Demon Born Magic (Ella Grey Series Book 3)

by Jayne Faith

  “How do we know when to go through?” I asked

  “Not yet.” Rogan’s eyes were intent on the rip. “You’ll go in first with Loki.”

  I’d forgotten a leash, which inspired a brief pang of pet-owner anxiety. What if he ran up and snarled at the oracle? Or tried to lift his leg on the piles of gold or whatever it was dragons surrounded themselves with? I pushed the worry away. Switchboard had seemed confident it was a good idea to bring my hellhound-doodle, so I had to trust it would go well.

  “Okay.” Rogan nodded at me. “We’ll be right behind you.”

  I touched Loki’s head, and he stayed at my side as we moved forward toward the dark oval. I could see nothing within it. As I stepped through, I was disappointed to feel no change—no shiver of magic in the air, no heat, nothing to indicate I was passing from one dimension to another.

  Perfect darkness swallowed me, and for a dizzying moment, I thought the ground had fallen away. But I kept walking, taking some solace in the firm surface beneath my feet. I reached for Loki and felt his furry neck under my fingertips. Two red-orange eyes looked up at me.

  By the soft scuffing echoes of four pairs of shoes, it sounded as if we were in a large, hard-walled space. It was noticeably warmer than where we’d come from, and a faint aroma of sulfur, smoke, and spice hung in the air. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, but it was wild and exotic in a way that made my pulse tap a little faster.

  “Okay, Rogan, now what?” I asked, focused on keeping my balance in the disorienting dark.

  “Stay here and wait,” he said. He sounded calm, and his voice seemed to help orient me, even if it was just to know he was nearby.

  “Is it as pitch black in here to you guys as it is to me?” I asked.

  “Black as night,” came Lynnette’s voice from behind me and a little off to the right.

  “Yep,” agreed Damien. “Can’t even see the rip magic from in here.”

  One of the guys—Rogan, I thought—quietly whistled a few notes of Darth Vader’s theme.

  I snorted. “You’re hilarious.”

  As my eyes adjusted, I became aware of very faint points of light domed around us, and it gave me a sense of the space in which we stood. It seemed to be a cavern, and the tiny lights glowed like the most miniaturized Christmas lights imaginable. The lights began to brighten and break into facets, revealing that it was no ordinary cave we stood in. Each light was centered in a pointed crystal attached to the cavern walls and ceiling. The space was enormous, half a football field long and maybe half that high.

  I gasped as I took it in, astonished at the sheer magnificence. It was as if we’d been transported into the middle of a geode shot through with rainbows.

  But there was a negative space ahead, a huge widening column of darkness.

  I gripped Lynnette’s ring tightly in my fist.

  The dark column bowed out at both sides into an oblong. It was an enormous rip. The widening void was suddenly punctuated by two hellfire eyes the shape of sideways teardrops.

  Loki gave a sharp bark and then whined. It wasn’t a warning so much as the sounds of an excited canine. There was a cracking sound and then something fell to the floor. I saw Loki moving in my periphery and almost reached out a hand to grab his collar and try to still him when I realized he had no collar. The pop I’d heard was the plastic buckle breaking, and his collar lay on the ground. I peered at my dog.

  My Loki was no longer there. Instead, a taller, shaggier beast stood next to me. I sucked in a breath, wondering if bringing him along had been a mistake after all, but he looked up at me and panted a doggy smile. Stunned, I bent to pick up his collar.

  “What the hell . . . ?” Damien whispered. He wasn’t staring at my dog. He hadn’t even noticed the change. His head was tipped back as he gaped up.

  I looked up to find something had materialized within the huge rip. It was the scaled creature I’d seen in the coven circle and later in a dream.

  An acrid smell reminiscent of a struck match filled the cavern. The temperature was rising rapidly. The creature ducked its serpentine head and stepped through the rip with an almost delicate movement. When the great dragon moved, there were faint metallic clicks and scrapes. Its hide looked to be made of soft gold scales, and rip magic licked the air around it as if the dragon were on fire.

  “Ella Grey.”

