Chapter Twenty #3
“Those shifters were not wimpy or fake. They craved power so much they gave me permission to take them over. And then your wolf turned them into zombies and kicked me out. He ruined all my plans. I can totally tell he’s your boyfriend.
” Gnath squeezed his arms around his knees.
“Hey, how about you call off the flames? Getting a little uncomfortable over here.”
Sexton and I ignored him.
“You made me believe my protection spell failed. Did you have anything to do with the spell I did with Margaux failing? Or rather, not failing, from your point-of-view. After all, you showed me exactly what you wanted me to see.”
“It was necessary to show you how powerful you are,” he said. “I would have preferred to handle it differently, however—"
“How’d you get the real Bloody Mary to go along with your plan?” I asked, interrupting him. The last thing I wanted from him was a backhanded apology.
Sexton’s nearly invisible smile disappeared completely. “I did no such thing. I was not lying when I told you I despise her.” He gestured idly to Gnath. “This fool talks too much.”
“Mary knew I had a connection with a lonely kid. She wanted in, and you don’t say no to Bloody Mary.” Gnath shivered. “Not if you value your existence.”
I looked at Sexton. “What was the point of bringing me out there? To get me focused on mirrors? Computer screens? Why?”
“A reflective surface is a most innocuous portal,” he replied. “A way to pass between worlds.”
“That’s how Demon Betty entered my body? She wasn’t already there?”
“She was, and also not,” he said, godsdamned aggravatingly.
“So, she was activated in me? Like a sleeper cell? Dormant until triggered?”
“Excellent analogy.”
The phrase “like pulling teeth” came to mind.
“You gave me hints.” I deepened my voice, mimicking him, “Never bend the knee to demons. You can never fully trust one of my kind.”
“I do not sound that way,” he said.
“Close enough. And I even get why you did all this.” Though I’d never, ever forgive him for it. “To force me to accept my demon side.”
“Your soil has not rejected your demon side,” he said with self-satisfaction. “You are one. All is resolved.”
“When I let the demon take over, the plants in my garden room withered and died. Every single one except for your damned belladonna,” I said, voice shaking with rage. “She cut me off from my soil magic.”
“You will grow them again,” he said dismissively.
“I felt their deaths in the deepest part of my soul.” I pressed my palm to my chest above my heart. “You cannot imagine the pain. Or maybe you can and just don’t care.”
There was a slight tightening around his eyes as he regarded me. “It was not my intention to cause you pain.”
“Isn’t this pleasant? Grandpa and granddaughter making nice with each other. It’s like one of those old timey greeting card commercials.” Gnath cackled from behind the flames.
Again, we ignored him.
“From the very beginning, right?” My voice was a solitary headstone in the center of an empty cemetery. Quiet, hopeless, alone. “You let Mom’s death sink in, and when the time was right, you manipulated me to cross paths with Gnath on that lonely highway months ago.”
He said nothing, but it didn’t matter. I was right. “You’ve been controlling me all along. Did you even need the belladonna tea?”
“Yes,” he said.
Gnath chewed on his lower lip. Literally. His sharp teeth dug into the pulpy meat like it was a strip of jerky. His gaze went from me to Sexton and back again.
“And you.” I faced the nasty little monster. “Any truth to the bullshit story you gave me?”
“The best lies are twisted truths,” the monster replied, his teeth blackened with his own blood.
“Yes, I have an ex named Elaine, and it was her garden your cat ripped off, which was another black mark on my record with her. But the part where you caught me impersonating Mictlantecuhtli with those dumbass rats? That was all me, baby. You really messed up that one—I had a great thing going. Another week, and I’d have had those stupid rats’ souls. ”
Kale and Denzel weren’t the savviest rats in the colony, but they had good hearts and didn’t deserve the way Gnath had treated them.
I clenched my teeth. I had so many questions, but I didn’t want to hear either of their answers. Their truths were turning out to be far worse than their lies.
