by Kim Harrison
“Bye.”
There was a long pause, a sigh, and then a click. Only then did I allow that same happy, wistful sound to pass my lips and set the phone down on the adjacent counter outside of the circle. An incoming call might be enough of a connection for something nefarious to get through, and if I did this right, I’d be without my aura for a brief time, vulnerable.
Talking to Trent had gone a long way in rubbing out Edden’s bass-ackward request for me to troll the demons for who was responsible for the murders, and in a much better mood, I took another bite of that elephant cookie before setting it outside of my proposed circle as well. A pot of salt water waited, and I dunked my hands, drying them on the silk with an unexpected feeling of confidence. I’d done this curse several times now, but whether I was confident or not, the same quiver of expectation echoed in my belly as I looked over the assembled supplies. There wasn’t much, but a good curse was like that, relying on actions stored in the demon collective to make it work, invoked by a phrase or hand gesture.
“Okay . . .” I reached a sliver of my awareness to the nearest ley line. Immediately a scintillating power poured in, tasting of lightning and burnt ash. Most ran in well-used channels through my body to fill my chi and then to a spool in my head until I shunted it back to the line. Some energy, though, danced randomly through me in a sparkling wash.
I knew now that the tingle pricking through me was actually free-ranging mystics, the Goddess’s uncountable sentient eyes/energy—the source of all magic, be it ley line or earth. That I could again use the ley lines and not be swarmed by them was a huge relief. I wasn’t sure if it was because Newt had shifted my soul so my aura resonated at a frequency they didn’t recognize, or that the mystics simply weren’t interested in me anymore since Newt had taken my place, bringing the knowledge of life with mass to the mystics, something they had been so keen to learn that they would have taken me over and made me part of their Goddess to do so.
The only downside to having my soul adjusted was that my gargoyle, Bis, wasn’t able to pass through my circle anymore, meaning he couldn’t teach me how to travel the ley lines like a normal demon. I had to be carted around like a kid in a carpool, and it was tiresome.
Mystics were always flowing through the lines, but when the sun was up, the motion was primarily into the ever-after. They’d reverse come sundown, creating a tide that kept the ever-after from collapsing and providing those who knew how the ability to do magic.
I shivered, enjoying the feel of the incoming energy balancing in me as I focused on the ring of salt. “Rhombus,” I whispered, triggering a set of mental gymnastics that moved a molecule-thin slice of salt from here to the ever-after. A barrier impenetrable to anything but sound, air, and, to a lesser extent, smell sprang up to make a half sphere over my head. It was mirrored below me as well, and Ivy assured me there were no cables, pipes, or anything else that might allow something to slip through.
I smiled in satisfaction at the luminous gold, not even minding the few red striations rippling over the edges, evidence of my troubled childhood. The bound energy reflected the colors in my aura, and though it looked the same to me as ever, Bis could tell the difference. It pleased me to no end that the black smut that had once marred it was gone, used to help stabilize the new ever-after. The demons, too, all had pristine auras now—which undoubtedly made it easier for them to wander around unnoticed as long as they hid their goat-slitted eyes.
I’d seen a real reluctance in Al to do anything to mar his new sparkling aura, but this curse would put a tiny amount of imbalance on me, hardly discernible. Some said that meant I was wicked, but smut wasn’t evil—or even an indication that you did evil things. It was simply a measure of how badly you screwed up the natural balance. An IOU if you will. But try telling that to the paranoid mother on the park bench. . . .
Safe in my circle, I popped open the bottle of wine. For a moment, I hesitated, wondering if I should pour what I needed out and save the rest, but then I just pricked my finger with my ceremonial knife and squeezed three drops right into the bottle to link the curse to me. It wasn’t as if I could drink it. Sulfites gave me a headache.
A last look over the silent kitchen, and I levered myself up on the center counter to set the faultless, ungodly expensive mirror before my crossed legs. Yew stylus in hand, I looked down at my reflection. Green eyes stared back, and I wondered how I’d gotten here, twisting demon curses in a vampire’s kitchen. Grimacing, I tucked a strand of my shower-damp hair behind an ear and shoved the thought away. There were good things, too: Trent, and Ivy, and Jenks; my mom rekindling a lost love on the West Coast; the demons no longer trapped in the ever-after, virtual slaves to those who knew how to summon them.
