Trial by Fire (Covencraft Book 1) (16 page)

The fire was out and she was perfectly still.

“Playing possum again,” he said softly, his voice tickling her ear. He let go of her quickly, and was across the room by the door before she could blink. “You think about what I said, possum. Even if I want you alive, someone else wants you dead. When you need help, you’ll be ready to deal.”

She didn’t have a quick answer or snappy retort - just a heavy, sluggish weight in her stomach. He shimmered and then seemed to be sucked up into the ceiling.

Right near the hole Paris had dented in the plaster earlier.

What the hell did that mean?

Jade started shaking thirty seconds after he left. Her headboard knocked against the wall with the force of her tremors. She pushed out of bed and fell to the floor, fumbling for her phone. She got it in her hand and then crab walked to her closet, opened the door and crawled inside, pulling it shut behind her. She hadn’t hid in the closet since she was a child but the inky darkness, the brush of clothes on her face and body was familiar. She pressed herself into the corner, pulling her knees up close to her and wrapping her arms around herself. She just needed to calm down enough to dial the phone, to talk, and it would be okay. She breathed in jerky fits and starts and forced herself to count to three on the way in and then again on the way out. The ritual soothed her, gave her control and she was able to unlock her phone and dial.

As soon as the phone rang once she had a horrible fear that Paris wouldn’t answer, that he was one of those people who turned their phone off at night. She only had the one number. If he didn’t answer, she’d… No. She was smart. If he didn’t answer she’d go online and find another number for him, for the Coven, for the supernatural 9-1-1 they must have for awry magic or whatever. And she’d keep calling people until she found someone that would help her.

She wasn’t a child anymore. She had options.

Still, she was really fucking glad when Paris answered in the middle of the second ring.

“Yes, this is Paris.”

His voice had the low, rumbling timbre of a man who had just woken up. She panicked again and was pretty sure she heard a kind of
glick
escape her throat.

“Jesus, fuck,” she blurted, all pretense of not being scared as hell chucked out the window as anger took the place of fear in her body. “You never fucking warned me about demons.”

Chapter 8

Paris shot upright in bed. “What?”

“Because I’ve been
listening
and I know sometimes you think I’m not but I
am
and there was nothing about demons. Not one goddamn thing.” Her voice was a low hiss on the phone, like she was trying to keep quiet but couldn’t quite help herself.

“What happened? Are you all right?” He scrambled out of bed, trying to hold his cell phone between his shoulder and his ear while he dragged some pants on. It was damn near impossible, but he managed to struggle into a pair of jeans.

Jade continued on like he hadn’t asked her a question. “And if things, things like
demons
,
are going to be waking me up in the middle of the night in my fucking bedroom then I want to know about it before it happens!” she hissed.

“What happened?” he repeated. “No, wait, where are you?”

“I’m in my goddamn closet is where I am, although I suppose you’ll tell me that it’s the worst place to be because the boogeyman lives in here.” She paused and he swore he could hear the gears of her brain turning. “Holy Christ, tell me the boogeyman doesn’t live in here.”

“You’re not hurt?” He was out his bedroom door and padding down the stairs, shoving his feet into shoes and grabbing a jacket to go over his t-shirt.

“I’m fucking traumatized. What the hell?” He heard glass breaking, loud and sharp over the phone.

“What was that? What’s going on?”

“Fuck! Nothing, that was just… God, stupid light bulbs. I can’t -” A nervous laugh bubbled out of her. “I gotta calm down before I wreck the place.”

“I’m coming over.” He grabbed his keys off the hook by the door and didn’t bother locking up as he left. “Are you hurt?” he repeated, sliding into his car, slamming the door and starting the engine.

She hesitated and he felt his stomach flip a little. “No. Well… I’m a little -” He heard her take a deep breath and then let it out. “I’m okay.”

“That answer does not make me happy.” He was driving now and the motion, the physical sense of
doing something
settled his nerves. Slightly.

“Well that makes two of us!” she said, her voice still whisper-harsh.

“I’m on my way. I need you to tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know. Jesus, I just don’t know.” Her voice was shaky, but she didn’t sound hysterical or desperately hurt. She breathed deeply and he could hear her shifting a bit.

“I was sleeping,” she said quietly. “And I woke up and he was just… There. And he was strong and his eyes were… I couldn’t look at them at first. And he held me down and I… I…”

He felt a cold sweat break out across his forehead and he didn’t know what she was going to say next. He was afraid of what he assumed was coming. He didn’t know what he would say, how he could help.

“But he just wanted to talk to me.”

He felt grossly relieved at her words and had to take his own steadying breath. He hated the next question, but he had to ask, he had to know.

“Did you make a deal?”

“No!” she shot back. “Because even though no one bothered to fucking warn me about demons, I’m not a complete moron.”

Relief coursed through his veins. “I’m almost at your place. Can you come downstairs and let me in?”

“Um,” she sounded uncertain and small on the phone and for a moment he thought he was going to have to use magic to break her door down. He’d do it, but it would likely leave her without a door.

“Yes. I’m going downstairs right now. You’re almost here, yeah?”

“Two minutes.” He took a turn a little too hard and had to fight to keep the car on the road.

She cursed again. He didn’t think he’d ever heard someone cuss so much in such a short amount of time.

Of course, he didn’t directly know anyone that had ever met a demon before.

Demons were things witches were taught about as children, but for which they had no real concept. Like learning about saber-toothed tigers. Yes they were very frightening and could kill you, but it wasn’t as though you had to worry about them - they were extinct.

