Chapter 21: The Transfer

Cross's hand reached for my throat, but Dorian caught his arm and twisted it hard enough that I heard something pop. Cross didn't scream. He just laughed and shoved Dorian into a pipe. Dorian's head hit the metal with a dull sound, and he slid down to the floor.

Cross turned back to me. "The spell won't save you from me. I will take you out of here before it finishes."

Jenna threw a handful of salt at two vampires who were trying to circle around her. The salt hit their faces, and their skin started blistering. They staggered back and clawed at their own cheeks.

Zoe swung the pipe at another vampire's knee. The bone cracked, and the vampire fell to the floor with a scream. He grabbed his leg and rolled around in the puddles of old water.

A fourth vampire grabbed Zoe from behind and wrapped his arms around her chest. She elbowed him in the face, but his grip didn't loosen. She elbowed him again, and his nose broke, but he still held on.

Raze pushed against my thoughts harder than he had all night. My vision went black for a second, and when it came back, I saw Cross's red eyes inches from my face.

"Say yes to me," Raze whispered inside my skull. "Say yes, and I will kill Cross for you. I will burn him from the inside out."

I gritted my teeth and pressed my palms against my temples. "I do not make deals with demons."

"You already made a deal with me when you used your magic. The door is open, and I just need you to let me through."

Vance shouted the final words of the binding spell. His voice echoed off the walls, and the blue symbols on the floor flared up like someone had lit them on fire. The light wrapped around Mira's legs and climbed up her body.

Mira screamed and dropped to her knees. Her hands slapped against the concrete, and her back arched.

Black smoke poured out of my chest. I felt it leaving me, and the sensation was like someone pulling a cold rope out of my lungs. The smoke floated across the room and headed toward Mira.

Raze roared inside my head. "NO! I will not go into her!"

The smoke entered Mira's mouth, her nose, and her eyes. She convulsed on the floor, and her body jerked like she was being electrocuted.

Raze's voice faded from my skull. The pressure behind my eyes disappeared, and I could breathe again. My hands stopped shaking.

Mira's eyes turned black, then brown, then black again. Her body kept jerking, and her teeth chattered.

Vance closed the grimoire and pressed his palm against the cover. "It is done. Raze is inside her now."

Cross stopped moving toward me. He stared at Mira with his red eyes wide open. "You fools. You bound the demon to a traitor who cannot control him. She will tear herself apart in a week."

Mira looked up from the floor. Her voice came out as Raze's voice. "I will not tear myself apart, old vampire. I am stronger than I look."

Her voice cracked, and then she sounded like herself again. "Get out of my head right now."

Raze laughed through her lips. "We will see who wins this fight, little betrayer."

Cross backed toward the stairs. His vampires followed him, and two of them dragged the one with the broken knee. The injured vampire left a trail of dark fluid on the concrete.

"This is not over," Cross said. He pointed at me. "I will be back for the grimoire and the witch. You owe me a piece of Raze's essence, and I will collect it."

He disappeared up the stairs, and the footsteps faded until there was nothing but silence.

Mira pushed herself off the floor. Her hands were red from the concrete, and there were scrapes on her palms. She stood up slowly, and her legs wobbled.

"I can feel him inside me," she said. "He is scratching at the inside of my skull like a rat in a wall."

Zoe let go of the pipe, and it clanged against the floor. "Can you control him at all?"

Mira pressed her fingers against her temples. "I can control him for now, but I do not know how long that will last. He is stronger than I expected."

Vance tucked the grimoire under his arm. "The binding spell is only temporary without a permanent anchor. You have maybe a month before he breaks free from your body."

Dorian pushed himself off the floor and touched the back of his head. His fingers came away with dark fluid. "Then we find an anchor for the spell. Or we find another way to destroy him completely."

I looked at Mira. Her hands were still shaking, but her eyes were clear and brown. The black was gone for now.

"Thank you for doing this," I said. "I know you did not have to volunteer."

Mira looked away from me. Her jaw was tight, and she stared at the wall instead of my face. "Do not thank me for this. I owed you for what I did to your coven, and now we are even."

Raze whispered through her lips for just a second. The sound was soft and cruel. "This is not over, little witch. I will find a way out of her, and then I will come back for you."

Mira's hand slapped across her own mouth, and she shook her head. "Shut up," she said to herself.

The room was quiet after that. The blue symbols on the floor had faded to nothing, and the only light came from a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. The boiler hummed in the corner, and water dripped somewhere in the darkness.

Jenna picked up the empty salt canister from the floor. "We need to leave this place before Cross changes his mind and comes back with more vampires."

Dorian nodded. "He will not come back tonight. He is wounded, and he lost too many enforcers."

Zoe looked at Mira. "What do we do with her?"

Mira crossed her arms over her chest. "You do not do anything with me. I am going back to my own room, and I am going to figure out how to keep this demon quiet."

Vance shook his head. "You cannot be alone with him inside you. He will take over while you sleep."

"Then someone can watch me while I sleep," Mira said. She looked at me. "You owe me that much."

I did not answer right away. My chest still felt empty where Raze had been, and my head was quiet for the first time in days. I wanted to sleep for a week, but I knew that was not an option.

"We will figure it out in the morning," I said. "Right now, I just need to sit down before I fall down."

Dorian put his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him without thinking about it. He was cold, but his arm was steady.

"Let's get out of this basement," he said.

We walked toward the stairs, and I did

not look back at the boiler room. I did not want to remember any of it.

But I knew I would.