Cat Devon - The Entity Within

Zoe was speechless. She couldn’t talk anyway because his mouth covered hers for a kiss.

Despite her desperate circumstances, she still felt the powerful bond linking her to Damon. And then she felt something else.

Her magic was back.

While he’d been kissing her, Damon had released her hands from the chains holding her.

When Silas made a grab for the book on her stomach, Zoe held him back with her hand outstretched. She also dispatched all the spiders to a land far far away.

“Bye, gotta go,” Bella said. She disappeared and took the book with her.

“No!” Silas howled.

Sitting up, Zoe wanted to undo the bonds holding her ankles but she couldn’t waste a second. Time was very limited.

The protection spell could only do so much when she was mere feet from an über-demon like Silas.

“Your magic can’t save you now.” Silas’s face was contorted with fury. “And neither can your vampire lover. I put you in hell before, Hunter, remember?”

Silas tilted his head toward the left side of the tunnel, which turned into a projection of Damon writhing in agony on a slab of some kind. The rack. He was being tortured on the rack.

“I did it to you before and I can do it again,” Silas said. “Your dagger won’t work on me. Not here, not now.” He spread his arms apart. “Go ahead, try throwing it at me.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” Damon said.

“He’s three demons in one. It’s going to take both of us to defeat him,” Zoe told Damon.

“How sweet. You need a girl to help you,” Silas mocked. “She’s a stupid little bitch.”

“No one calls my witch a bitch,” Damon growled and leapt at Silas.

While Damon was slashing and dashing, Zoe used magic to undo her ankle shackles. She stood. She was wobbly but upright.

She’d never seen Damon in vampire Demon Hunter mode before. His face was etched with rage as he bared his fangs. Using his demon dagger, he sliced Silas’s arms. The demon lashed out with his claws, but Damon was too fast for him. With a single move, he ripped the demon’s throat open.

Silas gurgled and fell to the ground, dead.

Damon returned to Zoe’s side.

Silas leapt to his feet. “Nice try.”

“The power of the pen is stronger than the sword,” Zoe said. Ever since her magic had returned, she’d sensed a strong message coming from her mother telling her to use the Latin words to destroy Silas.

She started reciting the Latin sayings. She wasn’t sure how she remembered the exact wording, but she did. And Damon, translating her visual message, recited them with her.

Zoe had never spoken so fast in her life.

Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur.

Cinerigbria sera venit.

Non sum qualis eram.

It only took a few seconds but it felt like years to Zoe.

Cocky from his survival after Damon’s attack, Silas just stood at the foot of the table, grinning at them with malicious intent. “Words will never hurt me, dearie.”

Damon had his dagger in hand, ready to attack Silas again.

Zoe reached out to touch the tattoo on the small of Damon’s back.

“ Venator, ” she said.

“ Ad finem, ” Damon added.

Bam, Silas went up in flames. It happened so fast that Zoe couldn’t believe it was real. But the smell of sulfur was nearly overwhelming.

Her tattered red dress was suddenly replaced with the clothes she’d worn when Silas had taken her, which was the nightgown she’d put on in the middle of night. The ruby-red shoes were gone and she was in her bare feet … on the ground where spiders had crawled.

Zoe thought she was going to pass out. She started to sway, and her ears started to ring.

“Don’t wimp out on me now,” Damon told her.

She blinked away the black spots blotting her vision and turned to face Damon. “I am not a wimp! I’ve just been chained to an embalming table with an über-demon threatening to cut me in pieces. And I had spiders on me.” She shook so hard her teeth chattered. “I hate spiders!”

“We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Ya think?”

He scooped her into his arms and leapt straight up through a vertical shaft she hadn’t noticed before.

“You can fly,” she whispered.

“Only when I have to,” he said.

“Same here.” By the time the words were out of her mouth, they were in the living room of her rental house. Gram was waiting for her with open arms as Damon released her from his hold.

“Are you okay, honeybun?” Gram said.

Nodding, Zoe got tears in her eyes. Her grandmother hadn’t called her honeybun since she was a little girl. Zoe rushed into Gram’s arms for a much-needed hug.

“Is the book here?” Damon said.

“Of course it’s here,” Gram said as she released Zoe. “Bella and Pat have been guarding it.”

“We have to destroy it,” Damon said.

As a former librarian, Zoe was opposed to destroying books. But she could see where it would be necessary in this case.

“Bella has been telling us what happened.” Gram engulfed Zoe in another huge hug. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

“The demon is gone,” Zoe said. “We destroyed him with the Latin phrases. Damon and I recited them together. I don’t know how I remembered all the Latin sayings but I did. It was as if I could feel my mother’s presence and she was guiding me.”

“Maybe she was,” Gram said.

“I need to sit down,” Zoe said unsteadily before sinking onto the couch.

“Let me bring you up to speed,” Pat said.

“Let me help,” Bella said. “Zoe, you and Damon had sex last night and that made you lose your magic. We didn’t realize that until a very short time ago, when it suddenly appeared in the Adams Book of Spells.”

“What did? That Damon and I had sex?” Zoe said.

“No, of course not,” Pat interceded. “That if the witch who touched the book had sex with a Demon Hunter, one of them would lose their powers. The warning also appeared in an illuminated manuscript on the occult in my library. The information about the Book of Darkness actually dates back thousands of years to a papyrus manuscript in the library in ancient Alexandria.”

“The world’s first library,” Zoe said in awe.

Pat nodded. “It needed all three of us near for the book to appear.”

“From where?” Zoe demanded. “Where did it come from? Did Gram have it all along but didn’t know it because it was cloaked? Did my mother see it and use it in error? Where has the damn book been? In an alternative universe? Or in the demon stratosphere?”

“Hell, it could have been in the Doctor’s TARDIS for all we know,” Bella said. “Yes, I watch Doctor Who . But we can discuss that later. Right now we need to get rid of the book before it disappears again.”

“Right. Irma and I think we’ve come up with the way to destroy the Book of Darkness,” Pat said.

“We have to move fast,” Gram said. “Let’s go to the kitchen. I already have the big spaghetti pot out. It’s the largest container I have.”

Zoe pointed to the fireplace. “We can put a cast-iron cauldron in there.”

“Right,” Gram said. “I should have thought of that. I left our cauldron in storage back in Boston but I can get it in a sec. First let me get a fire going.”

Flames

Take aim

Into this fireplace

Please make haste.

The fire was lit.

“Good,” Gram said. “That worked. Now for the cauldron.”

Cauldron of mine

This is the time

To come forth onto the fire.

I said I could do it, don’t make me a liar.

Appear