“No,” I croak feebly as Reed holds my chin gently in his hand. Tipping it up, he assesses my neck, touching the bruises that I’m sure are going to be ugly for a couple of hours until I heal.
“I don’t know how it got in, Evie. Zephyr and I didn’t know it was here. It shouldn’t have been able to get past us,” Reed tries to explain to me through clenching teeth. He presses my face into his bare chest. I hear the powerful drumming of his heart as it pounds against his chest and his wings twitch in agitation.
“Alfred’s here, too,” I say with a raspy voice, pointing again to the window.
In seconds I am swept up and deposited in the adjoining bathroom with the door firmly closed to my room. Alone, I face the vanity mirror. The shadow man has, indeed, left his mark on me—big black inky bruises that aren’t turning purple, yet. I walk to the mirror and am startled by my eyes. They are red with the blood of broken capillaries where they should be white. A monster from a horror flick looks less freakish than I do at the moment, especially since my crimson wings had sprung out of my back at some point during my struggle. They’re hanging limply at my sides, protesting the abuse I had just sustained.
The bathroom door swings open and I jump in fear. Buns is at my side in seconds, hugging me to her. “Sweetie, what happened?” she asks. Pulling back from me, her eyes zero in on my neck. She bites her lip as her brows draw together in a scowl. “How?” she asks with menace.
“Shadow man tried to strangle me,” I reply.
“What’s a shadow man? I didn’t hear it. I didn’t see it. How did it get in?” she asks me in an angry tone as she gently pets my hair.
“Possessed soul, it came in through my compact,” I reply, turning back toward the sink to fill the glass on the counter with water. I take a small sip of it, attempting to soothe my throat that now burns with a raw heat. “Where did Reed and Zee go?” I ask her sluggishly. I’m having a hard time orienting myself to the reality of the situation.
“They flew out the door a second ago like they’re chasing the hounds of Sheol. Are they?” she asks me. She runs a washcloth under the faucet, and then presses it to my throat.
“Alfred… at the window. He was probably waiting for my soul to leave my body so that he could reap it,” I explain with brevity, feeling the cool cloth ease the ache in my neck.
“Alfred!” Buns hisses while her golden butterfly wings fly out of her back to float effortlessly behind her. She looks like a fairy queen, pacing the bathroom in agitation. “Alfred wouldn’t have let it kill you. He probably wanted it to mostly kill you, so that he could then convince you to give him your soul. I don’t think he can take it without you giving him permission,” she says. “I hope they crush him. He’s so getting on my last nerve. You said the possessed one came in through your compact? What did you mean by that?”
“The compact, it’s in my room. I dropped the mirror on the floor when I saw that thing running toward me in the glass. I couldn’t get the lid shut again because it just wouldn’t close,” I say in exasperation. “And then, it was in my room and it grabbed me by the throat so I couldn’t scream.” The numbness of my shock is wearing off. My hands shake and I cross my arms in front of me to stop the trembling. Buns disappears for a second, leaving the bathroom door open, and then returns with the compact in her hand with the lid firmly shut.
“Oh, he’s so done when I get my hands on him. I don’t enjoy killing; Brownie and I consider it beneath us. I go out of my way to avoid it, but it’d be an honor to make him cease to be,” she says as she resumes her pacing.
“I don’t want you to do that. Just stay away from him. He’s really twisted and evil. I don’t want him getting his hands on you,” I say, imagining Alfred tearing the golden wings off of Buns’s back.
Buns rolls her eyes. “Please…Alfred,” Buns scoffs at me. “Evie, he’s a cretin. I can seriously kick his butt. That’s why he keeps getting others to be the heavy, because he’s weak and very lame,” she finishes with the kind of confidence that makes me want to believe her, even as the memory of Alfred plunging his knife into Russell flashes in my mind and I shudder in revulsion.
“I don’t know what I’d do if you were hurt, Buns,” I say, feeling something twist inside me at the thought.
“Sweetie, Alfred can try if he wants, but that’d be opening a whole new level of pain for him,” Buns replies with confidence. “Now, did Alfred give you anything else—like jewelry, perfume, or anything edible?” she asks.
I frown, thinking. “There is just the wooden box that the compact came in. It’s in my closet,” I say. She is gone again before I have time to blink. When she steps back into the bathroom, she has the box with her. “What is it?” I ask, because I know now what it’s not—it is not a gift; it is a Trojan horse.
“It’s a lot of things, but mainly it’s a portal.” I must look confused because she continues to explain, “It’s like a doorway. When you opened the lid, it opened a conduit, like a tunnel, to whoever has the mate to this gateway. Alfred must’ve given the other compact to the possessed one who watched it, waiting for it to open. When it reached the threshold here, it popped out, and well, you were there for that part,” she says, touching my neck. “Some demons use them for escaping Powers. They leave one open in a safe haven, and then carry the other around. If they come across danger, they pop in the channel and go to their safe place. When they get there, they destroy the portal before anything can follow them.”
“How does someone enter a mirror, especially one this small?” I ask in confusion.
“Transfiguration,” she replies casually.
“Uh huh,” I say dully. “You shapeshift?” I ask for clarity.
“Yeah,” she smiles at me.
“You can do that?” I accuse her, and watch her nod her head. “Show me,” I demand, putting my hands on my hips because everyone is holding out on me.
She shrugs and says, “Okay.”
She heads over to the counter and sets the compact and box on it. Turning back to me, she gives me a bright smile as her body begins to shimmer in the light. Within seconds, she explodes before my eyes into a swarm of beautiful golden butterflies, leaving her clothing in a pile on the floor where she had been standing. The butterflies circle and flutter around the bathroom, in no particular pattern, as butterflies will. Then, they all meet up again to form the silhouette that resembles my friend, and like an implosion, Buns is back in her normal form in front of me.
“Holy freaking… Buns!” I say to her in awe.
“Exactly!” she replies, getting dressed again, and all the while smiling at me.
“Will I?” I ask, unable to form the complete sentence.
“Yes,” she replies. “At least I think so. I’m not positive because you’re both angel and human, but since everything else is evolving like an angel, I can only assume that this will, too.”
“Can you take any form you want?” I ask.
“No, that’s about all I can do,” she says in a casual air. “Brownie is the same. We never really honed the skill too hard because we rarely ever use it. It comes in handy when I want to evade humans and I have somehow gotten trapped, but mostly I can just outrun them or fly away.”