American Demon

by Kim Harrison

  “I’m not dead!” he shrilled, voice high. “Trent, I’m not dead!”

  It’s the only way to get it out, I thought, staring at him. God, I’m sorry, Landon.

  But then his eyes bulged, and his high-pitched, piercing cries came again and again. His body was hazed with purple and black and green. It was what was left of his aura. His soul would follow.

  My mouth was dry, and Hodin swore softly. The lure of the drums was gone, lost in the terrifying sounds of Landon as his soul was ripped from him. It’s a good thing we’re at my church, I thought as Bis hunched deeper against me, his ears pinned to his bony skull. It was probably the only place in Cincinnati where no one would call the I.S. if they heard such terror.

  What kind of a life am I living?

  “It’s working,” Hodin whispered, eyes fixed on Landon. “I thought you were exaggerating. He does have the skill.”

  Yes, Trent had the skill. And the drive, and the stomach to pull a soul from a still living body. It had been different when he’d pulled mine free. I had wanted to go, trusting Trent to keep me alive and return my soul to my body when it was healed. But this? This was not being done in love, and I thought I was going to throw up as Landon shrieked in anguish, his skin glowing with a rising blue and green.

  “You interfering demon spawn,” Landon rasped, the bile in his voice shocking me. “I was to be the dewar’s leader!”

  My breath caught. That was the baku, I thought, then I jumped at Landon’s high-pitched agony. His eyes were fixed on me in hate, and he was no longer able to speak.

  Trent stood resolute, his voice strong as he demanded obedience. I watched in breathless horror as Landon began to shake violently. His soul was being raked from him in waves of green and blue and purple in time with the drums that no longer pulled at me. A black haze clung to it, tendrils spiraling up to try to keep them together. It was the baku, and my lips parted. I could see it. There was so much unfocused energy in here, drawn from the lines like static, that the baku was glowing black.

  And then Landon’s cries ended. Which was almost worse in a way.

  Hodin exhaled in wonder as Landon’s soul wafted up from his spasming body, the man’s eyes fixed to his soul even as he choked and died. The baku clung to it as if to drag it back down, and then with a snap, it let go and both the baku and Landon’s soul floated free.

  “Rhombus!” I exclaimed, hand outstretched as I made a free-floating circle around the black haze of the baku.

  Trent stumbled, his hand reaching for support. The line poured through me, and I took all it could give, not wanting the globe now hanging over the spiral to fail because I hadn’t been enough. Within it, I could see the baku as it looked for a way out.

  “You got it!” Hodin said, shocked as the baku turned the inside of my circle black.

  I didn’t care. I was more concerned with Landon’s soul, free and unfettered. Breath held, I watched as it rose alone, drifting as if unsure. If we lost it now, Landon would die; I couldn’t hold the baku and Landon’s soul at the same time.

  “Shrink the bubble,” Hodin said, mesmerized. “Damn my dame, you’re going to do it.”

  Trent’s jaw was clenched and his back hunched as his haggard gaze flicked to me.

  “Shrink it!” Hodin insisted, but Landon’s soul was still free, and I strengthened my hold on the line as Trent resumed his chant to lure his soul to touch one of the spirals before it simply . . . moved on. My throat tightened and my stomach hurt, but finally Landon’s soul touched the outmost ring of the spiral, and with a burst of light, raced through the chalk lines to vanish into Landon with a soft and silent boom.

  I waited, breathless. On the floor, Landon’s chest moved. Relief fell on me, crushing, and I gripped Bis’s foot, tears starting. We hadn’t killed him. Landon still lived.

  “You fools, shrink it down!” Hodin exclaimed, and Trent looked up, bleary from his spell casting. “Bottle it! If you wait, it will find a way out.”

  White-faced, Trent came to join me. His hand was damp as it slipped into mine. “Let’s be done with this,” he rasped, and I realized what this had cost him. Landon’s screams would haunt both of us.

  I took the baby bottle in hand, and together we began to shrink the circle. The ley line coursing through us began to warm, and the sphere floating over the fading spiral shone with an odd purple-and-gold shimmer. In a breath, it was as big as a beach ball. Another heartbeat, and it was the size of a grapefruit. But the smaller it got, the harder it was to hold it and the stronger the ley line burned my mind.

