Chapter Four #5
The carrion crows descended on us. Hooking their unnaturally large claws around me, Dora, and Nik, they lifted us into the air.
I was shrieking my head off.
Soaring over the running demons and the black-stone turrets—my red clown shoes skimmed nothing but burning air and my assured death if these crows decided to drop their baggage.
“Forest-speak!” Nik shouted over my screeching. “My mothers taught me all the languages of the creatures that perch on their branches, nest in their trunks, and scurry over their roots. Comes in handy, right?”
“Ahhhh!” was my reply.
“Woo!” Dora had three crows on each arm and a baby crow trying to nest in her hair, and she was loving every minute of it. “This is awesome! Char!” she cried, snapping my head around. “Char, put your hands out like this!”
I snapped out of my freak-out, gaping at her. “Char?”
Not Agata. Not Melody. Not Eustace. Did Dora just say her nickname for me?
“Nik, you too,” Dora cried, once again saying the correct name. “Arms out like this. We’re flying!”
Sharing a look between the three of us, and a glance up to the beady-eyed birds that tried to kill me... I put my arms out.
“Woo!” we whooped, laughing and carrying on as we soared through the skies—flying over the tall, imposing, and in so many ways, beautiful manor.
Every minute of every day in hell had been terrible... except for this one.
Our laughter echoed across the scorched plains. Holding my arms out, I shared in the joy with my sister, and my friend, and I flew.
“Yeah!” I cried, giggling as a baby crow came for my head too. “You guys aren’t so bad when you’re not pecking me to death. This is so cool—”
Everything winked out.
In an instant, the crows, the sweeping turrets, and the dead and barren wasteland spreading before me were gone.
I pushed up on my knees, blinking to find myself suddenly in a space I’d never forget. Only a month before, Tristan took me into this courtyard to show me the dead and maimed bodies of the demons my own mother sacrificed on the statue of the half man, half goat.
“Marie?” Dora peeled herself off the black cobblestones. “What’s going on? Why aren’t we flying anymore?”
Kazuya, Pravat, and Bruno stepped out from behind the statue. Something dark, sludgy, and cold coated my heart as Kazuya grinned.
“Take a guess.”
“Dora!” I snatched her hand, yanking her up. “Run!”
“Run where, mortal?”
Kazuya snapped his fingers and a shower of cobblestones ripped off the ground and flew to the doors.
It was like watching a DIY home improvement video on fast motion. Before my eyes, the cobblestones lay at the threshold and stacked themselves in rapid, precise succession. Where there were once doors—was now nothing but hard, bumpy, impenetrable walls.
We weren’t going anywhere.
“Stay back,” I screamed—whipping around and shoving Dora behind me. “Leave us alone! We haven’t done anything to you!”
“Haven’t done anything to us?” Kazuya laughed a strange, almost purring laugh from his feline maw.
“That mutt beat us within an inch of our lives all to keep your precious pussy to himself. And then,” he crowed as the three of them spread out, blocking every path, “because of you, he didn’t kill us! ”
“Didn’t kill you?” I cried, whipping between them. “Are you— You’re mad that I stopped him from killing you?!”
“You should’ve just pissed in our fucking faces,” he hissed, his furry face twisting into something unrecognizable.
“It would’ve been less embarrassing! Instead, the whole class saw us get our asses handed to us by a filthy mutt who only spared us because a sneaky mortal bitch told him to! We’re laughingstocks!”
I could only gape at him. “Then maybe you should get mad at the people doing the laughing! Hating someone for saving your life is as stupid as throwing someone you just met off a cliff for no damn reason. You’re insane!”
That terrible Cheshire cat’s grin curled into his cheeks. “No one’s going to be calling us stupid, insane, or weak when we’ve got something that no one’s had in hell for the last three hundred years.
“The power from a human sacrifice.”
My nails pierced half-moons in my palms, coating the tips of my fingernails in blood. Eyes darting left and right, I looked for a way out—something. Anything!
“But first...” Taking a step closer, Kazuya popped the top button of his scorched blue polo shirt. “I’ve been fucking cunts with fish heads, monkey tails, rat claws, and cheap glamours for too long. Today”—his red eyes flashed—“I’m having the real thing.”
The baying of dozens of greedy, slobbering voices fighting to rape me pummeled my ears.
I shook—eyes filling as I looked into Kazuya’s and saw that it wouldn’t matter if I begged, if I cried, if I pleaded, or if I appealed to the humanity he didn’t have.
This was a dead and empty husk before me—devoid of compassion or empathy.
This... was a demon.
Kazuya closed the distance and reached for the top button of my bellbottoms.
