Demons Forever (Peachville High Demons #6) (20 page)

"I'm not afraid of you," I said. Not exactly a true statement, but I desperately wanted it to be true.

She laughed at me then. A full-toothed belly laugh that echoed through the hallway. Inside her mouth, her teeth were black and filled with a stench that hovered in the air like sewage. It was almost as if something inside her had begun to decay.

My stomach turned, and I had to struggle to keep from retching.

"You stupid girl," she said, licking her lips with her black tongue. "You should be very afraid of me. I may have been created to be a servant to your kind, but I can kill you just as easily as I could have protected you."

"Protected me?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at her. "When did you ever protect me?"

Mrs. Shadowford gripped the top of the banister with one hand as if to steady herself. "I never got a chance to protect you." A greenish liquid dribbled from the side of her wrinkled mouth as she spoke. "Your mother took you from me before I even knew you existed. She made me what I am, this old bag of bones. Then you. You left me here to rot."

She leaned over and spit, the dark green fluid dropping to the ground with a slick wet sound that brought the bitter taste of bile to the back of my throat. What the hell had happened to her?

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. "My leaving didn't have anything to do with you."

"You stupid girl." She snarled at me, her teeth covered in grime. "You defy the Order when you don't even know the first thing about how the Order works."

"I know enough," I said.

She laughed then. A grotesque growl of a laugh that made the floorboards shake beneath my feet. "Trust me." She ran the back of her hand across her lips, smearing green ick across her cheek. "You've barely scratched the surface. There are secrets and truths that go deeper than you could ever imagine."

Something in the craziness of her eyes sent fear racing through my body. I'd always assumed Mrs. Shadowford was just a cranky old lady who'd inherited this house because she married my mother's uncle. I thought her only authority came from the fact that she ran this home for troubled girls. Now, I was beginning to question if I'd completely underestimated her this whole time.

"I would have been faithful to you," she said, hunching over slightly. "A faithful servant. I would have given you everything you ever wanted, if only you had been a good girl and done what you were told. Instead, you left me with nothing but this body, falling apart like a rotting corpse."

She laughed again, bending so far over that her body contorted into a strange crouch. She'd gone completely mad, her eyes focused on me with wild clarity. She didn't even blink or look away for one second.

My instinct was to step away from her. To run. But I couldn't leave. There was no way I was leaving here tonight until I'd found my sister.

She opened her mouth in a silent scream. Her head rolled back as her jaw opened wider and wider, coming unhinged as her wrinkled face split in two. She shed her skin like a snake, letting it fall to the ground in a withered heap.

I stepped back until my back hit the wall with a thud. Jackson gripped my hand and our eyes met in terror.

I had no words for the monster that stood before me. Its skin was scaly and green, glistening with wet goo. At first, it appeared as a pillar, stick straight. Then, where Mrs. Shadowford's legs used to be, eight clawed legs skittered across the floor, hinged like a spider. Its head held glossy blue eyes, and from her back, a long tail with a sharp stinger curled up toward the ceiling.

Beneath the monster, the pile of skin melted away into the floorboards, the stench of decay overwhelming as Mrs. Shadowford's body dissolved.

This new thing that had taken her place was like something out of a horror movie. Definitely not human. Definitely not demon. I'd never imagined anything like it, not even in my worst nightmares. It seemed like a cross between a scorpion and a spider. Only huge.

Jackson stepped in front, putting himself between me and the monster. "If you want to get to Harper, you'll have to go through me," he said. He lifted his left hand and it began to glow a bright, icy blue. Frost formed on his fingertips.

The monster opened its mouth and hissed. Its teeth were jagged points that looked like they could tear through the toughest metal without a second thought. It reared its head back, then thrust forward, heading straight for Jackson's chest.

Jackson pushed his energy toward the monster's head, encasing it in ice. She staggered backward.

"We have to get out of here," Jackson said, gripping my arm.

I stared at the grotesque monster as it flung its head from side to side. The ice around it had already begun to melt and drip onto the floor.

