Anya Bast - Witch Blood

She finished by tying it tightly. He winced and stifled a yelp of pain. Then she pressed her hands to the gash to staunch the flow of blood. “Yeah, whatever. Maybe I can call you an ambulance. I’m sure the demonic emergency medical system is spectacular.”

Thomas laughed.

“Damn it, Thomas. This isn’t funny.”

“I was just thinking about how I said I’d never traveled before.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder and gave a low, soft roll of laughter. “If I had to get trapped on a demon world with anyone, I’m glad it was with you.”

“Yeah, but we’re not staying here. If there’s a way forward, there’s got to be a way back. That doorway has to still be open.”

Isabelle leaned back on her heels and went silent for a long time. Finally, she said, “The doorway was already volatile. You felt it. Do you really believe it could still be open?”

“I have to.” It was true that the doorway had been unstable. There was no telling what had happened to it. It may have completely collapsed once they were through.

Thoughts like that weren’t welcome.

So instead he wrapped Isabelle in his arms, enjoying the contact of the bare skin of their torsos, and held her close, willing the pain in his side and all the uncertainty away. “I love you, Isabelle.”

She sighed into his neck. “I love you, too, Thomas.”

Somewhere in the darkened field in front of them Boyle groaned.

ISABELLE STIRRED FROM HER TWO-MINUTE INVOLUNTARYnap. Her ears twitched as sound carried across the clearing. Twigs breaking in the distance. Voices.

Many of them.

“Isabelle,” Thomas whispered.

“I hear.” She stiffened against Thomas’s chest, where she’d fallen asleep. Her skin where they touched was warm, but her bare back — bare except for her bra strap — nape, legs, and arms were cold.

The morning light touched the iridescent green leaves and curling, vinelike vegetation of the alien outcropping of trees they’d taken shelter beneath. Even stranger than the flora was the staggered urban skyline in the distance.

A demon city.

A whole city filled with demons.

Isabelle’s mind had stuttered to a halt at the idea — jagged and pointed alien skyscrapers full of demons .

There was a point where your mind could only hold so much. After that capacity was breached you either had to accept what you were seeing, or you would go crazy. She and Thomas had already passed that point before they’d glimpsed the skyline.

Thomas sat up a little straighter and pulled her along with him. The thicket concealed them, but who knew what sort of magick floated on this air. Neither of them could be certain they’d be able to hide themselves adequately from whomever or whatever approached.

Flicking out a small tendril of power, Isabelle tapped the morning moisture in the grass. Her magick flared instantly and shot out ten feet farther than she’d intended. “Shit!” she whispered. “My magick is a lot stronger here.”

Power flared like velvet against her skin and a mild taste of earth skated against her tongue as Thomas tested the magickal currents. He grunted. “Mine is stronger, too, and it handles differently. The equivalent of going from manual to power steering.”

“Different earth, different magick?”

“Or maybe—” He broke the sentence off. “Maybe it’s not that our magick works differently here. Maybe it works different on our Earth. Maybe our power is stronger here because the part of us that’s demon is… home .”

“Don’t say that. I reject that. I’m ignoring you now.”

Cautiously, she added more magick, adjusting the way she handled it so it wouldn’t rush out and alert the walkers to their presence. She sent it from one drop of water to the next, toward whoever walked on the far side of the clearing. She would probably only find out what they already knew — demons walked there.

After a couple of minutes, she found them and gleaned what information she could remotely. Around forty individual boots tromped through the wet clearing, so that meant something like twenty demons. All of them had large feet, which meant they were likely male demons.

Isabelle unhooked the tendrils of magick and withdrew. After she’d told Thomas what she’d found she added, “They’re speaking some strange language, demonish, I guess.”

He nodded. “I can tell they’re coming right for us.”

She stiffened. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

His hand closed around the handle of the sword beside him — the gesture of a man wanting action, but with none to take. “If we move now, they’ll spot us for sure. I sense movement all around us, in all directions. Isabelle, we’re trapped. In any case, they’re moving slow, right? I don’t think they know we’re here.”

Lady , they were like rabbits hiding in a thicket, hoping the fox passed them by. For a moment she balanced on the razor’s edge of panic and fought to control it.

Once more, Thomas’s magick flared along her skin. “They’re all in lines,” he added after a moment. “Like in a formation. You know how when a search party is looking for a body in the woods?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed. “Think they’re looking for us?”

“Or Boyle.”

She closed her eyes and drew a breath. “Can you remember the location of the doorway?”

He scanned the clearing. “It was dark, but I noted how many steps we took to this tree and in what direction.” He narrowed his eyes and scanned the immediate area. “Yes, I can.”

She had him point out the area where he believed the doorway to be and she sent another tendril of magick out to search for remnants of the sticky yuck that could be their ticket home.

What she found was not heartening.

It took her a moment to form the words and once she managed it, they came out shaky. “I don’t think the doorway is there.”

Thomas said nothing, but his arms tightened around her.

“It could be simply that my magick, like yours, works differently here.” She drew a ragged breath. “Maybe I’m just not detecting it.” They both knew the truth. Her magick was much stronger here and the clearing was saturated with morning dew, making it even more effective.

If the doorway remained, she would have noticed it.

“Or maybe I can’t remember the exact spot,” said Thomas.

“It’s possible, but I searched a pretty large area.”

In the middle of the clearing, the demons made a racket. One group began shouting in demonish, or demonese, or whatever they called their guttural language and pointed at something in the grass. The other smaller search parties changed direction and hurriedly closed in on the yelling group. All the demons were moving now…all of them moving closer.

Thomas and Isabelle held their breath. They’d found Boyle, that was clear enough. Hopefully, they wouldn’t search anywhere else.

A series a sharp yells and heated conversation met their ears. It was far too great a risk to peek their heads up to see what was happening, so Isabelle sent her magick out once more to try and glean information.

Oh, yes, they’d found Boyle all right. By the half-baked, fuzzy reflections she could get from the dew in the grass, he was nearly dead. The shouting grew louder and a thick, wet sound came from the direction of the demons. Isabelle flinched in surprise and her magick snapped back hard and fast like a rubber band.

He was now all the way dead.

“I guess Boyle is no longer a problem,” whispered Thomas.

“Unless he can function without his head.” Her voice came out barely more than a breath.

The yelling across the clearing lulled to almost nothing and then swelled. Isabelle and Thomas didn’t need magick to understand the tromping of demon feet now moved quickly in their direction. Isabelle knew with a rising sick feeling in her gut they weren’t getting out of this undiscovered.