Chapter Thirty Two
There’s a few times in a woman’s life when she comes into her power and tells the world to move. Sometimes it’s with milestones or an achievement. For me, it’s the end of the world. Not ideal, but you know, I can work with it.
Something happened to me today. Maybe it was when I healed Jaak but whatever it was, something woke up and took hold of me and it has me walking with my head high, knowing exactly what we need to do to stop the head mage’s doomsday bullshit.
“Okay, here’s the deal. We go into town and find the source of the blast. We’re going to use your demon twig to do it.
If it was drawn to the book, I bet it’ll be drawn to its master.
We’re going to keep our eyes open for anyone that looks at us too closely.
Like they’re looking for injuries, okay?
You see anyone dancing a stupid jig and singing? Sock ‘em.”
Charlie salutes. “Got it. Deck the dancers.”
Jaak winks at me. “As you command, my heart.”
“Exactly. Good, let’s move out. I want to see that demon rat before we go. Can you check it out first? Maybe you can get some information out of it?” I ask Jaak.
“The minor demon will rue the day it laid eyes on me.”
“You’re very sexy when you threaten things.”
“Noted.”
“While Jaak does that, I’m going to lay some protection spells around the book. You want to come with?” I ask Charlie.
“Hells yeah, I do.” He bounds after me when I make for the cellar. “When did you learn spells?”
“I don’t know any. I think I can just do it intuitively,” I tell him. “That’s what I did with Jaak’s back.”
He nods and studies me. “You’re kind of hardcore, Meadow. I mean, you always were but now you know it.”
“I guess I just needed to be more present or have the threat of the end of the world looming over my head to wake up.”
I lift the stones over the book with a flick of my hand. “Does it look normal to you? Notice anything off?”
Charlie bends down and picks the book up. The second he touches it he shudders and falls over on his side. “Fuckkkkk,” he moans.
“Charlie!” I rush to his side and rip the book out of his hands. I half expect it to do whatever it did to Charlie to me but nothing happens. “Charlie, are you okay? Answer me!” I start to pour power into him to get him back to normal but he stops me with a shake of his head.
“I’m good. You juice me up and I think I’m gonna pass out.”
I back off on the magic. “What happened?”
He blinks and shakes his head. “That book is fuckin’ possessed.”
I roll my eyes. “Duh, I thought we knew that.”
“No, like…there’s something in it.” He swallows and looks around the room like he thinks something is going to jump out at us and then back to me. “I saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“The Big Bad. The thing that’s after the book. They’re linked somehow. It doesn’t want to destroy the world, Meadow. It’s worse than that.”
“What does it want then?”
“It wants to eat it.”
My eyes go wide and I have to take a beat when I hear that. “What the fuck? What do you mean eat? You better be talking in metaphors.”
“It’s a-a thing. This big void. There’s nothing but hunger and teeth.
Darkness. It’s eaten so many other places and things.
I saw them. All of them screaming and crying.
Oh gods, I can hear the way it sounded when it chewed them up.
” He shakes his head and rubs his temples.
“Fuck! Remember when I told you that my brain went somewhere else and I didn’t know where it went? ”
I frown and nod. “Yeah, I remember.”
“It went into this thing’s memories. Its Greatest Hits of Meals. There were so many. And just now I saw what it wants to do to our world, and oh fuck- we, we might be too late to stop it, even now.” Charlie tries to get to his feet and wobbles. I leap to my feet and catch him.
“Woah, slow down. Everything is going to be okay. We can stop this. As long as we’re together we can do anything.”
“No, Meadow. You don’t understand. I think we’re too late. It’s going to feast tonight on Halloween.”
“What?”
“That’s what all of this has been leading up to. Halloween. I don’t know–I still don’t get why that day is special to it but it is and our world is on the menu for tonight. This thing is a World Eater.”
“I thought Halloween was full of ghosts and candy. I could have sworn Wrath said there would be candy,” I mutter. “Why is this happening now? Why this Halloween?”
“At this point I don’t even think the date is important.” Charlie moans and scrubs his face with his hands. “I think we really need to just accept that nothing makes sense and everything happens to us because that’s our lot in life.”
He’s right. Why does anything happen in the world anymore?
We’re standing in the backyard and eyeballing the mini-demon Jaak has been getting information out of. The information isn’t a ton from the pinched look on Jaak’s face.
“Not going great out here, huh?” I ask.
“This demon is very dumb. Too dumb to communicate,” Jaak says, leaning down to look at the demon Charlie’s rigged up on a stick.
He wasn’t lying, he really had. There’s a decent sized branch that he’s tied a demon to with a sort of rope harness at one end of it.
Charlie stuck the branch in the hollow of a tree and the demon dangles in its harness.
