Chapter 79: Demetrius Strong
This was not happening. Was not. I did not just lose my ex-boyfriend to the very creature my family hunted in a place I wasn't supposed to be on threat of violent and probably amphibious punishment by my mother.
Oh. My. Swearword.
I couldn't think or breathe or move. I stood there on the path in the dark, my focus so shot my limited night vision magic was gone, my shields a puddled mess dissipating at my feet. Everything wavered and wobbled around me and my chest rose and fell faster and faster as I gulped air into me, my lungs squeezing together like a steel band tightened around them, squeezing my life away.
My demon howled and I jerked out of my hysteria. I gulped a giant gasp of air and bent over in half, keeping my head down so I wouldn't pass out from my anxiety-fueled hyperventilation. I had to get it together. Had to. There was no one else to save him but me.
I turned and ran back toward the car, reaching out for my mother and found nothing. No one. They were all shielding as much as I had been. I was exposed and alone and had no one to turn to.
Stop it, I thought. Syd, stop! The truck was just up ahead. I could see the glint of moonlight on the chrome. My desperate mind reached out one last time.
And found Quaid.
He grasped onto me and held me tight, my demon reaching for him as much as I did. I stopped on the path just outside the clearing, sobbing in relief as he wrapped his mind around me and held me close.
What happened. Not a question. He wanted me to focus.
I shot him the images, still panting and hugging myself.
I'm on my way. He was gone. I wanted him back so badly I whimpered.
But I wasn't alone. My demon was with me. She purred in my mind, finally there for me like I was never there for her.
Together then, I thought. And ran into the clearing for the truck and where Brad threw his keys.
Someone was in my way. I shrieked at the top of my lungs and slammed up my shields, power pulsing in my hands, ready to attack. But it wasn't the creature or my mother.
It was Demitrius Strong.
"Hello, Syd," he said. "We need to talk."
He obviously had no idea what I just went through.
"I can't right now," I dodged to go around him, but he wasn't alone. A tall man stood behind him. And another behind him. And more on the other side, both men and women. They all looked stern and determined and were dressed in long white robes.
What the...? I glanced back at Demitrius. He wore one, too.
I was surrounded.
"I don't have time for this." I considered using my magic on them, but we had rules about that kind of thing. Still, they were in my way and giving me the serious creeps and I had to find Brad.
"I'm very disappointed," Demitrius said in his mild voice, as though chastising me for being a bad girl. "You and your family have brought great evil upon us."
Whatever. "Take it up with my mother."
"I fully intend to," Demitrius said. "She will join you in the cleansing. Your whole unholy family will."
Cleansing? What the hell was his problem?
"Listen, there is a creature out there that just took my friend," I dropped the boy part of friend just in time before I said it, "and I have to save him. So whatever you're babbling about can wait until later."
"You are fornicating with the undead, partnering with the sons and daughters of evil." He would not let up. Wait a second. Was he talking about the vampires?
Was it Demitrius I felt at the site the night we met Sebastian? If so, how had he hidden from me? Because I wasn't looking for normals. I searched for magic. And he had none.
All of this triggered my full panic mode again.
"I don't give a crap what you think of us." I drew in my power and felt my demon grumble it was about time. "But you're going to move, one way or another."
"Child of the demon," he droned like it was an accusation of something, "you have been tainted by the Devil and his taint must be cast out." He gestured at someone behind me and I felt the white robes closing in. This was not good. Why couldn't I catch a break? "You must be cleansed so your human half can find peace."
Cleansed. There was that word again. I suddenly had an image, one Mom planted in my head, and my heart flopped over.
Didn't she say they burned witches at the stake?
Oh crap. Time to cut and run.
I raised my hands to attack him. Rules or no rules, I was not sticking around to let him tie me to a post and set me on fire like a good little girl. No way. But as I focused on him, he gestured again and white powder flew from his hand. It drifted through my shield easily, meant to block paranormal energy, not physical matter. It clouded around my head, forming a shimmering haze I had no choice but to inhale.
I sneezed once, the smell of dandelions mixed with diesel fuel making me sick, but try as I might to move away from it, I was frozen, stuck by a tingling numbness muffling everything.
I couldn't move.
My blood pressure rose as I struggled against the effects of whatever it was.
"You will be saved," Demitrius said. As if those words freed my body, I slumped to the ground, a boneless mass, helpless.
Darkness enveloped me completely as he bent over, his cherubic face smiling down.
***
