Chapter 8 #2
He growls and another blast of fire comes pouring out of the boulder. “This blathering makes me ill! Free me now! You must make haste. A feast will be had, the Chosen One served to the hungry god.”
Hungry god? Definitely a demon. No question about it. Only a demon would try to get out of answering that question. Too bad about the dinosaur. That really could have been cool to see.
“Not before you answer about Charlie and getting in my dreams! You can’t just be walking around in people’s basements!” I yell back. “You felt my power. That was nothing for me,” I lie. “Answer me before I light you up!”
The blast of power that I shot off was all that I had in me. My hands shake from exhaustion. I’m tired. There’s no pulling in anymore energy right now. I feel like a container that’s had its sides blown out but this hell dweller doesn’t know that.
“If you had any more power in you, you’d use it, witchling. You’re weak.” He says the last two words like an insult. He isn’t wrong. I’m not that strong of a witch but he doesn’t have to say it like that.
I hold out my hand. “Charlie, give me the knife. I’m going to stab the demon,” I tell him like I’m not having flashbacks to when Roy called me dead weight. My ex-fiancé definitely hit a sore nerve and I don’t need this demon piling on.
The demon chuckles and when Charlie doesn’t bring me the knife, I stomp over to him and grab it from him. I turn to face the boulder with a slash of my knife. “Listen up, spill the beans on the idiots messing with my friend’s brain or we’re going to walk right out of here and forget all about you.”
“Even if you left, the dreams would plague you still…”
“What dreams?” Charlie asks. He gives me a confused look, eyes moving from me before going back to the rock. “Spill the beans on the dreams if you want out of rock jail, demon.”
“Charlie, don’t listen to him.”
“The dreams torment her. Spin a web of terror only she can see. While the world sleeps, she walks through endless terrors sight unseen. She does not have long before they claim her,” the voice drops and so does my stomach when it continues, “and they will claim her.”
I know what Charlie is thinking. He wants to put me first and get my nightmares handled. “Meadow,” he starts and I wave him off.
“They’re just nightmares. I don’t care about the dreams, I’ve dealt with them all my life. What’s a little longer?”
Charlie looks horrified when I say that. “All of your life? No. Meadow, we can’t leave,” Charlie whispers. “If he knows anything, we have to get the information to help you. Maybe we can get him out and end everything.”
“I’m fine,” I tell Charlie.
“Liar.”
My bottom lip shakes because he’s right.
No one knows how hard it's been. Yes, there’s the whole matter of me being locked away by my family because of night terrors, but lately?
I can’t sleep, not even a little bit. I’ve been pretending that everything is fine and dandy when it’s not.
We can’t leave here without answers. I know that and I hate it.
I cross the clearing to the boulder and stop in front of the opening. I take a deep breath and force myself to stare inside. Two silver eyes flash in the firelight. I can’t see him no matter which way I tilt my head and try. Time slows, the seconds narrow. I lean forward to look at his eyes.
I know those eyes.
Silver and…and…happy. I’ve seen these eyes crinkle when they smile, I’ve seen them stare at me with sadness and longing. The knife in my hand shakes while I engage in a staring match with the demon.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“You know my name, Meadow. Say it now.”
I shake my head. “How do you know my name? I don’t know you. I-It’s not possible.”
“Think, Meadow. Remember all that you have tried to forget. There you will find me.” A black tipped claw snakes out of the fissure towards me but I slap it aside with my knife.
“Keep your claws to yourself, demon,” I snap and make a stab at the clawed hand. “Next claw that comes out gets cut clean off. You want a mani and pedi special?”
He chuckles. “You’re braver than I imagined. Your kind is frail. Many would have run by now. You’re stronger than them. Strength is an admirable trait, witchling. I should have known you would be fierce.”
Fear pools in my belly and wraps itself around me so hard that I feel like I’ll crack in two.
I want to run. Desperately. But where am I going to run?
To Buffy? My best friend is on patrol for the mini-demons with the man that tried to murder me.
She doesn’t think I’m strong enough to fight alongside her.
But she would if you told her about your magic, I remind myself. I swat the thought away. I’m not even sure what it is that I’m doing with magic. There’s nothing to tell.
