Heir of Night by Emily Goodwin

Chapter 19

The hair on the back of my neck stands up, and my stomach twists, bringing back a strong wave of nausea I haven’t felt since I started taking the morning sickness potion. The smell of brimstone fills the air, and heavy footsteps resound off the walls of the bar, drowning out the happy chatter and music.

I have answers, Callie.

“No,” I say out loud and slam my hands on the table. “You don’t. Stop lying.”

The smell goes away, and the sounds of the bar surround me again.

“Who are you talking to?” Melinda asks and looks around. “Is there a demon?” She reaches inside her jacket, no doubt ready to pull out a weapon.

“I…I don’t know,” I say, aware my pulse is racing. That voice belongs to Paimon, but he’s in Hell.

Isn’t he?

“I heard a voice,” I go on, forcing myself to take a few calming breaths and center myself. If Paimon is here, I need to pull myself together so I can kill the fucker. Pushing my shoulders back, magic sparks around my fingers, and I slowly scan my eyes over everyone around us. Any one of them could be possessed.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Melinda suggests, looking around just as suspiciously as I am. “Come back to my place. It’s as demon-proofed as you can get. Well, maybe not as you can get, but we’ll be prepared there.”

“Is your hunky brother home?” Eliza asks, smirk on her face so I don’t see the fear in her pretty blue eyes. “I don’t like the idea of Callie’s sloppy seconds, but if I’m going to be holed up in a hunter’s bunker, I need to be entertained.”

“The house on North Orchard is closest,” I say and flip my hand over, needing to test something. Carefully, I summon the smallest flicker of hellfire in my palm. “Fuck.”

“What?” Melinda’s hand is still in her jacket, ready to fight if need be.

“I think the gates have been opened again.” I curl my fingers into my palm and put out the small flame.

“You closed them from the inside,” Eliza states. “Who’s powerful enough to open them?”

“I don’t know. I need to talk to Julian. If the gates are in fact open, we can shove the Horsemen—”

“Cal!” Abby’s voice rings out from across the bar. “Hey!”

I snap my head up and see my sister madly waving. Her friend Ricci is next to her, with one other woman I don’t recognize behind her.

“Fuck,” I repeat. If a demon is possessing someone in the bar, I can’t leave my sister here. Especially when I can tell she’s drunk from across the room.

“Is that Abby?” Melinda asks.

“It is,” I tell her and wave back.

“You’re not thinking of joining in on stuck-up-mom girls’ night still, are you?” Eliza rushes out. “Because the bunker is sounding almost like a good idea right now.”

“Back up.” Melinda lets go of whatever weapon she was holding and puts her hand in her lap. “Horsemen?”

“Yeah. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse escaped Hell when Paimon forced the gates wide open.” I spit it all out, going with the rip off the Band-Aid technique I’ve come to love. “And I’m pretty sure it was Paimon I heard, but if he’s—” I cut off as something occurs to me.

“What?” Melinda leans in, eyes wide. Abby and her friends are almost to our table.

“Bael. He was able to astral project here from the prison dimension. If Paimon could, then maybe the gates aren’t open and maybe—” I stop and plaster a fake smile on my face. “Hey, Abby!”

Eliza gives me a lingering look of concern and then gets up, not wanting to bullshit small talk with my sister and her friends, who are rather stuck up, if I’m being honest.

“Look at you!” Abby slides into the booth and puts her hands on my stomach. “You look so cute!”

“As cute as a pregnant lady in a bar can look,” I joke and give Abby a hug.

“You remember Ricci, right?” Abby asks and scoots in. Ricci sits across from us, next to Melinda, and the other friend squeezes in next to Abby. “And this is Min. She works in the ER with me.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say. “This is Melinda, and there’s a good chance one of us will end up seeing you in the ER someday.”

Min laughs. “It’s nice to meet you too. Abby’s told me about all about you and how excited she is to become an aunt.”

“Good, because I’m going to be calling with all my questions.” I force another smile and lean back, giving Melinda a look that says I’m sorry. Rene brings Melinda’s drink and two big pretzels with cheese to the table. Abby and her friends order another round of drinks and some food as well.

“It seems like you’ve had a fun night,” I tell Abby.

“It’s been fun. We started at Navy Pier, and I had a beer. I haven’t had beer since college. Or been to Navy Pier without a kid in forever.”

I laugh. “Well, I’m glad you’re having fun and can wind down here before heading home.”

“The night is young!” Ricci exclaims. “I’m not ready to call it quits anytime soon!”

They won’t expect me to stay all night, I know. I was hoping to walk Abby home and cast an extra protection spell on her house just to be safe. I tear my pretzel apart so it will cool faster. Abby and her friends start talking, and I only half listen as I think.

Bael was able to astral project, and his projection had powers, even though he wasn’t at full strength. If Paimon is—hopefully—still trapped in Hell, he’d be able to project out of Hell too.

And I can astral project in.

Lucifer, if there’s any chance you can hear me, I really fucking need some help. That goes for you too, Dad, but I get why you can’t come.

“Right, Callie?” Ricci’s looking at me, overfilled lips curved into a half smile.

“I’m sorry, what?” I blink and notice the horrified look Melinda is giving her.

“That’s how you got pregnant,” Ricci says with a nod. “A vampire operation.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. They’re very rare and very expensive.” I pick up my mocktail and take a drink. “We’re lucky it worked.”

