Sacrifice (Gryphon Series) (14 page)

I grasped the polished brass handle and pushed open the door.
Like a delicate swan, she turned her head in my direction. Her auburn waves were pinned back in an elegant twist to reveal the bare porcelain skin of her neck and shoulders. The beaded strapless bodice molded to her. At her hips the dress belled out in ruffle after ruffle of chiffon and taffeta. The traditional white dress got a splash of color from the fuchsia sash tied around her waist. On the side of it were three full, pink flowers.

Despite how stunning she looked, he
r forehead creased with concern. “What do you think? Will Gabe like it?”

I crossed to her and fastened the top two buttons she had missed
. “How could he not? You look like a princess.
His
princess.”

She peered back at her reflection and exhaled through pursed lips. Her hands s
moothed the cascading waves of her skirt. “It’s not at all like what the women wore on their wedding day during my time.”

I got a pit in my stomach that Kendall
may have forced her fashion sense. “But you like it,
right
?”

She nodded
, but doubt swirled in her eyes. “I do. I really do. It’s a gorgeous dress and fitting for
this
point in time. What I always envisioned myself getting married in wouldn’t have.”

I gave her shoulders a quick squeeze
. “As long as you’re sure you’re happy with it. But honestly, you could walk down the aisle in Gabe’s football jersey and he’d still think you were the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.”

“Actually, I think he’d prefer the jersey
,” Alaina giggled. The tension she’d been holding in her shoulders relaxed a little. “Would you please help me with my veil? For the life of me I can’t figure out how to get it to stay on.”

“Not sure I’m the right person for that job
. Any fashion related issues are strictly Kendall territory. But I’ll give it my best shot.” I bent down and extracted the veil from its box on the floor. The thin tiara was a collage of tasteful crystal and pearl flowers with long sheer lace that trailed from the back. Just as I stood to fluff out the fabric, a loud, dragging, scratch shook the wall behind me. The hair on the back of my neck tried to stand on end but a flower the size of a dinner plate weighed it down.

My head
whipped in Alaina’s direction. “Did you hear that?”

“Maybe it was a mouse?
”

The noise
came again, this time more pronounced and deliberate. It began at the top of the wall by the mirror and drew down to the floor with enough force to knock bits of plaster free.

“
That’s no mouse.” I grabbed Alaina by the shoulders and shoved her toward the door. “Get my mom and Grams out of here
now,
and tell Keni I’m gonna need her.”

The ominous dragging began again.
A chunk of drywall gave way and something black and shiny jutted through, and then quickly disappeared back into the wall.

Alaina squealed
and slapped both hands over her mouth. “How do I get your mother out of here without alarming her?”

I kept my
tone calm and assertive. “Alaina, you’re the bride. What you say goes. If you go out there and tell them you forgot your special wedding bra and can’t possibly get an accurate fitting without it, they’ll jump to get it for you. Now pull it together and
go
!”

She gathered up her billowing skirt and bolted down the hall.

I heard the awed gasps of my mother and Grams when Alaina made her entrance. Then two beats later the doorbell at the front of the store chimed. Alaina had accomplished her objective.

The noisemaker apparently g
ained a partner—or three. The foreboding drag now emanated from four different spots on the wall.

Kendall sauntered into the room, shut the door behind her,
and with a roll of her shoulders released her wings. “See? Told ya this dress would look fab with them.”

“Not really the time, Keni.”
I jerked my head at the crumbling wall.

“What is it?”

“No idea.”

As s
uddenly as the noise began, it stopped. Movement of any kind ceased. We had fought enough demons to know that nothing good ever follows a silence like this. Kendall arched her wings up high behind her. I brought my arms up and balled my hands into fists, just as the wall in front of us exploded with enough force to shake the ground under our feet. Kendall pivoted and shielded us both from the shower of plaster chunks that assaulted the room. A spider so big its back grazed the ceiling emerged from the blown out wall covered in a white haze of drywall dust.

“No! No way! I wasn’t crazy about the dragon, but I draw the line at spiders! There has to be a no arachnids
clause somewhere in our calling!”

“Oh, there’s claws al
l right,” I added, only half listening to her. The long, black legs of the creature stretched out toward us. We pressed our backs up against the wall behind us and began to inch our way to the door. “But I’m more concerned about the mandibles. Look at the size of those things!”

Kendall reached the door first. Her hand circled my wrist
. In a blur of wind and speed she flew us out of the dressing room and down the hall where we collided with Alaina. The three of us rolled to the ground in a mass of satin, tulle, and feathers.

“Why are you still here?!” I shrieked and tried to kick myself free from
Alaina’s train.

“I wanted to make sure you were
oka-
aahhhhh
!” Alaina’s words morphed into a scream when the spider came into view. Its legs clicked across the wall as it skittered sideways straight toward us.

“Is everything okay? I heard screams.” Vicki, the
plump, southern bell storeowner rounded the corner, took one look at the spider and passed out cold.

“Fan
-friggin-tastic! Alaina, get her out of here!” Finally free of the mass of fabric, I jumped up and looked around for a weapon. “Where’s a giant rolled up newspaper when you need one?”   

Alaina
scrambled to her feet, hooked Vicki under her arms, and dragged her through the door that led to the front of the store. The spider eased its way off the wall and onto the floor. Its claws pinched and snapped at the air. Goo dripped from mandibles that chomped hungrily.

Beside me Keni gulped
. “Please tell me you have a plan.”

“That depend
s.” Fear raised the decibel of my voice to a squeak. If that thing lunged there was a good chance I was gonna let loose a girlie scream that went completely against the superhero image. “Do you consider running a plan? ‘Cause that’s all I’ve got.”