I could tell her about this, though. If we solve Charlie’s brain drain book problems and my dreams. Plus, if I got the demon to stay out of my head with a deal, especially if that deal with a demon helps us put an end to everything that’s been going wrong, well, I could tell her that.
She’d understand that. She’d know I could help her the same as anyone else in the gang if I put a stop to the mini-demons and helped Charlie.
She’d have to with the proof in front of her.
“Where does your mind wander, witchling? I cannot see it now.”
I open my mouth to answer him. Even as scared as I should be, as frightened as I was, the closer I am to the demon the more calm I become. I feel safe. Why do I feel safe? Come to think of it, the closer I am to the demon the calmer he is, too.
“What happened to your riddle talk?” I ask the demon. I wiggle my fingers at the rock. “You’re getting less decoder ring needed in there.”
“My mind grows clearer by the second, witchling.”
“But why?”
“Think. You know why. You know me. Free me.”
A shiver runs through me. He keeps saying that. I can’t even say that he’s wrong. I know this place, the light pulled me here, the sense of peace running through me now feels familiar and right. It’s the exact feeling I had lost in my nightmares when the only way to safety was to follow the light.
Why did I feel safe in the dark with that voice? Why do I know his eyes?
“Free me,” the demon growls and for a second I almost ask how.
“Meadow, don't let that demon get in your head!” Charlie yells and I snap out of it. At least, a little bit. Is the demon in my head? Is he making me feel safe now? Is he tricking me? I eyeball the crack in the rock but there’s no clues there.
It has to be a demon trick to get me to help him, which I almost did.
Demons aren’t truthful, at least according to Wrath.
“Always take care to watch your words with a demon. We’re crafty. Always on the look out for a good deal. Only strike a bargain with a demon if you are prepared to pay the price. Everything must be paid sooner or later, Meadow.”
Any safety I feel right now is an illusion to get me to make a deal with this demon, but what could he possibly want from me? I don’t know how to get him out of rock jail. What could I possibly have that he needs?
The demon shifts, the light behind him shines in my eyes, forcing me to squint to keep sight of him to make sure he isn’t up to any funny business. If I could, I would stab him through the opening but my blade isn’t long enough. I glare at my stupid short blade. Next time, I’m bringing a sword.
“Is it you? You’re the one doing this to him? You’re the one in my head when I sleep, aren’t you?” I lean closer to the rock so Charlie doesn’t hear me. “What the hells were you doing in my basement? Some places are off limits.”
The demon sighs. “I have walked with you in your dreams, but that was to help you. I only spoke to you when your mind was feeble.” My cheeks burn hot when he says that.
He’s not wrong. I was coming apart those nights in the basement.
It’s called sensory deprivation. I don’t know why my parents used it to “fix me”, all it did was make me feel like I was losing myself.
“As for your friend… I have no hand in that. However, I can speak on those that torment your friend’s feeble mind. ”
“Hello? Did he just call me stupid?” Charlie asks.
I point the knife at the rock opening. “Offering up information on yourself isn’t going to get you out of that rock.”
“I have naught to do with your friend’s weak mind. It’s the mages you want and the mages are going to end you if you don’t listen to me. Free me if you want to live. Now, Meadow.”
Mages.
Mages have been gone for centuries in Sweet Tooth. Wrath swears they’re alive and thriving “in environments much more attuned with the natural state of being,” but I never thought that state of being meant trying to scramble Charlie’s mind.
“Why would mages want Charlie’s brain?” I look around the clearing, fully expecting to see robed figures coming towards us but there’s nothing. I edge closer to the rock. “Where are they? I mean-who are they? What are you talking about ending us?”
The demon chuckles. “I can tell you the first quite easily, witchling, but you won’t like the answer very much and you’re running out of time.”
“Running out of time for what?”
In the distance a horn blows, the sound is so loud the ground beneath me heaves with the vibration. I throw a hand out on the boulder to catch myself from falling, I’m right up against the boulder, the crevice just an inch from my cheek.
The silver eyes drop to my level until I’m eye-to-eye with the demon.
“Because they’re here.”