Strega (Strega Series) (29 page)

Ruth and I ran down the forest path, desperate to reach shelter. It would have taken minutes by car but took an eternity on foot.

"We're close," Ruth finally whispered. Aided only by the weak beam of Ruth's keychain flashlight, I searched for any sign of shelter. As far as my eyes could see, there were only trees and shadows. I focused harder, sure I'd find the edge of a tall, fortified structure amidst an abundance of growth that concealed it. But just then, the bright orange flames of a blazing fire illuminated the forest. Ruth stopped abruptly and pulled me off the path. Shaun was following us.

We were invisible to him, but he could still sense us. Ruth knew we were vulnerable. The dried rue that she'd used earlier only worked temporarily. It first allowed us to hide from Shaun and his underlings, and then to escape to the woods. But with time and distance, it had worn off.

"I have no more dried rue," Ruth panicked as she searched her bag. Much of its contents had dumped out in the car when we hit the tree. "And I already used my most powerful potion on him. We have no way to get him off our trail now, and we cannot get to where we're going until we do."

Shaun staggered toward us. He appeared intoxicated and shouted violently as he searched for us. The potion Ruth used on him moments earlier was a combination of the most toxic hallucinogenic herbs, including henbane. The same herb Gram planned to use the day she died. In great concentration, henbane would have caused major cerebral trauma and death to most other demons, Ruth later explained. But not to Shaun. He was very much alive, angry, and more determined than ever to find us. Each time he yelled my name, I shuddered.

Ruth rifled through her bag, searching for some concoction in her homemade arsenal that would serve as an offensive measure, but she had nothing left that would be effective on him. We were too deep into the forest to run back, and we couldn't outwit him forever. She was desperate, out of ideas, when suddenly the sound of crackling brush made us stop in our tracks.

At first, we feared Shaun's demonic allies had come to join him. But then a light, one that had become familiar and reassuring, flashed through the dark forest and set it ablaze again. Before Shaun could brace himself, a fiery blue bolt struck him and sent his body into an unyielding tree.

Vince emerged. Shaun launched himself from the ground with inhuman strength and retaliated. He swung his beastly claws at Vince again, and their fight resumed right in our path. Barred from passage, we were forced to watch them tear each other apart again. We found cover behind a tall oak, shielding ourselves from the gigantic tree limbs and mounds of earth flying through the air as they fought. Vince was weak, his injuries were severe and he was covered in blood. He was at a disadvantage against Shaun, who had been healed. But Vince was determined. He hurled another fiery bolt at Shaun so powerful that it sent him deep into the woods. Shaun landed out of sight, and Vince suddenly turned to us and spoke.

"Go quickly! Get her to safety now!" he shouted to Ruth. We both stared at him in disbelief. He could see us. Somehow he was immune to Ruth's power and saw right through it. Without blinking, Ruth grabbed my hand and heeded his demand.

As we ran, Ruth's eyes were fixed on something. When her pace finally slowed, we stopped at a strange tree. Among the rest, it was quite unique. It towered over us, as did all the others. But at its enormously wide base, it split distinctly into three limbs, each as thick as any other tree the forest. I watched her intently, knowing she'd stopped for a reason. She let go of my hand and plucked a small, thin branch of greens from a solitary bush beside the tree. I watched vigilantly for Shaun.

"A sprig of rue," she whispered. She clenched her own cimaruta tightly and then released it, and dangled her fingers loosely above the sprig. Several drops of blood trickled down onto the small green leaves. A moment later, the strange tree beside us began to shimmer with the most enchanting golden light. Whispers, eerie but gentle, encircled us. Then a wall of light appeared, spinning like a whirlpool before us. Fascinated and terrified, I grabbed onto Ruth.

"Go!" Ruth shouted, pushing me through it before I could resist. As I fell through, I felt a great magnetic pull draw me to the other side. There, the forest around me appeared unchanged. Through the whirling light, I saw Ruth. She was helping Vince to his feet. Hovering on the edge of consciousness, he staggered alongside Ruth until they reached the wall of light. She pushed him through, and as soon as he was on the other side with me, he collapsed to the ground unconscious.

"Oh, Jay, you're okay!" Celia cried as she pulled me close.

As soon as Ruth had crossed over, she shouted Celia's name. And before I could blink, she was there with Luci.

"Who is this?" Luci asked with concern. Her eyes were fixed on Vince.

"We have to treat his wounds," Ruth said urgently as she took position at his head. She slipped her hands under his arms. Luci reluctantly grabbed his feet, still waiting for an answer. Celia wrapped her arm around Vince's torso and grabbed my hand, and suddenly we were moving through the brush with unnatural speed. Everything we passed was a blur. And in an instant, we arrived at a clearing where two large tents were set up beside a blazing fire.

"Three levels of the hierarchy were exposed," Ruth said to Celia and Luci as they laid Vince down on a folding bed in one of the tents. Luci gathered supplies to clean his wounds. "Many underlings answer to one powerful demon among them. Jay's boyfriend—"

"Ex-boyfriend," I clarified in disgust as I fell beside Vince and gently wiped the blood from his face.

"And he's doing the bidding of a powerful fiend I've never seen the likes of before," Ruth continued. "She possesses powers I've never witnessed. We need to check the book."

"I know who she is," I began to explain. "She's the one
—"

"Is he a demon?" Luci interrupted as she continued to stare at Vince. Ruth looked at him as if she wondered herself.

"No!" I exclaimed as I leaned in and hovered over Vince protectively. There was still so much I didn't know about Vince. Still so many things I didn't understand. My past with him. His incredible powers. Ruth was afraid of what she didn't know. Vince was immune to her power. But he was not a demon. This I knew for certain. I could never love a demon the way I loved Vince.

