Demons (Darkness #4) (12 page)

“Please,
no
!”

“Boss.”

Panting, lost, he stabbed and stabbed. Over and over. Until it was just a lump of burnt flesh on the ground.

“Boss...”

Dirty and sweaty, Stefan stilled his body. Dragged himself out of a life’s worth of nightmares.

“You got it, Boss?”

As Stefan’s vision cleared, he found himself looking up into the logical brown eyes of his second in charge. Jameson held out a hand, resolute, asking to help Stefan up. Stefan’s gaze swept the ground, the lumps at his feet no longer recognizable. Blood smeared his body, sinking into the grooves of his muscles.

“I didn’t realize these things bled,” he said as he allowed Jameson to help him up.

“It’s the blood sacrifice. They don’t bleed much, but…”

But when you pull them apart, piece by piece, you’re bound to find a little of the substance that created them.

Stefan grunted in acknowledgement as his gaze scanned the rest of the Watch. Grim faces and tight lips, one and all, eyed him with suppressed wariness. He’d reminded them why they called him Boss. He just wished he’d done it with a little more decorum.

“Have someone clean all this up. Don’t mention any of this to Sasha,” Stefan instructed. She wouldn’t understand why Stefan had to keep her away.

“She know what happened?” Jameson asked quietly as they made their way over to Toa.

“Yes. I came clean.”

“It help at all? With the nightmares?”

Jameson had lost a family member, too. Like Stefan, he blamed himself for not being there. They all did. They also blamed the
Mata
for fleeing like cowards.

Only Stefan lost a mother, though.

“She’s not like…most females.” Stefan cleared his throat. “She’s…got my back.”

Jameson gave a small nod. “Good.
Helps to spread the wealth.”

“Wealth, meaning, baggage?”

“Exactly. I plan to take the leadership when you make Regional. Just so you know.”

Stefan bit back a laugh. That change in topic was welcomed. “I have to get through the Regional before I make Regional.”

“Give Sasha a few hard knocks with the council, just to get her riled up, and you two will be unstoppable. She learns quickly, she’s got limitless potential, and she’s…got your back, like you said. It was the last boost you needed to step up.”

“Chess board is set up, huh?” Stefan
drolled as they neared a paler-than-usual Toa.

“She’s not the only one that has your back. If that male was any whiter, he’d look like a snowman.” Jameson smirked before peeling away toward the driver’s side.

“Need to check out anything before we go?” Stefan asked Toa.

Toa just shook his head, for once with nothing to say. Stefan wished it would hold through the evening as well. They’d have to sit at the same dinner, after all. The same dinner, hoping no one had to challenge anyone else…

The women in the clearing sat with bowed heads, eyes closed, and breathing deeply.
Focusing.

“Okay, women, call the corners,” the leader said quietly. “Let’s try to cleanse the negative feel of this place.”

Dominicous and Jonas shifted at the same time, tiny movements hinting that their focus just got a lot more…focused.

The air electrified around us. Magic pulsed and beckoned, looming around me. Swirling and dancing, playful and joyous, it begged me to fill myself and become one with the women in the clearing. To suck in as much as I could hold and join hands.
To laugh harder and louder than I ever had. A smile curled my face as Charles bent to regard my expression in confusion.

They can access their magic!

I felt the flame within each of them. The leader burned a bright orange, filled with a mass of raw, blasting power. The mousy one simmered with only green, but it twisted and churned in such a strange and intricate way. The twins each sported red, their faces screwed up in intense concentration.

“I thought you said humans couldn’t access their magic.” The words tumbled out of my gaping mouth quietly. They were like me! I could feel it. I could sense the
rightness
of it, the
sameness,
in a way I couldn’t feel the clan’s at all.

“What did you say?” Dominicous stepped close to me, bending to catch my words. “They have magic, did you say?”

“These old broads?” Charles whispered incredulously.

I opened up to the elements, feeling that rush as sweet magic filled my body. Without even thinking, I joined that throbbing elixir in the clearing. I entwined my magic within theirs, feeling the community of it in a way I’d never felt in my whole life.
Feeling at one with it. I wasn’t linked, because we weren’t sharing power, but more…hanging around each other. Nodding to each other, magically.

“What is…
” The leader’s brow furrowed.

Almost immediately, that wrongness from the spell left behind sullied the magic. The jagged fragments corroded the natural world around it.
A failed spell, maybe, but a nasty one.

The women were trying to wash away the magical stink. All they were succeeding at, however, was playing with the elements. They could suck in magic, but they weren’t really doing anything with it. They lacked training and focus.

I didn’t.

