Revealers. Part 23

I put the ball in my pocket and reach for my sword. "We're gonna need to work together!" I yell. "We need to get that thing before it can take any of us." My eyes connect with Mom's across the room. "I hope all of you moms remember how it's done!"

Mom smiles and nods, but I see tears in her eyes.

We form a circle around the portal with our mothers. Bile rises in my throat as the foul odor of brimstone turns my stomach and sears my nose. The room heats up as a large form begins to solidify in the middle of it, and I raise my sword.

Margo lets out a moan when a broad head with long, curved red horns comes into view.

My eyes nearly pop when a very large, and very naked, purple demon steps onto the meetinghouse floor-the tips of his horns skimming the ceiling. The choking, smoky odor envelops the room, and I grip my sword tighter so my shaking hands won't drop it.

"He's not wearing pants," Dani t.i.tters. "Wow!"

"Dani!" I hiss.

The demon scans the room and roars, spewing fire and smoke from his mouth.

"Go!" Margo yells, and she rushes at him swinging her ax.

I raise my sword, but before I move forward, the demon glares at Margo and she crumples to the floor, her ax turning to dust in her hands.

Margo's mother runs to her as Helena laughs. "This isn't some lesser demon roaming the earth! There is no weapon you can use!" Helena stares up into the demon's long, pointed face, her hands clutched tightly together at her chest. "Before you punish them," she says, "I need an item from that girl." She points to me and I gasp. "She has a gla.s.s ball with my powers. She stole my powers!"

The demon ignores Helena and locks his black, pupil-less eyes with mine. "Greetings, hunter!" His rumbling voice makes the windows vibrate. "We have been most pleased with your work." He looks around at all of us, and smiles, revealing row upon row of sharklike teeth.

We exchange puzzled looks, and I see Sascha lower her sword a bit.

"Unfortunately . . . ," he says.

"Here it comes," Dani whispers.

I tense myself for a fight.

"The covenant has been irrevocably broken, and we have chosen not to negotiate a new one."

"Broken?" I ask with a cracking voice.

The demon locks eyes with mine again, and I shudder. "Six seconds ago an auction for the soul of a vampire was completed, and money wired to the coven account. As stated in the covenant, all souls gathered by you are the property of the Revealer realm," the demon continues.

"As such, this blatant disregard for the covenant has terminated our agreement. All items held for us will be immediately collected."

"No!" Connor calls out. "I mean the auction finished, but," he gulps nervously, "but they didn't kill the vampire, so the soul wouldn't have gotten sent to your realm. I didn't think it would count."

The demon narrows his eyes. "The coven accepted money for a soul. It counts."

Connor looks at Dani, and I silently beg him to stop talking so she can keep her soul-even if it is trapped in a ball. "I don't even have it anymore. She's got-"

Connor's eyes drift over to mine, and I shake my head. "Please," I whisper.

He takes a deep breath and turns back to the demon. "It's just gone."

Dani places her hand protectively over her pocket and bites her lip.

The demon shakes his head. "Whether you have lost possession of the soul or not, this coven brokered a deal for it!" he roars. Connor flinches, and then the demon tips his head at the rest of us and gives another sharky smile. "Enjoy the rest of your evening."

"Wait!" Dani calls out. "Does this mean we get to keep our souls?"

The demon scoffs. Smoke drifts from his mouth and nostrils, and I hold my breath waiting for him to answer. "It appears you've already lost yours, but as for the rest of you-no."

"What if we won't give them up?" I say, hoping he's not going to strike me down.

"When you die, be it today or a hundred years from now, your souls will be sent to the Revealer realm. There is nothing you can do," he states matter-of-factly.

I take out the b.a.l.l.s containing Helena's power and the remaining poltergeist. "What if we gave you something in exchange for our souls?" I hold them up for him to see. "We have a ghost, and surely a witch's powers must be worth something."

"What? No!" Helena says. "Don't listen to-"

The demon turns on Helena, and she shrinks back as red flames shoot out of his mouth and nostrils toward her. "Silence!"

Helena falls to her knees, moaning and covering her head protectively with her arms. The smell of burnt hair mingles with the odor of brimstone.

He regards me again with his black, burning eyes. "Your souls are far more valuable than a witch's powers, and a ghost would be nothing, but-"

The ghost screams, and pushes its charred face up against the gla.s.s. The demon c.o.c.ks its head and surveys the b.a.l.l.s. He holds out a clawed hand as big as my head. "May I see them?"

Helena gasps, and looks up at me with pleading eyes. "No."

Her hair is singed on one side and a shudder racks through me as I look at her raw, burnt scalp. I take a deep breath and remind myself that the demon could turn on me any second.

"Mom," Connor whispers.

I turn to Dani and she nods encouragingly. I walk toward the demon with trembling legs, trying not to choke on the overpowering odor swirling around him. I place the b.a.l.l.s in one of his large palms, and my fingertips burn when they brush against his skin.

He holds one ball to the light and watches Helena's powers-still in the shape of a tornado-swirl around inside. Next, he takes the ghost ball in his other hand to examine. The poltergeist moans and bangs red, scarred fists on the gla.s.s, and the demon smiles.

"From time to time," he says, "we have matters on the earthly realm you could a.s.sist us with. If you would make yourselves available to us on a noncontractual basis, I will offer you the opportunity to earn back your souls. Should you agree, I would keep these," he says, rolling the b.a.l.l.s in his fingers like marbles, "as a token of good faith between our realm and the coven."

