That Old Black Magic

“I think they… they kissed me.”

Darrak made a face. “No offense, but gross. Wraiths are nasty. And hellhounds aren’t traditionally great kissers.”

“Wasn’t bad for a few seconds.” The hellhound cocked his head. “You’re alive!”

“I am.” He looked at Eden. “Thanks to both of you.”

“Thank Eden,” Andy said. “She’s the one who made the deal to get us here in the first place and that also shifted my, uh, shift.”

Darrak’s surge of happiness began to drain away leaving him feeling very cold. “What deal?” When Eden didn’t say anything he took her by her shoulders. “What kind of deal did you make? And with who?”

“With whom,” she said, grimacing, and not simply because of his bad grammar.

“Whatever. Eden, talk to me. Please don’t tell me you made another deal with Lucifer.”

She looked away. “Then I guess I won’t tell you that.”

“Are you looking for the buy-ten-get-one-free card?” He swore under his breath. “What did you promise him?”

Her expression wasn’t fierce anymore — it was worried. But she didn’t look away from him. “It was worth it. He made it so I could come here and find you without it killing me. He made Andy a werehellhound so he could be my guide.”

Her intentions were in all the right places, but he’d known this was too good to be true. “I know you think that Lucas is a friendly, good-looking guy with a dark past, but you have no idea what he’s truly capable of.”

“I know exactly what he is.”

“Do you? Are you sure about that? So you’re saying that you made a deal with the Prince of Hell himself in order for a fleeting chance to pull my ass out of the Void before it was too late.”

Eden held his gaze. “Well… yeah. That’s pretty much it.”

He wanted to be furious, but he couldn’t be. This was the bravest thing anyone had ever done for him. He would have done the same thing for her, so he supposed that made them even in their mutual insanity. “What did you promise him?”

She hesitated, which made him more nervous than he was to begin with. “Lucas wants to go back to Heaven, but he’s bound to Hell, like a chain around his ankle. I still don’t understand why.”

That wasn’t exactly an answer to his question.

He didn’t let go of her. “The darkness here needs to be controlled and that’s Lucifer’s job. That’s what the wraith meant when she talked about the shadows. When he gets upset or loses his composure, that darkness takes him over. They make him into Satan, a being of malevolent energy that likes to destroy and wreak havoc over everything. No one else has control over the darkness. He can’t leave.” An unwanted piece of empathy slid through him for his unpleasant boss. Being the Prince of Hell and dealing with all of that uncontrollable darkness wouldn’t be a fun job for an ex-angel, even if it had plenty of perks.

“He says he has a replacement lined up to take over for him,” Andy said.

“A replacement.” Darrak frowned. “So he’s found a way to leave the Netherworld permanently?”

When Eden didn’t reply his grip on her shoulders grew tight enough to make her flinch. He released her immediately.

“Talk to me, Eden. Tell me exactly what you promised him.”

She finally met his eyes. “I agreed to give him my angel side for the chance to come here and find you. Freely give every last bit of my celestial energy to him. It will be enough to break his chains down here once and for all.”

He just stared at her for what felt like a very long time. “Please tell me you’re just messing with me right now.”

She just shook her head, her expression pale.

“We need to leave, and we need to leave right now.” He didn’t say another word, he just put his arm around Eden and his other on Andy’s furry back and concentrated on phasing all three of them out of there. He’d been able to channel his phasing ability when he took care of the wraiths, but it wasn’t working anymore.

“Oh come on,” he growled. “Don’t fail me now.”

“Will this help? It got us here.” Eden showed him her wrist that bore the silver chain she was to use on Ms. Brenda N. Franks, potential Antichrist.

“That won’t work both ways.” He snorted. “So Lucifer told you to use that, did he? Did he happen to mention how you were supposed to get out of here when you were finished?”

“He didn’t cover that.”

“No, of course not. He doesn’t care if you were able to leave without his assistance. He’d prefer you remain at his mercy at all times.”

Darrak rubbed a hand over his face, trying to think this through.

Eden looked at the hound. “If Andy’s still here at sunrise, then there’s a problem. He’ll shift back to human form.”

“Hate to break it to you but minutes and hours sometimes work differently here, like a broken clock. Sometimes it’s equal, other times it’s not. Time has moved fast since I got here. I already sense sunrise approaching in the human world.” He looked at Andy. “Do you feel it?”

Andy looked up at him somberly. “Afraid so.”

“You can’t shift back to human,” Darrak said. “Not here. Fight it.”

“I’ll try.”

“Try very hard.” The only way they were getting out of there was to either find a gateway or for him to figure out what was stopping him from phasing. And he knew for certain that there weren’t any gateways to the human world anywhere close to the Void.

Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Someone was watching them carefully.

Theo. Or, rather, the entity currently using his face.

Darrak looked into Eden’s eyes. “Wait here.”

“But—”

“I’m serious, Eden. Please wait here. I need to talk to him for a second.”

She didn’t argue, which was a relief. Her green eyes were filled with worry, but determination also battled within them. She knew what she’d done was extreme, but she didn’t regret it. She’d agreed to give up half of herself — she didn’t even know how serious a decision it was — in order to save his paltry life.

Darrak would love her forever for that, but he couldn’t let this deal stand. If Eden lost her angelic energy, the darkness from her black magic would grow inside of her at an even faster rate than it already did. Even Selina’s magic hadn’t been so powerful, so dark as this. Her soul would have taken centuries more to rot. Eden’s was turning black at an accelerated rate and it scared him like nothing he’d ever known before.

For as long as she had that magic at her disposal she needed to stay a nephilim, otherwise she didn’t have a chance against that darkness. She’d become an entity whose only desire would be to spread evil throughout the human world until she was killed and sent to Hell.

Eden’s future then, unless she was tagged to become a demon, would be to become a wraith. Black-souled human females starved for energy had few other options here.

Darrak wouldn’t let that happen. Even though Eden didn’t realize it, she was hanging off the edge as much as he had been. Just because she couldn’t see the drop didn’t mean it wasn’t still there.

He’d save her. No matter what.

In fact, he’d already come up with a plan to end this once and for all.

It might get a little tricky, though. Throwing Lucifer into the Void wasn’t exactly going to be easy.

TWENTY-TWO