Page 115 of When Bones Whisper
Her fingers curled into the sides, her energy remaining steady despite the overwhelming desire to give in to their suffocating weight and collapse. Despite having no body, a demon’s energy was unexplainably dense.
“You are so intent on letting the girl out,” the demon said, taunting him as her body writhed. Bloodshot eyes latched onto him. “When you know your love will destroy her. Evil cannot nurture good. You do not deserve love after everything you have done.”
“Enough,” he said, nostrils flaring. “You speak to me with too much familiarity. Who are you?” he yelled, his voice making the rest of them flinch.
“Retribution,” the demon hissed.
It wasn’t true, and Charlotte wished she could tell him how much good he had done for her. In the moments when she felt herself drowning in grief, he was there, pulling her back with comforting words, bringing clarity to thoughts she didn’t understand. He showed kindness too, in ways that were unexpected, to his staff, to Duke, to Alexander, even forsaking his own mother to stop her cruelty against the innocent.
“Enough!” Nathaniel yelled, squeezing her head tighter, when Alexander grabbed his arm.
“Don’t,” he warned. “That’s not the demon you’re hurting. Ignore her.”
Delanie. It’s Delanie. Delanie.
Charlotte’s fingers began to slip as she watched Katherine, who continued spilling Latin from her trembling lips.
Her body convulsed as Katherine’s words echoed louder, and the demon let out a loud growl, her neck twisting at a contorted angle as she peered at Katherine with slitted pupils. “You made a mistake in siding with them against me,” she hissed. “Your potion didn’t remove the hex. It transferred it.”
Katherine swallowed hard, the spell dying as she lowered the grimoire, wild-eyed. “No. It removed it.”
“Don’t listen to her lies,” Alexander said. “She’ll say anything to stop this.”
Fangs protruded over the demon’s lips, vying for his wrist.
With a grunt, he pushed Delanie’s head to the side, palm pressed to her cheek, forcing her to look at the mirror. “Look at what you truly are!” he shouted when she clamped her eyes shut. “You might have her body, but you will never be free. Look at what you have done to your soul. I might be evil, but I am alive, free to walk this world while you are nothing but a parasite, desperate to hold on to a body for a glimpse of what you lost.”
Leaning down, he hissed into her ear as her eyelids cracked open. “Don’t you see, there is nothing to redeem, no point in trying to become human again. You are too rotten for this world,” he spat. “There is no climbing out of the darkness you created.”
“I am what you made me! You robbed me of the life I deserved. You, the devourer of innocents, will get what is coming to you.”
His muscles tensed, lips falling open as he blinked rapidly. “Delanie?”
The name left his mouth in a rasp, his jaw slacking.
Yes!Charlotte gripped the mirror, her eyes closing as exhaustion flitted through her core. She could feel herself fading. The mirror trembled, its surface distorting and swirling. Charlotte felt the magic surge, rattling the glass, the tremors humming through her fingers.
Her soul ached for the freedom that lay just beyond it, but the entities behind her were closer than ever.
Nathaniel growled as Katherine’s words grew louder. “Finish this. Her name is Delanie Lysanmore.”
“Delanie Lysanmore, The Smiling Woman,” Katherine said, her face blanching, eyes dimming of color as the magic bled from her in waves.
“You will regret this, witch! They’ll kill your brother and you.”
She shook her head, continuing the incantation, the demon’s body convulsing.
“It won’t work,” Delanie shouted when Nathaniel stopped looking at her. “The girl has taken my place.”
Nathaniel tilted her head, stalking closer. “If that’s true, then why do I sense fear in your voice?”
“I will come back,” she promised, her voice deep and distorted.
“My mother said the same,” he taunted, “but I found a way to ensure she could never return, and I will do the same to you. Once you are in that mirror, I will make sure youneverget out.”
“You tore your mother apart until there was nothing left,” Delanie said with a wicked, creepy grin akin to the one she had in demon form. “But you cannot destroy this body and with time, I will find a way out. I always do. Charlotte is mine. I have claimed her.”
“You claim no one!” he shouted, but Delanie merely laughed.
