“It was easy. We just knocked out the ward that protected the circle and deactivated the circle she used to draw power from us. Now,” Molly started toward house, “is the hard part.” I moved in front of her and opened the door with my scarf-covered hand. The interior of the house glowed with magical energies, the air itself seeming covered with a pink haze, snapping with black sparks. The smell of the magic was so strong I rubbed my nose. The working was getting stronger, even with Evangelina not here. Even with the circle outside deactivated and physically displaced. Still holding the scarf over my head, I led the way to the basement.
With each step down, I felt the pull of the demon below, the thing that knew my darkest wants and fears and needs. Willing me to join him in his witch-spelled cell. Beast woke, pressing down on me with her claws, watching through my eyes, not happy that I had come back here. Jane is foolish kit. Silly kit. Stupid kit to come back here, to den of bird predator.
I know, I thought back. But I have to be here for Molly. Even though there was nothing I could do to help Molly deal with what she would find in the basement. Nothing to lessen the impact. But as her friend, I could be there first. Leading the way, I turned on lights to dispel the strength of the hedge of thorns’ red, bloody glow. I was first in the basement, the electric sparks of the hedge pricking over me. The first to see the demon inside.
He was sitting on the floor of his cage, nibbling on the smaller werewolf, beak tearing and ripping flesh. I was pretty sure the were was dead, as there was more blood sloshing in the circle than there was inside of him. What skin he still wore over his muscles and viscera was bluish. The man was missing both arms and most of one leg. What is it about supernatural creatures needing to eat humans when they go to the dark side?
The larger werewolf, the one I called Fire Truck, looked as if he’d lost a third of his considerable body weight. His ribs were clearly visible beneath his thin skin and thick body hair, breathing, smiling, eyes closed, apparently napping in the congealing blood of his wolf-buddy.
The demon stood as I entered, wings half spread as if to cover and protect his dinner. His similarity to an anzu was marked, yet wrong somehow, as if an anzu had mated with a shadow and given birth to this monstrosity. His beak opened and he trilled softly, as if pleased to see me.
Molly stopped at the foot of the stairs, her eyes wide. Carmen stopped behind her, mumbling air witch curses damning storms and fire winds. Behind them, one twin was crying, the other was red-faced with anger. The angry one said, “Evangelina should be whipped for this. Cast out.”
Cia said, “Evangelina should go to jail for this.”
I hadn’t told them about the body rolled in the rug upstairs. But eventually I’d have to report it to the police. Even if he’d died of natural causes, I rather doubted he’d rolled himself in the carpet and tucked it behind the couch first. So the cops were in Evangelina’s future one way or another.
“Come to me,” the trapped demon said to Molly. “I will show you true freedom, true power.”
“Don’t talk to that thing,” Carmen warned.
“Your sister has found freedom and power with me,” he said.
Molly whispered, to her sisters, not to the demon, “Our sister has been cursed. Not freed.” To me she said, “Where is the vampire?”
I walked around the room until I could see the back of the hedge of thorns. Lincoln Shaddock lay on the black-painted floor—sleeping the sleep of the undead, or maybe really dead—against the wall that led into the kennel. I nudged him with my foot, but he didn’t react. He didn’t look so good; he looked true dead, pasty, shriveled, and maybe a little blue. I bent over him and took a sniff. The usual vamp smell of dry herbs, bark, flowers, and earth was missing. But so was the smell of death. He smelled like . . . nothing. Part of the room.
I walked back to the other side and realized that the sisters were already sitting on the floor at the points of the pentagram that was painted inside the hedge, their talismans in laps or around necks. “Molly?” I asked, alarmed.
“Black magic works best at night and is weakest with the sun overhead.” She checked her watch. “We hope to bind the demon and send him back to the place he came from.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“No idea,” Molly said. I didn’t know much about witch power, but I did know about evil, and you didn’t go up against pure evil, absolute not-of-this-world evil, alone. You needed help, big help. Better-than-human help. They needed faith and a full coven.
“Some things we don’t need to know,” one of the twins said.
“Don’t want to know,” the other twin said.
Carmen Miranda pulled a silver cross from her shirt and dangled it over her chest in the necklace of feathers and leaves. “It’s someplace without air and warmth. Someplace without light. Without the sun. Without the breath of life. Without God.”