Chapter Eight
Grayson made sure his mom had left before he slid back inside the house. He had to get this done, now, before she knew what he was up to. He’d already waited too long, anyway. It had been almost two weeks since the last time he’d tried, and the misery of that failure ate at him.
He’d do it this time.
This time, Mom would see.
He wasn’t just some kid with a little bit of power—he was a witch. Every bit as powerful as her lame-ass brother, and a hell of a lot smarter. He wasn’t going to end up gunned down in some alley, in some stupid gang fight. No, he was smarter than that.
He was going to use his magic for bigger things.
Better things.
On the way to school, he had seen the foolish-looking dog, those big floppy ears that damn near dragged the ground, the friendly light in his mismatched eyes, his tongue lolling out of his mouth in a canine grin.
A sign. So he took it, coaxing the dog into coming closer, and then picking it up, steeling his heart as the dog licked at his chin and sniffed at his neck. If his heart jerked at the thought of actually killing something again, well, he’d just have to ignore it.
It was time.
The burning fire in his gut, the need for power, was driving him, urging him, compelling him.
It never occurred to him that it wasn’t his urges he was feeling.
***
Alila felt the stirring of power, recognized the call of the Hyari pendant. Her mother whispered in her mind to rush, to go, and she would be there soon. Another young one…and this one was male. Her mother loved to destroy the soul of a male child.
***
Lily felt the touch of the lilum with dread.
Time was up.
Time had slipped away from them. Over the past two weeks, they’d waited and watched, unwilling to act unless the boy forced it.
But they may have waited too long.
It wasn’t until the Hyari woke that Lily realized something was amiss.
And then the lilum came. One of her weaker sisters, it was the same one who had tried to push between them earlier. Lily remembered that touch.
“Jonah, we have a problem,” she whispered, sitting up, the blanket falling to her waist. Her eyes closed as she focused…and found herself hovering over Grayson as he trudged along the path through the woods.
In his arms, he held another animal—a dog, young, with bright, friendly eyes. Damn, did the boy even realize he was crying, she wondered?
Then she jerked herself back, her eyes opening and focusing on Jonah’s face. “He’s going there now…and there’s something waiting for him.”
Sliding from his arms, she jerked her clothes on and prayed.
The daughter of the Queen of All Demons prayed.
They ran, the short distance to the woods seeming to stretch on forever, for miles and miles…not enough time. They hadn’t been watching closely enough. They’d let their guard down, so very foolishly. Lily had even harbored some hope that Grayson might resist the call of dark magic.
She should have known better. The urging of the pendant was too much for somebody so young to resist. Somebody so hungry…
The lilum was already there, hovering outside the trees that served as a gateway into the web of power.
Lily didn’t know her. She had never met all of her sisters, and this one was unknown to her. Small, almost frail looking…and her power was slight. Lilith hadn’t thought there would be much fight for this young boy’s soul.
How very wrong she had been…now that it was time, the fear Lily had expected to feel was gone. They could save the boy.
Reaching out, she searched, but Lilith wasn’t there yet. They had some time. Sliding her eyes to Jonah, she saw that he could see the lilum, hovering there, her black wings fanning the air. “I’ll handle her—do something about Grayson.”
The lilum turned with a shriek, her eyes wide, terror lurking strong in them. Lily laughed. “She didn’t think to send something who had some courage, did she? Wherever did you come from?”
As the lilum flew at her, Lily’s shields snapped up and she smiled as her sister flew into them, blindly, unaware. The lilum went down screaming. The burns that laced Alila’s flesh healed before she even touched the ground, Lily lifted her eyes skyward, then spared one brief glance as Jonah dove into the web of power. “Thank you,” she murmured to whoever might be listening. “For the chance.”
Then she braced herself.
The lilum came winging at her and Lily flung up a hand, fiery heat encasing it. Lobbing the fire at the lilum, she watched as it expanded, trapping the lilum inside it. You couldn’t burn them to death…unless you kept the fire burning too fast, too powerful for the burns in their flesh to heal.
But it was slow, painful… Lily blocked the screams out as she looked up just in time to see Lilith snap her wings open, landing in front of her daughters with a snarl. Lily, she barely glanced at, as she ran to the entrapped lilum. But when she couldn’t break the spell, she turned to Lily and hissed. “Free her, mortal, and I won’t have your skin for a carpet.”
Lily laughed. “No, Mother. I don’t think I will.”
Lilith stilled and her eyes narrowed on Lily’s face. Recognition flared almost instantly.
“Treacherous bitch!” she shrieked. “I gave you life, Lilan! How can you betray me like this?”
