Spell of Summoning (27 page)

The demon over her shoulder laughed mutely, fully formed. Fangs, gray skin, and red eyes stared back. It had to go.

Holden cleared his throat. “He probably has his place spelled against unknown magic. It’s what I’d do. But maybe he didn’t spell the whole neighborhood. Hopefully he doesn’t have that much power.”

“Okay. Do it fast. I trust you.”

Talk about breaking his heart. This undeniably amazing, beautiful, strong, funny, sexy-as-hell lady trusted him? He dug his piece of sidewalk chalk from the Jeep and drew a spell circle on the driveway, casting a call-for-help spell, something to draw positive spirits to him. All he could do was pray another Ned didn’t show up to screw with him.

Back in the ballroom of the Westin Hotel, when Holden had needed his new spirit companion, Ned had appeared with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “I serve the Dark Caster!” He’d flashed in and out around Holden like a strobe light. “You’re too late! You’re too late, and you don’t even know it!”

That had been the last time Holden had seen Ned.

Pop
.

A semicircle of shadows came into focus. Not one spirit but half a dozen. Helpful or curious, it didn’t matter. They’d answered Holden’s call.

“The necromancer in that house is casting dark magic,” Holden said. “Can you find out where?”

A glowing pink spirit with a super-happy vibe solidified into a young girl about ten years old with black pigtails and a bright smile. He’d seen her before at the Happy Trails Child Care Center and tonight at the fundraiser.

Though they’d never officially met, he had a good feeling about her. She wouldn’t take pleasure in messing with him the way Ned had.

“I want to help. I’m Olive.” Off she ran, right through the front door. Holden stood and pulled Becca against him.

“It won’t be much longer,” he said.

She didn’t answer. He put her at arm’s length to see into her face. She didn’t seem to be hearing him.

“Becca?” He gave her a little shake.

She stared blankly at a spot over his left shoulder.

Oh, no
. Derek was breaking through the last of her defenses like they were tissue paper. After that there’d be no stopping the demon from possessing her.

Holden cursed loudly, spewing foul words he was sure Rebecca would not approve of. But the fear and frustration rocketing through him were clouding his good judgment. She’d saved his life tonight when he’d feared he’d be stuck in his underwater nightmare forever, and he would not fail her now when she needed him the most.

His new best friend Olive returned, smiling brightly.

“He’s in a walk-in closet in the last bedroom.” Her eyes sparkled. “Good luck!”

Relief and anger propelled him. He didn’t think about the small spaces he was about to pass through. Nope. Just swept Becca over his shoulder caveman style and marched through the front door.

He  headed for the last bedroom down the hall as if guided by a laser sight. He opened the last door and felt around for a light switch. Yep, there it was. He flipped it, but no lights came on. In the shadowy gloom he could see a folding table, a stack of cardboard boxes, and a closed closet door.

Holden hesitated like the coward he was, standing with a half-gone Becca over his shoulder and refusing to go in and save her. He closed his eyes.

Small, dark spaces. Derek couldn’t have chosen a better hideaway.

Images from the nightmare spell pounded through Holden’s psyche—blue ice, freezing-cold water, and that crushing confinement. The screeching pain…

But the nightmare was over. He wasn’t in the water. And Rebecca needed him.

Holden clenched his hands into fists and plunged ahead.

His stomach roiled, and his head spun, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the enclosed space or an unseen mystical barrier, but he refused to back down. He got the hot sweats, and his vision blurred. He hadn’t had a panic attack this bad in years. His heart rate spiked, his pulse pounding through his chest and ears and making his fingertips tingle.

Clear your mind. Focus.

Maybe he had gone a little mad tonight because it was becoming harder and harder to think straight. Magic swam in the air all around him like charged fog, slowing him down.

He laid Rebecca gently on the floor out of sight of whatever was in the next room, and then Holden whipped open the closet door. The carpet had been ripped up and any fixtures removed. Spell circles in varying colors covered the floor and walls. Though the place was choked with smoke from at least two dozen candles, it felt icy cold inside.

Holden’s ghostly entourage surrounded him, crowding the tiny room even further. Their power would—he hoped—overwhelm whatever defenses this bastard had created. And the spells carved into his body would do the rest.

