27. Chapter 27
Chapter twenty-seven
LUCA
“Luca? How did you get here in the middle of the day?” Sage’s eyes widened at the dangerous look I aimed his way.
“Are you hurt?” I growled.
The smell of his blood led me right to him, and now he stood in front of me looking pale and unsteady, but overall fine.
Sage grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the window. The smell of his blood intensified, his hands were covered in it, and my body reacting to the temptation the way it always did.
“What happened?” I bit out through clenched teeth.
“There’s no time. They know we’re here, we have to go.”
He didn’t even open the window before my stomach swooped and we were falling. Sage gasped in shock and I gathered him into my arms before the dark, disorienting feeling hit again. This time, my feet touched solid ground and I didn’t hesitate to run.
Thanks to the buildings in this area, there was plenty of coverage and I darted to the right, slipping behind the next building and pulling us around the corner. Arguing voices came from the building we’d left behind, mixed in with the sounds of traffic and noise from the other buildings. I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying, but I recognized one of the voices and it wasn’t one I expected to hear.
“You were tailing Mars?” I snapped. “That’s way too dangerous, what were you thinking?”
The voices faded back into the building, presumably to check the other rooms, and I took the opportunity to get us out of there. Or I tried to, but a moment before I stepped out of the shadows and into the sun, the world disappeared again and we were deeper in the alley.
I glanced down at Sage in confusion, but the darkened eyes told me it wasn’t Sage who was glaring back at me.
“What the hell are you doing?” Keir demanded, slipping free from my arms and taking my hand.
He didn’t give me time to answer before we disappeared again, reappearing in the shadows several more times before Sage’s car came into view, parked down a side street quite a distance from where we’d started.
“Oh god,” Sage muttered, dropping to his knees. “Now who’s the idiot?”
I caught his arm as he hunched over his knees. “What happened?”
“He didn’t have enough magic left to do that and now I’m gonna puke,” Sage mumbled miserably. “Ugghhh, it feels like my insides have been hollowed out.”
He'd depleted his magic again trying to protect me. It couldn't be as bad as last time if he was still conscious, but Sage probably didn't agree. He started to curl up in a ball right there on the sidewalk and I scooped him back into my arms.
“Should I take you to Elliot?” I asked as I jogged over to the car and stuffed him into the passenger seat.
“It's not an injury, he won’t be able to help.”
“He might be able to at least relieve your nausea,” I decided, turning to head for Ollie’s house.
Sage was too weak to keep arguing and the drive was quiet with the exception of his occasional groaning.
When we arrived at Ollie’s, she and Elliot met us at the door and ushered me into the living room where I hesitated to settle Sage on the couch.
“He’s covered in blood,” I explained.
“I thought you said he wasn’t injured,” Ollie said, rushing to lay a blanket down.
“There’s a cut on his hand. It’s not serious.”
Sage was pretty miserable, but he still caught Elliot’s wrist as he checked him over.
“Can you free him?” he mumbled.
“The demon?” Elliot asked. “It'll depend on how the spell works, I’ll see what I can do.”
Sage let out a breath and let Elliot explore him with his magic. After a few minutes the sorcerer shook his head.
“I relieved some of his symptoms, but I can’t fix the depletion of the demon’s magic. Magic users normally stop using their powers long before they reach this point, but using too much energy has consequences for everyone. If the demon wasn’t stuck inside Sage’s body I could help, but it’s not working. Witches are neutral like humans, so in theory it should still work, but the magic I’m feeding into Sage’s body isn’t going to the demon like it should be. It’s being drawn into the spell that’s trapping the demon inside him.”
“Is there a way to drain the magic feeding that spell to let the demon out?” Ollie asked.
Elliot shook his head. “Since he’s a witch who has no natural magic of his own, we could deprive the spell of magic, but it would just feed off the demon’s magic instead. I’m guessing that’s how the spell has sustained itself through all the periods of Sage’s life that he wasn’t in contact with magic. If the demon dies, then the spell could be starved of magic and potentially broken, but I’d rather not kill the demon until we know what Sage wants.”
“We’re not killing the demon,” I snapped before Sage could respond.
Ollie raised an eyebrow at me. “Not sure it’s up to you, big guy. It’s not your body it’s hitching a ride in.”
“We’re not killing the demon,” Sage agreed weakly. “Is there a way to get him out without hurting him?”
Elliot grimaced, but put his hands on Sage again, searching with his magic once more. When he finally pulled his hands away again, he looked at Ollie.
