On Pins and Needles: Sierra Fox, Book 3 (36 page)

I didn’t even want to think about who else she had in mind for this, but had a pretty good idea.

“Come on,
demon hunter
, we’re going to put you to some good use.” As soon as Jonathan made a grab for Lavie, she kicked him in the midsection.

“I don’t think so.” She was so caught up in attacking him she didn’t notice Maya sneaking up behind her.

“Look out!” I yelled too late.

“I like my points feisty, and it looks like most of you are.” Maya spared a quick and very condescending glare Jonathan’s way, while tightening the forearm she’d wrapped under Lavie’s chin and dragging her to the point next to Gareth.

I clenched my hands into fists, feeling the need to attack both of these assholes. But one look into Willow’s shiny eyes made me stop. She was already sealed into the star and so was Gareth. What would happen to them now if I acted out violently?
 

According to Oren, anyone sealed inside the pentagram for this ritual could only be released via death. But was that as soon as they were sealed, or after it was formally started? Maybe it was when the demon had already been conjured.
 

Everything was muddled inside my head and I didn’t want to risk anyone’s life.

I have no choice but to play this out. There’ll be another opportunity.

This was getting worse by the minute. Between Jonathan and Maya, the two managed to magically bind Lavie to the point.
 

My mind raced. Where was Papan? And more importantly, how could he get us out of this situation once the blood sealed each of us into our designated spots? I had no doubt that the other two points were reserved for Jonathan and me.

“Bring her to me,” Maya instructed.

“Not until the others get here,” Jonathan said with a frown.

Maya’s silky laughter filled the room. “What others? You didn’t honestly think anyone else was invited to this party, did you?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jonathan’s face contorted into the gray, sallow creature with glossy black eyes. “You told me—”

“I told you I’m fed up with waiting. So sick of drawing this ritual out until Mace is ready to complete it. We’re going to open ourselves to Legion
today,
” Maya spat. “No more games. I finally have the guest of honor all to myself and I intend to use her.”

“What about when the others find out?”

“There are only two left, so what could they do to me for defying them? You’re here, I’m here, and we’ve got enough magical points to complete the circle.” She sighed, a little too dramatically. “Now, put the amulet on her.”

“When Mace and Duff find out, they’re going to be furious!”

“By the time they find out, we’ll have total control of as many demons as we can each hold within our bodies and spread them out into the world at our leisure. They can join us then.” Maya’s eyes were shiny with ambition as she stepped away from Gareth and into the center of the circle. “We’ll start with a modest-sized company like Regalia before branching out into other corporations and eventually the government. We’re going to offer Legion what it always wanted, and be heavily compensated with limitless power and wealth. Our souls will live forever!”

So this delusional woman honestly thought she could summon and then control a powerful demon? Roger Hocking tried to do the same thing once. He’d infected his wife with a demonic seed, opened a rift between patches, and ended up dead.

This
isn’t going to turn out well.

“Maya, don’t do this. It’s not how we planned it—”

“Jon, things don’t always go according to plan.” She licked her ruby lips and turned her gaze to me. “I’ll be the only one strong enough to tame the Catcher and use her power for Legion’s advantage. She doesn’t look so threatening to me.”
 

As I watched her—with rage slowly boiling inside my veins—Maya suddenly morphed before my eyes. Her blue dress melted away as quickly as most of her humanoid qualities, and a long blue tail uncoiled from where her legs used to be. Her tail whipped out and wrapped itself tightly around my hips so I couldn’t move. Her long hair lashed out behind her and her nipple-less breasts dominated the brown hide resembling leather.

“Put the amulet on her!” Maya’s voice had also changed to a screechy, grating sound—like nails on a chalkboard.

Jonathan didn’t respond, but threw something over my head and my skin started to crawl instantly. I looked down, recognizing the ugly amulet—The Eye of Wakh. The one I’d once taken from Ebony and given to Jonathan, hoping he would help us find out what it was. Funny enough, he’d answered our questions but I’d been stupid enough to leave it in his care and didn’t bother asking about it later.
 

The thing was just as awful as I remembered. The longer I looked at it, the more my vision crinkled at the edges.

I glared at Jonathan as he made his way towards the point directly across from Willow, leaving me in the middle.
 

They were going to use this jinxed
thing
on me to absorb my powers and then invoke it via a crazy ritual. As foggy as my head was, I couldn’t understand how Maya intended to do this without the full extent of my power. Wasn’t the plan for me to inherit it from Grandma when they were ready? What the hell was I missing?

Maya’s tail tightened around me, dragging me along as it slithered until I was standing on the point between Willow and Jonathan. Willow was sobbing quietly, Gareth staring at me wide-eyed, and Lavie seemed to be considering our surroundings as if she could still see something the rest of us couldn’t. Or it could’ve been hopeful thinking on my part.
 

“Jon, hurry up and seal yourself to your point,” Maya demanded.
 

“What the hell is going on?” I heard Gareth ask Lavie.

“We’re about to be used for a ritual,” the demon hunter answered.

“Don’t you want me to bring the sacrifice first?” Jonathan asked.

“Just get in your corner before I tear your head off and get this going that way,” Maya barked. With every angry word, she tightened her hold on me.

Jonathan glared at her, and for just a moment I thought his black eyes flashed to brown.
 

“Hurry up, Jon.
Feed your blood.
” She looked me in the eye. “Your precious blood will be last. I can’t wait to finish what was started so long ago.”

“This isn’t going to work.” The whisper escaped me before I could stop it.

Her eyes hardened. Maya slid closer, coiling her long tail around me another time so that every breath was a struggle.
 

