Stevens just rolled his eyes, repositioning his aim at me. I instinctively threw up my hand, and even with a good ten feet between us, the pistol flew out of his grip as if I’d snatched it away from right out in front of him. I swept my hand backward, expecting to catch it. Apparently, my skills needed a little more work, because the gun launched back at me with the velocity of a professional baseball pitch.
I ducked, hearing something smash behind me. With my luck, it was probably Mom’s fine china. If I wasn’t on the verge of being kidnapped by minions of the underworld, the thought of Mom’s wrath coming down on me would have made me wished I was.
“Kat?” my dad muttered.
I didn’t have time to look at him. Stevens focused his gaze on me, balling his hands into tight fists. He narrowed his eyes more and more until the entire house shook, rattling the frames right off the walls. I waited for something else to happen, but he finally dropped his hands in disappointment.
“Should’ve figured you’d be immune to a penance stare.” His fiendish grin returned, looking over at my parents. “Guess you two will have to do.”
“Don’t even think about it,” I growled.
“Well, it’s a bit late for that.” Stevens laughed, and my mom suddenly collapsed to the floor, writhing in pain. She cried out, clutching her head. Dad fell next her, trying to help in some way, but he wound up grabbing the sides of his own head the moment he looked back up at the officer.
The familiar blue light that I’d manifested in the alleyway sparked to life in my left hand. I raised my palm. With the slightest flex of my fingers, the familiar blast erupted, throwing Stevens across the room right into the fireplace. Mom and Dad dazedly looked up at me from the floor, their mouths agape with disbelief.
Peeling himself out from under the rubble of soot and broken mantle knickknacks, Stevens snickered despite his nose now being bent in the most unnatural, twisted angle. “Come on now. You can do better than that.”
He sauntered back over, and I aimed my hand at him again, only to find it no longer glowing. I shook my entire arm out, as if it would somehow help recharge it. Still, nothing. The officer grabbed one of Dad’s empty beer bottles, smashing the body of it against the top of the coffee table.
He fiddled the remains of the beer bottle neck between his fingers. “Let’s show them what you can really do.”
I was ready to lunge at any second, expecting him to make a move toward my parents. Instead, the officer turned the bottle over, dragging the jagged pieces of glass across his palm. Thin red slits appeared, quickly blossoming into bloody lines that coursed down the length of his hand and wrist. A part of me wanted to laugh. If his plan was to mutilate himself, I sure as hell wasn’t about to stop him.
“Qui ostendunt tenebrarum,” Stevens hissed, his eyes glazing over into their true inky black form. He came into the foyer, extending his bleeding hand out to me.
The pungent metallic odor hit me hard. The moment I inhaled the scent, stabbing pangs throbbed in the roof of my mouth. Gasping, I collapsed to the floor, feeling my gums tear open as I at last caved into the pain with a strangled cry.
“That’s more like it,” the officer cooed, yanking my head upright.
Mom took one look at me and screamed, scuttling across the hardwood until her back smacked against the wall.
I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. I sprang up from the floor and tackled Stevens, pinning his body against the sill dividing the family room from the foyer. Without a guiding thought, my mouth immediately took aim to the side of his neck. I could hear his pulse pounding beneath his skin, and a ravenous hunger begged me to sink my teeth into it.
My whole body stiffened at the realization. I throttled myself away. They weren’t teeth. My mouth was still ajar. I couldn’t close it. I staggered over to the mirror hanging in the entryway that now dangled for dear life by only one of its hooks.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Stevens laughed. “Don’t you think so, Mom?”
I clamped my hands over my mouth, unable to bear the sight. It still couldn’t conceal my eyes. My glowing red eyes. Blaine’s eyes. Finally letting my hands fall away, I gawked back at myself, at the inch-long pointed canines protruding from my upper jaw.
“What did you do to her?” my mother cried.
“Oh, don’t look at me. This one comes courtesy of my boss,” the demon chortled. “Her master.”
My entire forearm set ablaze at the words, nearly every rune igniting in response. The demonic energy coiled itself around the flurry of emotions stirring inside me. Rage, despair, horror. I couldn’t have controlled it if I’d wanted to, but that didn’t matter in that moment. I wanted to unleash its wrath.