"We can't go anywhere," I said. I placed my hand over his for a second. "We have to get upstairs tonight or she'll tell them we were here and it will spoil everything. We have to fight this thing."

I had only looked away for a second, but that was long enough for her to regroup and lash out at me. One sharp claw embedded into my right thigh. Pain ripped through me and I fell to my knees. I pressed my hand against the wound. Blood oozed through my fingers.

The monster retracted her claw, then struck again.

My brain was seconds behind the action. I couldn't react fast enough. Jackson lunged toward me, shifting just as his hand touched my skin, bringing me with him as he flew down the stairs and into the foyer. He slammed the door behind us and quickly pushed the couch against it.

"That should give us a few seconds," he said. "Let me see that wound."

I lifted my fingers and winced as he ripped a wider hole in my jeans. He pressed firmly against the gaping hole the monster had left in my thigh, then closed his eyes.

"I couldn't shift fast enough," I said. "Dammit, why didn't I fight back?"

"Shhh." Jackson's face was tight.

I opened and closed my hands. He needed to hurry. A couch wasn't going to hold that thing for long.

A bitter cold flared up in my thigh and the pain slowed. When Jackson took his hand away, the bleeding had stopped, but the skin was still raw.

"Better?"

"Yes," I said. "But now what?"

"This thing is bad, Harper." He threw a nervous glance at the barricaded door. "I've never faced one myself, but I know Lea and the other shadow demons have fought something like her before. They called it a green scorpion, and now I understand why."

Thick claws clacked against the stairs.

My chest tightened. "What did they say about it?"

"It has venom in its tail, just like a real scorpion," he said. "If it gets in your system, it paralyzes you."

I scooted back. The scorpion had reached the bottom of the stairs and was now clawing at the wooden door.

"Did they mention how to kill it?"

"That's why I told you we should run," Jackson said. "They said they couldn't kill it. Its body is covered with a thick outer shell that acts like armor."

The pincer on the end of one of her front legs crashed through the door, splintering it into tiny pieces.

"Then we have to destroy the shell," I said.

The thing that used to be Mrs. Shadowford destroyed the rest of the barrier and crawled into the room, climbing onto the couch, stinger raised. Her glassy blue eyes moved from me to Jackson and back again.

I filled my lungs slowly, hearing my father's voice in my head. The only way to get ahead of the moment was to let go of my fear. Anticipate. Act instead of react.

I pushed fear-thoughts into a box in my mind and closed it. I didn't have time for worry. I didn't have time to wait for her to attack. Instead, I shifted, white smoke filling the air where my body used to be.

The transition took my breath away. I'd used my demon power in the shadow world, but it felt completely different here. Instead of charging my power from the ground and deep roots beneath the surface, I pulled from more immediate things. I felt energy soar at me from every living thing nearby, including the scorpion itself. I sucked it in and became full with it, flying faster than I ever had before. I hurled myself toward the scorpion, sending a rope of smoke around her neck and squeezing.

The monster bucked and pulled. I stumbled and almost lost my hold, but a second smokey rope joined mine, coiling around her neck. Jackson's black smoke.

I glanced at him and he was human, then demon, then human again. Charcoal-colored smoke hung like a haze around him. I gasped as his demon form came into view. In the shadow world, I'd taken a potion to make all demons appear as humans, but the potion didn't work here. I wasn't prepared for what I saw.

I lost my concentration. I stared at the mix between a winged gargoyle and a horned beast.

"Harper!" he shouted. Jackson took human form again and pointed to the sharp stinger coming straight for my head.

I let go of my hold on the scorpion and shifted just before she sank her stinger into my skin. I reappeared behind her, then created fire in my palms. Red-orange flames burned around my hands. I reached out and grabbed the scorpion's tail. She screeched as it burned through her outer shell. The stink of barbecued flesh filled the air.

Hope rushed through me. If I could destroy the shell, maybe I could kill the monster.

