Page 42 of Demon's Bluff

“Rache!” Jenks warned, and my hand slipped from Trent’s. We weren’t going to make it. We had to make a stand.

“Knock it off, or I will put you down!” I shouted, and Laker pinwheeled to a halt. He was half a block away from us, and we were half a block to the ley line.

“Go,” I said softly, and Trent settled in more deeply beside me. “Trent, the line is like right there,” I protested, and he shook his head as magic wreathed his hands.

“I’m just doing my job,” the man said, winded. “Go ahead and spell me. The coven would love an excuse to bring you in, too, Morgan.”

I pulled heavier on the line, my aura flashing into the visual range. The line was too far away to simply step into. I could feel it humming through me, though. Laker could probably see it.

“Rache, he’s stalling for time,” Jenks said. “Hit him with something and run.”

“He’s trying to figure out which amulet to use,” Trent said. “He can’t get both of us.”

“He’s not getting either of us.” I ground my soles into the pavement.“Laker?” I said, stiffening as the man gripped an amulet like a grenade. “Don’t make me do this.”

But he did, and as he pulled the pin on the ley line amulet, I tugged on the ley line and let it fill me.“Quod periit, periit!”I shouted, and Laker squealed like a baby as every last strand of his hair fell out. It was the same thing I’d done to get me kicked off Cincinnati’s bus line, but this time, I’d meant to do it.

“Move!” I gave Trent a shove and started running. Once the shock wore off, he’d be really pissed.

“Oh, he didn’t like that,” Jenks said, and I ran. The line was just ahead, and Laker was still standing there, horrified.

“Rachel, that was—” Trent said.

“A nonlethal joke spell,” I finished. “You only do six months’ community service for it.”

“Even when helping a wanted felon escape?”

I grinned at Trent as we slid into the ley line. “You aren’t a felon. You haven’t been tried yet.”

The hum of the line’s unbridled energy lit through me like home given a sound. “Thanks for a great night out,” Trent said, and I grinned, standing almost on tiptoe to give him a kiss.

“You’re welcome. But I’m coming with you.” Trent’s eyes went wide, and I added, “If that’s okay?”

“Yo!” Jenks tugged on my ear, bringing me back to the present. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it. He’s staggering this way.”

Trent’s arm slipped around me. “I’d like that.”

Together we turned to Laker, the man tired, beaten, angry…and bald.

“Morgan,” he panted, glaring in hatred at me, and I gave him a bunny-eared kiss-kiss.

Shifting my aura, I felt reality dissolve, the cityscape blurring into nothing and the sound of autumn insects growing loud.

We were there.

Chapter

10

I stepped from the line,little drifts of energy pulling from me to fall back into the humming energy stream in a delicious sensation of loss and promise to return. Jenks lifted from my shoulder in a burst of mystic-enhanced dust, wings humming as he darted into the ever-after darkness to do a quick recon. The shadows were thicker in this reality, the sun having been lost behind a distant cloud bank and a thicket of old-growth trees. I pulled the clean air in deep, glancing at Trent as he made sure we still had everything. The adrenaline rush of escaping Laker was like a roller-coaster ride—all thrill, no real danger—and I relished it even as I knew I shouldn’t discount the wizard. I wouldn’t say we were lucky, but ifhehad been, things might have gone differently.

Trent tucked the basket over his arm. “Laker knows every time I put a toe into reality. It has to be a spell.”

His voice rippled over me, the low, almost musical tones going perfectly with the sound of late crickets and the wind in the trees. “Probably.” I unfocused my attention and brought up my second sight, seeing Laker like a ghost among the outlines of buildings and shop fronts as he stomped away, phone to his ear. “You, ah, want to go back?” I asked, my thought hesitating when I eyed Trent. His aura, usually a brilliant gold with flairs of red, was showing more than a hint of smut. Now that I thought about it, there had been a whisper of black on his thrown spells, too. “Ah, I wouldn’t suggest my car,” I added as I dropped my second sight and hisaura seemed to vanish. “But we could call a cab.”What have you been doing, my love?I mused, worried. A smutty aura wouldn’t get you in Alcatraz, but it would gain the interest of the coven, and that was often the same thing.

Oblivious to my thoughts, Trent shook his head. “I need to find out how he’s tracking me,” he said, red plastic basket in hand. “Until I do, I should probably limit my excursions to reality. I’ll walk you home, though. On this side of the lines.”

The rasp of Jenks’s wings sounded as the pixy dropped to my shoulder. “That wizard should take the hint. Everyone else has.”