by Sam Cheever
I could feel Celeste’s confusion in my mind. It made me distinctly uncomfortable. She’d always been so sharp and intuitive...twelve steps beyond everyone else. I hated to see what Jacob had done to her. For that alone I was going to make sure he got his due.
LA...
Her voice was filled with censure. I could see a lecture about succumbing to emotion coming. The Queen didn’t cotton to emotional displays or judgements. According to the Queen of the Familiars, every decision must be based on logic and fact...measured against the common good. No individual Witch, Demon or Familiar was worth endangering the rest. Suddenly I feared she was going to tell me to go away...to leave them and rebuild the company she and my mother had worked so hard to build. I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t! Grandmama! Just listen to me. We don’t have much time. Jacob is draining you all of your magic. Deg and I need to turn the tables on him. We need your energy so we can use it against him.
I sensed her resistance and prepared myself to argue my case...fortunately it wasn’t necessary.
Your mother and I came up with the same plan. We’ve been working on combining our energies since he brought us here.
But aren’t you afraid he’ll feel what you’re doing?
How could he?
He holds you captive...
Don’t be silly, child. Well, technically that’s true. We unfortunately allowed ourselves to be hexed into an incapacitated state while we were dazed from the attack. But no one has captured our energy. We’ve managed to repel every attempt so far.
Relief flooded me. Thank the gods!
Yes, but it won’t do us a lot of good unless we can figure out a way to fight back.
Tell me what I can do.
I sensed her hesitation. What’s wrong? I asked.
I’m afraid of what will happen to the others, she admitted softly. A sense almost of shame filled her admission. They’re tied to the core now. If we overcome the system it might kill them.
My world wobbled a bit as I realized my grandmama was just as susceptible to emotion as I was. Though I’d always hated her cold calculations, I’d nurtured a certain respect for her that she was able to rise above the weakness inherent in sentimental thought. I swallowed hard, knowing what I needed to do. We need to trust that they will find a way to survive, Celeste. We have no choice. Our world needs you and Mom in it. We’d be lost without you. And frankly, if we don’t do this everyone will die anyway. I was horrified as I said the words. They felt so cynical and cold. But even so, I knew it was the truth.
And I could feel that Celeste knew it too.
She sighed softly. I’m proud of you, LA.
I resisted the gratification trying to rise up at her words. I felt ugly inside...hateful. I worried that my detached reasoning was based only on the fact that I wanted my family back. Could I be that selfish? I didn’t know. But I knew it didn’t matter. We needed to stop Jacob.
Tell me what you need me to do. I repeated, tossing guilt away.
The problem is twofold. So far your mother and I haven’t figured out how to attack both levels. Against the combined power of all of our kind, we need every bit of our joined energy to defeat the Demon. You and your friends must destroy its barriers. As soon as they’re down we’ll attack.
Consider it done, I told her with more confidence than I felt.
Not so fast, child. What I’m asking you to do is extremely dangerous. The barrier is as much a protection for us as it is for the Demon. Once you break it down you’ll be in danger of being sucked in, pulled into the energy vortex that’s keeping the protections alive. You must anchor yourself somehow to this world.
I thought of that for a moment and then nodded. I think I have a way. My tone was filled with confidence I didn’t feel.
May the gods go with you, child.
And with you, Grandmama.
I felt our connection slide away and knew that she would keep a wall between us until Jacob was defeated. It was the only way. We couldn’t risk him sensing her when I attacked. And she couldn’t risk dragging me into the line of fire when she and my mom took him down.
I pushed those thoughts away and reached for Deg in my mind. He was a tiny flicker of light at the very center of my core. Small and weak, but still pulsing. I fed some of the magic I’d borrowed from Celeste into him and waited for him to strengthen.
Panic flared in my breast as the tiny light representing the last of his energy flashed once, a tiny silver flare, and then died completely out.
Deg! I screamed, fear making my energy stutter as I tried again to feed him what I’d gained.
