The Demon's Half

Chapter 29

Emmeline crouched beside me, watching with the kind of fascination people usually reserved for weird insects. The air stayed cold. And I had nothing. No fire. Not even smoke.

"You," she said. "You're hiding something, aren't you?"

Her gloved fingers trailed along my jaw before clamping down hard, her grip sharp enough to make my teeth ache. She tilted my face toward Logan and forced me to look.

"Do you know what I love about mortals?" she asked with a grin. "They're so desperate to protect each other."

Magnus stood beside him, one hand lifted, and Logan gasped, muscles locking. His entire body strained as something dragged him to his knees—
The roots of the tree behind him.
They had erupted from the frozen dirt, thick coils of wood twisting up his arms, wrenching them back. His chest heaved, and he closed his mouth refusing to scream.

"Last chance," she took off her white gloves. "What are two shamans doing here?"

My lips pressed together. Logan said nothing. She sighed again, then flicked her fingers. Magnus clenched his fist. The vines around Logan moved his body until his back curved at a sickening angle. The roots tightened and tightened. And then—A wet, stomach-churning pop. A sound a back should not make.
Logan yelled and cried, the sound haunting.

"STOP!" my voice breaking, barely even mine.

She turned toward me, eyes pink-gold like rotting flesh in sunlight. Her foot landed on my head. But she didn't kick me. She stepped over me. 
The pain took over my skull, until I heard something cracking. The cemetery started to vanish—

"We came looking for witches!" Logan yelled. "There are four more of us."

Emmeline's smile curled slow, like a spider that finally caught something on their web.

Magnus didn't waste a second.
The roots loosened just enough for Logan to drop, only for a thick branch to slam into his stomach, hitting him so hard his body folded around it.
Blood sprayed from his lips.
He barely had time to choke on the impact before another branch lashed across his face, snapping his head to the side.
We wouldn't last long. I thrashed underneath her boot. I could feel my eyes and nose fighting to remain in my face.

"String them up," she ordered as she stepped away from me. "We'll deal with the others soon enough."

Magnus flicked his fingers and roots exploded from the earth like hungry hands, snatching my wrists and ankles, snapping tight around bone. I was yanked off the ground, ten feet above the gravestones. Branches writhed around me, pulling in opposite directions. My joints popped, ligaments stretched to their snapping point. My lungs felt like they were being filled with glass. I twisted, searching—Logan.
Was he breathing?
But the world was a blur of branches and blood.
Emmeline tilted her head like an artist admiring a canvas.

Tears soaked my cheeks while I prayed.
Not to the gods that pretended to care. But to the gods that didn't. The buried ones. The bitter ones. The un-busy ones.
I prayed for Jade. For Logan. For Alilla. For the twins. And somewhere deep in my gut, in a place pain couldn't reach, I prayed for wrath.

"Go fetch," she grinned.
Magnus and Ramses vanished in an instant.

A shuddering breath rasped through Logan's teeth. "Funny how—" he winced, "they do your dirty work."

He spat blood to the floor and my heart broke all over again. From where I hung, I could see the unnatural angles of his body. He was in pain, I knew he was. And I couldn't help him.

Her lip twitched, as if just looking at him was an insult. "A lady shouldn't get her hands dirty."

He let his head loll forward, jaw tight, avoiding her gaze. "Maybe that's for the best." A beat. "After all, women lack the strength and power that men have."