Demons Forever (Peachville High Demons #6) (11 page)

I took a deep breath, my trembling hands betraying my nerves. "Does this bother you?" I asked. "Their praise for something you thought was foolish."

"This isn't about me," he said. "Are you ready?"

I nodded, not sure I'd ever be ready, then walked with him to the balcony. The damage from that first attack nearly two months ago was gone and everything looked brand new. The steps of the castle were filled with flowers and gifts. The moment we came into view, someone in the crowd shouted and pointed up toward us. The loud cheers of the people below brought tears to my eyes.

I took my arm from his and eased closer to the balcony's edge. I leaned against the railing and stood higher on my tip-toes so that I could see everyone more clearly. Another cheer broke out, and I couldn't help but smile. I waved to the crowd below, unable to believe this was really happening to me.

I looked down at the mixture of humans, demons, and hybrids, hope radiating in their eyes. They believed in me. They really thought I was capable of doing something extraordinary.

Was I?

Or had I gotten in way over my head? I'd somehow managed to survive this long, but was it luck? Or was there really a hero locked inside of me? A warrior?

I touched the scrap of white fabric tied around my wrist. It was frayed at the edges and stained, but it was my talisman. My reminder of what the Order was truly all about.

I stared out at the people of my father's city and swore to myself I wouldn't let them down. I wouldn't let myself down. Somehow, I would find my way back to Peachville. And even if it took my entire lifetime, I would see the end of the Order of Shadows.

Inner Demon

The rest of the week went by in a blur. I threw myself into my training, spending almost every spare moment of my time down in the dungeons.

I'd been able to beat the tiger witch and her friends outside the dome, but the fight was way too close for comfort. Would I be so lucky next time? I still hadn't learned how to control the demon side of my power enough to use it to any real advantage in a fight.

If I was truly going to be a warrior, I would need full access to both sides of my power.

Jackson and I had agreed to wait until after my father's welcome home dance to make a decision about whether to stay here or go back to Peachville to try the ritual. As the week wore on and the day of the party approached, I began to feel more and more restless.

I wanted to go back to Peachville. There was no secret about that. I had never really been great at being patient, and I was dying to get back there and see if this spell would work or not. I also wanted to make sure my friends were safe. On the other hand, I knew I was still weak. In a one-on-one fight with Priestess Winter, would I even last five seconds? The thought made me shiver.

How could one witch be so powerful she would make even a demon king nervous?

If I didn't learn to make the most of my hybrid powers, I knew I wouldn't stand a chance against a truly powerful witch. And I had no doubt that once she found out I was back in the human world, Priestess Winter would come after me with everything she had.

Piotrek and Liroth worked with me in the mornings, but in the afternoons, Jackson and I were alone in the training room.

"What do you want to work on today?" he asked. "More shields?"

I sighed and shook my head. I was exhausted and frustrated. I'd been practically killing myself for a week and didn't feel like I'd really made any progress.

"What's wrong?" he walked over to me and put his arms around me.

I rested my head against his shoulder. "I suck at this," I said. "We run the same drills every day and I'm still struggling."

"You're getting better," he said. "These things take time, Harper. You can't expect to master an entirely new form of magic in a couple months. Think of it this way. It's like someone who is paralyzed for years, then suddenly regains use of their legs. It's not like they'd be able to just stand up and start running a marathon. It would take months of intense therapy for them to learn how to even walk again. Much less run. You have to give yourself more time."

I pushed away. "We don't have time," I said. "Every day we spend here in the safety of this dome, the Order is plotting against us. They're pulling more demons through their portals and recruiting more young girls to their cheerleading teams. Every day they get further and further ahead."

"And what exactly do you think we should do about it?" he asked. His jaw tensed. "We've talked about this a hundred times already. If we rush into something because we're impatient, we're going to get ourselves killed. Then who will stand against the Order?"

I kicked at the stone floor. "I wish I was improving faster, that's all," I said. "I know I'm getting better at switching from human to demon form, but the actual magic itself still feels strange to me."

"How so?" he said. "Let's talk it out."

I shrugged. "It's hard to explain. I mean, I can use both sides of my magic to create the same fire, but I still don't really understand why I would use one over the other in a fight."

"Okay, then let's try them both," he said. "One at a time. See if you can put into words how they're different. Then we'll figure out why you might use one in certain situations instead of the other."

I stared down at the floor. I was so used to magic coming easy to me. Sure, I'd worked hard, but most things only took me a few days to really master. Using demon magic was different. It scared me. Every time I started to use it, something inside me panicked, and I backed off.

I wanted to understand it, but at the same time, part of me wanted to just settle for using my normal witch magic and stay far away from the demon side of myself.

"Come on," he said. "We'll start easy."

He moved a training dummy to the middle of the room, then came to stand beside me.

"Try to set the dummy on fire using the human half of your power," he said. "Really concentrate on how it feels and where your power comes from."

I breathed deep, taking a moment to really connect to the earth beneath my feet. I raised my hands up, spreading my fingers wide as the tips erupted in flames. I drew them back and pushed forward, sending flames dancing through the air toward the dummy.

"What did that feel like?" Jackson asked.

"Safe," I said. "Controlled."

"What else?"

I thought of how Zara had taught me to focus using the image of a blue butterfly in the darkness of my mind. To clear everything else from my thoughts. "It felt grounded. Focused and calm."

Jackson nodded and waved a hand toward the training dummy. The flames disappeared and the dummy looked brand new again. "Now try using the other half of your power," he said. "The demon side."

I swallowed and shook my hands out, trying to get rid of my nerves. Accessing the demon side of my power was a lot more difficult. Most of the time in training, I couldn't really do it whenever I wanted. Most of the time, I spent half an hour trying to make it happen before I finally gave up.

