“Beverly!” I cry out as I run back toward her. But I stop and gasp as I see Damon rise up out of the ground.

“Tamzin!” he says when he sees me. He reaches his arms out toward me.

“Look out!” I shout, pointing behind him.

“What?” he turns just as the beast grips Damon in his enormous hand.

“Beelzebub?” Damon says.

So, not the Dark Lord, but bad enough.

“I think he’s trying to possess me,” I shout up to Damon.

“Oh, not today, dude,” Damon says. Damon then shifts into his own beastly shape, the monster of fire and smoke. He breaks out of Beelzebub’s hand and pulls out a flaming sword. He slashes it toward Beelzebub. Beelzebub uses his bare arms to defend himself. Damon utters something in demon speak. The woman from the house appears, and she is holding chains, but what they are made out of, I cannot tell. They don’t look like any material I’ve ever seen before. Together, Damon and the woman zigzag around Beelzebub, wrapping him in the chains. Damon then pulls on the chains and Beelzebub crashes to the ground.

“Go back to your master!” Damon says. Beelzebub lets out a screaming roar as the ground opens up, swallowing Beelzebub whole. When the ground closes back up, you’d never know that a hole to Hell had just been there.

For a moment, everyone is quiet. In relief or shock, or both, I’m not sure. Finally, Damon turns to me.

“Tamzin!”

I run to his open, waiting arms. “I’m so sorry!” I say, burying my face in his neck.

“Don’t be,” he says. “I should have told you the danger you were in. I just thought I could protect you.”

“You did,” I say. “You saved me from that monster.”

Damon shakes his head and looks at me. “The Dark Lord will never stop coming for you. Not until his curse is fulfilled?”

“What…what are you saying?” I ask nervously, taking a step back.

“I think I have to fulfill my orders,” he says sadly.

“You mean…” I can hardly say it.

“I have to possess and torture you, Tamzin.”

CHAPTER 23

“What? But you can’t,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” Damon says. “I don’t know how else to end the curse. The Dark Lord will keep sending bigger, badder demons after you until his oath is fulfilled.”

“There must be another way,” Beverly says.

“If there is, I don’t know it. And we could be running out of time right now.” He looks to the female demon. “This is my friend, Eisheth. You can trust her.”

His words do not reassure me. I wrap my arms around myself nervously.

Eisheth bends down, touching the ground. “I think she is coming.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Surely not,” Damon says.

“I told you,” Eisheth says, “the Dark Lord is eager to end this matter.”

Damon turns to me and puts his hand to my cheek. “I’m sorry, my love.”