Grave Chance Read online

  “Where will you be?” I repeated myself as he stood and backed away from them. “Cole, don’t do something stupid and risk yourself now.”

  “I’ve got to grab something. I’ll be right back. Just get yourselves to safety.”

  Gwydion blocked his way. “Now is not the time to lose your head, wizard. Do not bring anything to this fight that will tip the odds in Aethon’s favor.”

  “I can control what I summon. Do you have anything to beat that…that thing?”

  “I will find something.”

  Cole snorted and leaned into Gwyd, so their noses almost touched. "You got a mirror or a blade of magic grass that will make everything okay, Fairy Boy?"

  I shoved Cole back. “Hey. Knock it off. She’s getting closer. What we need is a plan.”

  Cole pushed past us both and glanced into the hallway before answering. “The Candle is right there. My parents are right there. I'm so close to fixing everything!" I took a step toward him, and he held up his hands. "Get them downstairs. I'll be right back."

  He took another quick peek into the empty corridor and leaped across the corridor, jerking the door open and slipping down the stairs.

  “Okay, now we’re down a man.” Ethan cursed under his breath. “Still need a plan though.”

  “I think we’ve boiled the plan down to ‘don’t let the Persephona-monster destroy the hotel and then escape to do the same to the city,’ Ethan.”

  He shot me a dirty look, his back pressed to the doorjamb as he listed to Persephona destroying each room in turn on her way to us.

  “She…she’s about three doors down. If we’re going to move them, it needs to be now.” He lifted Cole’s mom over his shoulder and took another quick glance before darting across the hall with her over his shoulder.

  Cole's father was more alert than he had been. He let Gwydion support him, and together they stepped into the hallway, just as Persephona squeezed her arachnid torso into the hall from a couple doors down.

  She let out a high-pitched shriek from her lipless mouth, showing the jagged teeth that stuck out like bristles from the edges of her gaping maw, and scuttled towards them at a terrifying pace.

  I bashed my fist into the wall to get her attention, and her eyes stared straight at me, more unnerving than the rest of her for their untouched humanity. Those blue orbs met mine with the perfect clarity of madness. She was still in there, trapped by the magic she wasn’t strong enough to wield.

  As she zeroed in on me, I knew my death had recently become not only permitted, but a primary goal. Well, fuck. Great time to get separated from the others, dumbass.

  I couldn’t lead her to the others, so I sprinted straight at her, then veered to my right and went into the room next to the stairs, slamming the door shut behind me and shoving chairs and a table against the door to slow her down. Then I slipped through the side door and backtracked through two adjoining rooms before ducking back into the hallway and returning to the first conference room she’d held them in.

  Without regard for even her own…its own safety, the creature blasted through walls and obstacles like they were made of paper as she tracked me back the way I’d gone. There was no need to listen for her or stick my neck out (literally). I could hear her as she smashed her way through each obstacle I set, counting them to let me know when she’d be upon me.

  “Vexa where are you?” Cole was shouting from what sounded like the vicinity of the stairwell.

  The Creature, (I could no longer call the thing my aunt, even if her lovely cornflower eyes stared at me out of that black, bristly face with hate), spun around at the sound of his voice, forcing me onto the offensive.

  “Percy, look this way. Look at me. I held the candle within me, and I touched that same magic, and I’m whole. What does that say about you? Why would Aethon choose you, if not because he knew you were too weak to be a threat to his plan?”

  I hated saying it to her, mostly because we both knew it was the truth. She was lost. No magic on earth existed that could save her and return her to her human form, and I doubted very much if even Gwydion had a Fae trinket in his pocket that would do the job.

  She was slow to turn on me, and that was when I made the mistake of thinking we had her confused, her mind deteriorating under the effects of the overwhelming power of the candle. Instead, she went from still as marble, to snapping at my face in the blink of an eye.

  “Shit, Vexa get back!” Cole held one of his books in one hand and a hex bag in the other.

  “I thought you could pull that shit out of thin air, Cole, where’d you go?”