“How could you do to me as you did?” Lily asked quietly. Against her shields, she felt the overwhelming presence of Lilith, the stinking maw of fear that traveled wherever the Queen of All Demons went.
“I shall make everything I’ve done before now seem as a sweet dream,” Lilith purred, stalking in a tight circle around Lily.
“Then do it,” Lily said, her voice full of bravado. But the fear that should have been eating at her wasn’t there, and Lilith knew it.
“You forget who I am?” Lilith demanded.
“No. I know you are,” Lily whispered, shaking her head. “But I also know who you aren’t. You have no power over me, not anymore.”
***
Snow started to fall as Jonah tore into the power center, his eyes landing on Grayson as he bound the dog.
“Don’t do it, boy,” he whispered. He struck, wrapping unseen hands of power around the boy and lifting him.
“You bastard!” Grayson snarled, his face twisting, full of a hatred too deep to be human. Something ancient and evil lurked in his eyes.
“Go away,” Jonah whispered to the power that had been trying to slide inside the boy. “He doesn’t belong to you.”
“He is ours!” A thousand voices seemed to shriek.
“Not yet, he’s not,” Jonah swore. “Grayson!”
The boy blinked.
“Grayson!”
As the boy’s body started to shake, Jonah softened his voice. “Is this what you want, buddy? Some evil inside you whispering what you should do, and how you should do it? You want her to see you, really see you, but do you think she’d be proud to see that her son is a killer?”
“He is ours!”
But the voice didn’t come from the boy this time. And the boy jerked, as though he’d heard it. Then he looked at Jonah, and whispered, “What’s going on?”
Seeing his opening, Jonah strode over to him and grabbed the pendant from around his neck and tore it away. The boy arched and screamed, as though Jonah had torn something out of him, instead of from around his neck. When the boy’s eyes opened long moments later, Jonah found himself staring into young, frightened eyes.
Outside, screaming began.
Jonah made him watch. He hated himself, but he also knew that unless the boy saw what evil truly was, he may well come back to this path.
The boy saw Lilith and started to sob with fear. Eyes unshuttered, he stared at her as she was, the way only a witch or an angel could see her, full of writhing hatred, anger and ugliness. “That is what you would have gone to,” Jonah whispered. “You seem to hate your uncle—so many of your thoughts surround him and his death. So why keep walking down the road he walked? Why be like him?”
Grayson shook. Tears rolled down his face and he whispered, “I don’t wanna be like him.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t keep doing what you’re doing. If you do, you’ll end up much worse than he was. And trust me, that’s not a good thing.”
Grayson blinked away the tears, but still he shook with fear.
“Next time, you might not have somebody looking out for you…now go,” Jonah snarled, shoving him away, pointing to the woods. “Go.”
As Grayson ran, Jonah turned and stared at Lilith.
The demon stood before Lily. There was a terrifying beauty about her, seductive death. Lily flinched under the demon’s rising shriek, her face pale and tight.
Jonah came up behind Lily, resting one hand on her shoulder. Lily jerked under his touch, then she laced her fingers with his and whispered, “Go. I’ll deal with this.” Squeezing his hand, she started to step forward only to have his other hand come up, cupping the opposite shoulder.
Against her ear, she felt his soft denial. “No. I’m staying where you are,” he murmured.
Lilith laughed. “How sweet—my daughter has found a mortal who thinks he loves her. Do you know what she is?” Lilith mocked. “How many men she fucked before she came to you?”
A slow smile curled his mouth. “Yes, I know what she is, Lilith,” he responded, battling down the fear inside him. No matter what happened, he was with Lily now, and that was the most important thing. “She was too strong for you to break, wasn’t she?”
Lily gasped, but Jonah didn’t take his eyes away from her mother. There was a flicker in the demon’s eyes, but all she did was laugh. The deep, husky sound should have been appealing, but all it did was make his skin crawl.
“Oh, I broke her…time and again,” Lilith cooed, slowing the rapid beat of her wings until her feet came down to land lightly on the ground. Strolling up to them, Lilith walked around them, tapping one black-tipped finger against the blood red of her lips. “Would you like to see just how completely I broke her?”
Jonah said in a bored tone, “I know your idea of entertainment. And I’ve seen it already. But you don’t seem to realize, if she was broken, she wouldn’t stand willingly before you, ready to protect a boy she barely knows.”
Lilith snarled, baring pearly white fangs at him, moving so fast all he did was blink and she was there, in his face, spitting and hissing. “I’ll have the boy,” Lilith whispered coldly. “He will be mine.”
