The Entity Within

Zoe tried to make sense of her situation, but her mind was hazy. The last thing she remembered was cuddling in her bed with Damon. How did she end up here? Where the hell was she?

The tunnels. She was in the tunnels, wearing a tattered red dress. A tattered red Victorian ball gown like something out of Phantom of the Opera. She was lying on something cold and hard. Her hands were bound above her head. Her ankles were bound as well, and she wore sparkly ruby shoes that looked remarkably like those worn by Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

“I apologize for the lack of amenities,” Silas said. “We couldn’t get out to the embalming room at the moment, so we brought the embalming table to us.”

Zoe could feel the cold metal of the table through the tissue-thin silk of her dress. Not her dress. The dress Silas had put on her.

“Mirror, mirror, get me out of here,” Zoe said frantically.

“No mirror in here. Not that it matters,” Silas said. “It’s no good casting spells, because you’ve lost your magic. Tsk tsk. Such a shame, dearie. You really should have listened to that hybrid when she warned you that having intercourse with the Demon Hunter would result in Vamptown going up in flames.”

Her protest froze in her throat as she got her first good look at the tunnel walls. Or more specifically, what was on the tunnel walls. Spiders. Millions of them. Rappelling down from the ceiling and the walls.

Silas waved his hand toward the insects. “Ah, I see you’ve noticed our little friends. I understand they are not faves of yours?”

“What do you want?”

“I’m supposed to say world peace, right?” Silas laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “I want the Book of Darkness, of course.”

“I don’t have it,” Zoe said.

“But you can get it.”

“If I could get it I would have already done so.”

“You just needed a little assistance, dearie. That’s where I come in. I’m here to help you.”

“By holding me against my will?”

“It’s a ritual requirement. Hence the dress and the shoes.”

“Ritual?” Zoe did not like the sound of that.

“Had you kept the Book of Darkness open longer, you would have learned all about this. Your ancestor, the witch Rebekka Adams, cursed me and sent me to hell.”

“You accused her of being a witch.”

“I spoke the truth. She was a witch.”

“She wasn’t hurting anyone.”

“That’s immaterial. I need the youngest witch from her family tree to assist me with the book.”

“You just said I’ve lost my magic.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” Silas said.

It sure changed a hell of a lot for her.

“You’re still a witch. Losing your magic merely made my job that much easier. I’ll have to thank the Demon Hunter for that.”

“He’ll come for me.” She wasn’t sure about that, but it was worth a shot.

“I’m counting on it, dearie. I’m going to kill him and your little cat, too.”

More Wizard of Oz references. Zoe struggled against the chains restraining her. She even tried tapping her shoes together and muttering, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

“Don’t waste your energy,” Silas said. “You’re going to need it for the ritual.”

Zoe kept one eye on Silas and the other on the spiders. She needed a plan. Looking down, she realized the dress barely covered her breasts. She didn’t want to know how Silas had put her in that dress. Some things were too awful to think about right now. She just needed to stall him long enough to devise a plan.

He pulled out … an iPad. “Before we begin, here’s a short informational video about the ritual.”

“I can’t see anything laid flat out like this,” she said.

Laid out on an embalming table, she silently continued. Keep calm and carry on. The table was cold and hard and very uncomfortable but it wasn’t slimy with blood or anything. That was a good thing.

She needed to figure out why Gram’s protection spell had stopped working and then figure out how to regain that protection. If she really had no magic, then what were her other options? Slim to none was her first thought, but she refused to surrender to the panic circling inside her. If she couldn’t use her magic, she’d use her mind.

“What do you know about my mother?” she said.

“I know she couldn’t protect you from all this, although she did try.”

“What do you mean?”

“That dark magic she was working on? She meant to direct it toward me. But that didn’t work. Ditto for the spell your witch coven cast to keep you away from books. They never told you that, right? They are the reason those books all talked to you in the library. You’ve always had sensitivity to books. Which is another reason the Book of Darkness sought you out.”

Zoe tried to register what he was saying. “You killed my mother?”

“No, dearie, she did that herself when she used black magic.”

“But it was you. She was trying to get rid of you!”

“Trust me, you’ve got bigger problems at the moment,” Silas told her. “It’s time to start the ritual.”

Zoe yanked at the bonds holding her.

Silas held the iPad in front of her face, mere inches from her nose. “Watch this.”

Zoe squeezed her eyes shut.

Silas pinched her nipple hard.

Her eyes flew open. “Ouch!”

“Don’t be a coward, dearie. No one likes a coward.”

“No one likes demons, either.”

Silas took a step back with mock horror before laughing. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

Zoe wanted to break every bone in the evil demon’s damn body.

“Anger is a good thing,” Silas said. “You should direct it against the Demon Hunter for putting you in this untenable position. Had he kept his vampire pants zipped then you wouldn’t have lost your magic.”

There had to be a way out of this. Zoe just had to find it. But it was hard to think when there were spiders everywhere and Silas was forcing her to watch the gruesome video. Couple that with the memory of Damon warning her that demons sucked out a witch’s brain and Zoe was freaking out. While brain-sucking wasn’t shown in the video, there was a lot of slicing and dicing of body parts in a ritual that represented all things evil and depraved.

Blood, guts, and gore were not her thing. They made her sick. Everything here in the tunnel made her sick.

She couldn’t afford to throw up. She could choke and die on the table.

He plans on killing you on this table anyway, her inner panicky voice said.

Shut up. Can’t you see I’m trying to stay calm here?

Good luck with that.

Great. Her inner wimp had a sarcastic streak. Just her luck.

This demon was the reason her mother had resorted to black magic, resulting in her death. Zoe couldn’t afford to let panic blind her. Her mother wouldn’t want that.

“If you kill me, then I can’t open the book,” she said.

“I don’t have to kill you. I can carve you up, as you saw in the ritual video. A charming witch’s circle on your left breast, a delightful pentagram on your right. And maybe that Phoenix of yours on your tummy.” He held up a scalpel. “The Book of Darkness will appear if you express enough emotion. Fear is a powerful emotion. And pain