My lips pressed tight. “I don’t.” Frustrated, I watched two surface demons skulk closer. Maybe Trent should tamp down his siren song a little. But then my eyes narrowed as they stopped just outside my easy magical reach. I turned to the right, seeing five more doing the same. Three were to the left, but more were coming up to fill in the blanks. Crap on toast, they were staying exactly out of my range. That’s why the first had been so bold. They’d been learning my reach. Toast. We were toast.
Concerned, I edged to Trent, hesitating when his pull on my soul became . . . tantalizingly alluring, whispering of peace and contentment.
“Trent,” I whispered, attention riveted by the glowing spiral, but he was deep into his spell. “Trent!” I said louder, nudging his foot. I didn’t want to interrupt, but we had enough souls to choose from now. “They know my reach,” I said, feeling as if we’d just left this scene in reality with the vampires. “Can you tone it down a little?” This had been a mistake. I never should have involved Trent. Newt said the Goddess couldn’t hear me. I should have done this myself.
Jenks’s dust shifted to an ugly black. “They’re focusing on Nina,” he whispered, and the vampire paled.
“You noticed that, too?” I muttered, then flung up a hand when five rushed us from three different directions. “Get down!” I shouted. Nina shrieked, and I threw wads of unfocused energy at them. Again arms and legs flailed as they were blown back, and I spun, making sure no one was sneaking up behind us. They were testing me, and my heart pounded.
“Rachel!” Bis shouted, and I whirled back around.
“No!” Trent exclaimed. His chanting cut off and pain iced through my head as something I hadn’t know was there was suddenly ripped away with his voice. I gasped, stunned and dizzy, unable to react as Nina was dragged screaming into the darkness. Jenks and Bis were slowing their progress, and when one let go to swing at Bis, Nina fought back, bucking and twisting until she got free. Sobbing, she lurched back to me.
Trent’s spell had sunk deeper into me than I’d realized, and my pulse thundered as I pulled heavily on the line. “Trent! Fire in the hole!” I shouted as I threw a wad of energy straight up. “Dilatare!” I exclaimed, exploding it with a twist of my wrist. Surface demons went flying. Nina pressed into the ground, her desperate clawing motion to get back to me never stopping.
Eyes alight, I pulled myself straight. “Rhombus!” I shouted as I set the outer circle. Satisfied we’d have a moment, I reached to help Nina stand.
Face grim with anger, she looked up at me, her expression shocked, and changing to fear as she snatched her outstretched hand away, her eyes wide and black.
My heart pounded, and then I was on the dirt, choking as the dust of the ever-after blinded me. Something . . . was on me. Pain jerked through my scalp, and I fought to breathe as bands of steel wrapped around my neck. Sinewy brown arms pinched me to the earth. Thin wiry fingers choked my throat closed.
Panicked, I spun the line through me. The demon howled like a desert wind, but he hung on, even as his skin peeled back and began to char. I could feel the vampire soul soaking into me, trying to take over my body, to merge his soul with mine. Trent’s chanting swirled through both our thoughts, making the edges blur where normally they couldn’t touch.
“Enough!” Nina raged, her demand a harsh whip.
The fingers around my neck sprang away and I gasped, rolling prostrate as I coughed and felt my neck. The line I’d used to try to burn the demon from me hummed through my synapses, scorching my brain and making every motion hurt. My heart thundered, and every pulse sent needles through my fingers. I got a clean breath in and shoved the line back into the earth as I exhaled in a half sob. It was gone. The demon was gone. I was still myself, but I could feel its alien nature on me, like red dust I had to wash off.
Gritty tears blurred my eyes as I looked up in the fading light from my charm. Nina stood over me, wisps of hair from the demon she’d pulled off me still in her fist. Trent was behind her, white faced. The demon Nina had flung into the rock beside him slid, unmoving, to the earth.
Had she killed a soul? Was that even possible?
“You will not!” Nina raged, spinning a tight circle in warning, finger crooked, all angles and ugliness. It was Felix. Nina had broken and Felix had slipped into her, freeing her from fear, from any thought at all. “You will not because I say so. She is mine!”
Not sure if he meant me or Nina, I sat up, glad the surface demons had withdrawn to an unsettling twenty feet back, their eyes glowing and blinking. Nina’s lips were pulled back, her posture ugly with her feet spread wide and her head at a weird angle so she could see the sky and earth at the same time.
