He made his way out of the underbrush and stepped next to Sadie. “We know you are working with a demon, Abigail.”
Her face contorted into an unnatural grimace. “Your wall won’t stop me,” the creature hissed in Abigail’s voice.
No, it wouldn’t. Nicholas hadn’t added the anti-demon ward on purpose. They needed the demon react to being physically trapped and to jump out of Abigail.
Now!Sadie’s voice shouted in his mind. He threw up two wards simultaneously, protecting himself and Sadie from the demon’s possession. Then he added a third, preventing it from returning to Abigail, and hoped he had gotten the timing right. With no one and nothing to possess, the demon should be sucked through the portal back to its realm.
Inside the cage of his magic, Abigail shrieked, and he added an inverted aural ward, blocking the sounds she made before the distraction proved deadly.
Next to him, Sadie flinched, but it wasn’t in response to the ear-splitting sound he had just cut off. “You can’t possess me, demon,” she said through gritted teeth.
Nicholas stared in horror as she mentally fought the creature. He must have been too slow erecting his ward—he hadn’t wanted to put it up early and risk the demon sensing it, and now Sadie was paying the price. His hands balled into fists, but there was nothing he could do except drop the ward so the demon wouldn’t be trapped inside her.
“That’s right,” Sadie panted. “I am a telepath. And you will not take over my mind.”
She sagged suddenly, and Nicholas went to support her. He hadn’t even gotten a hand under her elbow before the protective glyph he had carved for himself warmed in his pocket. He had given up on carving a general demon-detecting glyph, and this charm would only be reacting if the demon was actively targeting him.
The minor rune couldn’t block a demon, but that was why Nicholas had the ward.
Laughter filled his mind.Your walls only work if you stay inside them.
The demon shared an image from Sadie’s point of view, and Nicholas saw himself reach out to steady her. His arm passed directly through the invisible ward he had cast to protect himself from possession.
Exactly. Now, we bargain.
Nicholas instinctively felt the difference between the demon’s possession and Sadie’s telepathy. The demon’s thoughts creeped and crawled through him. While it offered a bargain, it raked deeper into Nicholas’s mind looking for weakness.
Nicholas wasn’t a telepath, but he had drunk a dose of the mental fortitude potion right before Sadie entered the sitting room to lure the demon out. He had the strength of will to push back at the demon.
“You have nothing to offer me.” He spoke the words, his mental focus entirely on resisting the demon. He used everything he had learned helping Sadie master her telepathy to hide his thoughts deep in his mind, throwing wards over them that would prevent the demon from seeing his greatest fears and desires.
But the demon didn’t need to dig deeper to know his greatest fear.
Not even your lover’s life?
Nicholas fought the images the demon shoved into his mind, refusing to see Sadie broken and bleeding. It would not happen. He would not let it happen.
“She’s safe from you,” he gritted out, trying to expel the demon but unable to affect it at all.
That’s right. I am beyond your power. No one is safe from me. Unless you are ready to bargain.
Nicholas was barely aware of the physical world. Images of pain and pleasure, triumph and defeat hit him one after another as the demon attempted to find his weaknesses. It offered rewards for cooperation, but Nicholas wasn’t tempted. He knew the demon could not give him Sadie. He knew what it was to have Sadie come to him with trust and desire, and no image the demon conjured could match those memories. The demon could weave fantasies of Sadie kissing him, stripping for him, touching him, but it couldn’t mimic love. It couldn’t see her the way Nicholas did.
The demon realized its ploy wasn’t working and switched tactics. The threat of punishment for resisting hit. Those were harder to ignore.
Look what will happen to her if you don’t ally with me. Working with me is your only chance to protect her.
The demon shoved an image of Sadie with a dagger in her gut at Nicholas. Then the image flickered, and instead of Sadie bleeding out, it was Abigail. Sadie. Abigail. Sadie.
Isn’t saving your lover worth the sacrifice of the other?
Whispers that weren’t words or images slithered through Nicholas, telling him he could protect Sadie by killing Abigail. He would be the hero. No one would miss Abigail, anyway. She deserved whatever happened to her.
Pushing at the demon was getting harder and harder. Then Sadie’s hands cupped his cheeks, her dark eyes wide with worry. “Let me in, Nick.”
He dropped the mental ward the demon had already bypassed without hesitation.
That was when the demon stopped trying to bargain or threaten and instead tried to seize control.
