“Get out, Elton,” he said in a low voice, with a second deep, rolling whisper somewhere underneath.
The blond pushed to his feet through the screaming pain in his legs and made for the copse of trees, sensing the line of tingling chill that crossed his skin as he passed through the barrier. As soon as he was outside, Nathan dropped his hands and followed, the beast shrieking behind him the moment it was released. Nathan crossed the barrier at a run and slid to a stop at Elton’s side just as the monster crashed into the shimmering wall, its long body crumpling in mid-air while its teeth still gnashed at them against the invisible blockade.
“Jesus Christ,” Elton breathed when the animal finally gave one more irritated roar and twisted away from them, beating its wings to lift itself back toward the murky depths of its home.
Nathan’s arms were red with blood that still dripped from his fingers and tinted his torn shirt, but when Elton looked into the other man’s face, he was grinning.
“Don’t get to see that every day, do you?”
“Thank god,” Elton laughed, and Nathan clapped the blond’s shoulder with one red-stained hand.
“Well done not being eaten.”
***
It took a long, slow trudge and some strained, flickering glamour spells on Nathan’s part to get them back to civilization, but the two men eventually collapsed onto the white sofa of their hotel room and stared at the ceiling, neither of them quite able to will their body into any further movement.
Elton was hesitant to look at the man beside him. On the trip back, they’d both been focused on just getting here, and communication had been mostly nonverbal and exhausted once the adrenaline from their escape had worn off. But the thought had gnawed at Elton’s brain since the moment they stood together outside the barrier in the hills—Nathan had come back for him. He’d been in the clear, free, and beyond the reach of the deadly creature—and he’d come back. He’d put himself in danger and lost enough blood to make himself pale and drowsy, and he’d done it for Elton’s sake. The sharp rip in his skin still shone bright red as it seeped, though the blood on his arms and hands had begun to dry and flake away. It would have been easier for Nathan to leave him there. Elton had expected him to leave him there. It would have fit the profile of Nathaniel Moore as the uncaring and ruthless killer. But as many times as Elton had made jibes at Nathan about not being what he expected, as many good deeds and pitiless murders he’d seen the other man perform, one fact had somehow managed to avoid sinking in—that this unbalanced, self-absorbed, kind, and reckless enigma of a man had saved Elton’s life. Literally, and, he was forced to admit, figuratively. Nathan had been right. He would never have been happy living a quiet domestic life. He’d never before felt alive the way he had standing in Nathan’s apartment in Yuma that day, and every day he’d passed in the witch’s company since. As much as he complained, he could never go back to a life before Nathan had led him to taking things into his own hands. He liked trouble too much.
“Nathan,” Elton said, turning his head just enough to meet the dark eyes of the other man as he shifted to look over at him. “You...were a real friend to me today.”
Nathan paused, watching the blond’s face for a few beats of silence, and then he exhaled softly through his nose and leaned his head back against the cushion, closing his eyes as he murmured, “Apology accepted.”
“We’re going to need a better plan when we go back for Winnick.”
“Oh, I have a few things in mind,” Nathan mused, rubbing his thumbs over his knuckles to work out some of the stiffness caused by his spells. “That little shit has my bracelet. But first I’m going to have a nice long bath and try to stop bleeding all over the furnishings. Do you want to join me? Need some help getting those pants off?”
“Pass on both,” Elton scoffed, though he wasn’t looking forward to peeling the fabric of his pants away from the bleeding cuts down the backs of his thighs. “Just don’t come out naked for once.”
Nathan grunted with effort as he eased his way to standing with both hands on the sofa. “I would never make a promise I don’t intend to keep, darling.”
Elton watched him head into the bathroom with the shuffle of a man whose entire body ached, and when Nathan shut the bathroom door, the blond shook his head and began to inch his way up from the cushions so that he could tend to his own injuries. He’d been cursed with a bizarre sort of friend.
