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  “Stay here,” she said to the couple and darted out of the room, careening toward the kitchen. The knife she’d blessed would come in handy. She had to tell Gunn. If they destroyed the box, it should vanquish the demon. The modem must be what tethered the demon to the attic, but the beast was connected to the Morgana device. Destroy that and the house would be clean.

  She grabbed the Morgana box, ripped it out of the wall outlet and darted to the kitchen. She dumped it on the counter and picked up the knife.

  A scraping sound echoed behind her.

  Coldness spread through her like ice. She turned, the blade tight in her grip. Hell. Can’t get two seconds of peace in this house.

  A haze rose around her in a semicircle. Lofting over her, the mass collected into an inky mass, with snake-like tentacles flailing outward.

  “God, no!” She stumbled backward. It felt as if she’d swallowed barbed wire, and it gouged her insides raw.

  Sweat dripped down her back, and her legs numbed, along with all thoughts aside from running. But where would she hide?

  Instead, she screamed.

  Thudding footfalls resonated in the hall, but she couldn’t lift her attention off the seven-foot monster gliding toward her, its serpent arms lengthening, stretching for her. Her fingernails bit into the fleshy part of her palm, grounding her, reminding her she had to fight, not let terror own her.

  Move! Fucking move!

  The thing unleashed an inhuman sound.

  Don’t show fear. Her stomach squeezed so tight, she’d probably pulled every muscle in her body.

  She swung the blade, catching a tentacle. Her knife sliced right through it as easy as butter. It flinched away, but the cut appendage rejoined right in front of her eyes.

  Clenching her fist, she hesitantly slid sideways toward the hall.

  But the speck charged.

  A cry escaped her throat. Her heart banged so hard beneath her breastbone, it threatened to explode. Her injured leg screamed with pain, begging her to stop. But she couldn’t.

  Blackness consumed her, suffocated her. Claws pierced her, hauling her into its body.

  She kicked, pushed, and stabbed the brute, but her hands and feet were sucked into its quicksand-like form. Panic squeezed her heart as death played in her mind’s eye and she thrashed for freedom. A putrid stink of sulfur smothered her senses, and her world trembled.

  Tentacles constricted her, stealing her breath.

  Her brain was a cluster of exploding bombs. She’d die in these people’s kitchen, gone from the world and no one would even know what had happened to her. What would they tell Chase? What about Gunn?

  “Cyra!” Gunn’s voice came from the kitchen doorway.

  “Help!” she yelled.

  But the moment she twisted to see him, the demon drew her deeper into its monstrous form.

  “Gunn!” she squeezed out, but it was too late, her vision already blurred from a lack of oxygen. She’d finally worked out how to kill the demon, and Gunn had to know.

  The creature wrenched her into the shadows, its limbs folding around her body. Suffocating her. Burying her. She yelled, “Destroy Morgana!”

  Chapter 14

  Gunn

  The world shuddered around Gunn. Not like this, dear God! He charged across the kitchen toward the corner where the demon had taken Cyra and kicked aside a stool. Nothing there. With his lighter out of his pocket, he lit up the area, his breaths racing. The clock next to the cabinet had stopped working and hung frozen at 3:16 p.m. In all honesty, he had no idea how much time had really passed and how long they’d been in this house.

  No sign of Cyra, the demon, or a portal.

  He spun on the spot, his head pounding. One minute, he’d battled for his life in the attic, the next the fiend had vanished, and he’d bolted downstairs to the sounds of Cyra’s cries.

  He’d never seen a demon swallow a person, and that terrified him. “Cyra!” Worry punched through his gut, and all he could do was pace in a circle. Was she in Hell or God-knows-where?

  His breath hitched and dread numbed his brain, leaving him in a frozen state. He couldn’t have lost Cyra. No way would he accept that, because not a molecule in his body could deal with such a loss again. He’d rather die, yet panic melted through him, and he trembled.

  “Destroy Morgana” had been her last words. He clenched his hands into fists and punched the air. How could he be so stupid? He stepped toward the hall when he spotted the damn box on the counter near a large knife.

