“Watch your head,” I muttered. She followed me down the narrow, wooden stairs.
Collith, Laurie, and Lyari came into view first, and I could tell instantly from their postures that something was wrong. When I reached the bottom step, I saw why—the demon had regained consciousness. It sat very still as we entered the space, those black eyes cataloging our every move.
Savannah halted, and I glanced over at her. She’d gone pale. Her attention was glued to the iron handcuffs.
“Those won’t hold it,” she whispered, shaking her head. Her cloak flared as she darted over to a metal shelf—it was where Cyrus stored items that didn’t fit in the garage. One of those items was a battered-looking box of chalk. Savannah plucked two pieces out, her hands trembling. But there wasn’t any unsteadiness in her voice as she ordered, “Quickly, go on that side, draw exactly what I do. Hurry.”
The demon must’ve sensed it was in danger, because it began to yank at the chains, snarling. It writhed on its belly like a worm. The three faeries in the room stood with weapons drawn, their expressions making it clear they wouldn’t hesitate to act, even if it meant hurting Finn. Desperate to stop that from happening, I rushed to follow Savannah’s instructions. She chanted in the angelic tongue, words I’d never heard or read, her voice as loud and certain as a clanging bell.
She kept chanting once the circle was drawn. The spell isn’t complete, I thought. Savannah needed more time. I hurried to stand in front of the demon and hold its attention.
“Who is your master?” I spat. “Who do you and Belanor serve?”
The demon didn’t answer. Instead, Finn’s mouth stretched… downward, somehow. It gave his face alien, unnatural proportions. I watched with dim horror as his lips gaped, revealing a swirling darkness inside him.
The scream that came out of him was like nothing I’d ever heard before. Savannah and I cried out as we both covered our ears, collapsing to our knees. But our chalk boundary worked—the iron handcuffs came apart like taffy, and when the demon launched itself at us, it was as though it slammed into an invisible wall.
The creature’s enraged scream went on and on. A powerful, inexplicable wind rushed through the room. Savannah shouted in Enochian again, her hair and her cloak flying, making her look like some ancient witch from a story. Lyari, Laurie, and Collith all gathered around me, forming a barrier with their bodies that blocked Savannah and the demon from my sight. I tried to push between them, wanting to go to Finn.
An instant later, the window shattered and glass sprinkled over the concrete.
Then the lights went out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
An entire day passed. Then, two. I never went to sleep, and the only time I left Finn’s side was to see to my basic needs.
After the demon had taken ownership of Finn’s body and cast us into darkness, Savannah’s magic took hold, and the creature passed out again. The unnatural wind stopped and that terrible scream ended. My chest heaved, and I stared at Finn’s lax face, relieved to see it had returned to normal proportions. Savannah’s spell, whatever it was, had worked—a sleeping spell, I’d learn later.
We didn’t let the demon regain consciousness.
Over the following days, the rest of my family stayed at Danny’s. Their absence didn’t mean I was alone, though. Savannah returned every three hours with a fresh supply of monkshood, an herb more commonly known as wolfsbane. She used it to keep Finn’s body weak and buy us time. If he were human, the herb probably would have stayed in his body for twice as long, but Finn burned through it at a preternatural rate, which was why we replaced the handcuffs he’d broken as a precaution. Savannah also brought a sedative of the human variety, courtesy of Zara, who sent me her regards. I mentally added it to the debt I already owed her.
Whenever she wasn’t at the house, Savannah spent every spare moment looking for an exorcism spell. They were less common than human media depicted, and she had never learned how to do one, she told us once the demon was subdued again. Mercy, of course, wasn’t answering her phone.
Lyari, too, made constant appearances. She brought care packages from Emma. She forced me to stand and go through swordplay exercises with her. She brought a deck of cards and taught me a game the Guardians played during their dungeon shifts. We set up two camping chairs that day, which became the chair I practically lived in as I watched over Finn.
If Collith and Laurie ever came back, I didn’t see them. Every once in a while, though, I thought I caught a scent that made me think of a garden in summertime. Other times, the scent was a crisp spring breeze. Once, I turned from the washer, where I’d been putting in a new load, and found a black rose resting on a pile of folded clothes.
They were looking for exorcism spells. All of them. Lyari never said a word, but I knew.
On the afternoon of the third day, silence pressed down on me like a weight. Wind pushed against the cardboard I’d taped over the broken window. Back in the camping chair, I picked up my phone for the millionth time and unlocked the screen. Instead of clicking on the messages icon—everyone continued to send updates, and I’d been checking the group text constantly, which we started the day I came home—I opened a music app.
Before I could do anything else, a video from Damon appeared in the group chat. I pressed the small triangle, and Matthew’s face filled the screen. His apple-red cheeks wrinkled as he beamed. “Tell Auntie ’Tuna you miss her,” Damon’s voice encouraged.
Matthew pulled at the corner of his mouth with one finger. “Miss you, Tuna Fish!”
A bubble of spit popped, startling him. Then Matthew giggled, and Damon made a playful sound of dismay. My shoulders shook with silent laughter. It was the first time I’d laughed in days, but then my attention flicked to Finn, and the lightness in my chest quickly sank down again. The silence rushed back. Desperate to fill it, I reopened the music app.
I was browsing playlists when Finn stirred and mumbled something. It sounded like my name. I scrambled over to him, flattening against the floor so our faces were at the same level. I’d taken to wearing the Glock in a holster on my hip, and I reached down to remove it, allowing me to stay close to Finn. I still clutched my phone in the other hand as I whispered, “Finn? Can you hear me?”
Shit, I thought. What if he’d already burned through the sedatives?
The werewolf opened bloodshot eyes, and when he looked at me, I knew it was really him. Bright relief rushed through me, the edges of it tinged with shadow. My Finn was sad, and that sadness was in everything he did. I saw it now, peering out at me from the depths of his gaze. It was a pain no demon could replicate.
Finn still hadn’t answered me, and I wondered if he was fighting the creature’s hold on him. A distraction was all I could offer. I hid a flash of self-loathing at the thought. Right now, Finn was all that mattered.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” I asked him now, pressing my fingers at the very edge of the chalk. “The other morning. You started to say that you wanted to talk to me.”
Finn nodded, his cheek scraping against the concrete. He ignored the plate of food resting nearby. “Dragonfire,” he rasped. “The dragon… he said you asked him to…”