Tentacles constricted her, stealing her breath.
Her brain was a cluster of exploding bombs. She’d die in these people’s kitchen, gone from the world and no one would even know what had happened to her. What would they tell Chase? What about Gunn?
“Cyra!” Gunn’s voice came from the kitchen doorway.
“Help!” she yelled.
But the moment she twisted to see him, the demon drew her deeper into its monstrous form.
“Gunn!” she squeezed out, but it was too late, her vision already blurred from a lack of oxygen. She’d finally worked out how to kill the demon, and Gunn had to know.
The creature wrenched her into the shadows, its limbs folding around her body. Suffocating her. Burying her. She yelled, “Destroy Morgana!”
Chapter 14
Gunn
The world shuddered around Gunn. Not like this, dear God! He charged across the kitchen toward the corner where the demon had taken Cyra and kicked aside a stool. Nothing there. With his lighter out of his pocket, he lit up the area, his breaths racing. The clock next to the cabinet had stopped working and hung frozen at 3:16 p.m. In all honesty, he had no idea how much time had really passed and how long they’d been in this house.
No sign of Cyra, the demon, or a portal.
He spun on the spot, his head pounding. One minute, he’d battled for his life in the attic, the next the fiend had vanished, and he’d bolted downstairs to the sounds of Cyra’s cries.
He’d never seen a demon swallow a person, and that terrified him. “Cyra!” Worry punched through his gut, and all he could do was pace in a circle. Was she in Hell or God-knows-where?
His breath hitched and dread numbed his brain, leaving him in a frozen state. He couldn’t have lost Cyra. No way would he accept that, because not a molecule in his body could deal with such a loss again. He’d rather die, yet panic melted through him, and he trembled.
“Destroy Morgana” had been her last words. He clenched his hands into fists and punched the air. How could he be so stupid? He stepped toward the hall when he spotted the damn box on the counter near a large knife.
A scraping sound erupted from the hall, and Gunn lifted the lasso. His muscles flexed.
Henry appeared from the living room, then Nora. “We heard screams,” she said.
Gunn picked up the Morgana and waved it in the air. “When did you get this?”
Henry entered the room. “Cyra asked the same question. My son got it for us from a garage sale. Installed it a few weeks back but it doesn’t work.”
A strange sensation curled in Gunn’s gut. How could he have not put two and two together? “Why didn’t you mention this when I asked about anything new you brought into the house?”
Henry’s cheeks blushed. “I didn’t want the gadget, and we weren’t using it anyway, so it didn’t cross my mind. Real sorry, son. Is that how the spirit has been traveling through our home?”
Sure, rage pumped through his veins, but how could he blame the old man who didn’t know any better? For the first time, he felt like they might have a possible solution to take down the fiend. Except for the issue of Cyra being taken. Just the thought had his legs wobbling under him, and the desperate urge to tear down the place pummeled him.
He stared down at the box in his hand, well aware of what he had to do. “Okay, you two return to the living room and don’t go anywhere else.” Without another word, they retreated, their feet tapping the floorboards and their hushed whispers fading.
He wrapped the loop of his lasso around the box and broke into The Lord’s Prayer. He gripped the knife and dumped the Morgana into the sink, then jammed the blade into the center, piercing through the plastic cover.
A white spark sizzled up the hilt, electricity arcing outward like lightning… then nothing. Had it worked? He plucked the knife out and, to be certain, he cut the cord and removed his lasso as it wasn’t fireproof. With his lighter, he set the box alight. When a blaze took hold, he stepped back in case it popped or exploded. The golden flame snapped and sparked.
He checked the corner where Cyra had vanished, but there was still no sign of her. He had zero idea where she’d appear if he exorcised the demon, but he bet his left leg it would be the attic. Destroying the box would annihilate the beast, but his cleansing had been too easy. There’d been no attacks on him, which made him think it might not have worked. But why the hell not? Burning a possessed item meant the speck got thrown back into the Underworld. But everything in this house worked against the standard rules, so he had zero clue if the demon had vanished. And, on top of everything, why did the demon wear a necklace? He’d never seen one before with jewelry, but was it a clue to what sort of creature it was?
The tension in air didn’t change. It remained the same. That heavy oppressive sensation still clung to his chest. The lights hadn’t switched on, either.
He huffed, surveying the dark kitchen filled with shadows from the candles by the window. “Where are you hiding, fuckhead?”
Panic crawled up his spine as he pictured Cyra in Hell. Why hadn’t his attack on the device worked? All the clues pointed to a speck demon. The majority of calls Argos received were for specks trapped in objects purchased at flea markets or garage sales, just like the Morgana box.
He ran a hand down his face.
A coldness sunk its fangs into his flesh, and sickening bile rose through his stomach. This was his fault. Why hadn’t he listened to Cyra, allowed her to join him upstairs? Would the situation have turned out differently, or somehow worse? Though that seemed an impossibility.
A hiss came
