Chapter 24
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
SAMANTHA
I shoved through the werewolves, forcing them apart to let me through. I needed a back door. A side door. Some way out of this place other than the front door.
And I needed to get there before the Black-Eyed Children left.
To the right was a formal living room with two couches facing each other, some arm chairs, and a fireplace.
Beyond that, through a doorway, I could see a hallway and steps up to a kitchen and what might be a great room.
“Where are you going?” Phoenix asked as he kept pace beside me. “Talk to me.”
“It can’t be a coincidence they’re here at this house tonight when I’m here and fighting evil. They’re early. They never come before witching hour. It’s not their pattern. Which means they have to want something from me in particular.”
Beyond the informal living room were French doors to the backyard.
Bingo .
I flipped the lock. “Last person out closes this door. No one outside who doesn’t have my back. Those are my rules.”
I stepped into the backyard, and my socks were instantly damp. I hated the feeling of wet socks. It must’ve rained while I slept. Whatever. Soggy socks weren’t going to hurt me.
Phoenix walked beside me. “What are those things?”
“Evil. One sec,” I whispered. “I’ll explain more, but I want to catch them before they run.” I moved around the side of the house, and found a gate in the fence leading to the front yard. That was a relief. I could climb a fence, but I wasn’t very graceful at it.
I rounded the house and slowed down to a walk. They were still banging on the door, trying to terrorize the people still in the house. The Black-Eyed Children fed on fear. But I wasn’t afraid of them.
I stopped ten feet shy of them. “You’re early today,” I said.
They turned to me in unison, dropping the whole screaming vulgarities act. “We have a message for you, daughter of Astaroth,” the girl said, her voice was reedy and haunting.
That was new. The last time I ran into some Black-Eyed Children, I’d spent weeks chasing them around the city. I’d expected them to run, but a message from a Black-Eyed Child? That had never happened before.
They had my full attention. “Do you?”
“We do,” the boy said.
I could sense everyone gathering behind me, waiting, watching to see if I needed help, but I wouldn’t. They might try to leap at me, but if they did, I’d open a portal and close it. They’d get sucked down, and that would be that. I just had to maintain distance between us. “Alright. What is it that you want to tell me?” I crossed my arms as I stared down at the demons.
They took a step forward. “Gabe sent us to you.”
I dropped my arms to my sides, and my heart fell through the floor.
A flash of him yelling for me rang through my mind and his voice commanding me to run.
I blinked, pushing the memory away. I swallowed down the fear and guilt. That was what they wanted from me, and I was giving it to them. I had to stop.
They both grinned, revealing tiny, pointy teeth, and the fact that they could taste the wave of fear and shame that had just coursed through me.
I didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. “What does Gabe want me to know?” I asked, while taking a step back.
“He says that you need not look for him. He will come when he is able.” The girl stepped closer to me. “But we’d love it if you’d try.” Her voice dipped deeper with that, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more.
“That’s it?”
“He also said to tell you that you’re about to be in a very dangerous spot. Your past is catching up to you.”
My past? What part of it? Did he mean my father?
The boy laughed. “You can trust us. We’re very good. If you let us in the house, we’ll protect you from him .”
Nope. I wasn’t an idiot. I wasn’t sure if him meant my father, Gabe, or something else, and I wasn’t going to let them in so I could find out.
“Are you sure Gabe sent them?” Dastien asked from somewhere behind me.
“No.” I’d heard Gabe yelling for me today when I was closing the portal, but that could’ve been my father. Or really any other demon that could mimic voices. Demons lied like it was their life. There was no way I’d trust any demon, aside from Gabe. “But Gabe’s sent a demon with a message before. A long time ago. Just not this kind. Usually it’s a lesser demon.” And if Gabe sent them, there would be some sort of proof.
“How do I know Gabe sent you?”
They took another step toward me. “He said if you asked, to tell you that he’s not in a cage anymore.”
“That’s not proof of anything. Try again.” I was sure everyone in Hell knew Gabe had been in the cage. The demons loved to torment the caged souls.
