Trial by Fire (Covencraft Book 1) (22 page)

Then, the mirrored glass burst like an engorged water balloon, sending thick, soupy liquid all over her face and clothes. The mirrored hands fell apart like wet tissue, slipping through her own hands and spilling onto the floor. She stumbled against the immediate release and slipped on the moisture and goop on the bathroom floor. She fell hard on her ass and both her hands, crying out at the shock of pain that shot up her broken wrist.

The door to the ladies room burst open and Jade flinched. She pushed herself backward with her feet and her one good hand, throwing magic at the door, but she was tired, her magic weak and she felt it get deflected easily.

“Jesus Christ, what is going on in here?” Paris yelled to be heard over the fire alarm. His eyes were bright blue and he looked ready to spit nails, which for all she knew, he could actually do. Callie and Henri were right behind him looking shell-shocked and bewildered.

Jade blinked up at them through the water still raining down, and then looked around a bit at the mess. She pushed herself back against the wall and cradled her broken bone.

“Took you long enough,” she said and she started to shake. She wasn’t cold, but her teeth chattered and she could feel the big muscles of her legs trembling and weak.

Paris eyed the destruction in the small room, and came to kneel next to her, tipping her head back and looking at the cut on her head. She had to blink a few times to make him stay in focus. Her headache increased exponentially, nearly crossing her eyes with the sharp pain.

“What happened?” He looked around, presumably for something to stop the bleeding on her head and she laughed, a high-pitched, nearly hysterical giggle.

“I blew up the paper towels,” she said.

Callie was in the bathroom suddenly, passing pristine white cloth napkins into Paris’ hand and all Jade could think was,
they’re never going to get that blood out. Head wounds bleed like a bitch.

“They do, but it’s not that deep,” Paris said and Jade realized she’d been talking out loud.

He pressed the cloth against her forehead and she hissed, flinching back. Cupping the base of her skull to steady her, his hands felt like a vice around her brain, pressing into the pain. Callie crouched down on the other side, putting an arm around her shoulder and trying to tuck her in close. It was ridiculous because Callie was all of five-foot four and Jade was six inches taller than her and a bigger person to boot.

The alarm didn’t seem so loud anymore, sounding more distant and she had a split second of perfect clarity.

“Fuck, I’m really sorry,” she mumbled, leaning heavily against Callie’s lighter bulk. “I think I’m passing out.”

Then it all went dark.

Chapter 11

Paris stood silent, waiting just outside the medlab room where Dr. Gellar was examining Jade. Callie and Henri stayed behind at the restaurant to try to piece together what happened in the scant minutes Jade had been alone in the washroom. When his phone rang, he answered it immediately, hoping to get some answers.

“Hey,” Callie said quickly. “I’ve got Josef and Yelena from Counter-Magic and they’re saying something tried to punch through from another dimension.”

Paris recognized the names of two of his coven members who worked with the Supernatural Council on tracking down unsanctioned magic performed by outsiders.

“Another demon?” Paris asked.

“Yeah,” Callie said lowly. “But not very powerful if that makes sense?”

“I think it might,” Paris said. “The first demon was warning Jade about someone, another witch, using magic to make a deal with demon in order to steal Jade’s power. From what I know, it doesn’t take a lot of magic to demon-deal, but the demons who respond do tend to sort of match the power of the person calling them. If someone without a lot of magic is trying to make a deal, he or she would call a lesser demon.”

“So not the same one that Jade already saw?” Callie asked.

“No.” Paris’ tone was definitive. “I’m fairly certain that demon used a portal and it’s the one in her kitchen. I’m thinking he somehow got whiff of this other deal going on and wanted to know what it was about. As far as I can figure out, witches don’t regularly deal in demons, not here at our coven and not elsewhere. I’m assuming he got curious and once he realized how powerful Jade was, how powerful she is,” he took a deep breath, “he saw an opportunity. If he wanted to come back, I think he’d just use that doorway again. He wants to deal with her.” Cold fingers trailed down his back as he spoke, the idea of demon dealing distasteful and vile. “This must have been something else trying to come through.”

“Well that’s just it.” Callie sighed. “Josef and Yelena say it’s more of a one way kind of thing. It wasn’t trying to come out, it was trying to pull her in.”

Paris racked his brain trying to remember what he knew about demons and what he’d been speed-studying over the last few hours. “It probably has more power on its side. If it pulled her through, she would be easier to deal with.” He suppressed a shudder, dreading the thought of one of his witches being pulled into another dimension.

“Lucky for her, she managed to stay on this side.” Callie’s voice was low and soft. “She’s really powerful, Paris. She learns fast too. If she ever could use all her power, I don’t think there’s a spell she couldn’t make work for her.”

“She
is
powerful,” Paris agreed.

“But she’s untrained. How did she manage to stay on this side?”

Paris mused, more talking to himself than to Callie. “Yes, she’s learning fast, but she still has very little knowledge. She must be tied to something here – like an anchor. Someone here, perhaps. She doesn't know any dimensional magic yet. I know a scant amount, but I’ve hardly ever had the chance to actually use it. If something wanted to pull her through, it should have been able to.”

Paris had to find out more about her, about her past, her history, even her medical file. Anything that could tell him how it was she could do the things she could do.

“I’m never sleeping again,” Callie said flatly. “I mean it. I’ve seen more scary shit in one day than I have in my entire life. Demons? Dimensions? I’m still creeped out by the stuff I was reading about today and I’m looking around this bathroom and this gunk on the floor? I think it used to be the mirror but I can’t even tell. Honestly, I’m going to burn everything I’m wearing and bathe in bleach tonight. It stinks like death and rot and things that I don’t want to think about.”

“Speaking of sleep, you should go home. It’s been a long day for you.”

