Claimed (Book Four of the Castle Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel (11 page)

Beside her, Piers offered her his arm, a dark look on his face. She started to protest, but he shook his head.

“I want to make sure that you have every chance of surviving what comes next, Hailey. Please.”

Nodding, she took a deep breath and pulled the power that she could from him. In return, she tried to feed it back to him as well. This time, she was certain of it. They were more together than they ever could be apart. When he pulled back from her, she could sense the power radiating from him.

The door swung open, revealing five figures behind it. At first Hailey thought that they were enormous men, but then she realized how wrong she was.
 

The first man through the door was normal enough, though she could tell by the sword he wore that he must have been a Templar. The four figures behind him, however, had only once been men.
 

Hailey had barely survived a demon attack before. At that point, the demon had only possessed the man for a short time, but even then, the damage was profound. The man had been a shambling wreck, and it had been clear that the demon needed a new body very quickly.

These things were something else. From the stench that rose from their bodies and the way the faces were damaged and twisted, she could tell that there were demons inside. The demons had made the men grow monstrous, however, and these things showed no signs of hurt or harm.

The man who led them swore. With a single gesture of his hand, he commanded his hellish troops forward. To Hailey’s surprise, they were slow and sluggish, moving towards them with a lumbering stride.
 

The wolf dove at them as Kieran sent his ice blades whirling through the air. Piers had taken flight, and she gave thanks to all the gods that the ceiling was so tall. He whirled above them, coming down to plant all of his weight behind one of the demon’s necks. It should have snapped the thing’s spine, but instead it only screamed, reaching around clumsily to grab at him.
 

Hailey thought frantically, trying to think of a skill that she could use to help fight. In her panic, her mind was maddeningly blank. Suddenly, a piece of inspiration came to her. She closed her eyes, summoning up her power.
 

When she opened her eyes, she could see auras of color around the figures in the room. Both Piers and Kieran were a blazing scarlet, their auras showing their full battle frenzy. The demons to her surprise, were a dirty yellow, a color that she sensed meant despair. When she turned to the Templar who controlled them, however, she found what she had been looking for.

He was a big man, and his aura was a flickering, liver red. Her eyes focused not on his aura, however, but on the white-gold outline of something on his chest.

Kieran, Piers and the wolf were holding their own against the four demons, but she could see that no matter what they did, they weren’t hurting them. The demons continued to come for them, ignoring any injuries that they received. They were slow and clumsy, but they were still powerful. Eventually, it would be a matter of endurance. Her lovers would lose.

Moving as stealthily as she could, Hailey clung to the wall and made her way to the Templar. This close, she could see that he was an older man, his face twisted in a parody of pleasure. He didn’t notice her sidle up to him until it was far too late.

Her hand scrabbled at his chest. When he reached for her, ice blades of her own came up to dance in front of his eyes.
 

Behind her, she could suddenly hear a deafening silence, but she didn’t dare turn her eyes to look. Instead, she grasped the thing with the bright white aura on his chest. It was a tarnished silver medallion, something inscribed with a twisted face that it hurt her to look at. She pulled it away from him with enough force that she was sent skittering backwards. She almost caught herself, but then she fell flat on her back.

For a moment, Hailey was sure that it was over. She was going to have her throat slit by the Templar or she would simply be crushed by the demons he commanded.

As one the demons moved. They pulled away from the battle, heedless of the ice slivers buried in their ruined skin or the blood that was flowing down their backs.
 

“No! No, goddamn you! You belong to me! I am the one who controls you!”
 

His cries went unheard as the demons converged upon him. They moved with a deliberate, stone-like determination that filled Hailey with a kind of terror. Almost delicately, each one took one of the Templar’s limbs in their hands.

Oh no, they can’t,
Hailey thought blankly.
 

The Templar started to scream. Piers landed by Hailey’s side, his face dead white. Kieran came to stand with them.

