didn’t currently have her MasterCard number on file.
Magic continued to crackle at her fingertips. It would be so easy to finish this off. Just breaking a diamond seemed so anticlimactic.
But the next moment she felt Darrak’s hands come around her waist from behind and he pulled her backward toward the teeter-totter.
“What are you doing?” she asked shakily.
“Preventative measures.”
“From what?”
“Just trust me.”
Rosa looked supremely pissed off. “Come Malcolm. We need to go back to the Malleus and report that…” She frowned. “What are you looking at, boy? Let’s go!” She reached for him but her son staggered back from her.
Then Eden saw it and a chill ran down her spine.
There were two swirling clouds of black smoke on the ground near Rosa’s feet.
By breaking the diamond, she’d destroyed the prison in which Rosa’s archdemons were trapped. To destroy the archdemons, Rosa would have had to smash it by herself.
Eden had freed them.
“Darrak…” she began.
“Shh. Don’t speak,” he whispered in her ear, his arms still around her waist, holding her tightly in place. “Be very quiet.”
Rosa looked down, finally seeing the black smoke just as it began to move up her legs. Her eyes widened in shock.
“Wait,” she said, holding her hands out. “No. We can talk about this.”
The incorporeal archdemons didn’t seem in much of a mood to chat. They began moving quicker and quicker, swirling and twisting around Rosa’s body like synchronized tornadoes.
“Malcolm!” she yelled. “Do something! You’re a member of the Malleus! Exorcise them!”
Cradling his arm, Malcolm moved farther back from Rosa. “I’m sorry, Mother. But I’ve decided to take a leave of absence from the organization.”
“You what?”
“I’m going back to college.” His jaw set. “Just like you wanted, remember?”
Rosa glared at him. Before she could say another word the smoke moved to cover her completely.
And the moment after that, the blackness dissipated completely, leaving nothing behind.
The first thing Eden did after Rosa disappeared with the archdemons was run over to check on Leena. The shapeshifter, still in cat form, was unconscious but breathing and her heartbeat was regular. Eden was no doctor — or veterinarian — but that seemed like a good sign.
She was ready for Malcolm to storm at her, furious at what happened to his mother, and wanting revenge. But he leaned against the trunk of a tall tree, his mouth still gaping open in shock at what had just happened. Even though the playground had grown darker with the setting sun, his face was very pale. He suddenly made eye contact with Eden and started slowly walking toward her.
Darrak stepped into his path. “Don’t even think about it.”
“No,” Malcolm managed. “I–I wasn’t thinking about hurting her. I had no idea what my mother was involved with all these years. I’m so sorry. If I’d known…” He shook his head. “The Malleus would never have approved something like this.”
He looked so incredibly disillusioned. His worldview had been shattered in thirty minutes or less. Quicker than ordering a pizza.
“Well, she did say it was to fight evil, right?” Eden said.
It was a shot in the dark. Eden didn’t know why she was trying to defend the woman who’d tried to kill her and trap Darrak other than as an attempt to soften the blow to Malcolm.
And it actually earned a small snort of laughter from Malcolm. “From what I’ve seen tonight, my mother was more evil than the two of you put together. I’m sorry this had to happen.”
“Which part?” Eden asked.
“All of it.” He looked back to where his mother had been standing before the archdemons had covered her body like a black blanket from Hell. “Now I know why she wanted me to go back to school. I was going to major in Archaeology. She probably wanted me to learn how to dig up more magical artifacts for her to use in the future like that diamond of hers. She was so insistent that I go.”
“And are you going to?” Eden asked.
He nodded. “I need time to think. After what I’ve seen…” He looked at both Eden and Darrak in turn. “I have a lot to think about.”
Eden stood up and went over to him to give him a hug. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Darrak tense, ready to spring if Malcolm did anything. But she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.
“Good-bye, Eden,” he whispered. “And good luck to you.”
“I’m going to need it, right?”
He smiled and flicked another glance at the demon. “You will. No doubt about it.”
He didn’t hug Darrak. Eden wasn’t terribly surprised about that. He turned, without another word, and went to his car. A few moments later, gravel crunched as he drove away.
Eden turned to Darrak, surprised to see that he looked pissed off at her.
“What?”
He shook his head. “You weren’t supposed to use your new magic and now you’ve already used it as if it was a present you couldn’t wait until Christmas to unwrap.”
She put a hand on her hip. “I didn’t exactly have a choice.” “There’s always a choice. How do you feel?”
She thought about it. “I feel fine. Considering that a mini-apocalypse just went down in this playground of death and destruction.” She glanced with regret and more than a little grief at the empty pile of clothes marking the place where Selina had been killed.
“And when you channeled the magic—?”
“Like I said, I feel just fine. Maybe Selina was wrong. Maybe I can do it without anything bad happening.”
He pursed his lips and walked over to Selina’s clothes, reaching down to retrieve her gray-stoned necklace — which had turned snow white. Now that Selina was gone Eden figured that was its default setting. He brought it over and fastened the chain around her neck. The heavy pendant fell to her chest.
“Look.” His expression was grim.
She looked down to see the stone was slowly changing from unblemished white to a darker shade. Not as dark as Selina’s had been, though. Eden’s was a very light gray with some darker, marblelike veins running through it.
The current state of her compromised soul was now a lovely fashion accessory.
“Okay,” Eden said after a moment. “Maybe channeling the black magic did do a little something after all.”
“How can you sound so calm about this?”
“I don’t exactly have any choice here, do I?”
His lips thinned. “There’s still a choice, of course. We’ll contact someone with the Malleus directly and arrange an official exorcism by someone who—”
She slapped him.
“Ow!” He held a hand to his cheek, frowning. “What the hell was that for?”
“Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. I guess I react with violence now when somebody says something outwardly stupid. I’ll try something different next time to mix it up.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s the only way.”
“No it’s not. We’ll find another way to break your curse.”
“Selina’s dead.”
“I know that.”
“You have less than a year to live if I’m possessing you.”
