Tempting The Dark. Michele Hauf

wanted something to drink. He wanted his feet to stop burning because he’d taken off his sneakers after the rubber soles had melted in the steel nettle field. He wanted safety. He’d do anything to escape this place he’d come to think of as the Place of All Demons.

      “I see water!” Jett began to run.

      Savin couldn’t believe she had the energy to move so swiftly. But he managed to pick up his pace and follow. She was fifty yards ahead of him when she reached the edge of what looked like a waterfall. Actual water?

      “Jett, be careful!”

      But she didn’t hear him. And when she turned to wave to him, all of a sudden her body was flung upward—as if lifted by a big invisible hand—and then her body dropped.

      Savin reached the edge of the falls and plunged to his knees. He couldn’t see Jett. Her screams echoed for a long time. And what initially looked like clear, cool water suddenly morphed into a thick, sludgy black flow of lava that bubbled down into an endless pit. He couldn’t see the bottom.

      “Jett!”

      * * *

      He lay at the edge of the pit for a long time. Days? There was no night and day in this awful place, so he couldn’t know. After he’d decided that Jett had died in the lava, Savin had vacillated between jumping in and ending his life, and crawling away. No one could survive such a fall. Perhaps that was for the best. He hoped she hadn’t suffered. He hoped she was in heaven right now, happy and safe.

      But as much as he wanted to give up, he also didn’t want to die.

      Savin finally crawled away from the lava falls. He hadn’t the energy to stand. He’d lost his walking stick in the lavender field. The next creature that threatened him? Bring it on. He didn’t like the idea of being eaten alive, but maybe the thing would chomp on his heart and kill him fast.

      He crawled endlessly. Nothing tried to eat him.

      Calluses roughed his fingers, and his T-shirt was shredded. He couldn’t feel his feet anymore. And his throat was so dry he couldn’t make saliva. So when he heard the voice of a woman, he thought it must be a dream.

      Savin lay sprawled on an icy sheet of blackness that smelled like blood and dirt. Again, he heard the voice. Was it saying...help me?

      It wasn’t Jett’s voice. Was it? No. Impossible. Though his heart broke anew over her loss, he couldn’t produce tears.

      “Over here...”

      With great effort, he was able to lift his head and saw what looked like lush streams of blackest hair. Was it Jett?

      He crawled forward. His fingers glanced over something soft and fine, like one of his mother’s dresses. It was blue and smelled like flowers. A woman lay on the ground, blue and black hair flowing about her in masses that he thought made up her dress. He couldn’t get a good look at her face because he was too weak to sit up or stand.

      “Do you want to go home?” the woman whispered.

      He sobbed without tears and nodded profusely.

      “I can help you out of Daemonia.”

      That was the first time he’d heard the name of this terrible place.

      “Please,” he rasped. “I’ll do anything.”

      “Of course you will, boy. I ask but one simple thing of you.”

      “Anything,” he managed.

      “Come closer, boy. If you kiss me, I will bring you home.”

      Kiss her? What strange request was that?

      On the other hand...all he had to do was kiss the woman and he could return home to his soft, warm bed?

      Savin pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked back the direction from which he’d crawled. He’d promised Jett he’d protect her. He’d failed. He should stay in this awful place as punishment. But he wasn’t stupid. And he wanted to see his parents.

      “A...kiss?”

      “Just one. And then you can go home.”

      Savin crawled closer to the woman until he hovered inches from her face. She smelled like a field of flowers. Her skin was dark blue and her eyes were red, as were the eyes of all the creatures in this terrible place. He wavered as he supported himself with a hand and leaned closer.

      And then he saw her lips.

      Savin cried out. He tumbled to the side and rolled to his back. Her lips were covered with worms!

      “Just one kiss, boy. Your parents are worried about you.”

      Now a teardrop did fall. Savin gasped and choked as he could only wish for the safety of his parents’ embrace. And then...he forced himself to lean over the woman and kiss her awful mouth.

       Chapter 3

      He was called a reckoner now.

      Savin Thorne sent demons who had come from Daemonia back where they belonged. He was hired to do so and rarely hunted them himself. He left the hunting for others. Once the demon was subdued or contained—usually in some style of hex circle—then he stepped in and worked his magic. A demonic magic afforded him, he believed, because of the demon within him. She had hitched a ride to the mortal realm when she sent him home following that foul kiss. He knew it was a female. And he could not get her out of him. He didn’t know her name, so had come to refer to her as the Other. He’d love to expel her from his very soul, but he’d tried every possible spell, hex and banishment without success.

      He’d accepted that life from here on would be spent sharing his bones and flesh with the demon he’d once kissed out of a vile desperation.

      Rain spattered Savin’s face and streaked through the headlight beams. The woman kneeling on the ground before him waited for his reaction. She’d called him by name. And her name was...

      Mon Dieu, he’d thought her dead.

      “Jett?”

      She nodded, blinking at the falling rain. “I...I finally got out.”

      “Finally...” Words felt impossible.

      It was incredible to fathom. This frail, dirtied woman was Jett? All grown up? Had she been in Daemonia all this time? Twenty years? If he had known she’d survived the fall, he would have found a way to get to her, to rescue her from the unspeakable evils. Somehow.

      Savin’s heart thundered. His fingers flexed at his sides. He didn’t know what to do. How to react. He should have been there for her when they were nine and ten and lost in the Place of All Demons. He’d promised her he would protect her. And he had failed.

      Yet somehow Jett had survived. Had she escaped through the rift that had opened earlier? She must have.

      She must be so... Twenty years! She had no home. No life. She had literally been dropped into this world.

      “Jett.” Savin dropped to the ground before her, his knees crunching the wet gravel. Without reluctance, he hugged her to him. She was frail and shaking and they were both soaked from the rain. “I thought you were dead. Oh, Jett, I’m so sorry. It’s really you?”

      He leaned back and studied her face. He remembered the sweet round face of the girl with the long black hair and the giggles that never ceased. Her eyes had been—Yes, they were brown. It could be her.

      It had to be her.

      “You’ve gotten so big,” she said, and then managed a weak laugh. “Yes, it’s me. Jett Montfort. I’m out. I’m... Oh, Savin.” She searched his eyes. Rain lashed at her pale skin and lips. “I want to be safe.”

      “Of course. Safe. You are now. With me. I’ll...”

      What