Pale Demon (19 page)

Al!
I screamed into our shared thoughts, scared that the magic might turn on me. He was pulling on a line through me, and damn it if it didn’t feel good even as I tried to cut him off.

Get over here, Rachel. I need your—ow!
Al thought as he finally heard me, but then his splinter of awareness jerked away, and his howl at a burst of energy created to liquidize fat burned itself into my brain. He nullified it in an instant, leaving me dizzy and panting but knowing how to do it.

Al!
I thought, but I must have said it aloud because Trent’s shadow covered me.

“What’s going on?” Trent asked, more irritation than concern in his tone.

Heat exploded in my chest, and Al and I both reacted—him with a furious shout and a thrown counterspell, me slamming my rising palm back to the mirror before my fingertips could leave the glass.

Line. Give me a line!
Al thought, and I did, loosening my grip and letting the energy flow through my hand and into his mind.

The pain cut off, and I groaned in relief. My hand was trembling, and I pressed it more firmly into the scrying mirror. I looked up, feeling unreal. Past the car windows, the sky had gone hazy with red, and the gritty wind was blowing. Somehow I was using my second sight, seeing Las Vegas as if it was on fire. It looked like hell, the casinos and buildings burning, crumbling, and re-forming to crumble again. It had to be from the ley lines. There were so many that nothing was stable. I stared, transfixed, as, in the back of my mind, Al moved, dodged, and fought someone using spells so complex they looked like another language.

“Rachel, what’s going on?” Trent asked again, his voice a faint buzzing as I struggled to hold my connection to Al. He’d all but forgotten me as he fought. Al was fighting hand-to-hand, teeth clenched as he struggled to keep something from his eye.

“Al!” I shouted, shoving the line into him. It burned through his mind, and he groaned, directing it into his attacker’s face. Outside the car, an explosion in the ever-after ripped off the corner of a building. I watched in awe as it fell in slow motion, a red dust rising from the impact. In Al’s kitchen, I felt him shove someone away, and Al rolled to his knees, his savagery making my lips pull back in a snarl.

I blinked, and I was suddenly seeing reality—the demolished building became whole and serene, its elevator rising up, the windows glittering with neon.

Trent touched my shoulder, and I jumped as our auras connected.

From Al’s kitchen, a savage explosion shook me. The curse falling from Al’s lips was like tinfoil between my teeth, serrating into my spine and brain, and Trent felt it, too. I gasped as Al pulled on not only me, but Trent, and with a bellow of rage, Al flung the ball of death he’d pulled from us across his kitchen, exploding it against a quick black figure with silver hair. The attacker hit the wall, the tapestry that I hated going up in green flames. The fabric screamed, and with a clap of rushing air, the figure attacking Al vanished. On the floor, the tapestry shrieked and writhed as if in pain.

Trent’s yelp of shock echoed in me as he pulled away. Stunned, I sat alone with my hand on the mirror. A slithering blackness had risen, and I felt it settle over Al as he huddled on his cold black floor, whispering,
I take this, I take this,
before the smut could hurt him. I shivered as the smut lapped about my consciousness, touching me and recoiling like a living thing before it slid back to Al.

Sweet everlasting shit. We’re in trouble,
I felt in our joined thoughts.

The attacker was gone, and I cut off the energy flowing between us.
Al?
I cautiously offered, and I felt his consciousness gather, trying to pretend that he hadn’t almost just died.

Rachel…,
he started, and then we both clenched in pain. A new rush of adrenaline poured into me, and I heard in our joined thoughts,
You little runt!

There was another grunt of pain, and I doubled over. With a pop, I felt Al’s thoughts leave mine. It wasn’t the snap of disconnection because I could still feel what he was feeling. It was something else. Something was wrong, and this time, Al was in trouble. His mind wasn’t working. At all.

“Al!” I shouted, forcing my thoughts into his and finding a glimmer. “Bring me across!”

I gasped as my body dissolved in a flash of thought. There was the burst of an expanded awareness, and then the awful division of self when I was again alone in the universe. A ping of fear lit through me. With a speed that left me reeling, I was yanked through the nearest ley line, stumbling as I suddenly found myself holding my scrying mirror and standing in Al’s acrid-smelling kitchen. A thick haze of dust in the air, stinking of burnt amber, choked me, and the only light was coming from a book burning in the corner.

