Chapter Eighteen

The moment Blake awoke, he knew Melodie had gone. The power of the Cabochon still teased his sixth sense but much fainter now, obviously farther away.

He bounded up the basement stairs and found Calypso in the kitchen. She stabbed one ebony-tipped finger in the air to silence his question and continued yelling into her cell phone. “I know it was you, you weasel. You’re not doing Melodie a favor by letting her free, and I promise you, Van Houten, if anything happens to her, you won’t be hunting demons anymore. You’ll be hunting for what’s left of your head.”

She growled, much like Melodie had the other night, and snapped the phone shut. “Van Houten took Melodie.”

Blake wanted to growl as well. Stupid demon hunter.

“Don’t look so surprised. I told you we shouldn’t let him have a demon-sitting shift.” Calypso tossed the phone into her purse. “I’ve already been to his apartment and to the library. Where else do demon hunters hang out?”

Blake shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I can find Melodie, if she still has the Cabochon.”

The witch’s deep blue eyes widened, and she bit her lower lip. “You don’t think he’s dumb enough to try to remove the Cabochon from her by himself, do you?”

“He’s no witch, but from what I understand about the old magick, he doesn’t have to be.”

Calypso slung her purse over her shoulder. “Let’s go find them. I’m going to show Palmer some old magick he’ll never forget.”

Blake grabbed his jacket and two helmets and followed Calypso out of the front door. Something dark and dirty scuttled in the bushes beside the house as they passed.

“Fremling,” Calypso whispered. “A spy?”

Blake eyed the bushes. He imagined a pair of black, soulless eyes staring back. “More like a straggler. They’re not the smartest of the breeds. Ignore it. I have a feeling we don’t have much time.”

“How long is this going to take?” Mel paced impatiently in the rectangular swatch of warehouse Palmer had cleared for the spell.

“I’m almost done,” he replied. On the freshly swept concrete floor, he’d drawn a circle of sea salt. The rough crystals glittered in the beam of a two-hundred-watt work lamp he’d attached to a nearby shelf.

At five points on the circle, he’d placed quartz crystals and doused them with a mixture of vinegar and seven herbs and spices. On top of the familiar warehouse aromas, the place now smelled like a Greek deli.

“When do we bring in the Fremling?” Though she tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, Mel had no doubt her tiny minions had rallied behind the warehouse. The chain-link fence would keep them confined to the walnut grove, but she and Palmer would have to open the gate and find a way to coax just one of the creatures inside to complete the magick.

Palmer looked up from his spell work. “Soon. Once we get it into the circle, the stones will activate and keep it there, like a ward spell, only reversed, to draw something in rather than repel. Then we do your end of the spell, and the Cabochon should transfer to the Fremling.”

A small pot boiled low on a hot plate Palmer had pilfered from the hardware store’s break room. The brew smelled a little like stew and probably would have been edible except for the pinch of dirt he’d thrown in and the fact that he was stirring it with a gnarled oak twig.

Mel paced around the circle once. Her hands felt clammy, and she rubbed them on her jeans to dry them. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Palmer glanced at her, the oak twig poised above the pot. “Last chance to back out.”

“Don’t give me options. I don’t want options. I want to believe this is the only choice I have so I know I’m doing the right thing.”

“You can save yourself and Blake once the Fremling absorbs the Cabochon…they’re easy to kill.”

Guilt roiled in Mel’s stomach. They were talking about capturing a living creature—a vile, disgusting, creepy thing borne of evil but alive nevertheless—and killing it. The plan left a sour taste in her mouth. She tried to picture Blake as she’d seen him the other morning, imprisoned in a body of stone, frozen in time, shut off from all the things that made living in this world bearable. The life of one small demon was a cheap price to pay to give him back the sunlight.

She gave Palmer a determined nod and spun away from the circle. He followed her to the door of the warehouse and out into the cool autumn air.

The evening was utterly silent at first. No crickets chirped. No night birds twittered in the walnut grove. Mel listened for the Fremlings, and her senses tuned with little effort. The demon in her stirred, and the dark creatures gathered in the shadows of the old trees began to swarm.

