And Ruin Followed Behind Her

Chapter 5-2

I FILLED AZIOLITH IN on the last two years of my life, from the moment he went to sleep until the moment he woke up and fought me. I left no detail out that I could remember, and when I finished, he looked back to my bed and the ashes of the books he burned.

“A banshee,” Aziolith said. “That is what you saw. They are nasty business.”

“There were dozens of them. Little girls.”

“That is what they do. They turn little girls into new versions of them. They cannot reproduce, except by corrupting others.”

“What do you think she wants with Kimberly?” I asked.

“You say you didn’t see her in the brood of children?”

“I didn’t have a chance to check them all, but I didn’t see her there. No.”

“Then there is only one option. She is using that little pixie to get back into Hell.”

“How can she do that? We closed the mystery spot.”

Aziolith laughed. “Certainly. But there are dozens more around the world.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you did not truly think your little town so special, did you?”

I was too ashamed to tell him the truth. “So, you think this is where she’s going? To another mystery spot?”

Aziolith shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“That’s not good enough! Think harder!”

“I don’t know!” Aziolith screamed so loudly that fire blazed out of his nose.

“If she’s trying open a gate to Hell, we have to stop her.”

“We? That’s very funny, we.”

“If she opens a portal, you might be sucked back inside for all I know. If you care about that at all, then yes, we have to work together.”

“Fine,” Aziolith grumbled. “I might know a place we can get an answer, but I can’t go looking like this. Get me a yellow-tinged potion from the same chest as you found the one to repair my wing.”

I rushed off and came back with the potion he requested. It smelled of urine and from the look on Aziolith’s face he was none too happy to drink the concoction down. Still, he tilted back his head and took a big swig.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Aziolith’s skin bubbled and oozed. His twenty-foot-high frame shrank and contorted, until he was no bigger than a normal sized man. In fact, he was exactly an average man once it was all done, with black hair and dark, shiny skin—and completely naked.

“Bring me clothes,” he demanded.

I sifted through some gigantic piles of clothing and brought back a medieval tunic and pauper’s pants. He grabbed them from me and put them over his muscular, naked frame. He looked every bit the man everywhere but his eyes, which were still yellow and reptilian.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Draft of transformation,” he replied. “It will last until I break the spell. I used it often in my youth to outsmart dragon slayers.”

“Are you ready to go, then?”

Aziolith nodded. “In a moment. I must put myself together, and you should change out of that dress.”

He was right. I was still wearing the dress from the funeral. It was not appropriate for investigating old houses, nor for whatever tasks we had in front of us. Luckily, I had more rugged clothes from when I hiked the Rockies with Mama. I ran off to put them on, leaving Aziolith to collect his things in a leather satchel.

Ten minutes later I returned, clothed in jeans, leather boots, a t-shirt, and brown leather coat. I hooked two sheathes around my belt and slid Akta’s magical daggers into them. I once used her daggers to kill demons and save Chandler from the gates of Hell, and if I was going to fight a banshee my gut told me I would need them again. I also strapped a switchblade to my shin on the inside of my right boot. It couldn’t help me with demons, but in a pinch a hidden switchblade had a thousand uses.

When I returned to the middle of the cave, Aziolith slung the satchel over his head and turned to me. He looked exactly as he had when I left him—muscular, stoic, and very much human.

“Are you ready to go?”

“I am,” he said.

I placed my hand on his forehead and closed my eyes. “Think of the place you want me to take us. Picture it in your mind’s eye. Make it real, down to the last detail.”

I saw the image of a house from Aziolith’s mind, and a moment later we disappeared in a flash of blue light and a puff of smoke.