Kim Harrison - Ever After

I leaned on Trent and opened my mind to him.

With a whimper, we both fell as Al’s bearing sucked in Trent. “Stand up!” Al demanded, and we did, overshadowed and panting. It was getting easier to bear. “We have a worm to crush!” Al cried out, his eyes alight with the promise of vengeance.

“I’m okay,” I said softly, then lifted my chin, accepting who I was and the history of those who came before me. I may not have written these hideous expressions of hate, but I understood them, even as I shuddered at their monstrosity.

Ku’Sox didn’t have a clue or a prayer.

“Ku’Sox Sha-Ku’ru!” Al shouted, his voice echoing back from the broken earth. “Come forth and die!”

I took a deep breath as the painful, unharmonious jangle of lines merged into the collective. I felt Trent’s awe, and with the imaginary sound of sliding bolts and echoing thumps, an ugly curse grew as if rising from the depths. Al’s chanting pulled it into being, and I felt my face go ashen. It would do unspeakable damage, destroying Ku’Sox from his mind out, burning with endless fire and crushing his soul to nothing. That such things were possible seemed the worst kind of punishment.

“ Terga et pectora telis transfigitur! ” Al proclaimed, pushing out with both hands.

Trent jerked, and the energy of the spell pulled through me, burning my brain. The curse sped to Ku’Sox, unseen with a faint distortion as if the very air was recoiling from it.

Trent touched my arm, and I followed his gaze to the black haze coming at us. “Incoming!” I cried, and Al shoved me from him.

I fell on Trent, the ground slamming into us. A shimmer of a protection circle rose up, pulled into being by one or all of us. Al’s charm nicked the edge of Ku’Sox’s own circle, making an ear-numbing scream as it ricocheted to pinwheel erratically into a tall tower of rock.

I propped myself up on an elbow, jaw dropping when the mountain took the hit and collapsed inward, sucking into a loud bang that echoed to the black horizon.

“I’m not taking the smut for that,” Trent whispered, inches away as the demons watching applauded. We got up, shaken as we looked across the space to see that Ku’Sox was staggering but upright, grim faced and determined.

“You don’t really think water made the Grand Canyon, did you?” Al smirked. His circle fell as he flicked a ball of energy at Ku’Sox. The demons watching grudgingly applauded when Ku’Sox just as easily absorbed it.

“Throwing stones at each other is getting us nowhere,” Trent said, his expression more annoyed than anything else as he tugged his lab coat straight.

“And apparently the ever-after has an expiration date?” I prompted, looking at the east.

Al sighed dramatically. “You have a better idea?” he said, slipping into our bubble to sidestep Ku’Sox’s next attack. It hit with a muffled thump to make the earth tremble, and our circle quivered.

Trent frowned. “I do. Listen,” he said, and my eyes opened as wild magic blossomed in my thoughts. With the memory of drums and wildly dancing lithesome shapes, I felt Trent’s magic spill into me. It tingled to my fingers, and Al gasped. My hands clenched so I wouldn’t move as the foreign memory of an intoxicated swaying to a greater will filled me. It was magic from the elven war, magic that demons had never been able to best.

I felt Al’s stark terror melt into understanding, but Trent was lost to it, pulling everything to him, shaping it with no thought other than to build. I could feel the power growing with the strength of the sun, the certainty of the tides. A wing-lidded eye opened, purple and stark. It found me, and I shook.

“Bind it,” Al whispered. “Rachel, bind it! It’s wild magic! I can’t!”

But I could. The wild magic had acknowledged me. I owed it, and it would see me through so I could pay my debt. With the energy of the lines, I wove a resonance about Trent’s charm, binding it in a form that would find the one it was intended for and no other.

“Now,” I whispered, feeling it grow. “Now!” I shouted, severing Trent from the magic and shoving it at Al.

“ Ex cathedra! ” Al shouted to give our curse strength, and Ku’Sox cried out as it blew through his circle unimpeded. Ku’Sox fell to the earth, the elven curse crawling over him like a thousand green snakes, eating his aura, his magic. In my mind, I heard a chiming laugh.

“Bind him!” Trent called out, springing forward through our joined auras as if he had done this a thousand times before, and perhaps in his mind, he had. “He has no magic, but he can still run!”

I ran for the unmoving slump of fabric, not wanting Ku’Sox to turn into a bird and eat us, but I slid to a stop when Al popped into existence right over him. Expression harsh, he put a foot on Ku’Sox’s neck and leaned over him.

Trent was beside me. I could feel the auras of the surrounding demons, hear their harsh cries for revenge, taste their desire on the gritty wind. My heart pounded, and I watched as Al’s face twisted and he bore down, choking Ku’Sox with his foot. Elven magic had downed him, and I felt a growing fear in the demons, even as they urged Ku’Sox’s end.

Appalled, I watched as Ku’Sox pushed at Al’s foot, pounding at his leg, his face becoming red as he arched his back and struggled.

“You were a mistake!” Al exclaimed, and Newt’s androgynous form shoved another aside so she could see. Dali was beside her, and they served as stone-faced witnesses as they killed one of their own. “You were a mistake . . .” Al said again as Ku’Sox struggled, his fingers clawing Al’s leg until they bled.

“Trial!” Ku’Sox rasped, his eyes fastening on Dali’s.

I fixed my horrified gaze on Dali, seeing the demon clench his teeth. Could he claim that?

“Trial! I have a right . . .” he choked out, hardly audible over the surrounding din.

Dali grimaced and bent his head toward Newt’s. “I think he said trial.”

Al’s teeth showed, and he bore down harder. Someone jostled me forward, and Trent pulled me back before I fell.

“I did!” Ku’Sox got out. “I have a right for a trial by demon!”

“He dies!” Trent shouted, his desire flowing through me by way of the slavers. “Now!”

I looked to the east, frightened when the angry mob of demons at my back began to subside into frustrated mutterings. “We don’t have time for a trial!”

But Al was moving his foot.

“Al! You want them to put him in jail?” I shouted, and his eyes met mine, shocking me with their hatred. It would have been better if Trent’s spell would have killed Ku’Sox directly, but elves apparently liked their prisoners alive.

“No.” Al backed up a step, Ku’Sox lying between him and Newt and Dali. “I want to fucking kill him. Slow had been my intent, but fast would have been acceptable.”

Ku’Sox was smiling wickedly as he sat up, scooting backward into the surrounding demons when Al made motions to kick him. “I’m a demon,” he said, his voice smoothing out as found his aplomb. “I have a right to a trial.”

“Let go of me!” Newt cried, wiggling in Dali’s grip. “Let go! I will kill him myself if you are all too afraid, and then you can put me on trial!” she shouted.

“Be still, Newt!” Dali exclaimed, but the haze in her eyes scared me, even as I wanted to see an end to Ku’Sox.

“Ah, I have an idea,” Trent said softly, his voice both musical and hard. “That is, if you are willing to listen to an elf. The one whose magic caught him.”

I turned to Trent, wanting to protest that it had taken all three of us to catch him, but I held my tongue when I saw the harsh light in his eyes, the chilling bone-hard expression of dealing out a harsh death. I’d seen it once aimed at me, and I’d almost died.