“Oh, really? I wonder if our Heavenly Father will view that as a suicide, or if he’ll make an exception and let you through the pearly gates anyway.” Lucas’s mouth widened in a slow grin, and he reached beneath the neckline of his black coat. “Besides, if you die, you’ll never be able to get this back, now will you?”
He pulled the teardrop necklace out, and just like before, my chest seized with a fierce ache. Before I knew it, I’d taken a step forward, my hand outstretched. God, I wanted that necklace. I didn’t know what that stone was—not even Jax’s memories offered any answers. But I somehow knew it was an inherent part of me, and that I needed it almost more than I needed to draw breath.
“That’s it,” Lucas said softly, eyes gleaming. “Come with me. I’ll give you what you want if you come willingly.”
Those seductive words, filled with promise, almost had me. But a hoarse cry ripped through the air, cutting through the longing in my heart. “Jax!” I cried, the necklace completely forgotten as I spun toward the sound.
“Forget her!” Lucas growled. Strong fingers clamped around my wrist, digging in almost painfully. “She’ll be dead in a few minutes anyway. Nothing survives a demon bite like that.”
“You fucking psycho!” Rounding on him, I drew the knife, then sliced it across his forearm. Blood gushed from the wound, and Lucas screamed, instantly releasing my arm. I’d cut the bastard good—maybe even gotten an arterial vein, but there was no time to look. Leaving him there to clutch and gape at his wound, I sprinted toward the gas station, to where I’d heard Jax’s terrifying scream.
God, I hoped I wasn’t too late.
20
Brodie
“No!” I yelled as the demon fell onto Jax’s back. The two went down on the ground in a heap, and the demon yanked Jax back by her red ponytail, baring her neck. I sprang forward as the filthy thing sank its green-covered fangs into her bare flesh, and Jax let out a scream that would have made the devil weep.
“Get off her, ye filthy hell spawn!” I roared, ripping the demon away from her. But the damage was already done. Green goo oozed from the wound, and black lines began to spider web out from the puncture wounds, spreading across rapidly-paling skin. The demon hissed, struggling against my grip, but it was no match for my Druid-enhanced strength. I slammed it up against the tree, putting just enough pressure against is throat that it couldn’t draw enough breath to move.
“Tell me how to fix her!” I snarled, vibrating with rage. Jax was on her hands and knees now, coughing blood onto Gaia’s green earth. “Tell me how to cure that bite!”
“There’s no way to mix the antidote in time,” the demon rasped in a voice like crushed rock. “Even if you had the right ingredients, which I doubt you do.” He grinned, dripping that poisonous saliva onto my hand, and I gritted my teeth as the goop burned like acid against my skin. “Come on, little Druid. Slit my throat and send me back to hell. You know you want to,” he taunted.
Oh, how I did. My free hand slipped to the left side of my belt, where my hunting knife was strapped. But the blade wasn’t there. Blast it! Where had it gone?
You gave it to the lass, a voice reminded me, and I stilled. That’s right. The lass? What the hell happened to her? Had another demon already sunk its poisonous fangs into her? Gaia save him if he had—I would rip him limb from limb even if there was still an innocent—
A glowing blue bolt pierced man’s head before I could complete the thought. The man instantly began screaming, and I dropped him, my heart lifting as I spun toward the direction the arrow had come from. Arabella was running down the hillside, her eyes wild with fear and rage, her celestial weapon clutched in her fists. She looked like a warrior goddess, her dark hair flying about her savagely beautiful face, and my heart sang with joy and relief at the sight of her unharmed.
“Jax!” she cried out, her expression rife with horror as her friend coughed more blood onto the ground. Dread filled my chest, and I dropped to the earth beside her—in my bloodlust and subsequent relief, I’d completely forgotten about her. “Oh my God, what happened?”
“She was bit by a demon,” I explained, rolling Jax onto her stomach. She thrashed and moaned, blood frothing from her stained lips, and icy fear gripped my heart. The black veins had spread, covering every inch of visible skin, and tainting the whites of her eyes as well. A touch of two fingers against her neck told me her pulse was wildly erratic—it was pushing the poison even faster through her body, hastening her death.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.” Arabella fell to the ground next to Jax, heedless of the pool of blood. She took her friend’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “It’s gonna be okay, Jax. I swear. Hang in there!”
“We have to put her to sleep,” I muttered, rifling through my pouches for the right herbs. “We have to stop her heart.”
“What!” Arabella’s head snapped up, wide with outrage. Tears were spilling down her lovely cheeks, which had gone nearly as ashen as Jax’s. “You can’t do that—you’ll kill her!”
“No, lass. Not the way I have in mind.”
I found the packet of herbs I was looking for, then poured it into my water flask and shook it vigorously. “Hold her up,” I ordered Arabella. “We’ll have to get as much of this down her as we can.”
“How do you know this won’t kill her?” Arabella demanded even as she slid her hands beneath Jax’s shoulders. She propped the woman onto her lap, doing her best to keep her there even though Jax was shaking fiercely now.
“This isn’t to stop her heart,” I explained as I put the flask to Jax’s bloody lips. “This is just to dilute the poison a bit. I’m going to use magic to put her in an enchanted stasis. The spell will ensure her heart doesn’t pump any more blood to her body, but her brain won’t start to rot either. ’Tis like cryogenics, but it actually works.” The corner of my mouth quirked in a smile that I didn’t feel.
A fraught silence descended upon the small clearing as we worked on Jax. Arabella held her as steady as she could as I poured the tonic down Jax’s mouth. It was difficult, because the woman kept coughing up blood, and thus some of the brew came spilling out as well. But we managed to get at least half of it down, and the tremors began to quiet a little.
“Good,” I said, putting the flask away. I motioned for Arabella to lay Jax back down, then placed my hands on either side of her head. Pressing my fingers against her temples, I closed my eyes and began to chant, calling on Gaia to help ease this poor woman’s pain. Her magic flowed through me and into the woman, gentle and patient, so very different from the power I’d used to fight the demons. It flowed quietly through Jax’s veins, then over and around the heart, coaxing the frantically beating muscle to a standstill. And then, once it had stopped, surrounding the brain, wrapping it up in layers so that it would remain untouched by time.
At least, for a little while.
“We have to get her to the Watchtower,” Arabella said, her voice raw. Her eyes were rimmed in red, her nails digging into her denim-clad thighs as she vibrated with grief and rage. “They have an antidote for this—it’s a standard thing we all carry in case one of us gets bitten. But Jax used up her dose on the family that she came up here to save. The mother was bitten—I know from her memories,” she added before I could ask.
“Well it’s a good thing we’re on our way there, then.” I tossed Arabella the keys, then scooped Jax into my arms. “Bring the car around, lass, and make sure to strap yerself in tight. The two of us are about to break every speeding law known to man.”
