How to Lose a Demon in 10 Days (24 page)

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Authors: Saranna DeWylde

BOOK: How to Lose a Demon in 10 Days
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No wings. Had Caspian gone native for Grace? It was an interesting and intriguing question, one to which she needed to find the answer. So thrilled with the day’s events was she, Nadja almost clapped like a giddy schoolgirl. Granted, she’d made an ass of herself in the hallway, but everything else seemed to be coming along nicely.
She watched the demon and Grace make their way to the hotel across the street, made sure that Caspian did nothing magickal or demonic. He didn’t. At last, Nadja was satisfied. Smiling to herself, she headed back to her son’s bar. It was time for Michael to go get his girl. He’d have no trouble taking her now.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
Every Time a Witch Cries, a Demon Gets His Wings
A
fter the fire took her apartment, Grace was about to crack like a rotten nut. She’d had
enough
. She’d had load after load of the most heinous crap that could befall any one person, and it had been raining down on her for the past four years.
Okay, so, she knew she was not a normal person. She knew she had extremely powerful relatives, and that this increased the likelihood of having bizarre shit cropping up, but this was getting ridiculous. She just wanted a tiny bit of relief. She’d be happy if she could just manage one day where absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened to her, good or bad. She wanted just one mundane, banal day. A day to herself. No grandmothers (Love you, Gran!), no Devil (Love you, too, Gramps!), no demons (Fuck it, love you three, Caspian!), and certainly no fires, carriages, hex bags, wings, sex toys, or sex.
Well, maybe not no sex. Sex might be okay. But normal-ish sex. Nothing that fucked with the basic foundations of how she saw the world. Was that just too much to ask?
Apparently it was, because just as the thought entered her head, a bullet entered Caspian’s. It burst right through the door, burrowed through his head, and embedded itself into the wall of the hotel where they’d taken refuge.
The door splintered. Michael stepped through the debris with a smile on his face. “Took care of your demon problem, Grace. And you’ve got one day left.”
She screamed as Caspian fell, a startled look on his face and his blood spraying across her hands and shirt. She called on her power, but Michael was atop her in an instant. He held her down and pinched her nose closed, forcing her to open her mouth to breathe.
She remembered that she didn’t have to breathe much as a quasi-demon, tried to call the Powers That Be and trade her soul for the rest of her demonhood—or even her life for Caspian’s—but nothing happened. And when her mouth fell open to suck in a big ol’ breath, Michael shoved a peanut-butter ball inside. As Grace tried to spit it out, the power that had been gathering at her fingertips sputtered and died like she had a faulty battery.
All she could think about was Caspian. She begged the Universe to let him live, swore that she’d do anything for him. He couldn’t be dead; not now that she’d discovered she loved him. He was a demon, so he couldn’t die.
No, he was human. He’d regained his humanity by being with her. Which meant it was her fault that he was dead.
“I told you to get rid of him, Grace,” Michael was saying. “Didn’t I tell you? Now, will you just come home and do what’s right for our son?”
Grace began fighting. She kneed her onetime lover in the balls, but that didn’t faze him. It didn’t even piss him off, which surprised her. Nonetheless, she vowed she was going to kill him. If she never did anything else with her life, Michael Ivan Grigorovich would die by her hand.
When she didn’t respond to his comment about Nikoli, Michael shook his head. “I see you’ve broken my spell. Good, I’m glad. Then your magick is all the more powerful.” He hit her with the back of his hand, hard. “But see what you made me do, Grace? I wouldn’t have wanted this for you, but you disobeyed me. Not only that, you were unfaithful with your demon.”
Grace had to live, even if it was just long enough to kill this bastard. She stared at the floor, not wanting to provoke him into doing something precipitous. Though she imagined his plan for her was dire in the long run as well.
“Can you see that, demon? She knows her place. Your body isn’t even cold and soon she’ll be screaming beneath me! From pleasure or pain, I have not decided, but she is mine.”
Grace couldn’t look at Caspian’s body. It was terribly wrong that he’d lived so many centuries as a demon, then been human for only a few days before dying. He hadn’t been given a chance to experience what the best parts were like. He hadn’t felt what it was to be well loved. She hadn’t even told him that she loved him!