Ned and another spirit flanked a kneeling Derek.

“Too late.” Derek cackled like a madman. “Too late.”

Holden moved fast, anticipating Derek would do the same. He certainly hadn’t hesitated in the parking garage earlier, stepping into a predrawn spell circle and blasting Holden with black and icky nightmare magic.

“
Dormeo
,” Holden hissed.

Derek crumpled onto his side.

Holden finished, “
Dedisco
.”

The temperature in the closet dropped so low his breath puffed white and all the candles blew out. A dark and disturbing presence swept the small room, whispering past Holden’s ear and raising the tiny hairs on the back of his neck.

Ned, the betrayer, screamed an unholy wail of pain and terror. Derek’s other spirit, a black man in a dark suit, cried out for help. Both their images flickered as if they wanted to vanish, but the darkness in the room trapped them in place.

“Oh God. Oh God,” panted the black man. “I didn’t mean it.”

Both spirits glowed a deep blood red. With a sickening wheeze, they were both sacrificed to the demon they’d helped summon.

And that could only mean one thing.

Becca stood in the doorway fully conscious. The demon’s shadow was no longer around her head and shoulders. No, it was
inside
her.

 Holden’s mouth dried to dust.
No. No, please, no
.

She examined her outstretched arms as if she’d never seen human flesh before.

“It’s a beautiful body.” It was Becca’s voice, but it sure wasn’t her talking. “You like it, don’t you?” An evil smile lit her face as she ran her hands up her belly to cup her breasts. “I’m going to have so much fun.” The laugh that erupted from her chest was definitely not Becca’s.

Too late. Too late
.

With both hands and feet, he broke all of Derek’s spell circles. But it wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot.

With a penknife, he cut Derek’s arm, drawing blood. Holding his breath, Holden spread Derek’s blood across his palm and stamped a sloppy red handprint over Holden’s mouth and nose. He would seal the summoned demon inside himself with the dark necromancer’s own blood.

Holden removed his shirt, revealing his secret weapon. He’d cut spell circles into his body—on his chest, up and down his arms, and across his thighs and calves, making his body the biggest, baddest conduit of spiritual power in the game.

“Help me,” he called to the growing crowd of ghosts. “Give me your strength, and I’ll end this. I know how.”

He knelt and cast a spell. A huge one. The worst he’d ever tried. Spirits, both friendly and not so friendly, gathered around him to assist, drawn by the sudden burst of power.

Becca, or the demon inside her, watched with amused eyes, as if predicting Holden couldn’t pull it off. But the son of a bitch demon didn’t know how badly Holden needed this spell to work.

Power, like a firestorm, tore through him. With the final word a mini explosion went off, erupting from Holden’s bleeding wounds and blinding him with white light.

“Rebecca!” He reached for her, but the light faded into complete blackness, and he couldn’t find her before he collapsed face-first.

* * *

Becca sat up, blinded by smoke. She rubbed her eyes. Oh, God, she could see. And hear. And feel again. Relief washed over her. For a moment she’d faced the idea that she was doomed to die—helpless and possessed by a demon.

She blinked several times to find a horror movie come to life all around her. Among the smoke and ash, Derek lay on his side, unconscious. Supernatural symbols and spell marks—some familiar, some not—were scrawled on every surface. Blood smeared the concrete floor. And Holden was gone.

“Get up, girl, you have to hurry.”

Becca met a pair of worried blue eyes in a soft, pretty face. Becca recognized her from the photos in Holden’s house.

“It can’t be,” she breathed. If she was seeing Grams, and Holden was missing in action, did it mean—

Her insides wrenched. “Where is Holden?”

Other spirits came into focus. They stood shoulder to shoulder around the perimeter of the cramped closet like a hazy ghostly choir. Was this what Holden saw all the time? She shook her head, hoping it would all disappear. But it didn’t. The shadows stared at her, watching and expectant.

“You can see me because you’ve been touched, girl. The demon possessed you, but now it’s in Holden and I need you to get up and help him.”

It took a good three seconds to form a coherent thought. Her gaze bounced from the face of a teenage boy to the grown, bearded man beside him. Dead, both of them.

The demon had possessed her? Oh, God. And it was in
Holden
?

