Chapter 6 Marta
Marta
Sitting cross-legged near the tree line out behind the motel, I wrapped a red ribbon around one hand and sank the fingers on my other into the dirt, diving my consciousness into my body. This particular ribbon had been given to me by my tita when my magic first manifested.
“It will protect you if you treat it with respect,” she’d told me.
In her tradition, red was a symbol of power, and ribbons, in particular, represented a barrier against harmful spirits.
Once I had it wrapped around my wrist, I went to my safe space in my mind—the forest near my abuelita’s house.
The trees rustled in the wind, the birds chirped overhead, and the steady stream of trickling water echoed nearby.
Focusing on my breathing, I pulled energy up from the ground, channeling it into my heart, absorbing it into my soul. I reciprocated by sending my own back down, starting an ebb and flow between us.
I walked through my internal woods, touching the bark on the trees, my fingers sparking with strength and renewed determination.
Just when I got to an area where the creek water crashed into rocks, a strange sensation cascaded over my arms and up the back of my neck.
I glanced around but found nothing unusual. This was, after all, my sacred space.
“Mi hija,” came a soft voice from behind me.
I whipped around, gasping, preparing to defend myself, but my focus landed on a tall, beautiful woman with blue flowing robes. Her dark hair fell in ringlets around her shoulders, and she held her hands out to me, beckoning me forward, almost like she wanted me to embrace her.
“Who are you?” I asked. Of all the times I’d come to this place, of all the times I’d centered and grounded myself in seclusion, no one had ever randomly intruded.
“Listen closely,” she said in Spanish, completely ignoring my question. “The time has come when you must fight. You must forsake your rage at what isn’t and focus on what is. You must channel your anger into faith, and faith into action.”
“What?” I didn’t understand what I was hearing. Who was she? Why had she chosen now to contact me?
In all my years as a practicing witch, I considered myself faithful to the things I could see and touch. The elements. The moon. My own spirit. But this? Was I imagining this?
When I finally got close enough to her, she put her hands on my jaw and tilted her glowing face down, meeting my eyes with resplendent ones of her own.
They glittered with ferocity, with force and command.
Whoever she was, she demanded my complete attention, my utter rapture.
And I didn’t have the willpower to resist.
“You will want to give up,” she continued. “You must not do this. You were given many gifts, mi hija. Do not let them go to waste.”
“I—I don’t understand.” The words fell from my lips in a stutter. I wasn’t scared of her, no. She emanated a fierce but compassionate vitality that infected me with pure bliss. I could have stayed there with her forever. I could have basked in her radiance until the end of days.
Then she straightened and let go of my face, her expression morphing from stern benevolence to that of a parent chastising a child throwing a temper tantrum. I got the sense she had said all she would on this matter, and between one blink and the next, she was gone.
I glanced around, sure I had misunderstood or perhaps imagined the whole thing. This was, after all, my sacred mental space. It wouldn’t have been impossible to have conjured the entire conversation from my subconscious. But I had never done anything like that before.
Why now? Why here?
“Who are you?” I shouted to no one. “Come back!”
I whirled around again, and when I returned to the spot where she’d once stood, a great giant cloud of black smoke filled my vision.
Glowing red eyes raced toward me, gleaming sharp teeth encased by an evil grin.
The demon reached out toward me, wrapping its arms around my throat, and just when I thought it would suffocate me in my own head, I opened my eyes back in the living realm.
I gasped, sucking in air, as I glanced around.
It isn’t real. It isn’t real.
I repeated the mantra as I blinked and focused on what I could see, what I could hear, what I could touch. The birds in the trees. The cool ground under me. The woods and the undergrowth and the faint sound of water running somewhere up ahead.
It isn’t real.
Certain it was just a dream, just a trauma that hadn’t quite been processed, I pushed myself to my feet and went to find the others.
