A Demon’s Book Of Shadows (Witches & Demons #1)

21. Lucy

21

Lucy

Amon’s dark shadows coalesced around me as my mother’s garden disappeared. My legs went slack as the earth fell away. Wind whipped past my face, tangling my hair.

My body was weightless and free. Rooftops and trees drifted below me. This couldn’t be happening.

Were we flying ?

I squeezed what felt like Amon’s arm. He became a tendrilling mass of velvety onyx mist.

“We’re going higher. Hold onto me,” Amon said, his voice echoing from everywhere.

I clenched what I could of his shadows as the onyx mist thickened. The town below became smaller. Clouds drifted past my body, chilling me to the bone.

“I’ve never been flying this high over town. Wow, this is. . .” My breath was literally stripped away. I could see the damage the Bone Threader had done to town. His marks had scoured the streets and ripped through trees. Goddess, it looked like a tornado had swept through Midhaven. Who knew that a wendigo could cause so much damage in so little time.

It wasn’t until I saw the library that I understood the magnitude of his power.

“He’s circling the library,” I bit out, tears trailing out from the corners of my eyes.

“That’s why we can’t go anywhere near there,” Amon replied, his ebony shadows swathing around my core.

My stomach dropped, not from the height, but from the possibility that I could lose the one place in town that made me whole. I couldn’t stand to think what my life might be like if I didn't have my wonderful world of books.

“Quick question. Why is this wendigo called the Bone Threader?” I asked.

“He weaves demon bodies together as though they were threads. The result ends up in the shadow archives,” he replied nonchalantly.

I swallowed. “How do we get to the shadow archives?”

Amon’s grip on me tightened. “That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”

As we spiraled somewhere between clouds and sky, I saw him. Well, most of him.

Amon’s upper body appeared. Shadows threaded out of him like vines and feathers. He was something out of both a nightmare, and a dream. Goddess, my mother was right. Demon’s really were sinfully beautiful beings.

My ankles compressed as solid ground met my feet. We weren’t in the country, or in town. So where the heck were we?

The air was thick here, much too humid for this time of year. Twilight settled around the strange, eerie place. Was it a forest? A building? I couldn’t tell what the towering structure before us was, but it was beautifully creepy.

Black feathers scattered across a frosty path. Dewdrops clung to the fibers. Everything here was thick and slow, as though time had escaped long ago.

“Where are we?” I asked, clutching my sides to subdue my shivering.

An archway made of stone loomed before us. Roots crept out of each crack and crevasse, holding the archway together. This was more like the entrance to a catacomb or a tomb than to an archive.

Amon walked forward, his footsteps echoing off the stones. Light flashed in the dark tunnel the archway guarded. A disembodied voice grumbled, sending gooseflesh rippling up my arms.

He set his hand on the keystone at the center of the archway. The ground crumbled away beneath the archway as a stone staircase manifested. Wind whipped out of the tunnel, scattering the feathers.

He caught one of them in his hand and brought the edge to his lips. He licked the dew from the fibers, tossing the feather aside. “This is a secret entrance to the shadow archives my parents created together,” he replied. “Welcome to the Ravenblood’s personal archive.”

He began his descent of the stairs, leaving me to watch him disappear into the torchlit tunnel.

I darted after him, nearly slipping on the damp stones as I followed. His stride was long and with purpose, making me feel small. I’d recently asked Mom about the shadow magic practiced by demons, but I didn’t expect to have an entire archive at my fingertips so soon.

Heck, I didn’t even know if this archive had books. What if the grimoires were really monsters?

“Wait up!” I called after him.

Amon didn’t slow his pace. His steps quickened, so I took off in a jog to catch up.

We rounded a bend where a giant moss-covered root nearly landed me on my butt. I slammed into Amon’s back, which was no longer solid.

He was transforming into something.

His body was evaporating, leaving nothing but the vertebrae and bones protruding from his ribcage. Skin and hair became fibers interwoven with another, flexing and separating.

“What’s happening to you?” I asked, backing away from his frightening transformation.

