When she finished the outer edge and the five pointed star within it, she etched her personal symbol in the center with the dagger. Once the tree with three branches and two leaves graced the dirt, she added her own blood to the tree trunk and branches. The tree symbolized the Xannon family bloodline and her mother, the solid base of the tree, and the branches represented her and her sister. Around the tree, a shield…a special touch she’d added as an inside joke. Not many knew her name, Tarian, meant shield.
Alex and Daric waited outside the circle. When she finished, Alex nodded his approval, and Daric flashed a grim smile. It would do.
"Where are Calli and Frankie?" She glanced back at the portal. As if on cue, the two stepped through. Both sported flushed faces and guilty expressions, and Calliope's lips glowed suspiciously red.
"Ready?" Tarian grinned at her sister, who nodded.
Tarian turned and stepped into the circle. Power vibrated when she crossed the line. A ripple of wind lifted her hair slightly. It reassured her that she had the strength necessary for capturing the demon, no matter how powerful he was. No matter how much of her own magic he’d stolen. This time, she’d prepared. This time she held the boost from Steffahn and Daric, and she’d used her own blood to seal it. The spell she’d studied was meant for exactly this. It would work. It had to.
"Everyone take a corner. Calliope, I'll need you to help pull him. Be ready to cage him, guys. A strong stasis should work long enough for me to finish."
Tarian waited as they spaced themselves out within the circle. Everyone stood with their feet spread slightly, hands to the sides, palms out. Each focused power and radiated it outward until the circle contained a combination of all four. Earth, Air, Fire and Water - all were represented in some way. They were ready.
Tarian placed the container on the ground near the center, then stepped forward and stood on her power symbol. Her body responded both to the circle and to the joined energy of the people who stood with her with a rush of adrenaline that made her skin crawl and the tiny hairs on her arm stand on end. Power swirled around her, blowing her hair with an invisible wind. She closed her eyes, and cast through the air for the demon. Her link to him glowed, inside the circle a vibrant, glowing thing which snaked away from her. Through it, she felt him, tense and ready. He knew.
Tarian said the first line of the ritual, first just a whisper, then louder. She cleared her throat, held her palms out, and said the next line strong and firm. Power from the circle swirled around her and through her. The tracer in her neck squirmed, her shoulders tensed and her head ached. Through the connection, the demon squirmed too. He moved and pulled on the link as he went. His abrupt movement made her stumble. She worked to get her feet back under her before she crossed outside the circle.
Through the link, thoughts invaded her mind. She didn’t need to stand right here. She should move. So easy to drift away. She didn’t have to fight. Everything would be all right.
Tarian stomped her foot and screamed in frustration.
He. Will. Not. Have. Me.
She marched back to the center of the circle and gathered the power around her like a cloak. She used every spec of power in her body, latched onto the link with the demon and said the third line of the spell, gasping with the effort. She and the demon played tug-of-war with their connection a taut rope between them. Neither gave an inch.
Sweat beaded up on her forehead, ran down the sides of her face, and pooled at the small of her back. Flecks of multicolored light darted through her vision.
She forced the air she’d been holding in her lungs out, then took another deep breath and shouted the fourth line. The rope gave a bit, then the demon struggled harder. Tarian leaned on the power inside the circle. She needed more. Much more. She reached a hand toward Calliope, who understood and shifted so she could direct hers more toward Tarian. Dust motes rose into the air. Panting, Tarian screamed the fifth line.
The demon slingshotted through the ether toward her. She stumbled from the sudden release of force on his side. She screamed “watch out” and braced herself on her symbol as she said the sixth line of the ritual. Only four to go.
With a roar, the demon appeared in front of her. But here, in the power of the circle built by her magic and that of her friends, he looked like a man instead of a lizard. A man she'd seen before. Her mind fought to remember the name.
Rasmussen.
Startled, she forgot the next line of the ritual. Frantic she said the sixth again, then memory took over. Words tumbled out even as the demon tried to hit her. Calliope set a shield to surround her before he struck, his spell and hand bounced off it.
