Chapter 24 #2
I flip it over in my palm, then press the chalk to the asphalt and start drawing. Quick, loose strokes. A circle first, then the directional glyphs spiraling outward. The locator sigil Mom taught me when I was thirteen and kept losing my phone.
"Okay, I'm officially concerned," Asher says.
I finish the last glyph and sit back on my heels.
"I can feel my connection to Tharuzel." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "It's tugging at me. And I need to know where he is."
Orion crouches beside me, studying the sigil. "Following a blood-bond isn't exactly a great idea, Poppy. Especially if it's trying to lure you somewhere."
I drop the stone onto the center of the sigil.
For a second, nothing happens.
Then the stone bounces once—twice—and settles. The pointed end swivels sharply to face east.
I pick it up, set it in my palm, and turn it sideways. The stone resists for a heartbeat, then the pointed end snaps back toward the same direction. Like a compass finding north.
I stand and brush the chalk dust off my fingers, leaving smudges on my jeans. "Anyone who wants to go on a demon hunt field trip get back in the truck."
Asher plants his hands on his hips. "Is following a demonic GPS signal really the best idea right now? No plan, no backup—"
I meet his gaze. "Probably not, but I can feel him stronger than ever before. If he’s becoming corporeal, don’t you think it would be good to know where his hideout is?”
He searches my face for a long moment. Then exhales, loud and dramatic. "Fine. But if we get captured and tortured, I'm blaming you."
"Deal."
This time I take shotgun, Rowan and Orion wedged into the backseat. I hold the stone flat on my palm, watching the pointed end. "Straight. Keep going straight."
Asher backs us out of the driveway and follows my pointed finger. The stone stays locked on its target, and so do we. I can’t help but think that it’s both good and bad that I’m able to track him on the physical plane.
Yes, it’s good that I can use our connection and find him, but it means he’s a solid enough presence to be found.
We drive in silence. The streets feel too quiet. No joggers. No kids on bikes. Even the traffic lights seem dimmer, like the town's holding its breath.
"Turn left at the intersection."
Asher flicks on the turn signal. The stone shifts fractionally, correcting our course.
The tugging grows stronger. Each pulse thrums deeper, resonating in my bones. My chest feels tight—not from panic, but from recognition. Like my body knows what's coming before my brain catches up.
"Right here. The next right."
We turn onto a narrow road that curves past the old fairgrounds, and the air changes. It hangs heavy, closing in on us.
Then, the wind falls still.
Completely.
The trees stop moving. Leaves hang suspended. Even the truck's exhaust seems to curl and stall instead of drifting away.
"Okay, that's creepy," Rowan whispers.
My skin prickles. Demonic energy crawls over my arms, raising goosebumps. The bond thrums inside me, calling on the darkness I’ve locked away.
For a brief moment, I feel him—brutal and arrogant.
Tharuzel is no longer a shadow of darkness locked in a pocket realm. He exists in a state of flesh, bone, and hunger, confident he will break free of the outer ward at any time.
I gasp, backing away.
"Poppy?" Orion leans forward. "What just happened?"
I swallow against the metallic taste flooding my mouth.
“Asher, we’re too close. Take us back to the corner. Orion, drop a pin and call the Brigade.”
Asher shifts the truck into reverse and turns to look out the back window and back us up. The farther we get, the better I feel. Once we’re back at the corner, Asher pulls the truck onto the graveled shoulder and stops at the mouth of the access road. “Okay, P, what’s going on?”
“Tharuzel’s gained his physical form... and I think he’s about to break the outer ward."
"Shit," Asher breathes.
After another look, I realize exactly where we are.
The building, half-hidden behind a stand of skeletal trees, was shut down when I was a kid. Its brick walls are stained with decades of neglect. Its windows were long ago shattered and boarded up. The waterwheel sits frozen, wrapped in vines.
"He’s at the old mill," I whisper.
The stone’s pull is still insisting we move closer, so I end the spell. My hands tremble, my knuckles white around the chalk-dusted edges.
“Now what?” Asher asks.
“We pray Mica comes through with weapons… like in the next couple of hours?”
Asher chuckles. “Yeah, that would be great, but somehow I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”
I sigh. “Yeah, me neither.”
Twenty minutes later, the Life and Death Brigade begins to gather. Wylder eases his Jeep onto the graveled shoulder and stops behind Asher’s truck. He and Reid jump out, and I wave them over.
“Hey, are you all right?” Wylder hurries to join us and looks me over. The relief that blooms in his gaze once he assures himself I’m unharmed is super sweet.
I squeeze his hand and lean in to give him a quick kiss. “Other than being freaked out by the pull of Tharuzel thrumming inside my chest, I’m fine.”
“Is that how you ended up here?”
“That and a locator spell, yeah.”
Clara and Izzy pull up next in Izzy’s green VW bug, and then Sebastian’s black McLaren rounds the corner and crawls to the side of the road to avoid kicking up stones.
The snap of energy beside me brings S’Nark into the mix in his bat-winged gremlin form.
“Wow, dude, you look so much better.” I resist the urge to touch him. I may have cuddled him a little when he was in pain and vulnerable, but I doubt he would welcome it now.
Instead, I hold up a fist to bump. “A few days roasting in the fireplace has done you wonders. Welcome back to the land of the living.”
He leaves me hanging on the fist bump and gives me a droll stare. “What is so important that you needed to call me here? I was in the middle of terrorizing the neighbor's cat."
I’ll feel bad about that later, but right now I address the concerned gazes of the gathered group. "Tharuzel has gained enough of a presence on the physical plane that I can now sense him. We tracked him here to the old mill.”