  The beast’s voice was something between a rumbling growl and a loud exhale, and it was like nothing I’d ever heard. Hot breath washed over me, like a fiery draft following the dragon’s words.

  The rip behind the beast narrowed and disappeared behind its body. The dragon’s legs seemed too slender for such a massive body. The lizard-like tail curled around toward us, revealing its bulbous end, which bristled with nasty-looking spines each at least a foot long. The creature wasn’t brandishing his tail though. He was making himself comfortable. With the tail curled around the body and the great leathery wings folded along the sloping back, he lowered himself into a reclining posture, like a cat curled on a pillow. His head towered twenty feet overhead, the claws tipping one front appendage only half a dozen feet away from my boots.

  I swallowed, uncertain if I was supposed to respond, and if so, what would be the proper thing to say. Again, I squeezed my fist around the skull ring. Without moving my head, I flicked a glance at Loki. He lay flat on the floor with his head ducked, almost as if prostrating himself.

  “Pose your question,” the creature intoned, lingering on the hissing s sounds. Steam rose from the nostrils on the end of an alligator-like snout.

  Pose . . . ? Okay, then. The dragon wasn’t into small talk. Fine by me.

  I tried to work some moisture back into my mouth. I didn’t want advice. I wanted real answers. How to get out of the coven. How to save my brother and get him healthy. How to get the business with Damien off the ground so I could help Deb and the baby.

  Everything seemed to come back in some way to my magic and surviving my own power. I had a plan for that, between Jennifer’s spell and Phillip Zarella’s offer, but additional backup from a different angle couldn’t hurt.

  “What do I need to do or understand in order to get my magic back and survive its power?” I asked, remembering how Rogan had phrased his own question.

  The creature’s head darted forward so quickly my reflexes weren’t fast enough, and I stayed rooted to the spot. He angled his head slightly so one giant teardrop eye filled my vision. I watched the hypnotic dance of flames in the vertical reptilian iris.

  “Wrong question, Ella Grey,” the dragon roared. The force of the creature’s breath blew my hair back, and the searing heat made my eyes stream and my skin burn.

  My heart bumped, and I sucked in a breath, trying to imagine what the punishment would be for asking the wrong thing.

  “Why?” The word slipped out before I could catch it.

  The dragon’s eye squinted at me.

  “Why is that the wrong question?” I tried again.

  “There is a deeper, wider, more urgent understanding you must gain,” the dragon whispered. “You must look back in time to understand what happened then.”

  A bigger mission? Back in time?

  I shook my head, trying to guess what the creature meant. “Do you mean my . . . uncle?” I asked, my voice dropping. “The original Rip?”

  The creature huffed steam but didn’t answer.

  “A gift,” the dragon said finally, and I swear he actually sounded a little petulant. He turned his head away. “I require a gift.”

  I blinked, not following.

  “The ring,” Rogan whispered behind me. “Offer him the ring.”

  Oh, right. I opened my fist and held up the silver skull ring.

  “Please take this gift,” I said. I stretched my arm out with the ring pinched in my fingertips.

  The dragon peeked around to see what I held. I tilted the ring, and the pink crystals caught the light of the creature’s great eye. The fire in the iris flared.

 
I froze as the dragon shifted its great body, my eyes growing wide as it lifted one alligator-like arm. A claw as long and sharp as a steak knife extended toward me. My hand only trembled a little as I gingerly placed the ring onto the tip of the claw.

  “You may ask another,” he said, tucking his claws around his body and hiding Lynnette’s ring.

  I drew a breath. “Who stole my brother five years ago?”

  The dragon’s eye loomed closer as he pushed his face so near I could have reached out and touched the gold-encrusted scales on his snout.

  “Wrong. But closer, so I shall answer,” he said.

  Then he reared back, stretching tall on his hind legs. He spread his wings as far as they could extend within the confines of the crystal cave, and he loomed high like a phoenix ready to rise.

  “One . . . of . . . your . . . own . . . blood.” Each word boomed like a boulder falling from a great height and then echoed in the cavern so violently that sediment shook loose from the ceiling and filtered down through the softly lit air.

