Page 18 of Filthy Little Witch
“Don’t break the circle,” I said. My heart pounded and sweat beaded down my temples, my legs shaking, my stomach clenching. I’d never seen this many demons in one spot before, and if anyone broke the boundary, they would ambush us. We were suddenly outnumbered.
“You think this little show scares me?” Isobel laughed while Bridge continued saying the words that would hold the monster in place. “Tell me who you are!”
Despite Isobel’s insistence, we were only tormenting the beast, pissing it off. We needed to force it to tell us specifically what it was so we could set up the right liminal.
The demon’s voice grew louder, and I focused on trying to decipher what it said. I caught bits and pieces of words I knew, things like god of lust and Asmodeus, which he’d muttered in Latin. But I’d been forced to learn the dead language when I was a child, so I understood.
Asmodeus was the demon of lust, king of wanton desires and chaos, but he was too ancient to have been unleashed here. This was likely one of his offspring, one of his firstborn. We weren’t dealing with a Deadly Sin demon, but this one was just as powerful, if not more so. The Sin demons took their inspiration from this one’s father. How in the hell did the Femmes summon him here? How had he broken loose from the confines of the nether realms?
“It’s an Asmodeian,” I shouted, but that angered it more. It thrashed against the protective force field, throwing its misty body as hard as it could against our magic. The weight of its force rocked against me, throwing me back so hard I nearly lost hold of my sisters.
Gunshots echoed from behind me, the blast so loud, it rang in my ears. I ignored it. I had to believe that the warriors would handle whatever was coming our way. I focused inward, slowing my inhales and exhales, the words from the liminal spell surfacing in my mind.
“Bridge! Marta! Start the spell,” Isobel shouted and squeezed my hand so tight, my knuckles twisted together. The strength of the coven flowed out of her, into me, into Bridge, and back again. I sensed Atlas’s wrath as he fired bullets at the demons trying to protect their leader. I pulled on it, sucking it into my soul. Wes’s panic and stoic focus came next, just as overwhelming. I yanked it into me, unwilling to trust it but knowing I needed it to help Bridge create the liminal.
A dark swirling vortex started to form in the middle of the circle, right in front of the Asmodeian as it struggled, twisting and warping in an attempt to break free.
More deafening blasts sounded from behind me, but I kept my focus on the words, tasting the syllables as they poured from my lips, imbibing them with as much magic as I could. Bitter and sweet, tingling and rapturous, I sang the ancient words, watching as the black hole grew around the beast.
Just when the magic reached an apex, something hard slammed into me from behind. I tumbled forward, my vision darkening, the ground steadily rising to meet me.
My hands slid from my sisters, and the world fell away.
CHAPTER 7
Atlas
There were two things in this world that I cared about more than my own life: my car and my brother.
Watching that Asmodeian motherfucker destroy the first one had enraged me. I wouldn’t watch it kill the second.
Everything happened so fast, and before I knew it, something had knocked my Goddamned lights out. My insides punched and pulled. My soul got ripped out of my body and shoved back in the wrong way. I screamed, but no words came out.
I landed hard on my back and all the air rushed out of my lungs on a loud cough. For a moment, I lay there, staring up at a midnight sky, blinking into the moonlight.
Late summer heat clung to my skin, the humidity of North Carolina in September sticking to my throat as I sucked in an inhale.
Reality came into focus, and I remembered what happened.
A dark arm wrapping around Wes’s throat.
Sharp, pointed claws digging into his chest.
Hot sticky blood pouring out of his torso.
My desperate shout for my brother…my best friend…my only friend.
“Wes.” I tried to scream, but it came out on a wheeze as I turned on my side and pushed up on my hands. “Wes!”
“Over here,” Marta said, kneeling in front of a prone body. He lay face up on the forest floor, his shirt ripped open, with deep gouge marks down the front of his torso. The Harlot’s hands were covered in his blood as she waved them over him, muttering an incantation I couldn’t make out. I struggled to my knees, crawling over to him as my heart thudded. “Heal, Goddamn it. Heal!”
“Is he breathing?” I croaked as I touched his chest and prayed for movement. “Is he alive?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “Be quiet. I need to focus.”
Be quiet?
I shot her a glare before I checked for Wes’s pulse. A faint, dull thud hit my fingers, and I scrambled for my brother’s shirt, peeling back the layers so I could assess the damage.
