B00AO57VOY EBOK Page 21

  The costume practically screamed Kim’s name.

  “You know, Em, you should really let Kim dress you more often,” he said cheerfully, chuckling when I glared at him until he moved out of my way. “You look very groovy today. You’ve got this real psycho flower child thing going. Dark innocence. Very sexy.”

  “Ha ha,” I muttered, throwing open my locker and feeling a smug sense of satisfaction when it hit him in the chest because he hadn’t moved fast enough. I started snatching my books out without bothering to glare at him when he started to laugh. “Isn’t your locker at the other end of the hall with your girlfriend’s?”

  “Got everything I need right here,” he said, patting his backpack as he leaned against the locker next to mine and started twirling the ends of his fake mustache. Matt Evans was probably going to be thrilled to get rid of me when I graduated—or died on Friday. With me gone, he might actually be able to get to his locker sometime before he graduated himself.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when Kim and Nathan joined us. Nathan slipped an arm around me and, irritated or not, I couldn’t resist the urge to melt against him. I had really hoped being around him would kind of take the edge off the effect he had on me, but it seemed to be getting stronger instead of weaker.

  We were almost to class when Bastian suddenly appeared directly in front of us, blocking our way down the hall. There was something kind of creepy about the way he was looking us all over. It was like watching someone at an ice cream shop trying to decide which flavor they liked best.

  When his eyes fell on Kim, it looked like he had discovered a new tasty treat. His eyes raked down her form from the top of her flat-ironed straight hair, down over the psychedelic mini dress she had found at a thrift shop downtown and all the way down to the tips of the white go-go boots she wore. He smiled evilly and actually licked his lips as he began to retrace his path back up.

  I really couldn’t wait to get rid of him.

  “We have unfinished business, parasite,” he hissed, turning to Nathan.

  “Our business is going to come to an end very soon,” Nathan growled, shifting so that he was standing in front of me again

  “How long have you been trying to get rid of me now, Nathan?” Bastian asked, his grin way too confident. “Three centuries? Four? And yet, here I still am, one step away from taking her away from you again. Sucks to be you, huh?”

  “Oh, but we’ve found a way,” Nathan said, his tone just as smug as Bastian’s smile had been.

  “And how, pray tell, would you have done that?” Bastian asked, the expression on his face pretty much saying he didn’t believe a word Nathan was saying.

  A piercing whistle split the air around us and I looked up to see Tyler leaning against the banister on the second floor landing. There was a chilling smile on his lips as he waved to Bastian. Bastian growled low, a flash of red glowing in his eyes.

  “We have friends in high places,” Nathan said with a smile, not even looking up at Tyler.

  “No matter how many you gather to protect her, the outcome will be the same,” he snarled, his words for Nathan but his eyes on me. “You’re going to spend the rest of your miserable life wanting something you will never get to have. I thought I had already proven that, but I guess you need another lesson.”

  I repressed a shiver of fear and held my head high. I wasn’t about to take his shit anymore.

  “Bastian, go fu—” Before I could tell him exactly what he could do, Ms. Cantrell’s voice cut across our group, sharp and dripping with irritation.

  “The tardy bell rang two minutes ago,” she bellowed, elbowing her way to the front of our group and giving Jack a look that would have had me cowering in fear in less than a second. I looked around and, sure enough, our group was the only one left in the hall. “Did you hear me, Mr. O’Connell? I don’t care if you just returned from the dead or not! Get to class! The rest of you, too. Go!”

  Grabbing Nathan’s elbow, I hauled him around and headed for class. I was glad to see that Blake was hovering over Kim protectively. I wasn’t sure why Bastian had been looking at her like she was a three course meal, but I was pretty sure it didn’t mean anything good. I hoped Blake would stick to her like glue for the rest of the day. Kim had a couple of classes with Jack alone. The idea of them being alone with no one to help her if Bastian decided to go all lust demon on her was enough to almost stop my heart.

