Chapter 24
Marta
I didn’t find him in the kitchen or the rectory.
He wasn’t in the basement or community rooms. My heart pounded with anxious dread, the connection to him now rattling with a sickening urgency.
Something was wrong, very wrong. Echoes from the shadow we’d awakened last night reverberated through me, and I was too cynical to believe it wasn’t nefarious.
No, I had my suspicions about what it was and what it wanted, and when I rounded the corner toward the priest’s rooms, the side door was open wide. This did not make me feel any better.
“Wes?” I held my gun up higher, expecting the demon to jump out of the bushes and attack me.
Instead, the tall, muscular form of my warrior stepped out from behind a giant oak tree, his eyes completely black, his precious lips twisted into an evil sneer, his usually tanned complexion ashen. Despite this, he oozed power and dominance, more than I’d ever seen from him.
“Wes.” I took a step toward him. “What happened? What are you—”
“Wes isn’t home, sweet girl,” he snarled. The words came out deep and baritone, almost mechanical in their intensity. “He gave me this little meat suit in exchange for your life. Yours and that imbecile inside.”
I choked on a sob, barely able to believe it. Why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he come to us? We were so close, we were nearly there. He believed in me. He believed in this. What did he do?
I nearly let myself sink into the recklessness of it, the utter despair of having lost him, but just before those stupid emotions gripped my heart, I yanked myself back to reality.
No.
I wouldn’t accept this. I wouldn’t allow this. He was coming home with me, with us, no matter what fucking deal he made with a demon.
As smoke, they were omnipotent. They could be everywhere and nowhere.
They could invade the tiniest cracks in a ward, just as this bastard had done at the estate.
But once they took a mortal, once they became corporeal, they were easier to trap.
More powerful, of course. They could siphon the energy from the mortal, drain that person’s soul dry, which was why so many of them longed to possess a person.
As Wes, the demon could eat and fuck and experience the utter joy of killing, instead of simply influencing. But as Wes, I could contain him.
I aimed my gun at the demon’s head, but he shook his head and tsked his teeth. “Don’t do that, little witch. Could you really watch Wesson’s brains paint the woods? There’s no undoing that damage, not even after I’m done playing with him.”
“Just like a demon,” I said. “Making a deal you had no intention of keeping. Is he even still in there?”
“Oh, I very much intend on keeping my side of the bargain,” he said. “After all, it’s your God that demands blind faith with no promise of rewards. My side always does what it says it’s going to do.”
Demons lie, I reminded myself. He’s lying. Don’t listen to him.
“However, just because I said I would let you go doesn’t mean I won’t have a little fun first.”
He’d barely gotten the words out before he flicked his hand at me, and I flew sideways, smashing into the side of the church.
The impact made me lose my gun and knocked the air out of my body, crushing my lungs, collapsing my stomach.
I grunted and forced myself upright, reaching for my satchel.
But the demon used its magic to hold my hands out to either side, pinning them in place so I couldn’t grab my tools.
“Demon of hell,” I chanted in Latin. “I condemn you. By the magic in my veins, by the power in my blood—”
He tilted his head, and my mouth sealed shut, my lips glued together.
Fury raged in my gut, the anger of two months of isolation and generations of pissed-off witches exploding from my torso in a blinding white light.
It knocked Wes backward, but I got off the wall, and my mouth finally opened.
I held my hands up to project energy toward him, keeping it as steady as I could.
Wes easily got to his feet and mirrored my movement, holding his hands up as that dark smoke erupted from his palms, colliding with my force.
They smacked together like a lightning strike, deafening, shattering the surrounding trees.
I quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to hold him off for very long.
Wes still had his connection to Atlas and me, and he pulled on it, draining me, tugging on my magic and the vibrance coming from my other warrior.
I tried my chant again.
“Demon of hell, I condemn you. By the magic in my veins, by the power in my blood, I demand you vacate the mortal called Wesson Colt.” I wrenched the words from my lips, sputtering the syllables with every ounce of power I had left.
He twitched his head and cracked his neck, but only retaliated harder. The metallic taste of copper trickled over my lips, and I didn’t know if that was because my nose was bleeding from the exertion or if I’d cut my head when it launched me at the church.
