Chapter 16 #4
I am not your enemy, she thought to it. They are.
She could sense its resistance through the joints straining against her command, then there was a give and a cool relief, as if she had been pushing her fingers through the velvety skin of a peach.
Suddenly, the demon was attacking the other demons around it.
This power felt raw and right. She had thought she wouldn’t be able to control it, but there wasn’t any controlling it, no more than she could force her mind to wake in the morning or tame the curl of her hair. It just was. She encouraged it, and it followed her intention.
The Boe demon ran at her. It froze when she held up a hand, though the motion sent a new wave of pain into the puncture wounds in her shoulder and the deep gouges in her back. Her own strength was beginning to wane; the Boe was overflowing with it.
Pippa found the source of that strength and grabbed it. Energy flew from the Boe, and as she directed it to her back and shoulder, she felt the stolen life force knit her skin together and replenish the blood she’d spread over the concrete. Her back felt whole once more, the pain gone.
The Boe choked, then crumpled bonelessly.
The younger Tro’grath had finished off the last of the other demons. It stood as if thinking, a chunk of something red and dripping held tight in its maw, its claws covered in gore.
Pippa tensed. She had been distracted with the Boe and her hold on this young demon had loosened completely.
It blinked at the bodies around it. She would have thought the demon would show remorse for having killed its family, or even shock, but instead it simply seemed irritated.
Its milky eyes landed on her and narrowed.
With a loud, wet gulp, it swallowed the meat in its mouth and made the smacking motion of a toothless octogenarian after a caramel.
Christ, she didn’t want to think about what it had just gleefully eaten.
It smiled at her then, a horrific widening of an unhinged jaw.
She would be dessert, that smile all but said out loud.
But Pippa knew the feel of the Reaper magic. Right as the demon lunged for her, she twisted its body into a vicious angle, pushing harder and harder until she felt a little pop. The Tro’grath fell slowly and crookedly.
The Reaper magic settled against her, calm and satisfied.
It was quiet except for the roaring in her ears and the magic’s soft thrum beneath her skin. She was the only living being in this room. Bodies surround her, broken and horrific, and she would have felt victorious except for the one at her feet.
Pippa crouched to touch Maxim’s cheek lightly.
His skin was still warm and soft. A sob rose up from the deepest part of her chest and burst from her in a fractured, awful cry.
None of this was right; none of it was fair.
They had found each other, actually found each other.
And it had all been ended by magic. If he hadn’t come with her, if he hadn’t come over . . . If—
She curled over him, her tears dampening his hair. She thought of fairy tales and fantasy novels and pretend games and how if Maxim were here, he’d have had a thousand ideas for what to do.
The Reaper magic settled around Maxim like a blanket of fog, surprisingly tender after what Pippa had just made it do.
As it lay against him, she felt his body, his muscles, his bones.
There was a slight laceration on his forehead from their time in the ambulance that had since knitted shut.
Beneath that, his skull was unbroken. Other than bruising and a few scrapes, his body was uninjured. The magic had only banished his soul.
In which case . . .
Pippa swallowed and sat up straight, rubbing the tears out of her eyes.
She thought back to when she had made her first familiar.
She had pulled a random soul out of the ether and into a body.
What if she could do the same with Maxim’s?
His body was fully capable of accepting his soul, if she could find it.
There were about a thousand reasons why she shouldn’t do this, but were any actual genuine destroy-the-world reasons?
The coven would definitely never let her in after this. Not a problem at all.
Her mother would be royally pissed. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
She might do it wrong.
That gave her pause. If she didn’t do this correctly, then she would be damning some innocent person to a life of horror and she would lose Maxim forever.
And if she didn’t do it at all? Then she would still lose him, and spend the rest of her life wondering what would have happened if she had tried.
Pippa sat on her heels and forced her mind to calm.
When she had first made the familiar, she had felt the barrier between life and death and dipped her fingers inside.
Now, it wouldn’t be enough to grasp blindly and hope she could find the exact soul she needed; she would need to force herself in completely.
She closed her eyes. Maxim’s hand lay in hers and she squeezed it tight, then submersed herself in magic and slipped through into death.