The soft caress of feathers came to my wrists and arms. They draped down my neck, my sides, until the firm grip of two hands lay upon my shoulders.

Amon was no longer a physical body. He took up the entire space as though he was air. “What lives in this archive is not necessarily physical,” he said as he took my hand, guiding me forward. “The shadow archives house magic that exists as spirits.”

“What do you mean, spirits ?”

Amon drifted behind me, his shadows coalescing at my sides. “The magic of both witches and demons who have lived and died lives on in this archive. ”

My thoughts drifted to my father. How I wished I could share this place with him. After Amon’s description of shadow magic, I wondered if a piece of him lived on here.

“How is this happening?” I ask as the room seemed to rearrange itself. Walls of dirt began to shift, and roots crept between stones, releasing mist into the air.

“The shadow magic is responding to you,” he replied, his heavy bony hands steering me toward a wall.

The archive was cast in low light. There were no bookshelves, but layer upon layer of roots that formed deep gaping hollows. The earthy structure created its own light, emitted by tiny glowing particles that resembled fireflies. They hovered like in the air, making Amon’s sinuous black feathers shimmer with green iridescence.

The walls had symbols on them. There were mostly birds, bugs, and spiders. Some of the symbols resembled serpents, while others looked like stars.

Amon stopped me in front of the wall with the symbols carved into the stone. His hard body pressed against my back protectively.

“Why are there so many spider symbols?” I asked, taking note of the ten, and sometimes twelve-legged pictographs that dominated the wall. I could easily see how someone could interpret the symbols as monsters.

“Iktomi represents the web of the shadow archives. His web is the fabric that holds the archives together. But he is only a small part of what created it. When a demon dies, a wendigo takes the pieces of his body and recycles it into a grimoire. ”

My breath caught. “This archive is made from the bodies of demons?”

Amon’s fingers flexed on my shoulders. “Yes. This archive has a dark history.”

“How long has the shadow archive been around?”

“It’s existed ever since magic was created. My parents used to tell me that the structure is the ancient den all familiars emerged from. When they appeared on the earth, they abandoned their den, which soon became a shadow archive for demons.”

I scanned the space, finding that other passageways led off into different directions. “Who created the tunnels?”

“Probably a giant ancestor of your bookworm. Who knows.”

The ground trembled beneath my feet, sending a chill up my spine. What if some ancestor of Grubs was still living here? And what if it had as many legs as the spider symbols?

“What do you want me to do?” I asked, watching as the roots fold over each other. The lumpy spines of books appeared beneath them.

“You must choose which grimoire you want to capture.”

I swallowed. Capture ? “You make it sound as though the books here are alive.”

A dark chuckle rumbled past the cusp of my ear. “You would be surprised at how much life you can find in magic that involves death. Historically, the grimoires from the shadow archives have been used to seek truths only seen with magic.”

“Truths? ”

Amon grazed his finger across one of the book spines, making it shiver. “We can hide truths from ourselves, even in death. The grimoires have magic that helps to decipher truth often lost by spirits.”

I scanned the books. “How does one even begin to read the truth?”

“Sometimes it’s about letting the magic read you.” Amon’s hand extended beyond mine, touching the books. Magic pulsed out of them in thick waves. The energy was malleable. I could morph it with my mind, as long as I had Amon’s cool body pressed against me.

Amon’s hands withdrew from my shoulders. His protective weight was no longer present. He threw out his arms, the caged animal inside of him released. Like sculpted stone, symbols began to bleed through his skin. “Read me.”

“What do you mean, read me ?” I ask, my breath catching at the sheer beauty of him. Amon’s crooked smile broadened as his eyes found me. Lightning flashed in them, great storms of magic and power illuminating the darker parts of him. “Stop ignoring your talents. Read me like you read one of your books.”

I stared at his chest, his arms, everything his tattoos encompassed. I couldn’t ignore the trail of dark hair that extended down his torso. Everything was shifting, spiraling to the point that it made me dizzy. The symbols on his arms lit up like lightning.

My throat constricted. “I can't read you.”