  Tyler joined us as we passed the staircase and I arched a suspicious eyebrow when Nathan fell back to talk to him. I mean, we aren’t exactly talking about bosom buddies here. They tolerated each other, but that was about as good as it was ever likely to get.

  “Were you able to get the schedule I gave you?” Nathan asked softly, winking at me when he saw that I was practically giving myself whiplash to watch them.

  “Yep.” Tyler grinned and waved a sheet of paper just under my nose as I turned around completely and started walking backward. “It was as easy as you said it would be, too.”

  “What are you two talking about?” I demanded, stopping in mid-motion and nearly toppling over before Kim grabbed my arm to keep me on my feet. Those moccasins were really slippery.

  “I’m a high school student!” Tyler proclaimed, holding his arms out and smiling like he was announcing he’d just won the lottery.

  “Why?” I asked through clenched teeth.

  “Bloody hell, Em,” Tyler muttered, rolling his eyes at my angry expression. “That should be kind of obvious, beautiful. In case you forgot, and I can’t really believe you have since you were just face to face with the ugly bastard, there is a demon running around who wants to kill you. Nathan can’t watch out for everyone by himself so Kim gets me…unless you want to trade.”

  He ignored the warning look on Nathan’s face and grinned at me again as I shook my head and smiled. Kim, on the other hand, looked majorly insulted.

  “I don’t need a babysitter, thanks,” she snapped, planting her hands on her hips and glaring at all three of the guys since Blake was smiling at Tyler like he had just done him a personal favor. “In case you boys forgot, I took out Oakhurst Academy’s best wide receiver’s arm all by my helpless little self. If he wants to go another round, let him bring it. I’m pretty sure I can take out another appendage this time. One I think he’ll miss a lot more than his arm since he’s a demon of lust.”

  All three of the guys winced as if she had just personally threatened their own manhood rather than Jack’s.

  As much as I wanted to back her up, I couldn’t. The way Bastian had been looking at her was too much for me to ignore. She might be pissed about it, but I was actually kind of grateful that Tyler would be there to watch her back.

  No matter how much she argued—and I could hear her ranting and raving all the way up the staircase to her first class—Tyler refused to give in. I watched them until they were out of sight and then turned back to Nathan with kind of a smug smile. It was nice not to be the only one on lockdown for a change. All I could think as Nathan escorted me to class was, Welcome to my world, Kim.

  ∞§∞§∞§∞

  The rest of the week went by without any serious casualties—if you don’t count my sanity. Every time I looked up, Bastian was there. And he had found a new way to torment me.

  My first experience with his newfound torture technique happened in the girl’s bathroom. I tried to wait until Kim was with me, but there are some things Mother Nature just doesn’t let you put off. I barely had my pants unbuttoned, though, when I got the strangest feeling. It was like someone was running the cold finger of death up my spine or something. Shivering, I turned around and threw the door of the stall open.

  And that’s when I saw the blood.

  It was flowing out from under the door of the last stall and as I walked toward it I could hear a thick, steady, dripping sound that made me feel more than a little sick. I had to force my trembling hand to reach for the door. Slowly, I pushed it open and then stumbled back, trying to force air into m
y lungs. But there was no air. It was like every bit of oxygen had been sucked out of the world.

  Kim was sitting on the toilet, her clothes soaked in blood. And her head wasn’t on her shoulders.

  It was on her lap.

  “No!” I gasped, taking a step toward the headless corpse of my best friend. Then, with tears pouring down my cheeks, I started screaming. Ignoring the blood pooling around me, I sank to my knees and screamed and screamed.

  “Em! Em, stop it!” Kim’s voice was suddenly shouting, trying to be heard over me. “Damn it, Em! Stop!”

  The second she touched me, the bloody vision disappeared and I saw the real Kim kneeling before me. Her hands were wrapped around my upper arms and she was shaking me like a rag doll, her expression terrified and her hands shaking as bad as mine.

