Page 3 of Twisted
I roll my eyes, knowing better to listen to demons—even when they speak the truth.
“And what?You do?”I retort, taking a step to my left, edging closer to the body of the funeral home worker.There’s some sort of sigil drawn on the floor with blood, and it might be giving this demon power somehow.
“I want to be inside you,” the demon goes on.
“Take me to dinner first,” I scoff, turning my head ever so slightly.Leo is still behind me but Larissa…I can’t see her in my peripheral vision at all.The cart is in front of her, blocking her from my sight.
“We would be unstoppable together.”
“Again, I prefer to take things slow.And consent is sexy nowadays.”I take another sidestep.
“You don’t belong with them,” the demon continues.“They don’t appreciate your talents.”The old woman’s head snaps to the side, and the demon inhales as if it’s breathing in my sibling’s thoughts and feelings.“There’s fear…and jealousy.But they’d rather you have no powers at all.”
“Nothing you’re saying is news to me,” I go on, refusing to let her words sting, and take a quick step toward the fresh body.I’m almost to it, and my plan is to slide my foot through the blood, smearing it and ruining the sigil.Then I’ll deal with the demon.
Expecting the demon to come at me for getting close to the blood on the floor, I’m not prepared for it to dodge forward, moving past me.I throw my hand out, summoning a string of energy and using it like a whip to hit the demon across the back.She screeches but shudders, soaking in the energy like a sponge.
“Motherfucker,” I grumble.I hate when demons do that.It’s time to fight hand to hand, and my knife is still in the demon’s chest.
The demon extends its hand and the energy it just absorbed rises from its fingers in a dark tendril of smoke.I brace myself, ready to deflect it right into the ground.But instead of directing it to me, the demon sends it into Larissa.
Oh shit.
Larissa’s body shudders and then she sits up, eyes wide but void of emotion.She’s temporarily under demon control.I roll my eyes.
“Nice try,” I tell the demon and rush over to my sister.“Somnum,” I say, casting a sleeping spell.Larissa slumps forward and I catch her, easing her body to the ground.I pull a knife from Larissa’s belt and round back on the demon.
It takes a quick step back and mutters something in ancient language that I don’t understand.But it only takes a second to know what the spell was for.
Every dead body in the morgue stirs and awakens.The demon raises her hands and the refrigerator drawers fly open, bodies sitting up and spilling out..
I’ve dealt with reanimated corpses before but not, uh…I look around…not five at once.They’re simple-minded, like old-school zombies that can be taken out with an enchanted knife to the brain, beheading, or fire.Seeing that the blade in my hand is only about five inches long, a knife to the brain is my only option here.
Wasting no time, I dodge forward, ducking out of the grasp of the closest zombie.I kick its legs out from under it, driving my knife into its ear as it falls.The body goes limp and blood splatters on my face as I pull the knife back and spin, kicking another zombie in the chest.
It stumbles back, tripping over the table it was just laying on.I grab a pair of operating scissors and throw them at the zombie across the room.Using magic to guide them, it hits the zombie right in the eye, penetrating its brain.
Zombie number two drops and I can see the demon start to panic.It wasn’t expecting a witch to show up.
The youngest body in the morgue belongs to a teenager who died of a gunshot wound to the chest Brown, goopy blood seeps out of the bullet hole as he quickly jolts forward.I thrust my left hand out, sending a wave of energy at him to slow him down.I flip over an empty embalming table, taking out the slow-moving zombie crawling toward me.This one must have died in a bad car accident.Her legs are crushed and detached, wiggling on the table, not connected to the body.
It’s a mercy to take out this one.
She slumps down and I yank my knife back from her skull, feeling a bit of bone hit my face.Then I round back at Mr.Gunshot and throw my knife.The blade hits him right between the eyes and he falls to the ground.
Out of weapons, I pick up some sort of small drain used for removing body fluids.The last zombie is the morgue worker, and he died recently enough to still look alive.His throat had been slit by the demon possessing him, allowing the blood to spill out freely so the sigil could be drawn.
“Sorry,” I tell him.“I thought I’d get here sooner and no one else would have to die.”I make a face, frustration rising inside of me.I told the others something seemed off.That it wasn’t normal for a demon to just hide inside a body.My tarot reading warned me of something bigger at play.
But they didn’t fucking listen.
“We have rules in place,” Larissa snapped.“Rules the Order has abided by for centuries.They’ve kept us alive, and no one used silly little picture cards to tell us how to hunt.”
“We need to take everything into consideration,” Marco told his daughter, flicking his eyes to me as we sat at the dinner table, discussing our plan of attack for tonight.“And then we vote.”
Shaking my head, I close my eyes and jam the drain into the mortician’s temple, wincing from the way it feels and sounds as it pushes into his brain.No matter how many monsters I’ve taken out, it doesn’t get any easier to accept that I cannot save everyone.
I turn back to the demon, wiping blood on my pants.Realizing it’s all out of tricks, the demon takes a quick step back, pinning itself up against the wall.
