Storm (22 page)

Chapter Forty-One

Penelope

It’s too late for second thoughts. When I re-enter the party, the Triad is onstage in the center of the room. All the witches and Statics stand around in their best dresses, listening and smiling. I’m supposed to meet Lia in the center of the room at 12:05. Even though part of me says to trust her, the other part wonders about what Carter has said. Will this really wipe out the witches?

“Tonight we have gathered to remember,” Victor Prescott says from his spot on the stage. Sabrina Stone and Rafe Ezrati stand beside him. “This day mar
ks the year of our creation, the fall of Lucifer and the betrayers, and the beginning of our quest to protect Nons. Today is a celebration,” Victor adds. He speaks with such authority that it’s hard not to listen to him. “Today we honor the gifts we’ve been given, even in a time of uncertainty and danger.”

I move toward the exit that doesn’t lead to anything except the Triad offices. Carter’s words play in my head. If I do this, then they’re all dead. My family. Everyone.

“Without the gift of the angels, we would not exist. And therefore, every one hundred years we celebrate life, remember the lost, and prepare for the future,” Victor says.

The dagger is safe at my thigh, and I focus on the steel against my skin. Lia has everything else set up, but I couldn’t turn this over to her. I kept it close.

Maybe deep down I never trusted her as much as I’d wanted to.

I can’t do this.

“Today, on this the day of the Observance, of new beginnings,” Victor continues.

I can’t do this if it kills all these people.

“We give thanks to the angels who created and—”

A scream resounds through the room. I look over my shoulder and the crowd is parting. I expect to see something else, but there’s nothing.

Then I realize the crowds are stepping away from me. I’m in the center—and I’m glowing.

The void.

All eyes are on me, and the Triad is frozen on the stage. I glance up at Victor, who’s looking over me toward Carter. Rafe looks confused.

“Seize her,” Sabrina yells.

Hands grab at me, pull me in other directions. The magic clutches me, ready and willing to fight on my behalf. I can’t harm these people. These are my people, witches like me. But they push me toward the ground, and I have no choice anymore as the void takes over. I try to contain the emotions so the power doesn’t go crazy, but it’s too strong. I’m too confused, too stunned, betrayed, and I have lost everything.

Don’t feel. Don’t feel. But I can’t this time. I can’t turn it off. Everyone touching me flies across the room, others run, and it’s chaos. I try not to look so I don’t have to see what happens. I don’t want to see what I’ve caused.

I hear Lia’s voice above the others—when did she get here? How did she get inside past the wards? But I run toward her. No one stops me, and those who touch me get thrown back by the void. I’m almost to Lia when I hear Carter, calling my name.

In the commotion, I feel him looking at me, waiting for me. He yells my name again across the room, somehow louder than the other things around me. For a second, I think about going with him. I take a step toward him, and Lia calls my name. But no. She’s going to kill all the witches, and she somehow brought all those demons inside. How could she even do that? How could I allow this to happen?

It’s not too late until I’m lost, that’s what Poncho said. I see my direction now. Carter. I should’ve stayed with him and his plans all along.

Then, an Enforcer shoots me with magic. Carter lurches in my direction, but Victor holds him back. My arm is bleeding, and I try to run but more Enforcers encircle me, and the void builds up. I know the protocol for Enforcers and what will happen next. They’ll take me down.

Carter pulls away from his dad and tries to work his way through the crowd toward me. He’s moving against the current as witches flock toward the exits. He shouts my name, but the void shoots out. Witches fall to the ground, screams echoing like dominoes.

Lia grabs my bleeding arm, and I cry out.

“Blood oath,” she says, “and it’s not finished yet.”

I start to yell, but Lia flickers me out. The last thing I hear is Carter calling my name in the distance.

Chapter Forty-Two

Carter

I yell Pen’s name in the chaos, but the hallway is empty. She’s gone. The mauve demon took her. I have to find them before it’s too late. Screams fill the air from a few feet away. I head into the fighting as my dad steps toward me. He looks exhausted, and his shirt is ripped. There’s blood, but I don’t know if it’s his or someone else’s.