Still, I soldiered on. “Tell me, Grandfather. Could you have saved the wolf you planted on Ida’s steps? Bent time, or whatever it is you do?”
“I do not bend time, I merely experience it differently than humans do,” Sexton said. “The answer to your question is no. The young wolf's fate was sealed when I found him clinging to life on your street. I placed him on the necromancer's porch so he could provide the answers you needed.”
He made it sound like he’d done a good thing.
“And the Ronan mask?”
Sexton blinked. “It was a weak spell. I knew you’d see through it.”
“You also knew believing it was Ronan, even for a second, would nudge me into the sort of bleak fear that would drive me to let my demon side take over. You wanted to see the demon in charge.”
“It was not what I wanted. It was necessary.”
“Whatever. You can be happy with yourself. It worked—I’ve accepted her.” I spoke to Sexton but locked my gaze on Gnath, who was trying to disturb the salt-soil circle with his long, wriggling toes.
“I sense finality in your tone, granddaughter.”
I tore my gaze away from Gnath and set it on the being I’d finally allowed into my heart only for him to take a blowtorch to it.
“Sexton, you and I are as dead to each other as our families are to us.” I gave him a derisive look. “Did you pick up on the finality in my declaration?”
His brow bone lowered over eyes like an endless chasm. “Whatever I have done, I did—”
“For me, right? You, Mom, and apparently my dad. Wish I had a nickel.” I left the adage unfinished. I didn’t have the emotional energy for snark.
“You must understand—”
“What I understand is that you broke my heart, grandfather.” My voice shook on the endearment, title, honorific. Whatever it was, it would be the last time I used it in reference to him.
“I must reiterate, it was not my intention to—"
“Is Rory alive?” I asked. “Understand that if she was a casualty in your campaign to draw out my demon side, you’d better kill me now, because there won’t be a corner of Hell dark enough to shelter you from my wrath.”
At least he had the decency to not pretend to misunderstand my question. His head creaked as it moved up, up, up and down, down, down. “She lives.”
My joints went limp with relief. Thank the goddesses.
“You lied to me about never having seen her,” I said. “You said it yourself. Time works differently for your kind. You knew who she was before I ever handed you that photo.”
“For a higher purpose.” His eyeballs rolled downward in a way that was probably meant to evoke shame but only repulsed me. “I shall return her to you. However, I protest your repudiation of me. Granddaughter, you must—”
“No, I must not.”
“Betty, I beseech your understanding. My affection for you is genuine.”
“You are a liar, demon, and I don’t believe a single Lucifer-breathed word that falls from your lips.”
I turned my attention back to Gnath, who yanked his foot away from the circle and attempted to look innocent.
“Ronan and Ida wondered why I didn’t smite you after the Bloody Mary incident.
The truth was I found you a useful fool and believed I could control you.
That was a mistake. I should’ve ended this when you went after Violeta’s soul through that computer monitor.
Maybe I was influenced not to, but I made the call. I own that.”
The little green monster glared at me, his soulless eyes calculating. I’d known people like him—paranormal and human. He believed he was the smartest, most powerful, most important person in any room he entered. There wasn’t a shred of decency in him.
“What did I tell you the last time we saw each other, Gnath?”
“That I owed you a favor,” he replied testily. “I don’t see why. I didn’t do anything except what your granddaddy over there forced me to do.”
“There was no force. He was given a choice.” Sexton tossed a bored look in the lesser demon’s direction. “This one chose to do as I asked. I offered him the key to a little-known portal into Hades as payment.”
“Not the part about the favor, you craven little worm,” I said, ignoring Sexton. “What did I say about how much killing you would bother me?”
Gnath cleared his throat, and the voice that came out of his mouth infuriated me.
“You need to understand how little your destruction would affect me, because if I catch you in my realm again, for any reason, I’m going to incinerate your soul. Blah, blah, blah.” He’d captured my tone and cadence, right down to my sarcastic drawl.
