They had to step over the larger body parts, heads, torsos and such, but that wasn’t the part they thought was odd. It was the direction they were being pulled in. Tialanna and Anya were leading the way since their blood was the most closely tied to Jelissa’s, and they could no longer communicate with Deelah or anyone else. They had expected to be headed towards a back entrance, a broken-down wall, maybe even a window, an indication Jelissa may have been trying to get out so she could find some poor human to feed from. Instead, her trail led up.
They went up four flights of raggedy stairs with ugly, stained, velveteen carpet that was once upon a time red, until they were all the way up to the roof. What smacked Tia in the face as soon as she put her hand on the doorknob that led out to it was the familiar presence she sensed on the other side. She now knew exactly who’d summoned her demon.
Chandler sensed their demon also. He walked up behind Tia and placed his hand atop hers on the old, rusted, and rickety doorknob, then bent down to whisper directly in her ear in a voice so low it was barely more than a breath. “If she indeed has him under her control, he will not be of his own devices. I warn you now, if a situation arises where it is between he and you, I will not hesitate to do as I must. He would expect nothing less.”
Their suspicions were confirmed when Tia finally turned that knob and they all stepped through. Only their nostrils got hit with a double dose of sulfur and brimstone, not just the one they had anticipated.
There was sheer chaos, and none of it in their favor. Bran was in his full demonic glory, fighting Jayden who was also still in full-on demon mode. A sin eater and a rage demon, they would have been evenly matched had Bran not been an ancient demon. The fight would have been over almost as soon as it began if Bran had truly been trying to kill him, but oddly enough, it didn’t look like he was.
Three of Seraphina’s people were surrounding Jelissa, careful not to get too close to her for fear they’d end up like their former associates. Two of them pulled out human stun guns and began zapping her at their full capacity, while the other, wearing rubber gloves, began wrapping chains around her body. When they finally had her completely subdued, they threw the human bodies they must have used to lure her up to the roof into a heap in another corner. Then yet another Rasputin that looked almost identical to the previous one they’d dealt with, did something to make Jelissa’s body hover as though she were lying on a mattress of air. He must have used his magick on the chains instead of on Jelissa herself. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as some of his other family members. They knew he was a Rasputin because all the males in that line looked so much like the original. One had to wonder if the humans had actually attempted to kill him as many times as recorded in their history, or if perhaps brothers of his had been mistaken for him.
Though the entourage already knew who was behind all this, the sisters couldn’t help but feel like the wind had been knocked out of them at seeing their grandmother standing before them in the center of it all, looking at everything play out with an arrogant grin on a face that looked so much like the mother they’d lost, because of her. The last time they saw her had been when their mother, Sabine, had sacrificed her own life to save theirs. To see Seraphina alive and more than well, while their mother remained lost to them forever was a cruel and wicked twist of fate. The only difference in Seraphina was her long, dark-brown locks were now interspersed with a lot more gray, and she appeared to be a well-oiled fortysomething in human years, though she was much older than that.
“Why, Grandma, what an evil-looking bitch you are.” It was Anya who got over the initial shock first and spoke. Her grudge with the woman was almost as large as Tia’s since Seraphina had not only stolen her fire and left her for dead, but stolen away any chance Anya had at knowing the woman who had given birth to her. “You’re also looking much too alive for my taste.”
“What can I say? I do come from good stock. And sucking the remainder of life force from the little weak bitch I can’t believe I gave birth to truly did do the body good.” Seraphina said all of that with no remorse whatsoever, and that more than anything pissed the sisters off.
“You heartless bitch.”
Seraphina laughed at the outrage in Elyssia’s tone. “Elyssia, finally grown a backbone, dear? But no, little smurf, I do have a heart. It just doesn’t feel a damn thing. If your mother had listened to me and done the same to hers, she’d have been a lot better off, and quite possibly still alive.” When they made a move towards her, she shook her finger at them like an adult would to a naughty child. “Nuh-uh, right there is close enough.
