Ghost Shadow (Moon Shadow Series Book 4) (26 page)

Adriel threw something and yelled, but I didn’t see it hit because the lights went out.

Lynx grabbed my staff and yanked me back towards the door we had just exited. As we dove through it, there was a flash behind us. I chanced a backwards glance as I pushed the door closed.

“Oh—No!” My shout was lost behind the door. Adriel had thrown explosive power. Instead of blasting Julia, Amy had sucked it up. The situation had gone from bad to worse.

I stopped. “They need our help!” Adriel and White Feather didn’t know how to fight the gray sucking energy. If she hit Amy again it would only empower her further.

Lynx already had the door to the tunnels open.

Before we could dive one direction or the other, the panel leading up to the bell tower opened. Spook barked. He dashed out, herding Aunt Brenda and Espy.

“Aw, shit.” Lynx said. “Let’s move.”

We were just inside the tunnels when the hidden door to the hallway crashed open behind us.

Chapter 33

Lynx slammed the tunnel door shut.

We had to get Espy clear of Amy. “Run! Don’t stop!” I yelled at them.

“The tunnel door should hold—” It blasted open before Lynx could finish. “Damn! That wood had more spells on it than Adriel’s place!”

We dashed for the storage room, pushing Espy and her aunt ahead of us. There were multiple exits from the storage room; maybe we could confuse Amy.

“Uh-oh.” The weave was thinning, I could feel it. “Lynx, get them out of here.” I turned back and set my feet. Amy came through the archway, standing just under the gargoyle as she assessed the situation.

Running was for naught. She was battling the weave, but Julia’s body was no match for the demon forcing his way through.

“Tell me the demon’s name!” I screamed at Julia’s body.

She bared her teeth and reached for me. I was afraid to hit her with energy because the demon might grab it or learn the scent of me if he didn’t already know it.

Music.

The sound of a far off melody drifted through the thinning weave before being abruptly cut off by the screeching chords from hell. Black claws with red-hot tips ripped into the weave.

Amy dragged Julia’s body several steps away. “You’ll not have me,” she snarled. “I have a host, and you can’t have it!”

Tell that to the boar that leaped at the break in the weave. The weave fought against the giant pig, trapping its squealing girth for precious seconds, tearing away at its essence. That only made it easier for the beast. It went from mammoth size to that of a large horse and squeezed through.

The smell of burning offal filled the room.

“Holy—” Lynx snarled and went cat. He could escape faster and better than any of us, but he planted himself next to me.

I smacked the boar across the head before jabbing my staff into its eye. The top of the staff blackened, but I didn’t fear the heat.

The boar bellowed in outrage, swinging its pitted and twisted tusks. Fire leaked from its injured eye, but that didn’t slow it down.

I spun under the lethal horns.

“What the hell is that?” Lynx darted in and out, swiping his claws along one flank, drawing more fire.

“Don’t touch it too long,” I shouted.

Adriel rolled into the room just under the flapping weave where the boar had come through. White Feather sailed in after her, somersaulting through the air and landing on his feet. They were both ready to do damage.

“Don’t touch,” I shouted again.

The weave was doing its level best to repair itself, but discordant notes cracked through, followed at times by a more melodic strumming of a guitar. Kyle was fighting for us, and Martin couldn’t be too far away either.

“Name the demon,” I demanded again, smacking Julia’s body with my staff. Forcing Amy out of Julia’s body now didn’t matter. The weave had already partially opened. Kyle’s music couldn’t fill the void forever, and the notes certainly weren’t going to wrap protectively around Amy to keep the demon out. She’d kill any music with her demon touch.

Amy dragged Julia’s ruined body closer to the back end of the pig. The feral monster ignored her.

White Feather smacked the creature with a windstorm hard enough to blow over any normal animal. Lynx swiped at it with another bloody hit.

Amy wasn’t headed for the weave even if it wanted her back. That meant she had decided to retreat through the arched doorway we had just entered.

Panicked, and more than a little angry, I flipped the staff to throw it. I hadn’t practiced this, at least not in this lifetime. I loathed the idea of losing my staff even for a second, but there was little choice.

