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“Tempest, we’re deafened.” Speaking without being able to hear my own voice was a strange experience. I couldn’t be sure I was truly forming words or speaking loud enough, but I pushed my intention toward her. I hoped she understood, because my new plan might not work any other way. “Guide them. Free the spirits.”
“Mel, you’re brilliant,”Tempest gushed in my mind. Then she snapped out orders.“Nico, put Jax in the pit. Jax, teleport the souls out. Hudson, destroy the hook holding their chains.”
And with that under control — at least until Ty ordered his demons after us— I jumped into the dark flames of the moat and ran with all my vampiric speed to the other side. I climbed up the other side into the periphery, heading perpendicular to the dark trench in an attempt to lure Ty to the threshold to our world. I drew on Nico’s earth magic to flatten out the unseen ground beneath my feet, but it was slow and sluggish — too slow to help much.
I didn’t know what it might take for Andras to inhabit my body like he’d done to Ty, but I didn’t want to find out. I couldn’t afford to let him capture me, but I had to hope that he was somehow still fixated on me as host, despite his words. Especially now that we’d combined our magic. I had a bad feeling it wasn’t just the host’s life at stake if he managed to possess one of us.
Without my sense of hearing, I had no idea if Ty followed me, and I refused to look over my shoulder. A foreboding presence seemed to squeeze my breath from my body, and I imagined Ty right on my heels, his corpse-like fingers stretching toward me. That mental image made me run faster.
“Your plan is working. Ty is pursuing you. Nico says not to kill the devil without him,”Tempest chuckled inside my mind, but I was busy running for my life.
At last, I saw the outside world not far ahead, and I burst through the smoke to straddle the edge of the threshold. I’d never done this before, and it was a strange feeling that made my skin crawl. On one side, blue sky arced over blacked earth with the containment wall far in the distance.
The other direction was dark and dreary. Tempest must be hidden somewhere in the shadows of the periphery, because I didn’t see her anywhere. I hoped she remained back with the guys, letting them know it was safe to hear again.
Even though I’d intentionally drawn Ty away, my whole body froze when I caught sight of him emerging from the shadows. He caught up to me, his face contorted in anger. The owl-like devil’s eyes burned with a sickly yellow flame as he reached for me, his lips forming words I couldn’t hear.
I once again avoided looking at his lips as I prepared to fight for my life. Planting my feet, I called vines from the human realm, where the earth responded better, and launched them across the threshold to seize Ty’s arms. It was unfamiliar magic, but I shaped the earthy vines with all my intention and instinct.
Ty resisted, and I sent lightning crackling along them, shocking him long enough to pull him off balance. I stepped across the threshold into the realm of blue skies, pulling my vines with me, and Ty along with them.
I pulled harder, sending reinforcing vines from our world across the threshold. These wrapped around Ty’s waist and legs. Then I snapped my elbows down, and the vines dragged him off his feet and firmly into my world.
Shadows billowed from the threshold behind him, stretching thinner the farther away from the threshold I dragged him.
His mouth opened in a silent scream — silent to me, anyway. The agony on his face made me shudder involuntarily. The owl devil shifted, and I could see it begin to separate from his body, the magic sloughing off of him like a second skin.
Magic drained at an alarming rate from our shared reservoir, but I couldn’t let fears for my coven-mates distract me. The guys had their task, and I had mine.
Ty jerked unnaturally in the vines, his eyes widening and his mouth going slack. The owl spirit peeled away from him, climbing back up the thin band of smoke and shadow still attached to Ty’s body. The devil’s spirit hovering just inside the threshold, tethered to Ty only by thin strands of sickly yellow magic that circled down the thin column of smoke to wrap around his wrist and fingers.
From this side of the threshold, it was as though the owl devil hovered in a wall of smoke and shadow. I peered into the infernal realm to try to see how the guys fared, but from outside, it was impossible. The wall of smoke was impenetrable.
All I could do was focus on the task at hand and hope my coven-mates had already rescued those souls and teleported out of there along with them. It was time to close the portal once and for all.
Ty seemed to age twenty years in front of my eyes, his skin going sallow and papery. His hand reached toward the threshold, anchoring the yellow tethers in place.
When his eyes met mine, they were filled with tears.
“They can’t compel you now, not without being fully linked together,”Tempest whispered in my mind as she stepped across the threshold to join me on scorched earth.“He wants to share his last words with you.”
Without letting go of the vines wrapped around Ty, I used just a few drops of magic to try to bring back my sense of hearing. It wasn’t something I’d ever tried to do before, so it took a moment before I figured it out. In that time, Ty slumped to the ground, his head falling as if too heavy to lift.
I kneeled down beside him, too far away for him to touch, in case he somehow tried to transfer Andras to me. I had no idea how it worked, but if he couldn’t compel me now, then hopefully he also couldn’t possess me, either.
A spasm of pain rippled across Ty’s face as he tried to sit up.
“You figured it out,” he rasped.
“Your body is dying,” I realized. It was good to be able to hear my own voice again.
“Yes.” He sighed and relaxed onto the earth, one hand still pointing toward the infernal realm, the bonds of smoke and sickly yellow magic tangled around his wrist and fingers.
I had the feeling that if I pulled him completely away, he would die. For now, I let him be because I had things I wanted to say to him beforehand. And this would give the guys time to make their escape… because I still felt them draining magic from our reservoir.
“I’m sorry, Ty. I’m sorry I chose hatred over love when you were turned.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