Without meaning to, I swept them all up into my focus, like holding hands from a distance; reveling in the unity, feeling the embrace of like-using magical people. Toa and I hadn’t been able to do this—when my spell touched his magic, the power leaped to him, forcing a link.
With these women, with similar magic, we just kind of kumbaya’ed around the clearing, beating our magical drums in harmony.

No, it wasn’t strictly useful, magically speaking, but it was bolstering my spirits with each passing moment.
I wasn’t alone!

I analyzed the spell left behind. It hovered like a burned frame of a house, decrepit. Concentrating, trying not to laugh in glee, I smothered what was there while also knocking down the foundations. I wiped away solid traces of the spell, collapsing the rest of the framework with it.

“What’s happening?” Charles asked. His hand squeezed my shoulder. “What are you doing with the magic?

I focused with all my being on one sticky part. Like an intricate knot in the hands of someone who bit their nails, I couldn’t quite get it. I couldn’t disentangle it. I could probably blow it up, which would greatly help my frustration, but it wouldn’t help much else.

Just as I was about to throw up my hands and let it go, I felt a deft magical touch, as though soft, light hands covered mine and took over. With a complexity that would piss Toa off, the small details of the spell were finally unraveled. The rest of the magic disintegrated like snow falling, settling back into the world around it.

“What just happened?” Dominicous asked in a low hum. His gaze hit mine. “Did you unravel that spell?”

“What was that?” the leader asked, her eyes blinking open in confusion.

“Did you feel it?” the mousy woman asked, eyeing the leader.

I nodded at Dominicous dumbly, holding on to the feeling of this new magical community. Sisterhood. I wanted to hug somebody.

“Oh really?
Now
you want to get up on me? Woman, you’re taken. Get off.” Charles peeled my hands away with a grin.

“It worked!” one of the twins exclaimed in shock. “We did it.” She paused, staring at the candles. “
How
did we do it? That was weird.”

“But awesome,” the other twin joined in.

They bobbed their heads in excitement and shared a high-five.

The leader and the mousy lady were staring, wide-eyed, at Dominicous. The leader’s mouth dropped open.

And then things went pear-shaped.

“I’ll get him!” the mousy lady squeaked.

She bounced up with a quickness that made Charles chuckle, although he did not react. Pepper spray held high, Taser coming up to join, she yelled, “Don’t you come near us! Get out of here! We’re not defenseless.”

“There’s another one over—” the leader’s voice cut off in a moan.

“Don’t you make them all lovey!” I screamed at Jonas while putting my hands up in surrender. “Don’t you touch them, Jonas! You touch them and I will give you a seriously bad day.”

“Night,” Charles helped, a grin taking up his face as he watched the pepper spray draw near.

“What’s happening?” one of the twins said, glancing around. “Oh whoa, those guys are huge. Look like a football team. How long have they been here?”

“I am strangely aroused,” the leader said in a booming voice, her eyebrows in a flat line over her eyes. “I haven’t been turned on in ten years. What kind of strange voodoo have we wandered into? Who are you? What do you want?”

“Get out of here!” Mousy growled at us, arsenal held up in thin, shaking arms. Her teeth bared in a human snarl.

“She’s quite courageous,” Dominicous noted. “I wonder how they are able to see through our magic cloak now when they couldn’t a moment before.”

“What are you staring at, young man?” The leader struggled to her feet, grass and mud clinging to her ample rear. She punched her fists to her hips in disappointment as she faced off to Jonas. “I’m not afraid of you, so you can quit that unbecoming scowl!”

This was getting out of control.

“I just worked magic with them somehow, I think. Or
around
them, anyway,” I rattled off quickly to Dominicous as I stepped out, arms still raised to show I wasn’t dangerous.

Seeing me,
Mousy’s expression waffled, confusion filtering in.

“Did you say you linked with them?” Dominicous asked in alarm, stepping forward with me, ready to shield my body from danger.

The finger on the pepper spray turned white. The arm started shaking violently. Not good.

“We are here for the same reasons you are,” I said to Mousy in
a calm, although slightly harried, voice. “We unraveled that spell together. I have the same magic you do. I can help you. You can help me. Maybe. Hopefully. At the minimum, we can just hang out and magically hold hands. I’d be into that.”

“What’s that?” The leader waved her hand in front of her face. It looked like she was trying to clear a bad smell. Her gaze shifted away from Jonas and over to us. “Good heavens—what are you doing out here at this hour?
And with these men? This is no place for you, young lady.”

“Well, we’re here…” one of the twins mentioned.

“Can we all just sit down a minute and have a chat?” I asked slowly. “We’ll just clear the air. I think that would be best.”

