A Cursed Embrace(81)

He sailed through the air like a massive glider, soaring upward as the weres gave chase. Shayna grunted as her thin arms flung her knives with all their might. The blades whistled through the sky and found their mark, piercing through the demon’s webbed appendages. The demon screamed again, this time in pain. She’d hurt him, disabling his speed and impeding his ability to climb higher into the sky. Aric and Koda leapt after him, their deadly jaws inches from reaching his talon feet. I started to run, the shock from the demon knowing my name fading fast. But Bren barreled in front of me. I crashed into his side and bounced back. “Bren!”

He sneezed and motioned behind me. Danny’s and Shayna’s stark white faces kept me from changing and scaling the rock hard walls. They were terrified. I couldn’t justify leaving them, especially with the amount of backup Aric had.

I retreated hesitantly, and knelt beside the injured cougar. He shook his head and shut his lids tight as he willed his beast to heal him. An ounce of his magic reached my flesh and pricked along my burning skin. I managed not to react when his stomach bobbed back into his body and his head crunched on its return home. Danny couldn’t stop his response. He staggered back and tripped over a rock, disturbing a band of scorpions that fortunately chose to scurry in the opposite direction.

The cougar pushed onto his paws. The witch hastened to mount his back. The light from her turquoise amulet turned the cougar’s fur blue as he charged to join the other beasts.

I watched diffidently as they faded into the distance with Aric and the rest of the pack. My tigress paced restlessly. She wanted to join the hunt. She wanted to tear evil in two, and give Aric’s wolf the other half. But neither Aric nor his wolf needed protecting. Nor did they fear. I couldn’t say the same for my little sister and Danny.

“That thing knew your name, Celia.”

Shayna’s voice shook as if the earth continued to tremble. I tried not to think about what she said. Something from hell itself knowing me by name wasn’t just creepy; it numbed and froze my very soul. Bren agreed.

He changed behind me, returning to his human form. “Ceel. I gotta give you props. If that mutant freak had called me by name, I would have pissed out a kidney.”

The thought had crossed my mind. Good thing my bloodcurdling terror had distracted me.

Taran’s swears bellowed near Danny’s foot. He picked up Aric’s iPhone, while Taran continued to curse. “We succeeded in summoning the demon lord. Aric and the others went after him.”

“Where?” Gemini said on the other end.

“East toward Badwater Basin,” Bren said without much thought.

“Is it just you and Bren?”

“No, Celia and Shayna are here, too,” Danny answered. “Don’t worry about us. We’re safe and nowhere near the fight.”

Danny disconnected the phone prematurely. The cyclone of earth churned once more, bringing forth that biting, unnatural cold.

And another demon lord.





CHAPTER 22





The demon’s skin shone lime green. Like his brother, he bore wings the size of sails and clawed hands and feet. Except he had four arms, and four legs, and a tail as thick as a baseball bat. A white stripe of fur covered the top of his wrinkled and turtlelike face. He grinned with four very long and extra-pointy teeth. His tongue slurped across them as if he could already taste our livers. Somehow I thought we’d gotten the short end of the demon stick.

The clang of Shayna’s sword as it left its sheath cut through the sounds of Bren’s roars. But I paid them no mind. All my thoughts and instincts focused on attacking and making it bleed.

I changed, barely feeling my form shred through my clothes and how the tattered bits of sweat-soaked cotton fell against the earth. My tigress made contact first, slamming the demon into the side of the gorge, one paw against his throat while the other ripped an arm free from its socket. My aggression enlivened my beast until the long wet maggots slithering through the amputated limb left the demon and crawled along my back. That’s when my inner girl rose to the surface. I jerked back, narrowly missing his seven other angry limbs before Shayna sliced a leg off at the knee and Bren’s fangs crunched through the bone of another arm.

More maggotlike entrails exploded out like confetti as the demon shrieked. Dirt coated the insides as they scurried along the ground before quickly shriveling in the baking sun. We gagged like idiots and backed away. But we’d injured the demon. And now he needed to eat to replenish its strength. Like a true predator he picked the weakest among us.

Danny.

The demon tackled him and took flight. Shayna screamed, “No!”