“It’s similar to a summoning circle, but more complex. The spell ties them together similar to a binding, but a normal binding doesn’t tie a magic user back to the demon, this one does. You know more about summoning than I do. The only way I know to release a demon from a circle is to destroy the circle. But in this case, the circle is esentially Sage’s body.”
Ollie frowned. “Destroying the circle is the only way as far as I know. I've heard of banishing demons, but they can't return once banished. And to be honest, there's really no way to know if banished demons even return to their world or end up somewhere else, so it could still end up killing him.”
“There’s nothing we can do?” I asked.
“This isn’t a simple possession or summoning,” Elliot explained. “I’ve never seen anything like this done to a person before. It’s kind of genius, but also a little horrifying. As it is, the demon can’t be torn away. It’s possible that was intentional. Even if we find a way to break the spell, it’s likely both of you would be seriously injured. If I was to heal you both in time, it might work, but nothing is that simple. Whoever did this never intended for the demon to be separated from you.”
“I hate to be the one to say it, but it’s safer to keep it inside him,” Ollie said.
Sage shook his head. “The dark mage knows necromancy and he seems to think he’s on the verge of learning new tricks. He won’t need to keep either of us alive to use us.”
“That’s a good point,” Ollie agreed, tapping a finger on her chin. “A shadow demon should be able to escape even a small break in the spell, right? So what if we break it as little as possible and heal them after?”
“Even a small break will cause a serious injury,” Elliot pointed out. “Neither of them can back away or shield themselves in this circle. We’d be attacking them directly, it’s too dangerous.”
“Try,” Sage insisted without hesitation.
“Wait and see if they can come up with anything else,” I cut in. “Even if you’re going to do this, now is not the time. Do it when you’re both at your strongest.”
Sage’s eyes darkened and his glare cut my way. “You too? You’re willing to hurt Sage just to get rid of me?”
“That’s not what we’re doing,” I argued.
He forced himself off the couch and stumbled toward the door. “I thought I could trust him with you. Clearly I was mistaken.”
I grabbed Sage’s arm, but Keir’s cutting look had me pulling my hand back. It wasn’t so much that he looked angry, though he definitely did. It was the hurt on his face that shocked me still.
“Keir,” I pleaded.
“Do not speak to me,” he snapped, using the wall to hold himself up. “There’s no need to do anything to Sage. Once he is free of Eastbend, I will never bother him again.”
Ollie frowned. “You’re taking him away?”
“Hazel was right to keep him away,” he mumbled too softly for the others to hear. “This place has brought nothing but pain.”
He leaned forward to reach for the door, but didn’t quite make it before his body gave out. I was across the room and scooping him into my arms before he could hit the ground,
Elliot strode forward and put a hand on Sage’s shoulder. He was already barely conscious, but the move seemed to deepen his sleep.
“He was already exhausted before everything happened,” Elliot explained. “I can’t do much for magic depletion given the circumstances, even if I gave him a restoring potion, it would likely only end up strengthening that spell. For now, the best thing for him is sleep so his body can heal on its own. That should keep him out for at least a few hours.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep you posted on the rest of it.”
For once, Ollie seemed to be at a loss for what to say. She only watched worriedly as I carried Sage back out to the car.
The bed was blissfully warm. How long had it been since I’d felt something like this? And it was so much better than I remembered. No matter how hot the days were, I still always felt a chill deep down, but now… now I was surrounded by warmth. Reluctant to break the moment, I peeled my eyes open finding Sage wrapped around me. His face was still relaxed with sleep and his hand clutched my shirt.
It was the first time he’d ever spent the whole night next to me. No matter how many times he’d fallen into my bed, he’d never stayed there for long. The only time he’d spent an entire night here was while he was injured, but he’d had the room to himself and even then he bolted the first chance he got. That was the reason I’d climbed into bed with him in the first place. I’d been determined not to let him sneak off until he was finally rested. But either his exhaustion had finally caught up to him, or Elliot’s spell worked wonders because this was the longest I’d ever seen him sleep.
Strange that waking up in bed together wasn’t something I’d cared much about before I’d changed. How had I not noticed how incredible it was? That just having someone warming your bed made waking up so much better?
Sage shifted, snuggling deeper into my chest for a moment before his dark eyes blinked open. A little crinkle formed between his brows before he jolted up, his eyes widening when he realized I was awake.
Keir scowled and pressed a hand to his head. “That sorcerer did something to me.”
