Then Bruce leaned into my face, his own spinning in front of me. Then, quickly and dispassionately, he sliced my legs with a razor. Slowly, blood began to trickle, reaching all the way to Allie’s nightgown.
He did the same to Eric, then moved to stand in front of Jared. “It is done,” Bruce said, then bowed.
That’s when I realized.
Lilith.
She was in Jared.
Jared who was the only one in the room walking around. Jared, who had the tiniest, tiniest pinprick of demon inside of him from that ancestral demon from so long ago.
Jared, the man who had said that he loved my daughter and was now hosting Lilith. Had he taken her in intentionally? Or had she forced her way in? If the latter, he would never forgive himself. If the former, I would kill him myself. That is, assuming that I survived.
Then Celia stood, and once again my thoughts flipped.Lilith?
“Let the ritual begin,” she said. “Let the queen who is within me be born into form. Let the catalyst bathe her body, and let the Remnant bind the witnesses and provide safe passage.” She held up her hands, her eyes closed.
Frantic, I turned to Eric, my movements slow because of the drugs.The wipes, I realized. Transdermal drugs.
“How?” I whispered to Eric. “The Remnant?”
“I don’t know.” He was more clear now, too. The drug was wearing off. Hopefully, it was wearing off Allie even faster.
“No one is tied down. But no one is moving. I can’t. Can you?”
“No. Mortar.”
At first I thought he meant that his feet felt like they were in mortar, then I realized he meant the Remnant.
The stones had been crushed into the mortar.
Solomon’s Stone had been created to trap a demon. Somehow, the Remnant had been altered simply totrap.And we all were, just like a bunny in a snare.
I glanced again at Jared, who was still pacing, his face contorted. His arms were moving jerkily at his side, the movement opposite to his legs. I shifted my gaze to Celia—Lilith—but she wasn’t watching him.
“Feet off,” Eric said, and I saw him slowly inch his feet backward. If we were the catalyst and we weren’t touching Allie, maybe the spell wouldn’t work.
I struggled, but managed to move my feet just the tiniest bit. Then Bruce and a demon came over. “I don’t think so,” Bruce said, then plunked my feet right back where they’d been.
“It is time,” said Celia-Lilith in Celia’s voice. “Lilith resides within me and without. She shall be made corporeal in this Vessel, subjugating the pitiful creature that inhabits this shell. But only part of my great being can exist in this form. And so the power and path of the Remnant and the blood of the catalysts shall render me flesh in a body with the strength to house my full essence, which I shall call to fill me.
“But I am not without pity to the one who will be trapped within. I shall give her a mate. Come, brother. Come and kneel before your sister-queen.”
Jared’s legs moved in jerky spasms, and I realized he was fighting the pull of Lilith’s will, not the Remnant. He was in the area in the entry hall that didn’t have the mystical mortar. And as for Lilith’s power, as both a High Demon and one of the oldest demons, she had powers beyond what most demons did, even though she was only partially in Celia’s body.
“Celia,” he said. “Celia, I love you. Help me fight her. I only just got you back.”
“Fool,” hissed Lilith.
I watched the tears fill Jared’s eyes. Of course he would never side with Lilith. I knew him better than that, didn’t I? How could I have even thought it?
My only excuse was that I’d been drugged and confused. But the drugs were wearing off. And I was starting to see clearly again.
“You are mine,” Lilith said. “Come bow before me.”
It was clear he had no choice. He went. He fell to his knees.
“I will never bow to you. And I will never love you, no matter whose body you steal.”