* * *
We parked our bikes and walked into the forest, the relentless tension in my chest increasing exponentially. The trees hummed with ominous energy, seeming to emanate a warning that we were not welcome here. They’d already been scorched with chaos magic and would tolerate no more of it.
That should have been our first clue to tuck tail and run.
Wes and Atlas walked on either side of me, and the fiery bond between us vibrated intensely at the proximity.
Despite not trusting it or knowing how to use it, I couldn’t deny its captivating hold.
Their emotions rattled deep down inside, nearly indistinguishable from my own.
Wes was nervous, his heart pounding and his chest tight.
Atlas was more resolute. His white-hot fury at having been attacked was compounded by how the demon had wrecked his car. He wanted revenge.
When we finally stepped into a clearing, I knew immediately it was the place where the Femmes had brought this entity into our realm. The aura of the trees changed to a sickening threat, one that coated my skin in raw evil, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. This was a bad place.
“Here,” Bridge said, pointing to a spot on the ground where the undergrowth had been charred in the shape of a perfect circle.
Isobel reached into her bag and retrieved a tall glass bottle full of Holy Water.
She popped open the top and poured the liquid on the decimated area, chanting a spell to cleanse the space.
It smoked when it touched the ground, gray wisps rising as it reacted to the malicious energy.
I read them as they appeared in zigzag crosses and interweaving tendrils.
Tread carefully, it warned, and my thoughts returned to the woman in my safe space.
The time has come when you must fight. You must forsake your rage at what isn’t, and focus on what is. You must channel your anger into faith, and faith into action.
Was this what she meant? Would I need to start fighting now?
I cleared that from my mind and returned to the ritual. It would require all of my focus and mental shields.
Isobel set up the white candles, placing them at the four corners of the circle, while Bridge sprinkled a concoction of herbs in the center. I interspersed my own candles around Isobel’s, calling on my ancestors to help us, calling on the woman from my meditation.
When it was done, I poured a salt circle around us, including our warriors, still unsure about whether it would be able to hold back a demon of this magnitude.
“Don’t step outside it,” I said. “No matter what happens.”
Leander and Caspian had been through this sort of practice before, but Atlas and Wes had only ever gone on their own missions.
I didn’t know if they’d ever witnessed the creation of a liminal or understood the severity of the consequences should they take matters into their own hands. We’d need everyone to get through this.
Once the space was cleansed and set up, I stood on one side of the circle and held out my hands for Isobel and Bridge.
Our palms connected, and the power of the coven rushed through me, tremendous and overwhelming.
I nearly buckled at the knees. Holding firm, I closed my eyes and took deep, steadying breaths, sinking into the weight of my feet on the ground, the magic of the Earth cradling me through this.
“Ancestors, hear us,” Isobel began. “Powers of light, wielders of magic, healers of the bloodline. We call to you now.”
We took turns welcoming the elements and seeking any deities that would assist us with this work. Then we began the summoning chant.
“Demon that was resurrected here, we call to you. Show yourself. Bring yourself forward to us. We summon you. We summon you.”
We repeated the command over and over, and the weight of our combined words rested heavily on my shoulders. The energy shifted around us, darkening, rolling a sick, threatening aura under my skin.
It’s coming.
“We summon you! We summon you!” Our cries grew louder, the magic whipping around us like a hurricane as it raised the hair around my face. The wind picked up, and tendrils of vibrating power twisted around my legs from the earth below.
“Uh…guys,” Atlas said, drawing my eyes open.
The dark sky had turned violent with rolling storm clouds, illuminated in the moon’s soft light. My stomach bottomed out as the trees rustled, the ground rumbling, the air turning electric.
Isobel’s hand tightened around mine, and I took a long, slow breath to steel myself against my nerves.
A part of me wanted to run away and let this small town consume itself.
To hell with the consequences. But I was better than that, stronger.
I’d taken a vow to protect this world against whatever was coming for it.
