Chapter One
I waited at the edge of the bayou as Julie chased the demon my direction. Hailey was following closely on its flank, just to make sure the demon fell into our trap.
Not the most difficult demon we’d faced—that would be Legion. And we still hadn’t defeated him entirely. Yes, we’d tracked down all the vampires he’d possessed through a werewolf. Notice the use of the plural. Legion, as he always told us, was “many.” A multiplying demon who possessed several hosts at once—all unified by a singular intelligence. We incinerated all his vampire hosts with magically evoked sunlight. But a similar process was used against Asmodeus before, and he came back like herpes as soon as he’d found another host.
Agares wasn’t in Legion’s league. But he was peculiarly nasty. Had an affinity for alligators. Rode them like horses. Spoke to them, commanding them to do his bidding. As if demons and gators aren’t individually nasty enough—an alligator-commanding demon can cause a lot of havoc.
So far, though, with each of us bearing a share of the triple goddess, the Morrigan, we hadn’t met a demon we couldn’t handle. The key, of course, was that we had to be together. Julie, Hailey, and me. The Weird Sisters. Yes, technically only Julie was a sister of mine, and half-sister at that, but Hailey was like a little sister. Spunky, beautiful, and powerful. And we were all witches of a sort. Julie was technically a materialized ghost who practiced Voodoo. Hailey and I were both vampires and pagan witches. All of us beautiful, but terrifying as hell. And with the Morrigan’s power, even a petty demon like Agares knew his only chance against us was to run. But even running on alligator-back didn’t give him much of a chance on account of Julie’s ability to basically teleport—to materialize and dematerialize at will—and the vampiric speed that Hailey and I possessed. Yeah, Agares was as good as dead, and he knew it. Didn’t mean he was going to go down without a fight, or at least a flight.
The demon had possessed a vampire formerly known as Fred. Yes, Fred. Fred was a bit of a loner. A lot of vampires were. That wasn’t what made him odd. Back in the day, though, before the invention of video gaming, he’d been quite the debonair bloodsucker. Used to hob-knob with the well-to-do, and had a taste for the wealthy and successful. Find yourself at an art show or perhaps a wine tasting, and you might have found yourself in Frederick’s thrall. That’s what he used to go by, before he’d changed. It started small. He purchased an Atari. And then a Nintendo Entertainment System. He was the first to grab all the latest consoles. I didn’t think much of it at the time. A vampire’s life can be rather dull and repetitive, and since we don’t require sleep, I wouldn’t begrudge any vampire who picked up an indoor daytime hobby. But then the internet was invented, and online gaming came not long after. That’s when Frederick died and “Fred” the gamer was born. There aren’t many overweight vampires out there. Blood is ketogenic, after all. Plus, we gain an allure when we transform. Even the ugliest of humans become moderately attractive after becoming vampires. We get leaner and trimmer almost overnight. It’s a miracle weight-loss program—and you can get it now for the low price of your soul.
I say that to say this: a vampire doesn’t just “let himself go.” One has to go to great lengths to get out of shape. Fred had apparently worked hard at it. A lot of Cheetos and blood dip, apparently. Probably pizza with blood sauce. Who knows what he did to himself. But Fred was nearly twice the size as the last time I’d seen him.
I felt bad for the alligator he was riding. We weren’t just eliminating a demon—we were liberating alligators. Poor creatures.
Thankfully, with each of us wielding an aspect of the Morrigan, the Phantom Queen offered a number of methods that could make a demon miserable. We weren’t exorcists, but we could torture the demons and extract them from their hosts. And since each of us wielded a different aspect of the Morrigan, we each had distinct roles to play.
Hailey, bestowed with the aspect of Anand, wielded the power of the earth’s fertility. She quickly called forth giant vines from the marsh, striking Agares in the chest and sending him flying from the alligator as he attempted to flee from us. Then, with Babd’s aspect—the aspect of battle—I seized on the demon. I was already strong—vampiric strength was not to be trifled with, but alone it was not enough to overpower a demon. With Babd, I was stronger than most lesser demons. It also gave me moves—battle moves—that I’d never known before. I never had to rely on technique in the past. Typically, my foes were humans. But now I could fight. Really fight.
I pounced on the demon even as he crashed into a tree. With a flip, I caught him by the chin with my boot and landed in the water. Grabbing his leg, I pulled him under. Vampires don’t need to breathe, and the demon was in a vampire body. But water also slows us down. Even with enhanced speed, if under water we can’t move much faster than humans. Yes, it put me at a disadvantage, too. But all I needed to do was hold him there. Make sure he didn’t move while Julie approached.
With Macha’s blessing she became the death crone, though she didn’t take the shape of an old woman. In a way, she was already that. She transformed into a raven. She pecked at the demon as his body flailed in the water, struggling to release itself from my grip. As she broke the demon’s skin she extracted the demon’s spirit, which was released like a cloud of black smoke, and she swallowed it. From there, at least as we understood it, the Morrigan delivered the demon to the Ghede Loa, sealing him in hell.
If the demon was going to come back, he’d have to go through the crossroads. And from what I understood—at least based on what Hailey said, since she’d spent her earlier days as a youngling with the Voodoo Queen—the new crossroad guardians weren’t going to budge. It was on account of a brief shift in power over the control of the crossroads that the demons had come to Earth to begin with.
I pulled Fred’s ass out of the water and onto a patch of mud.
“Mercy?”
I nodded. “Long time no see, Fred.”
“What the hell happened…”
“You fed on the wrong person. Got infected. A demon took you over.”
Fred nodded. “I was having a nightmare. Like I was screwing an alligator.”
I exchanged glances with Hailey and Julie, both of whom were giggling. “Bad news, Fred. That might not have been a nightmare.”
“Are you serious?”
I nodded. “Now that you’ve been infected once, you shouldn’t be vulnerable to the demons a second time.”
“What day is it?” Fred asked.
“October 6. Why?”
“Shit! I have a raid scheduled tonight.”
“Who are you raiding?”
“The Lich King’s fortress!”
“Who the hell is that?”
Fred shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“A video game?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“Yes. I mean, it’s so much more than that. We’re a guild! It’s like a family. And I’m their tank. They need me.”
“First, I’m not even going to pretend I know what all that means. But second, who gives a shit, Fred? Our kind is under assault by demons. And now that you’re immune, we could use you.”