“Rachel?” Trent’s whisper made Nina twitch, and I raised my hand to tell him I was okay. Bis was beside him, black in fear but ready to act. Jenks was there, too, stuck within the circle Trent had made to protect them.
“If you ever trap me again in a circle when Rachel needs me, I will kill you in your sleep, Kalamack,” Jenks said, the unsettling black dust sifting from him and making the red dirt turn white. Wiping the grit from his mouth, Trent nodded and dropped his circle.
Jenks darted to me, and I staggered to a stand. “I’m fine,” I rasped. “Go see how many we’re dealing with.” The rock under my hand hurt. It was as if I could feel the accumulated damage from two thousand years of smut raining down on it.
“No,” he said flatly, his wings moving so fast they hurt my ears.
Shocked, I looked up, realizing how scared he’d been. For me.
“They’re leaving,” Jenks added, rising up a few feet and spinning to get a three-sixty. “Get ready for something.”
“I get that feeling, too.” Ignoring Felix/Nina, I flexed my hand to rid it of the last of the pinpricks. Trent was scrambling to repair his spiral, his chanting half heard and motions hasty, but all I wanted to do was get out of here and back to the vampires waiting to beat us to a pulp.
Nina stumbled, throwing a white hand to the ground to stay upright. My attention shot to the horizon when a surface demon became obvious, seeming to appear from nowhere.
“Trent, it’s him!” I whispered loudly, and his magic rose again, the elven drums pounding a chant into my psyche, demanding I submit, become.
Become. It had been what the Goddess had been terrified of, becoming something new, something else, destroying her as she . . . was reborn. Adrenaline pulsed through me, and the sharp stab of pain from Jenks’s sword on my earlobe jerked me back. Damn, I had been headed right for Trent’s spell.
Nina had fallen to her knees, eyes fixed on the surface demon as tears rolled down her face. “Oh God,” she moaned, the pain in her voice telling me it was Felix. “Please . . . I can’t.”
Beside me, Trent’s chanting rose, strong. Nina reached out to the demon. “My soul!” she screamed, the sound echoing back from the roof of the world. “I can’t . . .”
Jenks’s wings felt like fire. “Rache, you think them touching is a good idea?”
No, I didn’t. I shook off my shock and stumbled forward. It was obvious that the surface demon in front of Nina was Felix’s soul; the bruises I’d given him were still red and ugly. He hissed as he saw me, but he’d almost reached Nina and I didn’t dare let them touch. The woman was crying, afraid to move, I think, and I pulled her to her feet, dragging her backward to lure the soul into following us. This hadn’t been the original idea, but we were down to quick and dirty. As long as I didn’t touch the spiral, I should be okay. I’d be okay, wouldn’t I?
Nina took a step, completely unaware or uncaring as the surface demon closed the gap. Her hand went out, shaking as she enticed him closer. “Please . . . ,” she moaned, the sound going to my center and aching.
“Little to the right, Rache,” Jenks whispered, and my foot cramped with tingles when my heel touched Trent’s outer circle. I hesitated, knowing I shouldn’t be here. Knees shaking, I remembered the peace the curse promised, the release from fear, from pain. But it was too soon, and I refused it. My sight dimmed with sparkles as I took another step back, dragging Nina over Trent’s spiral. The demon followed, writhing, afraid to follow, but unable to resist.
Nina didn’t seem to notice when she crossed the first of the spiral lines, even when her foot touched it. The demon, though . . .
The undead soul’s eyes widened. His outline wavered, and my grip on Nina tightened as she reached for him, tears streaming down her face and glinting black in the green and red light. Trent gasped when the demon reached out as well, his hand passing through Nina’s. He’d become insubstantial. It was working!
Nina and the demon both shook, touching but not. “Oh God, what have I done?” Nina moaned, and my heart thudded as I realized Felix’s soul was trying to merge with Nina’s. “What have I . . . Please. I didn’t know. I had to!” she sobbed. “Let me die, please God, let me die!”
“Get out of the charm!” Trent almost hissed. “Jenks, get Rachel out of there!”
