Caia wanted to blush. Marion was this mega magik and she was telling her that she was impressive. She listened as the witch rambled on and on about the extent of her power, what she could be capable of doing. Her abilities with trace magik for the Midnights was what really fascinated Marion, and the more and more she talked about it, the more and more Caia wanted her to be right. She needed her to be right.

After a while, the sun had fallen beneath the trees and the moon danced in the sky, Caia decided it wouldn’t be rude now to take her leave and head off to bed. She was buzzing with a new found desperation to find Jaeden.

“Caia,” Marion called back to her as she wandered up the back porch.

“Yes?”

“I know what you’re trying to do. In your dreams.”

“What about it?”

“Marita told me a little about how it feels to be connected to Daylights. She’s dealing with a potential rogue magik who is in Scotland at the moment. To find him she delves into his head in her dreams like you’re doing with Ethan. She told me when she’s inside, it’s like she’s sharing his body more than his thoughts and that to tap into that part she can’t just sit docile and wait.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She said she visualizes the space she occupies inside him as a room with a door that leads to his thoughts. Some are easy and all she has to do is open the door and everything she needs floods into her. Others she spends some time kicking the door down.”

Huh, Caia breathed, “You think that’ll work?”

Marion shrugged, smiling apologetically. “I wouldn’t know, I don’t have trace magik. But I believe Marita when she says that’s what she does.”

Caia stood a moment, just looking at her. If what she said worked Caia was going to kill somebody. I mean something that simple and it’s been within my grasp all this time. She wanted to huff and scream like a petulant teenager. Instead she just smiled tightly, thanked her, and headed up towards her room.

“Well now,” Ethan breathed and she felt his excitement as he gripped the cage bars. “You seem to have recovered nicely from your wounds.”

He was rewarded with a meek whimper.

“Sounds like I’ve definitely broken you now, girl.”

NO! Caia screamed, desperate to claw at him somehow, maybe take those evil mitts of his and rake his own damn nails down his face.

He was smiling as he bent down to the floor. Caia could see Jaeden, sitting upright, her slender arms wrapped around her knees drawn tight to her chest. She had lost so much weight, her cheekbones sharp, her blue eyes stark in her narrow face. Her eyes didn’t flinch away from his, but Caia saw no emotion there either. She just stared numbly at him, like a zombie. “You know, I was going to kill you since I really have no military use for you anymore but... I think I’ll just keep you as my punching bag until you die of... well... unnatural causes.” He laughed and stood up and began walking away.

All the while Caia screamed and screamed trying to make him walk back so she could keep an eye on Jaeden. Finally she exhausted herself, and by then he was back in the old-fashioned sitting room, gazing at the television. Across from him was a young male magik Caia had seen once before. Unfortunately, they had never said anything interesting to one another while she had been... visiting.

Suddenly Caia remembered why she was here.

Right, right, she wanted to smack her own head. She was to visualize a room. Right... and a door. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and did just that. A long, narrow cold room with the stench of evil, and at the end… a black door. She walked towards it, trying to stay calm. She stopped outside of it and smirked at the sign on the door - ‘Ethan’s Evil Brain’. Who says you can’t have a sense of humor even in the darkest of times. She tried for the door handle, and not to her surprise, she found it locked. Oh yeah, Ethan was going to be a tough door to break down.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! She threw herself with everything she had against the door but it wouldn’t budge. Next her legs were flying at it. Thump thump thump – oof! Marion never mentioned that this was would actually hurt! Frustrated as all Hades Caia took a running throw at it and despite the burning pain in her ear where she had smacked up against it, she was happy to hear the splintering of wood. She got back to her feet and stared triumphantly at the cracked middle paneling on the door. A few more beatings and the place would be hers for the taking.

Ten minutes later Caia stepped through the door and into a world of pitiless darkness.

“Holy Artemis!” She shot up in her bed, drawing in gulps of air. Sweat ran down her forehead, had gathered under her arms and her pj’s stuck to her like second skin. Her whole body ached as if she really had been throwing herself against the door. Glancing at the clock, which read 22.15, Caia hurried out of bed and into her bathroom where she did a quick clean up. No one was in the house, she couldn’t feel any of them, so she threw on some jeans and a sweater, grabbed her car keys and headed outside.

