Emerson glanced behind him at the little demons, then did a double-take. “No, no, no, no, no!” He kicked several of them back into the gateway, but the winds blew them back up into the air, where their round bodies tumbled like balls in a lotto machine. He shouted something in a demon tongue, but it didn’t seem to stop more pale-pink fog from pouring out. Growling, he spoke a harsh word of power so weighty that it drove him to one knee. It washed over the warehouse like the wave of an earthquake, and Idrián fought to stay still behind his concealment spell.
The gateway collapsed. The space became the floor of the warehouse once more, and the winds around Riya and Black Fox died down. She was on one knee, tying her shoe, breathing heavily. Black Fox hovered over her shoulder, looking better than before, but not well.
The sudden quiet lasted only one long moment. Three of the newly formed round demons screamed like peacocks. One started bouncing. Another rolled. The third began hitting itself, drawing green blood. More demons started screaming. A fourth demon rolled to the third demon and began slurping up the spilled blood.
Idrián remembered story lessons taught to him by the spirits of his oldest ancestors, about the small demons that had once overrun dreamwalk and devastated the land that later became the American Southwest, destroying multiple settlements. If these were the same, they’d be like a very large pack of locusts, eating everything living in their path.
Emerson got to his feet. “Quiet!” He spoke a word of power that had all the other demons, including Yellow Snow, cringing and whimpering. Emerson staggered toward Riya and Black Fox.
“You will die. Slowly. On a spit.” The demon’s translucent tail emerged from under the suit coat and curved up and over his shoulder, like an eight-foot-tall scorpion’s stinger. “But first, the meddling ghost.”
“Stupid demon,” sneered Black Fox.
The demon’s tail struck with blurred speed, but Black Fox vanished. Riya tried to evade the stinger, but it went right through her… and had no effect.
One of the round demons began repeating the words “on a spit.” Several others took up the chorus. “Ghost,” chanted others. “Stupid demon.”
Black Fox appeared behind the demon and drew lightning from the blackness above. “No brains at all.” He funneled the spirit lightning directly onto the demon’s tail. The demon yowled as its ghostly tail charred and smoked. Black Fox vanished again as Emerson spun to look for his tormentor.
“Brains,” said dozens of the round demons, sounding like a cheap zombie film.
Idrián suppressed a jerk when Black Fox appeared next to him behind the concealment spell. “I’m spent, Eaglefoot. I’m going home.”
“Wait,” breathed Idrián. “Before you go, tell Riya we’ve got some of our dreamwalk powers here. She doesn’t know she can defend herself.”
“Your woman is braver—” began Black Fox.
Idrián didn’t have time for another lecture on his inadequacies. “Than me. Yes. Please tell her.”
Black Fox frowned as he faded away.
Emerson turned back to Riya. “Fine. I’ll deal with you.” He began a low, chanting spell that congealed the air in Idrián’s chest.
Riya mumbled her own spell. Idrián badly wanted to go to her, to face the demon together, but it would be suicide. He tried to send her some of his earth magic through their connection, the way he’d done in dreamwalk, but he couldn’t tell if it worked. He couldn’t send her much, or Emerson would notice the foreign magic in his temporary demesne.
Black Fox appeared next to Riya, his face next to her ear, speaking urgently.
Emerson stopped in mid-chant. “I knew you’d try to save her.” He gestured, and a latticed spirit cage formed around Black Fox. “Who’s stupid now?”
Emerson grinned widely and turned to wade into the crowd of at least a hundred round demons on the warehouse floor. “Anyone hungry? I’m having a two-for-one special!” He pointed theatrically to Black Fox and Riya. The whimpering demon sounds turned to yowling as they struggled to get to their feet. “Stupid now!” chanted the demons. “Hungry!” “Special!”
Emerson seemed convinced the demons could make a meal of Black Fox. It was Idrián’s fault that his grandfather was stuck again.