“Carter,” Dad calls.

I step toward him. My skin feels like its screaming with the urge to kill some demons, to fight next to the witches. But I’m here with him, and Pen is gone. “I should’ve told you,” I admit, reluctantly.

“If she’s partnere
d with demons, then we need to stop her,” he says.

“She’s been confused.”

“How long?”

I pause and look at my dad. This is the first time I’ve seen him without the mask in a long time. “Since you marked her,” I say finally.

Dad moves toward me in huge steps. “This is why I didn’t want you to see her.”

“All this is going on and that’s what you’re worried about?”

He shakes his head, and when he looks at me again remorse is written all over his face. “You should’ve come to me with this.”

“You’re so blind about halflings, and I didn’t think…”

Behind him, I see a demon explode into guts, but it’s only one demon. There are at least fifty out there, somehow. A chair flies into the corner of the hallway, and I glance out into the room beyond to see a body slide across the floor. “They think she’s a thing called the sole witch.”

Dad’s eyes widen. “The gift for Lucifer. That’s a myth.”

“She can harness both sides.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “She’s marked.”

“She was driven into their hand because she was marked. You took her essence, so she turned to the void—and they were there for her. You
gave
her to them. All of this is happening because of that mark,” I say. I need him to see what’s really happening. That there’s a reason the demons are here and she, conveniently, isn’t.

Dad’s face constricts. For the first time, maybe in forever, I see the guilt there. The realization that he did something wrong. If the whole world as we knew it wasn’t about to implode, I’d enjoy the moment more. “If the demons have the sole witch, then they will destroy us. We must stop her,” Dad says, his face switching into Prescott-leader mode. “I’ll grab a team.”

“No team. Please. Let me go to her.”

He shakes his head, but I don’t let him protest this. Not this. “Go to them. Worry about them.”

I point to the people in the ballroom beyond us in the hallway. We can’t really see from here, but the sounds force their way in. Crying, grunts, and objects hitting the ground. Sounds of fighting and death. Dad looks over his shoulder toward the others. “I’ll go alone and bring her back.”

I see the flickering of emotions on his face. To let me go. To make me stay. To send someone else instead. “I can do this, and I work better alone,” I say. “She’ll listen to me, not anyone else.”

Dad stares at me, considering, and his eyes get that Prescott businessman glare. “This is a big task. If you fail…”

“I won’t,” I say. “Let me do this. Trust me to do what you’ve taught me.”

Dad looks over my shoulder, and holds his head back after a nod. “Don’t fail us.” Then he moves without another word toward the crowd. A kid runs past the hallway, some demon that looks like a fat guy behind him. Dad yanks the kid from the ground and lunges a knife into the demon’s heart. In a blink, the demon explodes and my dad disappears from my sight into the fighting.

Then the chanting starts, sounds trailing back to me. They’re expelling the demons, finally. My money says they’re making them extra salty, too.

He’s got this now, and I’ve got to get Pen.

But how the hell do I find her?

I see Poncho standing against the wall in the corner. His eyes are focused on me, and when he sees me looking, he points outside. He wants me to go outside. I run down the hallway toward the exit.

Vassago is standing outside the Nucleus House when I get out there, waiting for me. “Where is Penelope?”

Without a word, he takes my arm, and we disappear.

Chapter Forty-Three

Penelope

“Let me go,” I shout as we materialize into darkness. It takes my eyes a few seconds to readjust, then I realize this is De’Intero. It’s completely changed from the last time I was here. It’s darker now, almost more desperate.

Lia pushes me against a wall. “Look. We had a deal. You can’t back out of it now.”

“I didn’t know your part of the deal was using me to kill all the witches.”

She blinks. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?”

Lia’s eyes flicker green instead of blue. Those eyes, the humanness in them, is part of what had me so fooled. I am an idiot. I should’ve known more was going on.