“Wow,” Min says. “I had no idea that was even a thing. Granted, there’s a lot I don’t know about vampires.”

“Your husband owns this place,” Ricci goes on. “Any chance we’ll see a vampire in here tonight?”

“There are already a few here,” Melinda says slowly.

“Really?” Ricci’s hand flies to her mouth, and she looks around excitedly. “Where?”

“The blonde who was sitting here before is a vampire,” Melinda tells her. “And the bartender.”

“And those two guys at the table by the window drinking bottled blood are vampires,” I add.

“I just got a chill.” Ricci brings her arms in. “Are you scared?”

Abby shakes her head. “There are more humans in this place, and statistically, we’re more likely to get shot by some white man than suffer any sort of vampire injury,” she says, and I’m proud of her. “I know Eliza. She wouldn’t hurt anyone in her bar.”

Melinda and I both have to stifle a laugh because it’s true. Eliza wouldn’t hurt anyone in the bar. But get them out in the back alley and she’ll have no problem with it. Both Min and Ricci start talking about how different things are now that vampires are out of the coffin, as mainstream media puts it. I dip a piece of my pretzel in cheese and suddenly feel like I’m being watched again.

I nudge Melinda’s foot under the table to get her attention and mouth, “Do you feel that?”

She looks around the bar and shakes her head. The feeling becomes almost oppressive and is making me all panicked, and a voice in the back of my head whispers that someone in this bar is possessed. I need to find them and kill them. Trying to shove the feeling aside, I eat another bite of pretzel. Abby and Min are swapping ER horror stories that involve people coming in with stuff stuck up their butts. I try to listen along and laugh, but the damn feeling doesn’t go away.

Melinda gently kicks me, and I turn my attention to her. She gives me a tiny nod, letting me know that now she does sense something. She looks in the direction of the bathroom and back at me.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” I say.

“Me too,” Melinda says quickly, and everyone slides out so we can get out. “You okay? You look a little shaken up.”

“I’m pretty sure Paimon is astral projecting from Hell. Which is both good and bad.”

“How is any of that good?”

We walk around the crowd of people watching the live performer play the guitar.

“If he’s still in Hell, then the gates are closed and no more demons can get out. It’s bad because when Bael projected, he had powers.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, it was bad. But we did discover they have a weakness: archangel blood. Mine was strong enough to kill the monsters he created.” I curl my lips over my teeth and shake my head. “I don’t know what Paimon’s powers are. When we were in Hell, he got in my head and told me he knew answers to everything I wanted to know. And for some reason, I think I believe him.” I give Melinda a sideways glance. “You don’t have to say it. Demons lie and manipulate and will say anything to get what they want.”

“What do you think he wants?” she asks slowly.

“I’m gonna go with taking over Hell like his buddy Bael. Lucifer told me demons can’t sit on the throne, so they’ve been trying to find loopholes for, well, ever. I’m a loophole. I’m half-archangel so I can sit in the throne as well as enter both Heaven and Hell, and I’m half-human so I can be possessed and controlled if they find a way to suppress my angel side.”

We get into the bathroom and step over by the mirrors, acting like we’re fixing our hair while we wait for the woman at the sink to leave. Melinda pulls the band out of her ponytail and runs her fingers through it. She looks like a different person with her hair down since I’m used to seeing her with it up all the time.

She’s possessed.

The words are whispered in my ear, and I twist around, throwing out a hand. Magic sizzles around my fingers, and I quickly make a fist to hide it.

She’s possessed.

The voice is inside my head again. I think? I can’t tell. My heart speeds up again, and I watch the woman’s reflection of her washing her hands. She turns the sink off and gets a lipstick from her purse. Suddenly, her eyes in her reflection turn black.

She’s possessed. Kill her before she kills you.

“Stop!” I yell, startling the woman. She jumps and gets lipstick on her face.

Melinda puts a hand on my shoulder, turning me away. “What’s going on?”

Kill her. Kill her! She’s going to kill you!

I squeeze my eyes closed and ball my fingers into fists. Shut up, I mentally scream. The voice isn’t Paimon’s anymore. It’s my own. The smell of brimstone fills the air again, and I get a vision of the woman standing over my dead body, pulling my intestines out.

Kill. Her.

The bathroom door opens and closes from the woman leaving. “Callie, talk to me,” Melinda says. She takes her hand off my shoulder and locks the bathroom door from the inside, making it so no one else can come in.

“Get out of my head,” I say through gritted teeth. I reach deep inside and draw on my angelic powers that have been repressed from my body temporarily housing more humanity than it’s used to. It’s like a weight is immediately lifted off my shoulders, and a sense of freedom washes over me. My eyes glow blue when I open them again, and the whispers stop. The smell of brimstone is gone, and someone knocks on the door. I let out a sigh. “I think I’m okay.”

Melinda doesn’t look convinced. “We need to get out of here.”

I nod in agreement. “Yeah. We’re not far from Lucas’s place. It’s spelled against demons, and I have magical supplies there.”

“Good. I’m getting some bad vibes now, and—fuck!”

“What?”

“There was something in the mirror.” In a flash, she has a knife in her hand and is on the defense. “A dark shadow.”

“It’s a demon,” I say and feel like I’m going to throw up again, but it’s not from the demon trying to take control of me. It’s because I finally placed why this felt familiar. “And it’s working for War.”