Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Another scream erupts from somewhere deep in the confusing labyrinth of dried cornstalk walls. We’re all scrambling to find a path to get where we need to go. Rows of brittle beige stalks blur past, shadows deepening as we plunge deeper into the maze.
Panicked cries echo, closer by the moment, ending on a ragged edge that fuels my adrenaline. I track it, twisting through narrow paths until I skid on damp earth and nearly mow down a terrified teenager clutching the arm of his sobbing girlfriend.
“Asher, get them out of here.” I point as I run past, knowing he’ll take care of it.
After another couple of frantic turns and I’m close enough to blast through the dried cornstalk rows. With my arms up, I duck my face and plow through the papery walls.
It doesn’t take long before I slide to a stop in the clearing that marks the center of the maze.
My heart pounds inside my ribs as my mind tries to catch up with the bizarre scene. “What the hell?”
A woman is writhing on the hard, frosted ground as a spidery silhouette stretches and contorts over her. Another figure—her husband maybe—is flat on his back, fighting off the attack of another demon minion.
The part that’s really throwing me for a loop is that these two aren’t wispy, iridescent soul-siphoning predators. These two are corporeal.
They are visible and physically attacking these people.
My hands fly up as I access the wisdom of my ancestors, searching for the right spell to stop this attack. But before I can even utter the first syllable, the demons melt into the bodies of their prey, and the couple falls still.
“What the fuck just happened?” Orion asks.
“Possession.” Sebastian joins us, raising his hands as he hurriedly traces sigils in the air. “They likely saw that we were containing the others and are taking another tack.”
“Can the blue bottles pull them out of those people?” I reach into my pocket, my fingers closing over one of my remaining spelled vessels.
The possessed man goes from lying deathly still on his back to flipping into the air and landing like a disjointed zombie in a superhero crouch.
“Fuck me,” Asher gasps, rejoining us. “Now that sleeping ever again has been removed from my future plans, what do we do?”
The man telegraphs his intention to bolt, and Sebastian throws up both his hands, a ring of spirit fire encircling the two demons. “Nice try, asshole. You’re not going anywhere until you return that body.”
The woman twitches and twists until she’s on her feet, but it’s obvious the two of them are having mobility issues getting used to their host bodies.
“Are the people still inside them?” I ask, searching the faces of the others. “Are they aware, or is their consciousness pushed down like in the movies?”
“They’re still in there,” Sebastian assures us. “And if we do our job right, we can save them.”
The thought of people trapped in their own bodies being possessed by usurper demons makes me both furious and terrified.
If we get this wrong, what happens to them? These people have families. They live here and know people we all know. How do we explain this if it goes wrong?
“Poppy?” Asher is at my side looking worried. “Back in the game, baby girl. You zoned out there for a second.”
I blink and give myself an inward shake. “Yeah, sorry. It’s just a lot.”
“It is, but you’ve got this. You’re part of the paranormal dream team, remember?”
Right. I suppose that’s true. It wasn’t anything we planned, but the six of us are the only thing standing between Emberwood and a major demon incursion.
I snap back to the moment at hand and take in the others working to contain the possessed couple and rid them of their unwanted counterparts.
“Okay. Six against two. Those odds aren’t so bad.” But the moment I say the words, the cornstalks at the edge of the clearing begin to sway, and more figures emerge.
Six. Eight. A dozen. Some are in demon forms, and some are human, their movements jerky and wrong, their arms twitching, their heads tilted at unnatural angles.
Shit. “That is totally on me. I jinxed us. My bad.”
Calling on the wisdom of my ancestors, I allow my instincts to take charge. Power bursts from me in a conflagration of spirit fire, and I focus on two of the demons that haven’t taken a human host.
The attack is quick and lethal, sending the screeching and burning beings recoiling as they dissolve into a heap of embers and ash.
I’m rewarded with a moment of burgeoning hope until movement in the corner of my eye draws my attention to a panicked kid running smack into the middle of our battle.
I’m not the only who notices him. A stick-bug demon with spindly, jointed arms turns and moves. The kid is on the other side of the clearing…
I’ll never get to him in time.
“Rowan!” I point to the horror unfolding.
Her response is immediate, shadows pulling up from the ground like living things, wrapping around the legs of the stick bug demon.
It stumbles forward but doesn’t fall. Instead, it lunges toward the crying child with its daggered fingers outstretched like claws.
I cast an earth shield wall in time to block it—barely—and the impact rattles through my bones. “Asher, get that kid out of here!”
The possessed woman turns, snarling. The flicker of her soul is buried beneath the parasitic presence, but I sense it. It’s dim but fighting to survive. “We can’t kill them, so how do we save the people?”
Asher scoops the kid up in his arms and beats feet out of the clearing, just as another possessed figure shambles in from another maze corridor.
Wylder slams his palms to the earth. Cornstalks erupt around us, thick and ropey, weaving into barriers that pen three more attackers. “We need the demons to abandon their hosts. Can you sour the milk somehow? Make the spirits strong enough to eject the demons?”
“How would I do that?” What I know about demon possession could fit on the head of a pin. We need someone who actually knows about—
My breath catches. “S’Nark! I need you!”
Sebastian is battling like a phenom across the clearing. He’s glowing with the same ice-blue energy of my spirit fire, and I realize how wholly he commands our affinity.
It’s both humbling and deflating. People are depending on me to defend them like Sebastian can, and while I’m decent at basic witchcraft, I’m barely a novice with my affinity.
My momentary identity crisis is shattered as a demon-possessed man in a flannel shirt breaks through Wylder’s barrier wall.