12
The pair inside the house had been acting strangely. Nikita had been watching them, both in person and through the aid of his hidden fetish in the woods, for some time now. They rarely went outside other than to purchase supplies, and when they did—the ritual in the brook had been unlike any magic Nikita had seen before. He didn’t understand the purpose. Nothing had happened afterward; they’d simply gone home and shut themselves indoors again. What was it for?
He had almost confronted them in the street when they had taken their trip to town, but he thought it better to get an idea of who he was dealing with. The girl was easy—Magistrate-taught spells, a small arsenal of low-level token-grounded magic, and some raw skill in sight. The man with her was an unknown. He’d requested the file from the Magistrate office in Ottawa and found a laundry list of fraternization and trafficking infractions under Chapter 787 as well as dorche-related offenses under Chapter 870—summoning Enochian spirits. It was forbidden for a reason; most people lacked the fortitude not to be burned alive. It was likely that this man was the same. Even possessing the necessary equipment was enough to be arrested, so the chances that he was more dangerous than most dabblers was slight but not out of the question.
Knowing how the girl reacted to seeing him was important, so he’d let her see him—and been satisfied that her response had been fear. But the longer he waited, the longer Moore and Willis were on the loose and the more the Magister would doubt his decision to trust Nikita with this task. He intended to complete the job assigned to him sooner rather than later, and watching the house for two days had been fruitless. He had to make a move with what he had so that he could take what he needed from Daniels. And the information he had told him that the girl, at least, was tender-hearted, and her companion was the sort of person who got arrested for helping miscegenators, so it was a safe bet that he was a soft touch, too.
Which meant that the blonde woman who now lay at his feet, bleeding into the grass at the end of the yard, should be sufficient incentive to lure them out. Nikita had watched the door of her shop after his targets had left, and he’d followed her home. Anyone who sold items of interest to an Enochian witch was of interest to him, too. She wasn’t innocent. She’d confirmed it when she had delivered live animals to the house—there was only one reason someone like him would need them.
Nikita placed one of his polished black oxfords on the woman’s broken fibula and leaned forward, pressing his weight into the injury and creating a painful scream. It had been easy to incapacitate her; her home hadn’t even been warded. The agrimony rope binding her arms should have adequately kept her from spitting any spells back at him, but he’d made certain she was in too much pain to try. The woman’s cry caused a stirring in the drapes by the front door, and just as expected, the girl appeared on the front step.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she called. The woman at Nikita’s feet tried to voice a warning in reply, her voice already too hoarse from screaming to reach very far.
“Come and see,” Nikita answered, and as soon as the girl had both feet on the grass outside the entrance, he lifted one palm upwards. “По моей воле, Нявка, подчинение.”
The girl only got another two or three steps toward him before she was overwhelmed by his summoned spirits. The birdlike sprites flooded the air around her, encircling her with threads of web from their clawed feet and dragging her face first into the dirt. Bleeding strands sprouted red on her skin where they bound and scratched her, their numbers almost hiding her from view completely. She struggled, drawin
g the webbing deeper into her skin, but when she tried to call out a spell, Nikita gave a subtle twist of his extended hand, and one of the spirits dove toward her and snatched the bracelet from her wrist, snapping the cord and scattering the tokens in the grass. She tried to stretch her fingertips to reach them but could barely budge. He wouldn’t risk her burning him again. The spirits hauled her across the grass closer to him, dragging her in their net to his feet. He would take her from here and lock her away where he could wear her down, and she would tell him everything she knew about Nathaniel Moore. She would give Nikita a way to kill him.
She shouted for her companion as Nikita reached for her, and the other man was out the door in an instant at the sight of the girl pinned to the ground. He had a short rod of some kind in his hand, which he lifted in preparation, but Nikita stopped him mid-step with the quick word “Adrig.”