  Struggling, I felt my body warm. My synapses began to singe as we spun the sphere before us down tighter and tighter, smaller and smaller. My breath came in with a rasp, and I held it. My hand in Trent’s grew cold. “Trent?”

  “I’m fine,” he ground out between clenched teeth, but he wasn’t, and in my moment of distraction, the bubble pushed back to its original size . . . and vanished.

  “Trent!” I exclaimed as he collapsed into my arms. I struggled to hold him as both of us fell to the old oak floor. My chest burned with Hodin’s glyph as I gathered Trent to me, and Bis flew up, hissing at the door. Someone had come in, but Trent . . . Trent was unconscious. I could no longer feel the ley line through him. Hodin’s curse wouldn’t work if one of us was unconscious.

  “It was too much for him,” Hodin said, his gaze tracking Bis to the door. “He passed out and you lost control of your circle. Two female demons might accomplish it, but not an elf.”

  “Trent?” I sat on the floor of my church and patted his scruffy cheek. “Trent!” I looked up, not seeing the baku. Damn it, we were right back to square one.

  “That’s all I needed to see,” Weast said from the vestibule, and my head snapped up.

  Weast. My eyes narrowed as five Order agents filed in after him, all in black and all holding shimmering rods. Two more came in the back. Glenn wasn’t among them, and I felt a spot of satisfaction. Bis puffed up to the size of a Rottweiler, hissing like a demented cat as he tried to keep them out . . . failing. The softhearted kid wouldn’t hurt anything other than the occasional pigeon for dinner, and they knew it.

  “When the I.S. told me the baku had gone to ground at the church, this was not what I expected to find,” Weast said as he looked at Trent slumped in my arms, but I was more interested in the men and women surrounding us. Weast’s amulet began to smother my connection to the lines, pissing me off.

  “Get out of my church,” I said, pulling in the line as if it were sunshine. But the more I gathered, the less there was, and I finally let go, hating that amulet of his as I stared at him.

  Weast motioned for them to take us, and I lurched to my feet, grabbing Trent under his arms and backing up to find a wall. Hodin was gone, vanished like the chicken-ass demon he was. The bottle was on the floor, and I took it. Not that it would do me any good now. “Damn it, Trent, wake up!” I shouted, my pulse leaping when his eyes opened.

  “I was to be the leader of the dewar,” he said, and I dropped him in horror.

  Trent’s head hit the floor with a thunk. I scrambled back as he stood, hoping that I’d been mistaken. But it wasn’t Trent. Not really. And my heart dropped to my gut when his green eyes narrowed, the power of the boardroom tempered by a soul older than the pyramids. “I have what I want,” he said to Weast as he stood, and I quailed at the weird accent in how he was saying his vowels. “Leave me alone, and I will leave you alone.”

  Oh, God. The baku has Trent, I thought as Bis landed on my shoulder, his ears drooping, ashamed that he’d failed to keep the Order out. Trent had fallen unconscious, and the baku had taken him. Hodin had said that Trent’s aura was as tattered as mine, that he’d been fielding attacks. But I hadn’t thought . . . I never dreamed . . .

  “Truce?” Weast mocked, one hand holding a glowing rod, the other hovering at the butt of his unsnapped sidearm as we w
ere slowly surrounded. “It’s not that simple.” Weast looked questioningly at the agent checking Landon for a pulse, motioning him to drag him to the door when the man shrugged. “Morgan, take your gargoyle and get out of the way, or you’ll end up a zombie, too.”

  Trent a zombie? I thought as the ring of agents passed me and began to tighten their circle around a wary Trent. Not likely.

  Trent made a sudden dart for the last remaining window, pinwheeling back to avoid being touched by one of those glowing wands. Snarling, he threw a ball of unfocused magic, then lunged for an opening, only to fall back when more agents stopped him. Stymied, he swore in words that seemed to thicken the air. Power dripped from his fingers until Weast focused on him, his hand holding that glowing amulet. Angry, Trent retreated, his connection to the ley lines muted. Step by step, they tightened the circle, glowing batons forcing him back.

  It was like hunters around a lion, and I touched Bis’s feet on my shoulder, sickened.

