Page 53 of Luna: Posy 2

"Angelo, you go with him and finish searching this place," the king directed. "Cole, you're with me. Wyatt, stand guard. I don't want us trapped down there. When Mase gets back, tell him to go check on the witches and the twins."

After Ash and Angelo left the room, I tried the door to the basement, found it locked, and kicked it open. The smell that oozed up from the blackness told us all we needed to know about what was down there.

I smell black magic, boss!Topaz growled. Call witches.

"Paz says he smells black magic. What do your wolves say?" I coughed, flapping my hand in front of my face.

"Granite says the same," Wyatt choked out.

"Nyx, too, and he scented a layer of something else, but he doesn't know what. He's never smelled it before," the king wheezed. "We need the witches to do some purifying."

"We will, and you're right," Ariel's voice came from behind us.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw her and her two cousins standing in the kitchen doorway. With the foul reek slowly filling up the kitchen, we knew they wouldn't come any closer, so we walked over to them.

"Black magic was used here," she continued, "and the 'something else' your wolf smells, your majesty, is an infernal being."

"Whoa. Wait.Here?" I swung my head around as Topaz went into high alert, both of us ready to kill something.

"What's an infernal being?" Wyatt yipped.

"A creature from Hell. A lesser demon, by the feel of it," said Sara, one of the witches.

"Well, where is it?"

"We know, and it is not here," the three witches crooned.

"MacBeth, anyone?" the king chuckled to himself.

I scowled at him, and he rolled his eyes.

"Chill, Cole. Whatever it was, it's long gone," he pointed out.

"Again, correct." Ariel gave him a quick nod. "We'll get to that later. Now, are you going down in that awful hole?"

"I need to know," he said simply.

"And there might be survivors," Wyatt added with more hope than expectation in his voice.

"Then let's not waste any more time." She looked at her sister witches. "Shall we, ladies?"

They all joined hands, and their power buffeted against us. The smell of lemon filled the kitchen and spread until I couldn't detect so much as a trace of the vile stench.

Nodding at each other, the king and I went down the stairs.

What we found in that basement made me wish there was a purifying spell for my memory. If there was, I'd ask those witches to bleach out everything I saw.

I wouldn't even care if it took a few brain cells along with it.

#

Ash

Gamma Reuben Ford was the only one King Julian and Cole found alive in the basement. They laid him right on the kitchen floor to assess his injuries before the king blasted him with power. Reuben sat up with a loud gasp, his hair sticking up as if he had been electrocuted.

"Hey, Rube. Let's go get cleaned up, yeah?" Wyatt said in a quiet voice, rubbing a hand up and down Reuben's back. "I'll help you get a shower while Ash finds you some clean clothes. Then we can get something to eat. How's that sound?"

Reuben opened his mouth, but only babble came out.

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