A smoky pitch cloud broke through the tree line, coalescing into a tall monster at the center of the circle. Its bright red eyes met mine, and it smiled. I bit back my shiver.
“Cursed filthy witch,” it snarled. “Consume.”
I forced my feet to stay still and my hands to hold on to my sisters so I didn’t break the circle. Together, we’d created a bind that the demon couldn’t break, but if we let go of each other, it could attack us…or worse.
“Demon,” Isabel said. “Identify yourself. What is your name?”
It bucked against her command, twisting one way and then the other like her words burned.
“I compel you,” she continued. “What is your name?”
The demon rolled its wispy head along its shoulders and clenched its eyes shut. “I do not answer to you.”
“You are in my realm. You WILL answer to me.” Isobel’s voice grew stern and overbearing. “What are you, demon? What do you want?”
“Chaos,” it said before muttering in an ancient language I couldn’t understand. At first, it rambled in soft whimpers, the words barely audible. Then, as we continued chanting, it grew irate, its voice booming over the rush of wind around us.
“Your name, demon!” Isobel yelled over its rambling.
“Harlots,” Atlas cut in as he held up his pistol and cocked the chamber. “We’ve got trouble.”
More smoke rolled in around us, surrounding us, pushing up against the salt border. They became monstrous human forms as their crimson eyes stared past the warriors, dead set on us.
“Don’t break the circle,” I said. My heart pounded and sweat beaded down my temples, my legs shaking, my stomach clenching. I’d never seen this many demons in one spot before, and if anyone broke the boundary, they would ambush us. We were suddenly outnumbered.
“You think this little show scares me?” Isobel laughed while Bridge continued saying the words that would hold the monster in place. “Tell me who you are!”
Despite Isobel’s insistence, we were only tormenting the beast, pissing it off. We needed to force it to tell us specifically what it was so we could set up the right liminal.
The demon’s voice grew louder, and I focused on trying to decipher what it said. I caught bits and pieces of words I knew, things like god of lust and Asmodeus, which he’d muttered in Latin. But I’d been forced to learn the dead language when I was a child, so I understood.
Asmodeus was the demon of lust, king of wanton desires and chaos, but he was too ancient to have been unleashed here.
This was likely one of his offspring, one of his firstborn.
We weren’t dealing with a Deadly Sin demon, but this one was just as powerful, if not more so.
The Sin demons took their inspiration from this one’s father.
How in the hell did the Femmes summon him here?
How had he broken loose from the confines of the nether realms?
“It’s an Asmodeian,” I shouted, but that angered it more. It thrashed against the protective force field, throwing its misty body as hard as it could against our magic. The weight of its force rocked against me, throwing me back so hard I nearly lost hold of my sisters.
Gunshots echoed from behind me, the blast so loud, it rang in my ears. I ignored it. I had to believe that the warriors would handle whatever was coming our way. I focused inward, slowing my inhales and exhales, the words from the liminal spell surfacing in my mind.
“Bridge! Marta! Start the spell,” Isobel shouted and squeezed my hand so tight, my knuckles twisted together.
The strength of the coven flowed out of her, into me, into Bridge, and back again.
I sensed Atlas’s wrath as he fired bullets at the demons trying to protect their leader.
I pulled on it, sucking it into my soul.
Wes’s panic and stoic focus came next, just as overwhelming.
I yanked it into me, unwilling to trust it but knowing I needed it to help Bridge create the liminal.
A dark swirling vortex started to form in the middle of the circle, right in front of the Asmodeian as it struggled, twisting and warping in an attempt to break free.
More deafening blasts sounded from behind me, but I kept my focus on the words, tasting the syllables as they poured from my lips, imbibing them with as much magic as I could. Bitter and sweet, tingling and rapturous, I sang the ancient words, watching as the black hole grew around the beast.
Just when the magic reached an apex, something hard slammed into me from behind. I tumbled forward, my vision darkening, the ground steadily rising to meet me.
My hands slid from my sisters, and the world fell away.