First And Last - By Stacey Kennedy Page 0,51

I even have the strength to do what you’re suggesting?”

Ember nodded. “My ruin spoke to you. Only one capable would have that affect on it.”

I rubbed a hand over my face, tried to sort all this out, get a grasp on really what I had to do here. I needed to simplify things. “So, I just find Mammon, use that rune, then poof he’ll go back. I just have to say those words and close off the realm.” Putting it that way didn’t seem like such a big deal—draw a little rune, say a few words, easy peasy, right?

Ember’s eyes darkened, her face said it all, but she answered anyway. “I’m sorry, it will not be that easy.”

“It never is,” I grumbled.

“When I failed, it left an opening for the Demon Lords to return again. To be summoned if needed.”

“Why haven’t they summoned the Demon Lords before now?”

“I’d suspect the reasons behind that are because they’ve been happy with their leaders. There was no reason for them to return—until now.” She took a deep breath. “And now that Mammon has returned and not been immediately sent back, his strength will grow.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” I stated the obvious.

“It’s not. Mammon will siphon energy from the demons who have summoned him. I can promise by this time, he’s fully restored and will seek to restore all the Demon Lords back into the Underworld.” Yup, it was as a bad as I thought. “He will start to summon the rest of the Demon Lords and when they return, they’ll use a very old rune…”

I interrupted her. “Let me guess. It’s a pentacle with a goat’s head?”

She nodded solemnly. “It is Satan’s symbol. Occultus Unus. The hidden one—he hides in all. Is all. The magic comes from Satan himself.” She gave me a very stern look. “If you fail here and cannot banish them before they use this rune, they’ll begin the ritual and once they draw that rune, I’m sorry to say, your fight will be pointless.”

“What is the ritual they will do?” Zia asked her.

“Any rituals that have to do with the Demon Lords and Satan’s magic, always take place in apple orchards.”

“I noticed that. Apples were at all of the scenes.”

“They’d have to,” Ember answered. “Apples were the very beginning.”

“The very beginning of what?” I had to ask.

“Adam and Eve. The forbidden fruit. Satan tempted them and they were not powerful enough to deny him. Thus, came the first sin. In basic terms, it was the first offering of a soul. The first humans who turned to him.”

I guffawed. “Seriously, that story was true?”

Ember nodded firmly. “Most of the history within the Earthworld has significant truth, it sometimes just gets a little muffled is all.” I gave my head a little shake to process that as she continued. “The apple trees are an energy source. That’s why you’ll notice that the apples around the rune have died—it has stolen the life from them.”

My head was spinning. As much as I tried to listen, I needed to clear a few things up before I could move on. “What hadn’t the Fae leader, Aaliya, thought of this and not closed off the realm to the Demon Lords too?”

The second my words ended, Ember lit up—I mean lit up—like glowing all over her body. “Er…what is wrong with you?”

Her eyes widened as she glanced down at her glowing arms. “Oh, it’s nothing.” She rubbed her arms as if that was going to take it away. “My magic overwhelms me at times.”

“Well that was just weird,” I speculated.

“Certainly was,” Zia replied.

Ember closed her eyes, then the glow completely vanished and she continued as if nothing had just happened. “The Fae act foretold events. Did you know that?”

It took a moment to stop looking at her arms, which now appeared totally normal, but needed these answers, I dragged my gaze back to her. “I heard something about that.”

“Well at the time, it was only foretold to close the realm off so Satan could never escape, not the Demon Lords. No one expected that the Demon Lords would want to return and leave Satan, or that anyone would create a rune so strong the Demon Lords would be able to siphon Satan’s magic.”

That just seemed ridiculous. If they had done this in the first place, I wouldn’t be in this mess. “They never go against that they’ve foretold?”

“Never,” Ember replied adamantly. “It didn’t reveal itself until many years later that leaving the Demon Lords free