The Demon Abraxas (34 page)

“Yes.”

She felt the waves of ecstasy crest and break over Sabel and an echoing wave rose in her own body. Her teeth closed lightly over Sabel’s shoulder and she was aware only of the wildflower scent of her hair and the entwined peaks of their pleasure.

Slowly the intensity of that sensation rolled away and left Ana with a thick, heavy feeling of joy. She withdrew gently from Sabel so she could hold her in her arms.

“You can let go with your hands,” she said and Sabel’s hands came loose from her shirt with surprising speed. Her fingers stroked Ana’s hair and shoulders and back. Then she wrapped her arms around her and held on to her tightly.

* * *

Sabel wanted to stay in that space for days, with her and Ana holding each other, but a shift in the space nagged at her attention. Her craving for Ana wasn’t just because she was an attractive woman, smart, funny—she could always trust her to keep fighting, to face magic and demons and a group of a dozen power-mad men and keep trying. And in the face of all that, in this eddy outside of time, to take delight, to laugh, to kiss Sabel as if she were the only person in the world.

The space around them shifted again, inching inward energetically. Sabel half-untangled herself from Ana and sat up.

“It’s closing,” she said.

Ana reached for her shirt, but Sabel shook her head. “These are just conscious images of ourselves. We’ll be back in our bodies fully dressed.”

“But this feels real.”

“It is real. It’s just not physical.”

“So did we really…?”

Sabel smiled at her perplexed look. “Oh, we did. Your body will remember this, even if it wasn’t here for it. I can explain how that works later.”

“I’d love to hear you explain it,” Ana said.

“Listen, we don’t have long now. You have to keep Abraxas contained as best you can. Remember, he doesn’t know our plan. I’ll cut your hands free. You need to get out and get help, okay? Don’t stay and try to help me.”

“But—”

“I have protection from the witches and I can stutter time, but you’re a lot physically stronger than I am. I’m going to try to run too, but you really have to just go. You have the best chance of getting out. Promise me.”

Ana’s dark eyes held hers. “No,” she said. “I can’t promise that.”          

The eddy collapsed.

Sabel was back in her body on the floor beside Ana who remained bound to the chair. There were ten men and a demon in the room against two women and a demon. Shitty odds. The only good news was that none of the men had a gun. Drake could sense metal on any of them so she knew they couldn’t be armed.

Although she hadn’t been able to bring anything obvious with her, like a gun or even her cell phone, she had a small ceramic knife she’d tucked into her knee-high stocking that escaped both supernatural and human notice. She stuttered time to get it out quickly and sawed against the ropes around Ana’s wrists as the room exploded into action.

Ana jumped to her feet the minute the bonds were off and grabbed the chair, holding it in front of her like a lion tamer. Most of the men in the room were in front of her, including Drake. A few were running toward the sides of the room, either to flank them or to escape for themselves, Sabel couldn’t be sure. She stepped to one side and slightly in front of Ana so that she was facing most of the men.

“Run,” she hissed. “Or get behind me and cover your ears.”

She heard the chair drop but didn’t turn to look. She drew breath and opened to the Voice.

“
Stop!
” she commanded. Ten men froze in their tracks.

“
Maarevas,
” Drake said with glee. He strode across the room toward her. “Perfect.”

“
Sleep
!” Sabel told the men at the same time that Drake made a sweeping gesture of aversion. More than half of the men dropped, but not all of them. Drake’s magic protected a few.

“You’re mine.” Drake’s voice was rich with pleasure as he grabbed her shoulders. Ana swung the chair and it hit his back with a solid thud but failed to even slow him down. Sabel felt his power flow into her and the leash clenched in a single painful jerk.

At least this is how it’s supposed to work
, she thought as she passed out.

Ana saw Drake sneer as Sabel sagged unconscious in his grip.

“Simple measures, easy to break,” he said, but he shoved her unconscious body away and let her fall to the floor rather than try anything. He rounded on Ana. “You first, then there’ll be time to break into your friend. Unexpected gifts.”

