Page 18 of Eat, Slay, Love

Behind him, Jonah’s voice cracks. “Mayari, get up. Get up.”

Someone is coming.

Halloween.

Soup kitchen.

People inside.

I can’t let him walk out of this circle.

My fingers grope blindly until they find the dagger’s hilt. I curl my hand around it and draw it close against my body, hiding the movement beneath the curl of pain.

The demon leans down, perhaps to savor the moment, perhaps to finish it.

I whisper a binding word. The dagger ignites. White light fractures through the blade, traveling up my arm and into my chest like lightning seeking ground.

I drive it upward with everything I have left.

The blade cleanly pierces between his ribs.

For one suspended heartbeat, our faces are inches apart. His expression shifts to one of shock.

“Belvedere—” he begins.

The symbols flare to blinding brightness. The ash I laid earlier ignites, silver light bursting through his skin in branching fractures. He convulses once as the circle tightens, compressing inward, forcing the magic to hold.

Then he shatters. He explodes into smoke and burning silver fragments that collapse inward, leaving nothing but a scorch mark and the faint smell of ozone.

My circle flickers, then drops entirely as silence floods the alley.

I try to breathe. It hurts.

I try to stand. I can’t.

Jonah is suddenly there, dropping to his knees beside me, hands hovering like he doesn’t know where he’s allowed to touch.

“Mayari,” he says, voice raw. “Stay with me.”

“I killed that motherfucker,” I wheeze out, tasting blood.

“You did,” he says. “You absolute motherfucking nightmare.”

I smile as my vision narrows to a thin tunnel.

His face is the last thing I see—terrified and furious and something else I can’t quite place.

Then everything goes dark.

8

My magic is what wakes me.

It moves through my limbs in a low, steady current—knowing, as if it has located something familiar and is quietly addressing it. Awareness settles over me before consciousness fully does, and with it comes scent—leather warmed by skin, clean cotton, something faintly smoky beneath a layer of ordinary laundry detergent.

I open my eyes into darkness softened by moonlight.

I’m in a four-poster bed.