The man stumbled, his knee buckling under the bending pressure of the spell. Nikita pressed harder, the silver ring on his hand almost burning him in his effort. The carvings on the wood the man held sparked with green light, and Nikita was forced a step backward as his binding was broken. With a snarl of irritation, Nikita twitched his hand toward his opponent to divert some of the spirits to swarm around him, but the man’s eyes were locked onto him, unconcerned by the scratches forming on his hands and cheeks as he lifted the carved wand.
“Rogo creā somniātōrem.”
Nikita’s breath left him. The weight of his own body was too much for him to bear, and he collapsed to the ground with a spasm of muscle that racked his limbs and bent them inwards. He heard a scream in his own voice but couldn’t feel himself making it—his brain overloaded with a crawling sensation in his skin, scratching and pricking at the tissue underneath. His head hit the dirt as his body twisted, the scent of damp earth filling his nostrils and a sharp ringing flooding his ears. He could barely breathe, his own tongue had retreated so far down his throat. There was no movement he could make that didn’t send jolts of painful contractions through his body, though he could turn his wide, wild eyes enough to see the slick black bodies of the snakes that slithered around his arms and thighs, crushing his bones. The trees around him grew tall and black into the darkening sky, threatening to enclose him in pitch and rough bark.
A writhing in his stomach sent a lurch of nausea through him, and as he jerked against the animals keeping him still, the withering grass around him dug into his face and arms like needles. Nikita heaved and coughed, choking on something that seemed desperate to escape his belly, and when it forced his mouth open, he gagged around the scales sliding from his throat as another long, black snake fell from him and coiled in the grass to hiss at him. He gasped for air and inhaled ash from his dry mouth, his spine bending to twist him back to the ground. The sky above him had turned black and empty, and the scent of sulfur burned his nose and lungs with every labored breath.
The human figures around him had vanished, but clawed hands pulled him to his knees by the front of his jacket. The snakes squeezing him spiraled up the arms of the creature that held him, and Nikita fought the grip of the thing in front of him. It was too close to human to be real—the face was too long, the eyes too wide, and mouth that revealed glistening dagger teeth was too broad. The black eyes that stared at him burned holes in his skin, and the arms that grasped him were burning and black and slick like scales.
“Evigila,” the creature growled, and Nikita slumped back heavily in its claws.
Blinding light filled his vision, and as it dimmed, the world around him seemed to dissolve, darkness melting into the muted greens of the forest. The hands holding him belonged to Thomas Proctor, as did the pale, scowling face that looked down on him.
“You only get one,” the man said, far too evenly for Nikita’s racing heart. “Don’t let me see you again.”
Nikita fell to the ground as he was released, his entire body trembling and too weak to stand. He pushed himself up on shaking hands and darted his gaze around the yard, but the girl and the shop owner were both gone, and his attacker didn’t turn back as he shut the door to the house behind him.
He found his senses after a few quick breaths and scrambled to his feet, quaking legs carrying him into the trees surrounding the house and toward the town. What kind of a spell was that? Nikita’s lungs only filled in shallow pants as he ran, sweat building on his brow and running in damp trails down his back. You let him get the better of you. You let your guard down. You let him beat you.
You let him beat you.
By the time he reached the door of his motel room, he was heaving for air, and his hands shook so badly that he could barely get his card in the lock. As soon as he was inside, he dropped to his knees on the rough carpet and doubled over, his hands fisting in his hair. He’d been so helpless—so afraid.
You let him beat you.
A rough, angry cry ripped from his throat, and his hands found the television on its cheap stand and flung it to the floor in a crash of shattered plastic and sparks. He ripped the old phone from its wire in the wall and pitched it into the bathroom mirror, sending a shower of glass onto the vanity and tinkling to the floor. His fist hit the painted wall once, twice, three times, the last strike leaving a smear of blood from his knuckles. He hiccupped and bit his cheek to stifle it as he slid down the wall, crumpling in a heap to the floor and gasping for breath with his face in his hands. His back ached with the memory of whipped lines of blood in a child’s skin, hateful scorn in his ears as punishment for the crime of a failed spell or a wrong answer.
