The Entity Within

“So you’re saying you could have conjured up demons just by dreaming about them?” he said.

“Absolutely not. To quote you two, no way. So what was a demon doing on our doorstep?”

“He was in the living room, actually,” Damon said.

“Even worse,” her grandmother said. “I hope he didn’t leave a stain on the rug?”

“He was on the wooden floor.”

“What did he want?” her grandmother said.

Damon shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

“Did you ask?”

“Demons aren’t real talkative,” Damon replied.

“Kind of like vampire Demon Hunters,” Zoe muttered.

“I’m assuming he came looking for the book,” Damon said.

“Which would mean they don’t have it in their possession,” Zoe said.

“Or it could mean that only a witch can open it,” her grandmother pointed out.

Damon wasn’t happy with that possibility. He didn’t like being dependent on anyone else to get the job done. He was like his sire Simon that way. Simon didn’t like working with other Demon Hunters, but he had taken the time after turning Damon to teach him well not only in the ways of vampires but also in the skills needed to successfully hunt demons.

Simon had done more than that. He’d saved Damon from eternal damnation. Eve’s betrayal had enabled the demons to haul Damon into the first level of hell. Vampires didn’t die there. They were tortured for all eternity. Damon had risked the odds and escaped with Simon’s help.

Much of that time was a blur to Damon. His human memories about Gettysburg remained, but thankfully his vamp nightmares of his brief imprisonment were just that: nightmares, not vivid images forever imprinted on his mind.

Simon had been the first to tell Damon about the legend of the Book of Darkness, as he’d called it. A book that could open the gates of hell and let the demons come pouring out en masse. No one had ever actually seen the book or even knew for sure that it really did exist. Until now.

And even now he couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t seen the book. Maybe the demons had gotten loose through some other means. Not that that seemed likely at this point. He’d been in Vamptown for over two months and there hadn’t been a whiff of demon stench until yesterday.

It was no coincidence that Zoe and her grandmother appeared in Vamptown at the same time as this demon outbreak. And things could get worse before they got better if he didn’t get this mess under control.

“I found it!” Zoe’s exclamation interrupted his thoughts.

“The missing book?”

“No, Eve Delacroix’s name. It’s in my mother’s family tree bloodline,” Zoe said.

“Which might explain how she had a talisman like yours from your mother’s side, but not your father’s.”

Damon already knew from the research he’d done on Zoe but he asked anyway. “You don’t have any siblings?”

Zoe shook her head.

“Maybe someone from your father’s bloodline hooked up with someone from your mother’s a century and a half ago.”

Zoe made a face. “That sounds kind of incestuous to me.”

“But possible,” he said.

“Not really incestuous,” her grandmother said. “Enough time has passed.”

“It still creeps me out that Damon killed a witch that might have been an ancestor,” Zoe said. “He claims she was evil. A bitchy witch.”

“As opposed to a bitchin’ good witch?” her grandmother said. “What? You don’t think I keep up on modern terminology? I imagine that must be tough for you, Damon.”

“Killing Eve was easy.” A lie but he wasn’t about to tell the truth.

“I was referring to keeping up with terminology over one hundred and fifty years. Why, when I think about how much things have changed in my sixty-five years—”

“You’re seventy-two,” Damon said.

Zoe’s grandmother glared at him. “Yes I am, but you don’t have to make a big deal about it.”

“I’d rather make a big deal about the fact that the two of you—descendants of Eve Delacroix—just happen to land in Vamptown and unleash a bunch of demons. I don’t believe it,” Damon said.

“I don’t believe it, either,” Zoe’s grandmother said. “I mean, what are the chances, right?”

“Right. So are you finally going to tell me the truth?” Damon said.

“I already admitted that I’m seventy-two not sixty-five,” she said.

“You can’t still think that my grandmother and I are part of some demon conspiracy,” Zoe said.

“Can’t I?”

“Only if you’re an idiot,” she shot back. “Look, I want to get rid of these demons as much as you do.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Then prove it,” he said.

“How?”

“Find that missing book. Look through your family spell book for something about demons.”

“It doesn’t come with an index,” Zoe said. “It’s not like I can just Google a spell. Well, okay, maybe someone can Google a spell, but it wouldn’t work.”

“How do you know?” Damon demanded. “Have you ever tried it?”

Zoe vehemently shook her head, which made her bangs slide into her eyes. “No witch in her right mind and worth her weight in real magic would do that.”

Damon fought the urge to brush her hair away from her face. He already knew how silky the dark strands were; his fingertips vibrated with the memory of touching her. All of a vampire’s senses were heightened compared with mere mortals, and that included not only sight, smell, and sound but also touch.

But Zoe was a witch. She was more than capable of casting a spell to throw him off track. Eve had done it. What was to say her descendant couldn’t accomplish the same thing?

Damon had told Zoe’s grandmother that he didn’t need a protection spell. He hadn’t told her the reason, which was that he had a few resources of his own as a Demon Hunter to use.

“Googling a spell could make things worse,” Zoe warned him. “You may not think they could get worse —”

“Oh, I know they can get worse. And they will if we don’t get that book back.” He paused a moment as a possibility he’d been mulling over in his head took shape. “What if that demon that possessed you had you cast a spell to make the book vanish?”

“I was with you the entire time. You even recorded me on your iPhone. You’ve got the video of me levitating. How could I cast a spell without you knowing?”

She was right. Unless … “What if you did it silently?”

“What about the demon?” Zoe said. “Couldn’t he have done something to make it vanish? Or maybe the book had that ability built in?”

“I’ve got people checking out possible legends about the book,” Damon said.

“People?”

“Vampires.”

“And they are supposed to be better researchers than a witch with a master’s degree in library science? I seriously doubt that,” Zoe said.

“You can doubt it all you want,” he said. “I don’t care.”

“You should care if you want those demons stopped.”

“I can stop them myself. You saw that.” He pointed to the front door where he’d destroyed the cable guy.

“Yes, I did. You seemed to get a kick out of going after him. Maybe you’re behind that demon’s appearance,” Zoe said.