  Something harsh and buzzing, like a swarm of angry bees, seemed to descend on my head and downward to surround me. Some sort of magic? It beat against my skin, and I imagined this was what it might feel like to go through a car wash naked.

  I ground my teeth and swung out with my arms, trying to fight it off, but they hit nothing. The sensation intensified to the point of becoming maddening, like being pricked by a million tiny needles.

  Cracking my eyelids open, I saw the black vertical line form in between me and the dragon, so close I could have reached out and brushed it with my fingertips. It yawned into a huge black disc, cutting me off from the creature. With the violent formation of the rip, there came a rush of air.

  I staggered, squeezing my eyelids closed against the gale of air that sucked my hair forward and sent it whipping across my face. The dragon’s departure was creating an awful vacuum within the cavern. My eardrums felt like they were on the verge of bursting in the negative pressure.

  I whirled around, trying to look for the others just as a hand closed around my wrist.

  “C’mon, Ella!” Rogan’s words seemed to get whipped away almost immediately.

  He dragged me back toward the rip that had reopened behind us. Through it I saw Boise’s city lights in the distance and stars above the horizon.

  Damien went through and then Lynnette with Loki right on her heels. Rogan dragged me out of the crystal cavern, and I sucked in a deep lungful of winter air. I didn’t even care it was freezing out. I was so relieved to have escaped with my eardrums still intact. We all stood there catching our breath.

  There was a soft rustle in the sagebrush off to the right. I spun around. I’d flipped the strap off my whip, and it was in my hand as fast as a reflex. Loki growled.

  “Who’s there?” I called out, peering into the darkness.

  There was more rustling, and a beam of light cut through the night and flared in my face, blinding me. I threw up my left arm to shield my eyes.

  “It’s them,” came a rough, unfamiliar voice from behind the glaring light. “Go.”

  The light switched off, leaving me with blinding blotches dancing across my vision.

  “What the—” Damien started, but his question ended in a grunt.

  Motion and footfalls suddenly surrounded us. I lunged, cracking my whip at the forms emerging from the cover of the bushes. A golf-ball sized blob of light whizzed past my left ear.

  I brought the whip around again, striking out at where the light had come from. I felt the whip find its target just as a male voice let out a cursing bellow.

  I heard Lynnette let out a frustrated screech, but then she was silent.

  White lights were popping like camera flashes around me. I dropped to the ground as I recognized the click-whoosh sounds of magic-fueled stun guns being fired. They were weapons used to disarm violent crowds and temporarily cut crafters off from their magic.

  Furiously blinking the spots from my eyes, I army-crawled toward the nearest bush, hoping to take cover. Loki was snarling and barking like mad.

  “Oh no you don’t.” An iron grip grabbed my boot and yanked me back, dragging me along the rough, cold desert floor.

  I flipped to my back and flexed my wrist, praying my whip hadn’t gotten caught on anything. It sang through the air and snapped with a satisfying sound. I thought I’d caught the guy across the face, but he still held on to my ankle. A dark, furry blur flew in from the side and knocked my would-be captor clean off his feet. My boot was free, and I pushed up to my feet and began to run.

  “Go, Loki!” I shouted, hoping he’d get away.

  “That way!” a female voice shouted behind me.

  I could hear at least two people in pursuit. I chanced a look over my shoulder. Big mistake. I turned my ankle and tripped. Seeing I had no chance of staying upright, I tucked my head just in time as I flew into an unplanned roll. The ground sloped away sharply, and I tumbled ass over teakettle into a shallow gulley.

  My pursuers veered away from where I lay spread-eagled, my ankle throbbing. Still except for my heaving chest, I listened.

  After a moment, I heard nothing, so I raised my head.

  A figure appeared to loom above me.

  “Gotcha,” the guy said with glee.

  A bright flash hit me square in the middle of my stomach. Pain lanced through me, and then the world numbed and faded away.

  Chapter 12

  I CAME TO with a pounding headache and my arms pulled around behind me. By the ache in my shoulders, I’d been in that position for a while.

