“Winged devils.” He said it so quietly I had to strain to hear him.
“What?”
“Their proper name is Camazotz, which translates into ‘Death Bat of the Underworld.’ ”
Underworld? These were from the Underworld? “How do we stop them?” I urged.
He didn’t answer, so I shouted behind me, “Ray, head back into the forest! Find a log or something to hide under. When this is over, we’ll find you.” I turned to my brother, who hovered next to me at the edge of the trees, equally helpless. The bats had fully engulfed Danny. If we went out there now, we’d be swarmed too. “Tyler, we have to stop them! What do we do?”
We watched as Danny struggled to pull them off his own body. Naomi had fallen to the ground now. Danny collapsed to his knees.
I took an unconscious step forward and my brother’s arm shot out to stop me. “We can’t go out there.” He grabbed on to my forearm to keep me in place. “They covered Danny instantly. If we go out there, they’ll swarm us too.”
“What are you talking about? We can’t let them die out there,” I insisted. “Selene must have them contained. They aren’t coming after us here, so this tree line must be the cutoff. If we can drag Danny and Naomi back here, maybe they will disappear.”
“Jess, there are too many.” Tyler dropped my arm and started pacing back and forth agitatedly along the tree line. “I can make a run for it, but there’s no guarantee I can grab them both before the suckers bring me down. They look like they’re multiplying too. Every time Danny kills one, another one pops up in its place.” It did look like there were twice as many as before, and every time one died, another popped up. They couldn’t get ahead, because the beasties weren’t dying.
“Eamon!” I turned and ran over to his still immobile form. “You have to help us save your sister. Eamon!”
He stared stoically forward. “There is no way to help them. The Camazotz are summoned from the Underworld for protection. Selene has paid for them with a piece of her soul. Their claws are like razor blades, their teeth venomous. They are things feared even in the Underworld. We cannot stop them.”
“Bullshit!” I yelled in frustration, throwing my hands in the air. “If they exist, there’s a way to defeat them. They have to have a weakness.” My voice was frantic. “Think, Eamon. My friend is dying and I’m going to help him, even if I have to run out there on my own. If you know Selene, and know where they came from, they have a flaw. Think!”
“A witch’s spell,” Eamon said with hesitation. “It might have an effect on them, but only temporarily. It won’t kill them. The Camazotz are born of demons, and demon magic is born of the blood. Witches have an innate protection against blood magic. Their spells are crafted of the earth. But no witch is strong enough to kill them completely.”
“A spell?” The darts from Tally. Tallulah Talbot was a powerful witch. If her magic wasn’t strong enough to knock these things out for a few precious seconds, then no spell was. “I have spell darts in my pack.” I dove to my backpack and tore open the zipper. I snatched the darts off the top and unrolled the fabric, careful not to shred it in my haste. I had no idea which one to pick. They were color coded, but there were no helpful labels or instructions. Two blue, two green, one orange, and one yellow. They were different hues than any of Marcy’s. “Which one do we use?” I looked up at my brother, who stood beside me.
He knelt down. “There aren’t enough darts in there to hit every devil.”
Danny howled, and both Tyler and I wrenched our heads in his direction. He crawled toward Naomi, ripping the beasts off his body as he went. “Get the bloody hell off of me!” he roared. “You will not be the end of me. Naomi, stay with us! Naomi!” He reached her and started to yank them off her, only to have them reappear a second later.
“We have no choice.” I jumped up with the spell case in my hand. “We have to start throwing them or they’re going to die.” I gritted my teeth as I watched Danny continue to struggle. “Tyler, we have to act!”
“Aim the darts at their bodies instead,” Eamon said, walking toward me. “When the spell explodes into their bloodstream, it will instantly contaminate all the winged devils. The Camazotz are consuming their flesh and drinking their blood; they will absorb it by proxy.”
I met my brother’s eye as I held the darts. “Which color? We have freezers, sleepers, and two others, no kills. Choose.”
“Blue,” he said. “Try blue.”
I plucked out the two blues, rolled the case back up, and set it down on my pack. Then I walked as close as I could to the last tree before the clearing. I wedged the outside edge of my shoe against the bark for support and drew back my arm to take aim. Then I faltered. We had only a few precious spells and I couldn’t risk missing my target. If I threw it at Danny and it bounced off one of those the stupid blood-sucking rodents, we lost. New plan.