Static danced across my mind, Deg’s voice weak and thready against the sound. Go...
I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. Was he telling me he had to leave? Did he mean in a permanent sense? I opened my eyes and looked at him, despair making it hard to breathe. He was fully covered with pulsating colored strands, his long body wrapped tightly, cocooned like the rest. I shook my head, one hand reaching in his direction. Deg! I need your help. You have to stay with me.
Nothing. Tears burned the backs of my lids. I was on my own.
Frantically, I reached out to Mandy, looking for the remembered spark of her fire-red aura. I didn’t see it in my mind. Disappointing as that was, it wasn’t a surprise. I had no connection to the Witch, except through Deg and as far as I knew they’d never meshed magics.
Still, I’d seen enough of her capabilities to know that she shouldn’t be easy for Jacob to take down. I did a mental head shake. No. Mandy couldn’t be cocooned with the others.
Could she?
Though everything inside me railed against it, I did a quick scan of the dark pods hanging from the high ceiling and saw no telltale pulse of red.
Earth to LA? Have I lost you already?
Jacob’s hated voice made the hairs on my arms stand at attention. He seemed perfectly unconcerned with the idea that I might defeat him. That realization made me mad. And terrified that he was right. But most of all it made me determined to prove him wrong. I was just thinking how much fun it will be to kick your multi-hued butt.
He chuckled darkly. That’s going to be hard to do in your current state, don’t you think?
I glanced down at myself. Or at least I tried. My head wouldn’t move. I rolled my gaze downward and saw the crisscrossing play of lighted strands around my body. Like Deg I was almost fully engulfed. I fought anxiety. It was okay. He might have bound my body but he hadn’t bound my energy. Understanding hit me. Deg was okay! His magic was most likely still intact like mine. It was just that Jacob had muffled it somehow. Made it impossible for me to see. He probably couldn’t see mine either. Which meant... I flicked Deg another look, finding his silvery gaze locked on mine. There was a question in his eyes, one that I couldn’t answer verbally or even through our mental pathways. But I could send him a sign. One he couldn’t possibly miss.
I held his gaze and concentrated on the core of my magic, pulling it forward as far as it would go under Jacob’s oily warding.
The roiling energy sat just beneath my skin, pulsing with latent power, hungry for release. I held it there, letting it build until it burned me with its intensity. I’d only have one chance and I didn’t want to blow it. I didn’t know how the connection between Deg and I worked. We hadn’t had time to discuss or practice its use. But I trusted that it gave me more energy than I would otherwise have. I was going to need every bit of it.
Still holding Deg’s gaze, I gritted my teeth against the agony of holding back my magic and then, slowly blinking once, twice, and then a third time, I lowered my shields and let the magic fly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SILVERY ORANGE FIREWORKS exploded into the dark space, painting it with a riot of flashing illumination. The magic roared from my pores, burning me as it went, and washed, unfocused and violent through the room.
The tangle of strands around my body tightened, constricting my chest and making it hard to breathe, but I forced myself to ig
nore it, pinning all my attention on the hated form of the man at the center of the nightmare.
Jacob’s eyes went wide, his mouth opened as if he would speak, and then the energy Deg and I released hit him, blowing him back several steps to smash up against a filthy brick wall. His dark hair flew away from his head, creating a wildly gyrating aura around his pale face, like a male Medusa with snakes for hair.
I gritted my teeth as the strands tightened further around me. Pain slashed across my limbs as the bright energy sliced through my skin and it was all I could do to keep my feet. But the energy I carried wasn’t abating, if anything I thought it had grown stronger as the strands bit into me.
Jacob’s form narrowed, rounded in strange curves, and his hair lengthened into longer dark gold snakes. A different pair of eyes widened as the first strand unraveled and snapped away into the darkness. A curvy pair of lips thinned with pique as three more strands sprang away.