“Get up!” Grams’s entire being vibrated with frustration. “Help him!”

Becca climbed to her feet. The fatigue that had haunted her for the past three months faded. Her headache was gone.

“What about—?” She gestured at Derek. If he wasn’t completely subdued, he could hurt her again. Or Holden.

Grams reappeared in front of her. “My grandson.” Her voice stuttered like the connection right before a dropped call. “Is in trouble. If he gets away, there’s no telling what pain and anguish he will cause. Girl, there’s a school half a mile away.”

Becca rushed from the closet—God, it was tiny—and out of the house. She ran for the Jeep, hopped in, and revved the engine. She pressed the gas all the way to the floorboard to catch Holden before he hit the main road in Derek’s sedan.

She closed in on his rear bumper. “What am I going to do when I catch him?” she shouted into the wind and the whine of the engine.

Grams appeared in the seat beside her. She didn’t have to raise her voice to be heard clearly. “Run him off the road.”

Becca didn’t hesitate. She pushed the Jeep parallel to the sedan, made eye contact with Holden, and then swerved hard to the right. Metal screamed. She went rigid as the sedan skidded and swerved. In the rearview mirror, Becca watched it fly through the ditch and crash head-on into a pine tree.

She stomped on the brakes and ran for the crumpled sedan. Thank God, the air bag had gone off, and as she neared, Holden climbed out of the car on his own. But he was covered with blood and consumed by a filthy black shadow. The demon.

“Holden!”

It wasn’t the Holden she knew looking back. Nope. Nothing about that expression was his.

She halted three feet away. “Honey?”

He limped around her like she wasn’t there and trudged toward Highway 24.

“He’s got a stun gun in the back of the Jeep,” Grams said as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “Hit him with it.”

Becca stared at her. “Okay. Sure.” She lifted the tarp in the back of the Jeep and found a duffel with, no joking, half a dozen different stun guns inside.

“What was he thinking?” she hissed. Then she put it together. Her demon was obsessed with electricity. Maybe an electrical charge would expel it back to the demon realm. This must be Holden and Cole’s plan B.

Becca grabbed a stun gun, caught up to Holden, and fired it at his back. Holden made a strangled, pained cry and collapsed at her feet.

“Holden?” She knelt beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Oh God, his wounds were symmetrical. He’d carved magical symbols into his own skin. He’d turned his body into a living, breathing spell circle. “Honey?”

Grams appeared near Holden’s head, her spirit shimmery and insubstantial. “Rebecca, we only have a few minutes. Listen carefully. You have to draw a spell circle and mark it with--”

“What?” The shadow enveloping Holden darkened from gunmetal gray to asphalt black. “I don’t understand. I’m not a necromancer.”

“You’ve been touched,” Grams said again. “You can direct my power into him and cast the spell he was planning.”

“I’ll call Cole. He’ll help.”

“There isn’t time!”

Becca reached out and ran her fingers over one of the symbols Holden had cut into his flesh. For her. To save her.

She hadn’t realized how lost she’d been until she’d met Holden and felt cherished for the first time in a long time. The thought of losing him tore a hole through her chest. She owed him too much to let things end this way—in the dirt on the side of a road.

If she didn’t do this, if she failed, he was gone forever. His soul and his personality would be gone from her and a chaos hungry demon would take over. Maybe forever.

She had no choice. “Tell me what to do.”

“Draw the circle. Quick. He’s waking up.”

Sure enough, Holden pushed to his hands and knees but then tumbled back onto his belly. The effects of the stun gun hadn’t completely worn off yet.

Her hands rattled like a set of keys, and she could barely grip the chalk, but Becca drew a wide circle on the edge of the road.

“Now a bridge,” Grams instructed, her syllables clipped. “Then a globe, scales, and a six pointed star.”

“Okay.” Becca drew the marks, one at each point on the compass, or as near as she could guess at night with only the stars to guide her. “What if this doesn’t work?”

Rebecca saw raw determination in Grams’s eyes. It was a do-or-die kind of look. “It has to.”

Spirits gathered. The ones from the storm shelter—a little girl with pigtails, the teenage boy, and the bearded man.

The girl stepped beside Grams. “We’ll all help.”