For a Few Demons More th-5

by Ким Харрисон

  "You sure this is safe?" I asked, gaze flicking to the paraphernalia. I didn't understand ley line magic and therefore distrusted it.

  Ceri's eyebrows rose as she tore a chunk from her herbed bread—a strand of her hair drifting in the breeze from the open transom windows above the fixed stained glass, dark with night. "It's never safe to ask for a demon's attention, but you don't want this unsettled."

  My head bobbed, and I wrangled another blob of pasta on my fork. It tasted flat, and I set my fork down. "You think Newt will come with him?"

  A soft flush showed on her. "No. In all likelihood she doesn't remember you, and Minias won't allow anyone to remind her. He's reprimanded when she strays."

  I wondered what Newt knew that was so terrible she had to forget it to stay halfway sane. "She took your circle. I didn't think that was possible."

  Ceri delicately dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin to hide her fear. "Newt does what she wants because no one is strong enough to hold her accountable," she said. My anxiety must have shown, for she added, "It's skill in this case. Newt knows everything. It's just a matter of her remembering it long enough to teach someone."

  Maybe that was why Minias stuck with her despite the dangers. He was picking things up, bit by bit.

  Ceri reached for the remote and pointed it at the stereo. It was a very modern gesture for such an old personality, and I smiled. If you didn't know she'd spent a thousand years imaging as a demon's familiar, you might think she was a set-in-her-ways thirty-something.

  The soft jazz lifting through the air cut off. "The sun is down. You should rescribe the calling circle before midnight," she said brightly, and my stomach twisted. "Do you remember the figures from this morning? They are the same."

  I stared at her, trying not to look stupid. "Uh, no."

  Ceri nodded, then made five distinct motions with her right hand. "Remember?"

  "Uh, no," I repeated, having no idea what the connection was between the sketched figures and her hand motions. "And I thought you would do it. Scribe it, I mean."

  Ceri's breath escaped her in a long sound of exasperation. "It's mostly ley-line magic," she said. "Heavy on symbolism and intent. If you don't draw it from start to finish, then I'll be the one who gets all the incoming calls—and, Rachel, I like you, but I'm not going to do that."

  I winced. "Sorry."

  She smiled, but I caught a grimace when she didn't realize I was watching. Ceri was the nicest person I knew, giving treats to children and squirrels and being polite to door-to-door solicitors, but she had little patience when it came to teaching. Her abrupt temper didn't mix well with my scattered concentration and haphazard study habits.

  Flushing, I set my plate aside and slid the cool, sinking-into-my-legs feeling of my scrying mirror onto, my lap. I wasn't hungry anymore, and Ceri's impatience was making me feel stupid. I reached for my magnetic chalk, nervous. "I'm not very good at this," I muttered.

  "Which is why you're doing it in chalk, then etching it in," she said. "Go on, let's see it."

  I hesitated, looking at the big blank expanse of glass. Crap.

  "Come on, Rache!" Jenks coaxed, dropping down to land on the mirror. "Just follow me." Wings going full tilt, he started to pace in a wide circle.

  I arranged myself to follow his lead, and Ceri said, "Pentagram first."

  I jerked my hand from the glass. "Right."

  Jenks looked up at me as if in direction, and I felt a sinking sensation.

  Ceri set her plate down, her disgust obvious. "You don't know a thing about this, do you?"

  "Jeez, Ceri," I complained, watching Jenks flit furtively to steal the smear of honey on Ceri's spoon. "I haven't actually finished any ley-line classes. I know my pentagrams suck dishwater, and I have no idea what those symbols mean or how to draw them." Feeling dumb, I grabbed my wineglass—the white wine, not the red Ceri had brought out—and took a sip.

  "You shouldn't drink when you work magic," Ceri said.

  Frustrated, I set the glass down almost hard enough to spill. "Then why is it out here?" I said, a shade too loudly.

  Jenks eyed me in warning, and I puffed my air out. I didn't like feeling stupid.

  "Rachel," the woman said softly, and I grimaced at the chagrin in her voice. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't expect you to have the skills of a master when you're only starting out. It's just…"

  "… a stupid pentagram," I finished for her, trying to find the humor in it.

