Paula Altenburg - Black Widow Demon

That was enough for Raven. She did not want Laurel to die, which was the only alternative. She gripped the knife’s hilt, slick with congealing blood, and drew it from Laurel with a wet, popping sound that made her stomach clench in sympathetic rebellion. Laurel moaned, then quickly shifted to shadow.

Raven heard Blade shouting. “Get down!”

She did not look around to see who he was warning. The unfamiliar edge of alarm in his voice was enough to make her react. She dropped to the ground and buried her face in her arms. She felt a hum in the air above her head, followed almost instantly by the crack of a rifle.

She lifted her head to see what danger remained. Night colored the world in grays and blacks. Walker maintained his hold on the freckled assassin, but had developed a frantic look to him that warned her he was close to breaking. Blade was already in motion and headed for Justice.

Justice held the rifle, but instead of attempting another shot at Raven, he seized the barrel in both hands. He swung the stock like a club in a blow that Blade could not avoid. It connected with Blade’s temple, and he went to his hands and knees, dazed but not unconscious.

Walker made an involuntary move to go to Blade’s aid, thus losing his hold on the assassin. The assassin slipped free and would have turned on him, except for the arrival of Creed and several more people from out of the darkness.

“Stand down,” one of the newcomers said to the assassin. He was balding and stout and spoke with such an air of authority that the assassin obeyed him at once.

Raven’s demon, however, already agitated, went wild when it saw Blade fall and not get up again.

From head to toe, Raven burst into flame.

Blade shook his head. It was rare for someone to catch him off guard like that.

As he returned to full consciousness, his one clear thought was of Raven. He was aware of the others around him, heard Creed shouting his name from somewhere nearby and with increasing urgency. And he saw the brilliant blue sheet of flame that emanated from where Raven had been sprawled on the ground.

Fear for her drove him to his feet. The heat grew more intense and the siding on the house beside her began to bubble and smolder, curling and shriveling. Blade did not care about the loss of the building, although if it caught fire, the flames could easily spread to the others. He did not want Raven to immolate herself, as she almost had once before.

Justice began to bring the barrel of the rifle around again, and Blade went for a knife, ducking to jerk one from the cuff of his boot. But as he did, Raven rose in a living wall of fire. She walked toward Justice, who threw up an arm to protect his face from the heat. He turned, but there was nowhere for him to go. He was trapped between her and the house. The side of the building erupted in fire, and then Justice’s hair caught, and finally, his clothing. He started to scream.

As far as Blade was concerned, Justice could burn. It was no more than the Godseeker deserved. And Raven had wanted to kill him, which was something she deserved, too.

Blade understood her desire for revenge and was hardly one to cast stones. He did not blame her for it. But if she left Justice to burn to death in a fire she had called from the demon boundary, through her demon abilities, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

Or what was worse, she might not. She did not want to be any more demon than she was. And Blade had made her a promise to keep that from happening.

As Blade threw the knife in his hand, however, aiming for the Godseeker, Raven pulled the fire to her—along with Justice, who was trapped within its flames. The knife embedded itself in the side of the house.

Raven disappeared. She took Justice and the flames with her.

Blade groped for the now-empty chain at his neck. His stomach dropped.

He had no way to follow her.

When she allowed her demon to take control, Raven discovered the fire felt good.

Very good.

And Justice’s screams felt even better.

But in the back of her head she heard Blade. He said he was not afraid of her. He said she was not a demon. And he said he would not let her become one. Using her demon’s abilities against Justice, especially here, would make her no better than he was for using his position of power and greater physical strength to murder her mother.

Scant seconds had passed. There was still time to take command of her demon and stop what was happening.

Lightning cut a bright path across the bleak boundary sky.

The flames died away.

Justice fell on his hands and knees. Most of his clothing had burned away, and raw, red welts and blisters covered his skin, but he was alive and conscious and he would survive. In spite of everything he had done, and what he’d planned to do to her, Raven could not hold back her horror and pity at the sight of what she’d done to him. She discovered it wasn’t that she did not want to be demon. It was that she did not want to become like Justice—cold, hard, and filled with hate.

He knelt with his head hanging low between his shaking shoulders.

“Here,” she said, reaching out a hand to him, intending to help him to his feet so she could take him home. “We’ve only got a few minutes before demons find us.” Already, she could see ominous shadows flickering between the flashes of lightning along the crooked, rocky ridges above them.

Justice jerked away from her touch. He lifted his head and looked at her with a loathing that left her catching her breath. “You’re a spawn and a whore, like your mother. You think you’re too good for mortal men. I hope demons do find you. Then you can whore for them instead. I hope they torture you, and you die screaming beneath them.”

She straightened, stepping back a few paces. There was nothing to be said in response to such hatred or that could change it. He was not the only mortal who would feel this way about her…or any of the other half demons now emerging from hiding.

She tried one last time. “If you don’t let me help you, you’ll die here,” she said. “This part of the boundary belongs to demons. Not even the goddesses can save you.”

“I’d rather die,” Justice said, his fingers plunging into the sand beneath his palms, “than owe any debt to a spawn or run from a demon. At least I’ll die fighting.”

And again, Raven heard Blade’s voice. This time, he told her to walk away.

She was no longer afraid of the demon inside her, or of its abilities, and she called on it freely. She alone governed her choices. She would have no trouble in standing before the goddesses, or anyone else, and defending them. She could come and go from the demon boundary as she wished.

Right now, she wished for Blade. The boundary, the demons, and Justice all disappeared.

The next thing she knew she was safe in Blade’s arms, on the ground, with him covering her as best he could as he shouted to Creed for help.

“I’m an assassin now, Raven,” Creed said. “I belong with the temple, not here.”

A snowfall the previous day had not been enough to block the mountain passes and prevent travel, but it told him that it was too late to start his search for Willow. It would have to wait until spring.

For now he would go back to the temple, meet with Armor, and hope that the new leader would be willing to present a plan of action to the Godseekers that was proactive and involved working with half demons rather than be reactive and based strictly on fears of the unknown. The assassin who had been with Justice in the village confirmed that it was Willow who had summoned the demon, not Raven, because it was now undeniable what Raven was. Much would rely on Seeker and the story he told after that.