Chapter 19 #2
But I realize I don’t have to be. Not anymore.
I close my eyes and look inside for the one part of me that’s always been there. The part of me that’s never had doubts. The part of me that will do anything for self-preservation.
Hi. I know you and me haven’t always seen eye to eye, but we’re in this together now. I need to access my magic to save myself and everyone else. I need you to open the door to that power again. And I need you to do it safely. Right here. Right now.
I know there isn’t really an actual demon inside me, but I swear as soon as I finish, something in there gives me a little wink, pleased at my newfound trust—which, I guess, is really just trust in myself.
And then I feel it. The spark in my chest. Exactly where Stryker said my mana was supposed to be.
I immediately try to fan this little bit of magic into real power using emotion. But not anger this time—determination, confidence. Magic works if you believe it’ll work. And I have to believe it will now.
There’s a hanging, scary moment where it feels like nothing is happening, where it seems I’m just as useless with magic as I’ve always been—but then my whole body fills with an ocean’s swell of energy.
It’s different than the juice I got after feeding on Rafa and even from what I felt in the burning church.
This is something much quieter and infinitely deep. Serene. Ageless.
Immediately, all the pain in my body lifts, and I stand tall.
Valiente’s eyes widen with alarm. I turn to face Collin, my back to the barrier, and he nods at me, his sweet face eager, excited. They both know this is it.
Not wasting a single second, I quickly start reading out loud the random-sounding gibberish Mom wrote, glancing up at Collin after every sentence-sized chunk to see if it’s working.
As I make it past the first couple lines, the pained tightness in his face lessens and he starts to rise higher.
After the next two, the mercury cord between him and the watch in my left hand flickers, like a candle about to go out.
Then a pattern of brightly glowing golden lines begins to trace out several yards above my guy.
They draw two large, even squares, rotated 45 degrees and layered to form a classic symbol of cosmic order: the eight-pointed star.
Once complete, in its center, a perfect octagon of pure brilliance ignites, and it shines out peaceful and joyous golden light.
Collin reacts to its appearance with surprise, then his whole face lifts with recognition.
It feels like some kind of door. The magic beyond tastes like butter and sugar.
This must be where he belongs. There are tears in Collin’s eyes, but they are happy, grateful tears.
God, I so wish I could tell him how I feel right now. How he made my life into something actually worth living. That I actually think I love him, crazy as that sounds after just two days. And that I’ll miss him so damn much.
But that’s not possible. We’re already in different worlds—he won’t be able to hear me. And it would be selfish, anyway. I promised I would set him free, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
No regrets, Alvin. Get it done.
Blinking back my own tears, I barrel through the remaining lines on the page.
These truly are words of power. Looking closer with my supernatural vision, I see each syllable I utter vibrating in the air in front of me, rune-like, echoing the golden text that was in the book.
One by one, the glowing runes rise up to attach themselves along the cord connecting Collin to his prison, eating away at the restraint, stretching and thinning it.
The tether becomes little more than a wisp of silver smoke as he lifts ever closer to freedom.
Collin gives his upper body a fierce shake, breaking the connection between the kids and the tentacles that have been fueling the ritual.
Those siphons almost immediately connect back—we’re not done yet!
—but once he’s free of the watch, once he’s through that star-like portal, they won’t be able to touch him.
He’ll be saved, and Valiente’s death-god summoning spell will be ended for good.
I’m in the final section now, only a couple lines left, and he’s just under the golden door above.
He turns his head, beautiful and soft with those blond curls like an angel, and we share one last tender look.
I see the emotion in his eyes and realize I don’t have to tell him anything.
He knows how I feel. Maybe we don’t get to be together in this life, but for a short while, we made each other really happy, and I wouldn’t change a single thing about that.
Now it’s time to set him free. This is the moment I’ve always dreamed of—using the magic inside me to do real good.
Collin made me into the person I always wanted to be, and that’s more than enough to be grateful for.