  He scoffed and scattered a fragrant mixture of herbs in front of him, as the creature shifted her blue gaze between us, unsure of who to attack, unwilling to turn her back on one of us.

  “You weren’t supposed to stay, Vex. Why would you stay up here all alone?”

  “She’s my aunt. Besides. I wasn’t letting the candle get that far from me. and I didn’t want her getting out of the hotel.”

  "Fair enough. The books, I have. The hex bag, I forgot in the car." I gasped, and he flicked his fingers at me. "We were chasing your sweet little aunt, remember? I didn't realize I'd dropped it in my hurry."

  “No, I get it.” I feinted and sidestepped to my right to make the creature focus on me again. “But Cole, whatever you’re thinking, how can you be sure it won’t make things worse? I remember the things you’ve summoned. I remember how they used you and what they demanded in return.”

  “When I tell you to, get behind me.” His terse reply irritated me, but I did as he asked and braced myself to move.

  He gave the signal, and I jumped the overturned furniture and skidded to a stop behind him. "I sure hope you know what you're doing."

  He finished his incantation, and before my eyes, a demon appeared within the circle of flame and herbs Cole had made. He roared his displeasure at being held, straining against the protective ring. "How dare you summon me, flesh-bag? I am of the second order, and I will not be contained."

  The demon was taller than Persephona in her bestial form, with scarlet skin that gleamed wetly in the fluorescent light… He had horns like a storybook demon, and a scattering of pearlescent black feathers that ran down his spine and bare legs to his ankles.

  He wasn't lovely, like some of the demons from Cole's shared memories. He was built for fighting though, with thick corded muscles and nails that curved into talons. His smile was wide and toothy, white and perfect in his red face, his eyes black and empty shark eyes in an almost handsome face.

  “Hi, Rolgog, you mean old bastard,” Cole chuckled as the Percy began to pace back and forth, hesitant to fight now that her opponent was larger and scarier than she was. “I have work for you.”

  The demon laughed aloud, throwing his big head back and guffawing. Apparently, Cole had told him some great joke. “And what price can I exact from you for this work, little man?”

  Cole held up the hex bag, a small smile on his face. “I summoned you by your true name, Rolgog, and by your flesh. I owe you nothing, and you owe me one task, in return for your freedom.”

  The demon sniffed the air and hissed. "Where did you get that?" ‘That' appeared to be a piece of dried, wrinkled flesh. I knew it to be a token, a literal piece of the demon that gave the user control over it. So gross, but at the moment, so useful.

  “Don’t worry, demon, a hefty price was paid. I’ve held on to this for a long time, waiting for the appropriate time to use it.”

  “Cole,” I called out a warning. The Creature had skittered to one side and busied herself with something out of my field of vision, but I knew it couldn’t be good.

  "Fire demon, defeat this necromancer, and you will be released, and your token returned to you."

  The demon agreed to the terms of engagement, but unhappily. From what Cole had explained to me, demons only make deals that favor them, as heavily as they can get away with. While part of me was grateful that Cole didn’t have to sacrifice part of himsel
f, the wide, humorless grin Rolgog gave me made me wonder if we hadn’t been better off fighting Percy’s creature ourselves.

  Rolgog flexed his great red arms and roared at the creature, daring it to attack. “This one made a mess of herself, didn’t she?” he chuckled as she swiped at him with those long-clawed hands and he sidestepped the blows.

  “No commentary required, Demon.” Rolgog curled his lip at Cole and dodged another blow before conjuring flame and shooting it at her.

  “Flames…inside a building. Cole, what have you done?”

  “What I had to. Stand back, it’s going to get hot in here.”

  “Holy shit. Why couldn’t you have been hoarding a piece of ice demon skin, instead of fire demon?”

  "Because they're made of ice, Vex. Not exactly portable." He touched my arm, and I dragged my gaze from the grappling monsters to meet his eyes. "I have it covered. The demon can't cause us harm, even inadvertently."

  “So, the building can’t burn down?”

