Page 71

We walk in silence, following The Split all the way to the mansion. As the sun fades in the sky, the hole begins to steam and bubble. Sounds that make me shudder drift up from below us, and the air hums with the threat of darkness.

“Where do they hide during the day? The ones who are already here?” I ask Mack.

He puts his hand on my lower back, the warmth of his palm comforting me. “We believe they’ve made dens in abandoned buildings throughout town. To start with, some of the townsfolk tried to fight back. A group of vigilante vamps took out at least three demon nests before they were caught.”

“What I want to know is what’s he been doing all this time?” Luther narrows his eyes and looks ahead through the trees. We are almost at The Hollow.

“The King?” Tanner asks.

“I hate that we call him a king.” I wrap my arms around my waist and hug myself. “He isn’t my king.”

“What do you prefer?” Tanner asks, trying to make me smile. “Big fat idiot?”

“He doesn’t deserve to be named.” I look up at the forest canopy and catch snatches of the darkening red sky. “But we know what he’s been doing; he’s been gathering his strength.”

Tanner frowns. “Why didn’t he come after you when he learned you were here?”

I allow myself to smile. “Because he’s a big fat idiot, and because he thinks we are weaker than him.” I point ahead, bracing myself for what’s about to happen. “He’s about to learn he was wrong.”

The shadowy outline of The Hollow is visible in the distance. The Split now divides the lawn in two, the broken fountain on one side—a tributary of broken ground leading directly from it to The Split itself—and the river on the other.

I take Tanner’s hand and point to the pile of rubble where the fountain once stood, bright and beautiful on Mack’s lawn. “That’s where we must do it.”

“There?”

I nod at him. “It was where they burned the witches. It has to be there.”

Tanner squeezes my fingers between his, gives the other men a stoic nod, then steps aside so I can say goodbye. This time, there are no tears and no loving whisperings. Instead, I kiss them each on the lips, hug Snow tightly, and simply say, “I’ll see you soon. Watch the sky. You’ll know when it’s time.”

Carefully, Tanner and I approach the edge of the wood. He picks up a stone and throws it at the place where the barrier should be. Instead of bouncing back, it skitters onto the lawn. So, we move forward.

“He did it,” I whisper as we break into the open. “Nico killed her.”

The knowledge that Eve is gone weighs heavy in my gut. After everything she did to us, she is no longer breathing. Under any other circumstances, I’d celebrate but there isn’t time.

Ducking behind the fountain so we’re out of view of the house, I smooth my hands over the grass. The sun is about to dip behind the tree line at the back of the house. “We only have a few minutes to make this happen, Tanner. We need them to rise before the demons wake. And before he realizes Eve is gone.”

“I’ll do my best, Little Star, but I’ve never brought a bunch of angry, burned-at-the-stake witches back from the dead before. So, I’m getting a fair bit of performance anxiety right now.”

Putting my hands on his shoulders, I stare into his bright hypnotizing eyes. “You can do this. It’s just like jumping, only…”

“Only I need to convince them to wake from their thousand-year-old slumber and come help us defeat the biggest, baddest demon of all time?”

I tilt my head and wrinkle my nose. “Easy, right?”

Tanner breathes out hard. He glances at the remains of the fountain as if he’s wishing it was full of water so he could use it to ground himself. Purposefully, he takes a long, slow breath then presses his palms to the floor and prepares to bring the Original Six back to Phoenix Falls.

“Focus on Ava. You saw her in the vision. Focus on her. Reach for her first. She’ll bring the others.” As I speak, Tanner closes his eyes. His eyelids start to twitch as he mutters the same incantation he used when he tried to reach Sam.

At first, his voice is normal but then it changes. It grows louder. I hiss at him to be quiet, but he doesn’t hear me. His fingernails dig into the earth, gathering large clumps of it in his hands.

The sun is moving faster now. The light fades and a deep, bloody blackness sinks over us. Through The Hollow, lights illuminate the windows and shadows move across them. The wolves are waking up, which means he is too. He will sense us, sense our magick; we must do this quickly.

Tanner stops chanting. He opens his eyes, and they are jet black. He sits back on his heels, his arms flinging out sideways. The ground rumbles. At the same moment, The Split starts to glow. Just as they have every night since my blood brought The King back into our world, creatures appear from beneath.

Salivating, groaning, hollering for blood, they crawl out of the earth. One, two, five, ten. I shake Tanner’s shoulders and beg him to hurry, but he is immovable and utterly unreachable.

Instead of waiting for my signal, the others run from their hiding place. A creature with huge, hooked claws and a face with no eyes lunges for Kole. He sends a mound of earth up in front of it, knocking it to its feet. In a flash, Snow bites down on it and rips its head off.