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37
Ambrose
Iswallow down my terror as I hear Father Maxwell say, “Here we go. The moment the creature is inside the walls, Ambrose must leap free. And then we have to slam the portal shut.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” Bree cries.
“Yes, you do,” he rasps. “Cut the black threads.”
“Cut the black threads? Have you been into the communion wine? I don’t see any—oh.”
She sees them.I knew she would. I knew my Bree would find a way to stop this demon.
Which is just as well, because I feel certain that this rash decision might be my last.
I am honoured to die to save Bree and my friends. I will not let them down. No matter how desperately I want to flee, how my whole body trembles as it senses the heat and the wrongness of the demon’s approach, I will not leave this circle until I know they have the beast.
The demon is close now. I can hear the crack of its fire tongue whipping through the air, the rolling wave of its bleak miasma that threatens to pull me in.
Iknowwithout seeing–as I know that the sky is blue and Bree is beautiful – that if I am pulled into its embrace, I will not die.
The horror that awaits me is far worse than death.
I square my jaw and dig my boots into the hard earth. I have had every adventure a man could possibly dream of. I have seen the world. I have escaped death once before. I have loved and been loved by a remarkable woman.
My feet are glued in place. I don’t believe I will be able to move. I’m so terrified that I am frozen…
I will meet my fate content, as long as I stand my ground. As long as I stay…right here…as the hellbeast comes closer, as its fire whip lances through the air around me, as it drags me into its ghastly darkness…
“Now!” Father Maxwell cries.
“Ambrose, move!” Bree screams.
Her voice jerks me from my terror. For Bree, I find the strength to move.
I leap backwards, not knowing if that is the right direction, for the creature’s horror is pressing in on all sides of me. My foot catches on a melon and I slip. I land hard on my ass, but before I can scream, the demon is upon me.
It screams at me in its unintelligible language. I feel it force my mouth open and slide inside me, its fingers that are not fingers reaching through me, fishing around in my organs, making a mockery of my earthly body. And in that moment, Iseethe beast.
Not with my eyes, but with some kind of deep, inner part of me. I stare into the eye of pure evil, and it plunges its darkness inside me, right into my heart, and claws from me the last vestiges of humanity.
I close my eyes as the world fades from knowledge, as I topple into the void…
38
Bree
Iscream as I watch Ambrose slump, the light in his eyes flicking out as the demon’s dark mist plunges through his mouth down into his chest.
The creature holds Ambrose there and draws back his hand, claws unsheathed, ready to deal the final blow.
“Keep the wards up!” Father Maxwell yells at me. “Don’t let it escape.”
“Clear your mind,” Agnes snaps from where she and the other two witches watch from the bushes.
I snap back to the magic lessons.Clear your mind. I focus on the black cords winding from the Order’s pins and spreading around the edges of the demon mark, reaching for the edges of the demon as it embraces my poor Ambrose. I try to let it all go, to wink away my fear, and to focus on being in the shed with my dad, painting the soap box racer and singing along with The Who.
The creature bounds across the circle in his hunger to reach Ambrose, who is scurrying backwards on his ass even as the demon’s mist pours inside him. But not fast enough. The creature rears up—
