The drive took hours, but the adrenaline was still boiling inside of me. Kellan pulled the car over on the side of a street, which seemed to be in the middle of a dense forest.

“Where are we?”

“We have to walk in. They’re in a cave, and I can already sense two of them patrolling the woods. We will have to be discreet until we can get inside and find Aumae.”

“Then what?”

“We grab her and kill everybody else.”

Shivers went down my back, hearing the promise in his words. There had been no other consideration. Kellan was going to destroy them all, even if I didn’t join in. As we got outside, I smelled a whiff of the demons and my stomach turned over, but then something came alive in me. I’d wanted their blood before, but had gotten sick in the next moment. That was not going to happen this time. I wasn’t going to be running to vomit anymore.

Kellan started forward, and I saw the same black cloak come over him that had happened in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what it was, but something shimmied over me, too. I watched, speechless, as something glided over my skin, translucent to my eyes. It felt like armor, but weighed like nothing, like air.

Whatever it was, I felt protected. I felt like I could walk in and raise hell, knowing they couldn’t touch me.

The closer we got, the sickness from before built inside of me. It fueled me, and when we looked up to see a demon floating in the air above us, looking around with no idea we were there, I had to grit my teeth. I wanted to kill it, too much, and Kellan took my hand in his. He led me past it and past the second one that looked like it was perched on a tree limb, with his white saucer eyes shining a beacon wherever it looked. The light blinded us for a moment, but it moved past without missing a beat.

We were safe.

The entrance of the cave wasn’t far. I felt the mouth of the cave like it was the opening to a vortex. Whatever was inside was evil, through and through. It sucked anything good, anything pure, and swallowed it whole. Two more demons floated above it, but Kellan took my hand again and we stepped around tree roots, over and under. We followed a narrow path that led around a body of water. I glanced down once, wondering what the water would be like with so much darkness near it, but it shined blue and bright. It even looked white in some parts from the sand that was so close to the surface. I felt it beckoning to me. It wanted me to go inside, take a swim, but Kellan yanked me away.

“It’s enchanted. The water doesn’t look right. It’ll draw you down and drown you, killing anything that steps foot in it. Don’t even look at the water,” he warned me in my head, shaking his.

As soon as we stepped inside, Aumae’s pain was overwhelming. I felt her everywhere, in every corner, behind every rock. It almost stopped me in my tracks, it was so strong. The torture must’ve been tremendous, and I held my breath the rest of the way. Kellan seemed to know where to go, when to pause as a demon went past us, and when to sidestep traps they had laid.

The cave turned downward, and we followed. The sounds of water grew in volume the lower we went, and soon the narrow pathway we were on grew slippery. Water dripped from the walls and ceiling onto our feet. Some splashed up from below, and the rushing sounds of it grew loud, too loud to hear anything else.

I turned one corner, but Kellan yanked me back. A floating demon was right in front of me, would’ve touched me in the next instant. He passed by and it wasn’t until my heart slowed a little bit before I let myself breathe again. It had been close, too close, but rounding another corner, I saw that we were there.

Aumae was tied to the floor in front of us. Her wrists were crisscrossed over each other, bound by rope to two stakes. Her legs had been spread out, also staked to the ground. As we got closer, I saw the rope was soaked in a red liquid. Aumae’s eyes were closed and tears had streaked down her cheeks, leaving trails through the dust and dirt on her skin. The white robe she wore before was stained in red. There were clumps of the same red liquid on her robe and marks that looked like she’d been scratched.

I bent to untie one, but Kellan shoved me aside again. “Don’t touch them. They’re soaked in virgin’s blood.”

“Virgin’s blood? Are you serious?”

“The virgin was raped and killed, Shay. It’s an old metaphor for purity, but it still has power over messengers. Whatever was pure and innocent that’s been violated by the hands of evil will harm a messenger. Aumae is bound just by the blood, not the rope.”

I shuddered and moved away, wondering what would’ve happened to me if I’d touched them. It didn’t matter, thankfully, as Kellan had them untied in seconds. I waited, expecting Aumae to spring up, released and free, but she remained on the ground, groaning and writhing in pain still. I exchanged worried looks with Kellan, but he knelt quickly and thrust her robe away. Still, she stayed on the floor.

“What’s keeping her there?”

“They soaked her in the blood. It’s all over her skin and they might’ve made her drink it. We’ll have to move her. No, I’ll move her.” Kellan pushed me away when I stepped forward. “I don’t want any of the blood to touch you. Its hold won’t be as powerful since you’re a hybrid, but it’ll still affect you. I need you strong.”

He lifted her and then we turned, ready to leave, but stopped. Four demons were there, in front of us, just staring at us.

Kellan didn’t pause. He threw Aumae at them. As two caught her, he sent two bolts of his energy at the other two, flinging them backward. Then he leapt forward, took Aumae back, and whipped her around. Her feet clipped one in the head. With a hand holding my aunt’s head, Kellan started to turn her around so her feet would hit the last one. As he rounded, the demon wasn’t there, and he turned to look at me, a question in his eyes.