Wounded(43)

“Use your discretion, Frank.”

Erik locked eyes with me. “There are at least two demons in this boat.”

Crap. I knew one of the kids had been possessed, but had I missed one of the others going under? “How can you tell?”

He tapped his head. “Different than Tracking, but you should be able to sense them as we get near. I’ll explain later.”

Of course, that was assuming we’d all have a later.

I locked onto the threads of my parents. They were the bait as much as the three kids, and I would take it. Hook, line, and sinker. Only the witches were the ones going to do the sinking.

With a quick twist, I had my sword in one hand, my whip in the other. No more words needed. I ran forward, navigating the narrow halls of the ship, taking us on a direct route where the trap was most likely set.

The halls were tight, gray, and empty. Good and bad. Meant we would be able to get where we needed to go without much problem. We rounded a final corner and the hallway opened into a huge room that had tiers of walkways descending to the lower level. Four levels of tiers, and all empty. I looked at the bottom floor, over the edge of the railing.

A pentagram was carved into the metal and inside the protective bubble of the spell being spun, a witch was on her knees, bound and gagged, a collar on her neck with a large ruby in it visible even at this distance. The collar was like the one Milly had been caught by, and it would force the witch to do what the black coven wanted. That must have been how they had so many members pulled together in such a small area. There was another figure inside the pentagram, but I couldn’t get a good look at that one.

My gut twisted as I looked over the coven. There, to the left was my mom’s friend, Leanne, a smile on her face. Suddenly the answer to ‘how did the coven know I was here and that taking my parents would draw me in’ was answered. Fuck, fuck, fuckers. I would have come for the kids either way, but my parents—the witches must have wanted insurance that I would show.

But why? Why want me there if they knew I was going to try and stop them?

Around them were most of the black coven, if I was reading things right. They stared up at me, some with malice, others with apparent glee. Leanne waved, the stupid cow.

Well fuck them, too, and the brooms they rode in on.

“Frank and Pamela, you stick together, fight from here, run if you have to. Erik, you go after the demons. Alex, with me.” I didn’t wait for them, hated that I had to ask so much of them, but it was the way of things.

I ran for the guard rail, grabbed it, and swung over and down, snapping my legs at the last instant so I landed on the level below. I didn’t feel like trying my luck at flying through the air all the way to the bottom. Something zipped by my head as Alex landed beside me. It looked like a large bullet, about a foot long and pointy, making holes in walls and bodies. Maybe something left from the ship’s fighting days. Didn’t matter, it could still take me out, and the coven obviously knew it. The joy of everyone knowing I was an Immune was that they knew magic could hurt me only through indirect means.

“Fun stuff, Rylee.” Alex danced in place beside me, his golden eyes sparkling.

“Always fun with me, buddy.”

He snickered and we repeated the process of using the momentum of our fall to flick our bodies onto the level below us. Again, things flew our way, but then the coven was somewhat distracted by a shuffling, groaning, stinking mob.

The zombies had arrived. They fell over the railings and onto the floor below, not even bothered by the four-story drop. I caught a glimpse of the zombies as they moved en masse toward the black coven, surrounding the one woman in the center of the pentagram.

If the withes stopped their spelling now, there was a good chance the demon couldn’t be brought through and, from what I understood, it was a hell of a lot of work. Not to mention the backlash, which could be ugly if the spell suddenly went wild and out of control.

The witches held their ground while the zombies bit and grabbed at them. Alex and I hit the floor at the same time, my feet stinging with the impact. There was no hesitation though, there couldn’t be.

There were at least two dozen black coven members and I could see four witches with collars. The black coven had taken the few good witches left and forced them to help by the looks of things. Bad, bad juju.

The first coven member had his back to me and I didn’t wait for him to notice me, I just drove my sword through his heart. Normally I’d take his head, but with Frank up top, I was hoping he could make use of a few more bodies. Sure enough, the second the witch died, Frank brought him back and he lunged for the coven member closest to him.