Chapter 31

31

T remors wind through Delina's body, and she's shaking. She's shaking, her hands are shaking, her teeth are shaking.

Maison drags her back a few more steps, like the dust could reach out to her and catch her in it, too.

"Oh my god," whispers Chloe, and she's in pain, all but forgotten with a stab wound through her shoulder. She climbs to her feet, her face pale, clutching the wall for support.

The demon's eyes are wide, staring down at what's left of Korhonen, before she recoils in horror from Delina.

"We need to get out of here," Gurlien says, breaking the silence, absentmindedly reaching down to help the demon up. She clutches at his arm, then shoves away from him, her eyes red.

"What did you do?" the demon spits out, and Delina can taste her terror mixed in with the pain. "What did you—"

With a jerk, the leash tightens around her throat, yanking her back. She claws at her throat, her nails drawing lines of black blood, before she abruptly disappears.

Disappears, and going with her all possibility of helping her. Of getting rid of the control.

Delina swallows and, still shaking, turns to Maison.

He's pale, so pale, the blood on his cheek brilliant.

"We need to go," he says, his voice strangled.

"I should bring him back," Delina says, pointing to the bartender with a shaking hand. "He died, he didn't need to, I should—"

Maison steps in close, even though she can taste his fear. "If you try one more thing you're going to die," he says, voice dipping low. "We need to get you out of here."

They bandage their wounds back at the cabin, and Delina all but falls onto the couch, her head thudding.

"How did we see the demon?" Gurlien asks, after a few long moments of cleaning out splinters from Chloe's shoulder in silence. "I can't wrap my mind around it."

"That's what you can't wrap your mind around?" Maison shoots over, holding a wet paper towel to the cut on his cheek.

Gurlien looks up enough to give him a glare. "The other things have explanations. She went offensive, you tried to sell yourself out at the first opportunity, but I do not understand the demon."

"She said she was trapped," Delina says dully, as Maison squares his shoulders at Gurlien. "We were about to be able to help her."

"Ow," Chloe mutters, as Gurlien pulls another bloody shard of wood out of her shoulder. "We wouldn't have been able to."

"I was…I was bluffing," Delina says, and her hands still shake, no matter how hard she stares at them. "I was trying to get her to stop—could you guys hear what I was saying?"

"Enough of it," Maison mutters, ducking his chin down.

"Yes, maybe don't promise a demon things you don't know are possible," Gurlien says, and behind all the bluster there's a very real fear.

A fear of Delina.

"I was…I was trying not to die, okay?" Delina snaps, and they all turn to her. "I didn't know what to do or what to say?"

"And then you got out and immediately went all Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on Korhonen?" Gurlien says.

"That's the wrong movie," Chloe chimes in, small through the pain of the wood fragments still in her shoulder.

"I didn't know that would happen like that," Delina says, quieter than she likes, and another tremor quakes through her shoulders. "I thought I could get him to let me go, I didn't…"

Suddenly, bile climbs up her throat, and she leans over, putting her head through her knees.

"I didn't know he would die! I didn't know, I didn't…"

Too many things had happened that day.

Too many.

The cabin is silent, and Delina just breathes through her nose against the nausea, tears crowding into her eyes.

"You're still hurt," Maison says, gently sitting next to her, pulling back the collar of her shirt, where she swears she can still feel the echo of Korhonen's hand gripping her. "Process this tomorrow, we need to take care of you."

"No, processing now would be good," Gurlien interrupts, and Delina's eyes prickle. "We killed the top battle mage, their demon escaped, this is going to escalate!"

"Shut it, Gurlien," Chloe mumbles.

"No, I won't shut it, this is bad!"

Delina glances up to see Gurlien throw up his hands, the fear twisting to frustration.

"I'm tired of pretending that this isn't bad, that every new thing isn't some horrible revelation, and that I'm supposed to be normal after all of this! We saw him die! He literally crumpled into dust! We're not gonna be okay after this!"

Gently, Maison rubs between Delina's shoulder blades.

"A demon was told to dispose of me, if Chloe was three inches to the right that wood shard would have gone through her throat! Delina almost got zapped to death by a demon, and you—" he jabs his finger at Maison, "—you just gave up so quickly!"

"He had her by the throat! She couldn't stand!" Maison says, and Delina can feel his anger like it is her own. "I was trying to buy time! I didn't want her to die!"