Chunks of rock had been gouged out of the raised circular fire pit where Al twisted his larger curses. More chunks of rock from the ceiling littered the floor. If it was wood, it was charred. If it was glass, it was broken. The tapestry was silent, a liquid black dripping from it like blood as it hung askew, half on the floor.

Before the smaller hearth, on his back, was Al, out cold and bleeding from several gashes as he lay before the black fireplace. And over him was Pierce, a black ball of death in his hand.

“Pierce!” I shouted, and he turned, shocked.

“What are you doing here?” he exclaimed, the blackness in his hands flickering.

Al groaned. Pierce spun to him, Latin coming from him fast as Al’s eyes opened in fear.

I didn’t think, just moved. Slipping on the chalky stone dust, I lunged at Pierce, knocking him from Al and landing front first across the demon. Frantic, I scrambled up, hearing Al grunt in pain as my elbow dug into his gut. Almost in the fireplace, Pierce had gotten to his feet as well, the invoked curse still in his grasp.

For an instant, our eyes locked, and then, after shaking his head, he threw the spell at Al.

What is he doing?

“Rhombus!”
I shouted, and Pierce’s curse hit, pinging through my awareness as I slapped his magic aside. It went spinning into the broken remains of Al’s kitchen, and my anger peaked.

“Are you addled?” Pierce yelled, his blue eyes showing his anger as he stood, his hands bereft of magic. “What the blazes are you doing?”

At my feet, Al groaned, and I felt a twinge on my awareness as a red-sheened sheet of ever-after coated him, dropping away to leave him looking half dead but no longer bleeding.

“I had him!” Pierce shouted, arms waving. “I bloody had him, and you knock me away? Deflect my curse? What’s wrong with you, woman! I could have been free!”

My mouth dropped open, and I glanced down at Al gazing up at me.
Holy crap, had I just saved Al’s life?
“Uh,” I stammered as Al levered himself up onto one elbow, his head drooping to the floor and his dark hair covering his eyes.

“I had one chance!” Pierce shouted, shaking as he stood by the fireplace. “And—”

“Septiens,”
Al wheezed, and Pierce collapsed, seizing as if having hit an electrical field.

“Al! Wait!” I shouted, seeing Pierce writhe.

“And you blew it,” the demon said, ignoring me as he staggered to his feet before the small hearth. His red, goat-slitted eyes fixed on Pierce. “Killing me when I’m down…not very sporting.”

My heart pounded, and I remembered the ugliness leaking out of Pierce’s hand. Pierce was a demon killer, and I was basically a demon. Would he try to kill me next? I had to believe no, but I hadn’t thought he’d try to kill Al, either. I hadn’t thought at all, apparently.

“Let him go,” I pleaded as Pierce shook, his neck muscles straining as he tried to breathe. “Al!” I shouted, smacking the demon’s shoulder. It wasn’t hard, just enough to get his attention.

For a long second, Al looked at me, his goat-slitted eyes searching mine. Then Pierce’s breath rasped in, and his entire body went flaccid. Panting, he lay on the floor and didn’t move.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Al said, looking disheveled as he leaned against the fireplace and eyed his kitchen. Half-burned wood was scattered on the floor, and the book in the corner was going out. Seeing it, Al snarled and muttered a word at Pierce. Pierce screamed, shocked into pain again as his back arched. “Selling him might pay for this mess,” Al finished, his expression ugly.

I reached out to protest, then hesitated. Pierce had saved my life, but he had tried to kill Al. “Stop,” I finally whispered, touching Al’s sleeve, but what I was thinking was,
Why did I help you?
If I’d let Pierce kill him, all my troubles would have been over. Except they wouldn’t have been. Al was my protection in a world that I was probably going to be trapped in very soon.

Al frowned, and he looked at me as if only now seeing the dirt, grime, and bruises. He twitched, and I heard Pierce collapse behind me. My gut unclenched as it grew quiet, Pierce’s breath sobbing in and out in relief. Part of me was angry, part of me wanted to lift Pierce up and wash off his face. I didn’t know which part was stronger.

Moving slowly, Al staggered to the stone bench circling the center fire pit, coughing on the dust as he began arranging sticks for a fast fire. His fingers were shaking. It was dark, and I looked for a candle to light. All I found were puddles of wax, spattered like blood. At a loss as to what to do, I looked at the devastation, then went to help Pierce.