Unconscious hands pulled at his jacket and tie, his fingers snapping buttons in their rush to pull his shirt down his shoulders, and his nails scraped across the old scars on his belly, the old, instinctive spell falling from his lips so that the lines he left in his skin went deep and welled with blood. He traced a dozen lines, and more, each cut slowing his heart and steadying his breathing. The pain numbed his mind, and the copper scent of blood on his fingers was like calming incense fighting the rage in his gut.
You let him beat you.
13
Cora sat in a creaky chair in the living room, holding a jar of salve in one hand and smoothing it over her cuts with the other. Thomas had laid the shop owner on the sofa and now stood grinding herbs and oil in a stone mortar, watching the faint rise and fall of her chest. Cora watched him kneel at the edge of the couch and carefully push the mixture past her parted lips with his thumb, making her body shudder as she swallowed.
Charles and Lily had panicked when they’d come inside, but Thomas had assured them that they would be perfectly safe as long as they didn’t leave the house. He promised he would take care of everything. He’d asked for some patience and privacy while he helped the woman on his couch and they had reluctantly agreed, but Cora could still see them occasionally passing by the top of the stairs on the way to far too many bathroom trips.
Cora watched Thomas smooth herbs and oils over the wounds in the woman’s skin, and she flinched when the bone in her leg snapped back into place, though the woman barely stirred. Thomas was silent while he worked, his hands quick and efficient while he secured his makeshift splint. The whole house was quiet now, and Cora’s blood rushed in her ears. She wasn’t sure of what she had seen out there in the yard. When Thomas came out the door, Korshunov had hit the dirt almost immediately, and he laid there motionless in the grass, his body only subtly twitching while Thomas banished the devil bird spirits or whatever they were. The Chaser hadn’t cried out even once—he’d just collapsed and gone still, and Thomas had taken his time helping Cora and the other woman inside. He had even gone back out to pick all of the tokens from her broken bracelet out of the grass. Cora had watched him from the window; it hadn’t looked like anything was happening at all, really, except that even in the dim evening light she could see the wild, unfocused look in Korshunov’s bulging eyes, like a trapped animal.
Thomas stood once the shop owner was in a deep, peaceful sleep, and he wiped the oil fro
m his hands on the thighs of his pants. He looked at Cora with concern still wrinkling his brow. She tilted her head as she frowned up at him from her seat.
“What did you do?”
He hesitated before answering. “I stopped him,” he said. He reached out toward the jar in her hand. “Do you need help with that?”
She shifted in her chair and paused before handing the container over to him. She had already tended to the cuts on her arms and legs, but there were a few that she couldn’t quite reach. Thomas sat on the arm of her chair as she turned her back to him, but after she tugged her shirt down just far enough to expose her shoulders and held her hair out of the way at the side of her neck, she waited. She waited for a while. Then she turned her head to peek back at Thomas, and he was sitting still behind her with a small scoop of the poultice on his fingertips, staring uncomfortably at her back.
“All right back there, champ? Are my organs showing?”
Thomas seemed startled by the question, and he glanced only briefly at her face before clearing his throat and gently smoothing the poultice over the largest gash that curved over her shoulder blade. Cora pulled her leg up under her a little more tightly and focused on the worn fabric in front of her. She’d almost expected his hands to be cold.
A soft tug in her stomach made her press her lips into a thin, thoughtful line. The cleansing ritual hadn’t been as awkward as she thought it would be since Thomas was so professional about it, but it was still strange to think that she had been naked in front of him. What had he been thinking while he stood inches from her in the brook? And why did he seem weirder about putting ointment on her back than he had about pouring river water over her bare boobs? The look on his face when he’d come into the yard after her, too—Thomas was normally so distant that to see that kind of anger from him was...strange. He always seemed irritated with her, or impatient, or like he felt like he was babysitting. Did he hate her or not?
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