Lily smiled. “No. He will not,” she whispered, shaking her head, speaking for the first time in several long moments. The glint in her eyes intensified, became a brilliant glow. “You cannot hurt me…Lilith. Not here. Not now. Later, perhaps. But know that when I leave here, I will put my mark on the boy, and he’ll be forever safe from you.”
“So now you think I cannot hurt you?” Lilith sneered at them and lifted a hand.
Power mounted, swirling all around. Dark and malicious, full of pain and death. Then it released, raining down on Lily. She should have fallen under the onslaught—but it simply struck her shields, time and time again, making them glow silver with power as it was absorbed and sank into the earth at her feet.
Lily smiled serenely.
But then Lilith’s eyes landed on Jonah, and there was an evil twist to her lips that he didn’t like. Not one little bit.
“Perhaps I can’t harm you…but your lover is unmarked. He can be mine.”
Lily leaped between her mother and Jonah, but it was too late. The demonic power arced through the air and tore through him. He flung up his tightest shields—that, and that alone, was the reason he was still breathing when he hit the ground. He sank into unconsciousness, aware of nothing.
Lily screamed out denial, her hands cupping in front of her, as she stared at her mother, tears streaming unchecked down her face. As her mother laughed, Lily lifted her hands and forged the mark.
Not into flesh, though. Into the very air between them, a shield between her mother and Jonah. Lilith cowered, hissing under her breath. Circling the mark, she eyed it warily even as she drew closer to Jonah once more.
The mark flared, like lightning, and struck out. It hit demon flesh and left behind the scent of sulfur and smoke.
Lilith screeched.
The angels, the three men of power, manifested before them. Lily sank to her knees, pulling Jonah’s torso in her lap, holding his head against her breast. He still breathed, she told herself, he still breathed.
“I warned you, Lilith, not to cross my path again,” Sansan said. “There will be no more warning.”
The Queen of All Demons fell to her knees, sobbing and begging and pleading. But this time the words fell on unhearing ears. “Banished, Lilith. From now until the end of time, you are banished, and only in the lowest plains of hell will you roam free. Never again in the world of mortal men and women.”
Lilith…banished… The words circled through Lily’s head and she knew she should be thankful.
But all she could think about was how very still Jonah lay in her arms.
***
He lay sleeping in her bed, as he had for the past two and a half days. Still, unmoving, not even dreaming.
From the window, Lily sighed and pressed her forehead against the cool pane of glass, staring into the heavens at the bright stars. “Let him live,” she whispered softly. “Left him live.”
“Is that what you want?”
Lily felt her jaw drop as she turned around, seeing Sansan standing in her room, over her bed, his eyes gentle on her face. “What?” she asked, her voice tight and rusty.
“Is that what you want? For him to be saved? That, more than anything?”
More than anything? More than a soul of her own, a life beyond what she had been given?
More than anything?
Shakily, she whispered, “Yes.”
The smile that spread across Sansan’s face was bright enough to eclipse the diamond-like sparkle of the stars hanging low in the sky. “You’ll do, Lily,” he murmured, nodding his head. “You’ll do just fine. But, then, I always knew that.”
He leaned over and touched his index finger to Jonah’s brow, his eyes closing. A whisper of a sigh passed through the air and light suffused the room. Blinking her eyes against it, she threw up a hand to shield against the brilliance of it. The glow started to fade, and her vision cleared.
Sansan was gone.
And Jonah lay on the bed, his eyes wide, his mouth spasmed as a convulsion wracked his body. She dove for him, wrapping her arms around his as he arched and bucked on the bed. One final, mighty shudder tore through him and then he was still. He blinked, coughed. His voice was hoarse as he whispered her name. Lily hadn’t ever heard anything so beautiful in her life.
***
Hours later, they sat wrapped in a blanket on the porch swing. Across the street, Grayson sat on the porch as well. He wasn’t alone, either. He was crying, sobbing in his mother’s arms as she held him.
There was a look in the woman’s eyes…a relief, a gratitude. As she rocked her son back and forth, Lily whispered, “That’s beautiful.”
“Yeah. It is, isn’t it?” Jonah said quietly, hugging her against him.
Lily lifted her eyes to him and said, “How did you know? About me, I mean?”
Jonah shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I knew what I needed to know about you…now. What happened before, with either of us—does it really matter?” His eyes were intent, focused on her face. She could feel him waiting on an answer from her with bated breath.
She suspected there were things in his past that he wasn’t proud of. He’d share them, if she pushed. But how could what he had done in life be much worse than what she had done as a demon?
She smiled slowly. “No…I really don’t think it does matter.” Turning in his arms, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed against him. “This…this is what matters.”