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Gabe closed his eyes. He surged with blue magic like a halo around him. The smell of a summer rain shower filled the area, and all around us, tiny droplets of water shone in the moonlight as the dew lifted from the grass. He brought his hands together and the droplets all formed one big bubble of water, which he moved over the fire and then dropped it. The fire sizzled and crackled out. I stared in awe of what he’d just done. He hadn’t needed any large bodies of water for that. He’d just used the dew and probably any water from the air. It was genius.

“What are you saying?” Travis asked, his forehead pinched together. He grabbed her hands away from me.

She shook her head. Tears ran down her cheeks. “It’s not him, Travis. It was him. But it’s not him anymore. He’s just a…shell of who he used to be. What made Jax who he is isn’t in there anymore. It’s just…” She shivered. “Evil. That’s all he is.”

“Jennie…” Travis said, drawing her name out as if he couldn’t believe what she’d just said. Or refused to believe it.

“I know,” she said. “I wanted to believe it too, Travis, but he’s just not there. That thing killed him.”

Randy looked away. One could argue that he’d done this to himself, but this wasn’t the time or the place.

“Trust me,” she said.

She looked so much like Travis at that moment that my heart went out to her. I knew I didn’t understand exactly what it was like to have friends who were that special, but I could relate it to one of them. I could see how I would react if something like this had happened to Travis, Gabe, Randy or Liam. I wouldn’t want to believe it. I’d do anything possible to try to save them. I’d have hope until the very last moment.

Travis tugged Jennie to him. It looked as if that was the very last moment. The moment Travis realized that Jax was truly gone. Maybe he wasn’t dead in the typical sense, but for all intents and purposes, he was. He wasn’t who he had been. He wasn’t Travis’s best friend. He wasn’t Jennie’s boyfriend. He certainly wasn’t a member of the Order anymore. Maybe he could have been pulled back if they’d gotten to him after he got stripped. Maybe he could have been like Jennie and found another avenue to work her powers again. But he’d been hasty and selfish, and now he was dealing with the outcome.

Travis pulled Jennie up, holding her to him as he turned to the rest of us. “Jax can’t suffer anymore,” he said. “If that’s not him, then he needs to be killed. Jax wouldn’t have wanted to be like that. He wouldn’t have wanted his body used like that.”

I didn’t understand demon possession. I’d be the first to admit that, but the way Travis talked, he thought that maybe Jax was still in there, at least a little part of him, whether that part was evil or not now didn’t matter. He wanted to put his friend out of his misery, and we were going to do that for him.

“Send the firework,” Travis said. “This ends tonight.”

20

It took a moment for all of us to realize he meant right then. We all stared at one another. I wasn’t ready.

But was fighting a demon really something you could prepare for. We had numbers on our side…and strength.

Liam held his hand in the air. It glowed orange until sparks like shooting stars soared into the air, crackling into the night sky. Travis looked up. Cinnamon engulfed us as he controlled the wind to move the fireworks higher and higher. The witches would be able to see that for miles around.

Liam’s phone rang immediately. He fished it out of his pocket and handed it to me to answer while he sent out more magical fireworks.

“Hello,” I said, answering Walter’s call.

“Is it time?”

“Yes,” I said, staring at my coven. Then, I ended the call and handed it back to Liam as we moved toward the Jeep. It was slower going this time since Jennie was sore and tired. It would be smarter to leave her at the apartment, but she insisted on coming.

I climbed on top of Gabe as we got into the Jeep. I needed his reassurance, his comforting nature as we drove back into Historical Salem. We passed the street my shop was on and I thought that somehow in another life, I might have been at the shop already doing inventory or stocking a new item instead of speeding down the streets of Salem to confront a demon.

Would I give this all up though? Hell no. This was mine. Every fucked up hair-raising piece of it.

I cuddled into Gabe with Walter’s words in my head. “Be careful. Don’t use too much magic.” And Granny’s singsong tone as she told me that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, but somehow that wasn’t right either. I understood it all. It was the life I’d chosen. Well, the life that had chosen me in the beginning, but every day after that, I’d chosen it. I was walking my path with my head looking forward and not back no matter what.

“Everything will be okay,” Gabe said. I nodded into him and he kissed my cheek. “I finally told my grandfather about you.”

I looked up at him. “You did?”

The barest of smiles claimed his lips. “He says you sound amazing, and that he wouldn’t give you up either.”

“He sounds really smart,” I said.

His lips curved higher. “I must get it from him.”

“Well, obviously.” I pulled him down for a kiss, showing him how thankful I was that he’d told his grandfather about me. I knew how worried he’d been, especially since his grandfather had seemed to know a thing or two about covens with one female. He’d heard the rumors. The fact that he would be behind Gabe still walking his path, made my heart soar.

Liam looked over, wincing. “You’re glowing again, Norah.”