Deg’s body surged upright, lifting off the ground and dancing helplessly at the end of his entanglements. I barely had time to realize what I’d seen before my body too flew upward, the violence of the movement sending me clear to the ceiling and smacking me hard against it. The impact stunned me, made me lose focus for a beat, and the energy I’d been channeling blipped away.
The figure in the center of the chaos swelled, head falling back and chest inflating as if it were taking a deep breath.
I knew I had to act quickly or the Demon would recover enough to defeat us. Even as I had the thought, the creature lifted its arms and, eyes flaring with fire, threw an oily blanket of black energy against our remaining magic. The sulfurous power hit our magic and spread, snuffing it out wherever it touched.
LA! Deg’s voice was filled with command, reverberating through my brain, and I reacted instantly. I pulled myself off the floor, throwing out my hands and sending several more of the constrictive magic strands sizzling away from me.
I expanded my chest with a relieved breath and focused my gaze on the demonic figure at the center of the morass. My heart broke as I realized how fully I’d been fooled. But I shoved those feelings aside and reached for Deg, wrapping spitting fingers of energy around the core of his energy and yanking it into my sphere.
I felt him swell as his energy fused with mine. The Demon’s oily power throbbed, gaining another inch in sheer desperation, and then started to retreat as we threw everything we had against it.
Several more strands popped away, snaking eagerly back toward their owners, and the Demon threw back its head and shrieked, the sound inhuman and painful to my unprotected ears.
The black wall of energy retreated and Deg and I moved closer as it went. That was the first time I realized we were no longer contained by strands. Only a couple, very thin strands from weak or young familiars still clung to us. I sent magic into those strands to keep them strong until we could carefully extract them.
The Demon writhed at the center of our storm. I finally saw the secondary attack that had no doubt been being waged from the start. Two strands of magic, reddish orange and as thick as my arm, assaulted the thing without mercy as we tugged chunks of its barrier magic away and approached.
It fell to its knees, arms finally dropping to brace it on the floor, and collapsed onto itself, face on the floor covered in a thick blanket of dark gold hair.
Weariness finally hit me. My knees wobbled and I stopped, retracting my magic as the creature on the floor jerked, arched its back, and returned to a form that it most likely hoped would tug on my heartstrings.
Posh shivered once and dropped to her haunches, lifting her strange-colored eyes to my face. You don’t want to do this, cher.
She was right. I didn’t. I thought you were one of the good ones, I told her sadly.
She shook her head, lifting a paw to lick as if she hadn’t a care in the world. I am. I only wanted to prove to the magical world that Familiars are strong and worthy opponents. I figured you’d thank me for that, given your own feelings on the matter.
Guilt turned to bile in my throat. I swallowed hard to dispel it. “Have I ever done anything to make you think I sanctioned raping everybody of their power?” Even as I asked the question I feared her answer. Had I?
Have you ever shown you cared about the others? Even one little bit?
My heart stuttered as I realized she was right. I shook my head, trying to deny her words to myself.
I was going to let everyone go unharmed. You have my word on that.
Unbidden, a picture of poor Tabitha flashed through my mind. Tabby would beg to differ, I said.
Her paw dropped back to the floor and her gaze found mine again. She was going to expose me. Surely you can understand why I couldn’t let her do that?
Deg came up beside me and my magic rose to the surface as if to greet him. The change created a weird shifting sensation in my chest that had me struggling to breathe. It would take me a while to get used to that. I looked up at him and he gave me a pitying look. He dropped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close in silent understanding.
The darkness shifted and Mandy sauntered out, my mother and Celeste on her heels. One by one the pods behind them were unraveling, leaving only two very small pods hanging from the rafters.
No. I was wrong. Tears burned my eyes as I spotted the blackened husk of one pod, curled on the floor and unmoving.
Posh’s treachery had claimed another victim.
I forced my emotions back. We still had work to do. “We need to help these children,” I told Deg.
He nodded. “Maybe if we feed energy into them as we pull the dark magic away?”