  A fireball blew past my head and exploded against the wall in a huge black stain.

  "The building can't burn down, but everything up to that point is fair game. Stay back, just in case." He shrugged when I glared at him, and I focused on using my own magic to control the damage as much as I could. My own magic was still high from the build up in my coma, and from trying to siphon away the boost, Percy gained from taking the candle. The air around me filled with static as it became more than I could hold.

  I brushed my fingers down Cole’s arm, reveling in the shudder that ran through him.

  He didn’t turn to me, too focused on making sure the demon was as controlled as he was supposed to be, so I slid my arms around his waist and buried my face in his neck, biting him just to the point of breaking the skin and pouring some of my magic into him.

  But the exchange of power caught aunt tarantula’s attention. She skittered toward us, away from the circling demon. He lobbed another ball of flames at her that rolled down her side and filled the air with the stench of singed insect.

  She shrieked in pain and fury and threw herself at him, wrapping her long legs and arms around his thick body and snapping at his face. Her claws sank into the flesh of the demon’s bare back and thick, black ooze bled from the claw marks as she snarled and snapped at him, wholly animal, with the candle still in her.

  Rolgog tore her off and threw her across the room, but she was on him again before he could attack, driving him back against the wall, snarling and shrieking as he tried to tear her limbs off her bloated torso.

  “What have you done?” Gwydion pushed his way past us into the big conference room. “What are you doing, you idiot?” He shook Cole, who ignored him and kept his focus trained on the fight in front of us.

  Exhausted from the coma, or from the fight, or the emotional strain of seeing my aunt destroy herself for Aethon’s insane plot, I brace against the wall behind us. “Cole, this must end. Rolgog’s got to finish it.”

  Cole glanced back at me, his eyes sunken and bruised. “Hang on, Babe. We’ll get the candle back.” He looked as exhausted as I felt, his jaw set as he held the demon on the physical plane with sheer will.

  Rolgog bit down on the creature’s face, ripping a shiny black plate from her cheek. It landed at my feet, bringing hot vomit to my throat as I tried to stifle my gag reflex at the thought of my aunt, torn apart one piece at a time.

  Furniture flew as Rolgog finally managed to dislodge Percy again and he sent her flying into the overturned conference table.

  “Please tell me you idiots didn’t summon that thing on purpose.” Gwydion pushed his way past us into the big conference room and pulled up short at the sight of the two giants fighting each other. “You did. What are you thinking?”

  “Cole’s doing his best to minimize the damage, Gwyd.”

  “Yes, but at what cost?” He reached out for Cole, not touching him, just hovering over his back and neck. “He’s losing his lifeforce, trying to keep up with the summoning. Look at you both. He’s draining you to keep his own power up.”

  “You didn’t mind when you were siphoning off my power,” I reminded him, forcing myself to stand up straight as though I didn’t feel like passing out already.

  “A controlled siphon, Vexa. What he’s doing isn’t even a conscious effort. Look at him. He’s dying, controlling that thing. He’ll take you with him.”

  “Where are his parents? Where’s Ethan? What do you expect us to do to fix this?”

  Cole still wasn’t speaking or acknowledging us. He leaned over, bracing on the overturned table that had become our cover, muttering under his breath as the demon and the creature raged on.

  “His parents are with Julius, and Ethan’s in the hall, watching out for Aethon.”

  “He won’t come here. He won’t risk his own safety.”

  “I agree.” Ethan put his arms around me. “Everything’s going bad again, isn’t it?”

  I let myself sag against him, even more, fatigued now that Gwyd had brought my attention to it, "you heard."

  Ethan nodded, bumping me with his chin. “I didn’t have to. I felt it. I can feel it now, pulling at me.”

  “Cole,” I called out, louder than I meant to. “Your parents are with Julius. It’s done.”

  Ethan was pale and trembling, his control frayed to a thread.

  “Gwyd, can you teleport him back too?” Gwyd nodded, but Ethan shook his head vigorously.” I can’t leave you.”