  With my head drooping forward and my chin on my chest, I carefully opened my eyes just enough to assess my situation. I could see concrete floor under my boots. I was seated on a metal chair, and a subtle tug of my arms told me my hands were bound to each other but not tied to the chair.

  A brain-cramping screech of metal on concrete announced that I had company.

  “Sleeping beauty awakes.” I recognized the voice of the guy who’d taken me out.

  I raised my head to find him straddling a dented folding chair turned backward, his beefy arms folded across the back. A quick glance showed no sign of Rogan, Damien, Lynnette, or Loki. Maybe they’d gotten away.

  “Oh my, you turned your chair around. You must be a badass,” I said with mock wide-eyed awe.

  He narrowed his eyes at me and then slapped his knee and let out a mocking laugh.

  “I heard you might be difficult, but that was funny.” He waggled his index finger at me with a knowing, I’ve-got-your-number look on his face.

  I forced my pulse to stay steady. I didn’t know who this guy was or what he wanted, but he’d reveal it soon enough, I assumed. In the meantime, I needed to get my bearings. I spotted my whip coiled on a scuffed conference table that had been shoved to the far end of the room. Next to the table was a door—heavy-looking, with a metal push bar instead of a handle or knob. Faint black tire tracks marked the floor with greasy-looking stains here and there, and the stale smell of motor oil lingered in the air. I guessed I was in approximately the middle of the room, and the two of us seemed to be alone.

  The overhead fluorescent lights glared unflatteringly, highlighting barely-visible acne scars on the guy’s cheeks. He looked about my age, muscular to the point of being bulky, maybe ex-military and almost certainly a mercenary.

  “Who do you work for?” I demanded.

  His mild amusement dissolved between one blink and the next. “I’ll be asking the questions.”

  He stood, drew his leg back, and then booted his chair off to the side. It flew out of view and hit the wall with a clanging clatter. Over his shoulder, I noticed a camera mounted high in the corner of the room. He turned to me, and I saw he held a small device that looked like a shortened cattle prod, which had been hidden from view behind the back of the chair while he’d been sitting. But even worse than the torture device was the eager gleam in his eye.

  This was not good. Not at all.
He was one of those crazies who got off on this shit.

  “Just tell me what your boss wants,” I said, my voice low and even.

  He wanted me to resist. He’d relish it.

  He held up the prod, and an arc of light sprang between the prongs, accompanied by electric zaps. I managed not to wince. He strolled forward and stopped in front of me. I had to tip my head back to look up into his face.

  “Where’s the box?” he asked, his voice mild.

  I blinked. “Box?”

  He jabbed the prod against the soft spot at the front of my shoulder. Pain exploded through me, and every muscle jumped convulsively.

  Breath came raggedly through my nose, and I worked my jaw muscles loose. My brain whirled, trying to come up with something to stall the next jolt. Anything that might convince him to let me go.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, trying to sound as if I were relenting on the information he wanted. “I don’t have it yet, and that’s the truth. I don’t give a damn about the box. As soon as I get it, it’s all yours, I swear.”

  I wasn’t lying. I didn’t give a shit about whatever box he was talking about.

  He peered at me suspiciously, and then his face hardened and he shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t cross him that easily.”

  He raised the prod again.

  “Why not? Why shouldn’t I?” I asked, playing along and making it up as I went. I had a pretty good guess about who had sent this guy and the other goons. I carefully flicked my gaze across his clothing, looking for confirmation of who he was working for. “He, uh, hasn’t done jack shit for me lately. I have no loyalty to him.”

  He brandished the prod, but there was hesitation in his eyes.

  “You’re either really brave or really stupid,” he said. “He’ll kill you and then turn your corpse into one of his flesh and bone puppets. Or maybe he’ll keep you alive. I don’t know which would be worse. Evil sonofabitch.”

  He shuddered, the cattle prod all but forgotten at his side.

  A couple of puzzle pieces snapped into place in my mind, more or less confirming what I’d suspected.