Page 132 of Demon's Bluff
I had two good pops, maybe three if I chose my spell well, and my pulse quickened as Scott did foolishly nothing.“Visio deli!”I shouted, flinging a tiny amount of ley line at him.
Eyes wide, Scott flung himself from Elyse, thinking if it hit him, he’d be blind. In truth, there wasn’t enough energy in the spell to cloud his vision. But he didn’t know that.
“Implicare!”I paced forward like a vengeful spirit, the remnants of Elyse’s stink spell furling about my feet.
Face white, he skittered away from the black curls snaking about where he had been, coils that would tighten about him and choke the words from his throat—if I had put the energy behind them. They were so weak, they hardly had any form.
I had reached Elyse, and I stood over her as she held a hand to her neck. Her eyes were wet, her anger a quick flash as she broke the spell Scott had put on her.
“Parvus pendetur fur, magnus abire videtur,”I intoned, feeling the dark curse crawl over me like spiders as I threw first a tiny pop of nothing at him to make him shy to the left, right into the real charm waiting for him—the one that I had saved all my energy for. It was illicit magic from the demons’ vault, the curse designed to twist his next spell against him. If he did nothing, he’d be fine. But I doubted that’s how the next five minutes were going to play out. Whatever he dished out, he’d get himself.
Scott gasped as he felt the curse take him, and he froze, energy gathered to combat whatever it was. But nothing happened. Nothing would until he acted. “Who are you?” he said, and I snapped my fingers for Elyse to take my hand. I didn’t dare look away from him, and relief filled me when her cold fingers gripped mine and I hauled her to her feet.
“You cannot hide from the coven,” Scott said, his confidence returning as two people burst in, their attitude more than their I.S. insignia telling me we were in trouble. That and the power sparking through their auras.
“I can’t fight three alone,” Elyse whispered, and my determination swelled.
“You don’t have to.” My hand was still in hers, and her breath caught as I pulled on a line through her and Slick, my hair cracking with the sudden influx.
“Fire in the hole!” Scott dove for the swinging doors.
But it was too late, and I shouted an exuberant“Detrudo!”
Scott escaped, but the two I.S. agents were shoved to the walls, arms flailing and spells sent awry.
“That was a demon curse!” Elyse said as I dragged her into the furnace room and slammed the door shut.
What did she expect? I was a demon.
My gut hurt. I let go of her to hold in the nausea. On the other side of the door, a rhythmic pounding began.
Elyse stood in the middle of my circle, shaking as she looked at Kisten, the roaring furnace, then the door. They had stopped hammering. That did not bode well. “Soon as they get the code, they’ll be in here,” she said, and I tugged Kisten to the circle’s center.
“Then we go where they can’t follow. You still have that stasis ley line charm?”
She felt her shoulder, wincing as she nodded. “Yes. But your bag…”
Crap on toast. It was out in the main room. “I have everything I need here. If they don’t kick you out of the coven when we get home, you can give me my book back. ’Kay?”
“Rachel…”
“You’re in the circle? Sit,” I directed.
“Rachel, where’s the broken stirring rod? Do you still have it? How are you going to know when we go far enough?”
She looked scared, even when I reached into my pocket and found the pieces. “We’re good.”Please, God. Let this work,I thought as the ceilingshook when the three witches tried something. “You’re right. We aren’t getting out of here.” I held out my hand. “Give me the stasis charm.” I couldn’t look at Kisten. He wouldn’t make it home as an undead, but I wouldn’t have to watch him decompose in front of me when Art’s virus finally killed him twice.Thank you, Trent.
White-faced, she took the charm from her pocket and handed it to me. “If he wakes up and bites me, I will have your head on a platter.”
Oh, if only,I thought, fingers cold as I took it.
“You are brave, Rachel Morgan,” Elyse said as she nervously resettled herself. “You are strong in spirit, and you are good. If this doesn’t work and I die in front of you, it wasn’t your fault. Don’t let anyone tell you different.” She took a slow breath. “I give you permission to pull on a ley line through me to perform a possibly illicit curse to get us home.” Her brow furrowed. “Be careful. Slick means the world to me.”
I took her hand when she extended it, tasting her fear and trust through the line as I linked to it through her. “I will see you when we get there,” I said.
She opened her mouth to say something, and I pulled the pin.“Receperatam sol. Ta na shay,”I whispered, and the ancient demon charm twisted by an elven slave invoked, spilling a reddish-green haze over her and Kisten like a blanket.
Elyse went still, her eyes open and her lips parted, her next words frozen in her mind. Worried, I tucked the circlet of charmed silver into my pocket, pin and all, praying that it worked as it was supposed to. She looked…not dead, but like a thing. Kisten, too, looked about the same, but unlike Elyse, he wouldn’t wake up when I broke the curse at the end.