With a strong whip of its tail, it lifted me from the ground and sent me flying across the room. I shifted just before my head hit the wall, flew down the length of the wallpaper, and landed safely on the floor. Dizziness overcame me for a moment, but I knew I had to recover fast. Before she got a chance to strike me again.

I cartwheeled across the room, thankful for my cheer training for the first time in my life as the scorpion's claws sank into the floor where I had stood only moments before.

"Freeze her," I shouted.

Jackson lifted his hands and threw a blue light at the scorpion. Popping sounds filled the room as ice crept across the scorpion's body, starting at its tail and ending with its upraised head.

I had seen him fight this way before, and I knew someone encased in ice could be shattered and killed. I looked around for a weapon to use to shatter her before she thawed. I reached for a piece of the splintered door, ripping it from the rest of the wood.

I aimed for the beast's neck, then threw the makeshift stake as hard as I could. The sound of breaking glass filled the room as my weapon hit just below my mark. One of the scorpion monster's legs shattered and broke away from its body.

She thawed quickly and skittered toward me despite her missing leg, mouth open in an angry scream.

I jumped up, shifting just enough to hang in the air above her like a fog, my human form still visible. I sent a stream of hot flame down on her back, feeding it with more and more power.

The scorpion's protective shell began to disintegrate in the extreme heat. Underneath, her skin glistened and bubbled. She jerked her flaming head violently. I struggled to keep the flame going, but my power was drained.

Just when I thought I couldn't keep going, a girl appeared in the broken doorway. Her long blonde hair covered part of her face, but I recognized her instantly.

Courtney!

Her hands glowed red and she motioned for me to come to her. I flew across the room, reforming beside her. She placed both of her hands on my arm and energy poured into me like a waterfall. With renewed power, I strengthened the flames that surrounded the monster.

Jackson lifted dead flowers from a pink vase near the window, then tossed the moldy water onto the floor. He pulled his fingers together and lifted the water from the ground as if it were a string he could lift up in a straight line. He formed a long spear with the water, then blew his icy breath against it, freezing it in an instant.

He lifted the ice-spear and thrust it forward. Without its shell, the monster was vulnerable. The spear sank deep into the its flesh, right where its heart should be. The fire melted the weapon on contact, but it had done its job. The scorpion lifted her body into the air like a bucking horse, then fell flat against the pine floors, acid bubbling from its neck as dark green blood gushed onto the floor.

The monster's limbs seized, shaking violently before finally going still and cold.

Mrs. Shadowford was dead.

Brighton Manor

I backed away as a river of green blood spread across the wooden floor.

The three of us backed into the hallway. The stench of rot and decay was overwhelming and I had to cover my mouth. Jackson opened the front door and we stepped out onto the porch.

I hugged Courtney tight. "Thank you," I said. "You really saved us back there."

She smiled, then lowered her head to hide her face. "I'm glad you're home," she said. "I missed you."

"I missed you too. Thank god you showed up when you did. Thank you," I said. I was so happy to see her, but she couldn't stay here. If anyone found out she'd helped us, she would be in danger. "I need you to do something else for me."

"What?" She lifted her eyes to mine.

"Take the van and go straight to Lark's," I said. "Tell her what happened and that I'll be in touch soon. Her mom will be able to keep you safe. They'll figure out a story to tell the Order so no one will know you're on our side, okay?"

Her face tensed and she shook her head. "Where are you going?" she asked. "Can't I just go with you?"

Jackson coughed and leaned over, resting his hands against his knees. "It isn't safe," he said. "We don't want to drag you into this."

"But we'll need you soon," I said. "Mary Anne's back too, and she's setting up a special place for us to hide. I promise we'll come for you as soon as we can."

Courtney pushed her hair from her face and nodded. She disappeared into the house, then came back a few moments later with the keys to the van. She gave me a brief hug, then drove away.

"Holy shit, that was intense." I leaned against one of the white pillars. "I always thought Mrs. Shadowford was a monster, but I never knew it was literally true."

"I knew we might face some pretty scary stuff tonight, but that was disgusting."