Kim Harrison - The Witch with No Name

Two, though, hesitated, hunched and furtive as they hissed at the vampires coaxing them closer. Trent said nothing, and I clicked back to New York. The undead there had probably figured it out and were likely in the streets looking for their souls.

“Mmmm,” Trent grunted, easing closer to the TV as a news reporter tried to stay in the limited streetlight as she nervously explained what was going on behind her. The sun had been down for a while. It was dark enough for the undead.

My lips parted as the camera swung and steadied to show a surface demon melting into a rapturous vampire. He wasn’t a master vampire. He was hardly a vampire at all, actually, one of New York’s homeless vamps living under the streets and existing on addicts until someone bigger took him out. But he’d found his soul—and it was trying to bind to him.

“My God, Landon did it . . . ,” Trent breathed, but I wasn’t so sure this was going to have a happy ending. You couldn’t see an aura through a TV, but it still didn’t look like a repeat of what had happened up in Luke and Marsha’s apartment, even if the vampire was sobbing, holding on to the corner of the building as the guilt and shame of his soulless existence crashed down upon him.

Spontaneous joining? I wasn’t buying it. “What’s to keep it from spontaneously leaving?” I asked. We’d had to burn the gateway through which Felix’s soul had entered him to keep it from simply going back out.

Someone had stopped to help the vampire, now weeping inconsolably. The newscaster looked uncomfortable as she told people to stay off the streets and out of the way as the vampires found their souls.

“I guess they think we’re dead,” I said, not feeling at all good. I wanted to call Ivy and see how Felix was doing. “The surface demons will be showing up here in about three hours,” I said as I looked at the bright golden light.

His eyes on the TV, Trent got to his feet. “They seem to be staying in the main population centers.”

So far, I thought glumly. “You really think they’re free? For good?” If they were, then that soul bottle I’d made was going to be more than useless.

Trent hesitated, watching the TV as if it might have the answers. “I’ve no idea. Maybe their release was what you felt on the stairs.”

Or the attack in my mom’s spell room, I mused, an ugly thought trickling through me. If it had almost taken me, then maybe it had hit the demons, too.

I jumped as he spun, almost running to the stairs. “Where are you going?”

“To get Bis!” he shouted.

Fidgety, I looked out the big windows at the bright sun. “Trent? He won’t be awake,” I called, then gestured as if to say “I told you so” when Trent came back with Bis perched on his arm like a huge sleeping owl. My bag was over his other arm, looking funny against him.

“We have to get to the ever-after. Find out what happened.” Trent stumbled into the living room. He thrust my bag at me as he sat down on the edge of the couch. Motions tense, he tickled Bis’s ear. “Bis, wake up.”

The little guy scrunched up his eyes and pushed at him with one leathery wing. One red eye opened, saw me, and squinted closed in the sun. “It’s kind of hard when he’s in the sun like that,” I said as I shifted to put him in my shadow. “Bis!” I shouted, pinching his wing.

That sort of worked as Bis flung his wings out to smack Trent in the face. “Bis, wake up!” I shouted again. Kind and gentle wouldn’t work. We’d be lucky to get even an eye open again. “Bis, we need to get to the ever-after. Bis? Bis!”

But he didn’t even stir.

Trent stared at me, and my teeth clenched. “I’ve got an idea. Trust me?” I said.

“Uhhh,” Trent stammered, and I tugged my shoulder bag onto my lap and grabbed his arm.

“Bis!” I shouted, touching that awful ley line and shifting all our auras into it.

“Rachel!” Trent exclaimed, but I wasn’t sure if it had reached my ears or was only in my head as we suddenly were in the line, broken and tasting of earth and sky all at the same time.

With a mental gasp, Bis was awake, startled as he suddenly found himself floundering.

Dalliance, I thought, and with a curious flip of awareness that I had yet to master, Bis tuned our auras. If I could get any answers at all, it would be at Dalliance.

What is wrong with you!” the little gargoyle shouted, red eyes glaring, his voice echoing in the empty space as we materialized. “I was sleeping! I could’ve dropped you!” His voice came back again, all the louder. But then he turned, wings drooping as he saw where we were.

Dalliance was currently an Asian eatery, the low tables holding bowls of steaming rice and pots of tea, overlooking a courtyard complete with a koi-stocked pond, raked pads of sand and gravel, and tiny trees. A jukebox, out of place and time, stood as the only indication that everything was a solid illusion. Several cups of tea had spilled, and the place was empty.

“Where is everyone?” Trent said, his tension evolving into a cautious investigation as he lifted a lid and breathed in the steam. There was no damage, no evidence of threat apart from the spilled tea. They simply were not here. Anyone. Not even the staff.

The teapot clinked as Trent set the lid back in place. An elven spell had attacked me. I’d barely fought it off. But I wasn’t a cursed demon. Al . . .

“Bis, take us to the mall,” I said, scared. I could probably find someone at the mall who’d talk to me without charging me for it.

Subdued, the little gargoyle nodded. Trent stepped to us, and with hardly a breath of displaced air, the varnished wood and rice paper screens melted into loud eighties music and a steamy warmth.

My mouth dropped open. People were everywhere, howling, dancing, swinging from the banners the demons had hung to try to dampen the echo. Shocked, I fell back against the fountain. Foam spilled up behind me, and I jerked forward. There was a bubble charm in it, and blue-and-pink froth spilled over and onto the floor.

“What happened?” Trent gripped my elbow and pulled me off the jump-in circle.

Speechless, I shook my head as I tried to take it all in. People were everywhere. They were ecstatic, even the familiars in charge of the shops had left them to get slushies and ices from the abandoned pushcarts. It was as hot as always, but goose bumps rose when I realized that there were no demons here. None.

“Bis, take me to Al,” I said, and both Bis and Trent turned to me, aghast. “Take me to Al!” I demanded, hiking my shoulder bag up higher. “The demons are gone! That’s what I felt! Something attacked them!”

“How?” Trent whispered, but I was already pulling him back onto the jump-in circle.

The demons were gone. Every last one of them. Something had tried to kill me. Al had to be alive. He was stronger than I was.

But as Bis’s field enveloped us, I realized what had happened. I was a witch-born demon, free of the original elven curse. Al wasn’t. That’s what the elven spell had been looking for to invoke on—and Al had it.

My heart pounded as the heat and noise of the mall vanished, echoing in my thoughts as the scent of woodsmoke filled my lungs and the stone floor of Al’s spelling kitchen formed under my feet. If not for the accompanying glow from a nearly dead fire and the subliminal whisper of voices from that creepy tapestry, I’d never know we’d arrived. Bis was getting good at these short hops, and I touched his wide-spaced claws on my shoulder as I looked to the small hearth and then the shadowed ceiling. It was dark, but I could tell that Al wasn’t here.