Tirade (Heven and Hell #3)(8)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“I’m good,” he answered, then looked at me. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I had a run in with a demon,” I said, not bothering to sugarcoat it. I wanted his respect and I wouldn’t get it by talking to him like he was five years old.

I watched him swallow. “A demon?”

“Yes, on my way home from visiting my mom. But don’t worry, I killed it.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, but some of its blood got on me and now I don’t feel so hot.”

“Does Sam know?” Logan asked, shuffling from foot to foot.

I patted the bed with my hand so he would sit down, ignoring the question. Gemma capped the salve and picked up my glass. “It will make you feel better; drink it.”

“It works. Do what she says,” Cole said from the desk chair.

Gemma smiled. “I had to force his down his throat. The big baby.”

“I was ten times worse than she is!” Cole defended himself.

“I know.” Gemma’s eyes clouded over at the mention of how sick Cole had been after being attacked by a swarm of demons.

I grabbed the glass and downed the juice. Logan was watching so I avoided any kind of face, even though I wanted to make one because that stuff was horrible. I lay down on the bed, propping myself up on the pillows. “How long until that stuff works?”

“Depends on how much venom got in you.”

“Not much,” I said. “I should be fine soon.”

Gemma didn’t look convinced, but I was and that was all that mattered. I glanced back at Logan. “Mind if we take a rain check on the ice cream?”

He nodded. “Gran asked me if I wanted to go shopping with her.”

“You should go. Stock up on more candy.” I smiled.

He didn’t return the smile. He just looked at me, frowning. “Sam doesn’t know, does he?”

I sighed. I guess ignoring his earlier question hadn’t worked. “No. I didn’t tell him.”

Logan thought about my words for a minute, but to my surprise, he just nodded and said, “You’re going to be okay?”

There was genuine worry in his voice and it made me think that maybe all my effort with him was paying off. “Of course. Don’t worry about me.”

He got up from the bed, straightening his bad joints slowly, and went toward the door. Cole held up his hand for a high five, which Logan slapped him, but he glanced back at me before leaving. “Get me some candy too. Anything chocolate.”

He smiled, then disappeared from sight. Out in the hall, he began to cough. It sounded like there was fluid in his lungs. I let my head fall back on the pillows and looked at Gemma. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“How long has he been coughing like that?”

“First time I heard him today. But it’s been off and on.”

“I don’t know how much more I can do for him. Healing him only seems to help for a little while.”

“I know.” I sighed and shut my eyes. After a few moments I said, “I’ve been thinking. If I kill Hecate, would her magic die with her? You know, the spell that created the force field?”

“You can’t kill Hecate.” Gemma said.

“Maybe not alone but with the dagger…”

“You misunderstand. Hecate can’t die. She’s eternal.”

“Eternal?” Cole asked.

“Immortal, whatever you want to call it. It’s the reason she can be in hell without losing her soul.”

“I thought that was because she was evil and had no soul.” I snorted.

“That too,” Gemma agreed. “But she isn’t a demon.”

I stared at the ceiling, trying to push back the frustration I felt. Every idea I had turned out to be useless. “Any ideas on how we break down the force field?”

“What about Kimber?” Cole said.

“What about her?” I opened my eyes and looked at my brother.

“She’s a witch. She could cast a spell to weaken the barrier.” I wondered if he noticed the way Gemma tensed at the mention of his ex-girlfriend. He didn’t act like he noticed and I wasn’t about to point it out. It wasn’t important anyway.

“She’s also trapped in hell and her soul separated from her body.” I reminded him. I stopped thinking of Kimber as my best friend weeks ago, but I still felt beyond horrible for what was happening to her.

“What if we put her soul back in her body?”

“Can we even do that?” I asked, skeptically

“In my books, it says a soul can be convinced to return to the body it was separated from,” Gemma answered.

“What do you mean convinced?” Cole asked.

Gemma nodded and turned to look at my brother. “Once a soul separates from a body, it usually just floats off into hell until it’s corrupted and turns into something vile like one of those demons that keep showing up. The body it came from usually just dies.”

“We saw Kimber. She isn’t dead,” Cole said.

Gemma’s back muscles tightened slightly and I thought again about how talking about Kimber was making her feel. “I’m sure she didn’t look like herself,” she said tersely.

Cole seemed to sit up a little straighter at Gemma’s short reply, but he kept his face impassive. “She looked like hell.”

Gemma snorted.

I didn’t have time for them to act like this, so I reached out and touched Gemma’s arm. She turned back to me abruptly. “You have a fever!”

I waved off her worry. “I’m fine. Hecate put some spell on her cell to keep her alive and her soul from drifting away.”

“How did she seem… mentally?” Gemma asked.

I thought back. Kimber had helped us get out of there—she gave us the Lucent Marble when we thought it was lost. “She definitely isn’t the same, but I think there’s still some of her left.”

“That’s a good sign.” Gemma nodded.

“How is that a good sign?” Cole asked.

Gemma turned to look at him. “Usually, once a soul spends a lot of time out of a body down in hell, it turns completely evil.”

“No. She won’t.” Cole shook his head spastically. “She’s not evil. All we have to do is convince her soul to get back in her body.”

“It won’t be easy,” Gemma warned. “Her soul has been free for a while now. It isn’t going to want to be forced back inside her body, which has probably been deteriorating.”