  I immediately clapped a hand over my mouth and whirled around, still on my knees, and vomited into the sink. Her hands still shaking like a leaf, Kim held my hair back and tried to calm me down as I sobbed and retched. No matter how calm and collected she was, though, she couldn’t erase the image of her decapitated body from my mind. Bleach couldn’t have done that. Hell, they could have given me a lobotomy and I still would have seen it.

  That wasn’t my last vision, either. The next day, I was walking across the cafeteria toward our table and saw Blake already sitting there, slouched in his chair like always.

  Only his heart was on the table in front of him.

  You guessed it. No lunch for me.

  The day after that, I nearly fell backwards down the stairs on my way to class when I ran into Tyler’s body dangling from the ceiling.

  And the day after that, I got to watch Nathan die a fiery death in the center of the gym floor—complete with sensory effects like the nauseating aroma of frying skin and burning hair.

  Yeah, Senior Goof Week was a total riot for me.

  And when school was over and the rest of my classmates—minus Kim and Blake—were off enjoying their senior year, I went home to get my ass handed to me by a senior citizen.

  My gentle little grandmother had turned into a frigging tyrant. She drilled us for hours every night until we could have done the Ritual of Ashes in our sleep. Thanks to Grams, I finally got the whole teleporting thing down to a science. She even taught me how to borrow energy from another person if things went south and I weakened.

  “Grams, that sounds kind of…shady,” I told her uneasily when she explained the principles of how the whole energy loan thing worked. “I mean, isn’t that what demons do? Don’t they feed on other people’s energy?”

  “No, sweetheart, demons feed on other people’s essence, their spirit,” she said, meeting my eyes squarely. “But, this is nothing to play with, Ember. I had to get permission from the Council to teach you this particular skill. It’s dangerous. It is to be used as a last resort only.”

  I didn’t think I would be using that particular talent ever. If I took too much it could put the lender into an irreversible coma—or even kill them. Not really something I wanted on my conscience.

  The shield I had used to deflect Kim’s attack on Nathan became my most powerful asset during magical defense as Grams relentlessly hurled blast after blast of Witch Fire at me.

  Our first lesson did not go well. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t seem to get the shield to materialize. If Grams hadn’t had the ability to direct the glowing blue balls away from me, I would have been toast with the first blast. I did exactly what she told me to do. I envisioned the field of protection around me, I imagined it solidifying and shielding me, but it didn’t do what I wanted it to.

  “You’re not trying, Ember!” Grams snapped when I failed to do it for the tenth time in a row.

  “Yes, I am!” I gritted out between my teeth, frustrated and close to tears. “I’m trying as hard as I can, Grams! It’s just not working!”

  “Then maybe you need some incentive,” she hissed, looking totally fed up with my excuses.

  Before I could figure out what that was supposed to mean, she turned and hurled a ball of Witch Fire right at Kim, who was sitting at the table with her earbuds in doing her homework. I saw it form in her hand, I saw it speeding toward my best friend like it was moving in slow motion, saw Kim’s frozen look of horror when she looked up.

  I don’t know what possessed me to do it, I really don’t. Hell, I don’t even know how I did it. One minute, I was across the room. The next, I was standing between Kim and the fireball. Grams, not expecting it, wasn’t fast enough to direct the ball of Witch Fire away from me.

  It hit me dead square in the center of the chest. I clenched my teeth together, preparing for a world of pain. Instead, I felt…warm. Like, really warm. Still, I waited, fully expecting to blow up or something. And I wasn’t the only one waiting for the explosion. The room around me was deathly quiet, and I saw that Grams was staring at me, her jaw nearly touching the floor. I saw Kim scoot around me from the corner of my eye and turned to find her staring at me wide-eyed and just as shocked as Grams.

  Figuring that couldn’t be a good thing, I started to feel a little panicked. I was afraid to look down at myself. What if there was a basketball-sized hole there and my brain just hadn’t caught up with the fact that I was dead? And, oh my god! What would it do to Grams if there was? How would she ever be able to live with the fact that she had killed her own granddaughter? And…

  “That is too frigging cool!” Kim squealed suddenly, jerking me out of my panicked thoughts. I frowned at her, then at Grams when I noticed she was smiling.