“Yeah,” Callie said absently. “Has Gellar said anything yet?”

Paris looked over at the closed door. “No. Not yet. I’ll let you know what I find out. Jade will probably be staying at the Covenstead tonight and I’ll stay with her. Hannah is supposed to call me later with any news she’s been able to gather and hopefully we’ll have something. Until then, I’m the strongest witch in the Coven, so whatever happens, I’ve the best chance of dealing with it.”

“We could… We could maybe call the Council and ask the Fae?”

“We could,” Paris said, hedging. “But I’d rather avoid dealing with demons or with the Fae. You never know exactly what kind of help you’ll be getting when you work with them. At least with demons, I’m fairly certain the motives are always magic and power. With the Fae, I wish I knew what they valued.”

They spoke for a few more minutes before Paris finally convinced Callie to go home and go to sleep if she could. If not, at the very least, she could rest and be ready to help them with research again tomorrow. Paris promised to keep her updated on Jade’s status, and she could pass those reports along to Henri.

Who could likely disseminate word to the rest of the Coven within twenty minutes.

Paris was hanging up with Callie when Dr. Gellar appeared in the hallway. He paused grimly, waiting for her report but she gave him a slight smile and she didn’t have her ‘this is serious news’ face on, so he was moderately hopeful.

“As far as I can tell, she’s sleeping right now,” Gellar said, closing the door slightly behind her. Paris could see through the crack one of the nurses finishing up a cast on Jade’s right arm.

“Are you certain? Her head and the fainting and- ” He wasn't sure exactly what to call the mirror and the rest of incident.

“Head wounds often look worse than they are. Don’t mistake me, she’s got a rather nice goose-egg where she was hit and twelve stitches. It’ll scar up into her hairline so she’s lucky. She’s also got a broken wrist and is looking at six weeks in that cast. But as for the rest of her brain-” Dr. Gellar frowned. “I think the problems she’s having are related to her nature.”

“How so?”

“Jade is very different from the rest of you. She’s a witch and she has magic but I don’t think…” Dr. Gellar trailed off, her hands moving around like she was searching for the right words. “I don’t think her body is magic. I don’t think she has the body of a witch.”

“How can that be? She is a witch.”

“I know.” Gellar grimaced a bit. “I don’t exactly know how or why, but I do know that when she was in here getting tested, she had that atypical reaction. The nosebleed, the headache. And then today. I know you’re sketchy on the details but if you had to guess, would you guess she used magic? A lot of it?”

Paris thought back to the destruction of the small bathroom - the exploded tiles, the mirror, the fire, the hum in the air. He’d arrived at the restaurant and before he’d even gotten out of the car, he’d felt the magic in the air like downed power lines - thrumming with electricity. It had made the hair on the back of his neck raise and tingle. It had been furious and strong and he’d been able to follow it like a beacon to where she was. The fire alarm had sounded by the time he stepped inside the restaurant and he’d been pulled toward the back of the building like a moth to a flame.

“Yes. Quite a bit.”

Dr. Gellar crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m only guessing at this point and without running more tests and consulting with some specialists, I may be speaking out of turn. But I think Jade’s brain is trying to adapt her mortal body to her preternatural powers. But it’s too much, too fast. And I don’t know how much can be done.”

“You mean, if you can do anything for her?” Paris asked.

“That and how much her brain can do for itself. The brain is an amazing organ and it can re-wire itself. We’ve seen it with patients who’ve sustained serious trauma. But there’s a limit to how fast it can go and how much it can do. Yes, Jade has a lot of power. But I don’t know if she’ll ever be able to use all of it without consequence. If you think of it in terms of electricity, yes, you can keep increasing the load and sending more and more current down a wire. But the wire can only take so much. You can add more wires, more switches, more breakers, but you’re going to run out of physical space. There’s a finite limit to what you can do. There may be a very real, very finite limit to what Jade can do as well. No matter how much magic she has.”

She ended with a gentle smile, the type of expression doctors reserve for people when they have bad news. “We can keep an eye on her medically tonight, but I think she’ll probably sleep for a few hours more. I’ll run some tests when she wakes up and I can discuss this with her, if you’d like.”

He shook his head. “It’s magic. Magic should come from me.”

Gellar nodded as though it was expected. “Okay. There’s a really busted up chair in my office that looks horrendous, but is actually pretty good for sleeping and there’s some extra gurneys about if you want to catch some sleep yourself.”

He thanked her and she popped her head in for one last check on Jade before she left. The technician finished up with Jade’s cast and Paris took the opportunity to let himself into the room to check on her.

She had a large white bandage on her forehead and he could see little bits of stubble from the edges of where they’d shaved a bit into her hairline to expose the entire wound. Her clothes had been taken and she was dressed in a sickly green gown that gave her a sallow tone. A black cast encased her broken wrist, her pale fingers sticking out the top, long and pink. She had the completely relaxed and limp face of someone utterly asleep. On her good hand, her fingers twitched slightly and then settled again. He glanced around and saw one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs that was usually around in medical facilities and he pulled it up. He could sit for a few minutes and then think about his longer term plans.

Most notably, how to stop at least two demons and a witch.

*

Jade awoke with a start, jerking upright in bed which made her head pound like a freight train.

Ow. She went to press her hands against her temple and stopped short when she saw the fiberglass cast on her right wrist. She tapped it a bit with her left fingers. After having so many as a child, she felt like an expert on casts. She flexed her right fingers and rotated her arm a bit. Well done - snug but not tight. It wouldn’t need a replacement when the swelling went down. She touched her fingers gingerly to the painful spot on her head, feeling gauze and bandage and then the prickle of shaved skin.

Motherfucker
.
That was her
hair
.