A new confidence in myself, I thought, finding a smile. The first time I’d done this, I had sketched everything out in chalk before making it permanent, but now? Now I knew I could do it. In. One. Pure. Go.
The energy flow through me jumped when the stylus touched the mirror, and I shuddered when my aura sort of spilled out into it. Even when I was expecting it, the sensation was disconcerting, and I looked at my reflection, able to see a shadow of myself under the gold and red shimmers.
I felt naked and vulnerable with my aura stripped away like this. Normally I’d be unable to do even the smallest magic without excruciating pain while missing my aura. But it wasn’t really gone, just in the glass, and I quickly began to sketch a palm-size pentagram to give the curse structure.
The kitchen was silent, all good vampires asleep downstairs and Jenks napping in the boat. The hiss of the yew against the glass sent up the scent of dust and hot sand, and again I marveled that I could actually see it burning the glass on both sides, wisps of smoke rebounding against the inside of the pane.
My lip had gotten between my teeth by the time I finished. The stomach-cramping fear that had gripped me while making my original scrying mirror was gone, and I smiled as I looked at the perfectly proportioned lines and felt the curse resonating in me.
“Symbols of communication,” I said to myself as I bent low over the smoked lines, and with the meaning of each simple glyph resonating in my thoughts, I sketched them at the points, starting at the lower left and rising clockwise. I took a slow breath upon finishing the last, cracking my back as I prepared to trace the first of two circles surrounding the pentagram. The inner one would connect the points of the pentagram, the outer one would encompass the glyphs.
Again the stylus touched the glass, and the power began to shift, filling the pattern and organizing into as-yet-latent action. I went point to point, smooth and unhurried. When the yew met the beginning point, a chime struck through me, shivering all the way to my core.
My breath came faster, and imagining I could already hear the half-heard whispers of the demon collective, I began the second, outer circle. Yes, I had been putting this off, but I missed the feeling of connection, the subliminal knowledge that others were going about their lives as was I, each to themselves, touching and moving on.
Heart pounding and fingers numb with tingles, I drew the outer circle. My reflection was lost in smoke and haze, but the way was easy. The salt was ready, and the wine was set. I’d have this done and most of my aura back in thirty seconds.
Again the line met its end with a satisfying ping, and I hesitated as the energy swirled, breathless. The curse was drawn, but not done, and the glyphs glowed with energy. A shudder rippled through me as, with the slow surety of a spring thaw, my aura began to leave the mirror and seep back into me, carrying the curse scribed on the mirror with it.
I forced myself not to move as it inched back with the sensation of pinpricks, hoping that the longer I could withstand it, the more aura would be returned to me. But when the prickling across my synapses became a harsh burning, I reached for the salt, spilling it from a shaky hand over the mirror’s entirety.
“Better,” I said, shoulders easing
as the salt hissed down like cold sand on sunburned skin, balancing the energies and removing the excess intent. It had been Ceri who had poured the wine over the mirror the first time I’d done this, the wine serving to bind the salt and the glyphs to the mirror. But I was alone, and I did it myself, the tinkling sound of it on the glass and into the nearby bowl satisfying as the salt washed away to leave only sparkling lines amid a new ruby red, deep sheen. My body seemed to hum as the salt in my blood echoed the intent of the salt in the mirror as the last of the wine trickled across the scrying mirror and into a bowl. The singularly drawn curse now existed in two places, me and the mirror both.
“Ita prorsus,” I said, and then sealed the curse by touching a wine-wet finger to my lips.
Goose bumps rose as the curse set, waves of power seeming to echo out from me in ever-lessening waves. “I accept the imbalance,” I whispered, but my body, conditioned by two years of twisting curses, had already taken it, and the minute black wash of smut sank quickly into me like a second layer of protection.
