Ruby Shadows (Born to Darkness #3)(114)
The strange, dream-like state I’d somehow fallen into abruptly shattered and I realized what I’d been about to do. I’d been about to kill a man—to commit murder. Call it what you want—a sacrifice…a justified killing…but what it boiled down to was murder.
I’d wanted Ray dead for years—wanted him out of Keisha’s life. The revenge spell I’d been working on would have caused him to wither away as long as he was with her. He would have wound up an old man in a matter of months and if he continued to harass her, he eventually would have died. But working a spell of revenge from a distance and actually slitting his throat and watching the ruby streams of blood pump out onto the sand were two different things. I hated this man with my whole heart but could I actually kill him in cold blood? Could I let myself go that far into the darkness? A darkness from which I might never return?
Last night I had been willing. But then I had been under the influence of the HellSpawn, manipulating me through the mirror, and the darkness had nearly swallowed me. I had called the evil into myself, willing myself to be able to kill. And I understood now that was the only way I could commit this act—the only way I could take his life. Should I open myself to the evil again? Could I do it again?
My answer came when the athame fell from my hand to thump harmlessly on the sand at my feet.
“I can’t,” I whispered, backing away from the straining Ray, whose eyes were rolling crazily in his frozen face. “I can’t do this—I’m sorry.”
“Think before you make your decision, Gwendolyn,” Laish said softly, picking up the athame. His eyes were glowing like two red stars and I thought I had never seen him look so handsome…or so demonic.
“You’re tempting me,” I accused him breathlessly.
“No, I am trying to save you grief. You have only two choices here,” he murmured. “Either surrender your innocence to me and lose half your power, or sacrifice the hornless goat and kill this man who has wronged your sister. No other sins are strong enough to pay the tax and pass through the barrier into the Abyss.”
“I know,” I whispered, backing away. “I know it, Laish but I…I can’t. Grams wouldn’t want me to—wouldn’t want me to go all the way into the darkness. And…and I don’t want to either. I know you said it wouldn’t stain my soul forever but it would. And it would change me. I wouldn’t be the same person anymore. I’d be someone else—someone I wouldn’t like. Someone I don’t want to be.”
He stood for a moment, holding the athame loosely in one hand and regarding me with a mixture of sadness and resignation on his face. Then he nodded once.
“So mote it be,” he said and plunged the silver athame’s blade directly into Ray’s heart.
The pimp gave a choked gurgle and then collapsed on the ground. Before his blood could even stain the sand, Laish made a violent gesture and spoke another word of power. As suddenly as he had appeared, Ray vanished.
There was nothing left to show that he had been there at all but the equipment Laish had brought for the summoning and the throbbing of my own sore heart.
* * * * *
Laish
I had known that she wouldn’t be able to perform the sacrifice. Not my tender hearted little witch. As much as she planned and schemed for her revenge spell, I knew that when it came to the point, she would be unable to commit murder.
I, as a demon, however, had no such qualms. This man deserved to die. I had done some quiet checking into his life before deciding on this course of action and Keisha was not the only girl whose life he had ruined and whose innocence he had despoiled. He was not above murder himself, either. A life for a life has always been the rule from ancient times and this man owed many. I was happy to make him pay if for no other reason than to free my beloved’s cherished sister from bondage to him.
I was worried, however, about the way Gwendolyn was looking at me. There was fear in her green eyes now—fear and rage. I hadn’t anticipated this, though perhaps I should have. She was ever a strong-willed woman—it was no wonder she was angry at me for manipulating her. If only she knew that was the least of what I had in mind—there were even greater betrayals in store. But for now, this was sufficient to make her enraged with me, I could see.
“You…how could you?” she whispered, her voice trembling. “How could you put me in that position? What are you doing—tempting me to stain my soul so completely I’ll have no chance to go to Heaven when I die? Is that it? You want me to wind up here in Hell with you permanently?”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” I said, honestly enough. “But no, that was not my plan.” Little did she know I had more direct methods in mind to tie her to me.
“Then what?” She walked around the sacred circle she had called, blowing out the candles. “Why make me participate in that…that perversion of a ritual?”
“To give you another way to pay the tax without losing your innocence,” I said, trying to make my voice soft and coaxing.
Behind her I could see through the barrier into the Abyss. It was a vast, bottomless pit filled with evil creatures older than time—the Ancient Ones. Their long tentacles were writhing and reaching, searching to clutch any unwary soul that came too close.
And there, on the far side of that chasm of nightmares, was a shining, silver light. Just a slender beam but I could see it—it was coming from the door that my little witch had left open when she rescued her friend. It was a door that only someone with her soul signature could close and it was balanced on the furthest, most dangerous edge of the Abyss.