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His face twists into an angry grimace. “I’ve had about enough of Blake taking what should be mine.”
Aengus makes a gesture, and the demons move toward me and Luciana. My magic flares around me, green sparks flying from my hands, a wind ripping through the room, lightning crackling above my head.
I call on the magic of my coven, feeling the drumbeat of their ancient battle magic fill me. I’d used the same power to escape the secret lab in Costa Rica, and it rushes through me now, hot and electric. I feel the bones of the Highlands in my chest, I feel the rush of its rivers in my veins, I taste the gray sky over the moors on my tongue. My home. My family.
The first demon rushes me, but before he makes it even a step, a spear of glowing green light shoots through his heart, exploding inside of him and leaving a gaping bloody hole in his center. The ghost spear of the MacPherson witches.
His body turns to ash and crumbles to the floor.
With a chorus of growls and a rush of dark magic, the remaining demons charge me all at once. Green light flashes across the room. I take another through the chest, two through the throat, and two right through the forehead. Within moments they’re all reduced to piles of ash on the floor. The scent of sulfur hangs heavy in the air.
Behind me, Luciana lets out a whimper. Aengus stands in the doorway, his eyes wide.
“You can’t take something that’s freely given,” I snarl. “And I will never be yours.”
A ripple and a growl move over Aengus as his wolf churns to the surface. He clenches his fists and takes a menacing step toward me.
That’s when a shadow moves over the room. The bright light from the fluorescent bulbs overhead dims to a faint glimmer. The temperature drops twenty degrees in an instant. My breath leaves my body and adrenaline spikes through my veins.
A tall, thin strip of pure black emerges from the shadows before me. Molten copper eyes lock onto mine, and a spike-heel boot steps forward.
“I’ll take it from here,” Darkness says to the warlock.
Aengus bows, shaking like a leaf, and disappears into the hallway.
“How did you find us?” I ask, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice.
Darkness lets out a laugh, and it feels like bones cracking as it brushes against my skin. “Oh, my dear. I never lost you. Really, do you not remember what I said to you when we first met?”
And I do remember, of course. She’d said if I ever escaped, she’d haunt my dreams forever…
I fall still, and Darkness smiles.
“Yes, you see now. I’ve been with you all along.” Her smile widens, and it’s as if the whole universe lives inside her, peeking out through the space between her lips. There’s a glint of far-off stars, an echoing whisper from somewhere in the chasm that exists within. “I visit your dreams, and I visit your waking hours. I see what you see. I’ve known where you are this whole time. But I realized that you’re much more lucrative to me if I let you think, for a bit, that you’d escaped.”
“I won’t work for you,” I growl. “I’m not going to help you create another blood bank of innocent supernaturals.”
That laugh again, a physical pressure pushing against me. “Oh, Dr. MacPherson. I’m not worried about blood banks anymore. Why not let you do what you do best? You see, I was giving you space so you could find the cure to your sister’s condition, just as you wanted.”
I blink in confusion.
“Don’t you see? The cure is so much more valuable.”
That cavernous smile is swallowing me. I can feel myself being sucked toward it, into it.
She continues. “I imagine people would pay anything to cure their loved ones of such a terrible disease. Just as you were willing to do anything for your own sister.”
I feel a roil of nausea in my stomach. “You’re going to infect people, and then charge them a fortune for the cure.”
“I won’t compliment your intellect,” Darkness says. “Your ego is no doubt quite inflated already. I was furious when you first escaped. Well, fury doesn’t adequately cover it.”
The shadows in the room tighten around me and Luciana. I hear my sister gasp for air, and I feel a tendril of darkness wrap around my neck like a snake. My vision goes even darker as I struggle for oxygen.
“But then I realized you had given me a great gift.”
The shadows relax, and I suck in air.
“Your cure will change the Night Guild forever, doctor.”