“Danny! Danny!” I called. He turned toward me, hearing my voice. “I have two spells.” I waved my hand in the air. “I’m going to throw them to you and you’re going to pierce Naomi and then yourself. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
His face was bloody and ravaged. One of his eyelids looked like it was completely gone. Most of his face was covered so I couldn’t see his expression. I couldn’t tell if he understood me or not.
“Danny!” I shouted as I held up the potions again and waved them. “Do you see me? I’m going to throw these to you.” I mimicked tossing them underhand. “You have to catch them and inject Naomi and then yourself!” If he injected himself first, he would be spelled and out cold, so he had to hit Naomi first.
After a moment, he seemed to understand. He turned to Naomi, but instead of turning back to me, he started mindlessly pulling more off her, ignoring me completely.
“Tyler, he’s not listening,” I cried. “Or he can’t understand me anymore. I have to go out there and do it myself. We’re running out of time. Naomi hasn’t moved in too long. I can’t let them die. I’ll run out fast. We know what to expect. I’ll drag them as close as I can back to you before the bastards eat me and I’ll spell them. Then you can shoot me with another dart.”
Tyler hooked me around the waist as I took a step forward. “You are not going out there, Jess. Do you hear me? They will eat you alive, Lycan or not,” he growled. “If Danny’s not listening, make him listen. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go out there.”
“How do I make him listen? I just yelled at him and he ignored me.”
“Your wolf is above his and he’s submitted to you already. I’d do it, but Danny might not listen to me. Command him. Force him to hear you.”
Danny’s wolf had recognized and submitted to me the first time he’d seen me in my Lycan form. “Are you sure it will work?”
“Fuck no!” Tyler shouted. “But it’s the only thing we have left. Do it!”
I gathered as much power as I could and shoved it into my voice. “Daniel Walker! Listen to me!” The sound echoed out of my body in a strong, steady current. I wasn’t sure how much to use, so I threw everything I had at him. “Stop!”
Danny froze, his stunned gaze turning to meet mine.
It worked.
“I’m going to throw something to you. You will catch it,” I told him, strength vibrating my vocal cords. “Insert one dart into Naomi and then one dart into yourself. Do it immediately! Do you understand me?”
He nodded slowly. As he stood, he batted the devils away from his face so he could see.
I was at the very edge of the boundary. A pulse of energy hit me as my foot strayed past the tree. A shock of warning. How could Naomi have missed it? It raced through me like an alarm, running up my leg and back down my spine. I yanked my foot back. The magic had a menacing undertone. I’d never felt anything like it.
Danny opened his arms to ready himself and I lobbed a single dart underhanded. He stumbled forward to catch it. It hit his open palm and he curled his fingers around it, capturing it without breaking it. Then I threw the next one. Once he held both, I yelled, “Go! Pierce Naomi first and then yourself. Do it now!”
He jerked around and fell to his knees next to her. There was a mass of devils on her chest. He ripped them off, their mouths saturated with blood, and plunged the dart deeply into her stomach.
She convulsed once and went still.
Then he turned the second dart on himself, stabbing it right through one of the screeching devils high on his thigh. Danny froze in place for a millisecond before he toppled onto Naomi, none of his body parts moving.
Blue meant freezer.
Almost immediately the devils started to fall off. Each of them twitching once before freezing in place on the ground.
“Ohmygod, it’s working! Come on. We have to go get them now,” I yelled, tugging Tyler’s arm. “Eamon said it won’t last long.”
I moved forward only to be yanked back once again. “Tyler! You have to stop doing that.” I turned, angry. My irises sparking. “I’m not a child and you’re wasting valuable time.”
“The hell I’m letting you out there,” he snarled. “My job here is to protect you. It’s what you hired me to do and that’s what I’m damn well going to do. Get another spell primed for me. I’ll bring them back, and if those little fuckers get me, stab me with it once I cross the line.”
He took off before I could argue. I hadn’t technically hired him—my father had. But he was right; it was why he was here—that and he loved me. As he ran, the winged devils that hadn’t succumbed to the spell swarmed him. “Tyler!” I screamed. “Keep moving!” I tried to infuse as much power as I could into my voice. I had no idea if it would work on my brother, but it was worth a try.