The demons pulled the Templar to pieces with a terrible wet sound that Hailey was sure she would hear in nightmares the rest of her life. She looked away, but she couldn’t get the image out of her head. She felt sick, more than a little dizzy, but when she could bring herself to look, she realized that it wasn’t over yet.

The demons stood over the mangled body for a long moment. In that instant, they looked like nothing more than broken dolls whose springs had worn out. Hailey dared to believe that it was over for a single moment, but then they turned.
 

Piers and Kieran tensed as the demons focused their attention on Hailey. They were getting ready to attack them again when Hailey took a deep breath.

“Stop!”
 

As if they had walked into a wall, the demons stopped. She had an insane moment where she realized that she could tell them to go again and they would. It would be like the world’s most dangerous game of Simon Says.

“Hailey, what’s going on?” whispered Piers, never taking his eyes from the demons.

“This medallion controls them, I think. I think it’s safe now.”

“Yes, because it was so safe for that Templar,” said Kieran darkly. “We need to figure out where these things came from.”

“I think I know,” said Hailey softly.

She could feel grief rise up in her chest. She would have given anything to be wrong. Instead, she took a step closer to the tallest demon. The scars running over his bare torso should not have been survivable. Some of them still bled sluggishly, soaking into the stone beneath him with an ugly, pattering sound.
 

“Can you speak?”
 

There was a pause where she was sure the answer would be ‘no.’
 

“I can speak, mistress.”

The demon’s voice sounded like it came from deep underground, as if it burrowed up with worms and moles.
 

“Are there any others in this place?”
 

“No, mistress. The one who held the medallion before was the only one who brought us here, who created us.”
 

Hailey thought for a moment.

“Piers and Kieran were snatched from the ground and the air. There was no scent left behind. Did you do that?”

Silently, the monster pointed at one of the demons beside him. This one unlimbered wings that looked broken and tattered. Hailey wondered if such a thing could even get into the air, but when she saw the enormous twitching muscles across the demon’s chest, she realized that it could do so easily. That was another mystery solved.

“Who are you?”

There was a long silence. Then to Hailey’s horror, the demon raised a slow hand and started tearing at its own face. She cried out in shock as the blood flowed down, but when the demon spoke next, it was with a voice that was almost painfully human.
 

“I am Colonel Thomas Wyecomb of the Magus Corps,” he rasped. “I was captured by that Templar and infected with a demon.”

Kieran stepped forward, reaching for the colonel with one hand. Wyecomb waved him back with a swipe and a growl.
 

“No, don’t touch me. I’m possessed by this demon, and it has put its roots down deep in me. The Templar bound it to me, and now we are one.”

Kieran looked sickened.

“What can we do to heal you? What can be done to pull the demon away?”

Wyecomb made a dark and gurgling sound that Hailey had to strain to recognize as a laugh.

“There’s nothing you can do for us. All you can do is to destroy us. We are all members of the Magus Corps, and we have all fallen. Better to be remembered as a fallen Corps man rather than a monster.”

“I can’t do that,” Kieran protested. “I was sent to find you, to find all of you.”

Wyecomb’s eye, a vivid hazel, peered out of the wreck of his face.

“Then you’re a member of the Magus Corps as well?”

“Yes. I am Major Kieran McCallen.”

“This will be easy then. As a member of your brotherhood, I charge you with the final mercy that you can visit upon us. There is a room just outside this chamber with weapons in it. Find something that will take off our heads and give us peace.”

“I can’t! Don’t ask me to do that.”
 

“I am not asking you, I am ordering you, Major!” Wyecomb’s voice came out as a roar. He lunged at Kieran, arms out to crush him.

“Stop!” Hailey cried. As before, he stumbled to a halt.

Wyecomb turned his eye to Hailey. Under that maddened, pained gaze, she felt a hot spike of pity and grief.

“You could keep us as we are, ma’am,” Wyecomb said, his voice almost pleasant. “You could do it with that little toy that you’ve got in your hands. You could keep us still until the Magus Corps sends more men out here. What I will tell you is that they will find nothing more than what I have told you. We are dead, and if we continue as we are, we are damned.”
 