  “What should we do?” Bis said, and I glanced askance at the agent still standing beside me.

  “Find Jenks. Tell him what happened. I’ll finish up here,” I said, launching him.

  The agent moved, but not fast enough, and I swung my foot up and slammed it into his head, knocking him into the wall and dreamland. When I turned, Bis was gone.

  I took a slow breath and looked over my church. The Order had Trent circled, their shouted words making him flinch and jerk. Turning him into a mobile prison for the baku wasn’t going to happen, and when Weast strode forward, fingering what had to be the curse to turn him into a zombie, I panicked. But when I pulled on the ley line, it slipped through me like water. How could I break his magic when the more I drew on the ley lines, the less I had?

  The Goddess, I thought, fear and excitement a thick slurry of hope. If I couldn’t tap a line, I’d get my power right from the source.

  “Ta na shay,” I whispered, afraid she’d hear me, afraid she wouldn’t, and with a trill of wild magic, a trickle of power seeped in, scintillating and untainted. The mystics were never far from me, the Goddess’s eyes always looking even if they didn’t recognize me anymore.

  Weast spun, one hand on his zombie curse, the other on his amulet, as he tried to dampen my hold on the line. But I wasn’t getting my power from the line. I was getting it from the Goddess, and I tucked my static-filled hair behind my ear. Her mystics didn’t recognize me. I was safe. I sent a silent thank-you to Hodin, then cursed him for leaving me here alone.

  My eyes narrowed on Weast. He was gripping that amulet as if it were a life preserver. It had to go. “Ta na shay,” I said louder this time, and the Goddess’s laughter chimed in my soul, scaring me as more power flowed, unchecked and building. How dare a singular think he can stop my mystics? flooded my thoughts, scaring the crap out of me.

  Ta na shay! I cried into my mind. See me, hear me. Lend me your skill. I took a breath. “Sisto activitatem!” I shouted, and with a finger snap, I flung Weast’s spell back at him.

  Weast cried out as the silver medallion broke in a flash of light, then ripped the line-dampening amulet from him and threw it. It slid to the waste drum, and with a whoosh, silver flames rose to lick the ceiling.

  Ticked, I rose to my full height, my hair a static halo from the Goddess’s mystics. Weast’s hold on the lines was broken, and Trent cried out in satisfaction as power flooded into him. Hair wild and eyes alight, he pushed the agents back, power dripping from his fingers as he howled in exuberance. My smile faded. I had to wake him up to give him even a chance to kick the baku out.

  “Ta na shay, non sic dormit, sed vigilat!” I shouted, hand extended as I funneled a massive amount of raw energy through me, scintillating as it took on my aura’s hue along with my intent. It was the elven wake-up spell Trisk had written in the margins of her journal, and it exploded from my hand in a visible wave. It would either wake him up or kill him.

  It hit them all, tumbling the Order and Trent alike along the floor, slamming them into the walls, where they groaned and lay still. The lights went out, and the flames in the waste drum hesitated before coming back all the brighter to light the sanctuary in a harsh glow tainted by new smoke. My ears were numb, but my heart leapt as Trent groaned, holding his head as he sat up. He was awake, and I gasped as I felt the lines redouble in me. Hodin’s curse was working.

  The baku was a smutty haze rising up from Trent, and I threw out my hand. “Rhombus!”

  My circle snapped around it, heavy and thick. The baku recoiled, its black shadow railing against its new prison. I could feel it through the energy I’d bound it with, tainting me with its emptiness as I ran to Trent, scared as I pulled him up to sit against the wall.

  “Trent? Trent!” I demanded as Weast and his men began to stir, then gave him a little jolt of raw ley line energy.

  He jumped, his hand going to his head as his eyes opened. “Did we get it?” he said, and relief flooded me at the hopeful expression in his eyes. It was him.

  “Not yet,” I said, but my hope that Trent might be able to help me bottle the baku faltered. I couldn’t do this alone.

  Or can I? I thought, imagining a sly laugh lifting through my memory. I looked at my hands, quailing at the faint pure glow playing about them like water where they touched Trent.

  I have an idea. My eyes went to the trapped baku as I let go of Trent and backed up. “Stay here,” I said softly. “I might have knocked you too hard, and I want to try something.”