Adriel was suddenly beside me, her arm also back to throw, completing the arc before I could stop her.

“No! Power just feeds her!”

“Yeah, I picked up on that from my first try,” she panted. The packet left a trail of energy, escaping as a beautiful blue silver light even before it hit the gargoyle. The timing was perfect. The stone cracked. The falling gargoyle might not hurt Amy, but it would finish Julia’s body.

Only the gargoyle didn’t fall. The explosion that should have rocked it was sucked away, blowing the gargoyle’s wings straight back. The gargoyle blinked.

Adriel’s mouth gaped open, matching mine.

The beast tucked in and dove, its feet ripping Julia’s head off on the way past as it sailed off the ledge.

Amy’s ghost head now sat atop a body gushing blood.

Lynx screamed then, that same cat bellow that had saved me once In Between. Knowing it as a warning, I slammed the staff hard at the pig while Adriel ducked.

Fighting was natural to me, an exercise that allowed me to beat my fears against something else instead of my own head. I pivoted and hit the pig again, snapping the energy off the end of the staff.

It backed up with a grunt, distracted enough that Lynx leaped on its back, raking his claws and tearing before he was suddenly by my side again.

He snarled something unintelligible, but my training from Troy helped.

“No idea if the gargoyle is friend or foe!” I answered.

The gargoyle supplied his own answer by charging into the pig, nearly ripping one tusk completely free.

Music swelled from behind us. The wall inside one of the candle niches flickered, wavered and then a ghostly face appeared.

“Kyle!”

He didn’t respond. He was too busy playing.

Martin yelled, “The name! We must have the name!”

Adriel lobbed a dark rock in his direction, probably bloodstone.

From the deadly screech emanating from the original breach in the weave, it was too late anyway. The curtain shred again and, music or no, this time the demon stepped through. His talons wrapped around Amy, cutting off her scream.

I thought her ghost face was melted before, but that was nothing compared to the elongated mess it became. The demon fed off pain and misery. From the way she was clawing at him, there was some anger transferring too.

“Let me tell the guitar guy the name.”

It was a whisper under the screams. It was a tiny voice that caused me to pull my punch or I might have knocked Espy all the way to the catacombs.

She stood behind me, her fingers tangled in Spook’s ghostly fur.

I stared at her, my mouth trying to form words and failing.

“I have to give him the name.” She held up her finger, the one with the demon mark. “Hurry.”

Hurry?
White Feather was pulsing the feral pig away from us, but the damn thing breathed fire. It singed the very oxygen around us.

The demon was not in a hurry. It clearly was enjoying a leisurely lunch in front of our eyes, polishing off both Amy and Julia. No doubt it would come after one of us very soon.

I looked up. Kyle and Martin had thinned the weave, but the opening was near the ceiling. Well, any port in a storm.

I grabbed Espy’s hand and we nearly flew over to the altar. As soon as Lynx figured out my plan, he leaped up, reached a hand down and hauled her on top of the table. It wobbled. The ceiling was arched and still too far away.

He lifted her.

I climbed up on the table with them.

The demon laughed, an odd cross between his broken music and a human gag.

“Lift me and then I’ll lift her!” I shouted. The two of us stacked might still not be high enough. And Lynx might not be able to hold both of us at once, skinny though I might be.

Adriel yelled, “White Feather, lift!”

White Feather’s face was black from the flames that had scorched him. He blasted another sheer wind across the pig. Adriel pitched silver balls similar to the ones she had given me. The energy crackled against the floor, forming a wall between us and the pig.

Before White Feather could respond to Adriel’s plea, the gargoyle swooped down, lifted Espy high and hovered over the niche. She set one foot down, scooped up the candelabra, and then sat, teetering.

Lynx grabbed me in time to break my fall as the altar slid from its perch atop the adobe bricks.

Espy jabbed her finger against the brass edge of the candle holder. Without hesitating, she reached into the weave, dripping black flames across the strings of Kyle’s guitar.

Kyle, bless his heart, played, even when four strings snapped. The sound of music dying echoed from here to hell. It was the demon’s name.

Chapter 34

The walls shook.

Kyle lifted his face from his music. It was full of tears.