I took a deep breath in and my heartbeat slowed. I imagined the flames on my fingertips, but they wouldn't come. I shook my hands again, then lifted them in front of me.

How could I do this? What was really different about the demon side of my power?

I thought about the times when I'd shifted easily or used my demon power without having to really think about. First, against the hunters near the blue stones. I'd shifted in order to save my own life. Then, I'd used it again to break free of the hunter's cage in the throne room that first day we were attacked.

The first time I'd created fire with my demon power, I'd been arguing with my father.

Each time the demon side came easily I'd either been completely terrified of death or extremely angry. Feelings that were opposite of controlled and focused. There was nothing that felt safe about using my demon power. Instead, every time I shifted forms, panic seized my whole body. In fact, when I was in demon form, the second I started to really focus on my body or power in any way, I tended to lose my form and shift back to human.

Maybe the key to accessing that demon side of my power was to let the panic take over. Maybe instead of calm and focused, I needed to feel passionate and fractured.

I opened my eyes wide and stared at the dummy in front of me. I imagined Priestess Winter's evil smile and they way her eyes gleamed as she ran her ritual knife across the throat of Aldeen's prima. I let fury fill my heart. I let it send my mind in a million directions. I let it bring me to the ledge. Then I fell. Instead of controlling myself, I gave my inner demon free reign to feel.

Somewhere in the core of myself, I felt a strange power bloom. It started as a kernel of fire, then spread out in a wide circle, exploding until it consumed me from head to toe. Flames ran down my arms and covered my hands, much stronger and brighter than the human flames from a few minutes ago.

I pushed my hands forward, sending the flames across the room. The training dummy erupted, fire blazing high up toward the ceiling.

Power danced inside me. The loss of control scared the crap out of me, but it excited me at the same time.

Instead of draining me, this power fed me.

Jackson placed a warm hand on my shoulder and the flames died. I stumbled backward, shaking my head.

"Whoa," he said. "That was intense."

I laughed, almost drunk with it. "I've never been able to do that before," I said. "That was incredible."

"How was it different?" he asked.

I struggled for a way to explain it. It was more sensation that something I could put words to. Still, I wanted to try. "This was wild," I said. "Passionate and free. Instead of controlled and meticulous, this power was all about letting go. Instead of a single image in my mind, I felt this deeper. Almost as if it were primal. Does any of that make sense?"

Jackson's eyebrow raised slightly. "Yes, it does," he said.

"Is that the way it feels when you cast your magic?"

He seemed to think about that for a second. "I think it's different for me," he said. "Since it's the only kind of magic I have, I don't really know anything else. It's just natural for me. I'm not going to have the same kind of sensations you do, because I don't have anything to compare it to."

I nodded. "That makes sense," I said. "Does it feel different to use your demon magic here than when you use it in the human world?"

"Good question," he said. "When we go back, you'll need to be prepared for the difference. Here, demon power comes from within. As if the fuel for it lies in some well deep inside. When a demon casts in the human world, though, the power is drawn from outside. Everything around you that's alive can become a fuel source. Trees. Animals. People."

"Does that make it harder?"

"Sometimes," he said. "It can be both an advantage and a disadvantage."

"How so?"

"Well, an advantage because we can pull from the witches we're fighting," he said. "If you can find a witch's life source, you can use your magic to drain her and weaken her."

"And the disadvantage?"

"The more powerful spells take a lot of energy to cast," he said. "If you've already used up most of the life fuel in an area, that makes it a lot harder to use those bigger spells. Or if you're in an area where there's not a lot of life to pull from. Like a desert or something."

I nodded. In theory, I understood what he was saying, but I had a feeling it was the kind of thing I needed to experience for myself to truly understand.

"Do you want to keep going?" he asked. "Or should we call it a night? Tomorrow's going to be a big day."

I sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm not looking forward to this party at all."

He grabbed his backpack, then put his arm around me and escorted me out of the room. "It's important to your father," he said. "All you have to do is smile and say hello to everyone and act like the beautiful princess that you are. Easy, right?"

I groaned. It sounded like torture. All those people staring at me and expecting me to look and act a certain way. Definitely not my thing.

"I don't know about easy, but I'm sure I'll survive it," I said, pausing on the step above him. "Then we'll talk about our plans, right? After the dance?"

He nodded. "Then we'll talk."

I kissed him on the nose and he laughed.

"I'll see you tomorrow then," I said with a curtsey.

He bowed to me. "See you tomorrow, my beautiful princess."

They Never Return

The morning of the dance arrived, and all I wanted to do was keep training. I'd made a real breakthrough the day before, and I was anxious to get back down there and practice. I'd planned on trying to get a few hours in before I had to start getting ready, but Tulianne woke me up bright and early with a full schedule of pampering that would have made the most experienced debutante wide-eyed.

Apparently getting ready for a ball was an all day event for a princess.

"You really don't have to give me a massage," I told her when she brought out the tray of oils and aromatherapy herbs. "I can just take a shower and be done with it."

"Nonsense," she said. "A princess must show up at a ball in her honor looking relaxed and at her most beautiful."

"Can't we just perform some kind of glamour that would make me look relaxed and beautiful? You guys can do glamours with demon magic right?" All this attention was making me incredibly uncomfortable.

"Why would we perform a glamour on someone like you?" she said. "All that would do is hide your natural beauty."

I snorted. Natural beauty apparently took all day to create. Still, the massage felt pretty good and maybe Tuli was right. I needed to relax. I'd been putting a lot of pressure on myself lately.

After the massage, Tuli drew a steaming hot bath and filled the large tub to the top with bubbles. She brought me a glass of juice made from an exotic fruit that only existed here in this world. It tasted like a mix of strawberries and peaches. Only sweeter.