  She reddened. "Actually, it's merely that I wanted to get this done tonight."

  "Oh." Embarrassed, I looked at the blank mirror, my reflection a gray shadow peering back at me. It was going to look like crap. I knew it.

  "The wine is a carrier for the invocation blood, also washing the salt off the mirror when you're done," Ceri said, and my gaze went to the bucket, now understanding why she'd brought it out. "The salt acts as a leveler, removing the excess intent in the lines you scribe in the glass as well as bringing the acidic content of the yew back to a neutral state."

  "Yew is toxic, not acidic," I said, and she nodded apologetically.

  "But it will etch the glass once you coat it in your aura."

  Euwie. It was one of those curses. Great. "I'm sorry for barking at you," I said softly, my gaze flicking to her and away. "I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't like it."

  She smiled and leaned across the table between us. "Would you like to know the meaning behind the symbols?"

  I nodded, feeling my tension ease. If I was going to do this, I really ought to.

  "They are pictorial representations of ley line gestures," she said, her hand moving as if signing in American Sign Language. "See?"

  She made a fist, her thumb tight to her curled index finger, angling her hand so that her thumb pointed to the ceiling. "This is the first one," she added, then pointed to the first symbol on the cheat sheet lying on the table. It was a circle bisected by a vertical line. "The thumb's position is indicated by the line," she added.

  I looked from the figure to my fist, turning my hand until they matched. Okay.

  "This is the second one," she said, making the "okay" sign, angling her hand so the back of it was parallel with the floor.

  I mimicked her, feeling a stirring of understanding as I looked at the circle with three lines coming out the right side. My thumb and index finger made a circle, my three fingers stretching out like the lines fanned out from the figure's right side. I glanced at the next figure of a circle with a horizontal line, and before she could shift her fingers, I made a fist, turning my hand so my thumb was parallel to the floor.

  "Yes!" Ceri said, following the gesture with her own. "And the next would be…?"

  Thinking, I compressed my lips and stared at the symbol. It looked like the previous one, with a finger coming out one side. "Index finger?" I guessed, and when she nodded, I stuck a finger out, earning a smile.

  "Exactly. Try making the gesture with your pinkie, and you can see how wrong it feels."

  I tucked my index finger back and stuck out my pinkie. It did feel wrong, so I went back to the proper gesture. "And this one?" I asked as I looked at the figure in the last space. There was a circle, so I knew that something was touching my thumb, but which finger?

  "Middle one," Ceri offered, and I made the gesture, grinning.

  She leaned back, still smiling. "Let's see them."

  More confident now, I made the five gestures, reading them as I traveled around the pentagram clockwise. This wasn't so hard.

  "And this middle figure?" I asked, looking at the long baseline with three rays coming up from the center equidistant from each other. It was where my hand had been when I contacted Minias earlier, and by the looks of it, my fingertips would hit the ends of the lines.

  "That's the symbol for an open connection," she said. "As if an open hand. The inner circle touching the pentagram is our reality, and the outer circle is the ever-after. You're bridging the gap with your open hand. There is an alternate pat
tern with a series of symbols scribed between the two circles that will hide your location and identity, but it's more difficult."

  Jenks snickered, still trying to scrape honey off Ceri's spoon. "I bet it's harder, too," he said. "And we do want to finish before the sun comes up."

  I ignored him, feeling like I might be starting to understand this.

  "And the pentagram is simply to give structure to the curse," Ceri added, trashing my good mood. Oh, yeah. I forgot it was a curse. Mmmm, goody.

  Seeing my grimace, Ceri leaned over the table and touched my arm. "It is a very small curse," she said, her attempt to console me making things worse. "It's not evil. You're disturbing reality, and it leaves a mark, but truly, Rachel, this is a small thing."

  It's going to lead to worse, I thought, then forced a smile. Ceri didn't have to help me with this. I should be thankful. "Okay, pentagram first."

  Wings clattering, Jenks landed on the glass, shivering once before he put his hands on his hips and peered up at me. "Start here," he said, walking away, "and just follow me."

