Chapter 41
SELENE
Selene!
I startle awake, Memnon’s voice echoing in my mind.
I grasp my chest. Can’t breathe. It feels like it’s caving in.
Abruptly, the sensation disappears. There’s still a faint throbbing in my sternum, and I press the palm of my hand to it, like the pressure might make it go away.
I lick my lips, inhaling in sharp, shallow pants. Just another bad dream. My heart has settled since the last time I woke, but that fear hasn’t fully left, and my skin is covered in a sheen of cold sweat.
I reach for Memnon, but my hand closes on nothing but cool sheets.
Rubbing my eyes, I sit up, gathering the comforter around me as I listen for sounds of him in the bathroom or the hallway beyond.
The house is eerily silent.
“Memnon?” I call out.
Nothing.
I slip out of bed, unsurprised when Nero quietly moves to my side.
I pad over to the window, where stars twinkle high above the tops of evergreens. A sick, queasy feeling twists my insides.
I expect to hear starlings. I’m listening intently for their call.
It takes me a moment to realize why.
Panticapaeum, the night of the ambush. The night I died in my first life.
It began with this same feeling.
Something is off. So terribly, terribly off.
Memnon? I call down our bond. Not that I expect to hear him answer.
I shiver a little, and my heart hammers away.
Movement at the window catches my attention again. There, at the edge of the lawn. I strain my eyes to see it better.
With a sharp inhalation I realize it’s an arm. A bloody, writhing arm. The hair at the back of my neck rises.
The longer I stare, the more movement I notice. Hands, legs, arms, even a head—moving appendages.
Demons. Ones that have been ripped apart.
Amongst the carnage I catch a gleam in the grass. It’s too far away for me to be sure, but it looks like a dagger. Like my soul mate’s dagger. My breath catches.
Was Memnon out there? Amongst them? Is he out there still?
Is he…alive?
Desperately, I reach down our bond, but like always now, I hit a wall.
He could be dead; he could be alive. Then I remember his voice from my dream, shouting my name, followed by that pain against my sternum. How abruptly it ended.
My heart is in my throat and my eyes sting.
Could that be because he—?
No, he cannot be dead. I refuse to believe so. I would know if he were gone.
I would know.
I’m still taking it all in when I hear rapping on the windows downstairs. Nero begins to growl.
Fuck.
This is Panticapaeum all over again.
I peer outside, looking for the sheen of Memnon’s wards. I don’t see them, and when I close my eyes and focus on the magical barriers that encase this house…there is nothing.
Quickly, I grab my phone from my bedside table, then cross the room to my closet. Once I’m in there, I dress quickly, pulling on a bra and a shirt, underwear, pants, socks, and shit-kicking boots.
Downstairs, the rapping at the window turns into pounding. Whoever—or whatever—is outside, it is drawing this out for my benefit.
I tuck my phone into my back pocket and return my attention to the shelves of the shared closet. On one of them lies a slew of blades. Among them are the pair Memnon gifted me after our wedding.
I grab them now and belt them on. On the other side of the house, glass shatters.
Devil’s dick.
I’ve just about run out of time.
My pulse is in my throat as my eyes move to Nero. He’s already near the door, guarding it, his hackles raised. Beyond him, I can see the shimmering ward coating the threshold to our room.
It will hold, but only for so long. I cannot stay in this room and hope whoever’s coming will give up.
Resolve washes over me. I move to Nero and place a hand on his body. “Impenetrable armor for your body,” I incant in Sarmatian, my expression grim.
Placing a hand on my stomach, I repeat the spell, my attention lingering on the slight iridescent sheen my orange magic has as it spreads out over our forms.
Downstairs, I hear a low cackle that raises my gooseflesh. “Come out, come out, little witch.”
“Hide our forms from all eyes and ears. Make us invisible to all but each other.”
Again my magic slides over me and Nero, and though I can still hear and see my panther perfectly well, I have to believe that no one else can.