“He said to say that when he found you the first time, you were in the house, hiding in a nook in your father’s play room.”
Play room?
Oh. Right. They meant his torture chamber.
That was accurate. That was exactly where I met Gabe for the first time. What I didn’t know was if my father knew that, too. He pretty much knew everything that happened in his realm, so I wasn’t sure this proved anything either.
“ He said to tell you to watch for the hag. She’s the key. You have to find your past and that will lead you to where you must go. But be careful. Danger lies where even you cannot see it. ” These words were said only along the spiritual plane, and I wasn’t sure I believed them either.
I wasn’t even sure what they meant.
What the heck was a hag?
Could I trust anything they said?
They’d only said it along the spiritual realm, which meant they didn’t want the werewolves to hear it. But why?
Wait a second. If this was really from Gabe, then they’d know our code word. “What’s the password?”
They shared a look, and I knew they didn’t have one.
This conversation was officially over, and whatever warning they said along spiritual plane about a hag and my past was garbage. I didn’t know what they really wanted, but I was done with them.
I started to pull power, but they leaped, slamming me into the ground.
“Stay back!” I yelled at the werewolves as I kicked them off me. “You can see them, but you can’t fight them. They’re not of this realm.” The wolves would only make it harder for me to find a window to open a portal.
I had to push them back and away from me so that I didn’t accidentally get caught in the portal with them. Which they knew.
Every time I’d push one back, the other would attack.
Nails scraped my arm, but I ignored the pain. I had to focus.
I heard Dastien yelling advice to me, but I wasn’t focusing on the words. I knew what I was doing. Mostly. I’d been trained, but positioning them so I could send them to Hell was proving to be harder than I expected.
Which, of course, it was. I hadn’t been training. My limbs felt heavier than usual, and I was slow. So freaking slow.
The boy punched my side, and something inside me gave way.
Son of a mother. That was going to bruise.
The girl’s nails swiped too close to my face, and I dropped to the ground.
The girl pounced on me before I could roll away from her. She punched through my stomach.
The side hit and the stomach punch were spiritual hits. I saw the red lines linking us together. Demonic ties. That was why it felt like something gave way inside me.
A wave of pain and sorrow hit me so hard that for a moment, I couldn’t move.
“Get up , Sam.” Phoenix’s voice cut through everything else. “Break the ties.”
I knew I needed to do that, but everything hurt, and my soul was screaming, and?—
Wait. I could use this.
I could use the ties.
I kipped up and gripped the demonic ties in my hands, twisting them until I had the demons under my control.
“Don’t let me fall, Nix!” I yelled, reaching a hand back behind me, trusting Phoenix to keep me safe.
“ Aperta !” I opened a portal under the girl, and she fell, screaming, grabbing onto the robes of the boy.
He screamed awful things at me, gripping the tie between us, dragging me with him.
I started to lose my balance.
I saw the demons below. The fire. The hordes. Everything.
I was too close. Way too close to the edge.
The tie jerked hard, and I fell. “Oh shi?—”
A hand gripped mine, hard, and then an arm wrapped around my waist, tugging me back. “Burn the ties, Sam,” Phoenix said in my ear. “Now.”
I sent a burst of power, and the ties snapped.
The Black-Eyed Boy fell, screaming down the whole way, following where its fellow demon went.
Phoenix tugged me up against him. “Close it.”
“ Claudere !” I blew out a breath and crumpled against him for a moment. “Well, that sucked, and this is why I never miss a day with Chris. Even if I’m weak. Fuck that was closer than it should’ve been.” I winced. “Dang it. I cussed.” Man, that meant I was still tired, which made sense since my breaths were still coming fast.
Phoenix laughed. “Don’t worry about the curse. You’re fine.” He squeezed me tighter. “You got it done, and that’s the important part.”
I leaned back so that I could peek up at him because I remembered one important thing. “Wait. You could see their ties. You can still see everything?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I was going to ask you about that. I have a question when…” He motioned with his chin to all the werewolves watching us.
Right. He didn’t want an audience.
