Page 28 of Endless Terrors
A face appeared in the depths. A stranger with masculine features and bright, golden hair.
At first, Goody was terrified. She tipped the bowl, effectively ending the spell, and ran out of the greenhouse. She didn’t go back for an entire week. But the dreams of her mother worsened. They changed from wistful fantasies of seeing each other to Chastity being lost and alone. In the dreams, she called out Goody’s name. She stumbled around in the dark. She wept.
Desperate to make contact, Goody returned to the greenhouse. She performed the spell again. The golden-haired stranger appeared a second time. He introduced himself, and Lucifer made no effort to hide his identity. When Goody found out she was speaking directly to the devil, she was afraid, yes—but she was also intrigued. This time, she didn’t run. She asked about Chastity.
She felt the sting of disappointment at learning that Lucifer didn’t know her mother or whether she was in his realm. It should’ve ended there.
And yet …
Goody went on to have more conversations with the person in the water. He was unlike anything her father, or the coven, or the church claimed him to be. Lucifer was kind, and intelligent, and funny. She laughed more with him than she’d ever laughed in her life. Even her terrible dreams stopped. They began to meet every night, and they quickly became friends.
Soon enough, Goody had fallen in love. It took her a month to work up the courage to tell him. To the witch’s utter disbelief, Lucifer returned her feelings.
Goody’s giddiness practically leaped off the page. When I confessed the truth to him, Lucifer laughed. For an awful moment, I thought he was laughing at me. I was about to flee in humiliation when he reassured me he’d only laughed out of joy. Joy, diary!
After that, it didn’t take long for one of them to broach the subject of meeting. Since it was impossible for Lucifer to come to her world, Goody created a spell that would send her to his. Apparently some of her father’s lectures still lived inside her head, though, because she didn’t consider staying in Hell—the spell was designed so she could return.
The only problem was that Goody couldn’t perform it alone.
Knowing her coven would never agree to help, she found a persuasion spell in the grimoire. My stomach tightened reading those words. I’d been rooting for Goody, somehow, despite her being long dead. But a persuasion spell took people’s free will. I kept going, hoping that Goody had changed her mind.
She didn’t hesitate.
Once the spell had taken hold of her coven, one by one, Goody arranged to gather on the next full moon. Two days, she wrote with nervous anticipation. In two days, I can begin the search for my mother in earnest, and I will finally be in Lucifer’s arms.
There were no more entries after that.
I turned the final three pages, confirming they were blank. My lips twisted in thought, and I mentally reviewed everything I’d just read. After a few seconds, I flipped back to a drawing Goody had done beside the final spell she planned to do.
“Did you find something?” Lyari asked. It felt like her voice came from a distance.
“No. Nothing of use.” Frowning, I skimmed the drawing with my fingertips. A woman—presumably Goody—was stretched out on a table, surrounded by her coven. Visible threads connected them, both to each other and to her.
Eventually, I became aware of how warm I’d gotten. Finn had been keeping the fire going, which was odd, considering he preferred cool spaces. Taking care of me again, I thought wearily. Reading for so long had made me sluggish. I lifted my head for the first time in hours, and squinted. Dust-speckled sunbeams floated through the window.
“Is it morning already?” I mumbled, sitting back against the couch. My spine cracked.
“Yes. We’ve been here all night.” Wearing a pinched expression, her eyes narrowed with focus, Lyari briskly added a note to the legal pad in her lap.
Sweat clung to my lower back. I tugged at my shirt, then got to my feet. “Jesus, it’s hot in here. I need to get some air.”
Finn watched me go silently. Yawning, I stepped over the nest of pillows Gil had made. The constant adjustments and movements seemed to help him combat the bloodlust. It was empty now because the vampire was taking a shower.
When I got downstairs, the cold felt good on my skin. I stepped outside to let winter take some of the hot anxiety that had been coursing through my veins all night.
Light spilled over the treetops and frost glittered on our cars. I’d forgone a coat before going down the stairwell, and the chill sent goosebumps along my exposed arms.
As I closed the door behind me, movement drew my gaze toward the porch. I paused, then started walking in that direction. My shoes crunched on the gravel.
Collith was asleep in one of the rocking chairs. What was he doing out here? I stopped on the stairs, frowning. I turned to see what he might’ve been looking at, and within seconds, I felt my face clear in understanding. I knew what he’d been doing. From this vantage point, Collith had a perfect view of the driveway, the garage, the loft, and most of the trees that surrounded them.
He was watching over us. Over me.
He’d also been conducting some research of his own, apparently—papers covered his lap and lay scattered at his feet. The writing was Enochian. On one of the pages, I recognized Olorel’s bloodline crest. Why would Collith be focused on this?
In that moment, I had a flash of intuition. A day ago, Lucifer had mentioned that shape was a mark of possession.
Collith was looking for a way to free himself from Lucifer.