Ana kept the chair between them and circled toward the door. Two of the other hooded men were hesitating, but the third moved decisively to cut her off.

“Johnson, I know that’s you, you might as well take that mask off,” she called. “I know you killed Helen.”

He didn’t answer.

“Little good it will do you,” Drake said. He reached out and grabbed an arm of the chair. They struggled over it until Ana, still moving sideways and trying to keep as near as she could to both Sabel and the door, saw the little black knife Sabel had dropped. She let go of the chair and snatched it up, backing toward a corner near the door and trying to get both Drake and Johnson in front of her.

“Why did you kill her?” Ana asked.

“It was an accident.” That actually came from Johnson.

“She wasn’t strong enough,” Drake said.

“She was more than strong enough,” Johnson spat at him. He pulled his hood off and threw it on the ground. “She was perfect and you pushed the damned ritual. If you hadn’t been so stupidly eager, she’d be alive and you’d have your consort.”

“Oh, now you want to speak your mind,” Drake sneered. “You had more to do with Helen’s death than I did. Now this one, she’ll make a good vessel.”

“Over my dead body,” Ana hissed.

“That’s an option,” Drake said.

He lunged at her and she slashed with the knife, tearing a thin line across his cheek. With a hiss, he stepped back.

“Easy, I like this look,” he said.

“Well then take a step back and make me an offer,” Ana said.

“You want me to believe I can buy you after all? I don’t think so.” But he did take a few steps back and paused to look around the room again.

Ana tried to measure the seconds and guess how much time had elapsed already. How much longer did she have to stall until the rest of her plan played out? There were three men and Johnson standing, along with Drake. They could simply rush her, but the men seemed confused by what had happened and by Johnson’s anger.

Drake moved a few more steps to his right, which put him next to Sabel’s prone body. “How about you drop the knife or I break her neck?”

“I think she’s too valuable for you to do that,” Ana said. She prayed she was right.

“She’s corrupted by the witches,” he said. He knelt next to her and ran a strand of her black hair through his fingers. Then he lifted one of her limp hands. “All right, I’ll start with her fingers.”

He took the little finger in his hands and bent it until a sickening crunch sounded. Ana shouted in wordless alarm, then bit hard on the inside of her cheek in an effort not to show the shock of sick fear that went through her. She just had to stall him a little bit longer—but how long?

He switched to the ring finger of Sabel’s hand and stroked it watching Ana’s face. She threw herself at him, knife first, but he knocked her out of the air. She rolled and came up next to him, jabbing uselessly at the empty air.

Ana heard the wet snap of another finger breaking. She screamed and charged him again, grabbing with one hand and slashing low and up with the other. His hands caught the wrist of her right hand and twisted. Her fingers went numb and the knife dropped to the floor. She aimed her left fingers at his eyes and, as he twisted to block her, jammed her knee into his crotch. He doubled over with a grunt but when she lunged for the knife, he had enough mobility to shove her away from it.

She staggered into the middle of the room and one of the other men grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms clumsily. Her heel dropped hard onto his instep and his grip went loose, but the only direction she could move to get away from him put her closer to Drake. She stepped away from the man behind her and aimed a tight punch at Drake. He moved to the side and kicked out quickly, hitting her solidly in the gut.

A shattering boom hit the door and then the room flashed with light and smoke. Ana was doubled over from the kick and the smoke made her gasp for air turn into a choking cough.

“Police!” someone yelled. “Keep your hands where we can see them!” Uniformed men and women spilled through the door, guns trained on the various men in the room.

Ana put her hands up and ran, still coughing and bent in half, to where Sabel lay. She dropped to her knees and kept her hands high.

One of the heavily suited officers nodded at her questioning look and she bent down to touch Sabel’s face. Her skin felt cold and looked white as ice. Her breathing was shallow and it was slowing down as Ana watched. Did the magic just wear off? Why wasn’t she waking up? Ana didn’t know what to do.

She pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and closed the open line to 911. When Sabel used the Voice and had the attention of the men in the room, Ana remembered the phone in her pocket. With Drake’s attention on Sabel, she had a moment to turn away, dial 911 and slip the open phone back into her pocket. Hopefully they’d recorded Drake and Johnson talking about Helen’s death.

Should she call Lily to get help for Sabel? Could Lily do anything?

Abraxas
, she asked,
can you get a message to whoever needs to hear it that Sabel needs help?

I would have to leave your body, but I can try,
he replied.

Please.

He rushed out of the back of her body, leaving a vacuum that made her gasp. She prayed he would be fast and find the right person to come help. She didn’t like how labored Sabel’s breathing looked or the paper-white paleness of her skin. What if the magic they put on her wasn’t calibrated for a body going into shock from broken bones?

Next to her, an officer approached Drake with handcuffs. “Hands behind your head, sir,” he said. Drake did as he was asked, but his eyes remained on Ana.

“Thank you,” Drake said and Ana realized, with horror, that he wasn’t talking to the cop. She got to her feet quickly, but already his body was slumping to the ground, empty. He had said she made a great vessel and now she’d sent Abraxas away. Without Abraxas she was a body optimized for demon inhabitation and virtually without protection.

Drake rolled down on her like a thundercloud. His disembodied form poured into her, crushing her, absorbing her, filling her body so completely there was no place for her to be. Ana did the only thing she could think of and leapt sideways out of her body, the way Abraxas had shown her when he borrowed her body. From a few safe feet away, she watched her own head turn toward the police officer.

“My goodness,” her voice said lightly. “I didn’t take him for the fainting type.”

The officer who was checking Drake’s pulse looked up and grinned. “It takes all types.”

Ana felt the rubber-band-like connection she had to her body narrowing. Drake was squeezing it off and she understood with horror that if she didn’t get back in her body soon he would be able to sever her connection to it. Would that make her a ghost or kill her? Could she get back? She didn’t want to risk it.

Drake said through her mouth, “Would you mind, sir, if I went outside to sit down? I’m feeling dizzy.”

“Sure,” the cop said. “Wait on the steps for the paramedics.”

“Thank you, I just need to clear my head.”

Her body moved toward the door. If he got outside in her skin, he could go anywhere. He couldn’t hide her from Abraxas, but he could hide her from Lily and any other help. If Abraxas came back now, Ana felt sure he wouldn’t be strong enough to fight Drake from outside of her body. What happened to him if he lost?

And if Drake defeated Abraxas and locked her out of her own body, she would lose everything. Plus, she reminded herself, she’d resolved to kill him. Ana forced herself back toward her body, clawing her way into her skin.

Inside herself was a whirlwind, tearing pieces of her mind apart. He left no space where she could be away from him, but every place her mind brushed up against him burned and tore. He went through her memories with a spinning blade. He plucked out parts of her personality and held them up like bits of glass before crushing them under his heel. The more she resisted the faster he came. A thousand times more invasive than the possessions she’d felt before, he pried through her mind and pulled out every terrible moment of her life. He pawed the good memories and darkened them.

He found the memory about Gunnar and expanded it until it enclosed her: the tight air of her tiny room filled with the smell of young men; Mack’s lopsided sneer as he called her a whore and a bitch; the knife in Gunnar’s hand. Drake savored her memory. He rolled in it like a dog in grass, repeating it in the theater of her mind. Again and again she felt the terror of knowing her brother was waiting to rape her, being trapped in her own room, the guilty joy of wielding that knife, the raging power that filled her, the desire to take a life, and then later the horror that she’d hurt Gunnar, the brother who loved her.

Drake would keep her here forever watching as she attacked her brothers, the scene played back in detail again and again.

Drake fought to destroy her and he was close to succeeding. Soon she might not be able to remember anything but the worst day of her life. She tried to call on anything Abraxas had taught her that would help. Get outside her identity, sure, but how? How when she felt like sobbing and puking and tearing her own eyes out if only she didn’t have to see the knife go into Gunnar again?

But Abraxas had witnessed all of this. He knew her mind and everything she did, and still when she had seen herself through his eyes that afternoon in the desert, he loved her.