Across from me is
a glass wall, and behind the glass, there’s a swirling pearly white fog that looks like smoke, but it’s not. It’s almost solid, based on the way it presses up into the glass. I can’t look away from the mass. It’s calling to me, my heart beating in tune with its movements as it ebbs and flows against the glass wall. It wants me to join it. To connect.

“You promised,” Lia says, her voice pulling me away from the draw of the magic. “I swore to teach you and to save your sister. You swore to help me. A blood oath is unbreakable.”

“I won’t help you destroy everyone I love.”

“Everyone you love?” a voice asks. It’s not Lia. It’s a man, deep-voiced and achingly familiar. My throat constricts and suddenly I’m nine again, when my parents died. It’s a voice I haven’t heard in years, and my legs won’t respond. Won’t turn. But the footsteps move toward me, a scream builds up in my throat, and then I see the orange eyes.

I face of the demon who killed my parents, who stole my powers. “Azsis,” I say, breathlessly.

The demon moves toward me and takes my hand, presses his lips on it. I want to hate him and to let that hatred spew, but my feelings fade away. I feel nothing. “Penelope Grey, we finally meet.”

I don’t know what to say. All my life I’ve spent looking for this demon, and here he stands in front of me and I’m speechless. The only thing I can think is why, but I won’t ask that.

I look from Azsis to Lia. I squeeze my hands into fists and hold them tight as anger twists through me. She was working for him all along. Azsis follows my gaze toward her, and steps in my view of her.

“She was merely doing her job. I wanted to see you.” Azsis stuffs his hands into his pockets. He’s well dressed, for a demon, in a black suit and silver tie. His Non body is shorter, dark hair, orange eyes shining through, and a slight accent that I can’t place exactly. It’s hard to focus with the void beating against my body and my thoughts on all the witches at risk, on my sister, on my hands wanting to kill him. To take back what’s mine.

“Her job was to bring me here?”

“Yes,” he says, “I have been looking forward to our meeting for years.”

I scoff. “You mean since you killed my parents and stole my essence.”

“Guilty,” he says, holding his hands up in the air. “I’d apologize, but I doubt you’d accept it.”

The anger bubbles up, and I try to contain it. The last thing I want to do is lose control this close to all that magic. It would kill him, maybe, but I don’t know what else it would do. “Why am I here? Why would you want to meet me?”

Azsis walks around the room, arms crossed. “You are important.”

“Important?” I ask.

He picks some lint off Lia’s shoulder, and sends her a small smile. She looks at him like he’s bacon ice cream and she’s starving. “There’s an old tale from our long history. Some demons were created, some magic was created and blah, blah, blah. We’ll skip the boring details,” Azsis says, stepping toward me. “In summary, an ancestor declared that one day there would be someone who could harness the power of both sides, the void and the essence.”

Carter’s words from earlier come back to me.
There was a prophecy that one witch would harness the power to destroy one side of magic forever—so in the end there’s only void or essence. And that person is you. They are doing all of this to get you.
And here I am. I let them use me. I got played. I cross my arms, trying to look fierce and to contain the magic swirling inside. “And you think out of all the halflings in existence that I am that person? I’m awesome, but that’s pretty ambitious.”

Azsis smirks. “I like a little sass in my allies.”

“I’m not your ally.”

“Yet,” he says, smoothly. His accent gives him this way of talking that almost makes me comfortable. Maybe that’s how he does it—he charms everyone into forgetting that he’s more psychotic than the average demon.

I should gut him.

He tilts his head with a shrug. “There’s much you have to learn, Miss Grey. I more than think you’re that person—I know you are.” His voice is full of certainty, but his eyes never leave me as he paces the room.

I look around for an escape route as he walks. The only exit is the door we entered through, and Lia is blocking it. I can blast through a wall. How far could I go before someone tried to stop me?

“And how are you sure?” I ask him, buying time.

“Because I created you to be that person. I set it in motion centuries ago with a girl like you who felt she had no one.”

Centuries ago… “Emmaline Spencer.”