Surprisingly, Riya manifested an erasable marker and began rapidly writing something on the warehouse floor. She dropped the marker and began a complicated series of finger, wrist, and arm gestures that looked straight out of the pirated Indian Bollywood music videos his buddy used to watch in Iraq.
The floor under Black Fox’s trapped figure turned transparent, then vanished altogether. Black Fox dropped like a rock. The empty spirit cage collapsed in on itself and vanished in a flash of ethereal light.
Riya hastily smeared what she’d written, and the hole disappeared.
Emerson was shaking with rage as he stalked toward Riya. “I’m going to rip—OW!” One of the round demons sank teeth into Emerson’s left calf. Emerson kicked it off and threw it into several others. “Not me—the human!”
Yellow Snow, larger and faster, leapt over the front line of the round demons and into the clear circle where Riya kneeled, but its target was a disgustingly wet, congealed, brown mass on the floor that it ate while slashing and growling at a spiny, round demon that ventured too close.
A cluster of demons accidentally sent a work-light stand crashing to the ground, creating a hail of shattered glass. One demon tried eating the glass. Another chewed on the battery cable, shorting out the light and stunning the demon into insensibility.
Idrián pulled hard for more earth magic from beneath him, hoping the flow would be masked by the pandemonium caused by the awakening demons.
The first of the demons got to Riya and tried to bite, but an arc of static electricity sent it flying into other demons, rolling them all backward like billiards. She got to her feet and backed up, putting her several steps closer to the west wall where he was concealed. Five or six more demons suffered the same fate before they learned to be more cautious. Each time they went flying, Riya moved westward, and their connection got stronger. She hesitated before stepping on the first ring of symbols, but luckily, the gate spell had exhausted their power.
Emerson viciously kicked the demons near him, then spoke a word of power that pushed all eight of those around him backward into their brethren.
The demons closer to Idrián had no chance of getting to Riya or Emerson, and thankfully couldn’t see him. They were more interested in fighting with one another, except he realized it wasn’t violent, bloody, stabbing combat; it was sexual congress.
Some things were impossible to un-see, but Idrián planned to give it his best shot if they got out of this alive.
Emerson, toweringly angry, only got two more steps before nearly being knocked off his feet by Yellow Snow, who had made a grab for Riya and had been repelled by her spell.
Riya made it past the outer ring of the symbols. Another fifteen feet would put her into the shadows, beyond the pools of light.
Idrián needed to get the demons away from her. With an apology to the Spirit of Goats, he created a detailed illusion of an injured brown goat, complete with piteous calls and distinctive scent, and sent it to the southeast corner of the warehouse, as if it had wandered in by accident. His gamble that it would fool the new demons paid off, and they got in each other’s way in their zeal to go after the new prey. Not enough of them, though. He added six more smelly, bleating goats and sent them to the southwest corner.
Emerson turned in response to the commotion. Idrián took the opportunity to extend his concealment spell over Riya. He moved closer to her, as much to use his stiffening right leg as to protect her. He’d need to be mobile once he got to her. A train rumbled in the distance to the north.
It was too much to hope that the demon inside Emerson hadn’t noticed that much earth magic in its territory.
“Mage!” he howled. “Oath breaker!” He kicked at two more demons, but they were learning to avoid his f
eet. He spoke another word of power and cleared a space around him. He started to run toward where Riya had been last, but the floor under his feet was suddenly slick with black oil, and he lost his footing. He landed hard on his hands and knees.
Idrián half ran toward Riya as he sent the all the goat illusions running straight for Emerson. The round demons began converging on Emerson’s location. “Mage!” “Special!” “Hungry!” They began slipping and sliding on the oily floor.
Riya made a beeline for Idrián. “West freight door!” He could barely hear her over the demon screams.
He turned and went into his top, half-run speed, using the spell he’d stored in his braided hair to light their way. Riya easily caught up with him and grabbed his free hand briefly. Their connection flared, and he felt her portal magic wrench open the west freight door, sending nails and boards flying. The screech from rusty metal even drowned out the demons. The building shuddered, and the noise in the room increased tenfold as a southbound train sped by.