I pulled him back down onto my chest. “Relax, your body was already exhausted before you used too much magic. You need the rest.”
I rubbed a hand up and down his spine in an attempt to calm him, but Keir tensed instead. “I… I’m not Sage.”
That was a good point, actually. Sage was ok with me touching him, but Keir had never given me that kind of permission, had he?
“I know. Do you want me to stop?”
Keir was silent for a long moment before he finally relaxed again and let his head fall against my shoulder. “It's… fine,” he mumbled.
This was a strange situation to be sure, but as long as Keir was trapped inside Sage, we were going to have to find a way to make this work because I was done giving up on him. Everyone else had taken a step back while they tried to figure out who this alter version of Sage was and how to handle him. I understood better than anyone how shocking it was when someone you thought you knew turns out to be someone else entirely. But the thing was, Sage was still Sage.
He might look different, he might be a little more abrasive and reckless than we’d originally realized, but he was still ridiculously passionate about the things he cared about and he gave those things everything he had. He was incredibly smart, and loyal, and stubborn. He’d changed, but not in the ways that mattered. Sage had refused to give up on me even when I didn’t deserve a second of his attention, and I’d be damned if I was going to back away from him now.
“Do you resent the witches for locking you in his body?” I asked.
Keir hadn’t been on board with Sage’s request to free him, but he couldn’t like being trapped. Maybe if we found another way he’d be more cooperative.
“They did what they did to save Sage. It was the right thing to do.”
“But they saved him at your expense. Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful Sage lived, but that must have been hard for you.”
“Life is hard, mine was no different. My years with Rosemary allowed me a peace most of my kind never experience. I was lucky to have that long.”
“What do you mean when you say your kind never experiences peace? Do you mean demons who are summoned here?”
“In part. But shadow demons in particular are coveted for our abilities even in the demon world. From the time we are born we are raised as soldiers and sold off to fight for the causes of others, those who are exceptionally talented may be hired out as mercenaries eventually earning themselves the chance to choose their own work. Shadow demon soldiers looking to buy their freedom often bear young to sell off, but I was smaller than most and not a strong fighter, even my parents could tell early on that I wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Deeming me not worth the drain on resources, they cast me out. I can only guess that in an attempt to earn at least a bit of money for their efforts, they sold my name to anyone willing to pay. That would explain how I ended up in a sorcerer’s circle in this world so soon after.”
“You can travel through shadows, couldn’t they have just escaped at any time rather than selling their own children? How did they keep shadow demons against their will? “
“The same way sorcerers keep their demons from escape.”
“They’re bound by magic,” I realized.
I was a little grateful Keir had been cast out of that mess, but I didn’t dare say that.
“Shadow demons make good soldiers because of our ability to infiltrate an enemy unseen, but we don’t have strong magic and fell short on the ability to defend ourselves against it. It always amazes me that humans rule this world. They have no power, but their numbers would make them valuable in my world. They’d be easy to control, easy to replace. In my world, they’d surely be under the thumb of another demon race, as would many of the beings I’ve encountered here. There would be wars no doubt, but eventually one group always falls to the mercy of another. Only the strongest are free to exist as they wish. But here, though humans don’t have power, the rest of you fear them. Exposure to humans is the one thing all others fear equally in this world. I’ve always found it strange.”
“Humans are easily frightened by anything different and they’re far more dangerous than you’d think. It’s something I’ve thought about alot since I changed and I understand the preference to hide what we are. Maybe someday this world will be ready to accept us, but it's obvious just from the way they treat each other, it’s not there yet.
“It sounds like your home world was a hard place to live, but there are a lot of things that set our worlds apart. For the most part, the non-humans here don’t want to rule over the humans. They simply want to coexist peacefully.”
Keir’s lip curled. “Even when the only humans who know of your existence have no mind for peace? I will never forgive them for what they did to Sage.”
My breath caught in my throat. “What did they do to Sage?”
Keir’s dark eyes darted away. “Sage is too fearless. In some ways he came to rely on me getting him out of trouble, but even as a child his curiosity trumped any sense of self preservation. He walked right up to me to play the moment he noticed my presence. A completely helpless toddler and he just scooted closer to the monster in the shadows to offer me one of his stupid blocks. A truly dumb child, it’s a miracle he’s still alive.”
There was a fondness in Keir’s tone that I didn’t think he realized was coming through, but I let him continue without pointing it out.