Interesting that it stuck around, though. I was going to try to not pick things apart, but it should’ve faded by now. I’d have to wait to talk to him about it when there weren’t so many people watching us.
I stepped away from Phoenix just enough that I could turn and look at him. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” He studied me, searching me to see if I was hurt, but I didn’t think I was.
“I’m fine.”
He gave me a nod. “I think you are, but babe, you’re shortening my life every time you almost fall through a portal.”
“I don’t do it on purpose.”
He raised a brow, as if to say that he didn’t think that was a thing. “You have a good nap?”
I took a breath, giving myself time to assess. “Yeah. I guess I did.”
“Excuse me, but what the fuck was that?” Max stepped through the wolves, his eyes wolf-bright blue.
I wasn’t going to apologize for saving his butt. “Those were Black-Eyed Children, who get their name from their soulless, inky-black-as-night eyes. They always come looking like children, but the story for why they need help can change—they’ve been in an accident or the house burned down or they’re lost or their parents left them alone—they’ll say whatever it takes to get someone to open the door. It’s always dead of night, that was how I knew something was up. It’s not witching hour yet.”
“What would’ve happened if I opened the door?”
I shrugged. “They either would’ve killed everyone in the house, or tortured and then killed us all. Sometimes they hide in houses, tormenting the inhabitants, making them crazy, afraid, getting them to fight amongst themselves before they kill them, but that’s rare. Chris, Cosette, and I spent weeks chasing a group of them down a year ago, and it was a mess.”
I scanned the wolves. “Any other questions?”
No one spoke up, and as I stood there, I realized there were a lot more wolves here than had been with us at the yellow house.
And now it was time to get back to work. Wait—why were there so many wolves here? I scanned them, and it looked like all the Wayfarers were here. “Did you guys call in everyone to patrol, or what?”
“Not quite.” Tessa wore black leggings, a black hoodie, and black running shoes—her ready-to-fight outfit. “We still have more on standby, but Dastien and I talked while you were sleeping, and we agreed. You can’t get hurt. We called in everyone we could and are patrolling as a pack tonight. No splitting up.”
Okay. That was fine by me. “When do you want to leave?” I needed a few minutes, but I could be ready pretty quick.
“That depends on you. We have some time before the most active part of the night.”
I glanced at my watch. She was right. We had two or three hours before the veil was fully thin.
“You did your usual sleep-eating thing, but you slept for a little while after that.” She studied me, and I wasn’t sure what she saw. I hadn’t looked in the mirror. “We didn’t want to wake you up, but now that you’re up, are you hungry?”
I thought about it. “I could eat.”
“Great,” Dastien said. “The pack should eat anyhow. Safer for everyone.” Dastien had a point. Nobody wanted to be around a hungry werewolf. “We eat a late meal, and then we start patrolling the streets. We can do that on foot or in the car, but I think car is better so we can cover more ground. If you see anything, we pull over. Take care of it. What do you think?”
That was smart. “Sounds good. A meal out is fine, as long as we can have some sort of private room somewhere. There are a lot of us, and it makes it easier for me.”
“And protein heavy,” Tessa added.
Garrett was local. He might know a place that would fit those needs. I spotted him in the crowd. “You think you know a spot that would work?”
He thought for a second. “You know what, if this place I’m thinking of is still around, then yes. I do. Otherwise, I can figure something out.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started typing.
“Great.” My stomach growled. “Apparently, I’m hungry.” I paused. Now that I was thinking about a plan, I had another idea. “Patrolling works for now, but I need to find the root of the problem, and our best bet is finding whoever was living in that house. The one with the portal.” I looked at Dastien. “Did you ever find them?”
“We’ve been working on that,” Dastien said. “We know the name of the owners—a young couple and their four-year-old son—but we haven’t been able to find them, yet. The mom is from here. The most likely place to look for them would be her parent’s house, but there’s no record of her parents owning a house here. It’s possible that my assumption is wrong and the family is staying with someone else or maybe they’ve left the area entirely. We have numbers for them, but they’re not answering any of their phones when we call. I could track their phones, but that would break a few laws. So, I’m hoping we can save that as a last resort type of deal.”