“Absolutely!”

We both spun on our heels and sprinted for the showroom. The spider gave chase. I grabbed a rack of prom dresses and knocked it to the ground to slow down the monstrous insect. The spider hissed and easily stepped over the brightly colored pile of sequins and ruffles.

Something whizzed by my head. A zebra print pump slammed into one of the spider’s six eyes
and the creature reared back in pain.

“Good thinking, Keni!” I shouted
and joined her at the shoe display.

I palmed a sequined stiletto with an exceptionally point
y heel and launched it as hard as I could. It embedded in the spider’s head. The creature stumbled to the side and smashed into the glass display case of tiaras and jewelry. Glass shattered. Expensive jewelry crunched under its pedipalp.

Unfortunately
, the blows injured it but neither incapacitated nor killed. The spider raised one back leg and knocked the stuck shoe free. Then it charged. Eight legs clicked across the wood floor in rapid-fire succession toward me. I whipped any object within reach at it. Shoes. Purses. Veils. Hangers. Dresses. Crinoline. Kendall joined in and together we made it rain formal wear on the giant insect. None of it slowed the big bug down at all, but it sure looked pretty.

From behind me
came the hiss of metal being unsheathed. I risked a glance over my shoulder and found myself staring into a pair of brown eyes caked heavily with Goth make-up. A curtain of ink black hair framed her ghostly white complexion. I didn’t have to look down to know she’d be clad in skank wear.

“Kat,” I spat
at Alec’s little toy. He’d taken a normal college girl and demonfied her into a plaything for himself. Between her and the spider this didn’t bode well.

H
er black painted lips curled up in a snide grin. “Conduit.”

The
spider picked that moment to lunge. Its pincher slashed Kendall’s upper arm, tearing open her flesh. As she shrieked in pain, I grabbed her good arm and yanked her behind me. Kat shoving me out of the way and meeting the bug head on interrupted any further heroics I had planned. She swung the metal barb that extended from her wrist and hacked off one of the spider’s pinchers. Black blood sprayed across the room. The angry arachnid reared up and swiped its remaining claw at Kat’s bare midsection. (Seriously, who wears a tube top to a demon fight?)

Kendall closed her wing around her arm
and a soft glow radiated off of her as she healed the vicious looking wound. Now that I knew she was safe, I turned to throw myself into the mix, but only made it two steps before a strong, bear-sized hand closed around my upper arm.

“I wo
uldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep voice rumbled. “Kat gets cranky if she doesn’t get to fight solo.” I gaped up at the easily seven-foot tall, building of a man. His skin was black as night, his smile blindingly white.

Keni’s pink
and purple shadowed eyes widened. “Hey, aren’t you Trent Cummings, the NFL player that went missing like a month ago? Dude you are, like, all over
E!
.”

“
That’s who I used to be.” Trent rounded his neck and arched his back. Metal spikes shot out of his spine and down the backs of his arms. “I got a new life now.”

I still wanted in on the fight
despite the presumed dead football player’s warning. This was
my
calling dang it! I didn’t need the Goth Skank Queen’s help! I spun back just as Kat latched on to the remaining pincher and used it to swing herself on to the spider’s back. She straddled it like a horse and buried her barb deep into its head. The spider’s legs splayed out to the sides as its massive body crumpled to the ground and dissolved into black ooze. All the sparkly, frilly accessories and dresses on the ground got doused with a layer of dead demonic spider sludge.

Kat landed gracefully on her feet and retracted her barb.
She looked me up and down with blatant contempt. “Alec sends his love. He says he’ll be seeing you soon. Oh, and nice neck flower.” She snorted a mocking laugh then disappeared in a cloud of smoke before I could make a witty reply.

How rude
was that?

“That’s my cue,” Trent murmured in his deep tremor and copied Kat’s exit strategy.

Kendall and I stood in silence and surveyed the destroyed bridal shop. Black slime dripped from every surface and streaked down the walls. All the beautiful formal wear Vicki displayed in her showroom was a total loss. My guilt got the best of me and I tried to rectify the situation a little by righting one of the display racks. It bumped the wall and caused a giant glop of spider sludge to drip from the ceiling and plop down right on my head. Black ooze slowly seeped through my hair and trickled down my face.

Kendall
dry heaved beside me. “Oh that’s beyond nasty! I’m gonna puke just looking at you!”

The life of a superhero.
Glamorous, no?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Silk webbing tied my hands to my sides. My attempts to wiggle them loose only bound me tighter. A shadow fell over me. Dreading what I would see I was slow to lift my head. Coarse, wiry hair surrounded six solid black eyes. The spider’s mandibles twitched in anticipation. I opened my mouth to scream, but it sprayed webbing that gagged me to silence. Tears of terror streamed down my face as the gigantic insect lowered its head …

“Celeste? Get up.” Keni shook me awake.

I tried to sit up, but something had my limbs knitted in tight. Fearing it was spider webbing, I kicked and flailed for all I was worth. “What the heck?! Get it off!
It’s on me
!”

Finally
, I freed myself from the reality of a constricting bed sheet by falling off the bed in a heap of covers. I sat there panting, trying to steady my blood pressure.

Kendall peered down at me, her dramatically made up eyes widened in surprised confusion
. “Smooth there, Chosen One.”

“Bad dream,
” I murmured then wadded up my comforter and tossed it back on my bed.

One side of Keni’s
hot pink glossed mouth pulled back in a wry smirk. “Well, it’s over now and you need to get dressed. We’ve got
big
plans. Put this on.” She threw a black article of clothing at me that smacked me in the face before falling into my lap.