him with a dagger held high, ready to strike.
I raced for him, but two steps in realized there was no way I could get there in time. My heart slammed into my throat, and I watched in horror as the blade flashed down, heading straight for Dean’s heart.
A stream of fire flew through the air. It hit Dean’s attackers and they burst into flames. Dean rolled away as the man standing over him shrieked and fell to the ground, his whole body on fire.
I frantically scanned the chaotic crowd to find the source of the fire. Caleb stood on the other side of the square—his hands ablaze with orange and red flames. Caleb? Caleb did that? He used his hellfire to save Dean. Caleb, my sworn enemy, killed his own men. It didn’t make any sense. Why would he help us? Caleb’s eyes locked with mine and his flames went out. Confusion filled his face and he cried out my name, but just then a small voice caught my attention.
“You’re ruining all my plans.”
Even without looking, I knew it was the demon child. I turned to face her. The creature walked with a determined little-girl gait, swinging its disturbing doll. It abruptly flung the toy straight at me and it hit me in the chest with unnatural force, throwing me off my feet.
I fell with a jarring thud into the mud, raising a spray of brown water into the air. Blinking through my spotty vision, I slowly lifted my head off the ground, pressed my hand to my aching chest, and saw the demon child heading my way. Its eyes were deep red, blazing with power and anger.
Move, a voice in my head screamed. My battered body throbbing in agony, I pushed to my feet. The demon girl stalked closer, her face contorted in rage. Surely it wouldn’t kill me. It wanted me to release the legion. It needed my magic. It wouldn’t hurt me…unless I had angered it beyond reason.
I braced myself, sure it would get close enough to strike a killing blow, when zombies suddenly flooded into the square from out of the darkness.
Most were in bad shape—bloated bodies with missing limbs—but they were still capable of doing damage. The zombies began to attack Gage’s men. I had somehow called them and forced them to fight. The demon and I both paused, distracted by their appearance.
A group of the zombies closed in on the demon, circling slowly around it and moving to block its path toward me. The child would have looked harmless, if not for its unearthly eyes, which were now glowing with otherworldly power. The menace they exuded gave even the fearless zombies pause, but it didn’t stop them from attacking. As they clashed, broken and twisted bodies began to fly like cannonballs through the air.
Around me, chaos reigned. I couldn’t see if the zombies were having any effect on the demon—but their fearless aggression and numbers changed the tide of battle. The huge amount of damage they could take while continuing to fight was daunting. I saw a zombie missing an arm and with a hole blasted through his abdomen tackle a huge man swinging an axe. Immediately three more undead jumped on the struggling pair. When they rose, the man on the ground was torn to pieces.
Screams of rage and anger filled the air and mixed with the clash of thunder and the roar of the pelting rain. As I gazed around, I saw groups of zombies battling Gage’s supporters, fading in and out of the darkness. The decorative red spotlights were gone. The square was thrown into darkness, lit only by the moon’s faint glow through the clouds, flashes of lightning, and whatever candles were still lit. Through it all, a glowing red trail flowed through the darkness. Gage’s sword of blood created a pool of sickly red light, illuminating him as if in a splash of bloody color and casting long shadows behind him. Zombies rushed at him in steady tide, appearing in flashes of crimson—only to fall in sprays of blood, made black by the red light. He was on the far side of the clearing from me, but his presence still called to me with a siren call.
A flash of lightning showed Dean fighting hand to hand with two men dressed in black. As I watched, he broke the wrist of one of his attackers. He was incredibly strong and fast, but it didn’t seem like he had turned berserker yet. His eyes weren’t glowing, and he moved with mere human strength and speed. I watched him get hit by the magic whizzing through the air. Why wasn’t he turning berserker? I expected the magic bouncing through the battle would turn him, and he’d go on a mindless killing spree. How was Dean controlling his powers? I didn’t know, but I thanked the Goddess for it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw bright colors flare through the night around Caleb. He was fighting for his life as Gage’s pet death dealers hurled spell after spell at him. In the seconds I watched, Caleb’s blazing fire engulfed a very small, very pale death dealer. The man went down, screaming as he burned, but Caleb paid him no mind. He’d already moved on to another death dealer whose wispy banshees were no match for Caleb’s powerful fire.
The nearly healed burns on my leg throbbed as I watched him fight, remembering the pain he’d inflicted on me. Confusion filled me as I watched one of my worst enemies use evil magic to fight on my side. Why was he doing it? Why was he helping us? I shook my head to clear it—no matter whose side he was really on, now was not the time to contemplate it.
I’d been dazed and confused, standing by while the others fought, not sure where to go. But now a clear thought pounded through my head, driving away any thoughts of finding Gage—the demon child was here. There was nothing stopping me from using my magic on the creature. I could finally try to destroy it.
I began to search for the demon in the madness, but was distracted as the smaller number of newly made zombies entered the battle. It had taken longer for them to reach the battle from the lab deep in the mine. They moved more quickly and with more menace than the earlier models. They were in all different stages of the mummification process, some with burial wrappings flapping around them, and some with none at all. One with complete wrappings paused by me, and a voice I recognized called out to me.