  I looked at Ceri to see if this was allowed, and she nodded. My shoulders eased, then tightened. The chalk felt almost slippery as it skated over the mirror, like a wax pencil on hot stone. I held my breath waiting for a tingling of rising power, but there was nothing.

  "Now over here," Jenks said when he lifted into the air and dropped down at a new spot.

  I played connect the dots, my lip finding its way between my teeth until a pentagram took up nearly the entire mirror. My back was feeling the strain, and I straightened. "Thanks, Jenks," I said, and he lifted up, his complexion red.

  "No prob," he said as he went to sit on Ceri's shoulder.

  "Now the symbols," Ceri prompted, and I reached for the top triangle, being careful not to smear my other lines. "Not that one!" she exclaimed before the chalk could touch the glass, and I jumped. "The lower left," she added, smiling to soften her voice. "When you scribe, you want to rise clockwise." She made a fist, her eyes going to the cheat sheet. "This one first."

  I glanced at the diagram, then the pentagram. Taking a breath, I held the chalk tighter.

  "Just draw it, Rache," Jenks complained, and as the hush of cars shushing against wet pavement soothed me, I sketched them all, my hand becoming more sure with each figure.

  "As good as I," Ceri praised, and I leaned back and let my breath slip from me.

  Setting the chalk down, I shook out my hand. It was only a few figures, but my hand was starting to ache. I glanced at the yew, and Ceri nodded once. "It should etch the glass if you tap aline and let your aura slip into the glass," she said, and my face scrunched up.

  "Do I have to?" I asked, remembering the sinking, uncomfortable feeling of my aura stripping away. Then I looked over the church. "Shouldn't I be in a circle?"

  Ceri's hair floated when she leaned to stack our plates up. "No. The mirror isn't going to take it all, just a slip of it. No harm in that."

  She seemed confident, but still… I didn't like losing any of my aura. And what if Minias showed up or called in the meantime?

  "Oh, for the love of little green apples," Ceri said darkly. "If it will make this any faster."

  I winced, feeling like a chicken, then jumped when she tapped the line out back and, with a word of muttered Latin, set a loose circle. Jenks's wings hit a still-higher pitch when the large bubble of black-coated ever-after shimmered into existence around us. Ceri was at the exact center, as was the way with undrawn circles, and I could feel the pressure of ever-after against my back. I scooted forward, and Jenks's wings hit a still-higher pitch. He finally settled himself on the table by the salt. I knew he didn't like being trapped, but after seeing Ceri's impatience, I decided Jenks was a big boy and could ask to be let out himself if it bothered him that much.

  Ceri's circle was held with only her will, completely undrawn and entirely from her imagination. It wouldn't hold a demon, but all I wanted was something to keep nebulous influences out while my aura was not protecting my soul. Why ask for trouble? And with that in mind, I earned a huff of indignation when I picked up the phone and took out the batteries. An incoming call could open an opportunistic path.

  "You're not going to lose all your aura," she said, moving our stacked plates aside.

  Yeah, well, I felt better, and as much as I liked Ceri and respected her knowledge, I was going to fall back on my dad's admonishment never to practice high magic without a protection circle around you. Demon curses probably fell under that umbrella.

  So it was with a lot more confidence that I plucked the makeshift stylus of yew from the table and tapped a line through Ceri's circle. The energy spilled in—warm, comforting, and a little too fast for my liking— and I tilted my head and cracked my neck to hide my unease. My chi seemed to hum, and my fingers about the yew cramped briefly. I flexed them, and a tingling ran from my center to my fingertips. I'd never felt anything like it before while spelling, but then I was drawing a curse.

  "You okay?" Jenks asked, and I blinked, brushing my hair from my eyes and nodding.

  "The line seems warm tonight," I said, and Ceri's face went empty.

  "Warm?" she questioned, and I shrugged. Her eyes grew distant in thought for a moment, and then she gestured to the chalk-marked scrying mirror.

  My eyes fixed on the chalklines, and with no hesitation I reached for the pentagram.

  The stick of yew touched the glass resting on my lap, and with a shudder my aura pooled out of me like icy water. I gasped at the sensation, my head jerking up, finding Ceri's.