  Trent’s head snapped up. “Ah, Rachel?” he warned, but I had already moved to stand between him and the three agents that Weast hadn’t sent to put out the fire. I could handle three.

  I want it in the bottle, I thought as I stared at the baku trapped in my circle, hanging in the sanctuary like a tiny eclipsed sun. Help me. Lend me your skill. But I wasn’t sure the Goddess was listening as I took the bottle from where the blast had knocked it rolling, carefully stepping over the somnolent spiral to set it at the center. Trent and I might not have been able to shrink the circle down small enough to put the baku in a bottle, but it couldn’t escape the spiral if it was in my bubble. Right?

  “God bless it, Morgan!” Weast shouted, a hand to his bloody nose as he turned from the fire in the waste drum. “What are you doing?”

  “Improvising,” I said, telling Trent with a look to stay back as I carefully worked my way free of the spiral. Hodin wanted me to stand up for him. The entire collective needed to be shown that they could trust the Goddess. I had to trust her now.

  “That’s not going to work,” Weast said as if I was being stupid, and giving him a smirk, I extended a magic-dripping hand, the memory of midnight drums echoing in my soul.

  The words to invoke the spiral were in my mind, burned into my very soul. Hodin’s curse was warm through me, and I saw Trent touch his chest, realizing that he felt it, too. “Tislan, tislan, ta na shay, cooreen na da,” I crooned, and with a trill of wild magic, the spiral blossomed back to life as raw energy from the Goddess filled it. “Tislan, tislan, ta na shay, cooreen na da!” I demanded, trusting her. See me. Lend me your skill.

  “What the hell?” Weast took a step forward, and Trent stood, wobbly but resolute as he warned him not to interfere. I was the demon. I was the song the lines danced to. I was the sword that the breaker of the worlds wielded to make reality from nothing. The drums beat for me, and I gloried in them, pounding wild into the night. With the Goddess’s attention, I could do anything.

  “You fool!” Weast exclaimed, his eyes on the glowing orb. “All you did was free it!”

  The two people trying to put out the fire in the waste barrel hesitated, and the fire whooshed up, lighting the sanctuary in an odd smoky glow. “Ta na shay. Tislan, tislan. Ta na shay cooreen na da,” I crooned, and the spiral glowed brighter, rivaling the new flames creeping up the church’s wall. And then I blew the orb with the baku into the glowing spiral. />
  “Get that fire out,” Weast demanded, then turned to watch, his hands on his waist as the bubble shivered, rainbows of aura traversing the globe as the baku looked for escape. I held my breath as the power of the spiral pushed against me, the drums wild in the dark, the power icing through my veins. But it held no sway over me. I was the drums. I was the music. I was the words.

  Become, I thought as the baku traveled the spiral and with a soft pop vanished.

  Elation raced through me. “It’s done!” I exclaimed, turning to Trent. “It moved on! Trent, we did it!”

  He was leaning against the wall with his eyes alight, filled with his pride and love. He took a step toward me, hands outstretched.

  And then I was pushed from behind as a silent wave burst from the spiral, sending the bottle spinning across the floor and knocking me down. I hit the old oak with a thud, panicking.

  “No!” I gasped as I spun to look, feeling betrayed as the baku coalesced out of the bottle like a dark shadow, free again. “I asked for your help. I asked!” I shouted as I bubbled the baku again and it beat at the enclosing circle. Damn her. I thought she’d help. I thought this would work!

  “I told you,” Weast said as his people began circling us again. “You can’t bottle it. You don’t think we tried that? You can spend all day catching it and dropping it in there, but it won’t stay. You can’t control a baku unless it’s attached to a soul.”

  “Then I will hold it,” Bis said as he suddenly dropped from the rafters.

  “What? No!” I shouted. But Bis scooped up the bottle, wings beating as he set it gently at the center of the spiral. “Bis!” I called, terrified, and with sorrowful eyes, he pulled the glowing ball to his chest, and . . . touched the glowing spiral.

  “No!” I cried out as he collapsed to the floor. Then I ducked, gasping as I hid my eyes from the blinding burst of light and sound that raced the spiral and vanished.