Chapter 24
twenty-four
LIZZY
“Nap time’s over, witch. Wake up.”
My eyes blink open just in time to catch a bucket of water to the face.
I cough and sputter, my mind ripped out of unconsciousness. I’m on my ass, propped against the wall outside the study, soaked. My hands are tied behind my back. Brendan is gone, though I can hear him grandstanding downstairs. Something about “the magical moment we’ve all been dreaming of.”
I can’t speak for the other guests, but my personal dream involves Brendan choking on his own dick in front of a party full of stuffed shirts. Somehow, I doubt that’s the plan.
“Get up.” Someone kicks my leg. Some fucking goon I haven’t seen before, holding a now- empty bucket.
“Where’s Merrick?” I choke out. “If you hurt—”
“I said, on your feet, Blondie.” He grabs the front of my dress, jerking me upright and tearing the fabric.
“That’s vintage, asshole.” A swift, hard kick to the knee, and down he goes. I take off at a bolt, but he’s already on his feet again, lumbering after me.
He catches me just as I reach the stairs. No more bucket.
Only a gun.
“The harder you fight, the more it’s gonna hurt.” He clocks me in the temple.
Stars dance before my eyes, my head lolling like a balloon on a string. Whatever they injected me with before with is still coursing through my blood; my body feels heavy, my tongue bitter.
“Downstairs. Now.” He grabs a fistful of my hair as we descend, his gun shoved into my back, and I wonder what Killroy pays him, this fucking Dollar Store gangster.
I’m about to inquire, but then we reach the ground floor and I hear it again—the grating sound of Brendan’s voice, like some kind of motivational speaker preparing to walk on hot coals.
I don’t hear the party crowd, but I can feel them; the energy is buzzing with anticipation. Excitement.
Bloodlust.
“Keep walking, whore.” Dollar Store shoves me into the ballroom, which since my last twirl around the place has been transformed from dance hall to… whatever the fuck this is.
It’s standing room only, stuffed to the gills with all the fancy party people.
At least, I assume it’s them. Hard to tell for sure.
They’re all wearing hooded, cobalt-blue robes, jostling to get a look at whatever’s going on up front.
The band has left the stage, but there’s Brendan, dressed in a gold robe that looks like a fucking Snuggie, pacing around with a microphone.
When he sees us hovering at the back, he stops.
Smiles. Sweeps his arm toward me, and every hooded head swivels to stare.
Suddenly, I feel like a piece of raw steak tossed to rabid dogs.
“There she is, my friends!” Brendan croons. “The fairest of them all. The feistiest.”
Inside me, a potent stew simmers: rage, disgust, hatred. I clench my teeth and keep it locked up. I need this fuel. This fire.
“Bring her to me,” he commands.
I’m going to eviscerate you, you absolute cum stain.
The crowd parts, and Dollar Store Gangster marches me down the aisle, giving me my first clear view of the stage.
To Brendan’s left, three onyx statues loom, seven feet tall with gleaming claws and whiplike tails, their mouths stretched in silent screams, their flesh bloodied by a cruel blade. Only… they’re not statues. They’re demons.
My demons, frozen in eternal torment.
Beneath their feet, the stage has been painted with three overlapping circles outlined in complex, ancient symbols.
Devil’s traps.
Everything inside me revolts, my heart shattering. Merrick told me that a Devil’s trap is the worst kind of torture for a demon. Their physical forms are paralyzed, but they can still hear, see, and feel everything. Their mind still works. So do their nerves.
Don’t panic. Do not fucking panic.
Tears blur my vision, but I force myself to remain clam.
Dragging my gaze from the demons, I take in the specter on the other side of the platform—three high-backed, ornately-carved wooden chairs that look more like medieval torture devices than seating arrangements.
Two of them are occupied. Women, gagged and bound, with swollen faces and blood-stained dresses.
My sisters.
“No!” I cry out. “Let them go! They have nothing to do with this! They don’t even—”
A backhand to the mouth silences my protests. My world tips sideways as I’m hauled up by the waist and tossed unceremoniously onto the platform at Brendan’s feet.
“Esteemed brethren of the Wielders of the Righteous Flame,” Brendan booms. “It is my honor and sacred duty to present the last of the Bonnivarde Witches.” He sweeps his arm over me like he’s revealing a car the lucky contestants have just won. “Let the purification ritual begin.”
There’s no cheering and clapping. No whistling. Only their vile taunts.
Witches!
Whores!
Heathens!
Tainted!
It’s this one that hurts the most. Tainted. How can they even say that? The only reason I have magic in my blood is that their ancestors murdered one of mine—a fucking teenage girl—in a desperate ploy to claim that same “tainted” magic for themselves.
And now, it looks like history is about to repeat itself.
Realizations crash through my head, all the pieces finally clicking into place.
Killroy’s “wealthy collector” friends? The Wielders of the Righteous Flame, monsters whose life’s purpose—for generations—has been to steal magic and murder the women who possess it.
Monsters my sleazeball ex apparently leads.
Fuck, he must’ve known who I was from the start.
He targeted me, just like they targeted my mother.
Pretending to be my boyfriend, putting his filthy mouth on me, biding his time until he could figure out exactly how to best leverage us. Exactly how to sacrifice us.
And I led him straight to Graves Hollow. Straight to my sisters.