“Over the years I kept my existence hidden from him, allowing him to live a normal life as his mother wished. I only stepped in when it was absolutely necessary, and it was infrequent enough that Sage brushed it off. But since he’s come to Eastbend, those incidents have become far too common and he started questioning things long before the hunters took him. When their spell revealed my presence, he first thought it inaccurate. But the longer he was there, the more he began to question what was inside of him.
“The dampening spell weakened me significantly, and I was forced to hold back while the humans ran their tests. They used their spell to find the source of magic for different beings, so they knew what to harvest for their experiments. But Sage is human, and their tests showed no magic. They dug deeper, taking samples from muscle, bone, organs. He told them he had no magic, that they wouldn’t find anything, but their spell had lit him up as a strong source, so they refused to give up. Or rather, it lit me up. So when their tests found nothing, they started talking about cutting him open.
“Even as they cut and poked and dug at him, he asked them questions. Pulling tiny bits of information about what they were doing, and where his friends were. They didn’t give him much, but their interest in Ollie’s baby was as obvious as it was horrifying. And the way they talked about the things they’d done to other unfortunate beings they'd captured made him realize how serious the situation was. He knew that if he didn’t get out, Ollie and Levi wouldn’t make it. For the first time, Sage was truly terrified. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the others would come for them, it was that he didn’t think they would make it in time to save Ollie’s baby.”
“I should have found him sooner,” I growled.
Keir’s fist clenched around the fabric of my shirt. “I was right there with him and nearly helpless. On a normal day I’m strong enough to take over for a period of time, but while I was in that weakened state but with the dampening spell, I couldn’t take control. I could do nothing but watch while Sage spiraled deeper and deeper into his fear. After a lifetime of me stepping in when he most needed me, he was forced to face one of the worst moments of his life alone.”
“So then how did you eventually manage to kill those men?”
“The hunters seemed well aware that stress is a trigger for many beings and they used torture to try to bring out his magic. Everyone has their limits and eventually Sage withdrew on his own. It wasn’t until he gave up his own body and pulled away that I was finally able to do something. Even then, I was limited to physical strength. Moving Sage's body through the shadows wasn’t an option while the dampening spell was active. By the time the spell broke, I was down to the last human. You were there when I broke the door, so I left it to you to keep him safe.”
I almost laughed. He’d left a blood covered Sage to a vampire.
“Can I ask you something? Why do you protect Sage from everything except me? If you’re always trying to protect him, shouldn’t you want him to stay away from me?”
“I wasn’t fond of Sage’s decision to remain close early in your transition. The second Silas allowed it, Sage was right back at your side, accepting your anger and rejection with a grain of salt because Silas believed it would help you. But eventually I came to see what they saw.
“Sage’s presence caused you pain. Everyone else gave you the space you asked for, but Sage refused to allow you to lose your humanity, even if it hurt. That time must have been immensely difficult for you. Your entire life changed in an instant. You lost your job, your humanity, someone you’d thought was a friend, your identity, and any sense of normalcy you once had. Anyone would have lashed out. But while you tried to make Sage leave, tried to scare him away from you, never once did you give in to the dark impulses that plague young vampires. I don’t trust anyone freely, you earned it while fighting that war with yourself. You have darkness inside of you, nothing can change that now, but it doesn’t control you.”
“There are times when I’m not as confident. Those impulses never fully go away.”
“Control comes with age. The urge to bleed someone dry may never go away, but it will become easier to resist.”
“You seem to know a lot about vampires, is that because of Silas?”
“Sage had an endless list of questions for Silas when you were turned, but I had knowledge of vampires from my time with Rosemary. Witches and vampires have been enemies for centuries and there have been plenty of covens that tasked themselves with protecting humans from vampire kind in the past. The need to hunt rogue vampires is far less common these days, as they tend to police their own to eliminate exposure threats. But the knowledge remains and is passed down through the generations. The Blackwood coven was no exception.”
“And yet here you are, lying in the arms of a vampire,” I mused.
Keir tensed and struggled to move away, but I held him against me easily. He was still weak from the overuse of magic and didn’t disappear into the shadows.
“It’s too late now, you can’t undo snuggling. What would Rosemary think?”
“You are teasing me,” Keir finally realized, giving up the fight. “Rosemary loved her family above all else. She would want Sage to be happy.”
“And what about you?”
Keir frowned and turned his face up to mine. “Me? I want Sage to be happy as well.”
I held back a laugh. “Keir, I was asking what would make you happy?”