Rachel shakes her head. “Lizzy?—”
“There’s no time—I’m right behind you!”
Massive and terrifying, Ozikai stalks toward us, his spiders multiplying. But before he directs the attack, a dark blur swoops down on him from above.
A bat.
Helena mauls him like a literal bat out of Hell, sucking up his spiders like a fucking Hoover, gouging the demon’s eyes, tearing at his papery flesh. It’s unlikely to kill him, but it’s all the distraction I need.
Still gripping the athame, I crawl to the frozen demons.
Kate tears at my arm. “Lizzy, no! What are you doing?”
“It’s okay. They’re with us.”
Rachel shakes her head, but I cut her off before she can start in on me.
“Please trust me! Just this one fucking time, I need you guys to trust me!”
They hesitate, but only for a second. Then, with new determination in her eyes, Rachel grabs one of the chairs and slams it to the ground, busting it apart. She tosses a jagged leg to Kate, and the two of them join me on their knees, frantically scraping at the painted symbols.
Somewhere behind me, a gunshot rings out. The crowd surges toward the doorway, their screams drowning out the hiss and pop of the flames. The gun fires again, but there’s no time to see who they’re targeting. No time to even draw a breath.
We break through Oliver’s circle first. He barrels out of the trance and drops to the ground, smashing his fists through the remaining Devil’s traps to release Warren and Merrick. All ofthem are wobbly from the ordeal, still bleeding and battered, but we’re instantly united in our new mission: get the fuck out of the inferno.
“This way!” Merrick grabs my arm, dragging me backward across the stage to the window behind it. It’s a massive pane of glass, no levers or sliders to open. I’m about to grab the broken chair when Oliver takes a running leap, smashing right through it. Merrick knocks out a few of the larger shards, then tosses me out into the night. He grabs Kate next, Warren scoops up Rachel, and out they go.
Helena swoops out last, shifting into her human form the moment she hits the grass. Her face is smudged, one of her lenses broken, but she’s otherwise no worse for the wear.
“Get to the road!” she shouts.
A few of the hunters mill around in the grass, dazed and confused, too shocked to pay us any mind. Warren and Oliver grab my sisters, dragging them after Helena, but I can’t leave. Not yet.
“The grimoire!” I turn back to the mansion as the rest of the window collapses. Smoke pours out into the night, the imps inside flashing, fire surging. The screams of the hunters echo over the sound of my raging heart.
I take one more desperate glance, sending out a new intention that the grimoire somehow survives. That we’ll have a chance to come back for it. But a beam crashes down inside, and the fire explodes anew, so bright it burns my eyes.
In that moment, I know we’ve lost it for good.
“Let it go,” Merrick says gently, his hand strong and steady in mine. “Please, Elizabeth. Let it go.”
It’s the sound of my name on his lips that does it. The tenderness there. The ache. It snaps me out of my trance, and I squeeze his hand and offer him the very last smile I’ve got before we take off into the darkness.
twenty-six
MERRICK
I suspected, from everything Elizabeth shared on the matter of her sister Rachel, that the oldest Bonnivarde witch would be headache.
It seems I’ve underestimated her.
Rachel Bonnivarde is a full-on hemorrhoid.
“You summoned these… thesedemons?” She fumes at Elizabeth, who shrinks a bit under her sister’s militant glare. “Into ourhome? And you never thought to tell me?”
Thankfully, the youngest witch recovers quickly.
“Thesedemons,” she replies, “along with Helena, are the reason we made it out of that fire alive.”