  A scraping sound erupted from the hall, and Gunn lifted the lasso. His muscles flexed.

  Henry appeared from the living room, then Nora. “We heard screams,” she said.

  Gunn picked up the Morgana and waved it in the air. “When did you get this?”

  Henry entered the room. “Cyra asked the same question. My son got it for us from a garage sale. Installed it a few weeks back but it doesn’t work.”

  A strange sensation curled in Gunn’s gut. How could he have not put two and two together? “Why didn’t you mention this when I asked about anything new you brought into the house?”

  Henry’s cheeks blushed. “I didn’t want the gadget, and we weren’t using it anyway, so it didn’t cross my mind. Real sorry, son. Is that how the spirit has been traveling through our home?”

  Sure, rage pumped through his veins, but how could he blame the old man who didn’t know any better? For the first time, he felt like they might have a possible solution to take down the fiend. Except for the issue of Cyra being taken. Just the thought had his legs wobbling under him, and the desperate urge to tear down the place pummeled him.

  He stared down at the box in his hand, well aware of what he had to do. “Okay, you two return to the living room and don’t go anywhere else.” Without another word, they retreated, their feet tapping the floorboards and their hushed whispers fading.

  He wrapped the loop of his lasso around the box and broke into The Lord’s Prayer. He gripped the knife and dumped the Morgana into the sink, then jammed the blade into the center, piercing through the plastic cover.

  A white spark sizzled up the hilt, electricity arcing outward like lightning… then nothing. Had it worked? He plucked the knife out and, to be certain, he cut the cord and removed his lasso as it wasn’t fireproof. With his lighter, he set the box alight. When a blaze took hold, he stepped back in case it popped or exploded. The golden flame snapped and sparked.

  He checked the corner where Cyra had vanished, but there was still no sign of her. He had zero idea where she’d appear if he exorcised the demon, but he bet his left leg it would be the attic. Destroying the box would annihilate the beast, but his cleansing had been too easy. There’d been no attacks on him, which made him think it might not have worked. But why the hell not? Burning a possessed item meant the speck got thrown back into the Underworld. But everything in this house worked against the standard rules, so he had zero clue if the demon had vanished. And, on top of everything, why did the demon wear a necklace? He’d never seen one before with jewelry, but was it a clue to what sort of creature it was?

  The tension in air didn’t change. It remained the same. That heavy oppressive sensation still clung to his chest. The lights hadn’t switched on, either.

  He huffed, surveying the dark kitchen filled with shadows from the candles by the window. “Where are you hiding, fuckhead?”

  Panic crawled up his spine as he pictured Cyra in Hell. Why hadn’t his attack on the device worked? All the clues pointed to a speck demon. The majority of calls Argos received were for specks trapped in objects purchased at flea markets or garage sales, just like the Morgana box.

  He ran a hand down his face.

  A coldness sunk its fangs into his flesh, and sickening bile rose through his stomach. This was his fault. Why hadn’t he listened to Cyra, allowed her to join him upstairs? Would the situation have turned out differently, or somehow worse? Though that seemed an impossibility.

  A hiss came from behi
nd him.

  He twisted toward the fridge and reached for the weapon at his belt. That ominous feeling resurfaced, the one that said he’d missed a clue, and now it would kick him right in the balls.

  There was only darkness. Yet the menacing growl continued. Every nerve strangled Gunn. The asswipe was teasing him, taunting him.

  Demons didn’t just suck on souls. They got their thrills from torturing innocents, tenderizing them for the devouring. And not falling prey to their tricks was rule number one when dealing with the leeches.

  Gunn darted into the hallway and up the stairs. On his way, he stole a quick glimpse into the living room at the old couple crouching behind the sofa. Hiding might be the one element that saved them, coupled with making sure the demon’s attention remained diverted on him.

