What's a Witch to Do?: A Midnight Magic Mystery (24 page)

But I’m a moron. I left my keys in my purse, which is on the ground back at the country club. Worse, all four of my tires are flat. “Oh shit, oh shit,” I mutter. I can’t stay out in the open. I pop the lock with a spell and jump in. If there’s a spell to start the car, I don’t know it. My whole body is quaking with fear and adrenaline. I can’t think. What the hell am I going to do? I’m a sitting duck in here. Just focus.
Focus
.

Wait, I prepared for this. My trembling hands open the glove box and I pull out chalk, a crystal, and athame. There are three small crystals already in place in the car and when I put this one in the corner and energize it, the perimeter goes up. Even my amulet stops burning. Now I just have to wait. Adam’s on his way. He’ll get here in time. We’ll … as I look around the lot, I notice Auntie Sara’s Monte Carlo. He’s here already. What … I honk the horn in Morse code for S.O.S. Thank the goddess Mommy signed me up for Girl Scouts. With his werewolf hearing, he’s bound to hear this. He has to. Oh hell, then what?

There is movement to my left, but I keep honking. The door of a pickup opens and a pretty girl about ten years younger than me climbs out. She’s wearing a black sweater and jeans, and she grimaces and covers her ears as she approaches. I’ve seen her before, but I can’t place her. “Are you okay?” she shouts.

I stop honking. “You need to get out of here!” I shout.

“What? Why? Open the window, I can barely hear you,” she says.

“I can’t! Just go up to the club! It’s not safe here!”

She stops right beside the car and reaches for the handle, but the barrier won’t allow it. “Shit! Fucking witches!” She hits the barrier with her fist, and the car tilts to the right from the sheer force.

Oh hell’s bells.

Clarity comes too late. She was outside Cheyenne’s house with Cray Bradshaw. When the demon was there. When
she
was there. No, demons come as men. There’s only one female demon we know of that visits this plane.

“Lilith,” I say.

She smiles. “Nice to meet you.
Now get out of the fucking car
!” she roars. She pushes against it and the car jerks again. I hate super-strength. I scream as I fall to the side. The chalk in the passenger seat rolls; it’ll have to do. I reach for it, and as she pushes the car again, I quickly draw a banishing sigil on the dash. She tries again, this time the car lifts a few inches off the ground. I stab my finger with the knife to draw blood as I bounce back to earth. She lifts again, but when I press my blood onto the sigil and scream, “
Absentis
!” she jolts with a scream and stumbles three feet back. She can’t touch the car now, can’t even get within a few feet of it. She shakes her head to clear it.

“Shit!”

“Who summoned you?” I scream.

“Get out and I’ll tell you,” she says with a smile. I definitely see Cheyenne in her. Same cold blue eyes with a mocking grin. “Might as well. I’m getting bored being stuck in this town. I promise if you do, I’ll make it painless. Barely even feel it. It’ll be just like going to sleep. But if I have to come after you tomorrow, I
swear
after I’m done with you, I’ll go after those two brats of yours. They’ll keep me energized for weeks. Children’s life forces are so much more delicious.”

That’s right. The myth is that she’s a succubus, draining energy like a psychic vampire. Most do it with sex, but she can probably do it with her mind. If I wasn’t wearing the amulet I would have keeled over days ago of an apparent heart attack. No one would even think let alone prove murder.

“You stay the hell away from them!”

She isn’t paying attention to me. She stares off behind me and a huge grin forms on her face. “Or I can feed now.”

I turn around. Three people, two men and a woman, walk over the bridge. The woman stops before the men do right under the streetlight. It’s Bethany with Clay and Adam. The relief I should feel is just bone-deep terror. The smiling demon closes her eyes and in the same instant Clay doubles over. No. No! Bethany grabs him to keep him upright. Oh crap. Oh goddess no. She’s killing my best friend! Why the hell didn’t I make him a fucking protection amulet too?

Adam is faster on the uptake than I was. He must see the woman by my car and just
know
. He takes off running as Clay falls to the ground with a hysterical Bethany beside him.
No.
I smash the nearest crystal. The barrier lifts. I call to the wind and she listens. Everything from the trees to the cars shake as a monster gale wind rushes through the parking lot aimed right at her. Anything not weighing a literal ton is knocked down then back as if on rollers into the wooded area. The demon smacks against a tree, her head lolling to the side. She’s knocked out. She won’t stay like that for long.