“You did this?” I asked as I pulled him upright against the broken remains of a bookcase, and Pierce winced, his eyes still closed. The shelves were leaning askew, and a thick tome fell, glancing against his shoulder. Still, he didn’t open his eyes, but pushed me away, grimacing. I’d seen them fight before. Almost a year ago, Pierce had gone into this familiar partnership with the intent to kill Al. I hadn’t thought he might actually do it.

“He wishes.” Al’s tone was flat, and I turned to see his thick fingers nursing an infant fire in the circular fire pit. “He’s a cowardly runt.”

The new flame flickered, lighting Al’s features into an ugly mask, and from Pierce came a ragged “I utilized my resources to the fullest, demon spawn.”

“You’re a bloody coward!” Al shouted, then coughed. “Trying to kill me when I was down.”

I stood between them, not knowing who to help.
He had tried to kill Al.
“What happened?” I asked, remembering the deadly, world-killing curses that Al had drawn through me. My God, the power they could use and didn’t…I was like a child playing, and I suddenly felt both scared and stupid.

Al looked up, his wavering gaze landing immediately on Pierce. “You. Go,” he said, pointing, and before Pierce could do more than widen his eyes, he vanished.

“Hey!” I exclaimed, and Al pushed himself up. He looked beaten, and his clothes were dusty, showing blood and rips, though the skin under them was unmarked.

“He’s alive,” the demon muttered, dropping a chunk of what had once been his chair on the flames. “I simply shoved him in a box for when I decide what to do with him. He tried to kill me. Please tell me you aren’t still clinging to the idea that he lo-o-o-o-oves you?” he mocked. “That witch is a demon killer. You’re simply lower on his list than I am. Grow up and accept it.”

I didn’t want to believe it, and I searched the floor, hoping I hadn’t cracked my scrying mirror. Pierce had said he loved me, and I truly believed he hadn’t been lying. But the memory of him standing over Al, hurt and unconscious, with a black curse flickering over his aura, ready to kill him…Could I afford that kind of blind trust?

Depressed, I picked my way through the devastation to get my scrying mirror, breathing shallowly to avoid the dust. Feeling awkward, I sat beside Al, the slight curve of the bench between us. “You don’t look good,” I said, my thoughts on Vivian. Trent would tell them what had happened. Jenks would be angry that he hadn’t been there. Ivy would be ticked because Trent hadn’t done anything, and Vivian would have another chapter in her “Let’s Shun Rachel” book. Even better, I was going to stink like burnt amber when I got back. If I got back.

“I don’t look good?” Al wiggled his fingers at his own scrying mirror, just out of reach, and I leaned over to get it, feeling a dizzying amount of other selves trying to get through to him as I handed it over. He wasn’t wearing his usual gloves, and it made him look vulnerable.

Exhaling heavily, Al put his thick-fingered, shaking hand on the mirror and it fogged up. “You say I don’t look good, but you’re the one in trouble.”

My gaze went from his foggy mirror to my crystalline one. “But I stopped him!”

“Not that,” Al said, and he let his mirror slide to the bench. Sighing, he rubbed his forehead, leaving a smear of black ash. “I’ve temporally blocked the collective because I can’t answer that many calls at once, but pretty soon, I’m going to be entertaining. Lots and lots of irate, angry demons in my tiny little living room. It will be embarrassing. My reputation will be utterly ruined. I don’t have enough chairs,” he finished lightly, turning his lip in and chewing on it.

“You mean Trent?” I said, standing up and distancing myself with the excuse of gathering bits of broken furniture. “I told you already, I didn’t teach him anything.” But a sliver of worry had started to wiggle in me. Trent had summoned a demon. I hadn’t taught him that, but they wouldn’t believe me.

Al chuckled, low and long, and I stifled a shiver. “If only it was that,” he said wryly. “I know you’re driving to your little witches’ meeting. Tell me you weren’t in St. Louis yesterday.”

Oh God. I’m in trouble.
“The arch falling was not my fault,” I babbled, the broken chair leg in my hand clattering to the floor. “It was Trent! He did it, not me!”

“Damn my dame. It was you,” Al said, grimacing as if he’d eaten something sour.

“It was Trent,” I said, wondering how he knew the arch had fallen, but my voice lacked conviction, and I became more worried yet when Al wouldn’t look at me. Nervous, I tucked my rank hair behind an ear and fidgeted.