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“We’ll let you know,” Lady Northcott said.
* * *
The vehicle that the four guys and I found waiting for us in the underground parking lot looked like the same limo that had brought us to the Assembly in the first place. I almost laughed out loud.
“Not what you were expecting?” Damon said with an arch of his eyebrows.
“No,” I said. “But it makes sense. They want me to try to rest on the way there.” And possibly to bolster my store of magic in other ways, or they wouldn’t have sent my consorts along with me. With the tension that was thrumming through my veins, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to relax enough to sleep, let alone get up to anything more fun.
There was room for me to stretch out, at least, with only five of us instead of six. I felt Seth’s absence as we climbed into the back like a missing limb. He’d been well enough to give me an impressive kiss when I’d slipped in to say good-bye, but the healer said he wasn’t healed enough to go running around anywhere yet.
I was going to try not to think about the fact that the kiss we’d shared might be our last. That all of this might end in total catastrophe.
To at least make an attempt at that resting thing, I lay down on my seat with my head on Kyler’s thigh. He brushed his fingers over my hair as I snuggled closer. Just that contact sent flickers of warmth through my chest to bolster my spark.
I was more powerful than I’d ever been before. I had the love of five amazing men supporting me. Ihadto be strong enough to defeat this demon. There just wasn’t another option.
The engine rumbled as the driver on the other side of the privacy screen pulled out of the lot. Streetlamps and the light from restaurant windows flickered by in the deepening night. By the time we got out to the Cliff, it was going to be as pitch black outside as the demon’s eyes. Could we hope that darkness would disorient the fiend a little bit too?
“What will you need from us once we’re out there?” Jin asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think it’s going to come down mostly to me overpowering the demon, just for long enough to shove it back through that portal. We’re going to have to be careful out there—if it kills anyone right on the Cliff, that could be enough to let the other demons through. So I guess… Stay back, have your batons ready if it comes near you—but mostly try not to let it get near you at all.” Ruiz had brought us enforcer batons for each of the guys, but they hadn’t been much use against the demon so far.
My consorts could take shelter among the enforcers and the other witches who’d be there—all of those who’d be lending me power, acting as a distraction while I figured out the best angle to hit the demon from… But we had to get its prisoners away from it first, alive or dead.
Spark help me, this wasn’t going to be easy, I knew that much for sure.
“When you say it all comes down toyou,” Gabriel said slowly.
“My magic, with the demonic influence in it, is the only energy that’s had much effect on the thing,” I said. “So that’s the plan. Focus everything on me. If I can get it close enough to the Cliff… I’m sure I’ve got enough power in me to force it into the cave from there. I’ll just need the right moment, maybe for the other witches to distract it so it’s not bracing itself against me…”
“They’re asking a lot,” Damon muttered.
“No,” I said. “They’re asking exactly as much as they should. They’re all going out to face it too, you know—the Northcotts and the other officials. They can’t help that what my father did to me gives me an edge no one else can replicate. Every witch in the city right now will be joining the fight however they can, even Thalia and her group.”
Dad had talked about the power he’d ensured for me as if it’d been a gift he’d given. Maybe in some ways it was, even if it wasn’t one I’d ever have wanted, even if he hadn’t really meant it for that purpose when he’d poured that magic into my mother’s womb.
I closed my eyes, trying to let the hum of the limo’s engine lull me. We’d reach the Cliff in just a couple hours, ahead of the demon unless it managed to start outpacing cars. And then I’d find out just how much power I had in me—and whether it was enough to save us all.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Damon
The damp salty wind felt even thicker than the last time we’d been out at the Cliff, or maybe it just seemed that way in the dark. The globes of enchanted light the witches had set up across the grassy yard of the Frankfords’ seaside property only penetrated the night thinly. They made everyone look like specters, sallow and blurred along the edges.
Of course, the demon was going to provide its own light when it got close enough. We could already make out the faint reddish glow in the distance, far enough away that I couldn’t see it moving when I stared at it. But every few minutes when I glanced over, it loomed a little larger.
Most of us weren’t set up in the yard anyway. We’d gathered on the fallow fields on the other side of the country road about a hundred feet from the laneway, where the witches were hoping we’d intercept the monster before it made it to the Cliff and carried out its murderous intentions. I didn’t think any of them had a clue how close blood needed to be spilled before it might help the other demons escape. We were all hedging our bets here.
At least mine were riding on Rose. If she couldn’t get us through this, it’d all be a lost cause anyway.
“Is there any new information from the enforcers tracking the demon?” Rose asked one of the enforcers, who seemed to be some sort of commanding officer. The other woman shook her head, and Rose bit her lip.
“They probably can’t see much more than we can,” I said. “It’s not as if they’ll want to cozy right up to it.”
“Do you think there’s any chance it’ll have left the people it grabbed alive?” Kyler asked, his forehead creased with worry.
“There’s no way to know,” Rose said. “The demons might need an actual killing right at the Cliff for the effect to work. We might still be able to save them.”
