Page 53 of Wicked Thirst
“Never . . .” he sucked in a breath, “. . . walk into a summoning circle again.”
“Noted.” I nodded.
“SOME HELP OVER HERE!” Beckett’s voice carried over the sound of the grinding and cracking earth and we both shot to our feet.
Flames burst from the circle, and the sound of screams echoed from beneath us. My eyes widened. “Like, actual hell!? Like real hell demons?”
“What did you think I meant?” Kylian bellowed back at me.
Beckett had Grayson trapped in a blue sphere that was hovering over the ground. He rolled round inside of it, snarling and ramming his body into the sides, but it bounced back to its shape, holding him there. Sweat beaded Beckett’s brow, and his hands shook with the effort to hold him within the bubble. “Our boy is stronggggg.”
Logan stood just to the side of the bubble and let his power wrap around Beckett’s in an orange swirling mess. “Calm down, Gray.”
But his power over emotions wasn’t enough. Grayson was still fighting to get his way out. His body looked impossibly bigger, his eyes were black with rage, and those red veins forked out over his skin. His clothing was shredded, and every time he rammed his shoulder into the bubble, it split the skin on his arm just a little more. Red streaks dripped down the inside of it. Beckett and Logan fought to hold him while the world rocked around us.
“You guys! There are arms shooting up from the ground.” And they weren’t human. I wanted to back away and run in the other direction. But I couldn’t, I was part of this now, and I’d dragged the rest of them into it with me. I would stay and do whatever needed to be done.
These things coming from the ground were skeletal with dark skin, like they’d been charred, and long claw-tipped fingers. They dug into the crumbling ground as though they were about to lift themselves from their hellish pit.
I held my hand toward Kylian. “Dagger.”
He tossed me the stone dagger. “That’s mine.”
“You’ll make another.” I turned from him and raced with my vampire speed across the cracking ground, jumping from one unsteady opening to another. I swung down and severed their hands as quickly as I could, knocking them back into the pit. The ground was littered with limbs in my wake. They spasmed and twisted on the ground like fish out of water.
Astrid marched away from Grayson and let her power roll over the earth like a wave of golden glitter. She lifted the blood painting off the ground and forced it to disintegrate into thin air. But the hell demons kept on coming. They punched at the dirt, forcing their way up toward us. Heat and the smell of rotting flesh surrounded us. She used her magic to force the ground closed and to smooth it over. She gritted her teeth, and her body quaked with the effort it took for her magic to work over this horrific scene. Just as it was almost smoothing over, a large tentacle shot from the earth and wrapped around her ankle. I charged forward but it knocked her off her feet and flung her up into the air, holding her.
It swung her around like a rag doll and her screams drew Beckett’s attention. He turned from holding Grayson to look at her. “ASTRID!”
His power faltered for a split second and Grayson shot from the bubble, exploding it into pieces. Energy rippled out from the bubble like a tidal wave. Logan and Beckett flew back, sailing across the field in opposite directions. Logan hit the ground and skidded across the dirt, sending debris flying all around him. He clawed at the ground, trying to stop, but he came to a screeching halt when his back smacked into a tree trunk. His head smacked into it, and he lay there in a heap not moving. Beckett surrounded himself in blue smoke and soared into one of his portals. It opened on the ground where he’d just been. Beckett charged out toward where Grayson had just been, but it was too late. Grayson was free and he was on top of Beckett in an instant. He grabbed Beckett by the throat and threw him up into the sky.
“CATCH!” he called out, and another tentacle slithered from the earth and caught Beckett around the waist as he soared high in the sky.Kylian and I stood there watching this thing swing our friends around. Grayson winked at me, then took off running in the opposite direction.
I took a step in his direction and Kylian snapped, “Don’t even think about going after him.”
“I wasn’t,” I lied and turned back toward the flailing tentacles. “How the hell do we kill it?”
“Like this.” He bent down and pressed his hands to the ground, and burgundy smoke slithered from his fingers. The dirt packed in hard and transformed itself into two identical swords. When he stood, he tossed me one of his newly made swords. He swung his around in a circle and wagged his eyebrows. “You ready?”
I nodded. “No.”
“Vampires have natural strength and ability. Use it.” He took off running and the sword he made grew in length. He leapt so high and far I was surprised he wasn’t a vampire himself. He bounced from one tentacle to the other using his momentum to climb higher. He swung his sword, hacking at the tentacles as he climbed. It sounded squishy and slime-like as he hacked and cut at whatever got in his path.
“Thanks for the lesson.”Well, here goes nothing.
The ground rumbled as a monstrous roar came from below, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out what the hell those things were attached to. We needed to stop this now before anything else emerged from below. I ran between the tentacles and used the double swords as best I could, hacking and swinging at the tentacles like my life depended on it. Really, like all our lives did. Slime coated my arms and dripped down my legs. Blood ran in streams down the tentacles and sprayed around us. The smaller demons continued to try and emerge from the ground as we fought to save Beckett and Astrid.
Suddenly, blue smoke poured from Beckett, forming one of his portals. It swallowed the tips of the tentacles, severing them from the body. They were gone, disappearing into his swirling portal. A moment later it opened on the ground beside me, and they stumbled out flicked pieces of slimy tentacles off their bodies. Astrid kicked a particularly large piece off her leg and huffed as she threw her auburn hair from her face. It was knotted and matted around her head and looked like she’d stood in a wind tunnel.
Anger was plain on her face as she marched up to the opening and threw her arms up. Golden magic exploded over the opening in one large wave. It covered the crevasse and forced the ground to smooth over. The cries died out, and the demons were all trapped deep beneath the ground. Pieces of limbs and tentacles littered the ground, and the smell of burnt flesh still clung to the air . . . or maybe it clung to us. We stood there for a moment, all staring at the field that Astrid had forced shut.
“Well, that was . . .” My words trailed off. “There really aren’t words.”
“How did he know how to summon demons from hell?” Kylian snapped while looking at me.
I pressed my hand to my chest. “Me? How would I know?”
He motioned to the direction Grayson ran in. “He’s your soulmate. You’d think you’d know a thing or two.”