I didn’t want to break any laws at all, so yeah, that was fine with me. “So, it’s a dead end.”
“Not necessarily. My guy’s still digging around. It could be that her parents are renting or they moved or maybe they bought a house under a trust. We found out where they work, but it’s after hours. Asking coworkers for information will have to wait until the morning.”
“What about social media?”
“Either they’re super locked down or they’re anti social media.” Tessa shrugged. “We’re hitting dead ends, but we’re not giving up. We’ll find them. For now, all we have is patrolling.”
I pressed my hand to my stomach. I had a bad feeling about those people. They couldn’t have just disappeared, unless they were dead. Or worse. Possessed.
But I kept thinking about the toys on that living room floor—scattered about, well-loved, but now abandoned.
There was a little kid somewhere who needed my help.
Kids—younger ones especially—could be really susceptible to demonic attacks.Their souls were still too transitory, not fully enmeshed in the mortal realm.
I hoped he was okay, but there was nothing I could do until we found them. “Well, then, patrolling is what we’ll do. With a portal that size open for who knows how long, it should be a pretty active witching hour. I’ll take care of anything we find as we go, but I’m hoping we don’t run into whatever is killing your wolves until we find whoever opened that portal. I can’t send the monster back to Hell only to have that person open another portal to bring the monster back through. But angrier. And focused on revenge.”
A few of the werewolves made noises at that. I knew they just wanted me to find whatever it was and kill it, but I had to prepare them for the fact that it might not be that easy.
I didn’t have anything else to say, so I started for the back door again.
As soon as I stepped onto the wood floor, I could feel how incredibly wet my socks were. I pulled them off and moved through the house. “I’ll be right back.”
I needed new socks. Shoes. And to refill my belt bag.
Actually, I should bring my whole backpack.
I started prepping as soon as I got to the room. I made sure everything in my belt bag was restocked, then I moved things around in my backpack so that I could reach whatever I needed quickly. I’d almost finished zipping up my bags when I changed my mind.
I dug through the backpack, pulling out a small glass jar filled with my own invention of salt, selenite powder, sage dust, and falling ash from a priests’ incense thurible. The dust burned demons as if they were glowing bits of embers, and if things got dicy, it was an effective way to make demons scatter. One microscopic grain on them and poof, they were gone.
When I finished, I went to my suitcase, which was still sitting by the door to my room. I knocked it onto its back and knelt down to dig through it without destroying my neat packing job.
Someone knocked on the open door. “Hey,” I said to Phoenix.
“Hey.” He held out my shoes. “I brought you these. I put them by the door but figured you’d need them.”
“Thanks.” I reached up, taking them from him. “With all the drama I didn’t have to a chance to make sure everything was okay while I slept?”
“Yeah. The guys are all really nice. Good group. A bunch more of the pack showed up. I guess the stuff in the yellow house has some of them on edge.” He leaned on the door jamb while he looked down at me. “The pack doc gave you an IV, but you didn’t wake up for it. That kind of worried me, but your mom said it was fine.”
“You called my mom?” I winced. Man. She was going to be so mad at me. I definitely should’ve called her when we landed, and probably after the whole portal thing. But calling—or even texting—hadn’t crossed my mind.
“Yeah. Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t look or sound too sorry. “She wants a call back.”
Okay. I could do that. But I knew she was going to rip into me for not keeping her updated on how I was doing.
I sat back on my heels. “I’m sorry I worried you. My mom gives me IVs while I sleep all the time. It’s fine. I think I’m just used to it now.”
“Got it.” He blew out a breath, and from the way he was standing, I could tell he was worried about something.
He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “I heard what those demons said,” he whispered softly. “Something about a hag and your past, but you didn’t tell anyone else. I only heard it because I still have your sight. ”
“Right,” I whispered back. “I mean, I guess I should tell them, but I just don’t know that it’s going to turn out to be anything. I don’t want to give them hope at finding some clue. They’ve lost family this week, and giving false hope feels cruel.”
