Ким Харрисон - Every Witch Way But Dead

"Rachel!" Ceri cried. She fell into me, dragging me out of the broken circle. I pushed at her, too depressed to try to get away. It was coming. Al was going to fill me with his force, making me feel his thoughts, turning me into a copper-top battery that could make his tea and do his dishes. The first of my helpless tears dribbled out, but I couldn't find the will to hate myself for them. I knew I should be crying. I had gambled my life to put Piscary away and lost.

"Rachel! Please!" Ceri pleaded, her grip on my arm hurting as she tried to drag me. My damp feet made a squeaking noise, and I pushed at her, trying to get her to stop.

A red bubble of ever-after popped into existence where Al had pinged out. The air pressure violently shifted, and both Ceri and I clasped our hands to our ears.

"Damn it all to heaven and back!" Al swore, his velvet green frock open and in disarray. His hair was wild and his glasses were gone. "You did everything right!" he shouted, gesturing violently. "I've got your aura. You've got mine. Why can't I reach you through the lines!"

Ceri knelt behind me, her arm protectively about me. "It didn't work?" she quavered, pulling me back a little more. Her wet finger traced a quick circle about us.

"Do I look like it worked?" he exclaimed. "Do I look happy to you?"

"No," she breathed, and her circle expanded about us, black-smeared but strong. "Rachel," she said, giving me a squeeze. "You're going to be okay."

Al went still. Deathly quiet, he turned, his boots making a soft sound against the flooring. "No, she isn't."

My eyes widened at his frustrated anger. Oh God. Not again.

I stiffened as he tapped a line and sent it crashing into me. With it came a whisper of his emotion, satisfied and anticipatory. Fire coursed through me, and I screamed, pushing Ceri away. Her bubble burst in a glittering sensation of hot needles, adding to my agony.

Curled into a fetal position, I frantically thought the word, Tulpa, slumping in relief as the torrent coursed through me and settled in the sphere in my head. Panting, I slowly pulled my head up. Al's confusion and frustration filled me. My anger grew until it overshadowed his emotions.

Al's thoughts in mine shifted to stark surprise. Vision blurring as what I was seeing conflicted with what my brain said was true, I stumbled to my feet. Most of the candles were out, knocked over to make puddles of wax and scenting the air with smoke. Al felt my defiance through our link, and his face turned ugly when my pride for having learned to store energy seeped into him. "Ceri…" he threatened, his goat eyes narrowing.

"It didn't work," I said, my voice low as I watched him from around my stringy wet hair. "Get out of my kitchen."

"I'm going to have you, Morgan," Al snarled. "If I can't take you by right, I'll by god beat you into submission and pull you in, broken and bleeding."

"Oh yeah?" I came back with. I glanced at the pot that had held my aura. His eyes widened in surprise as he knew my thought the instant I had it. The bond now went both ways. He had made a mistake.

"Get out of my kitchen!" I exclaimed, dumping the line energy he had forced me to hold back through our familiar link and into him. I jerked upright as it all flowed from me and into him, leaving me empty. Al stumbled backward, shocked.

"You canicula!" he cried, his image blurring.

Staggering to remain upright, he tapped the line, adding more force.

Eyes narrowing, I set my thoughts to loop it right back at him. Whatever he was going to send into me was going to end up right back in him.

Al choked as he sensed what I was going to do. There was a sudden wrench in my gut and I stumbled, catching myself against the table as he broke the live connection between us. I stared at him across the kitchen, breath rough. This was going to be settled right here and now. One of us was going to lose. And it wasn't going to be me. Not in my kitchen. Not tonight.

Al put one foot behind him, taking a deceptively relaxed stance. He ran a hand over his hair, smoothing it. His round smoked glasses appeared, and he buttoned his frock. "This isn't working," he said flatly.

"No," I rasped. "It isn't."

Safe in her circle, Ceri snickered. "You can't have her, Algaliarept, you big stupid," she mocked, making me wonder at her word choice. "You made the familiar gate swing both ways when you forced her to give you her aura. You're her familiar as much as she is yours."

Al's momentary placid face blossomed into anger. "I've used this spell a thousand times to milk auras, and this has never happened before. And I am not her familiar."

I watched, feeling tense and ill as a three-legged stool appeared behind Al. It looked like something Attila the Hun would have used, with a red velvet cushion and horsehair fringe going to the floor. Not bothering to see if it was behind him, he sat, his expression puzzled.

"That's why Nick called," I said, and Al gave me a patronizing look. When he took my aura, it broke the bond I had with Nick. He had felt it. Aw, crap. Al was my familiar?

Ceri gestured that I should join her in her circle, but I couldn't chance that Al might hurt her in the instant it would take to reform it. Al, though, was preoccupied with his own thoughts.

"This isn't right," he mumbled. "I've done this before with hundreds of witches with souls and it's never forged a bond this strong. What's so different about…"

My stomach dropped as all visible emotion drained from him. He glanced at the clock above the sink, then me. "Come here, little witch."

"No."

He pressed his lips together and stood.

Gasping, I backpedaled, but he had my wrist and pulled me to the island counter. "You've done this spell before," he said as he squeezed my pricked finger, making it bleed again. "When you made Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos your familiar. It was your blood in the brew, little witch, that invoked it?"

"You know it was." I was too drained to be frightened anymore. "You were there." I couldn't see his eyes, but my reflection in his glasses looked ugly and pale with wet stringy hair.

"And it worked," he said thoughtfully. "It didn't just bind you, it bound you tight enough for you to draw a line through him?"

"That's why he left," I said, surprised I could still feel the pain.

"Your blood kindled the spell fully…." Speculation wasthick in his goat eyes as he looked at me from over his glasses. He drew my hand up, and though I tried to wiggle free of him, he licked the blood from my finger with a cold, tingling sensation. "So subtly scented," he breathed, his eyes never leaving mine. "Like perfumed air your lover has walked through."

"Let go," I said, pushing at him.

"You should be dead," he said, his voice full of wonder. "How is it that you're still alive?"

Jaw clenched, I worked at his grip on me, trying to get my fingers between him and my wrist. "I work hard at it." With a gasp, I fell back as he released his hold.

"You work hard at it." Smiling, he took a step back and gave me a once-over. "The mad have a grace all their own. I must go start a study group."

Frightened, I hunched over my wrist and held it.

"And I will have the likes of you as my own, Rachel Mariana Morgan. Count on it."

"I'm not going into the ever-after," I said tightly. "You'll have to kill me first."

"You don't have a choice," he intoned, chilling me. "You tap a line when the sun is down, and I'll find you. You can't make the circle that can keep me out. If you aren't on holy ground, I'll beat you silly and drag you into the ever-after. And from there, you will not escape."

"Try it," I threatened, reaching behind me to find the meat-tenderizing hammer hanging on the overhead rack. "You can't touch me unless you go solid, and it's going to hurt, red man."