The leader walked directly across the circle. My heart started thumping. She knew it had been “cleansed.”
That the nasty spell was dissolved away. She felt it.

My gaze slid to Dominicous. He winked. He’d noticed it, too.

“I’m Birdie.” The larger woman gave a head bob. Apparently that was her version of shaking hands. Her notice flicked toward the mousy woman. “This is—would you put those down, Delilah?! Have you noticed the size of the men standing here? The Taser would probably tickle them.”

“Nope,” Charles muttered behind me.

“As I said, this is Delilah,” Birdie went on. “She and I founded this circle about ten years ago. Three years ago, Jen and Liz joined up.”

“The circle?”
Dominicous asked pleasantly. “Can you talk about that, please?”

“Oh sure, but maybe we can move this chat away from here,” Birdie said, looking around the area. Her gaze hit Jonas. A scowl creased her face. “The seclusion of this place attracts filth—
keep frowning and your face will stay like that, you know.”

“It’s already locked on tight,” I said, trying to hide my smile from Jonas.
And failing.

Ann snickered somewhere behind us.

“Let’s return to our vehicles, shall we?” Dominicous held his hand out to steer the group like any eighteenth-century gentleman would. “I am eager to return to the mansion. I think something pressing will need my attention.”

With a shock of fear that Dominicous knew something I didn’t, I focused on my link with Stefan. An undercurrent of sadness radiated.
Sadness, and tinges of desperation. He was thinking of his parents—he only felt like this when the past reared its head and threatened to tear him down. Since the demon surfaced, he’d been struggling with this constantly. Something had triggered his memories, but overlaying that was determination and triumph. He was fighting through.

“I think you
miss Toa more than he misses you,” I joked with Dominicous as he escorted me out of the trees. “He was never all jumpy to get back to you when we were on the
Mata
property.”

“I never get in over my head.”

“What’s Toa doing that he’s in over his head? I’d love to witness that.”

“I’m not sure,” Dominicous answered quietly, “but whatever it is, it’s made him feel inferior.” His gaze hit mine as we stepped onto the pavement. “That’s between us, of course.
As family.”

Warm
fuzzies bubbled up my body. I shrugged with a shy smile. He turned to our followers, the group of women getting a better view of my crew as a streetlamp rained down light. Wide eyes there were in plenty.

Except for Birdie.
She didn’t seem fazed by much. “So what is this, then? Bodyguards?” Those fists found her hips again.

Jonas stepped away and pointed out towards the distant street. Charles did likewise, pointing back towards the park. Ann loitered near the Hummer, eyes always moving. You’d think we were in a combat zone instead of a deserted park.

“Did you feel a…presence back there?” I asked hesitantly. I didn’t know how to come out and say, “Hey! You’ve got magic. So have I! Let’s make a club!”

Birdie eyed me in speculation. It was Delilah that answered. “Was that you? We’ve always managed to call the corners successfully, but then…we just can’t seem to direct our focus. We stalemate.”

“
You
can’t direct the focus, you mean,” Birdie huffed. “
I
don’t know how you do half of the things you manage.”

“And what is it you manage?” Dominicous asked. “And these corners you speak of. That is…the elements?
Magical forces?”

Delilah scrubbed at the ground with her toe. “We just mess around with our energies.”

“Don’t be bashful,” Birdie interjected, stepping closer to her friend. “It is nothing to be embarrassed about.” She faced off to Dominicous defensively. “We practice a form of Wicca—a modern pagan, witchcraft religion. While we don’t rip off our clothes in the moonlight and praise the Goddess and God, we do celebrate nature. We focus our energies and open up to the world around us. To the trees swaying, to the air displaced by a tiny insect, to the awe of watching the sunrise after a long night. We—”

“Are long-winded,” Jonas growled. His plans for this night had been shot all to hell. Poor bugger.

Birdie didn’t know the backstory, though. Her fisted arms rammed down at her sides. “This belief system goes back to the Paleolithic peoples, I’ll have you know. To the cave paintings of the Hunter God and Fertility Goddess. It is old, passing through time and space—still around. And Witchcraft, something you might deem a silly little hobby idiot women get up to, is actually something known in ancient history as ‘The Craft of the Wise’ because most who followed the path were in tune with the forces of nature. Witches were anything from midwives to healers. We don’t prance around, waving wands and sacrificing things to open fires. We are useful, damn it!”

“And do you practice tarot, perchance?” Dominicous asked softly.

One of the twins started fidgeting. Delilah lowered her head further as a shadow passed over Birdie’s eyes. They thought they were beaten. They thought tarot proved their silliness. And they couldn’t be more wrong. Not with this lot.