"Thanks," Delina breathes out, her mind still flashing to the horror on Korhonen's face as the skin peeled off his hand. At the bones disintegrating, at the dust falling from him.

"And still your first thought was to give up. To go back to them. To go right into the situation you just got out of, except worse." Gurlien paces in the small living room, and Chance the cat pokes his head in before skittering away.

"Not sure if you noticed, but there was a full demon there, and I wasn't exactly winning that fight," Maison bites out, his hand stilling on Delina's back.

"And the demon, who nobody will explain to me," Gurlien finishes, crossing his arms. "How could we see her? Did you know her?"

"There was a thing around her neck," Delina all but mumbles. "It was controlling her, she didn't want to be there."

Chloe clears her throat, picking out another shard of wood out of her own shoulder, and it turns Delina's stomach all over again.

"I think we should abandon the cabin," Chloe says, and everyone abruptly shuts up. "Go somewhere else. They know we're nearby now."

"The demon said nobody else knew," Delina replies, because this, at least, can distract her mind from the horror, from the skin flaking away like burned paper. "Said she tracked Maison, not me."

Chloe watches Delina, her brown eyes serious. "And now they know how to do that. We should run."

"I don't want to leave the demon circle at this moment," Gurlien says, like the conversation is distracting his mind too, derailing it from the conflict. "We go anywhere else, they now have a sniffer dog out there waiting for us to pop up."

"She's not a dog," Maison shoots back, immediately standing up. "She wasn't there because she wanted to be."

"That didn't stop her from almost killing Delina!" Gurlien says. "That didn't stop her from blowing up the bar, from fighting you, from disappearing the first moment she could! She's probably back there now, telling them where we are and how to get us for more of the Necromancer!"

"Calm down," Chloe says, softly, but her gaze is hard. "We can create the demon circle again. We'll pick the next property on the will."

"I'm not leaving," Delina says, and once again, everyone falls silent to look at her, so she sits up even though her stomach still churns. "The demon can't get us in here, and she might not even want to tell them where we are. For all they know, Korhonen took a demon out of whatever prison—" Maison flinches at that, "—and he didn't come back. They might not even know why."

"You can't seriously be taking the demon's side in all of this," Gurlien replies, turning to sarcasm that obviously masks some fear. "You were a few random zaps away from being dead because of her."

"And she didn't even want to be there!" Maison all but blows up, and it takes Delina a few seconds to track that he's still a little drunk, despite all the action and magic. "She was obviously just another victim."

Gurlien scoffs, and Maison's shoulders tense, his arm pulling back, and—

Delina catches his hand, right as his hand clenches into a fist.

"Sit down," she orders, and they both stare at her. "No, both of you. Sit."

"Thank you, Delina," Chloe mumbles, as they sit on opposite sides of the couch.

"Anyone who wants to leave, can leave." The very thought of it turns her stomach, along with the alcohol and the horror. "I'm staying here, it's my cabin, they don't know exactly where it's at. That means it's safe."

Chloe ducks her head down.

"The two of you are probably safe to leave, they're not tracking you," Delina says, pointing to Chloe and Gurlien. "But we can't make a decision right now, not while…"

Not while the bone crumbling away sticks in her mind.

She swallows, hard. "Maison, do you think she could track us down here? To this cabin? Even if they forced her?"

Gurlien scoffs again, but quieter this time.

"No," Maison replies, staring hard at Gurlien. "She can't see beyond the demon circle and couldn't get in."

"Okay," Delina says, and her voice wobbles. "Then I'm staying, at least until tomorrow."

"We should plan for tomorrow," Chloe murmurs, like she doesn't want to contradict Delina, but wants to be anywhere but in the room at the moment. "We should have a plan in case they knock on our door."

"Not a bad idea," Delina says, but the horror rises up in her stomach again.

She killed someone. Someone who was previously alive, and no amount of necromancy could bring back the dead like that.

She swallows it down again.

"I'll sleep out here," Maison says, and Gurlien squints at him. "If they come through the door in the middle of the night, they'll deal with me first thing."

"Or you'll just give yourself up at first chance," Gurlien shoots over. "Whoops, welcome in, have my ex without a fight, the other two sleep over there, leave the cat alone if you can, I'm just gonna go with you and back to my cushy life where everyone believes I'm a prodigy and—" He cuts off, abruptly swallowing, before he buries his face in his hands, breathing raggedly.

Without the yelling, the silence churns in Delina.

Delina glances up at Maison, and instead of the anger, there's something else on his face. Something between pity and resignation.