  "Ceri!" Jenks shouted. "She's losing it! The damn thing just left her!"

  The elf caught her alarm fast, but not so fast I didn't see it. "She's fine," she said, getting up and fumbling for the chalk on the table. "Rachel, you're fine. Just sit tight. Don't move."

  Frightened, I did exactly that, listening to my heart pound as she drew a circle inside her original one and invoked the more secure barrier immediately. My smut-damaged aura had colored my reflection, and I tried not to look at it. The click of the chalk hitting the table was loud, and Ceri sat across from me, her legs tucked under her and her back straight. "Continue," she said, and I hesitated.

  "That wasn't supposed to happen," I said, and she met my eyes, a hint of shame in them.

  "You're fine," she said, looking away. "When I did this so I might screen Al's calls, I wasn't making such a deep connection. I erred in not making a secure circle. I'm sorry."

  It was hard for the proud elf to apologize, and, knowing that, I accepted it with no lingering feelings of "I told you so." I didn't know what in hell I was doing, so it wasn't as if I could expect her to get it all right. But I was glad I had insisted on a circle. Very glad.

  I turned my gaze back to the mirror, trying to keep my focus shallow so I wouldn't look at my reflection. I felt dizzy without my aura, unreal, and my stomach was knotting. The scent of burnt amber rose to tickle my nose as I drew the lines of containment, and I squinted, seeing the faint haze of smoke on both sides of the glass where the yew was burning the mirror. "It's supposed to do that, right?" I asked, and Ceri murmured something positive-sounding.

  The red curtain of my loose hair blocked my view, but I heard her whisper something to Jenks, and the pixy flew to her. I shivered, feeling naked without my aura. I kept trying not to glance into the mirror as I scribed, the haze of my aura looking like a mist or glow around my dark shadow of a reflection. The once-cheerful pure gold color of my aura had been tainted with an overlaying black of demon smut. Actually, I thought as I finished the pentagram and started on the first of the symbols, the black gives it more depth, almost like an aged patina. Yeah, sure.

  A rising of tingles cramped my hand as I finished the last symbol. Exhaling, I started on the inner circle, relying on the points of the pentagram to guide me. The haze of burning glass grew thicker, distorting my vision, but I knew the instant my starting point and ending point met.

  My shoulders twisted when I fe
lt a vibration chime through me, first in my extended aura in the mirror and then in me. The inner circle had been set, and it seemed to have been etched onto my aura by way of marking the glass.

  Pulse quickening, I started on the second circle. This one, too, resonated upon completion, and I shivered when my aura started to leave the scrying mirror, pulling the entire figure into me and carrying the curse with it.

  "Salt it, Rachel. Before it burns you," Ceri said urgently, and the white drawstring bag of my sea salt edged into my tunnel vision.

  My fingers fumbled at the ties, and I finally closed my eyes to make better progress that way. I felt disconnected. My aura was coming back painfully slowly, seeming to crawl over my skin and soak in layer by layer, burning. I had a feeling that if I didn't finish this before my aura came entirely back, it was really going to hurt.

  The salt made a soft hush as it hit the glass, and I flinched at the feeling of unseen cold sand rasping against my skin. Not bothering to tracing the patterns, I dumped it all, my heart pounding as the weight of it hitting the mirror seemed to make my chest heavy.

  The bucket appeared at my feet and the wine at my knee—silently, unobtrusively. Hands shaking, I scrabbled for my big-ass symbolic knife, pricking my thumb and dropping three plops of red into the wine as Ceri's voice hovered at the edge of my awareness and told me what to do: whispering, guiding, instructing me how to move my hands, how to finish this thing before I passed out from the sensations.

  The wine cascaded over the mirror, and a moan of relief slipped from me. It was as if I could feel the salt dissolve into the glass, bonding to it, sealing the power of the curse and quieting it. My entire body hummed, the salt in my blood echoing with the power, settling into new channels and going somnolent.

  My fingers and soul were cold from the wine, and I shifted them, feeling the last of the gritty salt wash away. "Ita prorsus," I said, repeating the words of invocation as Ceri gave them to me, but it wasn't until I touched my wine-wet finger to my tongue that it actually invoked.