Rival Demons (24 page)

At the top of the main staircase, Andros and his
family waited to say goodbye.

Sasha jumped from her mother's grasp and threw
her arms around my legs. I crouched down to give her a proper hug.
"I told my mother she shouldn't worry, that you would come and save
me," she whispered.

I smiled at her and kissed her tiny cheek.

Ourelia hugged me and gave me a sweater. "It
might get cold where you're going," she said. "Promise me you'll be
careful."

I nodded, knowing that no matter how careful we
might be, the future wasn't entirely in our hands.

It was Andros' gift that surprised me more than
anything. With serious eyes, he handed me a tightly bundled
package.

"What is this?" I asked.

"When you first came here, Jackson told me you'd
been looking for a clue about how to break the spell that binds
Aerden's soul and power to you," he said. "I told him we had never
heard of this spell, but I wasn't entirely honest."

Chills ran up my arms. I clutched the package
tight against my chest.

"The book you now hold has the information
you've been looking for," he said. Then he turned to grasp
Jackson's hand. "Please do not be angry at me for keeping this from
you. You must understand that this information is one of our most
closely guarded secrets, and down here we still have some trust
issues. Someday, we wanted to seek the items needed to break the
spell and cross worlds in order to free our brothers and sisters.
Harper, I now see that your destiny is tied to this book. It was
waiting here for you. For this moment. May the suns and moons carry
you to safety through all your days and nights."

For a moment, I couldn't move or speak or
breathe.

In my hands, I held the key to my own freedom
and the freedom of thousands. It was a priceless gift that filled
my heart with hope.

"Thank you," I managed, then threw my arms
around him.

Andros laughed and patted my back. "You're
welcome," he said. "Do not let this information go to waste."

"We won't," Jackson said.

We finished our goodbyes and Andros walked us
down the long hallway to the portal. He searched through a
collection of stones, then finally placed a new symbol into a
square cubby in the wall. Jackson took my hand and moved us to
stand just beneath the portal's opening. With a nod, he signaled
that we were ready. Andros nodded back slowly, then placed his hand
over the symbol.

A familiar hum coursed through my body from feet
to head. Then, I fell upward, my body disassembling and passing
through the cool soul stone. I forced myself to stay calm through
the sudden darkness. When I reached the other side, the crisp air
startled me.

My hair blew back in the wind, lifting from my
neck and sending a cool breeze straight through me.

Disoriented, I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel
of the wind while the world stopped spinning.

Jackson's lips descended on mine, so warm. I
leaned against him, enjoying this peaceful moment.

"We should go," he said softly.

I opened my eyes and looked around. We were
standing at the top of a moonlit hill, the black roses circling us.
Above our heads, the sky boasted three moons – one pink, one blue
and one lavender.

"Weren't there only two moons before?" I
asked.

Jackson laughed and took my hand. "There are
seven moons total," he said. "How many you can see depends on the
time of the year. Three moons means warm weather. Sort of like
summer here."

"Summer sounds good to me," I said. "No snow in
summer."

We stepped out of the ring of roses and onto
dark gritty sand. The sand slipped beneath my feet, and I nearly
lost my footing. Jackson held tight to me, keeping me from falling.
Carefully, we made our way down the hill and onto a more flat,
beach-like surface. In the distance, I could hear the sound of the
sea.

The cave took another half-hour to get to, and I
spent the entire time looking over our shoulders to make sure we
weren't being followed. Once we were inside, I was glad to be out
of the sand and out of view. Jackson had picked up bits of
driftwood along the way and he immediately set to making a fire.
Our no-magic policy was in full effect, hoping not to alert any
hunters of our presence.

I was completely exhausted, but right now
nothing short of death could keep me from reading the book Andros
had given us. As soon as the fire provided enough light for me to
see by, I untied the package and lifted an old leather-bound book
from the cloth. The leather was soft and worn, the binding badly
cracked from age. A blue butterfly was embossed onto the front
cover. I traced the image with my fingertip, my teeth grinding
together as I thought of the one family I knew with an affinity for
butterflies.

The Winters.

Zara had told me her ancestors were members of
the Order of Shadows for a long time, but until this moment, I
hadn't realized she meant they were founding members. Judging from
the age of this tome, it was possible someone in the Winter family
had been around since the beginning.

The leather cracked as I opened the book. The
pages were yellowed and worn, but thankfully, the writing was all
in neatly handwritten English. I skimmed each page, searching for
the information Andros had been talking about.

The first several seemed to contain basic
information about how to feel connected to your power, how to
control a flame, how to move an object across the room. It wasn't
until after the basics that things started getting interesting.

"Look at this," I said to Jackson. "
A witch
may perform many spells on her own power, but with the
collaboration of a shadow demon, a witch's power grows
exponentially.
"

Jackson sat next to me, taking part of the book
into his lap so that it was shared between us.

"I think we're looking at one witch's schoolbook
of sorts," I said. "These read like lessons at first, right? I
mean, these basic spells looks like handwritten notes on how to
perform simple things. But as you move further into the book, it
becomes more complex, as if the witch was learning more as she
advanced through the Order or whatever it was that existed before
the Order. This may possibly be her private journal or
something."

Jackson flipped through several more of the
pages, stopping when he saw a drawing of a ritual room with a
portal. "What does it say here?" he asked as he threw another piece
of wood on the fire.

I read from the page. "
After Magda's journey
into the shadow world, my sisters and I have discovered a way to
pull shadow demons through so that their power may be used as a
type of fuel for our magic,
" I read. "
The secret is in the
gemstones found all over the shadow world. They are as common there
as simple rocks, but they absorb magic like no stones we have ever
seen. Using these stones, we have built a portal to the other side
which can only be controlled by the master of the stone.
"

"The master of the stone?" Jackson said, looking
over the page. "That must be the person who controls the stone?
What else? Read it out loud."