I leap out of the car, taking off in the opposite direction. A few seconds later I all but throw myself into Adam’s arms, hugging onto his gray sweater with all my strength. Why this makes me feel so much better, I don’t know. He squeezes back. “Did it hurt you?” he asks, breathless.

“No.” I pull away and take his hand. “Come on.”

Bethany is helping the still shaky Clay up when we reach them. “Was that the demon?” Bethany asks, voice quaking.

“Yeah. We need to get up to the club,” I say. Bethany’s breath becomes ragged, and I follow her gaze. Lilith stands and brushes the dirt off her clothes.
“Now.”

“I got her. Go,” Adam says.

“What? No! I’m not leaving you!”

He grabs my face, rough palms pressing against my soft cheeks. His hard blue eyes burn into mine. “Mona, help your friends. I’ll be fine, I promise.
Go.”

He’s right. I nod and he releases me. “Don’t let her touch you.” I throw Clay’s arm over my shoulder like Bethany has, and we start running as best we can. Clay can barely keep his feet moving. My back, my arms, my legs all cry out in pain as we trudge up the hill.

“What did she do to him?” Bethany asks.

“Sucked out his life force,” I pant.

“Will he be okay?”

Tears fall from my eyes. “I—I don’t know.” He’ll be fine. We all will. If that bitch so much as musses Adam’s hair … no. He’s strong. He’s got an amulet, he can take her. He has to. He promised.

A minute later, far too long, the bored valets spot us, immediately toss down their cigarettes, and run over to us. The boys take Clay. “What happened?” one asks.

“He collapsed,” I say, now completely out of breath. “Call an ambulance.”

Bethany follows the men into the club, but when she sees me staying put, she stops. “Mona, what—”

“Take care of him. Keep everyone inside. I have to go back.”

“No, Mona, no. That’s suicide.”

“Bethany, keep everyone inside,” I say, my voice hard. “That is an order.”

I grab a lighter from the valet stand, the closest thing to a weapon available. Maybe I can set her hair on fire. I spin around and sprint down the hill again. Nothing. There are no sounds beyond my footfalls on the pavement. No birds, crickets, not even the wind. This is so stupid. All I have is a lighter and tiny knife. I don’t even have my kit. My kit! It’s in the trunk. Salt, charms, potions. Good. A plan.

The prickling starts sooner this time, right when the bridge comes into view. Where are they? If that bitch hurt him … I full on run now, scanning the horizon for her. But I don’t find her, I find him.

Oh fuck. No.

As I run over the bridge I see a body floating face down in the creek. My pounding heart comes to a standstill. He looks dead. He is dead. Goddess, don’t let him be dead.

Without a second thought, I leap off the bridge and wade into the creek. The cold water only reaches my knees but people have drowned in less. I put the lighter into my cleavage, grab his body, and hoist it up onto the creek bed. There’s a gash in his head that’s still bleeding and the beginnings of a black eye, but his head is otherwise intact. Except he’s not breathing, and he doesn’t have a heartbeat. He could have been in the water for ten seconds or two minutes. I have to do CPR. I—

A hand touches my bare shoulder, and all the air is sucked out of my lungs. I don’t think, I react. The ground violently shakes while the wind gusts. The hand is gone, but I fall flat on my back on the muddy creek bed beside Adam’s cool body and my athame. I reach for the athame. Lilith is up before me, slim hand once again reaching for me. One swift upward movement and the blade jams through that hand. Screaming, she stumbles away as I find my feet. She pulls the blade out of her hand, tossing it to the ground. “Bitch.”

Crouching, I let loose another gale, knocking her down again, before I spring up and take off running. There is nothing else I can do but pump my legs as fast as they’ll go away from her. I used to make fun of people in horror movies who ran into the creepy house or an isolated area, but I never will again. When a psychopath is chasing you, it’s very hard to strategize. The only two words that cycle through my head are
run
and
faster
. My feet are taking me up the hill to the club. I have maybe a five-second head start, which from her nearby cussing I quickly lose because she’s in better shape than I am. “Stop running, Mona,” Lilith calls, “you’re just pissing me off!”