Tarian’s skin sang with the concentration of energy her sister generated. Calliope was right. Today, her sister was the strongest. Tarian continued, bolstered by Calliope’s power and confidence, and as she reached the last line of the ritual, the dust on the ground swirled around until it created a black mist, obscuring everything, even Rasmussen.
At the very last moment it dawned on Tarian that it should be him surrounded by black, not her. The thought flitted through her mind, impossible to hold as she felt herself sucked down into a vortex that spun out of her control.
Chapter 36
Musty, black, nothingness. Pain. Throbbing. Pounding. Insistent. Pain reverberated through her skull and behind Tarian’s eyes. Something sharp and hard poked at her back. She blinked several times to clear her vision. It didn’t help the pain at all, so she closed them again and waited.
Soft skitters to her right popped her eyes open again. A faint red light flickered in the distance. She tried to force the room into focus, but there was nothing to see except the wobbling red glow that did nothing to illuminate her surroundings.
Tarian struggled to sit up. Black dust fell like a veil to the floor around her, which turned out to be some rough type of rock. The walls curved in on her. As she blinked, tiny pinprick glowing bulbs danced in front of her. Her head would split in two if this pounding kept up.
Looking at the wall sloping upwards and the faint outline of rough rock, she realized it was a cave. A cave created out of black and brown, musty, dusty, cold, sharp, unfriendly rock. Soft drips made her instantly thirsty. She licked her lips. They still tasted like vomit. The heaviness of the air made her want to vomit again. She gulped back the urge. Bile sat at the back of her throat and taunted her.
Her eyes adjusted enough to the dim light to make out sharp rocks jutting out at odd angles. The glowing bulbs resolved into eyes that seemed to absorb the red light and reflect it back like a cat. The bodies attached to the eyes were familiar. The archivists.
Her head pounded in time to her heart. The archivists, if that’s what they were, stared at her. Odd that they didn’t huddle like statues. They moved freely and blinked a lot. She took up a half-hearted fighting stance and tried to summon her magic. It didn’t answer. Perplexed, she pulled again but found nothing. She didn’t feel blocked exactly. The well was empty, as if the magic had simply dried up. Fear settled in and made a home in the pit of her stomach, next to the queasy part. She rubbed her neck, but although the lump of tense muscle was still there, she couldn’t feel the tracer’s pull on her either. This cave severed the link. At least temporarily.
She wasn't sure what to think about that. The eyes continued to stare at her. Why were the archivists here? She hadn’t been anywhere near them when she did the ritual that landed her here.
She pushed her body up onto wobbly legs and shuffled toward the opening of the cave. The creatures watched her go, not trying to stop her but not helping either. When she reached the mouth of the cave, she found another cave. The light emanated from a craggy rock column on an island in the middle of a small, moldy pond. The rock column vibrated a shade of red she’d never seen before. It hurt her eyes, and even with her eyes closed it throbbed and pulsed. It made no sound, not like fire would. But the closer she got to it the colder the air. As though it sucked every ounce of energy, whether magical or heat, out
of the atmosphere and used it to sustain itself.
She backed off to regain a bit of heat and study it. The column rose from the ground as though sprouted there like some twisted beanstalk with the edges rough and sharp, and rose up into vast expanse above that faded from view. Even with the glow, she couldn’t see the ceiling. She’d never seen a cavern this big. Water dripped from the ceiling to form small ripples on the pond that glowed in reflected glory from that pillar. A thousand more eyes stared back at her.
“Will one of you please explain what is going on?” Her voice came out a lot higher than she liked and echoed back at her from every side. Refusing to panic, Tarian returned to the smaller cave and sat down on a rock that jutted from the cave wall. Cold permeated her jeans and made her shiver. The creatures continued to stare at her.
She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t felt the magic pulsing deep within her. She'd been born with it. It was a part of her, like blood. Essential. She hugged her arms for warmth and stamped her feet to wake up her toes.