“That’s right, girly, you get out of this madhouse! We’ve got this. We’ll show these boys not to mess with our girl.”
It was Wanda. The absurdity of the whole thing actually made me laugh out loud. Wanda—a spirit that had tried to take me over during the second death dealer ritual—had somehow stalked me here to this remote place. And now she was trying to protect me.
Wanda rushed straight into the fray, killing a black-garbed man with a powerful swing that almost took his head off. I heard the sound of her laughter as she waded deeper into the chaos, and then she disappeared, entirely surrounded by a group of fighting bodies.
A flash of lightning illuminated the night for a long moment, crawling along the underside of the clouds from one end of the horizon to the other. Everything seemed frozen in that instant of stark light, a painting of unbelievable violence with a little girl demon at its center. It stood in the middle of the carnage, staring at me fixedly. Even from my periphery, I could feel the awful force of its gaze.
As for Gage, I could only see the trails of reddish light his sword made as he swung it at my spirit pack. I turned to face the demon.
It stood there like an unruly child having a temper tantrum. The torn and shredded bodies of zombies and mummies lay in piles around it, still writhing like a bundle of broken snakes, but the demon looked untouched.
I’d brought the creature into this world, and I needed to send it straight back to hell. But I had no idea what to do—all the magic I’d performed so far had come from following my instincts. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the darkness inside me and all around me, pulling it close. I let it slide across my skin, let it fill me up. I felt the energy tingling through me. And then I opened my eyes—looking at the demon child’s amused expression—and raised my hands.
I didn’t know if I could kill this evil thing, but like Mildred, I was ready to die trying. There would be no need to bring Luke up from hell—there was a very real chance that in seconds I would be joining him. At least we’ll finally be together. I raised my hands higher and began to call on the power building inside of me.
A lightning bolt struck the ground between us. The look of surprise on the child’s face mirrored mine. We both turned in unison to see Mildred approaching quickly from a few feet away. Her face showed overwhelming fear as she said, “No, child, you won’t survive this fight. You aren’t strong enough…yet.” Her hair and clothes crackled with electricity. I could see the energy glimmering off her skin and sparkling at her fingertips. When she was close enough, she reached out and touched me, and I felt electricity race through me.
I screamed out as all the dark power I’d built up shimmered away and I fell to my knees. What is Mildred thinking? She’s supposed to help me!
“Boy, get her out of here!” Mildred shouted.
Hands grabbed me from behind and lifted me up, settling me over a man’s shoulders. I protested, struggling against my captor’s grasp.
“Colina. No, let her go!” I looked up to see Dean running toward me. He’d almost reached me when Mildred raised her hands and sent a bolt of electricity right into the middle of him.
“No!” I screamed.
I was being carried away, hanging upside down. I slammed my fist into the wide back I was being jostled against. Who had me? How could I make them let me go?
From my helpless, awkward vantage point I watched as Mildred struck him again and the boy I knew disappeared. Whatever control Dean had been able to wield up until now was gone. In his place stood something monstrous. A berserker. His yellow eyes shone brightly in the dark.
I watched, terrified, as Dean grabbed the arm of a huge man running past him carrying an axe. The man spun and tried to swing the axe at Dean, but before it was even halfway through its arc, Dean ripped his arm off. Using it as a club, he beat the man to death with his own limb. The arm disintegrated under the force of Dean’s swings—blood and bone became shrapnel and shredded its victim.
Dean dropped the still-twitching limb and was gone so fast that my eyes couldn’t follow him. He reappeared alarmingly close, but his attention was immediately captured as every enemy in the square focused their magic on him. They clearly had no idea it would only make him stronger. At the asylum, I’d watched him grow more powerful every time Mildred and Weatherton hit him with their magic. Under the onslaught, the yellow glow of Dean’s eyes spread to his entire body. When he moved again, he was, if possible, even faster—like lightning flashing across the ground.
As I was carried past Gage, I saw that he was still standing, sword swinging through the air, black blood running out from gashes across his body. My spirit pack was pressed against him, flashing in and out of existence. Many of the pack bled their shadowy essence from dark wounds, and I understood too late that Gage’s blood sword seemed able to reach into the spirit world. I cried out in horror and shame at the cost they were paying to heed my call.
When Gage saw me, he reached out. “Colina!” Our eyes met and his spell wrapped its tentacles around me once more.
I’m being taken away from my love, my heart.
“Gage!” I screamed out as I was carried across the square and into the trees. Gage tried to turn and follow, but my pack redoubled their attacks, and he was forced to stand and fight. I tried to gather my will and stop them—but the thought wouldn’t form. My feelings tumbled, warring with my conscious mind for control. I didn’t have a chance to decide before Gage disappeared from sight as I was carried away.
I screamed, pounding my fists against a wall of muscle, all to no avail. I looked down at the ground rushing below me. When I was finally let down, who would I be facing—an enemy or an ally? I mentally steeled myself for whatever I was to face as we moved quickly into the forest.
The trees rushed by. As we moved deeper into the wilderness, the sounds of death from the battlefield faded. I was helpless, tears streaming down my face, crying out the name of the man I loved while I was carried into the night like a rag doll.