First they crept on hands and knees, like ragged children, their mop-like hair swinging and obscuring their small, pinched faces. Clawed fingers, thin like dry twigs, hooked around the mesh of the fence, and in unison, a dozen of them began to rattle the chain links.

Mel shivered, and behind her Palmer tensed. The sour scent of fear surrounded them, and in the amber glow of the security lights, a short blade flashed. “You’re armed?” she whispered.

“Hell, yes. Do you think you can get just one of them to come through the gate?”

Confidence flooded her like a hot wave, and she grinned. “Hell, yes.”

She sauntered across the macadam, secure in her own safety and aware, even though she didn’t turn to look, that Palmer hung back near the corrugated wall of the warehouse, gaping at her boldness.

Mel approached the fence and singled out one of the creatures hanging near the still-closed gate. She crooked a finger at it. Its head lifted, and two beady, black eyes followed where she pointed. “You will come with me. Everyone else will stay here.”

The authority with which she gave the command would have stunned her under other circumstances, but something powerful had taken over her psyche. The Cabochon ruled her now, and she liked it.

The Fremling obeyed her without comment. Could it even speak? They seemed to communicate on a level just below telepathy. Their actions spoke to her, and she understood.

The others gathered but wisely remained outside the fence when Palmer opened the gate using the controls by the warehouse door. Just the one demon slipped inside and marched past its mistress. Mel caught a glimpse of cloven feet clacking on the hard ground, and the small shard of her human consciousness that remained gave an involuntary shudder.

Odd that this devilish thing should obey her unconditionally. The others held back, anxious for her to command them as well. They eyed Palmer, who gave the passing Fremling a wide berth, then followed it into the warehouse.

Satisfied with herself, Mel waited for the clink of metal on metal as the gate rolled shut and locked. The Fremlings left outside expressed their disappointment with a collective susurration—the equivalent of a petulant sigh.

“Be patient. Your time will come,” she said before hurrying back inside. Their time for what? The words certainly hadn’t been her own.

The chosen Fremling waited inside for her, with Palmer hovering nearby. Clenched around the handle of his small knife, his knuckles were bone white. “I’ve never seen one of these things up close before.”

Mel ignored him. She glanced at the circle. Would the little demon huddling in the shadow beneath an oversized gas grill continue to obey her even if she ordered it to its death? She stifled the thought and gave rein to her own demon side. “Go there.” She pointed to the circle. “Stand there and wait for me.”

Black eyes appraised her, and despite its obvious lack of a soul, mistrust colored the expression on its wrinkled, rotten-grapefruit face. Thick ropes of its matted hair dangled when it shook its misshapen head.

“You’re defying me?” Rage bubbled in Mel like she’d never felt before. How dare this impudent little monster disobey her? Shaking off her pique, she held out her hand like a mother to a stubborn toddler. “Come on. It’s okay. I’ll walk you there.”

“Melodie…” Palmer’s voice held a warning, which she dismissed with a flick of her wrist. The Fremling balked.

Damn. It had read her thoughts. It knew the fate they intended for it.

“This might be a little harder than we thought.” She moved one step closer to her minion, and the creature backed deeper into the shadows. It hugged the fat, white propane tank secured beneath the grill and shook its head until the matted hair obscured its eyes.

Irritated by this childish behavior, Mel cursed it.

Palmer muttered something that sounded like “Uh-oh”, and she cursed him too, then flung herself at the Fremling. “Come here, you little brat!”

Swift but clumsy, the Fremling darted away from the grill and scuttled deeper into the warehouse. Mel lunged after it, hoping to drive it toward the circle.

“This is a problem,” Palmer said. He took off in the opposite direction. “We’ll never find him in here in the dark.”

“I’ll find it.” Mel hurried after the demon, tracking it by its jerky movements and her own growing demonic instincts. She felt cat-like, sleek, a formidable hunter. She’d catch this little rodent and play with it until exhaustion killed it. A cold laugh replaced her rage. It might even be fun.

