As their voices went on outside my door, I attempted to cover up the flesh wounds and brands on my arms, pulling the covers up to my neck.
"Hey… you guys…come in," I shouted, trying to sound calm.
"Gurl… you look like hell," Lucia was always the one to tell it like it is.
"Laurel… what happened to you? Do you know there's two guys guarding your door?" Erin tossed her hair over her shoulder, longer than I remembered and with reddish highlights.
"Yea… they're my cousins," I lied, afraid to get into all the details.
"Cousins? Laurel… we've known you for a long time…. We've practiced magick, watched some crazy rituals… you disappear all summer …what gives?" Erin pleaded.
"There's no time to explain… let's just say I've been to hell and back okay?"
"Right… that we can believe… so really… who are the hot guys guarding your door?" Lucia's fake eyelashes batted at Sitri from across the hall.
"If I told you the truth, would you believe it?" I tried the honest approach.
"Of course! We're dying to know just what the hell is going on with you," Lucia's curiosity getting the better of her.
"Okay… here goes," I began to recap the last several months of demonic curses and sacrifices.
"When Professor Good found out that Dantalion was an 'Incubus' demon possessing my spirit, I tried to shut everyone out… I couldn't believe any of it was really happening to me. I tried to evoke Dantalion on my own, and by mistake, evoked the 'Succubus' Gwynnedd. She injected me with her poisonous venom and turned me into a demon serpent, chaining me to the altar of the Courtyard of the Undead. She tried to appease Satan, who promised he would break her curse if she presented him with a child of pure demon bloodline. Dantalion came to save me, evoking his thirty six legions of demons to devour her. Rowan searched for me in the Courtyard when I went missing. He mistakenly thought Dantalion had turned me into the serpent and tried burning him with fire and dowsing him with Holy water. He had no choice but to serve Dantalion as a demon or die. After that, Dantalion took me back to the Realm of Goetia where he was exiled. We spent the summer there together and when I realized I hadn't seen Rowan or my friends, I had Dantalion take me back. I found Rowan in the Courtyard half-demon! I was then stolen by Satan and taken to his Southern Infernal Realm. Dantalion, Rowan, and his legions of demons tried to save me. I was Satan's prisoner and Dantalion risked his life for my own. The angels of the third heaven released Dantalion of his demonic curse and appointed him my Guardian Angel. The only problem was, Satan was not happy about this and the Four Kings of Hell conspired to take down Dantalion and the mortal dominion by having him sign the oath at the Skull and Bones' Tomb. So that's why you guys have to get me in…" I gasped for air at the lengthy monologue.