New World Order (War of the Fae: Book 4) (30 page)

I stepped towards him to separate myself from the others and then threw up a green bubble of protection around them.
  
I even wrapped it around Finn and Tony who were still off to the side.
  
The only one I hadn’t managed to contain was Tim, of course.
 
The little pest was still flying around somewhere.
 
I hadn’t seen him in a while, but he was here, no doubt about it.

“No more arrows, Finn.
 
They’ll just bounce off.”

The two girls put their hands up to touch the shield, realizing for the first time they were trapped inside.

“Hey!
 
What gives?!” yelled Theresa.
 
“Let us out of here!
 
We can’t help you if we’re inside!”

I looked over my shoulder.
 
“Yeah, that’s the point.
 
No one else is going to die here today.”
 
I mouthed the rest of the words to them silently so he wouldn’t hear.
 
“Except the demon.”

Felicia looked at me, pleading, “Please, Jayne, don’t!
 
You can’t go against him alone.
 
You need us!”

I turned back to the demon but yelled so she’d hear me.
 
“Sorry.
 
He’s got no soul or spirit for you to suck out and I’m pretty sure his energy is poison anyway.
 
I don’t want you to get hurt for me.
 
My mom already paid ... the ultimate price.”
 
I was choking up again, but I continued, “No one else is going to do that.
 
Not today.”
 
Except me, maybe.

I took one more step towards the demon, carefully and casually putting Blackie back in its sheath, hoping he would disregard my weapon like he did the others.
 
I still had hope it might save the day.
 

Now the demon and I were only about a foot apart.
 
“Come on, you ugly ass demon.
 
Take me to bed or lose me forever.”
 
The thought of a demon wiener getting anywhere near my hoo-hah was absolutely gag-worthy, but I had to try to be convincing.
 
I swallowed the bile that came up into my throat and willed myself not to gag on it.
 
It burned my mouth and esophagus, reminding me how much I hated even just a little bit of pain.
 
I knew the chances of me getting out of this without suffering any more of it were slim to none, but I was okay with that so long as I lived – or at least banished him forever.
 
If I had to die too, well, that would suck the big honkiss, but at least I knew Tony could come and guide me to the right place and that my mom would be waiting for me.
 
That made me feel a little better.
 
She was kind of a crappy mom on Earth, but I was willing to bet she was awesome in the Overworld.
 
Then there was also the fact that Chase would eventually be there.
 
Maybe sooner rather than later.
 

The demon held out its disgusting hand, covered in blood from the neck and chest wounds that had bled down and saturated everything below.
 

I reached up to take it while my friends behind me sent up a chorus of angry warnings and fearful pleas.
 
I ignored them and walked out of the room, being led by the monster who wanted to be my demon lover.

The thought of doing the nasty with
Mister
Nasty himself was giving me the heebie jeebies, but I played the part of the resigned mistress as we walked through the dining room and headed to the family room.
 
His hand held mine, and its rough, leather-like texture made me feel like I was walking with a giant, cold-blooded lizard.
 
When we got to the narrow dining room doorway near the stairs, he dropped my hand and kept me in front of him, occasionally pushing me or jabbing me with a claw to steer me in the direction he wanted.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To the special place I have prepared for the ceremony.”
 
He led me to the bottom of the stairs, and something told me this special place was going to be in my bedroom.
 
The idea of being bedded by a demon while surrounded by my high school memorabilia was funny to me for some reason, so I giggled.
 
My mind was probably detaching from reality to help me stay sane.
 
I forced it to come back, so I could be fully, mentally there and have the energy I needed to kill him off.
 
I quickly went from giggling to gagging, nearly barfing.

“If you had cooperated before, your mother would still be alive,” he said in a menacing tone, pushing me up the stairs in front of him.
 

I ignored the painful words he was trying to hurt me with and said, “I guess it would be too much for me to ask you to be gentle, then?
 
I’m still a virgin, you know.”

He pushed me so hard, I fell painfully to my knees on the stairs.

“Of course I know that.
 
This would be a useless exercise if you weren’t.”

“Why?” I gasped, trying to push past the sharp throbbing in my knees and the near-breathlessness of my fear.

“Because the first time will bring the firstborn.
 
It has been foretold.”

Great
.
 
Not only was I going to be one of those ultra-fertile types I’d read about in health class but some soothsayer had also apparently been talking about my virginity.
 
How rude.
 
How embarrassing.
 

We were three quarters of the way up the stairs now, and I hesitated a couple seconds there, searching my brain for a plan and my heart for more courage.
 
I berated myself for not going all the way with Steve Polson, the guy who had taken me to the junior prom and thought he was going to get a reward in the backseat of his car after buying me dinner and dancing for an hour.
 
To think that prom sex could have saved me from a demon rape was too ironic and awful to fully appreciate right now; but if I survived this horror story, I was definitely going to be analyzing the shit out of it with Tony later.

The adrenaline was pumping through my veins at maximum levels, making my thinking go haywire.
 
Anyone who says situations like these sharpen the mind is a lying asshole.
 
