“Ha, you little bitch!” I yelp, reaching down and grabbing him by the throat. With strength I didn’t know I could possess, I lift him up until his torso is off the ground, blood pouring out of him. He’s trying to bite me, writhing in place, trying to turn around, but I dig my nails in harder and then concentrate on the hard part.
I imagine the space in front of us opening like a portal, imagine the grey world underneath, then the world under that. Then the energy flows out of my fingers and the portal starts appearing. It’s immediately draining me, like if I had an internal battery it would be going down fast, but I push through, hoping to make this quick.
With the portal open just wide enough, flames licking the edges—which means I’ve reached Hell—I get ready to throw the demon. From the fiery pit, the cries and screams from the underworld flow outward, but I block them from affecting or distracting me. You get used to it.
Then I pretend I’m LeBron for a moment and that the portal to Hell is the basket, and I chuck the demon in the air like he weighs nothing at all.
He goes flying through and I immediately slam my palms together, sealing the portal, then turn them counterclockwise until it locks, disappearing from sight. I learned that the hard way once. In a panic I thought I locked the portal by doing it clockwise, and a demon popped up and almost dragged me to Hell. Thank god Jay was there.
But he’s not here now and I don’t know if he ever will be again, and I have to say, I just did pretty damn well for myself on my first solo demon slaying event.
I walk back to Perry and give her a triumphant smile. “I told you.”
She’s more than impressed. Her mouth is hanging open in awe.
But I know that demon was just an obstacle. I’m really here for Maximus.
Lana warns us that my little show was too loud and that whatever else is in the house, the other witch, is awake, so Perry snaps out of it and leads us down a flight of stairs to the basement.
It’s creepy down here, but the moment we stop outside the door, I can feel Maximus on the other side. There’s some kind of antenna inside me that comes to attention whenever I’m around a Jacob of some sort.
Perry knocks on the door, yelling for him, but he’s not opening it. She’s worried that he’s sleeping or he’s gone, but I know that’s not the case. He’s in a trance of sorts, but he’s alright.
There’s a part of my heart that flares with hope. To think I might see my old friend again. I mean, Max and I were never close, we had a brother-sister relationship if anything, and I loved to annoy the shit out of the big burly redheaded dude, but when he was in NYC with us helping to look for Dex, he really came through. He made the ultimate sacrifice for my sister, and that won’t be forgotten by me.
Perry looks at me. “Do you think you can kick down this door?”
I raise my brows. “Doubtful.” I know that energy, that power I feel can give me crazy strength and abilities, but I feel like it has to be activated by the undead and demons. Maybe not. “But I’ll try anything once.”
I position myself back in a lunging stance, concentrating on the door, trying to draw up my energy. “Here goes nothing.”
But when I leap for the door with my boot out, the door opens.
I see Maximus’s surprised face for a second before my boot connects with his crotch.
SHIT!
He drops to his knees, and I lose my balance when I land and have to hang onto the doorframe. I’m staring down at his red hair, so overjoyed that he’s here and alive but also totally mortified that I just kicked him in his ginger balls.
While Perry and/or Dex is laughing their ass off, I immediately drop to my knees and put my hands on his shoulders. Fuck, he’s not changed at all. His shoulders are huge, hard, and that reminds me how solid he is. Not a ghost.
“I’m so sorry!” I cry out. “But it’s really nice to see you, Big Red.”
He tries to look up at me, wincing through the pain. “The fuck?” Then he looks at Lana. “Who are you?”
“Lana Leivo. It’s nice to meet you. But we need to get inside because the spells are officially broken.”
That does it.
While they step inside, I lean down and try to help Max up to his feet. He weighs a fucking ton, but eventually he gets up and we go inside the room, closing the door.
“Really sorry about that,” I apologize to Max again. He’s looking around, totally out of it.
Then it’s like he notices me for the first time.
Still a bit unsteady on his feet, he steps back and gives me the once over.
I mean he really looks me up and down.
Well, I guess I can’t blame the guy. When he last saw me I was a gawky fifteen-going-on-sixteen-year-old, and now I’m nineteen. I’ve filled out a little. And I’m wearing the Lululemon equivalent of what Halle Berry had to wear in Catwoman.
“Ada?” Max asks.
I can’t help but smile. I didn’t think Max would be the one to give me a much-needed ego boost, but here we are. “In the flesh.”
“Shit,” he says, still blinking, still stunned, still…lingering. “Wow. This is the first time I’ve realized how much time has passed. You’ve changed. You’re like a whole woman now.”
Oh my god. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me. Even though I’m pretty good at accepting compliments, this makes my cheeks burn.
Luckily, he’s quickly distracted by the fact that Dex is possessing Perry at the moment and the conversation swings that way.
It’s for the best. I don’t need any distractions right now, and even though it felt good as hell to have another man give me the eyes, especially when he’s never looked at me like that before, I have a job to do, and it’s to save his ass.
Although, now that we’re all in here, I’m trying to think of how to do this. I mean, even though Max is dead, he’s also here, in the flesh. He’s real. He feels pain. Desire, maybe. All that stuff. Which means that Perry was right when she said that entering the house is like entering the Veil.
I just don’t know how exactly I’m going to get him out if we’re already here…
“This is so fucking weird,” Max says to himself, either about Dex possessing Perry or just this whole situation.
“You think you’d be used to weird by now,” I tell him. “You’re dead.”
He gives me a loaded look. “Thanks for the reminder, Blondie.” Ohhh, I hate the Blondie nickname. This better not be the start of something. “Now, you going to get me out of here or what?”
“Wow,” I say slowly, hand on my hip. The nerve of this ungrateful flannel-coated lumberjack. “You’re awfully impatient for someone who just went to Hell. Better be nice to me, or I’ll send you back there.”
He gives me a wry grin. “I reckon I’d like to see you try.”
“You guys,” Lana breaks through our conversation, staring at the ceiling in fear. “She’s on the floor above us.”
No time to waste.
I peer at Maximus, trying to see if there’s some kind of veil around him that you can’t really see. “You’re so close, you’re pretty much here already. I wonder why Perry and Dex weren’t able to do this.”
“Maybe this is your destiny,” he says, his voice lowering as his eyes lock with mine.