The Fremling ran from shadow to shadow, nook to cranny, ducking behind sacks of fertilizer and cement. It wove between stacks of paint cans and slithered among pallets of lumber. Like a monkey, it swung from the metal shelving and clattered through a storage box of garden tools. All the while, Melodie stalked its movements, loving the chase, feeling invincible.

“We got him!” Palmer yelled when they finally converged on the creature who had ducked into a display-model toilet. The lid of the commode crashed down, trapping the beastly little thing in a porcelain prison.

“Sit! Sit!” Palmer gestured at the toilet, and without thinking, Mel obeyed.

She perched on the closed lid, and beneath her the Fremling beat ineffectively on the underside of the seat. “Now what? We can’t carry this over to the circle.”

The Fremling squealed, and Mel sensed the others mobilizing outside, galvanized by the sudden distress of their comrade.

“I’ll be right back.” Palmer disappeared, leaving Mel clutching the toilet seat while the demon inside the bowl battered itself against the porcelain walls.

“You’d better hurry!”

An eon passed before Palmer reappeared holding a burlap sack. “Get up slowly. When he jumps out, I’ll catch him in this.”

“Are you serious?”

“Got a better idea?”

Mel huffed. “No.”

“On three. Ready? One…two…”

“Slow down.” She put her feet on the floor and released her death grip on the seat. The Fremling had gone quiet beneath her. Either it was biding its time, or it had knocked itself unconscious. She prayed for the latter.

Palmer loomed with the burlap, ready to pounce.

Mel held up her hand. “I’ll count. On three. One…two…three!” She flew off the toilet, and just as she suspected, the surprisingly clever Fremling popped out of the commode like a nightmarish jack-in-the-box.

Palmer dove and snatched the demon up into the sack. It hissed and struggled, but the strong fabric confined it. Palmer gave the neck of the bag a vicious twist and slung it over his shoulder. “I still got it,” he said with a satisfied smirk.

Mel had no comment. Silent and sullen now that the game was over, she followed him back to the circle of salt. “Are you sure this will hold it?”

The demon hunter responded with a dark look. “Trust me.” Careful not to break the circle, he placed the sack inside it. As though dropping a poisonous snake, he released the bag and jumped to safety beyond the magical barrier.

For a moment, nothing happened; then the Fremling began to stir. It seemed to roll over, testing the confines of its new prison. Then, tentatively, a clawed hand emerged from the sack. Mel stared, and Palmer retrieved his discarded knife from the floor.

Little by little, the Fremling appeared. It looked around, setting its suspicious gaze first on Palmer, then on Mel. As if eager for guidance, it moved toward her in a drunken shuffle that took it toward the edge of the circle. From there, it lunged at her, claws outstretched, jagged yellow teeth bared.

Mel stumbled back, and Palmer rushed forward to protect her from the attack. A blue flash lit the warehouse, and sparks danced in broken arcs up from the salt circle. The familiar odor of ozone and singed flesh made Mel cringe. The spot on her arm where Calypso’s ward spell had burned her began to ache.

With a pitiable cry, the Fremling plopped to the cement floor and lay in a smoking heap, panting, effectively corralled by Palmer’s spell.

“Damn, it works.”

Mel shot him a startled look. “You had doubts?”

“What? No. I knew it would work. I just wasn’t sure it would…work.”

Mel stifled a complaint. Now that they had a demon where they wanted it, the next step was freeing her from the Cabochon. No time to waste.

Before she could form a question, though, the warehouse door swung open on its creaking hinges, and two figures burst inside. Calypso marched up to the circle, her eyes blazing, and gave Palmer a look that by rights should have stripped the flesh from his bones.

“Are you completely out of your mind, Van Houten?”

Behind Cal, Blake DeWitt stood tall and feral, dressed entirely in black. When he turned a similar gaze on Melodie, her heart stuttered. His words, like Cal’s, were anything but endearing, though.

“You’re lucky we found you before the two of you got yourselves killed.”