I felt like I was going to have a heart attack any minute, it was beating so fast.
 
Sweat was coming out of my every pore.
 
I could hear the blood rushing around in my ears.
 
My brain felt like it was bulging out of my skull.
 
Things were coming to a head and I still didn’t know how I was going to pull this demon killing off.
 
My brain was like a plate of scrambled eggs.
 
I had to keep the shield up around my friends, so I didn’t know if I could take care of them and this demon at the same time – one force of power to protect, one to kill.
 
It was too much of a conflict in my mind and I couldn’t sort it out.

Just then I heard the buzzing of wings.
 
It struck terror in my heart.
 
Funny to think it was a pixie doing that and not a demon, but I was afraid for Tim’s little life.
 
That stupid pixie was fearless – and unfortunately, he was also super easy for a demon to kill or maim.

I had no time to intervene.
 
One minute I’m hearing the buzzing, the next I’m watching Tim zoom directly over my head, straight towards the demon.
 
I twisted around to follow his flight path and realized what his plan was a split second before he executed it.
 
His knife was out in front of him and he was flying Superman-style again.
 

“Hee-yah!
 
Take
that
demon monster!” he yelled, flying straight for the creature’s one good eye.

Before the demon had time to react, he had a pixie knife sunk up to its hilt in his eyeball.
 
He roared in anger, and possibly pain, reaching up to remove the offending object.
 
He was effectively blinded now, and because the knife was so tiny it was impossible for his clawed fingers to grab.
 
He was scratching his own eyeball out trying to get to it.
 
Nothing could have been more gruesome to watch, except possibly the sex the monster wanted to have with me.

Tim zoomed up the ceiling screaming, “Jayne!
 
Push!”

I saw my opportunity and took it.
 
From my twisted position on the stairs, I put both hands on the demon’s chest and pushed as hard as I could.

It was like watching him go down in slow motion.
 
He tilted backwards and started pinwheeling his arms to regain his balance.
 

He was virtually blind and couldn’t see me, so I risked it, turning fully around to get better footing, and kicked him hard with the bottom of my foot to shove him backwards.
 
It tipped the balance in favor of gravity – specifically the gravity that was at the bottom of the stairs.
 

His roar of displeasure, at the realization that he was going down and unable to see where he was going, rang out and bounced off the walls around us.
 
I covered my ears to try and block it out.
 
It was as if his screams were drawing pure evil up from the Underworld and bringing it right into the house – some sort of demon power thing.

He toppled through the air and landed with a big boom at the bottom of the stairs.
 
I ran down after him to the last few steps and stopped.
 
I had to do something fast before he gained his footing.
 
I was pretty sure that our deal where I’d have sex with him in exchange for my friends’ safety was null and void now.
 
As my lawyer dad would say, I had breached a contract with the devil.
 

Without thinking about the consequences and with little finesse, I pulled up as much of The Green as I could.
 
I moved it to the palms of my hands and collected it there, forming it into round balls of energy that I intended to launch at him.
 
I could feel the energy burning through my eyes.
 
I tried to leave them out of the equation, but they didn’t seem to want to obey.

The demon was halfway up on his feet again when suddenly the front door burst open.
 

I was never so happy to see one face, and as mad to see another, as I was in that moment.

“Chase!
 
What are you doing here?!”
 
I honestly thought he had blown me off.
 
I was so thrilled that I didn’t have to question his dedication any more, seeing him standing there in my mom’s front hall.
 
Then I turned to look at the other fae standing with him, getting instantly cranky.
 
“Why did you bring
him?”
 
Ben.
 
Like I wanted to deal with his stupid ass right now.
 
Like I wasn’t having a bad enough day as it was.

“You need him, Jayne.”

“Fuck that!
 
I need him like I need another hole in the head.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Listen, I’d love to debate this with you, but not right now.
 
I have a demon to kill.”
 
I turned my attention back to the black monster that had now gotten to its feet.

“Elementaaaal,” it growled, turning its bloody head towards the spot where Ben was standing.
 
“Stay back or I will kill her.”

Ben ignored him.
 
“Jayne, I can help you.”

“Just get the hell out of my house.
 
It’s probably
you
who sent this asshole after me in the first place!”
 
I took two steps back up the stairs, trying to put some distance between the demon and me.

“That’s not true and you know it!
 
I’ve been watching over you for a year.
 
I’m sorry this demon got through.
 
I failed you.
 
Let me help you send him back.”

“What?
 
What are you saying?”
 
I was so confused.
 
The demon took a step up towards me, feeling his way using the bannister.
 
I took another step up too, praying I wouldn’t trip while I was holding these green bombs in my hands.

“A demon can only be sent back through the elements.
 
We must combine our forces together to send him to the Underworld.”

I shook my head from side to side, part of me wanting to deny what he was saying.
 
But my logical mind took over, reminding me that every weapon we’d used against the demon so far hadn’t done a damn thing, other than blind him and make him bleed, which didn’t mean much since he was now another step closer to me than he had been two seconds ago and he’d bled enough that he should have been dead by now.