The Demon's Revenge (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 4) (6 page)

BOOK: The Demon's Revenge (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 4)
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“Much more than pretty,” I replied.

The creature watched Diego as he paced back and forth. Her kind could not help but be fixated by men. When she spoke, it was with a quiet voice that echoed through the trees. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this intrusion?”

Patasolas didn’t like people, as a general rule, except when they were eating them.

“There’s trouble come to Seattle,” I said. “An attack on unders. What do you know of it?”

She nodded slowly and kept her molten eyes on Diego. “I felt a portal open,” she said softly. “The door to Hell is a hungry door.” She leaned toward Diego as he walked past her. “And through the door came demons, offering and making deals.”

“Where is the door?” Diego asked.

“Nearby. Guarded heavily.” She licked her plump lips.

“You wouldn’t be so foolish as to make any kind of deals with that lot, would you?” Diego asked. He held her gaze for a moment and then gestured at his ragged body. His bare feet. “Look at what they have done to me. See what a poor meal I would make, monstrua,” he added.

“But wouldn’t it be fun to try, Diego? To see what eating a cursed man was like?” She batted her long eyelashes.

“I had thought your murderous ways were in the past,” I said. I would not let her stay in Seattle if that weren’t true.

She turned her smile to me. “Ah, Morgan. So pure. So brave. No fun.”

“Have they approached you?” I asked.

“Of course. You won’t believe the terms they offered.”

“Any promise they made was spoke upon a twisted and forked tongue,” Diego said, as he walked back and forth on the narrow path, toward the patasola and then back again toward Lila and me.

Gabriela’s smile widened, too far, and the illusion of her beauty and humanity shattered. She licked the air with her own forked tongue.

“Did you promise them your soul?” I asked curtly. I had no patience for these games.

She batted her eyes. “My soul? You say it as though it is a thing of worth, though it is just as tattered as your own, as I have stayed here and rotted, bound and rooted as I am to this tiny spot of forest that sits inside the stink of humanity. How I wish I could become one with the natural world, but I am always kept separate, inside this body and soul, never at peace with the trees and animals, not fully. My soul, you ask, as though I must always keep it safe. Do you imagine it is something I have not been yearning to get rid of for centuries?”

“What did they promise you?” I asked.

“They promised to take me with them.” She growled and jumped ten feet up into the air. As her body fell back toward the earth, her dress flew up and showed her fused together legs that made one great bird leg, covered with black feathers. She landed and screamed, as energy crackled around her, potent and raw.

She hopped toward Diego who stood frozen on the path between us and her.

“Run,” I yelled at him and Lila.

Diego had already begun to stumble away from her, and he began to run in earnest, though my elderly friend was not swift. He ran toward Lila and me.

I ran in front of him and threw myself between the patasola and my old friend. I reached into my pocket and snatched an exploding ball. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I snarled at the creature.

She jumped into the air and aimed her clawed foot at my face.

I threw the ball at her and yelled, “Ffrwydro!”
Explode
.

She moved swiftly away and the ball sailed past her. It exploded harmlessly in the air.

Gabriela slapped me in the face and her wicked and sharp fingernails raked across my face.

I punched her in the gut. She fell down to the path.

“Morgan,” Lila said.

“I told you to run,” I growled at Lila.

“I would. I want to. But I don’t feel so….”

I spared a quick glance in her direction as the patasola rolled away from me and jumped up to her foot.

Lila stood swaying on the path behind me. She stood a foot taller than normal, as though her body had been stretched upward, and her body glowed blue. She raised both hands, palms up. They were filled with a hard, white magic. “Don’t feel so good,” she slurred and then collapsed to the ground.

As she fell, the magic in her palms flew up and away from her. It buzzed through the air and circled toward Gabriela, who stared at it. Then the patasola screamed and began to hop away, taking an erratic path as she sought to evade the magic, but it followed her every motion. The bright white magic hit her squarely on her back and knocked her down.

Gabriela writhed and screamed, hard and high, as the white light grew and wrapped around her, so bright I had to shield my eyes. The scream ended abruptly.

The light winked out.

And where the monster had been? A tree stood in its place. A lovely maple sapling with bright green leaves on the tip of every branch. It was roughly the height that the patasola had been.

I ran to Lila.

She lay motionless on the ground.

I sat down on the dirt and pulled Lila into my lap. She felt hot and sweaty, and her skin was a light blue. “
Gwella y plentyn,”
I said and touched one of the clips in my hair that was threaded with a soothing healing spell. I pulled it from my hair and placed it on Lila’s forehead. It pulsed a soothing yellow that might provide some relief, though this wasn’t truly a sickness.

Lila lay utterly still for a good ten seconds, and then she began to howl as bright and raucous arcs of magic rose up across her skin. Her body grew even longer and thinner. Her skin darkened to a midnight blue and I felt huge energies rising up from within her. Then she shuddered, her body grew smaller, and the blueness faded from her skin.

Lila whimpered and curled up in my arms. Her eyes opened and rolled to the back of her head. She began gagging and I watched her to make sure she would not choke.

I’d never had children. I’d never wanted to travel that road, but right here and now, I had the terrible realization that this was the feeling every mother had when her child was sick. When she held her heart in her hands and could do nothing to drive the hardness and horrors of the world away.

“You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine,” I murmured to Lila, with no power behind my words, only hope. I vaguely noticed the motion of Diego as he walked back into the clearing.

“What is wrong with her?” the Spaniard asked. He paced back and forth.

“She’s… changing,” I whispered. Perhaps right now, I thought, as the magic around her pulsed.

“What is she?” Diego asked.