“So, you think they were lying?”
“I don’t know. Honestly. But if it turns out to be something, I’ll tell them right away. I’m not ruling it out, I’m just taking it with a massive grain of salt.”
“Got it. I’ll try to keep an eye out for anything hag-like, too.”
“Sounds good.”
There was a look on his face that I couldn’t read, but it worried me. “What else is wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, still whispering. “But I was wondering if you thought Eli already made me able to see the spiritual realm permanently?”
It was possible, but Eli hadn’t told me he was going to do that. But that didn’t mean anything. Eli did a ton of things without asking or giving me all—or sometimes any—of the information. I hoped this wasn’t one of those times, but it could be. It definitely could be.
My stomach dropped as I realized why he might be asking about this. Did he want it gone? And if he did, what did that mean for us?
I was going to be sick. “I don’t know. I guess it’s possible.” I looked away because I couldn’t afford to lose it when he asked me to fix it for him. I didn’t want to cry. “If you want, I could call Eli down to see if he could take it away, but I’m not sure?—”
“No.” He squatted down in front of me and reached for my hand. “You’re misunderstanding me or I’m not being clear, but don’t panic on me.” He gave me a tilted smile and just a little peek of his dimple. “I told him I wanted it, but I?—”
“Just because you thought you wanted it doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind, and I can?—”
“Stop. Absolutely not.” He gave my hand three quick squeezes. “Take a breath.”
I shook my head. “But if you?—”
“I’m not him. I’m Phoenix. The guy that has dreamed of you for years, that is amazed at what you do. The guy who pulls you out of portals and will continue to do so. Although, maybe if you could be more careful, that would save my heart. For real.”
“I’m so confused right now.”
“That’s because you’re used to people lashing out at you and freaking out. Even your best friend freaked out about it earlier today. Tessa was a disaster in the attic. So, I get why you’re worried. But I’m not going to freak out. I’m not changing my mind. But you need time to see that I’m different, so I’m not hurt or upset by your assumption that I want anything fixed.” His voice was even and calm and it made everything in me settle. “I like being able to see what you see. I just wondered if it was possible that Eli made it permanent already. And if not, if we could make it permanent. If you’d be okay with that.”
“Are you sure?” I was so in for permanent with him, but a part of me clearly kept waiting for him to bail. I had to stop thinking that way.
He was right. I was used to everyone freaking out when they saw what I saw. Or sometimes, just freaking out because I said I could see what I saw. So, this felt so weird.
And yet, it was everything I’d ever wanted.
“I’m not going anywhere. I thought maybe you’d be upset that you’re stuck with me, but judging from your panic attack right now, you’re as just afraid of me leaving as I am of you wanting me gone.”
I laughed. “I’m the worst. I’m sorry. I keep expecting you to bail, and that’s not fair.”
“Maybe not, but you have a really traumatic past, and we’re going to work through that. So, we’re good. But maybe the next time Eli comes, we ask him to make it permanent. And maybe we can also ask about those extras. I know we talked about it in the car, but I just want to confirm now that you’re a little more rested. Is that still okay with you?”
“I mean…yeah. But are you really sure that’s what you want?”
“Absolutely.” He leaned into me, and his lips brushed against mine. Softly. Briefly. And then he stood and took a step back from me. “I’ll be downstairs. The temperature has dropped a bit. You were shivering out there, so don’t forget your coat.” He opened the door and tapped a hand on the door jamb before turning and walking away.
I stood there frozen. In shock. “Okay,” I said, but he was already gone.
What in God’s green Earth just happened?
I… I really thought he was asking me to get rid of it, and it was extremely disorienting to have him say the exact opposite thing.
When had I become so distrusting of people? Sure, I had good reasons, but I’d half-expected Phoenix to bail on me after this week. More than half-expected it. Fully expected it. Even though he kept telling me over and over that he was staying.
Man. I was such a moron.
I fully loved the guy. Why hadn’t I told him that?
And more importantly, why hadn’t I kissed him back?