Page 50 of Demon's Bluff
“Rache!” Jenks zipped under the bridge. “Get out of here. It’s the coven!”
I spun, shocked, when Bis’s wings beat about my neck and the kid landed on my shoulder. “Elyse is here,” he said as he grabbed Jenks before the clothes-laden, struggling pixy could hit the water.
Al’s expression went ugly as he turned and strode up the embankment. “Find the mirror and get back here to help,” he demanded, and then he was gone.
He wants me to leave?I started at a boom of light and sound, my lips parting when Trent tangled Elyse’s feet in a spell and brought her down. The charm threw the park into short-lived relief, and my eyes narrowed as I spotted Laker running from tree to tree, trying to get closer.Son of a moss wipe.Laker had followed us here, then called the coven because there were too many magic users for him to handle.
“Bis, drop a rock on that guy with the stick. He’s after Trent,” I said even as Orion took Elyse’s place, beating Trent into a grudging retreat with thrown spell after thrown spell.
“Got it.” Tense, the gargoyle held Jenks close and took to the air.
Ivy was struggling with Yaz and Adan. Al quickly joined her, joyfully bellowing obscenities as he doused the charm they had downed Ivy with. Wrathful, he stood over the shocked vampire and shouted ley line curses he couldn’t invoke at the sky, scaring the youngest coven members into retreat.
“Do the curse, Rachel!” the demon demanded, magnificent as he swung his cane in threat at the two coven members to hit their incoming spells as if they were baseballs. “Go!”
It was hard, but if I did this right, I’d return in time to do some good.Breathless, I checked to make sure I was within my circle.Rhombus,I thought, and a molecule-thin barrier stronger than the universe flickered into existence.Damn it, Elyse. There’s a difference between giving me an impossible task, and giving me an impossible task and then trying to stop me.
“Morgan!” Elyse exclaimed, and I spun at the rattle of rocks and dirt as she slid down the embankment, eager for a fight. “You will desist all magic and put yourself under the coven’s immediate control. I will not allow you to flee into a ley line.”
I cringed as Trent shouted something and a boom shook the ground, wrinkling the smooth water. “Sorry. Gotta go.”
She couldn’t stop me. I was in a circle. The sooner I was gone, the sooner I’d be back, and I fumbled for the paper. My eyes closed as I sent my mind into the demon collective. A little ripple of presence caressed my soul, and my mind expanded as little whispers of conversation intruded into my psyche. If I was quiet, no one would know I was even here.
“I said stop!” Elyse shouted.
A thump rattled my circle, and I winced as one, then a second demon within the collective took notice of the raw power flickering through me.Sorry. Got an issue here,I muttered as I eased my grip on the collective and opened my eyes. Purple and red energy skated over my circle, foreign and unwelcome. It was Elyse’s spell, but I had drawn a blood circle, and anything she could throw at it would only make it stronger.
“You overstepped yourself,” I said, a feeling of pride taking me as I saw Ivy and Trent on one side of me, Al on the other. They were keeping the rest of the coven at bay. And Elyse? Elyse didn’t have a chance breaking my circle alone.
“You will cease!” Elyse’s black hair rose as she pulled deeper on the ley line, little rills of purple aura sparking from the tips. Smug, I shook my head and closed my eyes, sending my awareness deep into the demon collective once more. A smile found me, growing as I sensed the spells, curses, and charms that the demons had stockpiled through the ages, curses of war, spells of deceit, magic created by demons long dead. I could use them—provided I paid for them.
“Ab aeterno,”I said to pull the right curse into me. I shuddered as everything in the circle suddenly made a little hiccup. It meant from outside time itself, and it felt as if I was now moving in tandem with but apart from reality. The line I was holding glowed brighter, as if there were now two of them. I opened my eyes, jerking when Elyse slammed a roundhouse kick into my protection bubble.
“I never understood why Vivian trusted you,” the young woman said bitterly. “You are a demon trickster.”
“I’m not trying to escape. I’m trying to find a friggin’ mirror!” I said.
Behind her, Al had fallen to one knee, almost in the water, with a hand outstretched as he shook his head, warning the rest off. The remnants of a preprepared spell flickered about his fingers, dying quickly. Bis was on his shoulder, wings spread and hissing at Adan. Sharps rose up, bellowing as he sucked in enough water to become the size of an elephant. Cowed, Adan retreated.Crap on toast. I have to get out of here so I can get back.
“Obtineo et teneo,”I said, my anxiety growing. With a sudden pop, the power in the line doubled, a dizzy, heady mix. To obtain and keep: it was the spell to spindle my life’s energy as I moved backward through time, and I had to dovetail it into the first spell so they would work together, or I’d never have enough energy to make the return trip.
“I will have you out of that circle!” Elyse shouted as she held her singed hand close.
“Iuncta iuvant,”I said to bind the two curses—and my conviction that this was going to work grew as I felt the two curses twine about each other, little rills of energy knotting them together like twisted wool.
Elyse had given up trying to take my circle. Bowed almost double, she dragged a knife across the worn cement to make a second circle outside my first. My breath caught as Bis pinwheeled to evade Elyse’s crow. Jenks was in his arms, and torn, I looked at my friends fighting to give me this chance. I had sworn I would never let anyone pay for my chances again.
“Rachel, go!” Al shouted, utterly magnificent as he threw another earth charm and Bis barrel-rolled himself and Jenks to safety. “Return to end this!”
He was right, and feeling ill, I turned my attention inward to finish twining the spells and make a new one. A curious prickling was rippling over my skin, and my circle had begun to pulse.
It’s Elyse,I thought as I saw her within her invoked circle, nesting outside of mine. What the hell was she trying to do?
“You will not run away this time,” she said as our eyes met, and then her hand touched my circle’s surface and pushed.
“Be right back.” Head bowed, I dropped my mind into the collective.“Respice in icta oculi,”I whispered.
And the spell invoked.