HUDSON
NINE
Scooping Lailah up, I noticed the weapons in her hands had dissipated into golden light, staying hidden until she needed them again. I had wondered if she would be given her own set of blessed weapons, and now I had my answer.
“How the fuck did we not sense a greater demon?” I growled as we made our way back to the Jeep.
Beth was going to be furious; she hadn’t wanted us to take Lailah with us tonight.
I’d thought it would help to get her out and see the other side of what we do as Elementi.
We were warriors, but they had been treating her more like a lab experiment, keeping her in controlled environments.
That wasn’t real life, and we lived in a far more dangerous world than anyone was telling her.
“It had to be cloaked somehow, there’s no other explanation,” Jay said, opening the passenger door for me and holding Lailah until I got seated. “It’s a trap.”
“That’s what I was thinking as well, but how would they know that we had Lailah with us?” I mused, holding her tightly against me.
Her body still shook with the poison running through her, but I had managed to flush a large portion of it with my water power.
I just hoped that I had gotten to her fast enough that there wouldn’t be any after-effects.
In a normal person, demon poison could make them go mental and start attacking people for no reason.
In some cases I had read, it changed the way they thought and would cause hallucinations.
“Beth, you need to call Mr. Creed. We got ambushed by demons, and Lailah got poisoned,” Jay said into his phone. Not waiting to get yelled at, he hung up and tossed the phone on the dash.
“How mad do you think she’s going to be?” I asked, brushing stray hairs out of Lailah’s face.
Jay didn’t answer, and a couple minutes later we pulled up to the front door.
It was tossed open, and Brayden came rushing out to meet us.
I knew the two of them had gotten super close lately, but the panic in his eyes told me just how much she meant to him.
Ripping open my door, he pulled her from my arms and cradled her like she was the most precious thing to him.
“Get her to her room, Mr. Creed should be here any second,” Beth instructed. “Do you know what kind of demon got her?”
“It was a greater demon, seeker class, just like the one that took over Mallory,” Jay answered.
Taking the steps two at a time, I was on Brayden’s heels.
Guilt for endangering her gnawed at my stomach, seeing how pale she was.
How had I not noticed she had wandered off from us?
I should have just ended the lesser demon’s life, ignoring what Jay wanted.
This was all my fault; I let my quest for knowledge endanger Lailah. Some guardian warrior I was.
Brayden laid her out on her bed and formed one of his blessed daggers to cut open her jeans on her wounded leg.
Two long gouges circled her calf. They weren’t bleeding, instead looking almost like they had been charred.
The black-colored poison still seeped out of it a little bit, but with holy water and a blessing, it would be fully cleansed.
Jay stood by the door, his eyes fixated on Lailah. I knew that Jay felt protective of her—he had since the first time he found her lost on a run. Even though he would never voice it, I could see the disappointment in himself, letting her get hurt by forcing himself to keep distance between them.
“What the fuck happened to Trouble?!” Parker asked, bursting into the room with Micah and Mr. Creed right behind him.
Parker made right for the bed and sat near her head, looking over the sight before him.
Anger flashed in his eyes as he reached out to touch her but then thought better of it.
Micah carried the items Mr. Creed would need, setting them on the nightstand before he turned his gaze to Lailah.
He was another one that was holding himself back from being close to her.
Jay, I understood—he didn’t ever interact with people outside of a select few.
Micah, on the other hand, seemed to be irritated that she even existed, using his anger to drive a wedge between them.
“If you’re going to stay in the room, I need you to step away from the bed and leave me room to work,” Mr. Creed instructed, pulling off his suit coat and laying it over the back of one of the armchairs in her room.
Mr. Creed smoothed his black slicked-back hair as he undid his cufflinks and rolled up his white shirt.
I often wondered why a more rotund man would wear a three-piece suit when it didn’t really flatter his shape.
Everything about him reminded me of a pig, especially his squashed nose and his small round eyes.
He was the best at his craft and knowledge of demons, which was why he was here at the moment.
Mr. Creed turned to look at all of us standing in a semi-circle around Lailah’s bed. “No matter how painful it sounds, I need you all to stay out of my way. Removing demon poison is not a pleasant process, but it must be done. I need your word you lot won’t try to stop me from healing her.”
The five of us all looked at each other and nodded. Looking back at Mr. Creed, I placed my hand over my heart and bowed. “We give you our Knight’s oath that we will not hinder you from your work.”
Mr. Creed huffed and turned back to his ingredients.
Holy water, myrrh, and olive leaves were placed in a bowl, where he ground them up into a paste.
Sliding a thick towel under her leg, he took the concoction and drew a series of runes around the wound, each one glowing with her golden power once it was complete.
I could see her stirring, her head turning from side to side, her fists and jaw clenching.
No sound came out of her, even if it was obvious to us how much pain she was in.
Once he was done with the runes, he grabbed the vial of holy water and poured it over her wounds.
This time she sat up, screaming and fighting against Mr. Creed’s hold on her. “Micah, come hold her down for me; her body is fighting me more than I anticipated.”
Micah walked over and slipped in behind her, holding her tightly to his chest. He turned to look out the patio doors, not wanting to see the pain written all over Lailah’s face.
Everything in me wanted to toss Mr. Creed out of the room and pummel him for hurting her, but my oath kept me rooted.
It was the only thing keeping any of us from acting on our need to protect Lailah.
“Not much longer now; it would have been much worse if Hudson hadn’t cleaned out as much as he could,” Mr. Creed muttered as he poured more holy water on her skin.
The blackened, charred look of the skin was gone, along with the black matter oozing out of the wound. Now it looked pink and raw, as if it was a burn that was weeks old instead of minutes. Eventually, Lailah’s cries turned into whimpers, tears streaming down her face as she clung to Micah’s arm.
“Brayden, I need you to place the blade of your blessed weapon on the wound so I can see if it’s been purified enough,” Mr. Creed instructed, stepping away from her.
Dagger in hand, Brayden slowly lowered the weapon to her skin. When nothing happened, we all took a deep breath. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had been holding it in; all of us were a nervous wreck.
“Very good, my work here is done. She will need lots of sleep and food when she wakes up. Don’t be surprised if she doesn’t remember any of this—the effects of demon blood present as memory loss most of the time,” Mr. Creed said, wiping off his hands.
We continued to stay silent as he packed up all of his things and left the room.
Unable to hold myself back any longer, I approached Lailah.
She lay there, passed out, sweat beaded on her brow, her curly hair damp from the pain.
Micah looked torn between not wanting to move and knowing that he couldn’t stay there.
Brayden saved him as he cradled her, freeing Micah to leave.
I pulled back the covers so we could get her tucked in.
“We should have Beth or Cami clean her up,” Parker whispered and gestured to the state of her clothes covered in mud and other substances.
“Good call. I’ll go get one of them,” I said, needing to leave the room while I still could.