My head lifted as I heard a faint bell chime from my distant church, and satisfied, I gazed at the thing of beauty in my lap, glittering silver and red from the salt and wine. The first time I’d done this, I’d been terrified, almost blind in fear, but today, being a demon didn’t feel so bad.
The soft sound of displaced air jerked my attention up, but it was only Bis, the craggy cat-size gargoyle now sitting on the counter just outside my circle. Red eyes blinked sleepily at me, and Bis stretched his wings, yawning until his white-tufted tail curved around his feet and he slumped. “I woke up,” he said, his gravelly voice mangling the vowels.
“Sorry.” I set the mirror down, the memory of Ceri helping me with this bird-eye bright in my thoughts. She’d never treated me the same afterward. It was probably when she’d figured out I wasn’t a witch, but a witch-born demon.
“It’s o-o-o-okay,” he said around a long yawn. “New mirror?”
I touched the beautiful thing as if it were a kitten. “Yep. How’s my aura?”
Bis blinked his sleepy red eyes, struggling to focus. “Great. You got most of it back.”
I nodded, pleased. Ceri had cautioned me not to use a new mirror for twenty-four hours to allow for “aura replenishment,” but if my aura was there, where was the harm? “I’m going to see if it works,” I said as I let my protective circle drop and blotted the last of the wine from the mirror before setting it on my knee.
Bis slumped to fall asleep again as I stayed where I was atop the counter and placed my hand so my fingers touched the glyphs. Slowly, until I knew that my limited aura would protect me, I eased a sliver of ley line energy into my hand, and then into the curse to awaken it.
“Ow,” I whispered when a not-unexpected soft burning seemed to light behind my eyes. The curse was good. I’d done it right. The pain was only because I was trying to use the mirror with a patchy aura. It was tolerable, though, and I allowed more energy to flow. With a ping I could feel, the curse that existed both in the mirror and in me became one—and I was in the collective.
“Ow,” I said louder as it felt as if my skin was on fire, but the half-heard whispers of semiprivate conversations were a balm, and I hung there, easing back on the energy flow until I could handle the soft burn. It was very much like a crowded party with everyone talking, and as I felt the beginnings of a sneeze begin to threaten, I marshaled my thoughts into a clear statement, dropping it into the collective like the annoyed shout it was.
Rachel here. Who in hell has been trying to reach me? I have a cell phone, you know.
A prickling of interest circled. I caught a faint hint of amusement, and then an unfamiliar thought crashed into my mind, expanding my awareness with the breathless sensation of two intellects lightly becoming one. Just as fast, the burning sensation seemed to halve, and I got a wisp of irritated emotion, and then, Rachel Mariana Morgan? I have to talk to you. In person.
Dali? I thought as I recognized his absolute confidence, then quashed a flash of self-preservation. The ofttimes arrogant entity was the self-appointed leader of the demons. What did he want with me? Uh, sure, I thought, feeling his presence uncomfortably within mine. God! It was like he was pressing me against the wall, if a wall had existed.
Is now good? he persisted. I’ll bring you through, seeing as your gargoyle is asleep.
No, wait! I thought frantically, not sure if I’d end up across town or across the continent. I just made a scrying mirror, and my aura is patchy.
My fingers eased their pressure on the glass as I felt him draw back, a new understanding and perhaps a smidgen of chagrin as to why I hadn’t answered him earlier. What happened to your old one? he asked suspiciously.
Al broke it. Look, I don’t want to talk about it.
No doubt, Dali thought, and I glanced at Bis, the little guy now snoring to sound like rocks in a blender. Embarrassed, I pressed my hand harder into the red-tinted glass until the tingles of a weak connection vanished. If Al had a boss, it was Dali. That Dali now worked for Junior, or Mark, rather, slinging coffee in Cincinnati was just weird. It gave me hope that the demons were going to play by our rules, but the reality was that being a barista probably gave Dali the opportunity to sell the odd curse.
I’m working today, I thought, trying to hide my embarrassment. I’ll come see you tomorrow. You’ll be at Junior’s, right?
Where I’ll be working, Dali thought back, mental tone sour.
So take a coffee break. Mark won’t mind.