Chance the cat pokes his head around the corner again, at the sudden quiet. At Chloe, holding a damp towel to her shoulder with a pale face, at Gurlien, not looking up. At Delina, who probably doesn't look that great either, and Maison, who's still bleeding from the cut across his face.

Maison shifts, and instead of any punch or any violent motion, just clasps Gurlien on the shoulder.

Gurlien flinches, but doesn't open his eyes, before he relaxes, exhaling.

"We're not giving up," Delina says, and each time she speaks, she just hears the shriek from Korhonen, before his lungs caved in.

"Yeah," Gurlien says, voice weary, before he rubs his eyes again. "Sorry, Maison."

"I get it," Maison says, though his jaw is tight, before he shifts away until he can lean against Delina. "You should absolutely eat something before you try to sleep."

As if sleep is something that'll happen at this point.

"Don't really think I can keep anything down," Delina attempts at a joke and immediately regrets it, everyone suddenly staring at her. "I…I killed someone? I've never done that? I think I'm still drunk? I don't…"

Chloe tromps over to the kitchen and comes back with a chocolate bar, shoving it in Delina's hands, before she sits in front of Gurlien, handing him the tweezers and pointing at her shoulder. "Fix please."

"Yeah, okay," Gurlien says, still a bit numb. "Sorry."

Chloe nods, yanking down the collar of her undershirt, so he can see the mess better.

This close, it's a bloody pulp and Delina can see what might be a muscle.

"Should you go to the hospital?" Delina asks, and Maison takes the chocolate bar from her, opening it for her.

"They're absolutely going to look at the hospitals," Chloe says, grim. "I've had worse, I'll get better."

Another silence descends on the cabin.

"Well, at least now we know I can fight," Delina attempts at a joke, even though the horror still crawls under her skin. "I'm not just…helpless."

"Jesus Christ," Gurlien mutters.

Despite the exhaustion, despite the ghost numbness that steals over her if she's not thinking too hard, despite the now acute hangover, Delina can't sleep, tossing and turning in the giant bed, alone.

Oh, she's not alone at being unable to sleep. Maison's sitting up on the couch in the other room, back rod straight, the cat curled up on his lap. Chloe's down in the basement, next to the dead fly, on one of those rolling chairs. Gurlien's awake in his room, pacing the small distance, back and forth.

She's not sure the last time she's felt so tired, but closing her eyes just brings back an almost unnamable sort of terror, so she peels herself off the bed, clutching one of the blankets around her shoulders to ward off the chill, and kicks open the door to the living room.

Maison's not surprised to see her awake, that's for sure, but he doesn't get up, the cat too nestled on his lap.

Delina blinks at him in the dim light, before grabbing a water from the kitchen and joining him on the couch.

He shifts, just enough so she can curl her legs underneath herself, tugging the blanket around her.

It's quiet, beautifully quiet, before Maison breathes out, pointing towards the window. "It started snowing a bit ago," he whispers, and through the gap in the floral curtains, there's just a hint of falling snow.

"Will that affect the demon trap?" Delina asks, but he's already shaking his head. "Oh."

"If anything, it'll make it less visible to normal humans," Maison says, and there's something sad on his face. "Just uncrossable for demons."

"That's good," Delina says, and Chance the cat yawns, stretching out his paw just enough so he touches Delina's knee. "Have you…have you had to kill someone before?"

Maison swallows, then nods.

"Does it get less weird?"

He shakes his head, firmly, before he equivocates. "Less weird, yes. Less awful, no."

"Who did you kill?" Delina asks, almost desperately, the need for some sort of knowledge tugging at her. "What did they do?"

Maison stills, and in the dim light it's as if he's carved from stone. "Try to kidnap you," he says, and his voice is strange, foreign. "A splinter group from the East Coast, they weren't…they weren't going to keep you alive."

"Grim," Delina says, tugging the blanket tighter.

"You did a good job, at least," Maison says, still soft. "Didn't hesitate from what I could see."

"Not helpful," Delina says, settling deeper in the couch, but the loneliness is a bit less severe, out here. "Would you really have gone with them?"

Maison breathes out, shutting his eyes. "If it was the only option to keep you safe."

"I don't like that," Delina says, and he shuts his eyes further, scrunching his face down. "Don't, okay."

He doesn't say anything, and in the dim light, Delina lets her eyes fall shut, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, the only sound the purr from the cat.