Cornstalks snap like bones as he staggers free of his confines. My skin crawls at the way his jaw hangs slack, and black ooze drips from his mouth. That can’t be good. Where the hell is that ichor coming from?
But I have no time to dwell, because the demon minion inside is puppeteering his body forward with horrifying speed.
And he’s coming right at me.
“S’Nark!!”
Rowan intercepts, shadow tendrils yanking the demon lumberjack backward. But in no way does that solve my problem, because two more rush me from the side.
I blast spirit fire without thinking, but then remember the people trapped by the demons and pull the flames short. The intensity of my fire sears the air and drives them back a couple of steps, but it’s not enough.
A crushing grip yanks my wrist, and an icy ache floods my veins. It’s sharp and draining, and I realize this is what it feels like to have a demon siphoning me.
Oh, shit. I kick my attacker to free myself, but can’t break his hold. My knees buckle, and I feel my energy being drained away.
A roar splits the night.
Orion shifts mid-leap, his human form exploding into white fur, black stripes, and corded muscle. Four hundred pounds of predator slams into my attacker, flinging him to the cornstalks like a rag doll.
I let my head drop for a moment and gather the strength to get back to my feet. Asher is there in a heartbeat, lifting me to stand and steadying me. “Are you okay, Pops?”
I draw a deep breath and squeeze his arm. “Yeah, I will be. Man, being siphoned sucks ass.”
“On your back, Poppy!” Sebastian shouts.
I spin in time to throw up a bubble shield. The possessed lumberjack has launched out of the corn and is coming at me again, impossibly fast.
“They’re not stopping!” Rowan shouts, her shadows coiling around three at once. Sweat beads on her forehead. “There are too many!”
Wylder’s plants surge again, vines snaking around limbs, pinning bodies. But the demons thrash and tear through them. They’re relentless.
One woman wrenches free and charges Asher. He curses and straight-arms her. The hit spins her head and sends her to the ground. “Sorry. I’m so sorry, lady.”
My boots thud against the packed ground as I rush to her, reaching for the flickering threads of her spirit again, desperate. If I can feel their souls, maybe I can untangle the parasite from the host like I unraveled the siphoning threads.
Is that possible? I’m reaching for anything, but at least it’s an idea.
The woman Asher just grounded is dazed when I get to her. I grab at the darkness wrapped around her essence and pull. “Reveal. Reject. Restore.”
I pour all my intention into those three words. “Reveal. Reject. Restore.”
The woman writhes, striking out at me, and I erect my personal shield. “Reveal. Reject. Restore.”
The demon lets off a shriek that scrapes the inside of my skull and warmth drips down my lip. I swipe under my nose with the back of my wrist, not surprised to see the back of my hand covered in blood. But if she’s fighting back, that’s a good sign, right?
So, I continue. “Reveal. Reject. Restore.”
She claws at me, her shiny acrylic nails snapping off against my shield. She screams again, and pain lances through my skull like broken glass.
The demon inside her has some sort of psionic attack, and I have no clue how to defend against it. Hopefully, she’s not dissolving my brain to mush.
Something crashes into me from behind. I sprawl forward, the meat of my palms scraping against a jutting rock on the muddy ground. A second woman looms over me, her mouth open too wide, more of that black ooze spilling out.
She tackles me, knocking me from my hands and knees, and flipping me over to straddle my hips. Her hands lock around my throat, and I clamor, grabbing at her wrists.
I get nowhere.
Crap. Does being possessed make them super strong?
Orion’s there in a flash of white, slamming her off me and sailing through the air with the swipe of a paw the size of my head. But then three more close in on him, coordinated and vicious.
Sebastian hurls a bolt of crackling spirit energy that sends one flying. “We’re losing ground!”
He’s right. We’re surrounded.
The corn maze is now a trap instead of cover. From every direction, possessed townspeople swarm in at us, their jerky and uncoordinated gaits making my skin crawl.
Rowan staggers, her shadows noticeably less opaque and powerful. Wylder is bleeding from a gash above his eye. Asher is backed into a corner, breathing heavy, kicking anyone that comes near him or the two teenage girls huddled together on the ground behind him.
“We need to retreat!” Sebastian shouts.
But there’s nowhere to go.
A man tackles me from the side. We hit the ground hard, and the air punches out of my lungs. His hand comes down on my face as his fingers dig into my forehead and temples.
The pressure of his grip threatens to cave in my skull until my street survival instincts kick in. Bending my knees, I plant the soles of my boots on the ground close to my butt, and I buck my hips as hard as I can.
When the demon pitches forward, I roll. Black spots dance across my vision, but the pressure vanishes.
The man collapses to the ground beside me, and I kick his side, pushing to get some distance from him.
“Ow, fuck.” The indignant tone of his comment has me scrambling around to face him. “That hurt, bitch.”
He looks human again. Pissed off, disoriented, but definitely in control of his body.
Around us, every possessed body drops to the ground like marionettes with cut strings. A moment later, they’re all sitting up, groaning but aware.
The demons are gone.
Just... gone.
I drag myself upright, chest heaving, and scan the surroundings, searching for my friends.
Sebastian is helping a woman who is shaking and sobbing into his shirt.
Wylder staggers, his hair matted with the blood caking the side of his face.
Rowan sways, then takes a knee rather than assplanting.
Orion’s ghost tiger disappears down one of the maze pathways.
And Asher limps toward me looking as confused as the rest of the people. “What the hell just happened? Where did they go, and why would they leave? They were kicking our asses.”
I stare at the fallen townspeople, at the empty demon hosts that have been left behind. “I don’t know.”
But something about Asher’s question strikes a chord with Sebastian. He straightens, his face pale, expression tight. “Guys, we need to get to our cars. Now!”