Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“But, that’s all in the past now,” she went on. “You’re safe now, and I was able to channel all the hatred from that fae brat’s little witch burning into pure magic. Now we have everything we need to open a window into the past, and discover what spell the foremothers used to close the gates.”
She snapped her fingers and suddenly I was upright and spinning around. Just like that, I was faced with the scene she didn’t want me to see too soon—in case I might overreact.
I took a single look, and screamed.
A scream that ravaged my throat and shredded my heart, but did nothing to block out the raving lunatic that used to be my mother.
“Once the gates are open,” she said as she moved around the edge of the pentagram, placing items where she needed them, “hell will unleash on earth, and Lucifer has promised me that the first to die will be the Avos coven,” she gritted, her voice rotted with the same hatred she forced upon Abaddon.
And deep in Abaddon, we found ourselves in a large, bare, stone room. A massive black pentagram dominated the floor. At each end of the five-pointed star, there was a jar of black blood, severed wings, a desiccated heart, and a pair of golden eyes.
“My mother and the only family she ever fucking cared about will pay for killing my husband, snatching me from my daughter, and forcing me to give birth to a beast just to get away from their control.”
I don’t even think she was talking to me anymore, because I was fairly sure that last horrible comment was directed at the young woman lying still in the middle of the pentagram.
Dora.
“Dora,” I screamed uselessly. “Dora, it’s me! I’m here! Wake up! Please, wake up!”
She couldn’t hear me, of course. She probably wouldn’t have heard me even if I wasn’t spelled silent.
Dora looked exactly as she did the night she was taken. The same dress. The same hairstyle. The same butterfly shoes. The same bits of food on that dress, shoes, and on her hair from the last meal we shared together. A meal that ended up all over her when the demons took her in the dining room. It looked like she’d been immediately spelled into a coma, and left to rot for almost two months.
The two months she waited for me to come and rescue her.
“But, you don’t need to be scared,” she told me. “When hell is unleashed, we will be too. Together, we’ll leave this wretched place and be reunited with your father.” She turned a sweet smile toward the ceiling. “He’s in heaven of course, and unlike hell, heaven is not a prison. Those who ascend can always return to a mortal life—albeit through reincarnation.
“But when your father sees that we’re together and walking the earth again, I know he’ll choose to be reincarnated, and I know he’ll choose me, even though I’m a demon now. From there, it’s a simple matter to track down his new body and awaken the memories of his past life. The Avos coven created the spell for that centuries ago, and I’ll teach it to you, baby girl.” She smiled at me. “You’ll bring Daddy back, and just like that, we’ll be a family again.”
“Insane.” My whole body trembled. “My gods, she’s insane.”
Maybe she read my lips, because she stepped over her gruesome altar of horrors and came over to pat my cheek. “This is all a shock, I know. You came with such pure and kind intentions. You believed you were saving your sister, but now that you know the truth, you understand that between the three of us—you, me, and your father—being reunited, and the life of that creature, there is no contest. Of course I choose our family.”
“Dora is family!” I shrieked, and startled myself. “I can speak?” I said the words, and my ears heard it. “Finally, I can speak!”
Mom turned away.
“Hey, wait, Mom, stop!”
She moved over to a small table loaded down with items—some I recognized, and some I’d only seen in movies and Halloween stores.
“Mom!”
“She can’t hear you, darling.” Lucifer fell in beside me, chuckling over making me scream in surprise. “Didn’t your vampire boyfriend tell you? The price of stealing someone’s voice is losing your hearing for the same length of time. A price your mother is happy to accept right now, I’m sure. The last thing she wants to hear is what you think of her right now.”
I shook with rage as that handsome, smirking, evil face came into full view.
“Tell me this is a trick,” I rasped. “This is an illusion. Tell me it is!”
“’Fraid not,” he sang, smiling away. “All true, darling. She really is my baby mama”—he pointed at Mom—“and sweet little Adora really is my baby.” He flapped a hand at my sleeping sister. “Beautiful, isn’t she?