Suddenly, all of her reasons for not telling him were insignificant. It didn’t matter if he felt the same. Love wasn’t something you confessed to while hoping for something in return, not even hoping to hear it back. It was a gift to be given freely, unconditionally, and with no expectation. And if anyone had ever earned it, Caspian had. She’d never thought her infatuation with Michael had been love; she’d known better. But Caspian, no matter what he was . . . he was the one. He was it. He was her
forever
.
“Help him, Lucy. Please,” she begged, hoping against hope that her grandfather could hear, that he would answer her summons. She wouldn’t say that she loved Caspian now, not aloud; that was too much like admitting she’d never have another chance and that Caspian was really dead. She wouldn’t let him die; she would do whatever she must to get him back. Bullet or no bullet, he was going to be fine. He had to be.
“Who is Lucy? Who else is here?” Michael demanded, shaking her roughly.
Wouldn’t you just like to know, you bastard,
she thought.
Wouldn’t you just.
“Eh, no matter. My mother is waiting.” Michael secured magickal chains around her wrists and ankles. She looked like an inmate from a women’s prison, and it seemed like that was the angle he was trying to play up to take her out of the downtown hotel.
Dragging her by the hair, he led her out the door and down the stairs. “Don’t fight me, Grace,” he warned. “It will just go harder on you.”
Go harder? How could it go harder?
As Grace watched Michael continue talking, she couldn’t hear any of the sounds that were coming out of his mouth. It didn’t matter, though, because the words didn’t matter. She had one objective and one objective alone: killing Michael Grigorovich. He was going to pay for all of the pain he’d caused, the damage he’d done to numerous families. She’d seen the face of evil and this was it.
It was a good thing she believed true evil never went unpunished.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-ONE
Caspian’s Deal
T
ime was meaningless to Caspian. He lay in the dark nothingness between life and death. He wasn’t alive and wasn’t dead. He wasn’t a demon, but nor was he human. Not really.
The heart he’d grown had stopped beating. It still felt full of love for Grace, though. He remembered the look on her face as he’d fallen, and he knew regret for the first time in a long time. He knew loss and he knew despair. He knew these things, and he knew them because of her. He knew them
for
her.
There was a bright light getting ever brighter in his field of vision, but he felt none of the peace he’d heard humans experience when they die.
“Don’t go gettin’ all excited just yet, Caspian, me lad.” He saw the face of Hades peering down at him. “Eesh, with those glassy eyes . . . you look for all the world like you’re dead. I know it’s a bright light. Isn’t that a kicker? It’s for sinners, making them think they’ve hit the jackpot and got one over on the Bigger Boss. I
am
the Morning Star, after all. Why does no one remember that but me? Everyone remembers the Lord of the Flies thing from the horror flicks, but never that I’m supposed to be hot—in an official capacity, even! Hmm. I’m starting to feel very put off.”
Hades glanced around before speaking again, as if he were about to reveal top-secret information. “I think you’re in love with my granddaughter.”
Caspian couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything to acknowledge his old boss. He wanted to. He could feel his last tenuous hold on this life, this plane, slipping away with the silence of the heart that had grown to beat so strongly in his chest. He wanted another chance, if only to tell Grace what he’d been afraid to admit: He loved her.
“You’re dying for her, eh? Very romantic, but unnecessary. So, you’d die for her. Would you live for her? Would you sell this humanity you’ve earned for another chance to be with her?
“I see that you would.” Hades made a show of straightening his collar before he continued, humming a chipper little tune. “I’ve got a deal for you, and you even get to keep your soul. What do you think about that? There is a catch, of course, but isn’t there always?”
Caspian didn’t speak. Instead, his body erupted into flames.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-TWO
Weekend at Nadja’s
G
race, I really didn’t want it to be this way. I’ve come to realize since we’ve been apart that I do care for you. I wish you didn’t have to die. Nadja says she’ll bring you back for me when she’s the Baba Yaga, though.”
“My grandmother will smite her, Michael. Be prepared for that.”
Her ex-boyfriend snorted, easing Grace down the stairs into the cellar of his bar. “She’s come back from living death. She’s stronger than your hag of a grandmother.”