The first time I’d seen him, those tears had been real. They were still energy now, but the broken strings had taken their toll. He was splintering.

Martin was visible behind him, chanting and waving juniper berries, the smear of berry bits and juice forming a small, foggy pentagram.

The demon surged towards us, but his name demanded his presence. The weave snapped into him, trapping him, shredding him, and finally forcing him back over. The curtain undulated, sucking the oxygen from the room as it repaired itself.

The feral pig charged.

I slapped out with my staff, only to have it snap in two. I rolled, the heat from hooves blasting past me.

The wall didn’t just shake when the pig hit, it crumpled, tearing out huge chunks of plaster and knocking a hole right through the adobe.

“Shouldn’t that thing be disintegrating?” Adriel shouted. “Isn’t its power source from the demon?” She ran behind it, cutting the flank with the smallest dagger I’d ever seen, but that dagger sparked with magic, cutting a chunk of pig fat free.

The boar ignored any pain and turned to charge again, squealing a challenge.

Our weapons were the wrong kind of energy. They were too alive. Lynx couldn’t possibly hear me click my fingernails with the pig’s hooves churning and roaring as it attacked.

“I’m going sideways,” I yelled.

“Don’t!” But he stood guard near my body anyway.

I slid into gray, reaching up to pluck the guitar pick from behind my ear. Spook rushed the boar from behind. He’d fought this kind before. He knew to bite and not touch anything for long.

There wasn’t a lot of energy in the guitar pick, but it was the right kind. It was In Between. The pig was nearly blind and bleeding fire from several cuts.

I floated high and dove down, my hand with the pick aimed for the remaining good eye. Spook attacked a leg, providing a distraction.

It was now or never.

I plowed my fist into its remaining red orb and flicked the guitar pick with my fingers, shoving it deep, but yanking my hand free before my presence could register with the boar.

It whipped its head sideways. The momentum flipped me away, fire chasing me.

“Aaaaii!” The pain was like slamming into the weave, but the burn across my chest and arm didn’t shatter, it ate at me. My living body gasped.

I yanked at the gray essence of my shirt, ripping it and the pig snot away from me.

I slammed back into my body and reached for the juniper berries. “Stand clear!”

Lynx didn’t listen. He grabbed me as if he intended to haul me away. Adriel yelled, “I’ve got the left,” flanking him on one side and White Feather the other.

These people did not follow directions.

Berries in hand, I slid sideways again and pelted the boar, little stabs that exploded into it, driving it back, slicing deep. The fire that licked the edges banked, drawing in.

The demonic creature gave a mighty snort and bore down on us anyway.

I threw the last berry and shouted, “Scatter!” There was nothing more I could do and even my last gasp wasn’t enough to save anyone. Either they didn’t hear me because I was sideways or they ignored me again.

Just as I hit my body, the gargoyle dove at the beast and grabbed the remaining boar tusk. The boar spun halfway around as the gargoyle wrestled with it.

“Duck,” I yelled.

The tusk ripped free, belching stored fire, but the gargoyle turned to stone, dropping through the flame to the floor with an earth-shattering crash.

The flame fed on itself, exploding the pig outward in a huge fireball.

I flew backwards so hard, I took Lynx down. He landed on top of Adriel. White Feather must have reached for her or tried to yank her away because he ended up on the bottom. For a moment, it was difficult to tell whether I was in my body or still sideways.

Stumbling badly, I rolled to my feet, hunting for threats in the bits and pieces that burned along the floor.

Lynx rolled the opposite direction, and came up facing the wrong way.

Adriel groaned and slid onto a piece of clay tile without making it to her feet. The tile under her cracked like a bullet, splintering into pieces. White Feather sucked in air loud enough to be heard in the sudden silence.

A tiny voice from the candle alcove said, “Are y’all okay?”

Espy was barely stable on the ledge. Kyle and Martin were gone. So was the pig. There was a distinct smell of sulfur and burned meat. I gagged. No fresh bacon here.

I sat down, hard. My shirt had nearly disintegrated; barely holding on by a few threads. Whatever life was contained in the cotton fibers had been removed when I ripped the essence of it away from me while sideways.