She let go of his hand and sprinted forward, using her demon-repelling spell to clear the way for them both. Idrián risked a glance back and saw Emerson besieged by a mound of demons.
Idrián focused forward and blocked out everything but Riya and the west door.
A word of power from Emerson rattled the walls and sent demons rolling past him like tumbleweeds. “Stop the portal mage!”
Idrián ignored it and ran. Up ahead, Riya stood at the entrance, holding out her hand for him. The wind from the train buffeted her, but she didn’t budge.
He grabbed her hand and they leapt out the door together.
Chapter 14
Riya had never jumped next to a speeding train. It was a lot less scary in the movies.
They landed hard and fast, stumbling forward a few steps before getting control of their momentum. She was sure the only thing that saved them from a nose-first dive into the gravel was Idrián’s earth magic, which she felt through their joined hands. How he managed to stay upright with a bad leg and a prosthetic foot was beyond her. Tiny rocks and debris stung her bare arms and face.
They rounded the end of the warehouse and staggered up the incline to the cracked asphalt parking lot. Idrián seemed to know where he was going, and she was happy to hang on. Only stars and Idrián’s magic lit their way.
As they ran past a rusted hulk of a van, Riya magically sealed all the doors of the warehouse. It was too much to hope that the round demons would eat Emerson, but maybe the closed doors would slow them all down.
She and Idrián scrambled into his pickup truck. For all its battered exterior and aging upholstery, it started right away, and he burned rubber out onto the deserted street, ignoring stop signs and potholes. She stomped on her bag to keep it from sliding and fumbled for the seatbelt. He turned onto a darker street and bore down on the accelerator. Somehow, he’d already strapped his seatbelt on. Maybe he had a spell for it.
His expression was grim. “I’m using the emergency translocation spell, but neither of us is going to like it.”
She tried to kick her bag under her seat. “Better than being demon appetizers.”
He gave her a fleeting smile as he gripped the wheel with one hand and leaned forward to pull a small knob hidden under the dash.
Burning bright lights and earsplitting thunder assaulted her as the truck went airborne and became a living ball of energy that hurled itself through space and time. Gravity failed, the temperature dropped, and she couldn’t catch enough air to breathe. Her bag and everything in the cab began floating. She caught glimpses of snowflakes, except they were stars marking clockwise paths, like a long-exposure photograph of the night sky. The contents of her stomach desperately wanted out, but she clamped her mouth shut and swallowed hard. She flailed her left arm, groping for Idrián’s hand, but he was at the edge of the horizon, both hands on the steering wheel, shoulders hunched. She hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye, or thank him for saving her. She moaned wordlessly, not daring to open her mouth to wail her regret at not telling him what was in her loudly beating heart.
Just when she thought they would die alone in the cold, airless space, a new bright light bathed the truck in fire and red dust and howling winds. Gravity returned, dropping the floating objects all around them. Thunder rolled, and they landed on a dusty dark road in the middle of a dark desert like they’d been shot out of a cannon.
The back end of the truck fishtailed wildly on the washboard ruts of the road. Idrián swore as he stomped on the brake. Once he got control of the vehicle, he slowed to a stop.
Riya’s stomach rebelled, and she barely made it out of the truck in time to throw up on the side of the road. She heard similar retching from Idrián’s side of the truck.
She staggered back to the open truck door and dug into her bag for a tissue to wipe her mouth. She pulled out two more, then dizzily staggered around the front of the frost-covered truck to where Idrián was still kneeling and wordlessly handed him the tissues.
“Passenger seat. Cooler. Water.” He coughed as though he’d inhaled half the desert.
By the time she got back around to her side of the truck, she was feeling better— enough to give her hope that she wouldn’t be disoriented for the rest of her life. She shivered. Her filthy T-shirt and yoga pants weren’t much protection against the cold night air.