“We shall see.” It was hard for Grace not to say something slick about the Devil coming to kick his ass, but she didn’t want to give away any advantage she might have. If they knew Hades was coming, they might have time to prepare. Of course, none of this mattered if Hades hadn’t helped Caspian.
“Where’s your demon now, Grace?” Michael crowed. He dropped her on a frigid marble slab. “Your Crown Prince of Hell? You made him soft, you let me kill him.”
His words were like a thousand daggers, but only because they felt true. If Caspian hadn’t been with her, this wouldn’t have happened. “I know that, Michael,” she admitted.
“Was that your plan from the start—you just wanted to make me jealous so I’d take you back? Well, it worked.” He looked both pleased and annoyed. After a moment, he said, “But there will have to be a punishment for that stunt you pulled in the hot tub.”
“Why? You like to be jealous,” Grace said, trying to play along. “You like knowing that you’ve had what everyone else wants. That you could have it again.”
“I can at that.” He secured her wrists one at a time to manacles that were hanging from a marble altar like macabre bracelets. Michael sank to his haunches to pull her hair out from beneath her head, and when he did, he caressed its silky texture. “Your dying will not be easy. In fact, you will wish that you were dead many times over before it ends.”
Grace didn’t say anything.
“The book says that there are one thousand cuts to be made to your flesh before you are a worthy sacrifice to the Dark.”
“Are you trying to scare me, Michael?” she said.
“Oh, yes.”
His previous words hadn’t struck dread in her heart, but that simple answer did. He stood, and she could see that he had an erection.
Grace wanted to vomit. He was disgusting. He always had been. How had she ever been so blind?
“Yes. Now you’ve seen what I like, the biggest secret I was keeping from you. This is all for you, and when you get back from your little trip, you and I are going to have such a good time.” He laughed. “You won’t even be able to die to escape me. I’ll do as I like with you until the stars blink into nothingness and the world burns.”
She’d seen what he was, and she defied it. “Such a pretty tongue. Too bad all you can do with it is talk.”
“Trying to make me angry so I will kill you before the ceremony? It won’t work.” Michael smiled and shoved a ball gag into her mouth. “See, it just won’t work.”
Grace knew that if she started to cry, she’d choke, but the wild sobs filling her chest were about to erupt. She was terrified. She didn’t want to die, she didn’t want Caspian to be dead, and she didn’t want any of this. She wondered if Jill had felt anything similar as the life seeped out of her. Where
was
Jill? If only they could have taken their well-earned revenge.
She slowly breathed in and out. It seemed as if sense and logic traveled on that precious air, because the deeper her breaths, the calmer she felt. She breathed until peace settled through all her limbs and her mind shook off the foggy helplessness fear had instilled. She breathed until she no longer felt her body. She breathed until she remembered evil never won.
A light went on in her head as bright as a Las Vegas landing strip. If she could just invoke her grandmother, Gran would come and handle everything. She was glad now that she hadn’t known Seraphim was alive; otherwise, she would be unable to call on her. She would surely have used her one Baba Yaga call for something stupid. But now all she had to do was work the ball gag out of her mouth.
She fiddled with that hated silicone ball for what must have been hours. Her limbs went numb and so did her lips. She saw a movement in the corner, and her eyes scanned the darkness for a form in the shadows. It seemed to be a woman. Could it be Jill?
As the figure stepped into the light, all of the happy hope that had been buzzing like little bees in her chest crashed into her stomach with a sickening plop. It wasn’t Jill. It was Nadja.
“Do go on, little Grace. Don’t let me stop you. Work that gag out of your mouth, girl, and let’s see what you’ve got.”
Grace stared at her with defiant eyes.
“You certainly have a lot of your grandmother in you. You look just like she did when she was pregnant with Aurora. Too bad there was never anything in that dried-up old womb of yours. You and Michael would have had very powerful children.” The evil woman laughed. “Wait, you almost did. If only you’d died for Nikoli, you could have made him real. Your last breath would have been his first. The magick that made you believe was the same magick that would have given him life. They didn’t tell you that, though, did they?” She searched Grace’s face for a response. “No, the do-gooders never do.”
