Ever After th-11

by Kim Harrison

  “Happens to me all the time,” I said wryly, and he chuckled.

  “Me too.”

  A feeling of shared kinship darted through me, lighting both our thoughts, and Bis seemed to warm.

  “I need your help,” Ku’Sox growled, pacing forward. “I can’t best her when she’s with an elf. The sun will be up soon, and by then it will be too late.”

  The demons behind Dali didn’t like that, but Newt was undeterred. “Perhaps Rachel can.”

  We had to get this done, and get it done now. Trent had the drive to kill Ku’Sox. I had the power, but neither of us had the skill to best a demon taught the arts of war. Blinking, I brought my head up, finding Al waiting, a devious smile on his face, his bound hands held out to me. Al did. My eyes went to his hands, and his gloves misted out of existence to show his wedding rings. Perhaps the three of us could actually do something.

  “We need Al,” I whispered as Ku’Sox paced up and down, raging at us.

  “Don’t be foolish. We can’t even get to him,” Trent muttered back.

  “They aren’t going to help him,” I said, looking to the east and fidgeting. “They won’t help us. We need to forcibly take him.”

  Trent frowned as Ku’Sox grandstanded, claiming another twelve hours of negative energy pressure would put the mass of the ever-after under a viable threshold. “We need Al,” I said again, and this time, Trent turned to me, his eyes flicking up to Bis’s as the gargoyle bobbed his head. “We can’t overpower Ku’Sox without the knowledge Al has. We need him!”

  An ugly expression came over Trent, and I got into his face, mad. “Get over it, Trent!” I hissed, taking his arm. “You used me, and now I’m calling it in! What kind of world do you want your children to grow up in? One where they fear demons, or one where they understand them?”

  Trent jerked away, angry and unwilling. Behind him, I could see Al waiting. “I am yours,” Trent said sullenly, and I swear, I saw Al’s lips move in tandem, his expression elated.

  “Let’s get him!” Bis shouted, and I staggered as he sprang from me, our circle bobbling for a moment as he punched through, spinning madly to avoid Ku’Sox’s sudden curses.

  “Bis!” I cried, feeling the broken glory of the lines vanish. Then I bolted to Al while Ku’Sox was staring at the sky. I knew Trent would get my back, and I felt him gather a spell, flinging it madly in the hopes of scoring on the distracted demon.

  A thunderous boom behind me sent me stumbling, and I crashed into Newt. We went down, me on top of her. “Sorry!” I cheerfully cried as I grabbed my fist and swung my elbow into the side of her head. It met with a thump and my arm went numb. Breath hissing, I got off her, scrambling to find Al and drag him away. I’d broken three boards with that move before, and Newt was down—for a moment at least.

  “Oh, you’re going to pay for that, itchy witch,” Al said, beaming at me, and I sketched a fast circle around us, catching quick glimpses of exploding fireballs and demons in white robes scrambling to find cover.

  “Hey, if I’m going to get blamed for hitting her, I’m going to hit her,” I said. “Are you okay? Can you tap the lines?” In my mind, elven spells were unwinding, wild magic singing through me. It was as if I was in two places at once, and the adrenaline pounded through me. My head was high, and I breathed deep. When Trent spelled, he sang.

  “Circle, circle!” Al shouted, and I ducked, deflecting a black ball of something.

  “Not until Trent gets here,” I said, seeing Bis swooping around to drop another rock on Ku’Sox. I fumbled at Al’s bindings. They were simple cords, but my fingers hummed when I touched them. Clearly they were spelled.

  “He’s wearing the slaver, yes?” Al said, grabbing my hands and yanking me out of the path of another spell. “He’ll get through. Your energies resonate as one.”

  My fingers on the knot hesitated. Ivy. Could I save Ivy with this?

  “Look out!” Al shouted, shoving me backward, and I fell, my breath knocked out of me.

  Al was standing over me, shouting to the skies, and fingers scrabbling, I reached out for the circle I’d scraped in the dirt, still not having breathed. Rhombus, I thought, getting a slip of air in, and Al jumped back, narrowly avoiding getting left outside. Dizzy, I looked up. Newt was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe, blood leaking from her ear as she sat on the ground and scooted backward to sit against a large rock.

  “See!” she crowed, pointing. “I told you she hit me!”

  Shaky, I sat up, moving a stone out from under my backside. Dali, too, was watching, standing in the middle of everything with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face as if nothing could touch him. Trent was ducking behind rocks as Ku’Sox pulverized them, each jump moving him closer. Trent’s charms were circling in my head, filling me with the need to do something, wild and demanding, drawing on me as needed to supplement his strength.

  The demons weren’t helping. They weren’t hindering, either. Only the strongest could ensure the demons’ continued existence. I wanted it to be me.

  “Trent!” I shouted, and he sprang for us. Ku’Sox took aim, then flinched when Bis dropped a rock on him. Snarling, the demon shifted his attention to Bis.

  “No!” I shouted, helpless.