The creatures moved closer to her, and she tensed. Their legs and arms wove in and out in some kind of group hug. The one in front put out his arms, his tiny childlike hands held out palm up towards her.
She took the offered hands. A chorus of voices bombarded her. Thousands of voices, all talking at once. It overloaded her mind with a kaleidoscope of sound.
“Stop, just stop. I said one of you. One. I can’t understand you if you all talk at once. My head. Shit.” She gasped as her skull throbbed. The cacophony died down to a whisper, and one voice stood out above the rest.
“We seek an answer.”
“You and me both.”
“Scion, holder of air, fire, water. Please tell us why you came?”
“I didn’t mean to. I meant to banish a demon.”
Several voices erupted in furious conversation. Trying to make out some of it, all she managed to pick up was “Scion” and “intrude.”
“We seek information.”
Blink. Blink. Blink.
“I used a spell from the Book of Daemon. You told me it would help. But now I'm here instead of the demon. How are you here? I left you in the archives.” As she spoke, images of her power circle and herself struggling with the demon filled her head.
Mutters filled her head. From somewhere in the mix she gathered the name “Sucole,” which sparked a frenzy of vocal activity. Along with the image of the Book of Daemon and Rasmussen himself.
A chorus of responses echoed in her head.
“We do not leave this place. We are not archivists. We are Carraig.”
“Carraig. I know that name.” Through the haze and pain she fished for something to explain the name. Something in history class. Something ancient. Ancient, with a capital A.
“Earth daemon? As in, real earth daemon? The earth daemon?” Her thoughts slugged through what little she’d managed to hold on to from class. Ancients, like the Dolphins, but with power based solely in Earth element. Manipulators of stone. Usually guardians. They disappeared thousands of years ago. She hadn’t realized the archivists were Carraig. They seemed more like stuffy librarians than guardians.
“The one you fight is not Carraig, yet carries earth talent. Born to one blinded by greed and lust who wields air, who craved union with a creature based in fire, without agreement. He must kill to survive. He will not stop.”
Blinded. "Sucole?"
An image of Sucole flashed in her mind along with the general chorus of "yes."
“Why did the spell backfire?”
“Ritual worked.” Several voices wove the answer. “Scion does not belong here.”
“I know I don’t belong here. What do you mean it worked? Where is Rasmussen if it worked? I was doing the banishment on him, not me.”
“Scion sent Scion here. Human demon creature is not here.”
“No, I didn’t. I sent…” she paused. After all, she couldn’t read the language of the ritual. She'd trusted that Rasmussen's translation had been correct.
Realization tackled her, punched her in the gut and kicked her teeth for good measure. Rasmussen. She'd trusted the very person she fought. Without knowing it, of course. But all the same. How he must be laughing right at this moment.
“I sent myself here? Sucole gave me the wrong damn spell? And Rasmussen played along. Rasmussen, the demon. The demon, who wields earth, is her son.” The vein on the side of her neck pulsed as the puzzle pieces fit together. She dropped the daemon’s hands and stood up. The sudden silence in her head filled quickly with the blood that rushed to her ears and the pulse that throbbed in her throat. She held her head in both hands, to stop the pain.
You do not see.
Sucole was right. She didn’t see that she’d been lied to, she didn't see that Rasmussen had pushed her down the path, and she didn’t see how she could make any of it right while stuck here in this dark, cold, musty place.
The daemons blinked furiously at her. One of them reached out and touched her thigh.
“Scion does not belong here. Scion must not remain here.”
“Why can’t I feel my magic?”
The eyes blinked slower.
“In this place, no magic. In this place, all are without. Scion must be summoned, to experience life magic once more.”
“Excuse me?”
“We protect the Stulos. We stay. To leave, we must be summoned, or the Stulos must fail.”
“Stulos.” The word sounded familiar. Ancient. The daemon in front of her gestured toward the red glowing light.
