Shit. She really has gotten under all of our skins.
It seems like it’d be too much work to try to figure out what that means and why it scares me a little, so I just ignore the thought, letting it settle into the back of my mind as the car rolls to a stop.
“We’re here,” Beckett grunts from the driver’s seat, and we all look up.
A large part of the street is cordoned off with police tape, and the sinkhole where the portal formed looks like a large pockmark on the landscape.
“Oh, boogers.” Trin leans forward in her seat, peering out the window. “It got bigger. That can’t be good.”
“No, it can’t.” Beckett shoves his door open, turning to look at Ford. “Grab the body and the charm. I’ll clear the area of any witnesses.” At Trinity’s sound of dismay, he chuckles dryly. “I’m not going to kill them, angel. Anyone passing close by will suddenly become convinced that their fortune lies elsewhere today.”
“Oh. Right.” She looks a little embarrassed, and I grin at her as I open my door and she slides out after me.
Ford closes the trunk with a thud. The demon’s body has definitely gotten stiffer, and it doesn’t drape easily over his shoulder like it did before.
Ugh. That’s fucking disgusting. I hope it’s not a problem when we activate the charm.
“Over there.” Remington points to a spot near the mouth of the alley where the sinkhole seems deepest. “We need to be as close to the center as possible.”
We leave the car parked illegally—Beck drives like he owns New York City, and as far as I know, he’s never gotten a ticket—and pick our way over to the spot, stepping over cracks in the asphalt and cement.
Ford sets the body down, propping it up against the wall of a building. It looks like the building must’ve been evacuated, since part of it is starting to crumble into the sinkhole. Keeping his hand on the dead demon’s chest, he turns to look at all of us. “Ready?”
“Fuck, no.” I huff a laugh. “So you better do it quick.”
Remi wrinkles his nose as he and Beckett hold the demon up by the shoulders, and Ford digs out the charm the witch gave us.
“I hope this works,” Trinity murmurs, chewing on her lip as she stands beside me.
“It better, or I’ll fucking kill that witch.” Ford’s voice is a rough growl, and I’m not sure if Trinity hears it, but I can tell he almost hopes he’ll have an excuse to do just that.
My brother presses the charm into the demon’s forehead, muttering the incantation Morrigan instructed us to say. I hold my breath as he speaks quietly, and as soon as the last word leaves his mouth, the spell snaps into effect.
The dead demon’s eyes snap open. I have no idea what color they were when he was alive, but now they’re a bright glowing orange. Something that looks like black smoke seeps from his nostrils, almost like he’s exhaling—although I don’t think that’s what this is. It’s the magic coming to life inside him, infusing him as it reanimates his body.
With creaky, jerky motions, the corpse begins to move.
The stench that was already coming off the dead body multiplies, and Remington looks like he might hurl.
But it’s working.
It’s gotta be one of the strangest fuckin’ things I’ve ever seen, but the corpse is very definitely performing a spell in reverse.
Ho-ly shit. I guess that creepy as fuck death witch really does know her stuff.
“Um… how long is this going to take?” Trinity suddenly asks, her voice sounding tight and nervous.
“I dunno.” I shake my head, still watching the corpse as its movements pick up speed. “Probably a few minutes at least. Why?”
“Because we’ve got company.”
The fear in her voice is sharper now, and my head snaps up just in time to see her pointing toward the center of the portal. The sinkhole itself seems to be shrinking, which means the demon’s body is undoing the spell. But as I watch, two corrupted crawl out of the depths, looking like half-rotted corpses themselves.
“Dammit,” I mutter. “Beck! We’ve got a little problem!”
“I see it.” He jerks his head at Ford and Remi. “I’ve got the body. You go deal with that. Keep the demons away until the portal is completely closed.”
“With fucking pleasure.” Ford’s lip curls as he turns toward the sinkhole, and Remi looks disgusted but determined.
The two demons I first spotted are crawling out of the slowly shrinking sinkhole—but more are coming behind them. Lots more. Like ants swarming a picnic, they crawl over each other in their haste to get to us.
Ah, fuck.
It looks like those five extra minutes we took getting here are about to bite us in the ass.
Because whoever is behind this whole thing knew we were coming. And they’ve found a way to call for backup.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Trinity
Oh, no. The last thing we need right now is corrupted.
They’re still pretty low level, the disgusting corpse-looking types, but there are a lot of them.
“Protect the body!” Beckett yells. “I can’t finish this if I don’t have a body to direct!”
That’s fair enough. We can’t get the spell to work in directing the body without actually, you know, having a body.
“How are we supposed to do that?” Ford yells angrily. That’s not really newsworthy though, since Ford yells almost everything he says, and no matter what he’s saying, he usually sounds pissed.
“Hot potato?” Phoenix suggests.
“Very fucking funny.” Ford grunts as he hauls the body up and yanks it away from a corrupted that’s trying to reach for it. “Not fucking yours, asshole!” He turns to Remington. “Goddammit. Catch!”
“What the fu—”
Remington nearly gets hit in the head with a literal flying corpse, and despite my terror, I’m struck by the insane urge to laugh. It’s the weirdest and funniest thing I’ve seen in a while, and given how my life has been going lately, that’s saying something.
Phoenix does laugh, a carefree sound that trickles down my spine like cool water, and Remington glares at him. “Could you please take something seriously for two seconds?”
“Ha! Is someone finally losing his temper?” Ford grins.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him grin, and it leaves me so distracted that I nearly get sliced open by the claws of one of the corrupted. I duck out of the way of the demon, then shoot another glance at Ford.
Oh, wow.
It’s breathtaking. It’s not one of his feral, ferocious grins, it’s a genuine one, like he’s enjoying himself.
It softens something in me. I know that Ford’s always going to have his wrath. None of them are going to stop being their sin; they’re the literal personification of whatever that sin is. And I don’t want to change them, exactly, although that’s probably what Anderson and the rest of my brethren Upstairs want.
But maybe he doesn’t have to be all wrath, all the time. I don’t want that for Ford. Even more than the others, he seems to revel in being and doing nothing but his sin, and I think there could be so much more to him if he would let himself go a bit.