“Oh, no?” I could see what appeared to be a dragon tattooed on her lower abdomen. I didn’t need to view her back to know what it was, because both Jonathan and Mauricio had the same tattoo in different places. This one just happened to be bigger. “How would you know what we are about to do?”

“I know a lot more than you think.”

Maya’s smile spread. “Come to me now, Eli.”

From the shadows shambled a man with glazed blue eyes. He had brown hair and wasn’t tall. He looked a little soft around the middle, but he was totally bewitched.
 

Maya extended a hand out towards him. “Come to me, lover.”

“No, Dad, don’t do it!” Willow yelled, thrashing against the invisible clamp keeping her in place.

Her father didn’t listen, and instead took one unsteady step after another like some sort of smiling zombie. He entered the circle and placed one of his hands in Maya’s.

“Good toy,” she said huskily. “You have served your time well.”

Eli didn’t respond, just stared at her with his head tilted sideways.

“Are you sealed in?” Maya asked, glaring at Jonathan.

“Yeah,” he responded, his wrist already bleeding into his point on the star.

Willow sobbed, but I couldn’t look at her because Maya’s hold on me was restricting my ability to move.

Maya smiled at Eli, patted his head with a taloned hand, and shoved the other one into his midsection, so it burst out the other end. With the length of her tail, she was able to keep a steady grip on me while disemboweling him, until blood poured from every piece of his broken shell and filled the circular tracks around us.
 

His blood blended with that of the others.
 

“No!” Willow yelled, and a bright light cut across the basement.

Whatever black magic Maya had used to seal everyone in seemed to be pulling the collective blood and feeding the points of the star.

There were many ways to conduct ritualistic situations, and it didn’t take an expert to see what was going on here. Eli’s copious blood was already filling the crevices near my feet.

 
“Now we’re just about set,” Maya said, glancing at Willow. “I knew the necromancer would call the ghosts to her. It’s an essential ingredient to this, you know.” Her focus switched back to me. “One we lost when you killed Troy and his brother, but I found a better replacement. Do you know how hard it is to find a necromancer nowadays?”

I didn’t offer a response, and doubted she was waiting for one.

She slid forward until we stood cheek-to-cheek. “You’re the final ingredient. Your blood smells so nice.”
 

The energy the amulet had collected from me shimmered like a barrier between us. Maya’s fangs peeked out, pressing on her bottom lip.
 

I attempted to recite the protective incantation that had helped me when Mauricio went for the death strike, but my mind remained fuzzy. Wearing the amulet was affecting me already, confusing my thoughts.

“Take my hand,” Lavie whispered from the other side of the circle. I wasn’t sure what she was doing.

Maya was close enough to kiss, her warm breath making me flinch. When she raised her face and flashed her massive fangs—which resembled a snake’s—my pulse sped up. This was really it. I was about to become the pawn these assholes wanted, at the hand of some ambitious creature willing to double-cross her own group of demonic believers.

When her fangs tore through the skin of my neck, I cried out. Pain flowed beneath my flesh like a poisonous fire tearing through my veins. Her slurping noises filled me with disgust and though I tried to push her away, I couldn’t. She had her arms wrapped as tightly around me as her tail, her strength too much to overcome.
 

My power slowly seeped from my limbs and into hers. The more blood she took, the more my vision curved at the edges.

“Sierra, fight it!” Who was that? A female voice I knew but couldn’t place at the moment.

My eyelids were getting so heavy I couldn’t help but close them. Even then, the light from my left was so bright it stung, forcing tears.
 

Everything slowed—my heart, my ability to think, my breathing. I was being drained of my very essence. She was taking what I was, what I’d accepted, everything that gave me the spark of life. I didn’t think she wanted me dead. So what the hell was she doing?

“Maya, you have to stop!” Jonathan yelled. “If you kill her now, we won’t be able to finish this.”

The Lamia yanked her fangs from the side of my neck, taking a chunk of skin with her. She looked at me, her eyes glowing gold with power. She chewed the flesh she’d bitten off, blood dribbling out the side of her mouth.
 

She licked her bloody lips. “I can feel the power flowing through me. It’s so thick and strong. Why did the other fools think we needed you with more power than
this?
”

Maya raised a hand and the scalpel was there. She slashed the sharp instrument along both of my wrists and the sting took several seconds to register. When the pain joined the one on my neck, I slumped forward but didn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t. I was trapped inside an invisible box closing in too tightly around my body. My blood, just like that of the others, dribbled onto the canals keeping us imprisoned inside the pentagram. The thin river of crimson doubled around us, providing more fuel for this insane ritual.

The amulet around my neck felt different, lighter. She’d taken everything it had drawn from me and I couldn’t summon a single word of incantation.

I couldn’t remember any.
 

Even the lights around Willow appeared dimmer.
 

Her two poltergeist friends whirled around her body, the dog around her ankles. The two dead teens were clearly saying something but I couldn’t hear what. I watched their mouths, which moved too quickly to read their lips.
 

A horrid realization washed over me. Had she stripped my catcher ability completely? The thought made my heart fall right into my feet.
 

Maya forcibly took Willow’s right hand and my left one—ripping the bloody bandage from my palm. When our hands collided, my sister’s touch sent an electric shock through me, and something seemed to click between us.

“The entrance is now sealed for you, Legion,” Maya whispered.
 

Maya stepped back and away. As soon as she reached the center of the star, she slashed her own left wrist, followed by her right. Thick, magenta blood dripped from each incision as she dropped her hands to her sides. The scalpel hit the floor and her blood gushed even quicker than ours had, as if it were being drawn by unseen magnets.