Ким Харрисон: Every Witch Way But Dead

"Please let me be right," I whispered to the statue as I mentally moved the white rill of salt from this reality to that of the ever-after. I staggered as most of the energy pooling in my center was yanked out to force the shift. The media in the pot sloshed, and still not having found my balance, I set it down in the snow before it spilled. My eyes went to the green candles. They had turned eerily transparent, having been moved to the ever-after with the salt. The flames, though, existed in both worlds, adding their glow to the night.

The power from the line began to build again, the slow increase as uncomfortable as the first quick influx of tapping a line, but the ribbon of salt had been replaced with an equal amount of ever-after reality arching high to close over my head. Nothing more substantial than air could pass the shifting bands of reality, and because I set the circle, only I could break it—providing I had made it properly to begin with.

"Algaliarept, I summon you," I whispered, my heart pounding. Most people used all sorts of trappings to summon and contain a demon, but seeing as I already had an arrangement with it, simply saying its name and willing its presence would pull it across the lines. Lucky me.

My gut clenched when a small patch of snow melted between the warrior angel and me. The snow steamed, the cloud of reddish vapor billowing up to follow the confines of a body not yet taken shape. I waited, my tension growing. Algaliarept varied its shape, sifting through my mind without me even knowing to choose what scared me the most. Once it had been Ivy. Then Kisten—until I had pinned him in an elevator in a foolish moment of vampire-induced passion. It's hard to be scared of someone after you've French-kissed him. Nick, my boyfriend, always got a slavering dog the size of a pony.

This time, though, the mist was definitely a human shape, and I guessed it was going to show up either as Piscary—the vampire I had just put in prison—or perhaps its more typical vision of a young British gentleman in a green velveteen coat with tails.

"Neither scares you anymore," came a voice from the mist, jerking my head up.

It was my voice. "Aw, crap," I swore, picking up my spell pot and backing away until I almost broke my circle. It was going to show up as me. I hated that. "I'm not afraid of myself!" I shouted, even before it finished coalescing.

"Oh, yes you are."

It had the right sound, but the cadence and accent were wrong. I stared, riveted, as Algaliarept took on my outline, running its hands suggestively down itself, flattening its chest to my lame excuse of womanhood and giving me hips that were probably a little more curvaceous than I deserved. It dressed itself in black leather pants, a red halter top, and high-heeled black sandals that looked ridiculous out in the middle of a snowy graveyard.

Eyelids lightly closed and lips open, it shook its head to make my frizzy shoulder-length red curls take shape out of the lingering haze of ever-after. It gave me more freckles than I could possibly have, and my eyes weren't the red orbs it showed when it opened them, but green. Mine weren't slitted like a goat's either.

"You got the eyes wrong," I said, and I set my spell pot down at the edge of the circle. I gritted my teeth, hating that it heard my voice quaver.

Hip cocked, the demon put out a sandaled foot and snapped its fingers. A pair of black shades materialized in its grip, and it put them on, hiding its unnatural eyes. "Now they're right," it said, and I shuddered at how close it matched my voice.

"You don't look anything like me," I said, not realizing I had lost so much weight, and deciding I could go back to eating shakes and fries.

Algaliarept smiled. "Perhaps if I put my hair up?" it mocked coyly as it gathered the unruly mass and held it atop my, er, its head. Biting its lips to redden them, it moaned and shifted as if its hands were tied above it, looking like it was into bondage games. Falling back onto the sword the angel held, it posed like a whore.

I hunched deeper into my coat with the fake fur around the collar. From the distant street came the slow sound of a passing car. "Can we get on with this? My feet are getting cold."

It pulled its head up and smiled. "You are such the party pooper, Rachel Mariana Morgan," it said in my voice, but now with its customary highbrow British accent. "But a very good sport. Not making me drag you into the ever-after shows a fine strength of mind. I'm going to enjoy breaking you."

I jerked when a smear of ever-after energy cascaded over it. It was shifting forms again, but my shoulders eased when it turned itself into its usual vision of lace and green velvet. Dark hair styled long and round smoked glasses twisted into existence. Pale skin and a strong-featured face appeared, matching its trim, narrow-waisted figure in elegance. High-heeled boots and an exquisitely tailored coat finished the outfit, turning the demon into a charismatic young businessman of the eighteenth century, possessing wealth and poised for greatness.

My thoughts touched on the horrific crime scene I had contaminated last fall while trying to pin the murders of Cincinnati's best ley line witches on Trent Kalamack. Al had slaughtered them in Piscary's name. Each of them had died in pain for its enjoyment. Al was a sadist, no matter how good the demon looked.

"Yes, let's get on with it," it said as it took a tin of a black dust that smelled like Brimstone and inhaled a pinch deeply. It rubbed its nose and moved to poke at my circle with a boot, making me wince. "Nice and tight. But it's cold. Ceri likes it warm."

Ceri? I wondered as all the snow within the circle melted in a flash of condensation. The scent of wet pavement rose strong, then vanished as the cement dried to a pale red.

"Ceri," Algaliarept said, its voice shocking me in its soft tone, both coaxing and demanding. "Come."

I stared when a woman stepped from behind Algaliarept, seemingly from nowhere. She was thin, her heart-shaped face sallow and her cheekbones showing too strongly. Standing substantially shorter than I, she had a diminutive, almost childlike mien. Her head was down, and her pale translucent hair hung straight to her mid-back. She was dressed in a beautiful gown that dropped to her bare feet. It was exquisite—lush silk dyed in rich purples, greens, and golds—and it fitted her curvaceous form like it had been painted on. Though she was small, she was well-proportioned, if perhaps a shade fragile looking.

"Ceri," Algaliarept said, putting a white-gloved hand to tilt her head up. Her eyes were green, wide, and empty. "What did I tell you about going barefoot?"

A glimmer of annoyance crossed her face, far away and distant behind the numb state she was in. My attention dropped as a matching pair of embroidered slippers materialized about her feet.

"That's better." Algaliarept turned from her, and I was struck by the picture of the perfect couple they made in their finery. She was beautiful in her clothes, but her mind was as empty as she was lovely, insane from the raw magic the demon forced her to hold for it, filtering the ley line power through her mind to keep itself safe. Dread twisted in my gut.

"Don't kill her," I whispered, my mouth dry. "You're done with her. Let her live."

Algaliarept pulled its smoked glasses down to look over them, its red orbs fixing on me. "You like her?" it said. "She is pretty, isn't she? Over a thousand years old, and aged not a moment since the day I took her soul. If I were honest, she's the reason I was invited to most of the parties. She puts out without a fuss. Though, of course, for the first hundred years it was all tears and wailing. Fun in itself, but it does get old. You'll fight me, won't you?"

My jaw clenched. "Give her back her soul, now that you're done with her."