I keep going but don’t get far. Since my life has become a horror movie, I do what the victim always does. I trip and fall. I’m so shocked I scream until the wind is knocked out of me when my stomach hits the ground. That’s it. I’m done. My body won’t move. I’m going to die. The girls will be orphans. Cheyenne will take over the coven and ruin it. I’ll never get married or have children of my own. No man’s ever truly loved me. It’s so fucking unfair.

The demon grabs my wrist and flings me onto my back with a triumphant grin on her pretty face. The air is sucked out again like a vacuum. My heart rate increases ten-fold from overwork. I watch as my veins rise to my skin like worms, and my skin turns to ice as she pulls the life out of every one of my cells. She glows like a lantern as my life becomes hers. If I had breath, I’d scream. Did Adam feel like this when she killed him? Oh, Adam, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Within moments the world becomes fuzzy, and I have the strongest urge to fall asleep.

“What the … ” Lilith says, staring behind me. I don’t have the energy to look but there’s no need to. What looks like a battalion of super-bright fireflies glides over me like a wave toward the demon, swarming her.

“This way!” I hear a woman shout.

Lilith releases me to swat at the horde enveloping her. Sprites. She’s being attacked by spirit energy. I gulp the air back into my lungs and cough. “They’re here!” Bethany shouts.

Four people—Bethany, Dickie, cousin Julie-Ann, and Erica—all run into the clearing toward me. Bethany rushes over to me, cradling my coughing body, and the other three move toward the overwhelmed demon. There isn’t an inch of her that isn’t engulfed by light. Erica waves her hand, and the sprites fly off. That’s when I notice the Glock in her other hand, which she raises like Dirty Harry. “Ruin
my
party?” Erica fires twice into the demon’s head. I almost vomit over Bethany as the back of Lilith’s head explodes, tiny particles of blood and skull flying like fairy dust. The body crumples to the grass in a heap beside me. Hell’s bells. “We don’t have much time before she recovers,” Erica says.

“Cut off her head?” Dickie suggests.

“What with?” Erica asks.

“Cleaver from the kitchen?” Dickie asks.

“Look at her! She’s already healing! We don’t have that kind of time!”

“Does anyone know a ritual to un-summon it?” Julie-Ann asks.

“Dear Lord in heaven,” Erica mutters. “Yeah, I carry all the ingredients in my bra!”

The fog has cleared from my head enough to actually form a thought. “I have an idea.” Bethany helps me up, and the world spins a little. “Erica, I think I’ll need your help. I’m a little weak right now.” She hands the gun to Dickie, before I take her hand and fall to my knees on the ground. She does the same, and we place our hands on the grass. “Call deep,
deep
into the soil and ask it to part.” She nods. We close our eyes and push our power into the earth. Within seconds, it starts to rumble and fall in on itself. I open my eyes just as a slim crack parts in the grass. It’ll do. “Push the bitch in.”

Dickie picks up the still unconscious demon and chucks her down into the abyss. Erica and I close the crack. That’s the end of that. She’s either crushed flat or it will take her a hundred years to claw out of there. It’s over. “Thank you,” I say to Erica, who nods.

“Is it over?” Julie-Ann asks. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“Are you okay?” Bethany asks me. “Do you need a doctor?”

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

“What about Adam?” she asks.

Oh crap. “Adam! He wasn’t breathing!” I leap up and start running again even though I’m still dizzy. “Get a doctor!”

What felt like seconds before when I was chased feels like hours as I race back to the creek. No. He hasn’t moved an inch or regained consciousness. I fall to the ground beside him, resting my head on his chest. Still no heartbeat or breath. “No, no, no, no, no,” I whisper.

Dickie and Bethany stop a few feet away. “Is he dead?” Dickie asks.

That word hits me like a knife to the gut. “No!” I roar. “Help me!”

I start CPR, hesitating only a millisecond about putting my mouth on his. Some of the creek water dribbles out of the side of his mouth. “Come on, Adam, please,” I mutter as I pump. I press and press with all my strength. It’s enough. It has to be enough. I have to stop the second round of chest compressions for a second to wipe my tears because I can’t see. I breathe into him. Once. Twice. Another round, then another. My arms are killing me, but I push the pain away. Fifth round, still nothing. I can do this. I
will
do this.