“Yes you can. I’ve been watching you, Lucy Crow.” His feathers grazed my cheek, their softness comforting. “Now, trust in your magic. Everything else will flow. ”

My memories of the symbols were buried somewhere, but I didn’t know where from. I had seen them, but where? Why were they flooding through me like a thunderstorm?

I closed my eyes, focusing on the pulsing energy I had written for Crystal’s secret seeing ability. I might not have a crystal in my hand, but I had Amon’s shadows assisting me.

They folded over me like silk, his feathers spreading like a protective halo. His aura pulsed, a red iridescence shimmering against the emerging blue outlines of the grimoires.

I focused on the energies pulsing between him, the grimoires, and myself. Our auras blended and folded, until we were dancing together. The colors combined, forming into a shimmering orb of energy. I touched the orb before it dispersed, releasing a gust of wind that sent Amon’s feathers flying.

I opened my eyes, finding him gazing at me.

Pride flickered in his eyes, a proud glimmer acknowledging what I’d accomplished.

The wall bulged as more roots emerged, and a great wind tunneled past me.

“Don’t let the shadows win,” Amon said as he retrieved his feathers with a flick of his hands. The ends traced my cheeks and arms, drawing my focus away from the wind. “They will test you to see if you believe in them or not.”

I dug my heels into the ground. My own magic surged, the scent of something burning filling my senses. The roots were angry, lashing out from the hollow.

One struck my cheek. Dampness filled my mouth. I tasted blood .

Heat burst through my fingers as lights pulsed through me. Another element emerged not from the wall, but from below. My shoes became damp.

Water, so much water. It welled up like a spring from the ground. I had to make it stop, or the archive would flood!

The fire in my fingers escaped, torching the wall and igniting the roots as they thrash out at me.

A vision flashed in my mind’s eye, a vision of a black tree.

I focused on the elements whipping through the branches—the wind, and rain, and lightning. I felt the earth tremble as the tree grew. This tree, whatever it was, had somehow tapped into my own magic. Its roots were drinking, draining my power before I could master it.

One of the roots gripped my wrist. A book emerged from the hollow, the spine threaded with roots and vines as it struggled to free itself.

“I got one!” I cried, falling backward.

Amon collected me back into his shadows.

The water retreated from the archive, as did any body heat I had left. I was soaking wet, and freezing. The book was lodged between us, a mass of gritty, damp earth pulsing with magic.

Amon’s arms relaxed around me, and I saw his eyes for the first time in what felt like ages. They were so full of light, not dark and cavernous like the archive.

His lips curved into a lopsided grin. “Nice job.”

I gripped the sodden book in my hands. “What do we do now?”

“We get the hell out of here before the archive realizes it’s missing. ”

The hollows in the walls began to draw in air again as though they were inhaling.

I spun on my heel, preparing to dart back toward the staircase.

Amon’s hand came to mine, black, bony feathers sticking out of his wrists. “We don’t exit the same way we entered,” he said, leveling his gaze with me. He was no longer a creature that seemed to fill up the entire archive like air. He was solid again, standing before me. His dark hair was misshapen and feathery in texture.

He plucked a few of the black feathers out of his hair and ran his hand through it to tame the rebellious mass, then took off for another tunnel.

“Why do I get the feeling that not many books get checked out from this place?” I asked as I followed, tucking my new grimoire under my arm. “Who re-shelves the materials, given the books are returned?”

“They are self-organizing.”

I grabbed his hand. “You’re kidding me.”

“I’m not. There is no use for librarians in this archive. The shadows that live inside of the books all work to organize themselves.”

Amon squeezed my hand as we entered another tunnel. I was enveloped with so many questions about the history of this archive and why it was formed.

We walked in silence, a dribble of water or a shifting stone occasionally filling the void. The quiet was oddly comforting. This archive wasn’t only a home for books—it was a living, breathing place that I couldn’t get enough of .

After I’d seen the rawness of Amon unfold, I started to think that maybe demons weren’t what they appeared to be. They were more than just shadows. Their stories were brimming with history. I couldn’t wait to see what magic this new grimoire held. Maybe it would tell me more about Amon’s story.