Grace knew in her heart that Nadja was just being vindictive, that she was looking for any and everything sharp and homing in on her soft places, that Nadja just wanted to make her hurt. The unfortunate thing was the hag was succeeding.
Nadja neared the altar and continued to inspect her, from the texture of her skin, to her hands and fingernails, to her hair. Nadja’s fingers were cold, colder than the marble Grace was lying on. Her touch was like frostbite.
“Would you like some help with that, Grace?” the witch asked, watching her struggle with the ball gag. Her icy fingers pulled the device free and dropped it to the floor. Her first finger traced across Grace’s lips. “There you go. Is that better?”
She waited for a response but, not receiving any, continued. “From what Michael said about you, I really thought you’d bite. Don’t you want to bite?” Nadja pushed her finger inside Grace’s mouth and made a point to touch all of her teeth, almost like she was checking the breeding of a horse. “What a good girl you are! I don’t know why Michael had so much trouble with you. You’re not giving me any at all.” She smiled, baring her teeth like a dog. “I want to see your wings again. If I ask nicely, will you show them?”
Grace was thankful now that Michael had fed her the peanut-butter ball, because she knew when Nadja saw her wings, she would covet them. They were unlike anything else, or so Caspian had told her, and the peanut butter took away her control. But, how had Nadia known she had wings? Who could have told her?
Unless . . . she’d seen them after the fire. That was how Michael had been confident a bullet would kill Caspian. That was how he’d known her demon had chosen humanity.
“I can’t,” she said simply.
Nadja slapped her hard across the cheek. A small trickle of blood seeped from her nose. “Why not?” she asked.
“Michael force-fed me peanut butter.”
Nadja sighed, shaking her head. “That means I can’t eat you. Too bad, I would have liked to have had those wings. They really were lovely. I’ve never seen another creature with wings like that.” She paused. “I wonder if he did that just to block me.”
“He did it so I wouldn’t fry his ass. He killed the man I loved.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Nadja agreed. “But you can never tell with Michael. Are you sure you can’t try? If I eat you, it will be over very quickly. Michael’s little sacrifice party is going to take a really long time.”
“You could wait the three days until the peanut butter wears off and try again,” Grace said.
Nadja laughed. “Helpful, aren’t you? But, no. See, if we keep you hanging around, there’s bound to be someone drinking a hot cup of hero who will think he can save you. Then, if he actually did . . . well, I’d be out of luck on the wings and my son’s contract would be up with nothing to pay off the balance. So that gamble won’t work for me.”
“I see,” Grace replied. She was scared enough to pee her pants.
“Good. Glad you understand. Well . . . get on with it.” Nadja stared at her expectantly.
“Get on with what?”
“The summoning of your grandmother. I don’t have all day.”
Grace knew better than to ask, she really did, but the words just came out. “I thought you didn’t want anyone drinking a cup of hero.”
“You’re under the misguided impression that she’ll win.”
Nadja rubbed a spot on her chest and the neckline of her dress plunged just enough to give Grace a glimpse of a brightly burning jewel. There was no way she was going to summon Seraphim. Nadja seemed way too confident about her magick, and Grace had seen gems like those in books. Someone had died for that stone, and she was pretty sure someone else would die because of it.
She wondered if Sasha had been the one to be sacrificed. Had he been taken unawares, or had he sacrificed himself for love? Her previous comments came back to haunt her. She’d said that he and Petru deserved whatever they got because of the lives they’d chosen to lead, but now that judgment left a cold awareness inside her. Even if they did deserve it, it wasn’t her place to say so. Didn’t everyone deserve a chance at redemption?
Grace had to wonder why the Universe was bothering suggesting life lessons when her life was about to come to a screeching, glaring halt. For some reason, it gave her another beehive of hope, irrational though that sounded. But she still wasn’t summoning Seraphim.
“Digging in your heels, hmm? I can tell by the set of your chin. I guess we’ll have to find out what exactly it will take. By the end, you
will
call for your grandmother, though. Let’s start with your childhood.” She dipped her fingers into Grace as if Grace was a well and the dark horrors that haunted her were sweet, cool waters that she brought to her lips and drank. Nadja looked deep into her eyes, and Grace started screaming. But she didn’t scream for Seraphim.

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