"
We are unsure how it works exactly, but the
first stone we mined from the shadow world was a deep blue
sapphire,
" the journal continued. "
We found a location at
the edge of town where the stone seemed to vibrate with a special
power. There, we placed it into the ground, and here, after much
experimenting, we created a spell that opened a gateway to the
other side. Eloisa, the eldest, was the first to claim the title of
master. After several months of trying different techniques, she
finally chipped a small piece from the stone and created a powerful
ring. She imbued this ring with a powerful spell designed to
control a demon's power.

"
The control spell worked beautifully! Within
a week, she had returned home through the portal with a demon under
her command. After many months, we developed a special spell that
trapped this demon into her body. You wouldn't believe the effect!
Eloisa is by far the most powerful witch in the history of this
town, possibly the world. We now know there is no need to make a
demon fall in love with you in order to join with his powers. With
this new magic, we can summon the demons and make them into our
very own personal energy pool without so much as asking their
permission.

"
Of course, many of the witches in our town
do not approve of these techniques. They call us cruel and evil and
say we are using dark magic, but I see it as survival of the
fittest. The most powerful deserve the best, and we are by far the
most powerful witches in the world. We have decided to call
ourselves The Order of Shadows since we now control these shadow
demons, and soon, we will have each created our very own demon
gates. I for one, am looking forward to feeling the rush of power
Eloisa brags about ever since her demon entered her.
"

I stopped there, my hand shaking. In my hands I
was holding one of the first accounts of the formation of the Order
of Shadows. I wasn't familiar with the names Eloisa and Magda, and
I was unsure exactly how many witches had been involved at the
start of the Order, but none of that was as important as
understanding the origins of the demon gates and the purpose of the
gemstones.

I turned the page and froze. More drawings of
familiar items. A dagger with a stone embedded in its hilt. A
chalice. A gemstone necklace. The fourth item was a ring.

"Have you ever seen this ring?" I asked.

Jackson shook his head. "The rest of these
things we're obviously intimately familiar with," he said. "But the
ring is new to me. Does it say anything else about it here?"

I shook my head. There were no notes on this
page, only drawings.

It was on the next to last page that we finally
found what we were looking for. "Here," I said excitedly. "This is
it, Jackson, oh my god."

"What?" he asked, gripping the side of the
book.

I pointed to the text at the top of the page.
"
The magic that binds a Prima to the first demon is one of the
strongest binding spells I have ever performed. To reverse this
magic, you must perform the original initiation spell backwards,
using all of the same original items that were used in the creation
of the Prima's bond.
"

"Harper, this is exactly what we've been looking
for," Jackson said. He took the book into his lap and read the
sentences again. Then, he backed up a few pages. "Do we have the
steps of the original initiation spell in here?"

"Yes," I said, feeling giddy, my exhaustion
forgotten. "It's a few pages back, closer to the drawings."

I flipped back and pointed when we reached the
ritual. "What does it say were the items used?" I asked. "That's
what we'll need to reverse the spell."

"The original portal stone," he said. "Which is
easy since it's in the ritual room. The master's stone."

"Wait, isn't that the same thing?" I asked,
peering over his shoulder.

"I don't know," he said. "I would assume so.
Whoever wrote this book called the person in charge of the gate the
master of the stone, so I would imagine the master's stone is the
portal."

"Makes sense to me,"I said. "What else?"

"The ritual dagger."

"That's usually kept at Lydia Ashworth's house,"
I said. "I saw it there the night of the Homecoming dance. When
Morgyn died. I doubt it's still there, though. Not after what
happened with Mrs. Ashworth."

I thought of how Priestess Winter's underlings
had carried Lydia Ashworth away for her betrayal. If I had to
guess, I would imagine all of those items had been given to
Brooke's mother, Mrs. Harris. She's the one the Order wanted as
their new Prima, so it only made sense.

"The necklace," Jackson said next. "What
happened to it?"

I reached up to my bare neck. "They took it from
me for the ritual," I said. "They placed it inside the
chalice."

"That's the next item," Jackson said. "Who keeps
the cup?"

"I don't know," I said. "I always assumed Mrs.
Ashworth had that as well. Now, it's either Mrs. Harris who has it
or Priestess Winter."

"We'll hope for Mrs. Harris," he said. He traced
his finger along the words, his lips moving as he read. "The only
other item mentioned here is the ring."

I leaned back against the wall of the cave. The
ring. Neither of us had ever seen this item before. I was certain
none of the other witches in Peachville had ever worn it. I would
have noticed the stone. From the drawing, the stone was large and
oval, definitely something that would draw attention.

"Is there any other information there about the
ring?" I asked. "It's the only unknown item."

He flipped carefully through each page, then
shook his head. "Nothing that I can see here," he said.

I let my head fall into my hands. We were so
close, but without the ring, the information was useless.

"It's late," he said, closing the book.
"Tomorrow we need to come up with a plan of where to go and how to
stay safe out here on our own. You need to get some rest so you're
fresh for whatever comes our way. For now, we should be safe here
since we haven't cast any magic or left any kind of trail, but we
can't stay in one place forever. It's too dangerous."

I nodded. He was right. Without the safety of
the Underground, we would have to be on our guard at all times.
"What about you?" I asked.

"I can survive with a lot less sleep than you
can," he said. He pulled a blanket from his backpack and threw it
over me. "I'll be your pillow."

I smiled and snuggled into the space between his
arm and his chest. After all the excitement, I wasn't sure I'd be
able to sleep, but after a few minutes of listening to the crackle
of the fire and the soothing sound of the waves crashing on the
shore outside the cave, my eyes began to droop.