Okay, let’s get this done and get the hell out of here,I told myself.
I cleared my throat. “Uh, hello,” I said stupidly to the pool of crystalline water, but at my words, there was a stirring in its depths.
Oh God. This was a whole next level kind of weird.
“Please repair my broken katana. Thank you,” I told the water, wondering why no one was laughing at me. I was talking to water!
All eyes were on me. Even the seals watched with eerie concentration. I leaned forward and slipped the two halves, and my hands, into the pool. It was warm, like bathwater warm.
Almost immediately, a purple glow wrapped itself around my arms, sweeping down each hand and across the pieces of the blade, making the entire water glimmer with a lilac hue. Following some instinct that told me what to do, I merged the two broken pieces of my katana and held them together while the water appeared to be working to fuse them back into one whole. The water beneath me glowed so brightly it was difficult to look at.
The selkie leader stepped closer to the water to look over my shoulder. “The water spirit is using your own healing energy to fix the blade.” For once, her voice was pleasant, filled with awe.
Regardless, Brock, Haru, and Reo edged closer to me as well. Just because the selkie leader was playing nice didn’t mean we could trust her.
My eyes were bugged out of my skull, pretty sure my life couldn’t get any crazier, when Tianna hissed. I went rigid and so did the alpha and warriors behind me.
The smell of sulfur hit me just as the selkie growled, “Akuma!”
Oh. Fuck.Was anything in my life ever going to be easy again?
18Holy Mother of Scary Demons
With my handselbow-deep in the glowing water, the scent of sulfur intensified, which meant the Akuma drew nearer. Which also meant we were in deep shit.
“Don’t take your hands out until that blade is whole!” Haru barked as he and Reo pulled their katanas with a matchingshliiingsound that I’d come to love.
“Akuma, as in the demon overlords that kill kitsune?” Brock asked, pulling two handguns from holsters on either side of his hips. He was ready to throw down, and by the sound of Molly’s shotgun cocking, so was my apprentice.
“The one and only,” Haru said as a fiery red ball zoomed through the woods and crashed onto the forest floor at the edge of the open cove. The ball of magic exploded and flames rushed from it, licking across the ground, igniting leaves and sticks that covered the earth as if they’d been doused in gasoline.
The Akuma had arrived.
Everything happened so fast I wasn’t sure where to look.
Cass’ small wings flapped wildly as he cut a straight line across the edge of the water to land at my side. One hand crackled with his magic at the ready, another dipped into his favorite fanny pack, fingers twitching above an array of Gran’s vials. With Cass there, he, Brock, Haru, and Reo fanned out to cover my exposed back, since I was stuck to the spot until my sword was repaired.
‘I’ve got your back, Ev,’Cass told me for good measure. I knew I could count on my bestie in times like these.
More of the selkies transformed from seals to humanoids, crawling out of the water naked with seal skins on their backs and feral grins on their faces, sliding tongues across pointy teeth.
At the same time, four human-looking demons emerged from the woods, where the fireball had originated. Except there was nothing truly human about them. Their eyes were entirely black, without whites, and their skin was translucent. Black veins pulsed along their faces, necks, collarbones, and the exposed muscles of their arms; it was as if they bled crude oil. Two of them were roughly female in appearance, with long, stringy hair, and the other two appeared male, with short-cropped hair.
“Well, well,” one of the females said, gesturing to me. “It looks as if your powers manifested after all.”
She grinned, and her teeth were gray, tinged with black. Clearly the Akuma weren’t believers in dental hygiene. Yuck.
Without waiting for a signal, Brock unloaded one of his weapons into the approaching demons … and then all hell truly broke loose. The Akuma moved faster than vampires, which should have been impossible. One second the four demons were at the edge of the forest, entering the clearing that contained the cove, the next they were dodging Brock’s bullets and moving toward us at a blur. Before I could blink or freak out, they were right in front of us. They’d covered thirty feet in half a second.
Holy. Shit.
One of the demons popped right up in my personal space, wedging himself between my protectors and me. I started and, already off balance with both arms in the water, I fell to the side, tumbling into the pool of water.
Pivoting, I yanked the two halves of the katana to each side so they wouldn’t stab or slice me as I crashed into the warm, purple-glowing water. Popping up to the surface, I scanned the chaos, careful to keep both parts of the katana immersed as I did. Haru had warned me not to remove my sword before it was healed. At this rate, the water had better work its magic fast. The peaceful cove had transformed into a war zone.
The selkies had gone into attack mode. Four of them were latched on to one of the Akuma … eating it alive. Its screams were inhuman shrieks … until they dissolved into little more than a death rattle. Not even its super speed had managed to spare the creature from the viciousness of the selkies’ attack.
Note to self: Never cross a selkie. Like, neverever.
