“That’s not a crime,” he said smugly.
“Not a crime… yet,” Eleni countered. “But I’m sure that you have committed plenty of them. Rest assured that I will findproof, especially regarding your involvement in the fate that befell Ranael. And once I do, you will be done for.”
To my dismay, Eleni turned to leave. I wanted her to attack them. There was a darkness deep inside of her that was screaming to be unleashed and shed blood. That darkness called to me. I wanted to fight alongside her as we crushed those vermin. It boggled my mind that she would display such restraint and follow the rules to the letter. More importantly, she struck me as being too smart to genuinely believe Elliot would let her get away and reveal what he had been up to.
“You’re not going anywhere, my beauty,” Elliot said in a menacing tone as if in direct response to the thoughts crossing my mind. “You have everything that I want and all that I’m missing to complete the ritual. I’m not letting you slip through my fingers now,” he added, shoving Vivian away from his cock.
Chapter 4
Eleni
Istared in horror at the three people before me. From the moment I arrived at the Sanctum, I felt that something was off. But I thought maybe Ewan was selling off his clerics or silencing the ones who might have threatened to expose his incompetence or any other potential shady dealings he might be up to. Never in a million years would have I imagined that the women were voluntarily defecting.
My mind raced as I debated how to handle the situation. I could claim probable cause to arrest him. But the two women would likely stand by him. Fighting three against one was beyond foolish. Furthermore, scrying before we entered the graveyard had revealed the presence of a few traps. I didn’t know what specifically might trigger them or if they were under his control. The wisest course of action for me was to retreat, regroup, and live to fight another day.
The woman Elliot had initially been brutalizing was beginning to stir on the floor. He had called her Sienna. The Inquisitor uniform discarded on the floor by the altar furtherconfirmed that she was the cleric who had failed to return in time after the so-called exorcism. The glowing runes on the magic circle surrounding the altar indicated they were providing accelerated healing.
“What you want is irrelevant,” I said with all the contempt I could muster. “I don’t know how you managed to sway these two into joining your little cult, but I will never be one of them. Enjoy your freedom while you can.”
“Oh, my love, how wrong you are,” Elliot said with an evil grin.
Even before he finished his sentence, I suddenly sensed a presence behind me. I spun around, instinctively reaching for my collapsed staff hanging on my back. I stared in shock at Arisa and Riku—the couple who pretended to be Elliot’s parents. I had sensed their deception from the beginning but never expected civilians to be so reckless as to venture into one of the most terrifying cursed places in the world.
They are not mundane…
As if to confirm my sudden understanding that they possessed strong enough magic to give them the confidence to enter Duskwallow Graveyard, a wave of arcane power blasted from them towards me. It had the slimy feel of dark magic.
“Submit to Master,” the couple said in perfect unison, their voices altered in an otherworldly fashion. “You want to be his lover, to serve only him and all his desires. Master Elliot is all you want, all you see. Give yourself to him and make his will your own.”
Their words slammed into me like a boulder. I was horrified both about the realization that they were actually demons, and by the insane power of their compulsion. Without the protection of the sigils I placed on myself before setting off on this mission, there was no doubt in my mind I would have succumbed.
My innards twisted in disgust, and my gorge rose at the sudden wave of burning lust that swelled within me for Elliot. My mind understood it was the compulsion prompting this reaction, but it didn’t make it any less horrifying.
“Come to me, my bride,” Elliot said triumphantly behind me. “Strip for your master.”
“No!” I shouted angrily, drawing on every ounce of my willpower combined with the sigils to resist that horrendous temptation.
As Arisa and Riku attempted to issue more verbal commands, I instinctively cast a silence spell. I didn’t believe it would work as I had no idea what level of power these demons possessed or even what circle or breed they belonged to. I only hoped it would trip them up long enough for me to launch my attack. To my shock, it successfully tied their tongues.
My heart skipped a beat when their faces took on an enraged expression before their features shifted into their demonic appearance. This wasn’t them shedding some glamour spell. They were true shifters, not just random lesser demons. They turned into grotesque, ogre-like creatures with the reddish skin of someone who had been exposed to the sun for an excessive amount of time. They glared at me with glowing red eyes—including the third one in the middle of their foreheads. Their thick, neanderthal brow ridges creased into a vicious scowl. While the two horns protruding from their head confirmed them to be demons, it was their mouths that revealed their true nature. Two sets of tusks–the bottom ones pointing upward and the top ones pointing sideways—framed two rows of dagger sharp teeth.
Onis?!
With a sharp flick of my wrist, I expanded my collapsed staff into its full length as the Onis’ long hair began to undulate behind them. The wretched creatures were known to use theirmagical, sentient hair to bind and strangle their targets. It could grow to insane lengths, forming nooses or acting as conduits for curses or as spears to impale their victims with.
“Bad girl,” Elliot said in a patronizing and disapproving tone. “It seems you will need a bit of convincing. Vivian, why don’t you help your friend see reason?”
To my dismay, Vivian shot to her feet and rushed towards me, apparently intent on tackling me to the floor. With a single word of power, I stopped the foolish woman dead in her tracks. Under different circumstances, her shocked and incredulous expression might have been hilarious as her body jerked as if struck by lightning before she flopped to the ground. Vivian slapped her hand over the second sigil I had placed on her shoulder as she gaped at me with an air of betrayal. Until I released her, she wouldn’t have enough motor control to be able to get back up or fight. Any offensive spell she attempted to cast would cause her tongue to grow too heavy to speak.
The Mark of Janus acted like a double-edged sword. That sigil protected the wearer from a number of harmful things but could also prevent that person from performing actions that would cause them to self-harm. It was commonly used when training arcanists with feral traits to keep them from yielding to their savage nature at sensitive times.
Something in Vivian’s reactions prior to our departure had prompted me to take that secondary precaution, even though I never could have guessed at the current turn of events. However, enraged by me so easily neutralizing their thrall, the two Onis charged me.
As I feared, in almost perfect sync, the couple whipped their hair at me. Riku threw his like a lasso while Arisa used hers like a multi-pronged harpoon. I swiped my staff at the incoming threat, knocking the strands out of the way. It messed with my head that it resounded as if I’d struck metal instead of demonichair. Even the force of the impact sent a painful tremor down the length of my arm.
Although I managed to block most of the hair, one strand from Arisa found its mark, stabbing me in the shoulder, in the fleshy part below my left clavicle. I hissed at the sharp burn of what I immediately recognized as poison. My protective sigil instantly burst into action, but it clearly wouldn’t be enough to counter this poison, only slow its progression. I needed to flee while I still could.
Whipping my staff around, I forced them to back away. Simultaneously, I summoned a fireball, which I hurled at them. They jumped out of the way into a roll, each one going in a different direction, opening a direct path ahead for me to escape. For a split second, I considered doing exactly that. But I couldn’t leave the other two women behind.
