Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

Concerned, I edged to Trent, hesitating when his pull on my soul became . . . tantalizingly alluring, whispering of peace and contentment.

“Trent,” I whispered, attention riveted by the glowing spiral, but he was deep into his spell. “Trent!” I said louder, nudging his foot. I didn’t want to interrupt, but we had enough souls to choose from now. “They know my reach,” I said, feeling as if we’d just left this scene in reality with the vampires. “Can you tone it down a little?” This had been a mistake. I never should have involved Trent. Newt said the Goddess couldn’t hear me. I should have done this myself.

Jenks’s dust shifted to an ugly black. “They’re focusing on Nina,” he whispered, and the vampire paled.

“You noticed that, too?” I muttered, then flung up a hand when five rushed us from three different directions. “Get down !” I shouted. Nina shrieked, and I threw wads of unfocused energy at them. Again arms and legs flailed as they were blown back, and I spun, making sure no one was sneaking up behind us. They were testing me, and my heart pounded.

“Rachel!” Bis shouted, and I whirled back around.

“No!” Trent exclaimed. His chanting cut off and pain iced through my head as something I hadn’t know was there was suddenly ripped away with his voice. I gasped, stunned and dizzy, unable to react as Nina was dragged screaming into the darkness. Jenks and Bis were slowing their progress, and when one let go to swing at Bis, Nina fought back, bucking and twisting until she got free. Sobbing, she lurched back to me.

Trent’s spell had sunk deeper into me than I’d realized, and my pulse thundered as I pulled heavily on the line. “Trent! Fire in the hole!” I shouted as I threw a wad of energy straight up. “ Dilatare! ” I exclaimed, exploding it with a twist of my wrist. Surface demons went flying. Nina pressed into the ground, her desperate clawing motion to get back to me never stopping.

Eyes alight, I pulled myself straight. “ Rhombus! ” I shouted as I set the outer circle. Satisfied we’d have a moment, I reached to help Nina stand.

Face grim with anger, she looked up at me, her expression shocked, and changing to fear as she snatched her outstretched hand away, her eyes wide and black.

My heart pounded, and then I was on the dirt, choking as the dust of the ever-after blinded me. Something . . . was on me. Pain jerked through my scalp, and I fought to breathe as bands of steel wrapped around my neck. Sinewy brown arms pinched me to the earth. Thin wiry fingers choked my throat closed.

Panicked, I spun the line through me. The demon howled like a desert wind, but he hung on, even as his skin peeled back and began to char. I could feel the vampire soul soaking into me, trying to take over my body, to merge his soul with mine. Trent’s chanting swirled through both our thoughts, making the edges blur where normally they couldn’t touch.

“Enough!” Nina raged, her demand a harsh whip.

The fingers around my neck sprang away and I gasped, rolling prostrate as I coughed and felt my neck. The line I’d used to try to burn the demon from me hummed through my synapses, scorching my brain and making every motion hurt. My heart thundered, and every pulse sent needles through my fingers. I got a clean breath in and shoved the line back into the earth as I exhaled in a half sob. It was gone. The demon was gone. I was still myself, but I could feel its alien nature on me, like red dust I had to wash off.

Gritty tears blurred my eyes as I looked up in the fading light from my charm. Nina stood over me, wisps of hair from the demon she’d pulled off me still in her fist. Trent was behind her, white faced. The demon Nina had flung into the rock beside him slid, unmoving, to the earth.

Had she killed a soul? Was that even possible?

“You will not!” Nina raged, spinning a tight circle in warning, finger crooked, all angles and ugliness. It was Felix. Nina had broken and Felix had slipped into her, freeing her from fear, from any thought at all. “You will not because I say so. She is mine! ”

Not sure if he meant me or Nina, I sat up, glad the surface demons had withdrawn to an unsettling twenty feet back, their eyes glowing and blinking. Nina’s lips were pulled back, her posture ugly with her feet spread wide and her head at a weird angle so she could see the sky and earth at the same time.

“Rachel?” Trent’s whisper made Nina twitch, and I raised my hand to tell him I was okay. Bis was beside him, black in fear but ready to act. Jenks was there, too, stuck within the circle Trent had made to protect them.

“If you ever trap me again in a circle when Rachel needs me, I will kill you in your sleep, Kalamack,” Jenks said, the unsettling black dust sifting from him and making the red dirt turn white. Wiping the grit from his mouth, Trent nodded and dropped his circle.

Jenks darted to me, and I staggered to a stand. “I’m fine,” I rasped. “Go see how many we’re dealing with.” The rock under my hand hurt. It was as if I could feel the accumulated damage from two thousand years of smut raining down on it.

“No,” he said flatly, his wings moving so fast they hurt my ears.

Shocked, I looked up, realizing how scared he’d been. For me.

“They’re leaving,” Jenks added, rising up a few feet and spinning to get a three-sixty. “Get ready for something.”

“I get that feeling, too.” Ignoring Felix/Nina, I flexed my hand to rid it of the last of the pinpricks. Trent was scrambling to repair his spiral, his chanting half heard and motions hasty, but all I wanted to do was get out of here and back to the vampires waiting to beat us to a pulp.

Nina stumbled, throwing a white hand to the ground to stay upright. My attention shot to the horizon when a surface demon became obvious, seeming to appear from nowhere.

“Trent, it’s him!” I whispered loudly, and his magic rose again, the elven drums pounding a chant into my psyche, demanding I submit, become.

Become. It had been what the Goddess had been terrified of, becoming something new, something else, destroying her as she . . . was reborn. Adrenaline pulsed through me, and the sharp stab of pain from Jenks’s sword on my earlobe jerked me back. Damn, I had been headed right for Trent’s spell.

Nina had fallen to her knees, eyes fixed on the surface demon as tears rolled down her face. “Oh God,” she moaned, the pain in her voice telling me it was Felix. “Please . . . I can’t.”

Beside me, Trent’s chanting rose, strong. Nina reached out to the demon. “My soul!” she screamed, the sound echoing back from the roof of the world. “I can’t . . .”

Jenks’s wings felt like fire. “Rache, you think them touching is a good idea?”

No, I didn’t. I shook off my shock and stumbled forward. It was obvious that the surface demon in front of Nina was Felix’s soul; the bruises I’d given him were still red and ugly. He hissed as he saw me, but he’d almost reached Nina and I didn’t dare let them touch. The woman was crying, afraid to move, I think, and I pulled her to her feet, dragging her backward to lure the soul into following us. This hadn’t been the original idea, but we were down to quick and dirty. As long as I didn’t touch the spiral, I should be okay. I’d be okay, wouldn’t I?

Nina took a step, completely unaware or uncaring as the surface demon closed the gap. Her hand went out, shaking as she enticed him closer. “Please . . . ,” she moaned, the sound going to my center and aching.

“Little to the right, Rache,” Jenks whispered, and my foot cramped with tingles when my heel touched Trent’s outer circle. I hesitated, knowing I shouldn’t be here. Knees shaking, I remembered the peace the curse promised, the release from fear, from pain. But it was too soon, and I refused it. My sight dimmed with sparkles as I took another step back, dragging Nina over Trent’s spiral. The demon followed, writhing, afraid to follow, but unable to resist.