AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Even if it meant coming face to face with my worst nightmares.
Chapter Twelve
There was nothing worse than entering a quiet, dark house just before three in the morning. Especially one a demon just came out of. Yup. Not on my top ten list of things to do.
The door squeaked as I pushed it open. The metallic smell of blood hit me first. I swallowed down my disgust, praying I wouldn’t throw up. Then my toe bumped a severed leg and I nearly lost it.
Three dead cops sprawled in pieces around the living room.
This was so not my jam.
I tried to ignore the bodies as I headed down the hallway. The craft room’s door hung open on one hinge. I pulled it the rest of the way open and took a steadying breath.
Memories of being trapped in the circle on the floor rushed over me. I lurched back before I could help myself. The urge to run away was almost unbearable, but if there was something in here that could help us, I had to force myself. If nothing else, we could clear out all the books. “Wait,” Dastien’s voice stopped me. “Why are you going in without me?”
He stood behind me, wearing a pair of generic gray sweatpants from the SUVs. “You were getting dressed, and I thought…”
“No. We do this together.”
I gripped the strap of my messenger bag. “Okay.” Having Dastien there was a weight off my mind, but it still took me a few minutes to work up my courage. After a lot of deep breaths, I stepped into the room.
A layer of dried blood coated the floor, cracking as I walked over it. Hundreds of unlit black candles stood on pedestals of fallen wax. Whatever potion she’d last cooked up smelled like burnt plastic.
And the circle the demon had come from was still active.
Waves of magic thrummed against my skin like electricity. If I looked at it out of the corner of my eye, a yawning chasm opened in the center of floor. Pieces of the fourth cop lay sprinkled around the edges—he must’ve triggered it, releasing the demon.
This was a shitshow waiting to happen.
Thankfully, there was nothing crawling out now. At least not yet. “Wait at the door. The circle’s still working.”
“Be careful.”
“Just give me a second.” Thank God I’d been reading all those magic books. An active circle was dangerous, especially since I had no idea how to close the chasm. But I could bind the circle, making it impossible for anything to cross out of it.
All I needed was salt and a little bit of magic.
God. Why did she have to put everything in unlabeled black canisters? I didn’t want to touch anything I didn’t have to, so I opened one of the biggest canisters—hoping for salt—and gagged.
The smell was enough to do it, but the sight of eyeballs floating in some green gelatinous goo put me straight over the edge.
“That was so not fucking salt.” I screwed the lid back on, and set it back as quickly as I could before wiping my hands on my jeans. “If I were salt, where would I be?”
“I could try the kitchen?”
Now that he was here, I didn’t want him to leave. “She’s got to have some in here. Every witch does. It has to be right in front of me.” I moved farther into the room and grabbed the next likely canister. “Please, don’t let it be eyeballs.”
/> Nope. Hair. Thin chunks of it were tied with pieces of twine and labeled with people’s names.
I closed the canister and slipped it into my bag. We’d have to take care of it later. Luciana could do all kinds of hexes with hair.
“Hey,” Dastien said, suddenly behind me.
I jumped and let out a very uncool scream.
“Shit.” I clutched my chest. “I told you to wait outside.”
“I was bored.”