“Once you’re gone, I’ll go home and climb in bed with my boyfriend. Blah, blah, blah, I’ll barely remember what happened. In a month’s time, I won’t remember your name. In a year’s time, I won’t recall you at all. You’ll be dead and forgotten, and no one will mourn you. Blah. Blah. Blah.”
“You can’t say I didn’t warn you.” The stillness in my voice permeated the air, making the motel room feel like a mausoleum the day after a funeral.
The snide look drooled off Gnath’s face.
I dug my heels into the grungy carpet, grounding myself, and lifted my right hand, palm out. Magic spiraled into the center of me and flowed up and out through my palm, striking the salt-soil circle.
My demon, who’d been silent until now, spoke up, her apathy rising in me. I will do this.
“I’ll deal with him alone,” I said under my breath.
The apathy faded, but her voice grew insistent. Together.
Together, the earth witch chimed in.
Together.
“Bailar,” I shouted, throwing power behind the word. Mercury flames danced off the circle lines and closed in on the noxious demon.
He squeezed his arms tighter around his spindly knees. “Hey, stop it.”
“I bind you to these flames, Gnath, servant of iniquity, commander of the second brigade of malfeasance, demon of Highway 86, minion of Bertrand Sexton, creature of evil.” Three voices spoke, three powers combined. “I commit your living breath to the void.”
“No. Wait. Come on, now. Think about those favors I owe you. We could work together.” He tried to make himself smaller, but the flames kept dancing toward him.
“Please. Don’t do this. I was only doing what the cemetery demon told me to.
Everything I did was because I was following his orders,” he screamed the last three words as the silver flames closed in.
The sound of him burning—and the smell—was atrocious.
Gnath screamed, long and low—and short. Mercury’s poison worked fast by necessity. Demons had a way of slipping out of impossible situations.
I kept my back to the wall, holding Sexton in my line of sight, and watched Gnath burn to ash. I hadn’t been numbed by my demon, yet I didn’t feel a thing except relief that he was gone. When even the ashes were roasted to nothing, I dismissed the flames and broke the salt circle.
“Please know that I gave him ample opportunity to refuse me, granddaughter. He made a choice.”
“Hand her over,” I said. “You owe me.”
“As you wish.” He closed his eyes, the translucent lids glowing as if the orbs inside were lit with red Christmas bulbs.
A heartbeat later, a human-sized, blanket-wrapped bundle appeared in the center of the bed Miles/Gnath had reclined on only moments before. The bundle wasn’t moving.
“You said she was alive.” I could barely form the words. “Was that another lie?”
“The young woman is unharmed and unaware,” he said. “Her father and his wolves had drugged her, bound her in silver chains sleeved in canvas too thin to protect her skin from burning. They mistreated her badly. I saved her life.”
She looked so small and defenseless. I wanted to run to her side and gather her in my arms. Stand between her and Sexton. Protect her with my life.
No. My demon side broke into my thoughts. Stay where you are. It will not change the outcome, and the cemetery demon needs to see you stand your ground. Thank him for his care with her and continue as if she were not there.
“Thank you for your care with her.” I bit the words out.
“You are welcome. I know the young woman is important to you.”
Godsdamn him. Everything he’d done had been a manipulation. Right from the very beginning. It killed me to look into his eyes, knowing his brain contained so much information I needed and would never have, because I couldn’t trust a damned word he said.
“Lord Bertrand Sexton, I respectfully ask you to leave.” I forced power into my voice—earth magic, demon, and my own strength—but that didn’t mean it was steady. It was drenched in anger and sorrow and deep, aching hurt. “Or I’ll cast you into the void as I did with your minion.”
Grotesque laughter exploded into the room, bringing with it a fiery heat I hadn’t thought Sexton capable of. I was equal parts repulsed and impressed. The son of a bastard would always have the upper hand, and he knew it. He was still playing me, even now.
One didn’t survive thousands of years in Hades by being a saint.
“I am pleased with you, granddaughter. Well pleased, indeed. Like your father before you, you will make a fine guardian.”