Azsis smiles. “You’ve heard of her? My best work.” The smile fades, and he stuffs his hands back into his pockets. “Pity it didn’t work out as planned. I chose a lot of witches who I felt showed potential.”

“What kind of potential?”

“The gift of sole witch can only be filled by a certain being. Someone lonely, desperate, wanting of a purpose. I carved out the qualities centuries ago, and on the brink of every Observance, I searched for them in witches, waiting to cultivate a few for my purpose. Emmaline was one of my chosen. She ended up not working out, but I kept searching, molding, waiting. Patience is key, you see. You, however, were only partially of my doing. Destiny made you the one I needed.”

Destiny. There’s that word again. Maybe she really is a b—. “Destiny needs a hobby, and a better punch line.”

Azsis shakes a finger at me, smirking again. It’s nothing like Carter’s adorable know-it-all smirk. His is a mocking one. “Your parents knew the potential in you, Penelope, from the moment you were conceived.”

My eyes search for his. My parents knew? Poncho said they were doing researching after they found out they were pregnant with me. That they were upset. It wasn’t about the demon part of me, it was this. “They knew…”

“What you could become,” Azsis pauses.

“How?”

Azsis smiles. “They knew of your history, and that you would turn eighteen the year of the Observance.”

He doesn’t say anything else, just stops, but he doesn’t have to. My parents knew that this could happen? It’s why they were upset. I can’t begin to process all of this right now. My parent’s secret was this moment, was me. “I can leave,” I snap.

“Try, dear, I’d enjoy seeing it.” Then, he throws out his hands with a shrug. “But what would you go back to? You need me, and we need you.” Azsis takes a step toward me. “Your people have a target on your head.” Another step. “The Triad plotted your destruction. Your family has abandoned you, and you turned on them, in return. Can you go back to that? The whole society knows you’re a halfling, and tonight you’ve betrayed them all. Your friends are injured or dead.” Each time he speaks, he moves toward me, and soon he’s close to me. Too close. “The boy you love chose himself. We,” he points to him and Lia, “are the only ones who remain on your side. We have always been on your side.”

Everyone did turn their backs on me. But I let them do that, didn’t I? By turning to Lia instead of them. I caused the problems that made them turn away, and they tried. Gran tried. Pop, Carter. Everyone. I was too weak, too trusting and I didn’t think. Because I failed them anyway.

Azsis runs a hand across my cheek, and I look up at him. “The key to ultimate power lies in you. Choose us and we will not fail you or abandon you. We will fight for you.”

Wait a second…
I step back. “That speech—it’s the same one you gave Emmaline Spencer. I read it in her journal.”

He smiles widely. “No need to let a good speech go to waste. They really are a pain in the arse to write fresh on the spot.”

I shake my head. “Emmaline gave up everyone she loved for you. Where is she now? She failed to do what you’d hoped and you killed her.”

“No, I’m right here,” Lia says. She takes a step forward toward me. Her voice is low and soft. “I’ve been with you all along.”

“You’re Emmaline?”

Her blue eyes, human eyes, shine back at me. Eyes that look like Gran’s, like Mom’s, like mine. I’d never seen it before. Or maybe I hadn’t wanted to see it.

“I felt it was best if I got to meet you, since you were so curious about me. I wanted to guide you on your path,” she says.

Emmaline Spencer is Lia. I should’ve known there was a reason she was always there, grooming me, pulling me toward this side. Carter knew. He never thought she was sincere. “How?”

Azsis wraps an arm around her. “Emmaline has been with me for centuries. We call her Lia now, less connection to her forgotten life.”

“A nickname,” she adds.

Emmaline Spencer. My great-great-great-whatever-grandmother who gave up her power to run off with her demon lover. She’s the reason our family has demon blood, the reason I was a target. She’s also the only person I’ve ever felt understood me as the outcast and the weak witch trying to prove her worth. She died centuries ago as a witch, but she’s here as a demon with my mortal enemy, her original lover. The demon that killed my parents and wants me to join him now. She used me, and it was all for this.