She knew where Jaeden was.

She couldn’t stop grinning, her heart pounding, her adrenaline rushing. She almost wanted to change.

The Ford flew smoothly into town as she headed for Lucien’s store, where she knew he had been hanging out til’ all hours in the night trying to avoid her. But right now he couldn’t avoid her. She needed him to help her get Jaeden back to the pack.

As would be expected, the mall she had to park her car in was completely empty, except for Lucien’s truck. She smirked and got out of the car, shivering at the cold night air and the five minute walk she had to Lucien’s place. Woodrush Point’s parking facilities really sucked.

At the opposite end of the mall lot was a narrow pathway, almost like an alley, between two stores that she would have to walk through to get onto Main Street. She glanced around very aware of being on her own and tried to shrug off a sudden blast of ice that tingled across her skin in a perverse caress.

“Stupid... wimp,” she muttered as she headed across the lot.

And then she stopped.

Her ears pricked, the hair on the back of her neck rose, and her animal instincts told her to run.

By then it was too late. The ice blasted through her veins at the same time something solid crashed against her back sending her flying through the air. Sickening pain exploded through her body when she landed on the asphalt, the flesh on her hands and legs scraping off in burning tears. Her head snapped back with the impact and her front teeth jarred, rattling her brain then piercing through her bottom lip. She tasted the blood and hissed, turning over with her fast reflexes in time to watch the approach of something she had never seen the like of before.

It could have been a human except for the swirling vortex of hell that was its mouth, its mouth that had no lips, its nose that was merely two small holes in the middle of its face where smoke belched out with its excitement as it neared her. Caia’s heart demanded to explode in her chest but she refused it, breathing in out, in out, as she scrambled away from it like one of those chicks in a really bad horror movie. The thing’s eyes blazed at her like two white glowing orbs. It had no hair and stood at least seven feet tall, towering over her in nothing but leathers and twisted muscle for a torso. Its skin was burnt red and deadly roped.

A daemon.

Caia knew instinctively that was what it was. Ryder had come across a few in his time and he had described them in perfect detail.

Oh, I am so screwed.

She hopped to her feet, crouched low in a defensive position. “What do you want?” her voice was impressively steady considering.

The hole that was its mouth widened into what could have been a smile (it was hard to tell) and a soft eerie voice escaped it, “It’s not what I want little wolf, it’s what your uncle wants.”

“Ethan?”

It nodded and smiled again. “Aren’t you going to ask what he wants?”

Caia shook her head. There was no need to. Ryder had told her that daemons were only utilized for two purposes. Security and assassinations.

Quickly, she scanned the area trying to gauge what her best move would be. She didn’t know if she could outrun this thing. She could maybe if she was in lykan form, but did she really have time for that?

No.

And then her eyes alighted on her car and she gasped, looking back and forth between it and the daemon. Could she? She’d never moved anything as large as it before.

The daemon took a step towards her. Caia threw all her energy out towards the car and it strained, the metal crunching under her pull. It stopped the daemon in its tracks.

It looked confused as it took in the crunching car that had begun squealing slowly towards them, and turned its gaze back on Caia. Seeing her concentration it stood stunned in disbelief.

“I hadn’t thought it true,” it grumbled that echoing voice and picked up its pace, striding towards her.

“Aaaaaaaarrrrggggh!” Caia reached out with both arms and pulled on the car with all her magik, sweat breaking out in beads across her body. The car soared into the air and came hurtling back down, knocking the daemon over like a bowling ball hitting a pin. Caia didn’t hang around. She took off in the direction of the store, flinching at the deafening sound of the car crashing to the ground and rolling and rolling…

It sounded like it was rolling towards her.

“Fu-” she whipped around and stared in shock as it bounced in tumbles across the lot, still coming at her. How much power did she put into the damn thing?! “Waa-” she shrieked and dove to the side, out of its path. Lying panting in disbelief Caia watched as the Ford finally lost momentum and drew to a screeching halt on its left side.

“My car.”

It was completely wrecked that was for sure.

“Don’t mourn your car, little wolf.”

“Aw come on!” she yelled in frightened irritation at the gods, and then turned to see the daemon sneering down at her from a few meters away.

Getting back on her feet was the toughest thing she had ever had to do.

“I’m angry now,” the daemon said serenely.