She leaned forward, resting her hands on the console. “Is Ash talking? What’s she saying?”
“It didn’t work. I took us to the wrong location. I don’t have Dad’s power.”
He relayed the message and added, “But you did know exactly where to look once we got there.”
Ember’s head bobbed in the mirror. “He’s right, Ash. Dad couldn’t locate things miles away, either. If it was in the vicinity, he could find anything, and that’s exactly what happened with you. Twice. I shouldn’t have pushed you to do something he couldn’t do.”
“Listen to your sister,” Chaos said. “She is correct.”
“And anyway…” Ember leaned back in the seat. “These locations are protected with wards. We tried scrying for them and came up with nothing. Even if the power did work at a distance, you probably wouldn’t have picked up on it.”
“I suppose.”
“She’s reluctant to accept the reasoning.” He made a sharp right, and the tires squealed.
“Careful.”
Ember buckled her seatbelt. “She’s always had self-esteem issues.”
“They’re unwarranted. Your sister is more powerful than she thinks.”
“Everyone knows that but her.” Ember’s face pinched. “We have to save her.”
“That’s the plan.” He hung a left, taking the corner more slowly this time.
“Fair warning,” my sister said. “If we don’t save her, and you take over, I’ll vanquish your ass right back to that dark prison. Then I’ll find your skull and pulverize it.”
Chaos chuckled. “I would expect nothing less.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Now this looks like a place for a witch to hide a demon skull.” Ember began strapping on her weapons before Chaos stopped the van.
The next point on the map had directed us to a massive field. A few gnarled trees jutted up from the knee-high grass here and there, their knobs and bumps and crooked branches giving the area a spooky feel, driving Ember’s point home. This did look like a good place to hide a skull.
It felt like it too. A low vibration, almost imperceptible, hummed in the air, and as Chaos killed the engine and slid out of the van, the hairs on my arms stood on end.
Not that there was much I could do about it. With a demon in control of my body and my vim, I couldn’t cast a spell to save my life. Kind of ironic because that was exactly what I needed to do. How the hell was I supposed to exorcise him if I was nothing more than a fading voice?
Worry about one thing at a time, Ash. First, we had to get the skull, and I was certain it was here. What I wasn’t sure about was whether I knew it or Chaos did. I could feel his emotions, sense his power building as if we were the same person. He was essentially absorbing me into his consciousness, and the scary thing was…I felt at peace with it.
“Why do I feel like ceasing to exist wouldn’t be such a bad thing?” I asked.
“That would be a very bad thing.” He stomped through the grass toward an overgrown mass of vines and weeds. “You have to fight this. Don’t give up.”
Ember jogged to catch up, my potion satchel bouncing on her hip with each step. “Do you have anything in here for headaches?”
“Tell her there’s some pain powder in the blue pouch.”
“Blue pouch,” he said and continued his march toward the mess of brush.
Rage simmered in Chaos’s chest, a barely contained inferno waiting to explode and take down everything in its path. Riding along with him in charge, I felt powerful…almost euphoric, which was weird because he wanted to tear Isabel and anyone else who knew about the skulls into a million tiny pieces and feed them to her descendants.
And if she wasn’t turning to dust in a grave somewhere, he could do it. I had no doubt about that. Honestly, he’d be justified. I knew I was supposed to be about love and light…being a light witch and all…but the poor guy had been imprisoned for hundreds of years, all because a witch didn’t want to pay when it came time to collect.
“It’s here.” He stopped a few yards away from the overgrowth, and holy Hecate, there was a building beneath all those vines. He started forward.
“Wait! Stop!” Ember ran towards us, fumbling with a potion bottle. “We need to see what spells are protecting it before you barge in.”
Well, look at that. Leap-first-look-later Ember actually thought before she acted. “She’s right.”
“I can withstand any spell she could concoct.” He kept marching.
“Whoa. First of all, my body can’t. It’s not just you running into the fray. And second, you obviously can’t withstand anything, or we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Something hard hit the front of our shin, sweeping our legs backward out from under us. We faceplanted in the grass, and I got a good look at what had hit us. Ember’s boot.
“You’re not running in there and putting my sister in any more danger than you already have.” She dropped the bag on the ground, cocking her head as if challenging him. “Let me do this first. Tell him, Ash.”
Chaos growled and stood. It sounded way less menacing than when he used his real voice, but Ember bristled.
She fisted her hands. “Do not make me knock my sister out.”
“Get out of my way,” Chaos roared and shoved Ember aside.
Uh-oh. My body would not appreciate what was about to happen next. Ember screamed like a Viking warrior and ran towards us. She bent at the last second, shoving her shoulder into our abdomen and dragging us to the ground. The air left our lungs in a whoosh, and if I were the one in charge, we’d have stayed down.
Chaos did not. He called on his demonic strength and literally threw Ember off us. She landed five feet away with a grunt, but she shot to her feet and came back for more. This had to stop.