I look at the other girls.

Dani shrugs. "I'll do whatever you want, Jules."

"I don't know," Zahara says.

"Me, neither," Sascha adds.

Margo, cradled in her mother's arms on the floor, shakes her head. "We can't do it again."

"Urn," I begin nervously. "I think I can speak for all of us, and say if these matters involve collecting souls freelance, we're gonna have to pa.s.s."

The demon regards us all. "It's artifact collecting-something you've done for us in the past.

Lesser demons frequently remove items from our realm to bargain with humans and other creatures, and we like to get them back."

"We could do that," Sascha says.

"You can't be seriously considering this?" Helena says. "After all your self-righteous prattle, you'd willingly work for them?"

"To get our souls back? Yeah, we would. But we're not signing anything," I say to the demon.

"Done then!" the demon says. He tosses the b.a.l.l.s into the portal and bows his head.

"No!" Helena wails. She throws herself at his feet. "It was I who served you faithfully all these years. These girls didn't care about meeting your needs. It was all me! You must restore my power!"

He sighs and I can't take my eyes off the trails of smoke coming out each nostril. "I would have dealt with you in a more private setting. But as you insist on hounding me with the persistence of a nattering insect, I will reveal your punishment now." He looks at Helena and she doubles over, screaming.

"Jules, someone-help her!" Connor pleads.

Part of me wants to do something, but the fear of directing the demon's wrath at me keeps me frozen in place.

Helena looks up at the demon. "I've served you better than all of them," she sobs. "I don't deserve this."

"As coven leader, it was your responsibility to ensure the delivery of all souls to our realm." He holds his hand in the air, and a piece of parchment paper appears. He points to a sentence toward the bottom of the page with a long, pointed claw. "The forfeit of the covenant requires payment." He looks Helena in the eye, and two small flames flare out of his nose. "You."

"But it was Connor's idea!" she shrieks.

I jerk my head toward Connor, and see his mouth drop open.

"Mom! What are you doing?" he cries. He looks up at the demon with wide horrified eyes.

"I didn't realize this would happen," he says quietly.

I point to the bindings on his legs. "Release!" The bindings fall, and I stand in front of him with my sword raised, shielding him from the demon. "He's not like her. Deep down, I know he isn't. Please, we'll work extra jobs for you, just don't take him!"

"If she says the boy was responsible, he must pay as well," the demon states. "And if you refuse to move I will simply go through you to get him."

"Jules, I really did love you," Connor whispers and kisses my cheek. "I wish we could do it all over again."

He steps out from behind me and approaches the demon.

"Stop!" I cry, but in a flash of purple and smoke, the demon, Helena, and Connor are gone.

Helena's scream echoes in the room as we stand there- mothers and daughters-a mix of shock and horror on our faces. I remember what Sascha said about her vision, and feel the deep sense of loss she described.

"Well, I'd say that nixes any chance of a reconciliation, but that would probably be inappropriate," Dani says.

Sascha jabs her with an elbow. "Shut up!"

I hang my head, and Mom takes me in my arms. I lean into her, smell her perfume, and sob as another feeling courses through me: regret. Because I can't help but wonder if Connor would still be here I hadn't tried to bargain for my soul.

EPILOGUE.

I run my fingers along the newly hung graduation ta.s.sels swinging from the rearview mirror. "How many hours do you think it'll take?" I ask Michael.

"Factoring in all of the bathroom breaks we had to take when we tracked down that stuff for the demons over spring break"-he tilts his head slightly behind him toward Sascha- "I'm thinking ten hours to get to Bar Harbor."

Sascha leans forward right next to his ear, and takes a long drink off her water bottle. She swishes it around noisily in her mouth, and Michael swats a hand in her direction.

"Hey! I'm trying to drive," he says.

Sascha laughs as she settles back into her seat.

Michael reaches out and holds my hand. His touch sends shivers up my spine. I smile, thinking we'll celebrate our one-month anniversary during this trip. I wish Margo and Z had come, but I'm glad they're excited about starting college early.

"Look at the moon," I say as we round a corner. "Did you know it's almost full?" I call back to Finn jokingly.

"All werewolves keep track of the moon's cycle so they won't be taken by surprise," Dani says.

" We know!" Michael, Sascha, and I echo one another.

"Hey, stop picking on my girl, she can't help it if she's master of the obvious," Finn says.

"Hey!" Dani says.

"Ow!" Finn yells.

I look in the rearview mirror and think how surreal it is to only see Finn in the third-row seats even though Dani's there, too. Of course she's not used to not having a reflection yet, either, as she's always asking us if her hair looks OK. Michael takes a swig of his coffee and I think we have to do something to the van so the sun can't reach the back and we can start traveling during the day.

"How about we just stop worrying about the full moon," Dani says. "I told you there's a safe room at his grandmother's beach house, but it stinks I won't get to see my snuggims for one night of vacation."

"It's only one night," I say.

"Well, seeing as I can only see him at night, it stinks!"

I'm thinking a one-night reprieve from their constant PDA will be nice. Loud, wet kissing sounds come from the backseat, and I cringe. Id noticed a fairly fresh wound on Finn's neck before we left.

"Please tell me you're not snacking in the car, Dani?" I ask.

"No, I'm not!" she says.

"No sucking face in the car, either!"

"Yeah, get a room!" Sascha yells.

"You're just jealous," Dani says.