“Look at me, Penelope.” I glance up and she wraps her hand in mine. For a second, I let myself wonder if she looked like Gran in her human form. “This is where you are meant to be. Here, you are accepted and embraced without judgment. You only need to be what you are and it’s respected here. Find a home with us. Your old life is gone now. They all know what you are, and reject you, but here, you can be everything you’ve always wanted.”

I could walk away from that. I could stay here. Trade being a witch for being a demon. Pick them over my family. But she’s my family too, in some way. No. That doesn’t change anything.

“But at the cost of killing all the witches. I won’t do it.”

Lia smiles. Emmaline, rather. “Close your eyes.”

“I ca—”

She puts her hands over my eyes, and steers my body forward. My hand presses against the chill of the glass. Against it, a wave, a rush like the waves I feel when I use magic vibrates under me. I can feel every turn, every twist, and every tremor. Like this part of me has never been awakened before. “Do you feel it?”

“Yes,” I reply.

Her breath is warm against my ear. It tingles, but the tingle is like a breeze against a storm. It barely matters under the pressure of the void. “The magic wants you. Embrace it, accept your role, and that feeling will never leave you. It will become part of you. Forever.”

Forever. “How?”

“Embrace your demon hood and become ours,” Lia says. Her voice is soothing, a lullaby. “End this battle that was never meant to exist. Witch and demon, Nons. The Statics, the people you love, millions you don’t even know, we are all in your hands.”

I pause. The magic still pulses under me, and I don’t know how to deny it. I don’t want to deny it. “How is this going to save the witches? It will kill them all.”

“They die daily. This would rid them all of magic. It would end their fight. They could simply live.”

“The hour is upon us.” Azsis turns me to look at him, away from the power of the void. Even though I’m not touching the glass, I can still feel it. “It’s time for you to play your part.”

I exhale, but the void makes it too hard to think clearly. I’ve been led here under false pretenses. I was wrong, and now everyone could die. “You’re asking me to betray everyone and everything.”

“This is a war, there are always casualties in war.”

I shake my head. This isn’t what I want. “I don’t want to pick a side. I don’t want any of this. I won’t live knowing that I’ve ended the witches.”

“You don’t have a choice. Destiny,” he says.

I stare at Azsis. His Non form doesn’t hide who he really is to me anymore. What he is underneath. A demon. A murderer. A trickster.

A lie.

Destiny can go to hell. “I won’t do it. I can fight you.”

“Fight me?” He practically laughs it.

“I can use the void and I can leave right now.”

I understand the void more now, and it’s part of me. Being this close to it confirms how much it wants me. That means I could use it to get out.

“You could, but I still have some tricks up my sleeve. After all we have done to secure your place here,” he says, moving closer toward me until he’s inches from my face.

“What have you done?”

“Even if you go back, it will not be the same for you. Not for a girl with friends, no boyfriend, no status, no job—a
known
halfling.”

The words sink in and the dots connect. “You did that? You told them all what I was?”

A smirk again, and it eats at me. “I had to. Lia warned you that you had too many relationships. It was our job to break them all, one by one,” he says. “You know what they do to your kind. Do you think they’ll allow a halfling traitor rejoin their world with no complaints? Your whole family will be ruined for harboring you.”

I shake my head. He really did set me up. Lia set me up. He wanted me to be separate from my family, and he succeeded.

Azsis’s eyes flash red, then green, and then returned to orange. “It’s do or die time—no pun intended—so allow me to lay the rest of my cards on the table. Don’t think of it as a betrayal or ending the witches. Think of it as saving one you love desperately.”

He snaps his fingers, and three demons appear. The demons hold down Connie’s arms, and she fights to get away from them.

“Connie!”

She’s still in her hospital gown. Even from the distance in the room, I can see the circles under her eyes and how pale she is. They woke her up. They had the ability all along—and now I’m furious, because lying to me is one thing, but messing with my sister is a whole other story.