  Bis spun, headed for the shelter of my bubble. Under him, Trent pounded over the rocks. Ku’Sox snarled, eyes on the sky as he wound up. Fixed on Bis, he didn’t see Dali stick his foot out, and the demon face-planted into the dusty stones.

  Okay, maybe they had a favorite here, after all.

  “Oh, sorry,” Dali said, getting between us and Ku’Sox to help the demon up, brushing him off and getting in his line of sight until Bis backwinged into the bubble, landing on my shoulder, his red eyes wide in excitement.

  Trent was a moment behind, slipping through the protection bubble and sliding to a sudden, awkward halt inches from Al—far too close. Al smiled down at him with his thick, blocky teeth, and Trent smiled right back, more than a hint of deviltry in his green, green eyes. Trent was humming, and my thoughts hummed with him. I was alive with him, and it was glorious. Indescribable.

  Trent’s eyes met mine, and we both flushed.

  Behind him, a rock exploded as Ku’Sox’s discarded magic rolled into a rock. The watching demons complained loudly, and I felt a dozen protection circles go up.

  “Yes, yes, slave rings have a silver lining,” Al grumped, holding his bound hands out. “If you two are done mooning over each other, I could use some assistance.”

  I started, and Bis giggled from my shoulder.

  “They are charmed,” Al said loftily, as Trent touched them and a strand of wild magic spun through my mind. The curse holding Al quavered, resisted . . . and finally fell when I gave Trent’s magic a push.

  “Mar-r-r-rvelous,” Al drawled, a dangerous light entering his eyes as he turned to the east, to Ku’Sox. His thick hands clenched, and my skin prickled at the energy he drew in from his line atop the valley overlooking the dead city. “You work well together. Good to know.”

  “Do we jump?” Bis asked, riding the high of the innocent.

  I looked over the flat plain below us, seeing the world spread out, dim and red under the rising moon. It felt right that here, at the top of the world, it would end.

  “We fight,” I said, and Al chuckled, low and long.

  Ku’Sox was pacing, his form low and hunched as he watched us in our bubble.

  “Wear my ring,” Al said, his glove gone as he held out one of his wedding bands. I didn’t think he’d ever wear them again.

  Trent reached for it, and Al closed his fist. “Rachel is the fulcrum upon which all things will shift tonight. You, Trent are bound to her. She and I are bound together. Only Rachel can focus both our strengths. An elf’s drive for justice, a demon’s lifetime of skills, and Rachel’s strength.”

  I swallowed hard, flinching at a spark of energy cascading over our bubble. Al and I wearing his wedding rings? Now that I knew what they really were, it held an e
ntirely different feeling.

  “I’m okay with that,” Trent said, and a slow smile curved over Al’s face.

  Al looked at Trent for a moment as he remembered something, then his eyes rose to mine. “I never thought I’d work with an elf—again,” he said, and he slipped his ring on my finger.

  I wavered as his energy mixed with mine, Bis hissing as the strength of both men seeped deep, reading their own surprise as they found common ground within me. “Can I survive this?” I said, meaning to be flippant, but finding I really wanted to know. I was humming, overly full and both of them demanding I do something. It was too much. I looked past our bubble to see Newt standing next to Dali, watching without a hint of emotion showing.

  “Prince of the elves, eh?” Al said as his heavy hand took my elbow and shifted me to look east.

  “Yup,” Trent said, and I shivered as his music fell through my mind. I knew what to do with it. I had only to speak.

  “And you are the world breaker,” Al said to Bis, and the gargoyle’s grip on me tightened.

  “No!” he exclaimed, delighted. “Really?”

  “And I’m your sword,” I added. I had once been Trent’s sword, too, when he was on his elf quest.

  “You still are,” Trent whispered, reading my mind through the bond of the rings.

  I sighed. “And what am I to you, Al?”

  “My maid,” he said brightly. “Shall we do this?”

  I let the bubble fall. We would meet the next day free, or dead.

  Ku’Sox snarled at us, and I thought he looked like a dog. “The moon is rising! Rachel, face me and die!”

  “Quite right!” Al said. “Make war when the moon rises. Make love when it sets.” He winked at me, and I gathered the line to me. “Ku’Sox, you slimy little worm! Now you will see what a demon is!”

  “By the Goddess!” Trent cried as my knees collapsed and I fell, the serpent of black magic unwinding from my head. The power of the demon bands was twofold, not just each of us having our strength combined, but instinctively knowing what the other was doing. It was beautiful. It made us deadly. It was an ancient war machine. The rings were made for this. And now we had access to the weapons vault.

  Chapter Thirty

  “ Up! Stand up!” Trent muttered, his tight grip on my arm pulling me upright. Dazed, I felt Trent steady me as Al metaphorically cleared his throat, opening up his arsenal of black charms stored in the collective more than five thousand years ago during the bloody war between his people and Trent’s.

  Ugly black monstrosities rose and fell in my mind, charms to mutilate, break, and destroy by playing upon the base desires, guilt, and fears of another. It was numbing, and I felt the alien desire to crush rise up in me. Al’s presence was smothering.

  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.”