I kneel next to him and peer into my familiar’s eyes. “We’re under attack,” I say solemnly. “I’m going to get us out of here. Stay close and follow me.” I stand. “Oh.” My voice hardens. “And kill anyone you encounter that’s not Memnon,” I command.
My hands brush the hilts of my blades. Taking a deep breath, I leave the bedroom and head down the dark hall, Nero shadowing my movements.
It’s painfully hard to see, and as I strain my ears, I can hear growls and soft murmurs and more unsettling calls.
“Come out, little witch,” a low voice croons. “I swear we just want to play with you.”
Next to me, Nero pushes himself into the side of my legs, causing me to stumble into the wall. I barely have time to catch myself when a demon silently slips past us, heading straight for our bedroom. In the darkness, I hadn’t seen him. Only Nero had.
“Thank you,” I whisper softly, just as I hear the ward to my room shatter.
“No use hiding, little witch,” the demon calls. “I can smell you.”
I place a hand on Nero and one on myself. “Hide our scents from all noses,” I whisper.
Deeper in the house I hear items smashing and doors being kicked in. They’re not even trying for subtlety anymore.
I close my eyes, taking in a deep breath.
This is not Panticapaeum. I don’t have to repeat my same mistakes.
I open my eyes, meet the amber-green ones of my familiar. I nod to him, and then I dash down the corridor, releasing some of my power to flick on lights seemingly at random.
I pass a female demon, who turns as we pass. I bite my lip when I realize that she might’ve felt the air shift around her. I hadn’t spelled that away.
Hastily, I gather my buzzing magic in my palm and fling a silent spell behind us, one that careens down the corridor. I don’t see where it lands, but I hear the high, confident sound of my laugh coming from the opposite direction.
The sound has the demon snapping her head toward it, and then she’s sprinting forward, all previous signs of stealth gone.
At the sound of my laughter I hear other footsteps, lots of footsteps, rushing through the house, toward my room.
“Come out and play, witchy-witchy!” one calls.
“Do you want to know what we’ll do with you? What we’ve been allowed to do with you?” another one taunts.
“We won’t kill you,” a demon promises.
Another one adds, “If you come out now, I promise I’ll only fuck you softly.”
There are sick accompanying laughs, and I have to suppress the wrathful magic that rises up in me.
The last time I was ambushed like this, I met my enemies directly. There was a certain satisfaction in fighting them head on, but the act rapidly depleted my magic and injured me in the process.
That’s not how it’s going to go tonight.
I stealthily move to the second-floor landing. On the ground beneath me and Nero a male demon with raven-dark hair ransacks the living room.
As though he senses eyes on him, the demon looks up and meets my gaze.
Shit. My enchantment must’ve worn off.
He smiles cruelly. “Brethren,” he calls out, “I found her.”
From across the house I hear several keening cries. A shudder works its way through my system.
Almost out of time, and my spells aren’t holding like they usually do. I don’t know if it’s me or the demons.
Pulse pounding, I dash across the landing to the bookshelf set into the back wall.
Behind me I can hear the demon below heading for the stairs.
Hell’s spells. I’m going to have to deal with him first.
I turn, magic rushing to my hands. “Paralyze.” I toss my gathered power straight at the demon.
As soon as it hits him, his muscles stiffen, and he falls back. The creature hits the ground like a plank of wood, and there he remains. But even that spell I cannot trust to hold.
Spinning back to the bookshelf, I pull on a purple clothbound spine of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. A latch clicks, and the bookshelf swings out, revealing my secret library.
While Nero slips in, I hear a shout behind me.
“Over here! She’s over here—”
I throw another ball of magic at the incoming demon, then slip inside, pulling the door tightly shut behind me.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I can hear their muffled voices on the other side of the shelf.
Lifting a hand, I incant in Sarmatian. “Seal this door. No demons and no enemies shall cross this threshold.”
