Chapter 14
My feet slam into the obsidian floor in the main hall of Hell.
Shards fling into the wall, the chairs, the others gathered around.
Demons scatter as I stalk across the large room and smoke rolls through the sky of the open ceiling.
Fire drips from my fingertips and I relish the heat searing through my body.
Normally, I'd quash the need to explode, knowing how dangerous it is for those around me, not to mention myself. This time, I fan the flames, letting them consume whatever logical ideas my mind throws at me.
The crowd parts, leaving only Dimitri in my path.
When he turns, he only has time to widen his eyes before my hand latches onto his throat and I slam him into the pillar behind him.
He struggles for a minute, then sags in my grasp.
He knows he won't be able to get away from me.
Not without hurting himself. He'd have to call down lightning to even come close, and he won't do that. He understands this.
“Get on with it,” he wheezes and his skin cracks, revealing deep purple underneath. Sparks crackle along the grooves, and I snarl at him.
“You touched her,” I snarl.
“Barely.”
I lean closer as I attempt not to suffocate him with my flames. I may be pissed at him, but I don't want to kill him. He's still my oldest friend. One of my only friends. Which is why I'm so pissed at him.
I told him about Clara in confidence. I didn't think he'd use the information against me. The betrayal cuts deep. My throat aches as fire creeps upward. My stomach rolls, a tug like the one I've felt so often recently hitting me hard. If she summons me right now, she won't like who she meets.
“Omen,” he gasps, and I growl, launching us into the void.
Dimitri’s high-pitched screams echo around us, then cut off abruptly when we land in his rooms. I throw him onto his bed and he screams again.
“Knock it off,” I snap as I pace around the room. I shake out my hands, leaving burn marks in my wake.
“You're flaming out, Omen.” Dimitri's voice holds a warning I'm desperately trying to heed.
He flings himself off the bed and crashes to the floor. His boots slip as he tries to scramble to his feet, and he hisses when a stray ember hits his shoulder. My vision dims as another wave of nausea hits me. I brace my hands on my knees and breathe through my nose. It doesn't help.
Movement from the corner of my eye has me turning my head, and I'm hit with a face full of water. Steam and sizzling fills the air, obscuring Dimitri. It doesn't help the burn in my veins, but at least I'm not in danger of burning down his quarters.
“I didn't touch her. Just a brush on her arm,” he whispers. “You shouldn't be…”
As the air clears, I can finally see the indecision in his eyes. “Spit it out.”
“You shouldn't be ready to kill me over that. You shouldn't be like…well, like this at all. You know what this is, Omen.”
I shake my head, unable to give voice to my fears.
Whatever he's about to say doesn't matter.
It can't matter, because if it does, then my entire existence crumbles.
Everything I've worked for will disappear, vanishing without a trace.
I'll lose…her. She'll vanish and I'll end up in the void until I float away with no one to remember me.
I'll fade from Dimitri's mind and be erased from every memory I've been in.
“Don't go near her,” I snarl and prowl toward the door.
Dimitri steps in front of me, blocking my way.
He always was better at traveling through the void between dimensions.
My hands curl into fists and I glare at him as if I can get him to move through sheer force of will.
If he doesn't move, I'm liable to burst into flames again, and I don't know if I'll be able to stop myself from taking him out.
“Move.”
“No can do,” he says, shaking his head. “You need to deal with this now or—”
“Or nothing. Move or I'll move you.”
He rolls his eyes, and my shadows whip around me. “You can't use the same threats against me as you do your—”
My hand seizes his throat once more and he gags. “I'd advise you not to finish that sentence.”
He grabs my wrist, but doesn't try to remove me. His gaze meets mine, pity and understanding mingling together. The truth sits there, mocking me, challenging me, warning me. I'm not ready. I'll never be ready.
I wrap my shadows around my body and vanish into the space between worlds.
He can't follow me there. A swooping sensation hits me along with the ever-present tug of the thread between Clara and me.
She isn't summoning me. I should be grateful for that, but a wave of sadness hits me out of nowhere.
I doubt she'll call for me again unless it's a mistake.
Still, I follow the strand through the nothingness, unable to help myself. I don't have to show myself. I can merely hide behind a mask of invisibility, make sure she's okay, then come home. It'll put my nerves at ease, and I'll be able to let her go.
Except as soon as her house appears, I realize how fucked I am.
I don't know how much time has passed, but it's no longer five in the morning.
Bright sunlight streams through the trees, highlighting Clara's dark hair.
She lets out a frustrated cry as she bats at the vines crawling up the side of her home.
She jumps and latches onto a particularly stubborn one and yanks hard.
It doesn't move, and she lets out a string of curses that would make most demons blush.
An unbidden smile creeps up my face, and I fight against it.
My gaze travels over her form, and I forget every single reason why I shouldn't be here. Every argument I had against being with her vanishes, and I stalk forward. My muscles relax the closer I get, giving me a false sense of calm. I don't trust my own emotions when it comes to Clara.
“Bullshit vines,” Clara mumbles under her breath. “Think you can come in here and just spread your tendrils around? Dig your way into my foundation? Damage my stucco? I don't fucking think so. You may have won the battle, but I'm definitely going to win the war. As soon as I get a ladder.”
I snap my fingers and the vines disappear. Clara jumps and stumbles around, a shriek on her lips. Her very plump red lips.
“Omen? What are—Where did you…” She clamps her mouth shut and swallows hard, avoiding my eyes. “Thank you. You didn't have to do that.”