I jumped when Jenks’s sword poked my ear, and dizzy, I began backing Nina across the spiral. The soul followed, his feet stepping precisely where mine had been, avoiding the glowing spiral. Trent was right. The undead couldn’t have their souls and survive. Felix was sobbing not from the joy of finding his soul, but from the guilt for the hundred years of brutality he’d committed—enjoyed. Cormel wasn’t going to believe me. I’ll make him believe.
Nina pleaded, arm stretched as I backed her up another careful step. My skin tingled, and I shivered as I reached the last arm of it and dragged her to the other side of the outer circle.
“One more step, Rache,” Jenks said, and I held my breath against the lure as I hesitated . . . breathed . . . and finally pushed myself out of Trent’s spell.
“No!” Nina moaned when I yanked her through it as well. My pulse thundered, and the zing of Trent’s field seemed to lick up the edges of my skin, trapping the demon inside. We had him.
“Oh no,” Jenks whispered, and Trent glanced at me. His face went ashen.
“What?” I said, his fear kindling my own, but neither one said anything. “What!” I said again, vertigo hazing me as Nina collapsed, sobbing. My fingertips were tingling, but they looked okay.
“Nothing.” Jaw clenched, Trent turned back to the charm. “Keep Nina back.”
“Give it to me!” Nina howled, and I suddenly found myself three feet away and gasping for breath on the hard dirt. Nina had shoved me, and I watched as she hammered on the column. Within it, the twisted shape of Felix’s soul was doing the same, both of them freaking out as their brief moment of connection was sundered.
“Holy pixy piss, Trent, finish it!” Jenks shouted.
“Ta na shay cooreen na da!” Trent said, horrified as the demon tried to dig his way under the energy barrier. “Ta na shay!” he said again, to no effect.
The demon howled at the sky, then turned to Trent, hatred in his eyes.
And then the demon’s foot touched the spiral.
Shock reverberated through the surface demon, and his howling turned from anger to fear, and then panic as he suddenly dissolved, vanishing into a quicksilver pulse of light that spun through the spiral to the tiny endpoint.
The demon’s last cry echoed, but he was gone.
Nina stared, shocked as Felix’s soul was suddenly not there. In the new silence, the bottle slowly rocked, spun, and fell over, clinking against the pebbly dust.
Had it worked?
“Give. Me. My. Soul.”
It had been Nina, and I stared at her as Trent, oblivious to everything, struggled to find himself, head down and panting as the ends of his ribbon shook. He’d done it, and it looked as if it had cost him dearly. Why was I doing this with him? I was going to get him killed.
“Give it to me!” Nina shouted again, and I scrambled up as she jumped at Trent. Bis flew up in fear and Jenks darted away. Scared, I grabbed Nina’s shirt and jerked her off Trent.
“Nina! Kick him out!” I demanded, and she snarled, her hair wild as I pinned her to a tall rock, my hands feeling as if they were on fire.
“There is no Nina,” she howled. “I want my soul! Give it to me!”
“I’m sorry, Nina.” I couldn’t find a hint of her in the woman’s glazed, fierce expression. I made a fist, grabbing it with my free hand and swinging my elbow at her head.
It hit her with a resounding pop. Pain flashed up through me and was gone. It was a phantom pain. I’d done it right and all the force had gone right into her head, knocking her out.
Elbow stiff, I caught her before she fell and eased her down. If Felix had been himself, I never would have been able to do it, but he was half out of his mind, lost and adrift from having touched his soul.
“Are you okay, Rachel?” Trent whispered, and I nodded. He was slumped beside Bis, exhausted, shaken by what he’d done. I knew he’d have no regrets and would do it again if I asked. But I wouldn’t.
Seeing Felix with even the hint of his soul had been enough to convince me that giving the undead their souls would send them walking into the sun. I’d seen Cincinnati without her undead. As much as I hated them, it would be the beginning of the end.
“You can’t give him his soul,” Trent said.
Saying nothing, I crossed the space between us, kicking dust and dirt into the spiral as I went to get the soul bottle. The spiral was dead. It held nothing anymore.
“You saw what it did to him,” Trent added.
The bottle felt small in my hand, and my stomach twisted as I remembered the demon who’d taken shape from Felix’s soul, bitter and savage. Without the mind to temper it and the body to cushion it, the soul became warped and broken. How long had they been apart? A hundred years? Two hundred?