I drop my hand, and with a shudder, I back up.
Thump.
I grab onto the nearest bookshelf as the walls shake.
Thump.
The hits keep coming to the bookshelf as they try to break their way into the library. And by the muffled sounds of it, more demons are gathering each moment to help.
That terrifying realization has me moving again.
As far as exit strategies go, holing up in a library is a terrible one. Or at least it would be if I were an regular human.
“C’mon, Nero,” I command, heading for the spiral staircase as the bangs get louder. Any moment, I expect the ward to give way. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
My normally surly familiar follows me obediently as we head to the top floor of the library.
I exhale my relief when my eyes land on the empty middle expanse of the room.
Well, nearly empty.
Spread out before the massive, square paned window is a circular tufted rug.
I move over to it, Nero following closely. Right in the middle of the rug, I kneel, patting the space beside me.
“Lie down right here,” I command.
Nero’s movements are languid as he does so, but it’s clear my panther is tense. His tail flicks restlessly, and his muscles are taut.
“It’s alright,” I say softly, “I have a plan.”
I press my palms to the soft material beneath us, feeling how the fibers tickle my skin.
Downstairs, I hear the groan, then shriek of hinges twisting and wood snapping. The ward must’ve fallen apart.
I force myself to refocus my attention on the task at hand. I haven’t spent enough time studying Middle Eastern and East Asian magical traditions to know the best way to enchant rugs. But I know they can fly the same way brooms can.
BANG!
I jolt at the reverberating sound of the bookshelf crashing to the ground.
There’s no time for second-guessing this.
I close my eyes, my lower jaw shaking as I focus on my power. I feel thick ropes of it flood down my arms.
No more rhymes, no more uncertainty.
When I speak, my words are firm. “Fly where I will it,” I command the rug in Sarmatian.
I bite back a relieved cry when it lifts into the air.
Several sets of feet pound up the stairs. The raven-haired demon I spotted earlier is the first one to make it up to the third floor.
I fling a burst of magic at the window, and I hear the satisfying sound of glass shattering and the wet chill of the air as it blows into the house.
“Oh no, you’re not going anywhere,” the demon insists.
As more demons rush up the stairs behind him, the raven-haired demon lunges for the edge of the rug and tugs it to him, nearly throwing me and Nero off in the process. I have to grab the lip of it to keep myself on it, holding on tightly when my panther’s body knocks into mine.
“See,” the demon says, reeling me and Nero in as more demons gather behind him, “we were promised that, short of death, we could do whatever we pleased to you and your cat. And we quite like the prospect of breaking you in ways you cannot imagine.”
The demon reaches for me, and I pull in my legs, but not fast enough. He catches one of them by the ankle, looking so fucking gleeful as he yanks on it. And I have the absolute pleasure of smashing my other boot into the demon’s face.
I hear cartilage crunch and his pained shriek. He stumbles back into the rest of the demons, blood streaming from his nostrils and onto his upper lip.
I can be dense, and I can be foolish. But I am also the wrong witch to fuck with.
“May your nose set like shit, motherfucker.”
A burst of my magic releases from my hands, propelling the rug toward the broken window.
My power catches Nero as he slips a little, and the orange plumes of it wrap around him and myself, securing us both to the carpet.
The other demons who have reached the top floor of the secret library now hurtle forward, toward the rug. If they manage to grab it, we might be done for.
The moon shines above, and I draw on it, feeling the way the soft light flows through my veins.
I form that power in my palms and whisper a spell.
“Explode.”
And then I lob it.
Magic and flame erupt, knocking demons back.
And then, for good measure, I lob another spell—one that lights the room on fire.
I’ll apologize to Memnon later. This is the second time I’ve burned one of his houses. I try not to think about the books that will catch like kindling, books that are already dear to me.
“There!” I call out as the flames leap and spread. “Bet it feels homier now!”
And then, with an unhinged cackle, Nero and I fly off into the night.