After they’d each rinsed out their mouths and downed the rest of their bottles of water, he pulled her into his arms. She clung to him, letting the warmth of his body and their connection soothe her. She’d been terrified for hours, and never wanted to let him go again. In the distance, she thought she heard the hoot of an owl.
“Where are we, anyway?” She felt a lump pushing into her stomach and looked down. “And why are you wearing my sweater around your waist?”
He released her with a chuckle “I thought you might be cold.” He untied the arms of her sweater and handed it to her. She gratefully put it on.
“We’re in southern New Mexico, a few miles from my family’s ranch. This must have been the only road the translocation spell thought was safe.” He looked to the east at the black, star-filled sky. “The spell bought us some time, but demons can translocate, too, and they can track anything. Now that we’re back on Earth, they’ll smell us, and the demon knows you’re a portal mage. It’ll want you back.” He gripped her shoulders firmly, his expression determined. “It can’t have you.”
She wanted to kiss him for the fierce promise in his words, but there was no time. “Thank you.”
She climbed into the driver’s side of the truck and slid over to the passenger side. He clambered in after her, started the truck, and turned on the heater.
Once they were at speed on the bumpy road, she brought up a subject that had been worrying her. “You know that spell I did to free your grandfather? I, well, uhm… I don’t know where I sent him. I was desperate, because Derorril was so confident the rolling demons could eat Black Fox, so I improvised. I didn’t know what else to do.” Anyone trained in magic knew that improvising was a good way to end up with very bad results, from sentient dust bunnies, to a Category Five hurricane.
He glanced at her. “It’s okay, Riya.” He reached out and grabbed her hand. “He wanted to go home, and I asked him to tell you about the dreamwalk powers instead, which got him trapped again. You saved him.” He stroked her thumb with his. “He’s probably having an adventure.”
She stole a glance at his profile, memorizing it for this moment in time. They weren’t shifters, with the certainty of mate biology to move things along. They were just two humans with a talent for dreamwalk and a magical connection that warmed her from the inside out. She wanted to tell him…
The moment was lost when the “Infernal Dance” from Stravinsky’s The Firebird began playing. She dug through the bag at her feet and found her phone.
“Hi, mum.”
Between dancing for demons, bending a demonic gateway spell, and taking a whirlwind tour of the unive
rse via a kick-ass translocation spell, it seemed like a lot longer than thirty-six hours since she’d emailed photos of the magical symbols to her family. She’d already figured out some of them herself, sensing their meaning as her dance had activated them.
She gave her mother a sanitized version of what had happened since, skimming over the dangerous parts and distracting her by mentioning that she’d met a very brave and handsome man, who she was with at that very moment. After providing his name, occupation, and assuring her mother he had no other girlfriends or wives, she steered the conversation to the magic symbols.
“Nasty,” said her mother. “A mix of necromancer, demon, and corrupted dance magic. Your grandmother had a vision of the necromancer and looked him up. She’s become quite the online research wizard. Spencer Emerson is the latest of a bunch of names over the decades. He makes a living on the stock exchange, but isn’t above raising the dead to get juicy information for blackmailing the living. He used to have quite a fortune tucked away, but lately, he’s been spending it like water.”
“That’s probably the soul-eater demon that has him in thrall. It never met a resource it didn’t want to waste. Idrián’s people call them soul-eaters.”
“Since you got away, it’ll try to find someone else to dance.” Her mother sounded more hopeful than sure.
“If so, it’ll kill them just like it did St. Peters. That gate spell won’t work unless someone like me is powering it. The demon is greedy and arrogant, but it knows I’m its only hope for getting what it wants, which we think is to invite some of its family over for dinner. Idrián is taking me to his ranch near Magic, New Mexico, which is more defensible than my place.”
“Good. The folks in Magic will help you if they can. Necromancers know better than to go anywhere near that town, but the demon won’t.”
“Okay. Any ideas on how we get rid of the demons? I couldn’t stop the gate spell altogether, but I misdirected it, so all that came through were little demons.”
Magic, New Mexico: In Graves Below (Kindle Worlds) Page 12