  Upstairs, he swung along the corridor, his footfalls ritual drumbeats, a calling for a final showdown. For the last two years, he’d tackled each job with precision, taking control and accepting no shit. No distractions. Keep innocents safe. But he’d fucked up here. The moment he had caught a whiff of sulfur, he should have demanded everyone leave. Instead, he’d shacked up with Cyra. No doubt in the world, the mistake was his. It always would be and he should have known better. His fist strangled the hilt of the lasso’s wand and he gritted his teeth. How could I be so stupid?

  He palmed open the already ajar attic door and sprinted up, his pulse racing, and he gasped for each breath as he scanned the room. Pitch black shrouded the location, and he took the lighter from his pocket. With a flick, a golden flame breached the darkness.

  Earlier, the bastard had had him pinned to the wall and was choking him, but Gunn had remembered Cyra’s crystal. With no reason other than instincts kicking in, he had jammed the stone into the speck’s eye. It had recoiled, then the demon had vanished through the outlet.

  Had the crystal connected it to Cyra, giving the demon the power to capture her, or had it scared him away?

  Silence smothered him. He quickened his steps and searched every corner in the attic. “Where the hell are you? Come out.”

  Standing where he’d found the portal last time, he extended his lasso throughout the air. No tingling.

  Panic was a noose around his neck as he ran from one room to the next. “Cyra! Where are you?”

  “Cyra!” he bellowed, his throat parched.

  Not a single sound, and the quiet clawed at his insides.

  The demon had tossed Cyra into Hell. No other explanation. Now, he felt lost, unsure where to turn next. Without a portal, how was he supposed to retrieve her? His thoughts kept swinging to where she’d vanished. Maybe he’d missed a sign? As a child, he’d always misplaced socks, toys, his foster dad’s keys… But his foster dad had made him take slow breaths and remember where he’d seen the item last. Nine times out of ten, he’d found the lost object. So he rushed to the kitchen, and patted the walls, desperation demanding he never stop. What had he missed? He swallowed the lump in his throat.

  Pacing wasn’t helping. “Think, think.” Yet his mind cascaded into oblivion and reminded him of his constant mistakes. They burned in his mind, memories jumping from how Cyra made him want to change his life for the better to how he’d caused Cherri-Anne’s death. The two battled inside him, tearing him to shreds, hurting so bad, he wanted to yell and punch his way out of this prison. Anything to make the grief stop. To stop the voice in his head screaming that he’d now killed Cyra.

  His muscles tensed and every inch of him trembled from the anger rocking him. He darted to the counter and prodded amongst the spell contents Cyra had used, but he had zero magic ability or knowledge of how to use them.

  A solution sailed across his thoughts like a tornado, reminding him it was the only answer. Bait the demon, negotiate Cyra’s rescue, and send the beast to where it belonged. Sounded easy, yet it left him taut and ready to snap because it came with a massive risk. Him getting tossed into the Underworld.

  Anguish cut through him as it had two years ago. If he failed, he might deliver himself straight to the monster, and everyone he knew in the demon hunter industry would die, including Cyra. Still, faced with a dead-end with no other resolution, he couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

  Nerves jolted beneath his skin. This had to work.

  He called out the few words he’d learned at Argos to attract a demon. To call forward a spirit involved herbs and enchantment. He had none of those, but, luckily for him, the fiend was already in the house.

  “I summon you, demon, to this room,” he called out and clasped the knife in one hand, his lasso in the other. “I openly offer myself in exchange for Cyra.” He huffed, ready to rip its head off, and needed to try anything. After all, Gunn had knowledge in his head on other demon hunters that this fuckwit would love to get his grubby hands on.

  No response, but the prickly air chilled a few degrees. “One-time sale, asshole.”

  Rapid breaths tightened his lungs, and his fingers slid along the hilt of his weapon. He drove the table and chairs into the back corner, their scraping punctuating the silence.

  At the exact moment he turned, the area between him and the window danced with what looked like heat waves. “Let’s do this.”

  He waited for the slightest movement.

  In the blink of an eye, a gray funnel formed, the hole widening by the second. Sheer blackness faced him. Just like the time he’d saved Cyra.

  Fuck, yeah. His skin crawled with anticipation. Where are you?

  A fog stretched out from behind the portal, blocking the doorway, rising above him.

