I wanted to destroy.
I wanted to bring the Underworld here, and I wanted to start with this fucking fraternity party.
I tore through the house, going straight for the liquor. The ants moved aside for me, like the parting of the sea. The females liked to look at me. It was always like that—in high school, at college. Some were braver than others, trying to approach me. The males usually had better instincts, staying way the fuck away from me. But they all scattered for me today.
Alcohol did nothing to me, not usually. A demon could get drunk or high from a kill or sex, but that was mostly it. Still, I was going to try.
Shay had been right. My bloodthirst was greater, but it wasn’t sudden. It’d been rising in me for a while. There’d been a jolt, electrifying it.
It had grown and grown, and now, it was almost out of control.
I can’t trust myself around Shay.
No. That wasn’t right.
Shay was the only one I could trust myself around.
I frowned, pulling back that thought. I brought it front and center, examining it.
That wasn’t my thought.
The realization stunned me.
Someone else was in my head, but they were making my thoughts sound and feel as if they were mine.
“Who are you?” I roared into the cavern of my mind.
A giggle. That was the response.
It sounded like a child’s laugh, a sick and evil child—like a six-year-old torturing an animal and loving it.
“Get out. Now,” I commanded, and I felt the voice leave my head.
“Show yourself,” I spoke aloud in Angelic tongue. All beings had to follow a summons from that language, but so few knew how to speak it.
“You know my language.”
I scowled, stepping back and bringing up my offenses. This was the Messenger.
“You’re here for the prophecy.” I sneered. “I can feel the shame emanating from you. It’s loathsome.”
He was near the back, in the shadows. He hadn’t fully corporealized himself.
He was quiet.
I could feel him studying me.
I frowned. Something was wrong.
“How long have you been in my head?”
He jerked, his misty form spreading out before coming back together and firming. Finally, he spoke in hisses, “I’ve been with you since the beginning of time.”
The fuck? “What?”
“I can see your father’s been spreading tales. You should know better than to believe him.”
“I sensed his honesty.”
“I’ve always been with you, Kellan. I am you. I was with you when you went to him, but he drew you across the boundary. He knew I would separate, could separate from you.”
“The prophecy was about a fallen Messenger. The last messenger I battled put up more of a show, to be honest.”
“I am no messenger,” he hissed. “I am you. I am your darkness.”
“I’m a full demon. The only good in me is Shay’s bond.”
“That’s not true. You have layers of us, and you have neglected us over the years. You have remained topside, falling in love with a half-messenger. Your demon is coming apart.”
“You said you were able to separate when I went across the boundary?”
“Each time you do, more of us are able to separate from you.”
I wasn’t going to waste my time wondering what truth my father had been speaking. I shouldn’t have been surprised he used deception. That was his job.
“Why would my father want you to separate from me?”
“Because he can call upon us. We are still leashed to you. We are a part of you, but he can call on us to do his bidding.”
Well.
Shit.
“I’ve been called to destroy your half-messenger,” he announced. “The prophecy wasn’t that a fallen messenger would destroy her. It was that you would destroy her. I’m here to fulfill the prophecy.”
SHAY
Crowman was showing me the fraternity’s collection of Christmas trees. The first tree had been a gigantic inflatable tree. The second was an inflatable snowman. It had scarves wrapped around it, a star on the top, and beer kegs at the bottom to act as a base.
The third was smaller, made of rolled-up magazines. Different colored beer bottles had been placed on top, and I was told not to touch the magazines.
Tree number four was perched in the kitchen and made out of beer cans, with a smattering of red Solo cups as decorations. There was also a bra hanging from the top, instead of a star or an angel.
“Doesn’t it look pretty?” Crowman nodded to himself, a beer in one hand and the other rubbing over his stomach.
His eyes widened as a scream came from the other room.
I knew that was bad, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, so I doubly knew it was bad.
I was turning away from Crowman, already reaching out to Kellan in my head, when I saw the demon.
Or—I thought it was a demon.
It was black mist, not fully formed to make a person, but definitely evil, and it was moving through the house as if it were in a race. It floated down the stairs, around the living room, and more screams rang out.
I was having déjà vu.
There were shouts, some laughs.
“Oh, cool!” someone yelled. “How are they doing that?”
“Wrong holiday, dudes. It’s not Halloween,” someone else chimed in. “Yo! Whatever you are.”
The black mist stopped in midair, and the top half tilted to the side as if, as if pausing to listen.
The guy raised his beer in the air. “Turn into a Christmas elf!”
“Or Santa!”
“Rudolph.”
The black mist didn’t do anything for a beat, then it began to spin around. It transformed into the Grinch. A cheer went up from the guys in the living room, and another burst of energy roared down the stairs.
That one was Kellan.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
“It’s me.”
“What is?”
“The prophecy.”
I frowned. “What prophecy?”
“The one that said you were going to be killed.”
“The what that says my sister is going to be killed?” Damien roared.
I could feel Kellan’s instant irritation, but I couldn’t focus there because the first black mist had zipped outside the house. Kellan tore after him, blasting through the front door with enough force that the wood exploded.
“Fuck!”
“What was that?”
Damien came into the room, pushing his way through the crowd to my side. “What’s going on?”
I opened my mouth to tell him what I knew, when we heard, “Uh…”
We turned.
Crowman was still there, still holding his beer, his eyes skirting from Damien to me. His shoulders lifted up and down on a deep sigh, and a look of resignation came over him. “You guys are doing your thing again, aren’t you?”
Damien frowned, his eyebrows pulling together. “Um...”
Crowman shook his head, handing his beer to Damien. “Here, dude. You need this more than me. I’m out of here. Call me when it’s safe for us humans.”
Damien took the beer, and Crowman left, not rushing. There was a defeated look to him, his shoulders hunched as he moved through the stampede.