Luci ground several ingredients together with a mortar and pestle and applied the paste to each lesion.

"Jay, you are safe now," Ruth said, seeing my distress. She put her forehead to mine and held my face in her hands. "They cannot get to you here."

We were still in the forest, but I knew something was different. The strange wall of whirling light somehow separated us from the danger that had threatened us just moments before.

"Where is 'here'?" I asked timidly.

Ruth sat me down on a folding bed.

"When we passed through that light, we crossed a threshold," she said carefully. "A portal to a different plane of existence. One that coexists within our own. The astral plane."

I rubbed my eyes as she went on.

"It occupies the same physical space as our own plane, the earthly plane. But we're protected here. We can see those on the earthly plane, but those on the earthly plane cannot see us. If our enemies come upon our camp, they'll see nothing but trees and brush in an empty clearing. We are safe here. Protected. By the
Grigori
."

"The Grigori?" I asked, not sure if my mind could absorb another drop.

"Guardians of the portals that exist between realms. Strega have an ages-old bond with the Grigori. A deep trust cultivated over centuries by countless generations of our kind. With a drop of our blood, we reveal ourselves to them as true Strega, keepers of the Old Ways. Seeing that our purpose is true, they grant us passage to other realms. We seek passage to the astral plane for many purposes, the most important of which is protection.

"We are strongest in the forest. The realm of the goddess Diana, our mother. That is why we access this plane from here."

The forest held great power in this life as much as it did in my past. As I stood among the trees, I knew that my power was already advancing. I'd spent all summer with Shaun, and I never knew his secrets. But that night, when he stood before me in the forest, I'd seen every horrifying one.

Ruth reached under the rickety bed and pulled out a book that looked just like Mom's.

"We need to learn all we can about Shaun and his demon underlings, figure out what their weaknesses are, how to better defend ourselves against them," she said as she flipped through the pages. "Then we can worry about their puppet-master."

Before I could speak, she pointed to the open page.

"Here they are." The word
CYNAN
was written in thick black ink at the top of the page.

Celia and Luci moved in closer and leaned in over the book.

"They are
therianthropes
, this much I can tell you," she said to them.

"Therianthropes?" I asked.

"Shapeshifters," Ruth said matter-of-factly. "Demons that have the ability to alter their physical appearance, shapeshift, between human and animal form, as you saw."

In my mind, I saw again their beautifully human faces morph into bloodthirsty beasts. As Ruth read the text on the page aloud, I stared at the image of their two faces. One beautiful. The other hideous.

Possesses unwavering strength and fierceness. Serves only the highest-ranking demons. Elusive, inconspicuous, stealthy. Not born of the fires of the underworld, but of the earth, in seductive human form. In true demonic form, the Cynan appears as a fearsome beast, black as night, invisible in the shadows but for its fiery eyes. But its human fa
çade allows the Cynan to integrate into society undetected. Its ability to love and seduce its victims makes the Cynan among the most dangerous demons, for its overwhelming compulsion to consume life inevitably prevails. Many levels of power exist within the Cynan ranks, and some are feared to be immune to Strega power.

"Their power is alarming," Ruth confirmed, recalling Shaun's mild reaction to the lethal henbane for Celia and Luci. "Worse than the Cerberus."

"Cerberus? That's what killed my mom and dad," I asserted with disgust. Ruth nodded in confirmation.

"First Cerberus, and now Cynan?" Luci asked rhetorically. "And for so many years? Demons do not hunt Strega this way."

"Shaun is a powerful Cynan," Ruth continued. "One that has made his way up the ranks. He answers directly to the one who sent him."

"What do you know of her? What power does she possess?" Luci asked as Ruth flipped through the pages again. I opened my mouth to speak, but Ruth quickly responded.

"She is a shapeshifter too, but not a therianthrope. Her demonic form is not that of an animal but of something much more insidious. A skeletal being, corpse-like and drained of life. She appeared in a whirl of black smoke at first. Then materialized into her demonic form, and finally into human form. A woman. She possessed the power of fire," Ruth said.

"An upper-level demonic power," Celia added grimly.

"Her name is Invidia," I finally declared before anyone else could speak over me.

Ruth, Celia, and Luci all stopped and stared at me in stunned silence.

"How do you know this?" Ruth asked as she flipped through the pages of the book, determinedly searching for this unfamiliar name. Before I could answer, Celia gasped. Luci's face was drained of color. Ruth clutched her arm and leaned in.

"Luci, what do you know?"

Luci gestured in horror at the book.

"Just find her."

Ruth rifled through the pages with increasing determination, and she and Celia began to panic.

"Why are we not familiar with this demon?" Celia asked in frustration, knowing by the look on Luci's face that they should be. Ruth shook her head in disbelief as she searched. Finally she let out a sigh and flattened the pages beneath her hand.

The image on the page was grim. A woman, thin and decrepit, stood at the threshold of an unsightly hovel. She was dark and sallow, as if death had already taken her but she was holding onto one last breath. Cloaked in black, tattered and torn, she leaned on a cane. Coiled around her arm was a snake with venomous fangs. She stood in the lifeless space that was completely void of light and warmth, just like her. Darkness surrounded her, and she herself was darkness.

Ruth and I looked at each other curiously. The image on the page was not nearly as stark and deathlike as the real thing. And nowhere on the page was her deviously beautiful fa
çade depicted. Ruth read the text on the page aloud.

Demon of envy. Associated with the evil eye. Her jealous indignation is ignited by the virtues of others. Her self-devouring bitterness drains her of life. She has the ability to cast blackness into the hearts of her victims, driving them to self-destruction and madness. Her dark powers can be averted with the following spells and protection rituals.