  Then I looked down at myself and stopped breathing altogether. In the very spot where Grams’ fireball had hit me, there was a pulsing ball of brilliant white-gold light, like a sphere of warmth. It was like I had…absorbed the Witch Fire somehow.

  I had to agree with Kim. It was too damn cool!

  “Well, it wasn’t the shield you were supposed to be forming, but I suppose that was an effective method of stopping me,” Grams said smugly. When I glared at her, she just smiled back. “You won’t protect yourself, but everyone around you is safe. I guess that’s something.”

  “You could have killed me, you old bat!” I yelled, feeling that wonderful warmth starting to fade away.

  “Actually, I was aiming for Kimberly,” she chuckled. “I never said you should throw yourself in front of her like a human shield. The magical shield you could have conjured would have sufficed.”

  To keep myself from saying what I really wanted to say, I turned around and stomped out of the room. Because, hey, it was Grams and I liked my teeth right where they were. Trust me, if I’d said what was on the tip of my tongue at that moment I would have been missing a few of them.

  Nathan made himself scarce during our training sessions. I hated that because it meant I only saw him at school and just before I fell into a dreamless coma, and I was really starting to miss him. I understood why he stayed away, though. He said watching Grams attack me over and over again was more than he could take. He told me every time she attacked me he had to force himself not to attack her.

  I might not have liked her methods, but I had to admit that Grams had given me a crucial key to accessing my powers. After that, I didn’t see her attacking me. I imagined her attacking Kim. I even used Nathan and Blake and Tyler. And Grams was right. If I was being attacked, I couldn’t dredge up even a little power. If it was someone I loved, I became Superwoman.

  You two about done? Nathan whispered inside my mind, his voice a seductive purr, just as we were finishing up the night before the ball.

  Almost, I told him, happily. It would be nice to have him come back before I was too exhausted to do more than give him a quick kiss before I conked out again. Where are you, anyway?

  I had never thought to ask Nathan where he went when I was training. I guess I just assumed he was out driving around—or getting dinner somewhere. But suddenly I found that I was curious. Oh, and I was a little jealous, too. I missed hanging out with my friends like I used to.


  At Tyler’s, he said, sounding kind of embarrassed and nearly shocking the socks right off of me. Since when did Nathan hang out with Tyler? He must have sensed my shock through our link, because I could almost hear his laughter. All right, I admit it. He’s not so bad.

  Okay, who are you and what did you do with Nathan? I frowned, wondering how I had ended up in the Twilight Zone. When had Nathan had a change of heart regarding Tyler, who he had never really liked? And how had I missed it?

  Let’s just say he has redeeming qualities. We just got back from Montana where we retrieved the last two components the lot of you need to pull off the banishing of one lust demon, he said, his thoughts still tinged with amusement. And I’m the guy who misses holding you while you’re still conscious. I’m willing to negotiate Nathan’s return, though.

  And what are the terms of this negotiation? I teased, curling up in my chair and just letting his voice work its magic on me as I waited for Grams to look up some obscure charm she had decided she could teach me at the last minute.

  We’ll start with one of those mind-melting kisses you’re so good at and go from there, he purred back just as Grams slammed her book closed and stood up.

  As motivation went, it didn’t get any better than that.

  “Ready, sweetheart?” Grams asked, shaking her head and smiling at me when she saw my dreamy expression.

  I practically jumped out of the chair, already fantasizing about long, cool fingers and smoking-hot kisses. It was kind of sad that my boyfriend practically had to bribe me just to get a kiss, though. Next thing you know, he would be making an appointment.

  I would be so glad when it was all over and I could have my semi-normal life back.

  In that moment, though, I realized that was never going to happen. The life I had known was over. I had seen too much to ever go back to being the person I had been before the blinders had been taken off. I had seen the world I knew for the dark, scary place it really was, the place most people spent their whole lives blissfully refusing to see.