  Tricks. Demons had the fattest egos in the universe and making themselves look bigger was about intimidation.

  Gunn stepped closer, his weapons tight in his grip. “Show me Cyra.”

  It belched a guttural growl, the walls quivered around Gunn, but he remained solid. “I summoned you to complete your part of the bargain.” Gunn had once learned at Argos that demons always responded to a direct summoning as they had no control to ignore the calling. Had to be some weird-ass Hell rule.

  The edges of the funnel quivered, and, in a flash, a large object flew out, crashing into the fridge. A body slumped to the ground, and his gaze fixed on Cyra! God, thank you. The joy in his chest was short-lived, though, because they weren’t free yet.

  “Get up,” Gunn yelled. “Leave, now!”

  She moaned with obvious pain and pulled herself to her knees. Cuts and blood coated her.

  A thunderous hiss belched from the portal, and he turned to the demon stepping out. He loathed the monster that treated humans like toys and didn’t give a shit about who it harmed. But this was showtime, and he wouldn’t back down. He threw himself toward the demon, weapons ready.

  He tossed the lasso out, catching it on an arm, and yanked hard, because, for once, the fiend held solid form. That meant it had tapped into Cyra’s magic—how else would it be holding shape? He lifted his blade above his shoulder.

  One second.

  With a swift turn, the demon swung outward and a tentacle whacked Gunn in the face. He stumbled sideways as a sting lanced across his cheek and jawline.

  Three seconds.

  A metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Bastard. Tripping over his own feet, he slammed into the wall. But he spun, heaving on the lasso still latched to the monster’s arm.

  Four seconds. All he needed was six.

  The chairs behind Gunn scraped across the tiles of their own accord, smacking into his thighs. He stumbled forward but dug his heels into the floor and used every ounce of strength to keep away from the beast’s tentacles.

  Six seconds! Why wasn’t it vanishing?

  Every muscle trembled. He charged and jumped upward at the last minute, slamming the knife into the bastard’s heart, if it had one. Both of them tumbled toward the portal.

  Cyra’s scream echoed in the background. Gunn’s breath caught in his lungs. Why is she still here? She had to leave.

  He shoved his fists into the monster’s torso
, pivoting himself backward. And yet it stood there, unaffected, chuckling with the lasso dangling from an arm and the knife sticking out of its chest. What the hell was going on?

  Something latched on to his ankle and knocked his legs out from under him. Thrown backward, he landed hard on his back, his head smashing against the floor. Stars peppered his vision.

  A tentacle wriggled up his leg. He booted it while his head still danced.

  But more tentacles slithered toward him, capturing him like starved piranhas. One latched on to his waist, inching up his body. His heart banged so hard that if there was ever a time he’d have a stroke, it was right then.

  Cyra stumbled away from the fridge and to his side, clearly not listening to him about leaving. She kicked a tentacle, stomping on it, but it didn’t help. Nothing did.

  Lifted off the floor, Gunn faced the monster at eye level; its laughter lifted the hairs on his arms. He writhed against his shackles, until he spotted his blade in the demon’s chest, just within reach. With a sharp inhale, he reached for the knife and wrenched it free. Without waiting, he plunged the blade into its throat, just above its ridiculous necklace with tiny balls attached to it.

  The demon flinched backward, its grip loosening.

  Gunn sprawled to the floor and, with a hand, pushed Cyra away. “Leave!” He staggered upward, gritting his teeth. Keep going. This ends now. He dashed around the portal and hopped up onto the counter before catapulting himself onto the monster.

  But when it whirled to face him with a gaping mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, he panicked.

  “Shit!”

  Fingers made of daggers snapped forward and pierced his arms, catching him mid-fall. He grunted as blades cut into him.

  In a sudden move, the beast tossed him across the room. He crashed into several chairs. They snapped and broke beneath him. A rush of intense wind collided against him, snaking around his legs like invisible hands.

  Dragged away, he reached out for anything to grab, his fingers digging against the wooden floor. His thoughts flew to Cyra, who ran after him, grasping his hand.