So, as I make my way through the last words, I don’t feel any of my usual doubts or anxiety.
Instead, I’m relaxed and truly at peace.
For once, everything just feels right.
Which, of course, means the other shoe has to drop.
I just catch the barest flicker of movement. Valiente’s arm extending.
Then pain explodes as eight 9mm Beretta rounds rip through my back and out my chest. The thunderous bangs echo through the cavern and hurt my ears.
You’d think, at this point, I’d be used to getting hot lead pumped through my vital organs (the freaking same vital organs!), but apparently that never gets old.
It’s more than enough to get me to crumple forward and fall to my knees.
The watch clatters to the ground as I curl up into a ball.
Seven more rounds into my back follow. Then another full magazine.
And then another, until finally I hear the gun clicking behind me, the last mag fully emptied into my body.
I must have soaked up close to fifty shots.
Valiente clearly wasn’t looking to mess around.
I crouch next to the altar, feeling like I’ve been repeatedly stabbed through the back and out my chest dozens of times with a hot barbed poker.
The now familiar cold sweats and nausea immediately follow.
But the serene magic still fills me, just as much as before.
It actually dulls the pain considerably.
And the syllables I spoke continue to resonate in the air above, which means the spell I was casting hasn’t been canceled, only delayed.
My incubus power burns up as it heals me from this latest assault, but not all of it gets consumed.
My muscles stay strong. And even if I was shot a whole lot more this time, they were still just regular old bullets.
Tiny little pieces of metal after I’ve already tanked shotgun slugs.
After a few seconds, I’m able to breathe again.
A few seconds more, and I’m able to rise.
Two days ago, I would have expected to be killed stone-cold dead by this.
But now I know I can handle it. Mom wasn’t kidding with how powerful we are if we feed. It’s hard not to feel invincible.
I glance up at Collin. He is struggling against the tentacles and the tether, no longer gazing down at me, yet the golden door remains in place.
I then look behind, through the glowing wall and that scary-ass eye. Rafa’s mom is planted in front of Emma, her face iced into an impassive, robot-like mask, gun out at the end of locked arms.
All right. So, bullets can go through the barrier. But seems she’s out of those now.
And it doesn’t appear Valiente brought his own firearm to this party. Must not be room in his fancy form-fitting suit. He’s just staring at me from the empty stage he built himself, arms folded across his chest, like he’s hoping I might keel over at any second.
But unfortunately for him, I’m still standing.
In fact, I feel almost fully healed, and I should have enough juice left to take him, Rafa’s mom, and the other five vampires out once I end this ritual.
Which means he failed. He gave it his last, best shot (literally!), and I’m shrugging it right off.
I might not be Sarah Stryker, but turns out, I’m plenty dangerous on my own.
I’m not going to lie, that feels pretty damn good.
Knowing that Valiente wasted his only chance to stop me, I’m super tempted to quote that superhero movie and tell him, “You should have gone for the head.” But I’m not stupid enough to taunt fate, so I just roll my eyes—right before I shoot the so-called King of the Vampires my scariest glare.
After all, I’m a monster, too—and a much deadlier one than he is.
I think I might actually enjoy ripping him apart once I finish setting Collin free.
If I was hoping to intimidate him, though, it doesn’t appear I’m going to get that satisfaction. He just continues to stare back, unmoved. If anything, he’s smirking a bit.
It takes me a full beat to realize he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the crumpled paper in my right fist—which I now realize I’d pulled in tight against my chest as I was being shot through the back.
Holding my breath, I quickly pull the incantation open to find the paper soaked top to bottom with my own blood. It’s got actual holes through it. The remaining paragraph is completely unreadable, and it’s not like I had memorized any of the crazy nonsense syllables.
Without Mom’s cheat sheet, I can’t finish the spell. I have no way to stop this ritual.
Which means I was wrong. About everything.
The Vampire King didn’t lose.
He won.