A wash of irate annoyance and impatience coursed through me, only half of it mine. Tomorrow, Dali thought, and then I jumped, hand springing from the glass when I seemed to lose half my mind. I hadn’t of course, but Dali was gone.
I sat up, shaking off the last of the haze of being in the collective. “Dali wanting to talk to you is never good,” I whispered, expecting to see Bis asleep when I turned to him, but he was staring at me, his craggy gray eyebrows high. Fully awake despite the hour, he took a breath to say something. Then his eyes went up, and I started, surprised at the black-wearing, gray-dusting pixy hovering below the lights, clearly having just slipped off the smooth fixture, his angular features frozen in shock.
“Jumoke?” I questioned, seeing as he was the only dark-haired pixy in all of Cincinnati, but his wings weren’t quite right, and his mop of black hair was unprecedented. “Hey!” I exclaimed, wildly swinging the mirror at him when he dropped down right in front of me dusting black and gold sparkles.
Bis vaulted himself into the air, wings beating.
“Not so close!” I shouted, as the pixy darted away. Pulse fast, I scrambled off the counter and put it between us, feeling like one of those guys at the park freaking out over a bee. But I lived with Jenks. Though most people were “Aww, how sweet!” I knew firsthand the damage a pixy could do, and I didn’t want to explain to anyone in Emergency why I was missing an eye and my eardrums were pierced.
“How the Turn did you get past Jenks?” I said as the pixy in his black tights and jacket swung in agitation like a pendulum. “And what are you doing in my kitchen?”
But my surprise at finding another dark-haired pixy alive was nothing to my shock when Bis made a weird noise and the pixy vanished into a familiar swirl of yellow and green, quickly expanding into a demon, his red goat-slitted eyes wide in astonishment.
CHAPTER
5
“That was Dali?” The demon stood stock-still in the small space between the counter and the long, empty table. “You were talking to Dali? They let you into the collective?”
I jumped when Bis dropped to my shoulder, his tail unusually tight as he wrapped it around me. I slowly set my mirror aside, never dropping my gaze as I estimated my chances of reaching my purse and the splat gun in it at a dismal nil. With my aura compromised, it was about all I had. “Yeah . . . ,” I said hesitantly, and he grew more agitated.
> The demon was tall, markedly so, more sinewy than bulky, with a trim waist and wide shoulders. He looked as if he was in his mid-thirties with a dark, smooth complexion, but why not when you could be any age you wanted? Low-heeled manly boots, black jeans, black cotton shirt, and a lightweight leather jacket. I was betting his ornate silver belt buckle was actually a ley line charm. He had another supposed charm around his neck on a chain of black gold. Rings, lots of rings. His long black hair was thick and wavy like a Were’s, and was held back from his face with a silver clip. Add in a classically cut chin and a strong jaw, and he could be anyone on the street if not for his red goat-slitted eyes—if anyone on the street could row a Viking boat all day and not get tired.
“Have we met?” I said, not knowing why he was confused. I didn’t personally know every demon, but every demon knew me.
“I saw you.” The demon pointed at the scrying mirror beside me as if it was an affront. “You’re in the collective. You’re in the Goddess-blessed collective. You talked to Dali!”
“Stop!” I warned him as he took a step closer, and he jerked to a halt. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my kitchen?” I was trying to be nice, but it was getting harder.
His eyes flicked to mine, and then, as if only now realizing I was upset, he dropped back a few more feet. Relieved, I nodded to tell him that was a smart move.
“So,” I said, stifling my wince when Bis’s nails dug into my shoulder, “which one of the four hundred and thirteen demons are you, and what do you want?”
The demon’s jaw dropped, and he ran a hand across his chin in surprise. “Four hundred and thirteen? Damn my dame, we’re almost gone.”
His faint accent reminded me of Newt’s, and the distinctive scent of burnt amber was wafting up from him. “Well, it’s been a hard couple of years,” I smart-mouthed as I glanced at him with my second sight expecting the worst, but his aura was as clean as mine, sporting a cheerful yellow and green, with shades of purple and red swirling about his head and hands.