The shadows near the floor shifted and a tiny form padded toward us, tail curling lazily behind her. I smiled at the kitten.
Mabel gave me a happy meow but stopped, dropping to her haunches and throwing Posh a wary look.
The oversized cat returned the favor, her body language clearly telegraphing her dislike of the kitten. Get lost stupid cat.
Mabel cocked her head, her lips turning upward in what looked for all the world like a smile. Make me, she said in her childish voice. I frowned, worried that she would taunt such a powerful Demon. Mabel, you shouldn’t... Before I could finish, Posh rose up on her hind legs, one thick paw shooting straight out and sending black energy zinging through the air.
I flexed to throw myself at the kitten, knowing even as I did that I wouldn’t be fast enough to save her, but was astounded when Posh’s magic lifted into the air, slamming toward the shadows, where the two remaining pods swung lazily below the rafters.
The oily energy encircled the small pods, yanking them into a tight embrace that strained the strings holding them off the ground.
The big cat yowled angrily, flinging herself into the air and twisting around to land on her feet near the door. Let me leave and I won’t kill them.
I blinked, horrified. For a long moment we all stilled, faces clearly showing our horror. Then I swallowed and lifted my hands. “Let them go.”
The cat wavered, twisted and arched, bones cracking loudly as she transformed in the blink of an eye into the receptionist whose name I didn’t know. Self-loathing took a chunk out of me before I smacked it down. There’d be time later to kick myself for being an insensitive clod.
There were bigger concerns in that moment.
“Please don’t hurt them,” I pleaded.
A slightly hunched form stepped out of the shadows, hands outstretched in supplication. The woman’s face was white as a sheet and tears painted tracks over the chalky skin. She was horribly thin, with dark purple arcs beneath eyes that had once been beautiful. I gasped softly when I realized it was Holly. My gaze slid to the smaller pods, which had to contain Lena and Kristopher, Fresh horror twisted my belly. “Take me,” Holly told the Demon holding the children captive. “Please leave my children be.”
Posh...because it was the only name I had to go by...smiled meanly. “I don’t think so.”
My mother stepped into the
light, her beautiful face nearly as thin and white as the mother’s. Her appearance made me gasp softly with shock. Anger for her treatment...for all their treatment...flooded me.
“Let them go, Star. This is beneath even you.”
I felt my mouth turn up in a sneer at the woman’s name. She was about as close to star-like as the giant snake had been.
“Let me leave safely and I’ll release them.”
The mother inched toward her children. I had an inkling she thought to try to save them if the evil Star sent death their way.
“You won’t get far,” Celeste said.
There was movement behind my mother and a skeletal hand reached out of the shadows and landed heavily on her shoulder. I gasped aloud as my grandmama came into the light.
She’d aged thirty years.
Tears flowed down my cheeks. Familiars aged very slowly and she’d held her youthful beauty much longer than most because of her extraordinary power. Vanity might be a weakness, but Celeste had always embraced it. She’d been so proud of her looks. It would kill her to know how she looked after succumbing to the Demon’s foul magic. But even worse, she was bent and frail. The beautiful strawberry blond hair looked like a wig sitting on an emaciated old woman’s head.
I lifted my hand and jammed my fist into my mouth to keep from crying out.
Rage tore magic from my core and, before I knew what I was doing, I’d freed it, allowing it to spit and flare around me. “Release those children, Demon.” To my shock, my voice had deepened and grown, filling up the enormous attic space and slamming against the walls.
Star’s eyes widened slightly but then she smiled. I knew in that moment what she was going to do.
I couldn’t let her kill the children.
But there was only one thing that would stop her.
LA, look past the Demon. Deg’s voice was soft but insistent, burrowing into my rage and forcing me to hear. My eyes found the door behind her and saw it open a crack. A slim figure with dark hair snuck through and my eyes met Mandy’s. She held my gaze a beat and then nodded.