I shook my head and stared at the girl in my arms. “I can’t tell. She’s someone who needs protection, no matter how powerful she becomes. She’s someone I love, no matter what she becomes,” I whispered.

He scowled and walked past me to the edge of the clearing, before arcing around and walking back. “Is this something else you are leaving me to deal with, Morgan? Some other catastrophe?”

“I….” I had no answer. Death rode his white horse today.

I felt everyone one of Lila’s muscles tense. Her eyes blinked open. She was still human. Still unchanged, for now. An eerie blue magic danced over her skin, slight enough that none but a highly trained witch or wizard would notice. She was back, but her change would happen soon.

“Gross,” she said as she sat up in my arms. “My mouth tastes like puke. What happened? And where did that freaky stompy monster go?” She blinked and scratched her forearms. “And why are you looking at me like that, Morgan?”

I steeled my face. “You fainted.”

“Seriously? That’s so embarrassing. It wasn’t because I was scared. Promise. Okay, well I was completely terrified, but….”

I stood and helped her stand as well. “How do you feel?”

“Weird. The last time I fainted was in P.E. in fifth grade. You sure it was just me passing out?”

Diego pursed his lips but said nothing to contradict my story. I nodded at Lila and ran my fingers through her hair.

“And where’d that monster go anyway?”

I gestured at the tree. “She transformed.”

“Wicked,” Lila said. “Which reminds me for the three millionth time not to cross you, Morgan.”

I said nothing to contradict her assumption about who had turned Gabriela into a tree.

Diego walked around the tree warily, as though he was worried it might still wish to devour him. “Will she turn back to her patasola form again?”

I looked from Diego to Lila, considering what I should say. “I don’t believe so. She wished to become one with nature, and now her wish has been granted.”

“Wish,” Diego repeated thoughtfully.

“It looks like Ms. Tree isn’t going to help us find the Hell door or stop the Queen,” Lila said and brushed off her clothes. As though nothing much had happened. As though nothing much was about to happen. “Which sucks. She totally knew where it was. Good idea talking to her Diego, even though it went pear-shaped.” Her aura bristled with power.

I needed to get her to her studio now. First and foremost I would see Lila safely through her transformation. If there could be any best place for her true nature to emerge, it would be there. Her studio was full of a simple kind of magic, infused with the spirit and memories of her daily practice of life. If any place could root her to her humanity, it was there.

“We need to go to your studio now,” I said. “We’ll make a spell. Find the Hell door.”

“Okay. Good idea. We’ll see you soon,” Lila said to Diego. “I hope you have a good time, um, walking,” she said and then winced at her own words. She ran to Diego and gave him a quick hug, pacing alongside him as she did.

“Never worry about me, mija,” he said and kissed her forehead.

Over her head, he gave me a dark look.

I wanted to promise him that I would set things right. But lies did not suit me. The day would happen as it would happen.

“Farewell, Diego,” I said.

“I wish you wouldn’t go,” Diego said.

“I know,” I whispered, and an idea came to me. If the Queen wanted my soul so badly, perhaps I could include Diego’s freedom in the price. There were so many ways I wanted to use my death to good purpose today. I wondered if I would get a chance to do any of them.

I took the spelled piece of peridot in one hand, and Lila’s too-warm hand in my other.

A moment later, we stood in her apartment.

 

 

 

 

 

9

Hell Cookies

Lila kept her small studio neat but cluttered. She had three overflowing bookshelves full of Wiccan lore and history, a black cat that slept on her bed, and open kitchen cabinets full of colorful and mismatched plates and bowls. There was a thick tang of magic in the air. I wondered if Lila could smell it: probably not. Our own scents tended to be hidden from us. This magic smelled rich and echoed what I had smelled in the forest when Lila had been overcome with her magic. It meant she’d had other such spells recently.

Yet another sign that she would change soon. I checked the blue magic that traced tiny lines across her skin like a lightning storm across the continent of her body. It was no greater than before. Good.

“Coffee?” Lila asked.

“Always,” I said as I draped my coat on one of her mismatched chairs.

“And pizza. I’ll order two with everything. I’m starved,” she said and pulled out her phone. She knew the man on the other end, and chatted with him for a bit before placing her order. When she hung up, she said, “I know I should feel zonked from fainting, but I feel so energetic. This is fun having you here, Morgan. I like bringing you over to my place for a little spell-making Hell-door mischief.”

I studied her and wondered at her words. I wondered what it would feel like for her when she changed. Some transformations were painful. Others were ecstatic. And some were both. Of all the scant accounts I’d been able to find about her kind, none were written with any empathy or insight for the creatures themselves.

“Don’t look so worried, Morgan,” Lila said. “I know this is the real serious business we are getting down to, and one wrong step and we are doomed forever. But you have to agree, it is kind of fun, right?”

“You must always respect power and magic, be it your own or Hell’s,” I said.

“Sure. I know. But I meant it’s fun to have a day with you. You’ve been so depressed. I was worried you might never come back.” She turned from her Formica counter where she was making the coffee and threw herself at me. She gave me a big hug.

My arms wrapped around her and held her hard, before I made them drop to my side. “Now on to the spell-making Hell-door-mischief,” I said, though I suspected she would change before we had a chance to search for it. I went to her dining table, a couple feet away from the kitchen, and sat on one of the hard backed chairs.

Lila finished pouring water into her coffee maker. “Can we do a finding for the door?” She sat down next to me and traced her fingers over the uneven surface of her table. “Do we know enough about it for that?”

“We don’t know enough,” I said. “But we do know some things about the door. It’s a portal into a different realm. A hungry realm.”

BOOK: The Demon's Revenge (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 4)
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