Demons weren’t extinct but for all the interaction they’d had with witches over the last two-hundred years, they might as well have been.

There was the odd story or anecdote. Urban legend. Someone knew a witch who knew a witch who knew someone who had brokered a deal with a demon. Tales whispered over campfires and told in hushed voices. Ghost stories for young witches. Some unfortunate or foolish witch who made a deal and came out on the losing end.

No one ever came out on the right end of a deal with a demon.

There had been history lessons in class. A teacher would bring in one of the demonology books and explain how they were forbidden texts, kept under lock and key and would then scare the living daylights out of the class by telling them what happened to witches who made deals. Forced to surrender their power, never allowed to die, enslaved to demons, some horrid combination of all of the above involving all members of a family or a coven.

Their teachers told them how they didn’t have to worry about demons as long as they stayed clear of demon magic - no dark spells, no summoning, no trading magic for favors. Stay clear of demons and demons would stay clear of you.

Paris remembered asking his mother about it, feeling like his lessons in class had been a bit too theatrical and maybe over the top. He remembered her white-knuckled grip on her knife and fork at the dinner table, her blue eyes looking very sternly at him.

“
I know that I don’t always agree with your teachers and what you learn at school about magic, but in this case, they are right, Paris. Demon magic is… You can’t… It never ends well. Even if you think you have all your angles covered, even if you’re sure you’ve thought it all through and it’s for the best, it won’t work out. No matter what your intentions are, even if you are doing it for the most noble of reasons, demon dealing is too costly. And you don’t know their full price. They’ll never tell you the full price.”

She’d pushed her dinner away, half-finished and he’d gone into the kitchen after a few minutes to apologize for upsetting her. He found her staring out the kitchen window, out into the forest that was behind their house, the dark winter evening making the trees seem like moving shapes of shadow and ink.

“
You should ask questions. Always,”
she’d replied to his apology.
“It’s better that you know everything up front. I will always answer your questions the best I can.”

As Paris finally pulled to a stop in front of Jade’s cottage, his mother’s voice was ringing in his ears. How brittle the tone of her words had sounded, how sharp her features had looked, how bright her eyes had seemed. He realized he’d been silent on the phone with Jade and she hadn’t said anything in a while.

“Are you still there? Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m here.” He got out of the car and walked up to the door. It was closed.

“I’m coming.”

He didn’t hear any movement over the phone. No lights came on in the windows. He waited for a moment.

Still silence.

“Jade?”

“Fuckit, I’m coming, just - gimme a second,” she blurted hotly and then swore again, three times quickly in succession, like she was steeling herself. He heard her move, identified the rustle of her clothes and then a light came on in the window above the door. Seconds later, the bolt was sliding back and Jade opened the door.

It was almost comical, the two of them staring at each other, holding their phones. He broke first, clicking his phone off and sliding it into his pocket. She fumbled awkwardly with hers, not having any pockets of her own in neither her shorts nor her t-shirt.

He stalled when he stepped closer and saw her in the light. She had angry, red marks around her throat, cuts at the end of each scratch, thin trails of dried blood on her neck. Bruising was already coming to the surface, sick blue and livid purple. She had matching bruising on her wrists - more vivid marks circling her bones. Her face was shockingly white, perhaps a little on the green side, her eyes a sharp pale grey with her narrowed dark black pupils.

He took a step toward her, reaching out slightly, he wasn’t sure why. She stepped back instantly, holding a hand up to ward him off.

“There’s been far too much touching already going on tonight. Keep your mitts to yourself.”

“I’ll call Dr. Gellar and see if she can come over and take a look at your-” He gestured to her neck and then to her wrists.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll live.”

He blinked. “You really should be seen by a doctor.”

“It’s fine.”

He slammed the door harder than he meant to as he finished stepping into the house. “It’s not fine.”

“Hey!” she snapped angrily. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. If I don’t want to see a doctor then I don't see a doctor.”

“You’ve been injured-”

“Yeah, I have been,” she agreed. “All a doctor will tell me is to put some ice on it and take it easy. I’ve had the shit kicked out of me enough that I know when I need help or not.” She flinched at her own words, as though she’d surprised herself by saying them but then she jutted her chin out. “So don’t start off by bossing me around.”

He wanted to argue with her but she was right. She was a grown woman and if she didn’t want to go, he certainly couldn’t make her. He supposed he could also see how she’d want to assert authority over herself with him after being surprised by a demon that had hurt her.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Would you tell me if you’re hurt anywhere else?”

She shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m not.”

Paris nodded. “Okay.” He watched her for a moment. She was on edge, shaking slightly, her phone still clutched in her hand. “Could we sit? Either on the sofa or in the kitchen?”

“Not the kitchen,” Jade said quickly. “I think-” She frowned. “I think it came in through the pantry.”

“What?”

Her fingers twitched. “I mean, I don’t know for sure but it felt really weird tonight. Like bad weird, but I didn’t know that meant something. And then, when he was in my room, when he left, he disappeared through that spot. Where you’d tossed that can? And it left a dent?” Paris nodded at her and she continued. “He disappeared right there. I know it’s not a lot but-”

“I trust your intuition.”

“Really?” she blurted.

“Yes,” he replied, taken aback that she was surprised. “You have shown a remarkable aptitude for magic. An innate sense. I was angry that you had tried so much because, unlike most witches, you could cause serious damage with the amount you’d be able to do on your own with no instruction.”