Free A Demon's Wrath: Part II (Peachville High Demons) by Sarra Cannon

women.
    “I have no
idea,” Lea said. She looked down at the small round stone in
her palm. “Somehow this stone brought us here, but I have no
idea where here is.”
    “Why
haven’t they even turned to look at us?” I asked.
    Lea studied the women.
Carefully, she stepped forward, walking around them and even between
them. She lifted her hand up in front of one of the women’s
faces, but the woman continued her conversation without so much as
blinking.
    “They can’t
see us,” she said.
    Behind me, Andros
suddenly appeared in the hallway. It took him a moment to catch his
breath, but when he did, he was actually smiling.
    “Do you
understand what’s happening?” I asked him.
    “As if it
wasn’t enough for us to discover a dead hunter and her spell
books today, we’ve also discovered a hidden power of Lea’s.”
    “I did
this?” she asked. She put her hand straight through one of the
women’s bodies, as if we were merely watching an apparition or
a memory.
    “I’ve
heard of this ability but never actually known anyone who could do
it,” he said. “When you touched that stone, it somehow
triggered a memory. But not one of your memories. One of the stone’s
memories.”
    She shook her head. “A
stone can have memories?”
    “Yes,”
he said. “Everything has memories. Demons, places, objects.
Something about this stone held a memory so strong it triggered your
ability to see this memory. And in fact, not just see the memory, but
also to relive it.”
    “So what
we’re seeing here is a memory?”
    “Yes,”
he said. “We’re inside the stone’s memory. Look.”
    He pointed to the two
human women. The taller one, an older woman with white hair, took out
a small box and presented it to the younger woman.
    “Why can’t
we hear what they’re saying?” I asked.
    Andros shook his head.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “It could be that
this is a new power and Lea will need to work to gain more control
over it, or it could be that her powers don’t manifest sound at
all. Only time will tell just how strong of an ability this will be
for her.”
    The younger woman
opened the box, tears in her eyes. She gasped at the blue stone
inside, happiness and gratitude in her expression.
    But as the older woman
took the stone from the box, something about the memory darkened. My
stomach twisted as she grabbed the younger woman’s hand and
forced the stone against her skin.
    The young girl’s
mouth curled into a painful grimace and her legs gave out from under
her. She fell to the ground, but the older woman never let go.
Instead, she slowly couched to the floor, keeping the stone pressed
firmly against the other woman’s palm. She was saying something
furiously and as she spoke, the younger woman’s skin began to
wrinkle and dry, as if sucking the life directly out of her body. Her
hair began to fall out in patches and her eyes dulled.
    When the spell was
complete, the older woman smiled and stood. She straightened the
skirts of her gown and tossed the blue stone at the younger woman’s
broken body.
    She wasn’t dead,
but she was changed. She was turning into a hunter. I don’t
know how I knew it, but I was sure that was what we had just
witnessed.
    Then, as suddenly as
we’d appeared in that place, we left it again, sucked back
through time and space until we stood, once again, firmly on the
dusty floor of the forgotten cave.

Memory Keeper
    I stumbled when we reappeared inside the cave,
falling against the crumbling wall. My stomach lurched and I leaned
forward, feeling like I was going to throw up.
    “What the hell just happened?” Ourelia
asked.
    Andros and Lea took a moment to catch their breath
and regain their footing before either of them answered her.
    “Lea’s a memory keeper,” he
said.
    Ourelia’s eyes grew wide and her mouth fell
open in awe.
    “I never knew I could do that,” Lea
said. “That was insane.”
    She laughed, but then almost collapsed. I stepped
forward and caught her