Page 31 of Claiming Chaos
“You didn’t know.” She pressed her lips together, looking at me with pity. “It doesn’t matter. I won’t let you summon more demons. We’ve already had to join forces with the other covens to fight off the monsters coming through. It ends now.”
“It’s Chrys you want,” I said. “She has the book. She’s going to summon the demon.”
The High Priestess turned, flipping her hair over her shoulder and lifting a hand as she walked away. “Kill them.”
That answered my question. We’d landed ourselves in a dark coven’s prison.
“Fast or slow?” Umbra cracked his knuckles and stood in front of my cell.
A wicked smile curved Sandra’s lips. “Slow deaths are always sweeter.”
“Works for me.” He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out a handful of one-inch-long capsules in red, purple, blue, and green. With a chuckle, he touched each one, no doubt trying to decide which spell he wanted to throw at me first.
He closed his fist around them and searched his pocket for another one, and I had to admit packaging spells like that would be convenient. They took up a helluva lot less space than the bottles I used, but the thing I was most envious of was his pocket size. He could hold fifty spells in each one, with how deep they went. If my pants even had pockets, I’d be lucky if they were three inches. Maybe I should start wearing guys’ clothes if I made it out of this in one piece.
“Here we go.” He held a black capsule between his thumb and forefinger.
“Don’t use that one.” Sandra held her hands in front of her chest, gathering the moisture from the air between her palms and creating a ball of water. “I want her to watch her boyfriend die.”
Chaos crossed his arms, looking bored. Unless Sandra could sharpen that ball into a sword and stab him through the heart, she would be sorely disappointed.
Umbra’s jaw tightened. “If she’s blinded, she can only hear his screams. That’ll be even better.”
She whirled to face him. “She watches. Put your shadow away.”
His nostrils flared as he blew out a breath, but he returned the black capsule to his pocket and decided on the purple one. Without even whispering a spell, he wound his arm back and threw it like a baseball. I half-expected it to bounce off the hex surrounding the cell, or at least to fizzle out upon impact. Instead, it sailed right between the bars and exploded against my stomach, and let me tell you, that little pill felt more like a cinder block slamming into my gut.
I careened backward, my shoulders slamming against the electrified wall, sending a jolt rocketing through my body. Fabulous. Their magic could get in, but I couldn’t even summon mine, much less throw it at them.
I stretched my neck and shook off the pain. “I didn’t know New Orleans witches were such cowards. Why don’t you let us out so it can be a fair fight?”
Umbra glared at me and reached toward the lock.
“Don’t,” one of the henchmen finally got the courage to speak. “They’ll burn us alive.”
Sandra sent a blast of water with the force of a firehose at Chaos’s chest. I was sure she meant to knock him back into the wall like Umbra had just done to me, but my demon held his ground. Her magic soaked his shirt but didn’t hurt him in the least.
He laughed. “Is that the best you can do?”
“I’m just getting started.” She hurled a stream of water at him, but he stepped out of the way. It splashed against the back wall, the electricity spell zapping the liquid and turning it into steam.
“Javon, freeze them both.” Sandra stepped back, letting a henchman approach Chaos’s cell. Umbra handed him two green capsules, and Javon cast a binding spell on my demon.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell if the hex worked on him or not. He didn’t move a muscle, so he was either pretending so he didn’t reveal his true identity or it did work and we were screwed.
Javon pinched the capsule and threw it at me before reciting the binding spell. On me, it definitely worked. Starting at my feet, my muscles seized. I tried to wiggle my toes inside my boots, but I’d lost control. The magic crept upward, freezing my legs, my abdomen, my neck. I was a fish in a barrel, and Umbra was about to cock his gun.
Sandra shot another stream at Chaos. It hit his arm and sliced open the skin, but he didn’t reward her with a reaction. She hit the other arm and then his shoulder, ripping his shirt. He still looked bored AF, even with blood dripping down his arms.
“Give me a nerve spell.” She held her hand toward Umbra, and he placed a red capsule in her palm. “Let’s see if you stay stoic with this one.”
Oh, dear. Unless they knew of some secret ingredient for that one, he most definitely would stay stoic. Nerve spells didn’t affect the Princes of Hell. Not this prince, anyway.
She cast it, and Chaos closed his eyes, his face pinching. Again, he could have been faking. “I expected dark witches to practice more unsavory magic. Especially an elemental. Has someone bound your power too?”
Holy crap, he could talk. “Way to blow your cover.” I clamped my mouth shut. I could talk too. And my mind worked perfectly. If we got out of this mess, I’d have to swipe those capsules to see if I could reverse engineer their binding spell.
“Cover?” Sandra faced Chaos. “What is she talking about.”