This entire night was a setup.
Brendan directs me to the empty chair, and I comply, if only to be closer to my sisters and buy myself ten seconds to think. I’m sorry, I mouth to them. I’ll fix this. Please trust me.
I don’t know if I have the power to make that promise. I don’t even know if they can see me through the swelling around their eyes, the tears. I only know that I mean it. I will figure this out… if it’s the only time in my life I ever get anything right. This one fucking thing.
There has to be a way out of here. Blank spell book or not, I’m a Bonnivarde Witch, for fuck’s sake!
“On this momentous occasion,” Brendan drones on—the fucker always did like the spotlight—“we remember our courageous forefathers.”
“May they find eternal rest in the light of the Flame,” goes the whole group.
“May they find eternal rest in the light of the Flame,” goes Brendan.
Like, seriously, did these assholes all sign up for the Start A Cult In Your Basement starter pack? I sure hope they got a few bumper stickers out of the deal.
“Those brave souls set out to purge the unworthy,” he says. “And with their great sacrifice should have come great reward.”
“Preach, brother,” someone calls out.
“Instead, they were deceived. Deceived by the very filth they fought so righteously to purge from this earth.”
“Witches,” someone hisses from the front row, and again, here come the taunts.
Honestly, you’d think after hundreds of years, these dildos could’ve come up with a better script.
“It’s time for us to reclaim what’s rightfully ours,” Brendan says. “But we will not be so easily led into the witches’ snare tonight. Tonight, we are guided and protected by a higher power. One who will not let us falter.”
The lights dim. The crowd parts again. Heads bow in reverence. And down the aisle marches…
Nathan Killroy.
Guess they ran out of those fancy blue robes, though, because my man is stark naked. Bits and bobs a-bobbing.
Excuse me while I throw up in my mouth.
“Nathan Killroy,” says Brendan with renewed gusto, “our esteemed colleague and friend, honors us all, sacrificing himself in service to our noble cause so that a greater power might work through him and see our will be done.”
People reach out to touch him as he passes, swaying and bowing and murmuring platitudes.
Hail, Ozikai, Bringer of Madness! He Who Devours the Light!
I chance a look at my sisters, wearing bruised, saucer-eyed stares, and this time I have no trouble translating the look.
What in the Dungeons and Dragons Cocaine Bender Edition fresh Hell is happening?
Killroy leaps onto the platform, far more gracefully than I would’ve thought possible for a naked man. He turns to face the crowd. His ass crack is my entire worldview.
“Hail, Ozikai,” says Brendon.
The room falls silent.
And before my eyes, Killroy’s flesh parts and falls away like a cheap suit, pooling at his feet to reveal a hairless, bone-white creature with long, sinewy limbs covered in black spiders.
Thousands of them, skittering over his skin en masse, feeding from him, nesting in his rotting flesh.
He turns toward us. My sisters scream behind their gags, but I’m too horrified to make a sound.
His mouth is little more than a bloodied hole, cracked and oozing at the edges. Beneath the clot of spiders, glowing red eyes blaze.
Somehow, I manage to catch Merrick’s eye, clock the horror reflected there. Despite his paralysis, I can read his thoughts, and he mine.
Nathan Killroy is not a hunter after all.
He’s a fucking chaos demon.
Which means Matthias—the large-and-in-charge demon boss who sent Merrick here to train me on maintaining the portal between realms—is in league with the very monsters plotting to bust through that portal and devour the world of humans.
Awesome! I think it’s safe to say I’m never attending another fucking party again without shoveling in a fistful of mushrooms first, because dealing with this shit sober is literally the worst.
My only consolation is that Brendan looks like he’s about three seconds from shitting himself in his fancy Snuggie.
Oh. Did I mention he’s afraid of spiders? Yeah. I’ll take my laughs where I can get ‘em, considering I might not have that many left.
Shifting as far as he can from the twitching, writhing mass that is Ozikai, Brendan plucks another speech from the How To Play a Cult Leader on TV handbook.
“Behold, the great demon Ozikai, who will broker an alliance between our two organizations: the Council of Underworld Interests and the Wielders of the Righteous Flame. An alliance through which the tainted blood of witches is eradicated, their stain upon both realms washed away, and our path to mutual and endless power ensured.”
There’s much cheering and clapping, because apparently these twats haven’t watched enough movies to realize the key point: dark lords do not share power.
But then, suddenly, there’s the one guy whistling to be heard over the din. Because isn’t there always the one guy? The dissenter?
Man Bun, maverick of murderers, coming in hot.
“Listen,” he calls out. “I’m all for the mission. But how can we trust the Underworld when Matthias didn’t even bother showing up himself? Sending a representative is not cool, dudes. And he—”
Ozikai cuts him off with a delicately raised hand, then points his long, thin finger. Spiders gather along his arm, dropping onto the ground like tiny paratroopers, scuttling down the platform and over to Man Bun’s feet.
He tries in vain to squish them, hopping up and down, yelping. But they overtake him in seconds. Devour everything, including the bun.
Then, just as quickly as they consumed his human flesh, the spiders return to their master. There, in the place where seconds earlier a person existed, a red-black smear on the carpet gleams darkly.
“Well, that was a rather impressive display.” Brendan laughs awkwardly, still keeping his distance. “Would anyone else like to voice any concerns before the ritual begins?”