“Give up, witch,” he roared. “It’s done. It’s over. I have you now.”
“No!” I screamed, yanking on Atlas’s energy, sensing him closer. And just when I thought I didn’t have anything else to give, just when I was scraping at the bottom of the barrel for strength, a flash of silver somersaulted through the air, smashing into the demon.
Wes’s head flipped back. The black smoke dissipated. And then his body lay limp on the ground.
I glanced at the church, where Atlas slumped up against the doorway, panting in deep breaths. I limped over to Wes and knelt by his body, where a giant silver crucifix lay next to his prone form. Obsidian blood oozed from the wound on his forehead, but he’d been effectively knocked out.
“Fucking hell,” I said, pushing to my feet. “Incredible aim.”
Atlas nodded and lumbered down to the grass. “Is he out?”
“Yeah, but we don’t have much time,” I said. “He’s possessed. He made a deal with the demon, our safe exit in exchange for him.”
“Stupid martyr son of…Help me get his legs.”
I grabbed one ankle, and Atlas did his best with the other. Together, we hauled 220 pounds of Wes into the church. We dragged him up to the head of the sanctuary and laid him at the bottom of the giant representation of Jesus on the cross.
“We need to draw a demon trap,” I said. “Quickly.”
Atlas glanced around for something to use, and I ran into the back room, ransacking the father’s office until I found a thick black marker. When I came out, Atlas was digging through the pews.
“Here.” I ripped off the cap with my teeth and handed it to him. “You draw it out. I’ll get the salt and the candles.”
He dropped to his knees and started etching the ancient symbol on the crimson rug, and I winced when I thought about desecrating the church’s furniture, but nothing was real in the liminal, right?
The real church in the real world was carrying on with its real life, and nothing we did really mattered.
Then I raced around the building to gather the things I’d need.
Holy water and blessed wine were easy to find, as were a plethora of incense made explicitly for this purpose.
I grabbed rope and a knife and anything else I thought we could use.
I returned less than ten minutes later, where Atlas had finished the sigil and was now trying to drag Wes into the center of it.
His ribs were still bruised, and his ankles looked like minced meat, but he managed well on his own. I grabbed one of Wes’s legs and tugged.
Once he was inside, I doused the rope in holy water and handed it to Atlas so he could tie Wes’s hands together. We did the same with his feet.
It must have burned the demon inside him because he groaned and blinked his eyes, turning his head from one side to the other as he came back to consciousness.
“Shit.” Hands shaking and legs wobbling, I sprinkled holy water around the circle and chanted protective spells.
“Atlas?” Wes asked, glancing around. “Marta?”
I paused and looked down at him. His eyes were back to normal, and the color had returned to his face. I wanted to believe it was him. I wanted to stop all of this nonsense, and just when I took a step toward him, Atlas grabbed my arm to stop me.
“Don’t,” he whispered inside my mind.
“What are you doing?” Wes asked, shaking his hands, trying to get free. “Let me out.”
“Shut up,” Atlas snapped, setting up the candles in equal intervals around the circle. “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?”
“What?” Wes glanced at me. “Marta, what is this? I’m okay. I’m me now.”
My heart clenched with how much I wanted that to be true, but I knew better.
Demons lie.
This was a trick. There was no way a measly battle and a crucifix to the head had punched the demon from Wes’s body. It would take nearly an act of God, and we didn’t have time to wait around for a miracle.
My fingers shook as I tried to strike the match to light the first candle, and I nearly dropped it.
“Fuck,” I whispered, trying again. This time, it fired up, and I held it to the wick. But the damned thing refused to light. I tried to ignore the magical implications of that and held it until the flame nearly burned down to my fingers.
“Marta, don’t be ridiculous,” Wes said, struggling harder with the ropes. “You don’t need to do this. Let me out, and we’ll do the soul-binding ritual so we can get out of here.”
“Listen to me, demon,” Atlas said, green eyes blazing as he turned to Wes.
“When I get you out of my brother, I’m going to find a way to kill you.
Permanently. No going back to hell. Do not pass go.
Do not collect two hundred dollars. No more liminals.
No more pocket realities. I’m going to stab you in the fucking face and watch you burst into flames. ”
Wes paused for a moment, his jaw opening as the weight of Atlas’s promise landed between them.