Her tongue darts out and drags across her bottom lip, drawing my gaze down. I step closer and her spine snaps straight. Another one and she sways as if her body and mind are at war. Her hesitancy gives me pause. For some reason, I assumed she'd be riding the edge of sanity with me.
“Well, I didn't want to have to save you from falling off a ladder,” I murmur with a smirk.
Her face hardens, and I realize I fucked up a second before her palms slam into my chest. “Fuck you, Omen. You think you can just pop in here after all this time with a snap of your fingers and a quippy joke? I don't think so.”
She hits me again, and once more for good measure.
Heat sears through me where her skin touches mine, and I realize I'm still in the sweatpants I summoned when I landed in Hell.
I open my mouth to say something, anything, yet no words come out.
Her eyes narrow and she snatches gloves from her back pocket.
She smacks me with them. I fight a smile and hold my hands up in surrender.
“Easy there, little witch. You'll take out an eye—”
She shrieks, throwing her hands up and pivoting away.
A second later, she marches back to me and lets out a frustrated growl.
I swear she's about to shake her fist at me.
She stomps away again. I saunter toward the now-vineless wall and lean against it, resigning myself to waiting her out.
Eventually, she'll run out of steam and we can actually talk.
“Ooh, you. Just when I was fine. Just when I didn't wake up in the middle of the night. Just when I stopped hearing that damn feline.” She huffs, then kicks a stick at me.
At least, I think she's trying to. The small branch doesn't even make it six inches.
“No note. No cosmic sign. Just a whole helluva lot of silence.” She jabs her finger at me. “Who in the hell gave you the right?”
I sober when I spot the sheen in her eyes. A single tear tips from her lid and trickles down her cheek. My fingers tingle and I resist the urge to grab her. Whether to shake the answers out of her or comfort her, I don't know.
“How long?” I rasp out.
“What?” she snaps as another tear falls.
“How long was I gone?”
Her lips purse and she pulls in a deep breath as if bracing herself for my naivety. “Six months.”
“All this for a week?” I growl, prowling toward her.
“A week? No, asshole. Six. Months. As in twenty-six weeks. As in, one hundred and eighty-two days.”
“Months.”
My vision blurs and my stomach flips. I don't know how long I was between dimensions.
Or how long it took me to get back to myself when I transported Dimitri and myself to his room.
Magic gets wonky in Hell, twisting and warping at a whim.
It has something to do with the balance, but I never bothered to find out.
I wasn't assigned to the magical department for a reason.
“What happened?” she asks flatly.
I squeeze my eyes shut and flex my hands over and over in an attempt to center myself. “I followed Dimitri back to Hell. We had…words. Then I came back here.”
“How long was it there?”
I shrug, not knowing how to explain time in a space that has none.
I shouldn't have come here. Six months for humans is a long time.
For demons, it's nothing. Even for a witch, six months is long enough for her to forget.
She's moved on with her life and then I blast back in without a care in the world.
All the reasons I was going to cut things off come rushing back to me.
I clear my throat as I stare at nothing. “I'm sorry.”
There's nothing really more to say. I could give her excuses or convince her of…
what? That we're connected in some magical way?
No, she deserves more than whatever half-life I can offer.
She'd be waiting around more than six months while I lost track of time in Hell.
There's no path forward that allows her to be her own person.
Besides, I don't need a witch in my life.
The thought rings hollow and a hole opens in my chest.
I step to the side, intending to walk to the edge of her property before vanishing. She doesn't stop me. She's not even looking at me. I wonder if she even notices or if she's simply ignoring me. I don't blame her. I slide around her and make my way to the road.
Glancing over my shoulder, I clear my throat. “Might want to clean up the circle.”
She lets out a frustrated groan, and I face forward. Should have kept my damn mouth shut. I wrap my shadows around me, trying to find comfort in them, when she shoves me from the back. I stumble, almost sprawling onto the dirt. She didn't hit me that hard, but I didn't expect her to smack me again.
“You don't get to walk away. You don't get to decide how this goes. I want to know why you left in the first place. I want to know why you freaked out when Dimitri showed up. I want to know why you stayed that night, then fucked off the next morning. You owe me that much.”
I spin slowly. “Owe you?” I stalk closer and her spine snaps straight. “Careful, little witch.”
“Or what?” she snarls, though there's a hesitancy to her words.
“I think you forget you summoned me. You drew the chalk and wrote my sigil. You asked for my help. And even when you didn't, I still saved you.”
She sputters, desperately trying to keep hold of her anger. “Saved me? Opening a jar of spaghetti sauce can hardly be constituted as saving someone. And sure, the washer might have been trying to eat me, but I would have figured it out. I always do.”
“Like you did with the desk? Or the vines? Or when you were dying?” For every step forward, she takes an equal one back until she ends up against the wall.
She huffs, avoiding my eyes. “I wasn't dying. I was on my period. And I was perfectly fine the next day.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“Well, it certainly wasn't the melted ice cream I had to clean up from my floor. Or the dishes I had to do after making you fries. Or the—”
I hold up my hand, then rest my palms on either side of her head, boxing her in. “Are you done?”
Her chin tips up and she stares at me. “And if I'm not?”
I smirk and her throat bobs. I don't know what I'm doing, but I can't walk away from her now. Magic keeps my feet planted. Doesn't matter either way. There's nowhere else I'd rather be than right here bickering with her.