Whatever it was, was coming for me through the wards. I glanced out the window and two massive reddish-purple demon dogs, with horns and wings hovered between the shimmer of a portal and my back door. They weren’t the same as the one that attacked Brenda, but they were similar.
My heart was beating so fast I thought it might jump out and fight with me—but fighting wasn’t the smart thing to do when I was still depleted. Demons always hunted for life-force. If they’d come for me, they would leave when they didn’t find me. They shouldn’t be able to enter the house—but they’d come inside Brenda’s house.
It wasn’t worth the risk.
Adrenaline fueled, I sprinted upstairs to my bedroom, the snarling behind me gaining like a runaway streetcar.
I slammed the bedroom door and slid the charmed bolts, hoping they would hold.
Sweat veiled my skin as I sucked in shallow breaths. My bedroom was triple-warded and had its own pillar system of infused salt to bind the wards together. With the salt in the wall paint and along the baseboard, whatever came through shouldn’t even be able to see me. But the wards hadn’t stopped the portal…
The shrieking was getting closer. I dashed into the closet-sized bathroom and locked the door. It was my safe room, lined with sage paper and a layer of plaster containing salt, quartz, and iron, but I wasn’t supposed to need it. Two new demon types in one day could not be a coincidence. Something was very, very wrong. But demons can only exist on the Earth plane for a short time. All I had to do was survive until they left.
Every cell in me vibrated as I waited for the crash of the bedroom door.
Total silence.
Trembling with something—maybe relief—I slid to the floor, quickly pulling my hair into two messy braids. Straining to listen for sounds, I wrapped my arms around my knees. Brenda’s bloody face flashed in my head. Tears came out of nowhere. I swiped an arm across my face, smearing snot on the gold encircling my wrist.
“You should stop crying.”
The words were deep and velvety, creeping over my skin like an icy breeze. Fear cut into me deeper than a ritual knife. I covered my eyes, and the bracelet slid down my wrist.
Holy hellebore.
My thoughts swam through my lexicon of demons and spirits. A demon would have attacked. It had to be a spirit. I staggered up and yanked open the supply cabinet above the toilet. Pulling the stopper out of one of my custom vials, I doused myself with a hydrosol of St. John’s Wort for protection from negative energy.
“I banish thee, spirit,” I chanted.
“Intriguing. But that’s not going to work onme.” The spirit spoke English, and I was pretty sure the voice was in the room with me, not in my head.
Terror sank its freezing teeth into my chest. I could barely breathe. There was no place to go—thiswasthe safe place. My image blurred in the mirror as a purple cloud formed around me.
CHAPTER SIX
My mind whirred through the pages of my internal grimoire as I tried to choose a tactic to deal with a stubborn spirit curse.
“No things shall cause me fear. With these words, they flee from here!”I chanted with a throat dry as paper wasp nests.
The purple cloud was getting bigger.
Fumbling with the cabinet lock, I grabbed an armful of herbs and oils from my stash. A vial slipped out of my fingers and bounced on the floor, knocking out the cork. Running water should protect me. I slid across the green ooze of parsley oil as I turned the shower on.“No things shall cause me fear. With these words, they fly from here!”
The shock of cold water turned my chant into a scream. Crouching down in the corner, I drizzled fennel, lavender, and oregano oils over me, counting on the rising steam to diffuse the spell. My hands quivered as I wove the incantation.
“Blessed spirits of my ancestors, fill the space with light and surround me with your endless night. Spirits take pain and vanish. I am the night, and I declare you banished.”
I curled up, bringing my knees to my chest as the cloud outside the glass door coalesced into a form. I screamed the words, but even if someone could hear me, no one could help me.
This room was soundproofed.
No one would see the towering, man-sized spirit forming out of purple smoke; they would only see my lifeless body after the spirit sucked my essence out…
Holy crocuses.
This bracelet was coming off—now.
With slippery fingers, I unsnapped one of the pouches on my mushroom-leather belt that held banishment essentials. At least they were still dry.