I smashed him across the face with my phone. “Noooo!” I screeched, and flashed out—kicking him square in the chest. “Get away from us!”
Kazuya rocked back—the surprise hit popping him off his feet.
Flying back, he flipped in the air and skidded across the ground on his soles—recovering quick and fast like the cat he was. He launched off his haunches, a furry humanoid missile that I had no chance to avoid.
He slammed into my chest, knocking me back into Dora and blowing us both off our feet. “Pravat, hold her legs! Bruno, get the sister!”
“No! Leave her alone!”
Bruno snatched Dora by the hair, dragging her screaming away from me.
I scrambled after them when a hard, vicious blow struck my stomach—knocking the wind out of me and shocking my system to the core.
“Agh!” Red bled into my eyes, pain singing all the way up my abdomen. There was no time to recover before one hundred and seventy pounds of tiger demon sat on my chest—pinning me firmly to the ground.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Get off! Get off of me!” Desperation shredded my voice. “Let my sister go! She didn’t do anything to you. Leave her alone!”
Hands grabbed hold of my legs and tore my pants down. Kazuya wasn’t listening to me. None of them were. My cries fell on the most uncaring, sociopathic ears.
Bruno yanked Dora onto her feet, only to slap her across the face. Her head snapped around and she spun like a top—collapsing to the ground once more.
“STOP IT!” I went nuts—thrashing, clawing, kicking, and punching. “Get off,” I screamed, pummeling Pravat’s back and smashing the phone into his spine.
He didn’t even react, and in that moment, Ronin’s face flashed before my eyes.
I didn’t hesitate another second. I turned it on and dialed the only saved contact.
He picked up after a single ring. “This is a surprise. What do—?”
“Yes!” I screamed into the phone, blood swallowing my vision. “Yes! My answer is yes!”
Kazuya’s long, sharp teeth shredded my underwear.
“Stop it! Get off!”
Dora’s screams battered my eardrums.
“Ronin, help me! Oh, gods, please, help me!”
Something hard and wet pressed against my entrance.
“HELP!”
“Charlotte, where are you!” For the first time since I met the perpetually bored and sleepy demon, urgency laced his voice. “Tell me where you are!”
“The courtyard with the goat-head man!” I kicked wildly, connecting with something hard and fleshy and ripping a grunt from Kazuya. “Where the first five demons were killed—!”
Boom!
Light exploded in the courtyard—carried on a tidal wave of heat and static charge. I could’ve almost thought it was lightning if not for the fact that I’d never seen a single rain cloud or anything approaching a weatherly atmosphere since entering hell.
No. This wasn’t the light and fury from Zeus.
As Ronin dropped from the skies—the force of it crumbling the stone beneath his feet and lighting the fire in his eyes—I knew one thing with absolute certainty. There were no gods in this courtyard... and none were coming.
Electricity sparked and crackled off Ronin’s skin and horns—black and unnatural as the dark magic running in his veins. Before my eyes, his tempting, handsome wrapping melted away.
Gone was his perfect nose, pouty lips, and booby-trapped ruby eyes. And in their place, was a beast.
Ronin exploded out of his human-safe wrapper.
Ripping away the handsome visage, a hairy, almost bat-like face snarled down at us.
Pale skin darkened to a dark, mottled gray that grew and rippled under grotesquely huge muscles.
Claws ripped from his fingertips, and burst through his boots.
Hair that was once long and lush became scraggly, limp strands hanging around foot-long, lethal-tipped horns.
He was horrifying. He was terrifying. He was—
“Argh!” Roaring, Ronin swung his massive hand and slapped Bruno, Kazuya, and Pravat aside—sending them flying into the stone wall.
Their skulls burst apart on the unforgiving surface, leaving nothing but black blood and brain matter.
He’s amazing.
A heavy, profound silence settled over the courtyard—as if hell itself was acknowledging all the blood that had been spilled in this place in my name.
Ronin shrunk down, quickly returning to the sleek, smirking, handsome devil that I knew—minus the perfect look. His hair was a mess and his clothes were shredded, but he only had eyes for me.
“Charlotte, are you okay?” He rushed over, snapping his fingers.
In a blink, I was fully clothed in a long, but simple black dress with blue flowers embroidered on the trim. Ronin reached for me, but I twisted away, turning on Adora.
“Dora?” I croaked. My voice was shredded. “Are you okay?”
My sister blinked at me—her swollen and bruised face soaked with tears. “What’s going on, Tarik? Why... did he do that? Why did he hit me?”
I don’t know what wounded me deeper—the confusion on her face, the pain in her small voice, or the trust in her eyes that I’d have the words to make it all better. To help her make sense of this.