“You’re telling me that the light in here is a pillar? The pillar? The thing that holds the planes apart?” Nobody had seen these things for thousands of years. She hadn’t thought they were real. Not many did, any more. Certainly nobody had seen one. Not on this plane. And anything not seen was bound to be forgotten or discounted as untrue.
“One of four. Stulos must be protected, must be maintained. Stulos takes power. Stulos does not return power. We guard Stulos.”
“How the hell did this happen? How did one banishment spell send me here?”
“Knowledge is power. Book of Daemon contains all knowledge.”
“All this time…” Tarian let the words drift off as she thought about what it meant to be stuck in this dark, musty cave for what amounted to eternity. She’d never given them a thought before. They’d passed from awareness so long ago, they were nothing but myth and legend. Even the dolphins had lost their Ancient status in most modern minds. Tarian and her family were some of the few who knew what they truly were.
She sat down on the rock again and let go of the tiny hands. The creature stood there in front of her not moving and blinked occasionally.
“I’m sorry.” She finally managed.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
“So the rest of it. It’s all true. Earth, Water, Air…the Benata and the Mayfanata are air, of course. But what about Fire?”
“All elements exist, though not in harmony. Balance does not exist with planes separate. Fire waits.”
“Waits…for what?”
“Freedom.”
A loaded word.
She sought the same thing. Freedom from this cave. Freedom from the demon who hunted her and stole her power. Freedom for her family.
“You said I must be summoned out. What happens then?
“Summoned acts at the bidding of the summoner.”
The words, so simple, but so crammed with meaning. She’d experience the very thing she fought so hard to avoid. Her will, subverted by another.
“Scion is correct. Scion can then be released. As happened with Carraig in the archives of the House of Xannon.”
“Is there any other way out of here?”
“Death.”
To get out she had to be summoned, and she'd be under that person's control. Rasmussen knew. He'd known she was learning the ritual. He hadn't stopped her, and he'd known sooner or later she'd spring it on the demon she chased. Him.
She
wouldn't have long to wait. Right now he must be getting ready to summon her. Instead of trapping him, she'd landed herself in an even worse position than when she'd started. She wouldn't have thought that was possible.
She wrapped her arms protectively around herself. Daric, Alex, Frankie, Calliope…they'd all seen her vanish. They held the demon in semi-stasis as she left. Maybe they'd managed to defeat him. Maybe they held the upper hand. All she had to do then was wait. They’d figure out a way to get her out of here.
Unless they couldn't. Unless Rasmussen had finished them all off. What had happened after she left? Were they okay? Were they lying on the ground, torn to bits like the people in that room?
Did any of them even know how to summon?
Here, with no magic, no way out, she was completely dependent on someone else to fix her problem.
Tarian rubbed her arms to stimulate the circulation and then stood up to stomp from side to side. She swallowed the dry lump in her throat. It refused to budge. Added in to the equation was the tiny person about to grow in her uterus. She risked herself, her sister, the Dolphin Throne and a possible child who didn’t deserve any of this.
A child who would be a blend of Steffahn, Alex and Daric. What powers would the child have, and what consequences would she suffer because of her Tarian’s foolish choices? Could such a child forgive her mother for being human?
She sat and reached for the daemon’s tiny hands. “Will you tell me why I shouldn’t have joined with a daemon? What will happen to the child?”
“Such a thing is not knowable. Possibilities are endless, and conception has not yet occurred, though it is near. It remains to be seen.”
“So you’re saying I have to wait and see.” It sounded trite, but what choice did she have?
“With time, all things are knowable. Scion is daemon. Child would be too. With or without joining another. There is much to know, much that remains unseen on this plane. Such things were lost when planes separated.”
She dropped his hands again and paced, unable to keep her body still with her mind in such turmoil. Daemon. She was part daemon. No wonder she could see that red mist when others couldn’t. That must mean her own mother, or perhaps grandmother, had dallied with someone just like Steffahn. Or even more…the dolphins? The Carraig? How was it even possible?
Demons & Djinn: Nine Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Djinn, and other Bad Boys of the Underworld Page 137