Sebastian frowns. “Tracked him how? If the connection is strong and goes both ways, he might sense you, too. He could know we’re here, right now.”
I hold up my hands. “I considered that, but think we’re good. As soon as I realized where he was hiding, we backed up until the bond settled.”
Before he responds, Orion waves to catch our attention. “Something’s happening. Guys, come see.”
The eight of us gather on the side of the road and follow Orion’s pointed finger. A blue van has just pulled up in front of the old mill, and two men in black have come outside to open the doors at the back.
“What are they doing?” Clara asks.
Izzy huffs. “I can’t see. Can anyone see?”
I cast an enhanced sight spell and shift around the front of Asher’s truck to get a better vantage point. “Two men dressed in black seem to be unloading the back of the truck.”
“Unloading what?” Asher asks.
Orion lets a long growl rumble at the back of his throat. “People. It looks like Tharuzel’s minions have taken human captives.”
The memory of Tharuzel’s hunger grips at my belly. “I got the sense that he was ravenous earlier. He’s taking form, but it’s taken a lot out of him.”
Izzy gasps. “So he plans on eating people from Emberwood?”
The more I think about it, the more sure I am. “He needs strength. He’ll consume them as soon as he’s fully corporeal."
Sebastian rubs a hand over his mouth. “How many did you see?”
“Five, I think,” Orion says.
Wylder leans back against the bumper of the truck and curses. “That means that whether we have a way to battle him or not, we can’t hang back if people are being harvested.”
Clara looks at us as if we’ve lost our minds. “So, you think we should try to get them back without weapons? What about Mica? We should give her more time, shouldn’t we?”
Rowan opens a bag of chips and offers them around. “We can’t sit on the sidelines simply because we’re under-gunned. We all have abilities. Surely, we can come up with something that doesn’t involve Tharuzel going full nom-nom on the neighbors.”
Sebastian crosses his arms. "Without the right weapons, we could just be sacrificing ourselves for the buffet."
"But Rowan’s right,” Wylder chimes in. “We can’t just leave people to die because we don’t have a way to win the fight. We still need to fight.”
"They might already be dead by the time we get in there.
" Reid's voice cuts through the noise. When all eyes turn to him, he shrugs without apology. “A major demon is coming to life on our plane, and his minions have set up a buffet line. There’s no saying he didn’t chow down the moment they were taken inside.”
I blink. “Dude, that’s morbid.”
“But not entirely inaccurate,” Sebastian says.
I hate to even consider that as a possibility, but when dealing with demons, things don’t end well. “Then we proceed as if this is a rescue mission until we know for sure that it’s not.”
“Also morbid, but accurate,” Asher says.
I press my palm against my sternum, where the darkness thrums inside me, urging me forward. "I feel him fighting the outer ward. Once he’s through, he’ll consume those people for strength.”
"Then we still have time to wait for Mica." Clara’s hands twist together. "She has access to the Cinderheart Crucible. She might be forging the weapons we need as we speak.”
“But there’s no way to know for sure,” Wylder says.
"We've tried locating her," Clara interrupts. "The forge only exists on the earth plane when it chooses to manifest here. We haven’t been able to track it at all since it took Mica."
"Maybe we portal-hop with Sebastian again until we find it—"
Sebastian shakes his head. “That would take time we don’t have. And, without Mica, I have no way to track the forge. Besides, I need to be here for the wards. We’re past the point of them containing him, but at least if I’m here, I can keep him locked away a little longer.”
I hold up my hands. “Okay, enough. We’re getting nowhere. Let’s focus on what we can do, and hope that if Mica can get those weapons to us, she will.”
Wylder meets my gaze. "Tharuzel has hostages, so we need to move in. We may not have demon-vanquishing weapons, but we have Wiccan abilities, and each of us has specialized affinities. We’re not helpless."
Agreed.
Then something about the blood-bond connection I share with Tharuzel shifts. The sensation hits like ice water down my spine—a fundamental change in the texture of the magic binding me to him.
Where before it felt distant, muffled, now it sharpens into crystalline clarity. I throw my hand up. "Wait. Something is happening.”
The group falls silent.
I close my eyes, following the vibration of the dark tether to get a better feel of what’s happening. And when I find it, nausea churns violently in my gut and spews bile up the back of my throat.
Tharuzel’s presence is solid and real. His body might have originated as a perversion of shadow and stolen vitality, but he’s manifested in the physical world as flesh and bone.
My eyes snap open.
“We’re out of time. He’s free of the pocket realm and fully physical." My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
“Which means he’s going to eat those people.” Asher pushes off the side of his truck. “Time to get our groove on.”
I turn to Orion. "Call your aunt and alert the pack. If we get our asses kicked, there’s a good chance Tharuzel’s hunger will spill over into Emberwood."
"On it." He's already pulling out his phone.
I scan the group. “If any of you want to hang back and avoid the head-on attack, I totally get it. No fault. No foul. We’re under-gunned and facing an opponent we have no idea how to take down. I believe in what we’re building, but I get that it’s early days.”
Mostly I’m worried about Clara and Izzy. They don’t have the same aggressive drive as the rest of us, and I don’t want them to do anything they don’t feel ready for.
S’Nark stretches his leathery, black wings, grinning with too many teeth. “I've been dreaming about payback. Count me in, sparkles.”
No one else says anything, so I put my faith in them that they know what they’re facing.
“Orion, what did Eliza say?”
“I dropped a pin and the pack is on the way. They’ll start arriving any time.”
I nod. “All right, let’s do this.”