I don’t care how much goddess magic you have in you; you won’t be able to stop her.”
That didn’t sound promising. Coyote stared lifelessly at the ceiling, his skin gray with death. Maya had taken up a throw and tucked it gently around him. Coyote wasn’t waking up or coming back to life. He was gone, my friends were hurt and scared, and this entire adventure had come about because of Emmett Smith’s search for power. Emmett was going to pay for that.
“Janet isn’t alone,” Mick said, quiet in his anger. “And the succubus wants you, not us.”
“Why don’t we just kill
“Don’t think that isn’t tempting,” I said. “But the demon-goddess wants her revenge, and if I know goddesses, she’ll want to kill Emmett herself. Fremont?”
Fremont shrugged. “It just took a crystal, a candle, and a verse.”
I put my arm around his shoulders. “I love you, Fremont. Let’s do this.”
I WASN’T CERTAIN the simple spell would work, but I wasn’t about to let Emmett know that. Cassandra fetched a clear quartz crystal from her desk behind reception, and I had Mick light another sage stick, because we couldn’t get a candle going for some reason. The curse didn’t want us to have light.
The verse Fremont used was a simple rhyme, straight out of any “witchcraft for beginners” book. But Mick had taught me that chants and candles or sage and crystals are only vehicles for the witch’s focus. The intent of the spell mattered, as did the mage’s concentration and strength, not whether the candle was red or yellow, whether the witch used sage or myrrh, or whether they spoke complicated Latin verses or a few simple phrases. Those choices could help, but the whole spell was so much more than the sum of its parts.
Fremont, though he had only a touch of magical ability, had focus and sincerity. I imagined that the demon- goddess had heard that sincerity, Fremont’s need to connect, loud and clear, and had homed in on him.
She homed in on him now. In a burst of hellfire tinged with sulfur—which is a cheap effect and not necessary—the succubus-demon-goddess was upon us.
Her aura nearly knocked me over. Fremont must not have been able to see it—to him she’d appear as the black-haired woman who stood before us. No red-clawed siren in black leather, she was draped in modest robes and had a pretty, rather soft face. She looked almost nice.
Except for her aura. That was sticky, gray-black, and foul. I didn’t sense Beneath magic from her, which must mean she was an earth entity—born solidly in this world, not the one Beneath. But she was old. Ancient. I read that in her eyes, an ancientness that had allowed her evil to build, that had knocked out any compassion she might ever have possessed. That and her son being murdered to feed a sorcerer’s power guaranteed she wouldn’t be friendly.
“Hello, Emmett,” she said. “Remember me?”
Blood ran in rivulets from Emmett’s nose and down his silk shirt as he raised his hand. “Die, whore.”
The demon-goddess watched his dark magic come, a little smile on her face. She lifted her hand, and the darkness harmlessly dispersed.
“Don’t be an idiot.” She moved her gaze from Emmett and fixed it on Coyote. “What have we here? Aw, poor dead little Indian god. They always think they’re better than anyone.”
“He died to bring the ununculous here for you,” I said. “In return, you can lift the hex.”
“Now, why would I want to do that?” the demon-goddess asked me. “Much more entertaining to watch you play it out until your own natures kill you. A few of you I might keep alive with me for the fun of it. Like you, Stormwalker. And that one.”
She was looking at Nash, giving him an interested once-over, much as Emmett had.
“A magic null,” she said as she neared him. “I’ve heard the theory but never seen one.”
She touched Nash’s face. Nash didn’t like being touched, but he flinched and took it. I wondered what would happen if she tried to hurt him with magic—would her power be absorbed into Nash’s doubly enhanced magic void? Would Nash be strong enough to contain it? Probably. That was worth a second thought.
The demon-goddess traced his cheek. “What couldn’t I do with you, Mr. Magic Null?”
Maya growled at her. “Take your hands off my boyfriend, you bitch.”
In response, the succubus picked Nash up by the neck and threw him across the room. Nash crashed into the reception counter, toppled over it, and landed on the floor beyond. Maya gave a cry of anguish and ran to him.
“A magic null who is still human,” the demon-goddess said. “Which means he can die.”
I didn’t dare go check whether Nash was still alive. I didn’t hear Maya wailing in grief, so I hoped for the best. Nash was pretty tough.
“We’ll give you Emmett Smith,” I said. “He hasn’t done much to make us like him, so he’s all yours. Take him and lift the hex. I have things to do.”
“Don’t bargain with me, girl. I’ll take Emmett and anyone else I choose. I haven’t eaten a Nightwalker in a long time, and I see he fed off the dragon. Doubly delicious.”
“Stop it!” Fremont charged to us, anger giving him courage. “Just stop it! This is all my fault. I brought you here. Not them, not Janet. They have nothing to do with this.”
The succubus turned to Fremont, but she didn’t try to touch him. Good thing; I’d have broken her fingers if she had, and who knows what she would have done then? “Aren’t you sweet? I really like this one, Stormwalker. He’s got stamina in the sack, believe me. I might let him live so he can please me again.”
I couldn’t tell whether Fremont found her declaration terrifying, flattering, or embarrassing. “Can’t you do something, Janet?” he pleaded.
I wanted to. I thought about what Coyote had said about the Beneath magic in me tearing open the vortexes. I thought about how I’d felt when I’d drawn on it, ready to blast out the wards and bury us alive, and Nash having to smother me to stop me. I might be just as dangerous as the demon-goddess. Which was the lesser of two evils? Her or me?
The best thing would be for us to let her and Emmett fight it out. Whoever survived such a battle would be weakened, and then Mick, Ansel, Pamela, and Nash could clean up. I and my reality-ripping magic could stay out of it.
The demon-goddess turned to me as though she read my thoughts. “It’s difficult, isn’t it? Watching those you love die? I know exactly how you feel, because my own son was torn apart by this monster.” She flicked her fingers, and Emmett’s nose started streaming even more blood. “But I despise you at the same time, Stormwalker. It’s such a human thing, to throw someone to the wolves in order to save yourself.”
If she were trying to make me feel guilty for my choices, she was wasting her time. Coyote was dead, and the grief in me would know no bounds. He’d died for us, and had known he’d truly die—
This entire situation was about the demon-goddess and Emmett, and if one or both of them had to perish to solve the problem, I really didn’t care. The world would be minus one demon-goddess and a nasty sorcerer. Good.
“You cast the hex so you could get Emmett here to punish him,” I said. “So punish him, already. I’m getting bored, and I want a shower.”
The demon-goddess smiled at me, and the similarities between her and my mother unnerved me not a little. “Don’t you understand? This is no longer your show, Stormwalker. It’s mine. Torturing and killing is what demons do. It’s fun for us, and I plan to have fun.” She focused on Mick, who had his fire in his blood-caked hands. “Him first. He’s the strongest. And I’m at my peak.”
My heart went cold. She could easily kill Mick, and there wouldn’t be any debate about whether I should stop her.
With one flick of the demon-goddess’s slender finger, Mick’s fire died. Mick looked at me with fire-streaked black eyes, while the dragons came to life on his arms. “Run, Janet,” he said in his soft voice. “Just go.”
He was going to turn dragon. He was going to let the huge beast in him erupt in my lobby and take care of this the dragon way.
“Down!” I screamed. “Everybody get down!”
I felt the succubus reach into the hex and let it flare. A Murphy’s Law spell—everything that could go wrong
