wards,” she said to the witches still inside. “I don’t want you to interfere too much with what needs to come through.”
“I’m all for some limits,” I said, especially after what had happened at the shower.
The Red Skulls were usually more cautious.
Grandma shook out her shoulders like a cage fighter before a match. “I can handle it.”
Maybe she could, maybe she couldn’t. It didn’t matter. “I’m going down first,” I told her, daring her to argue.
Grandma looked me up and down. “What the hell happened to you?”
“She got caught in a curse attack,” Frieda answered.
Grandma’s eyes narrowed, and I shot a glare at Frieda. “Thanks for ratting me out.”
“Yeah, because you were going to hide that,” the blonde witch shot back. She must be stressed. It was rare for Frieda to lose her cool. “You know as well as I do that the Cave is dangerous,” she spoke to the group, while her gaze remained fixed on me. “You can’t go in rattled or injured.”
“I’m fine.” I snapped. Because I wasn’t, not really. But I didn’t have a choice.
The remaining witches climbed out of the hole while Grandma gave me the stink eye. “You think this is fucking easy?”
“I know it’s not.” I’d been once before. It sucked. But it was what I had to do to get answers, and I was prepared to brave it.
Grandma began running her hands through her long gray hair before, dropping them. “We don’t even have any animals.”
It took me a moment to realize what she was saying, until Ant Eater walked up next to her and solemnly handed her a Ziploc bag containing three live crickets.
“That’s it?” I asked. The biker witches usually used guppies. They were enchanted so that the demon would take the life of the fish as it reached for the soul of the person in the Cave of Visions. You had three guppies, and when they were dead, you’d better run like hell.
Ant Eater didn’t look happy. “We should put this off.”
“No,” Grandma said quickly. “It’s ready now.” She said the next part under her breath, but we all heard. “We might not have the magic to fire it up again.”
Great. We had one shot, and it was already screwed up.
Still, I’d moved ahead under worse circumstances. I wasn’t crazy about heading down there with bugs for protection, but if Grandma was going for it, I didn’t want her doing anything without me.
The sun had begun to set over the ocean cliffs, leaving the rest of the world in a twilight haze. The witches began lighting candles while I rested my hand on the Maglite at my waist. I had more going for me than I gave myself credit for. I had my weapons, my wits. A fair amount of desperation.
The ladder leading up from the cellar sizzled with an unearthly blue current. A blaze of blue smoke trailed up into the night sky and—jumping Jesus on a pogo stick—pearly white snakes as long as my arm slithered from underneath the cellar doors. Large, flat heads thrust from both ends of the creatures as they hissed, spewing bursts of flame at each other and anyone else that wandered too close.
Damn it. “You’re using cold magic again, aren’t you?” It was stronger, harder to control.
Great at isolating demonic magic.
“Let me guess. You’re the expert because you saw me do it once.” Grandma leaned in close, her face flushed. “I’m using everything I’ve got right now. This entire place gives me the creeps.”
That was saying something.
The urge to explore the cellar clawed at me, which was an awful sign. My powers were insanely attracted to things that wanted to eat me, possess me or chop me in half.
“Get everybody assembled,” Grandma said, once the sun had dipped under the horizon.
We still hadn’t decided who was heading up this little party. “I’m going in,” I said.
She cursed under her breath.
The witches formed a semi-circle around us. They moved with military precision, dozens of Red Skulls carrying blue and silver candles.
Grandma handed me the bag of crickets as the circle closed behind us. I felt the energy build. Along with it, evil pricked over my skin.
Dimitri was going to kill me for going down there, but it’s not like he could help me anyway. I had to do it alone.
“Link hands,” Grandma ordered the witches. The power intensified. She stood between me and the entrance, as if she could shield me from what I’d find. “You know what to do, right?”
“Yes.” Mostly. We both knew this wasn’t an exact science. The last time Grandma tried it, she ended up in the first layer of hell.
“Trust the snakes,” she said, as we stepped over one. It hissed and singed my boot. “Watch the crickets.” A glow formed along the circle of witches surrounding us. I saw Creely, Ant Eater, Sidecar Bob. “Use the goat skull.”
“Aunt Evie’s?” She was the previous slayer, and we sometimes used things of hers, objects that held another generation of strong magic.
Grandma nodded. “It’ll help you focus your strength.”
An eerie blue layer of smoke collected at the edge of the pit. I looked down into the darkness.
Grandma stood next to me. “Light a candle. Focus on the demon and watch the crickets.”
“Okay.” Piece of cake. I tucked the edge of the cricket bag under my belt and tried not to notice as the creatures struggled to escape. It was too late—for them and for me.
Grandma watched me, stone faced. “If it grabs you, run. Try to get it off first. We don’t want it following you.” Practical until the end. She drew a necklace out of her shirt. Attached was a Ziploc with a twirling silver spell. “I’ve got the queen of anti-demonic spells here, but without any wards set up, it’s worse than tossing a pop tart at a pissed off lion.”
“You won’t need it,” I said. I could handle it.
I placed a foot on the top rung of the ladder and wished Dimitri was here. Times like this, I needed his strength, his protection and support more than anything. It would have been nice if I’d had my necklace to protect me as well. I clutched the ladder tighter and began my descent into the freezing cellar.
Hell was cold. It was the absence of love and light. And I felt every bit of it as the pit swallowed me up. The air grew heavier. The cold, colder.
My breath puffed out in front of me. The place smelled like raw dirt.
Halfway down, I drew my Maglite out of my belt and shone it down onto the floor below. The skull had been placed a short distance, away, near a stone wall that formed the foundation of the house. The other three walls were made of packed Earth.
I placed the candle in the center of the narrow space, with the crickets next to it. They leapt and struggled against the bag.
Focus. If I panicked, I was done.
I lowered myself onto the floor and sat cross-legged in front of the gnarly-looking goat skull and the red candle.
I’d said I could do this and I would.
The Red Skulls murmured chants over me, their words mingling with the dancing flame of the candle.
I purposely removed my hand from my switch stars, where it always rested when I was nervous. Instead, I focused on the three markers I’d found. I pictured the one deep in the old observatory, surrounded by faceless statues. I pictured the marker that had been carved out of the garden, the one that had swallowed me whole. And I thought about the marker carved into the black altar itself, the one that stood on the other side of this wall, hidden in the basement of the house.
The back of my neck pricked and my breath came in starts. I pushed the air in and out of my lungs like it had gone liquid. My nerves thrummed and my body stiffened as an image formed in front of me.
