The Entity Within

Zoe tried to get there before he did but could not compete against his freaky fast speed. He’d already wrecked half her workroom by the time she walked in.

Using his arm, he swept her soaps from the shelves, dumping them all on the floor.

“Be careful,” she cried out as she saved a bottle of rare and very expensive essential oil from shattering on the floor.

It took a moment or two for her to realize that she’d used magic to prevent the bottle from breaking, freezing it in midair.

Damon noticed her relapse immediately. “So you don’t use magic, huh? What do you call that?”

“Necessity.” She wished she could freeze him in place.

“What’s this?” He reached for an old book sitting in the middle of her worktable.

This time she didn’t stop him. He swore as his fingertips were singed. “Shit!”

She opened the book for him. “It is an ancient book of recipes for making soap and lotions.” Pointing to the botanical drawings, she said, “This book is much thinner than the one you are looking for.”

Unconvinced, he made her show him every single one of the thirty-three pages.

“I can read Latin,” he warned her.

“Goodie for you.”

Damon speed-read all the concoctions written on the pages before moving on. She put her foot down when he confiscated her laptop.

“Give that back!”

“After our tech geek has checked it out,” Damon said.

“There is personal stuff on there.”

“Too bad.”

Zoe felt tears coming to her eyes. She’d written her thoughts after her mom’s death in a journal she’d kept on her laptop. The idea of someone else reading them was like being stripped bare for all to see.

A powerful and dark hatred for the vampire was taking hold deep within her. She’d never felt this way before. Not even when her ex-fiance had dumped her.

No, this emotion was fierce and incredibly violent. She narrowed her eyes at Damon’s condescending smirk—and an instant later the lamp fixture above his head burst into flames and fell to the floor, missing him by inches.

“Shit!”

“Kill the vampire.” The words came from her lips, but the voice wasn’t hers. “Death to the Demon Hunter.”

She was levitating above the floor.

“Don’t kill her!” Gram cried from the doorway. “She’s been possessed by a demon, but I can fix it.”

Pointing to Zoe, Gram recited the spell.

By forces of day and spirits of night

By solemn vow and powers strong

When evil lurks or harm be in sight

Be you safe from all evil forever long.

Zoe collapsed into Damon’s arms.

“What happened?” she asked shakily.

“You just tried to kill me with a light fixture,” Damon said.

She looked for confirmation to Gram, who nodded.

“What do you remember?” Gram asked.

Zoe said, “I felt this intense hatred toward—”

“Me.” Damon finished her sentence.

She tried to scoot away from him, but he was not letting her go.

“I don’t remember much after that,” she said. “I heard Gram casting a spell.”

Damon freed one hand to show her his smartphone. “The camera caught it all.”

She stared at herself levitating off the floor. Shivering at the weird and terrifying image, she whispered, “That’s never happened to me before.”

“You probably never sounded like Darth Vader before, either,” Damon said.

“I could hear someone talking but it wasn’t my voice.” She nervously looked around her workroom. “Where did the demon go?”

“Probably back to the tunnels. The demon slipped into your mind and fed off your anger and hatred for me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Don’t you?”

“No, I just intensely dislike you.”

He let her go. “The feeling is mutual.”

“Then why didn’t the demon possess you instead of me?”

“You’re a weak witch.”

She wasn’t sure if she should be insulted by his comment or not. She only knew for sure that she’d never had anything like this happen to her before. And that was saying something. After all, she was a witch and had been exposed to magic since birth, but nothing this dark and dangerous. Demonic possession was never something she’d ever worried about … until now. She was trying not to freak out, but it wasn’t easy.

“I’m a Demon Hunter,” he continued.

“I thought you were a vampire.”

“I am. I am also a Demon Hunter.”

“So maybe the demons are here because of you. I have no previous experience with demons. Gram doesn’t, either. This is totally unfamiliar territory for me,” she said.

“I didn’t set any demons free,” Damon said. “The two of you did that, recklessly disregarding the consequences. You don’t know a damn thing about demons. One just took possession of your mind and there was nothing you could do to prevent it.”

“That won’t happen again,” Gram said. “I cast a protection spell for her.”

“I have to cast the same spell to protect you,” Zoe told her grandmother.

“Do you remember the words?” Gram asked before repeating them for her.

Zoe nodded and recited the spell. So much for her claim that she would not be using magic here in Chicago. She could see the disdain in Damon’s eyes, calling her out for being a liar.

She tried telling herself that her magic wasn’t intentional or premeditated, but the truth was that she could have let that bottle of essential oils break. It would have cost her monetarily. But now that demons were involved everything was up for grabs, including her vow to be magic-free.

“We can give you a protection spell, too, Damon,” Gram said.

He appeared insulted by her offer. “I don’t need protecting.”

“I still don’t understand,” Zoe said. “What was the demon trying to accomplish?”

“To possess you in order to use your magic, turning it dark and aiming it at eliminating me,” Damon said.

Feeling sick to her stomach, Zoe wrapped her arms around her middle. “What do you mean ‘possess’? Do you mean like spirits did to Whoopi Goldberg in the movie Ghost?”

Damon said, “They didn’t possess your entire body. The demon slithered into your mind.”

She clapped her hand on her ear. “You mean they entered through my ear and took over my brain?”

He shook his head. “Not literally speaking, no. We’re not exactly sure how they do mind possessions.”

“You’re safe now,” Gram reassured Zoe. “I should have put a protection spell over you the moment demons were mentioned, but I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Were you thinking straight when you let the demons out?” Damon said.

“All I did was open the cover of a spell book.”

Instead of answering, Damon completed his search of Zoe’s work area while Gram removed the remains of the broken light fixture with a wave of her hand.