I let a single tear slip free before I take a deep breath.
“Fucking get ahold of yourself, Desiree,” I tell myself. “You made your choice. Now, buck the fuck up, and summon the daemon to go home.”
I unfold the spell and commit the words to memory.
Then I squeeze my protective charm for luck and stand before the pentacle, my back facing the stairs.
As I open my mouth to begin, footsteps scrape on the stairs. Slowly, I turn, hope flaring in my chest at the expectation of seeing Jaxson. But it’s not Jaxson waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
It’s the Balam.
Three sets of eyes, each a flaming inferno, bore into me, searing my soul, and stripping me bare. The daemon takes monstrous form: three heads perched upon one trunk, one of a man, another of a bear, and the third a ram with twisted, curling horns.
I stumble back, blindly retreating into the summoning circle, my boots scuffing the chalk and blurring the carefully inscribed lines beneath my feet. The daemon smiles then, a predatory display that bared rows of jagged teeth, sending a frigid chill rushing through my veins.
“H-how?” I gasp.
It moves toward me with the grace of a warrior—silent, the air shimmering with heat in its wake. It’s naked, a grotesque display of power and dominance.
I didn’t summon it . . . someone else did.
The thought hits me like a punch to the gut. It’s here to silence me, to extinguish my life like a fragile flame, and a creeping dread settles deep in my bones.
“Call it daemon’s intuition,” Balam’s human head replies in a guttural rasp.
I scoff, trying to project disdain even as my heart hammers against my ribs. I scramble to the opposite side of the coffin, using the cold slab is a meager barrier between us. What was Ithinking?
But I am powerless against this daemon. Even as a vampire, with enhanced strength and speed, this entity could crush my bones to dust beyond repair, scatter my essence to the winds. I force my voice to remain steady. “What do you want?”
“Does it matter? They want you dead, and I am here to fulfill their wish.” Balam drifts closer. He stands between me and the stairs. A sinister grin plays on its grotesque features. He knows I am trapped.
I trip over a lifted stone, catch myself on the coffin’s edge, and the rough stone bites into my palms, drawing blood.Fuck. The protective charm slips from my grasp as Balam closes the distance. Bile coats my tongue. He reeks of Sulfur and lard.
I have no choice but to run. If I can slip past the daemon without it catching me, I can stay alive. With a deep breath, I turn on my heel, dashing toward the stairs. The daemon is much larger than me, but I pray I am faster than it is.
Balam’s taloned feet scratch against the cold stone, a sound that grates on my nerves like scraping metal. His claws tear the back of my shirt, grazing skin, a painful, burning line. A cry tears free from my throat, raw and involuntary. I hit the pavement hard, jarring my wrists in the process. Tears prick my eyes, blurring my vision, but I have to move,have to. To remain still is to die. I crawl toward the fractured edge of the circle, toward freedom, as Balam looms over me, a nightmarish mountain of flesh and bone.
As if I weigh no more than a bag of cotton, the daemon flips me over with contemptuous ease, and I stare up into its hideous faces, a trinity of death.
“Goodbye, Desiree,” Balam whispers.
“P-please, don’t do this. I—” I rasp. “I pose no threat to anyone.”
“It’s what I’ve been ordered to do. You are a threat,” the Balam growls, and I tremble.
“I’m not!”
The Balam’s grip on my shoulders tightens, drawing more of my blood as his nails dig into my skin. I scream. But maybe someone will hear me. “I am but the messenger. The one who calls me laments this necessity. Your essence stains this world with what should not be and so it must depart. To ensure harmony is returned to its rightful state.”
Tears trail down my face, hot and stinging. What the hell does that even mean?
“You don’t have to kill me. There must be a mistake. I’ve hurt no one.”
The Balam cocks its head. “Are you not a vampire with the power to unmake other vampires? Are you not the witch who hid the War Letters rather than exposing their truth? Silence is damning, Desiree Dunn, and so are you.”
I jerk against the daemon’s hold. He clings tighter. “Please, stop. Take me to your master. We can work this out!”
“What a pathetic creature you are,” the daemon taunts. “No wonder she wants you dead.”