I’d never seen one of the mini-demons attacking Sweet Tooth up close.
I didn’t expect it to look so rat-like. The mini-pig-sized demon has four legs with clawed feet and a long tail that swishes like an agitated cat.
Its head is rodent-shaped right down to its snout and whiskers.
Red eyes shine brightly and even though the demon can’t talk, I know it’s pissed.
I don’t blame it, I’d be ticked if I was trussed up and on a stick too.
The wind blows and I have to cover my mouth so the demon doesn’t see me laugh when it pinwheels like a half-inflated balloon.
“It’s definitely not the brightest. It kept just screaming ‘feast’,” Charlie says and then he taps his chin, “or was it feet? Either way, not much of a conversationalist. He’s acting shy right now, that’s why he’s quiet.”
“How did you catch it?” I walk around the demon and check out Charlie’s handiwork with the rope harness.
“I’m fast as fuck,” Charlie says proudly. “Plus it was sleeping when I grabbed it, so kinda easy on that one. I had it in a bag but that wasn’t working too well, so I had to do a few things I’m not proud of to get the harness on.”
I don’t ask about the things Charlie’s done. I know better than to open that can of worms.
“How’d you use this demon branch to find us?”
“I used the Demon on a Stick, patent pending,” Charlie says, giving me a pointed look, “by putting the other end of the branch over my shoulder so the demon was just hanging out at the other end. It ran in place if I was going the right way and if I made a wrong turn it stopped moving. I like to think of it as a demonic compass for the adventurer on the go.”
“You think we can use it to find the World Eater?”
“I mean, it’s worth a shot. I don’t know if it's the book or power that the mini-demon is trying to get to. If it’s power then we’ve got a shot at finding the World Eater.
Whatever the book is, I know that it's not as powerful as the World Eater. I don’t even know if the book still works.
Its power is failing, I can feel it,” he says, looking at the book in his hands.
“There’s still some juice in it, I can tell,” I let him know. It’s true, there’s a spark to the book that’s faint but still lives. “Okay, so you hold the book and one of us will bring that demon close and see if it wants the book or tries to go in a different direction.”
Charlie swallows hard and nods. “Yeah, okay, I’m down for the scientific method shit. I’ll just…stand here and be demon bait.” He holds the book up like a shield and then points a finger at the harnessed demon. “I fed you, don’t you forget that, Maurice.”
“You named it?” I ask.
“Listen, it was scary out there. I had to name him.”
I roll my eyes at Charlie and look over at Jaak to see how he’s doing with the demon twig. “You ready?” I ask.
“I am but…I think it’s dead,” Jaak says, giving the branch a shake. The demon just flops in its harness. “Gamemaster, your demon charge has expired!”
Charlie makes a face. “Aw, man.”
I shake my head. “It’s not dead, it was just mean-mugging me.
I saw it,” I say, taking a step closer to the demon.
I snap my fingers near it and then clap to see if I can get a reaction but nothing happens.
“Hey!” I yell at it. The demon remains motionless, so still that I start to wonder if Jaak is right.
“Maybe it is dead. How did we kill it? We didn’t even touch it?” I feel bad for the mini-demon. Yes, it’s an instrument of my demise but there’s something pitiful about the way it looks hanging limply in its harness.
“I feel bad. It looks…so small. I’m sorry, little guy.”
“Maurice,” Charlie reminds me.
I nod. “Right, I’m sorry, Maurice.” I reach a hand out to take it down but the second my hand gets within snapping distance Maurice launches himself out of his harness and at me. I duck and the demon flies over my head.
“Oh, you little faker! How did you get out?” I yell at it.
Maurice the mini-demon doesn’t answer. He lunges.
Not at Charlie and his book, but at me. I scream and kick.
I don’t think, I just move. My body is faster than my thoughts and I’m only realizing that I’ve kicked the shit out of the demon when it’s flying halfway across the yard.
I reach out a hand to stop it but when magic fires out of my hand the demon explodes.
“Maurice!” Charlie screams in horror.
I wince. “Oops, I didn’t mean to do that.”
Jaak tosses the stick and comes to my side. “That demon deserved a worse death. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. It just caught me by surprise, that's all.” Jaak doesn’t look convinced. He smoothes my hair back and kisses my forehead so I have to put a hand on his chest to stop him from checking me over. “I promise, I’m fine. We’re going up much worse than Maurice today.”
His face goes grim. “The World Eater. I thought I had left such a being behind. It seems my life’s path is never to be free of them.” There’s something in the way he says never free that makes me pause.
“Jaak, you’ve fought this thing before, haven’t you?”
He looks away from me and towards the trees. “No. Worse than that.”
“What could be worse than that?” I ask.
“I have served one.”