Hailey found herself nodding. She turned to Kieran, her eyes wide and beseeching. For a moment, she thought that he wouldn’t relent. Finally, he nodded, his face like a granite mask. There was something deadened about him in that moment, something so defeated.
 

“Yes. I’ll do it.”

He started for the room, but then Piers stepped forward.

“Wait. Before we let these men go to their last rest, we can take their names. They will not be forgotten. They will be remembered as the heroes that they were.”
 

This caused a stir in the beings in front of them.

Wyecomb stood up straight.

“Colonel Thomas Wyecomb of the Magus Corps. Born 1709. No last words.”
 

Almost as if by clockwork, the second stood forward.

“Second Lieutenant James Orris of the Magus Corps. Born 1890. No last words.”

“Captain Royce Martel of the Magus Corps. Born 1534. Tell my brother Stephan that he is a fine man and excellent officer.”

The last stood up, but though he moved his mouth, he could not speak. He tried, making several deep groaning noises. When he realized that he would not be able to speak, he stood with his head hanging and his sides heaving. Finally, he reached somewhere into his tattered ragged clothing and withdrew something small and dark. He pressed it into Hailey’s hand.

She stared at it in confusion. Though it was battered and bent, she could see that it was a pin featuring a pair of interlocked iron pentacles.

“It’s the insignia of a lieutenant commander,” Kieran said. “It’s enough.”

But it would never be enough, Hailey realized with a pang. These were four men who had their lives taken from them. Then those lives were used to harm others. If she thought about it for too long, she would break down and weep. Instead she tucked the insignia into one of the inner pockets of her cold weather gear for safekeeping. When Kieran returned with an enormous ax, she kept her face immobile.
 

Wyecomb knelt first. As Kieran lifted the ax, Wyecomb whispered
thank you
. Kieran was strong and fast. It was over in a heartbeat.
 

Hailey could feel hot tears streaming down her face. When Piers took her hand in his, she squeezed it as tight as she could, but she didn’t look away.
 

Orris was next, followed by Martel. Kieran was flecked with dark blood, but he was impassive as he did his cruel, merciful work.
 

Slowly, the last knelt, the nameless, the man who couldn’t even die with his past respected.

As Kieran raised the ax one last time, Hailey realized that there was something wrong. She couldn’t explain what it was. It was a nameless dread that rose up from the core of her being. This last man was different, the one who couldn’t speak. She put out her hand to stop Kieran, but it was too late. The ax came down, the head hit the floor, but the body did not fall.

Three humans and a wolf stood frozen as the headless body rose up from the ground. They couldn’t speak as a strange and sibilant laughter filled the room.
 

“Oh, but I am dead, and I am dead, what a terrible day this is!”

The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, ringing through the chamber and echoing until Hailey thought that she would go mad. The thing’s mocking tone was shrill and unnatural, like aluminum being torn apart.

“What are you?” Hailey said from between numb lips.

“Oh did I not tell you, child? I am dead, I am dead, your man has killed me. But just because I am passed on does not mean that I lack power. Just because I am dead does not mean that I will leave you in peace, yes?”

The body’s misshapen legs raised up one after the other, stomping in the pooled blood on the floor. After a moment, Hailey realized that it was dancing.

“Oh, but I have so little, so little time left, so what shall I do with it? Shall I make you kill each other? Shall I force you on each other?”

Hailey felt her stomach turn as she realized that this thing, even though it was dying, could do that.

“No! No. Do what you want to me, please, but let these two go,” she said.

The thing turned to her, or at least it turned its body to her.

“Let them go? Why what a good idea. I will find a lovely place, a safe place for them, and then I will let them go. Clever girl, smart girl, strong girl, I will let them go.”

The demon’s final words rose up into a shriek. It was a demon’s death curse, its final breath of malevolence before it was forced to exit the world. Hailey’s hands were finally free so she could plant them over her ears. The sound whipped around the room as if it were a sandstorm. Somewhere, the wolf was howling. Piers and Kieran were screaming.