Kai’s head lifted as though he had heard the sound of my voice.
I gasped. Chanelle whined and took a step back. Somebody grabbed me. I struggled as the mage hooked his arm around my waist and dragged me away.
“Stop it!” he screamed in my ear. “He’s possessed. If you let him out, he’ll kill us all.”
I elbowed him in the face and resumed my position. The horror of it had my ears ringing. Beside me, Chanelle was having a hysterical breakdown. Bradley held her upright as she sobbed.
Kai wouldn’t take his eyes off me. Those eyes that were the most stunning green in the world had turned pitch black. “What the hell kind of sick game are you running?” I screamed into the atmosphere. “Let him go!”
Inside the circle, Kai smirked. Even now he was heart-stopping. That was exactly the thought that filtered through to me from the demon that had taken over his body. When it escaped, it would stop my heart by ripping it out and eating it.
Kai’s face contorted. He shuddered as thought fighting for control. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like. To have a demon possess him was anathema to everything he was. The horror of it had stripped Bradley of his usual meat-headed confidence. All of the colour had drained from his face. His stupid face that just stood there while Kai was slowly losing himself.
“Can’t you do something?” I snarled at the mage. “Exorcise the damn thing!”
He had all the tools with him. They sat in a sad pile inside a crucible next to his feet. A small mirror, a red candle, the salt shaker, a twig of sage, and a knife.
“He’s too powerful,” the mage informed me. “As soon as the circle collapses, he’ll be on us. He’s too fast as it is in his normal form. Possessed, we don’t stand a chance.”
I breathed in a slow, pained breath. “Is it the demon that’s strong?”
He shook his head. “It’s Pendragon. And it’s not likely the demon will let him go. “
I bit my lip. A very bad idea formed in my head. “What if we gave it an incentive?”
“What kind of incentive?”
“Oh, I dunno. Lucifer’s scion maybe?”
The mage frowned for a second like he couldn’t quite understand what I meant. When it dawned on him, his face went slack. “I don’t know about that –”
I was already pressing my bloodied left hand against the circle. Just like Basil said, blood magic still worked despite the seal. That was because blood was an intrinsic part of all living things. I could no more cut it off than I could stop my breath. My blood was full of all kinds of hellish magic. Without the strength of my other magic to boost its signal, it was weak at best. But it was enough.
I felt it chewing through the circle like salt on ice. Kai flipped to his feet, his gaze locked on me. A manicured hand bit into my arm. “You stupid little shit,” Chanelle shrieked in my ear. I punched her in the head.
It only dazed her for a second, but the feeling of my fist connecting would be imprinted in my mind forever. I took a shuddering breath at the same time the circle broke. A blast of demonic magic swept through the lawn. It brought with it the bite of frost and despair. I bit back a sob as Kai launched himself at me.
Rather than evade, I allowed him to grab me around the throat. In the nanosecond before his thumb crushed my windpipe, I swiped my blood across his nose and opened my mind.
The demon inside him gaped.
“Mistress,” Kai said. His voice was an insidious hiss.
Come and get me, I offered the demon.
In the exchange, I heard Kai’s roar. He clawed at me, trying to disrupt the transfer. Jackass, I sent him. I’m Lucifer’s, remember? You’ll never win this one.
He saw right through the bravado and into my soul where I had hidden the vulnerable part of me that was terrified of what was to come.
Blue, I heard him gasp a second before the demon cast him aside.
A black haze fluttered across my vision before pressure like I’d never experienced before shackled me in place. The laughter coming out of my throat was raspy. I scented sulphur in the air. The demon forced the back of my palm across my nose. It came away coated in blood.
Stupid girl, the demon said in my head. In the real world, I fell to my knees. Now you’re mine.
I was stupid. But every once in a while, stupid also got lucky.
The demon chased me through the crevices in my mind, attempting to find the source of the unparalleled power I had dangled in front of its face. The guttural cry it gave when it hit the seal and came up short made my ears pop. I registered the pain, but it was as though I was feeling it through a barrier.
The demon rammed the full force of its consciousness against the seal. I rocked forward. In the physical world, I had fallen on my ass. Now I slipped further, lying on the grass and convulsing. Somebody stuck a hand mirror in front of my face. It didn’t know exactly what the mage was doing but the demon had good instincts.
The demon took a swipe at the mage, but he grabbed my wrist and pressed it against the grass. He had been right. We would never have been able to restrain Kai like this. In contrast, I was as weak as day-old tea.
The laughter that came out this time was my own. Sure, I sounded deranged, but that was understandable given the situation.
Having clawed himself back from the brink of insanity, Kai was on his knees to my left. “Hurry up!” he snarled.
The mage’s hands shook as he fumbled to prepare the spell. For
