Page 2 of Twisted
“Everyone be ready,” Antonio tells us.
Leo nods right as the alarm stops beeping.He puts a device back in his pocket, trading it for a knife as well.The blade has been soaked with a vanquishing potion I made.It won’t kill a demon, but it will stun them long enough.
We all silently slip into the funeral home and close the door behind us.It still smells like synthetic flowers but the sewer smell is gone at least.Though something else is filtering through the air.
“Sulfur,” Leo whispers, wrinkling his nose.“The demon is up and walking.”
“No,” I say as I shake my head.“Not just one.”
“What do you mean?”Larissa asks, whipping her blonde ponytail back.“You said there was one.”
“There was,” I press, trying not to get annoyed with her.I’m used to her snide comments and just overall bad attitude and I won’t let it distract me.“And now there’s more.”
We move through the entrance, going toward the basement where the bodies are held.The dark energy increases the closer we get, and I curl my fingers into my palm, summoning energy to use at my disposal.
“Hang on a second,” I say and hold out my left hand, stopping my siblings from going farther.Robert’s casket is along the wall right outside the morgue.Embalmed bodies aren’t always refrigerated between the viewing and the burial.Closing my eyes, I put a hand on the top of the casket.“The body is in there, but the demon jumped…and is…gone?”
“Enough with the witchcraft crap,” Larissa hisses and pokes my shoulder.
“Lissa, stop,” Antonio tells her, using his oldest-brother authority while giving her a telling look.“What do you sense, Wren?”
Knowing my brothers are keeping watch, I drop my guard even more.It leaves me vulnerable, but it’s the best way I can tap into this power.I’ve been told it’s an “invasion of privacy” to use it on the unwilling, but it’s not like I always want to know what someone else desires.More times than not, getting a feel for someone’s deepest, darkest secret backfires in some way and has made it quite difficult to form any sort of legitimate relationship.
“The demon that was hiding out inside the body is gone.”
“So you lead us all this way for nothing?”Larissa huffs and Antonio just shakes his head.
There’s another shift in the energy and the door to the morgue slowly creaks open in front of us.One of the bodies on the table sits up, black eyes glinting in the low lights.
The corners of my lips curve into a smile and I reach down, pulling a knife from a sheath strapped to my ankle.“Definitely not.”
“Is that our demon?”Antonio takes a defensive stance and pushes the door all the way open.
The energy hits me like a punch to the face.Now that I’m this close, the cloaking spell it had on itself isn’t effective anymore.My siblings can’t sense it because they’re human.
But I’m not.
“That is,” I tell them, flicking my gaze to a body on the floor.It’s one of the morticians, and the thrumming beat of his music can still be heard from the headphones that lay askew on his head.“Or was.”
“Who the hell is that, then?”Leo asks.
“That…” I suck in a breath as the old woman on the table suddenly swings her legs over and gets up.“That’s the boss-bitch the lesser demon was serving.”
CHAPTER2
“What do we have here?”The older woman leaps off the table with inhuman speed.The white sheet that had been covering her whooshes to the ground.Thankfully, the embalming process hasn’t started yet and she’s still wearing the nightgown she came in with.It’s thin and white, clinging to her graying flesh like a cotton second skin.
Her eyes widen and she tips her head.The smell of death emanates from deep within her body.Her eyes ink over and I throw my hand out, sending a pulse of energy through the air.She twitches her head to the side and raises her hand, sending a blast of energy right at us.Bracing myself, I put up a shield and the energy goes around me.But my siblings, who have no powers, get thrown back—hard.
The knife clatters on the floor as Antonio hits the door behind me, slamming it shut.Larissa and Leo were thrown into a cart full of embalming tools that scatter loudly on the tile floor.
In a practiced move, I throw my dagger into the demon’s chest.The blade has been soaked in the same vanquishing potion.It hurts like hell and temporarily weakens the demon, but it’s not enough to kill it—yet.
The demon screeches as it stumbles backwards.Bodies clamor inside the refrigerated drawers, and the smell of death gets stronger and stronger.
“Tony,” I breathe, turning away to look at my brother.He hit his head but is conscious, which is more than I can say for the twins, who got knocked out.Blood drips from Antonio’s head and his movements are jerky and uncoordinated, letting me know the head injury is something to be taken seriously.
“One of these things is not like the other,” the demon sneers, narrowing its eyes, pointing a bony finger from me to my siblings.The body it’s possessing has long been dead.The demon blinks and its eyes go back to normal, light blue tinged with the gray grip of death.“You don’t belong, and they don’t want you,orphan,” it taunts.