  "You're going to hurt yourself. You could hurt us." I took his face in my hands. "I love you, so, so much. I'm asking you to do this for me before you become just another monster we've created." I blinked back unexpected tears.

  Defiant light filled Ethan’s eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. If I’m going to be a monster, I’m going to have what I need, and what I love.” He kissed me gently and went to Cole, running his hands down his tense arms and snaking them around his waist. “Cole, if we really are monsters, we will be monsters together.”

  Cole finally flinched, relaxing every so slightly as Ethan turned his head and kissed him, sweetly at first, then deepening it, until things low in my stomach heated and I knew it was as much from my connection with Cole as it was my own desire for my men like this.

  The air vibrated with magic as Ethan and Cole were swept up, their kiss blossoming into the kind of magic that I’d longed for Ethan to find.

  Cole's arms went around Ethan, and he growled low in his throat as he took what was offered and demanded more. Until the air was thick with passion and need.

  “There truly is something to be said for true love’s kiss, isn’t there?” Gwydion breathed.

  Even the demon and the beast were frozen by the sheer power that rolled us all as the curse fractured under Ethan’s honest tolerance of himself. Not for his own wellbeing, but his caring and acceptance of Cole’s affection

  Blood racing, feeling the rush of Ethan’s curse imploding and releasing magic over us all, I fell into the magic that Ethan released over us and drew strength from it.

  The euphoria that washed over me from the release of Ethan's darkness into the ether vanished at the sight of Rolgog watching us. His black eyes met mine, and he sneered evilly, stretching as the control over him weakened under Cole's distraction.

  “Oh, shit-fuck.” I cursed as the demon bore down on us, gaining speed. Without thinking, I reached for the candle, gasping as an additional surge of strength rushed through me. Now or never bitches, I thought to myself as I took a deep breath and pushed out with as much raw magic as I dared.

  I pushed the demon back with all my strength, and both Rolgog and my insectile aunt rolled back against the far wall. Percy stayed still, watching but weakened from her battle with the fire demon.

  Rolgog seemed barely fazed by it all, and pushed back, slowly gaining ground as I tried to control the amount of power the candle gave me, terrified to end up like my aunt, even as I felt the first flames of the candle lick along my insides.

&
nbsp; Chapter 4

  Time slowed as my world narrowed down to the demon, the creature, and me. Distracted by the euphoria, Gwydion had turned his back to the fight, and Cole and Ethan were deep inside their healing magic.

  Rolgog continued to gain ground. It took all my strength and focus to hold the magic of the candle in check and keep him at bay. "Gwyd…" I pushed harder, and Rolgog growled his frustration, sliding back with the sound of splintering wood as his clawed feet bit into the floor for purchase.

  I felt cool fingers on the skin of my back, and Gwydion was at my ear. “I’m here, Vexa. Hold on.” His touched seemed to dim the heat of the candle for a moment, allowing me to breathe.

  My eyes closed and I focused on the fire of the demon in front of me, instead of the one still eating away at my insides. I narrowed that focus until all I felt was his infernal heat, Gwyd's cool touch on my skin, and the candle's flame, fire, and ice together inside me.

  I’d forgotten Ethan, and Cole, and tragically, Persephona’s arachnid reincarnation. Gwyd barely had time to hiss a warning, and she was on Rolgog’s back, tearing into his red flesh with her claws and teeth, worrying at the meat of his neck like a dog shaking its prey.

  I dug into that part of her that was the candle, the part that was now connected to me, and set her aflame. I didn’t know the ins and outs of Cole’s summoning, but he’d promised Rolgog the flesh token, and his freedom. Would breaking Cole’s oath give the demon strength?

  Rolgog took the opportunity to throw her off his back and turned on her, driving his fist into her torso and ripping out entrails as I recoiled in horror, stunned that we’d actually killed my aunt.

  Cole had held Rolgog back when fighting her, for me, or because she was family. But nothing was holding him back anymore except my magic, and the power within me from the candle itself.