I dropped back, ashamed and embarrassed. Trent stood beside me, a protective gleam in his eye. “We’re a little busy. You think you could watch them for a bit longer?”
Al ran his eyes up and down me again in disgust before turning to the sink and the still-running water. “I see how busy you are. No. I have to go to work.”
“Work?” I echoed, surprised. Seriously? Then I pulled my thoughts back from how much damage a working demon could do. “We’re stuck here,” I said, gesturing. “You can’t leave them until we get back. It’s the babysitter’s creed. You have to wait until the parents come home, even if they’re late.”
Al picked up one of the bugs between two careful fingers. “Ellasbeth is there,” he said, as if the bug was a mic. “She’s a parent.”
“Ellasbeth!” Trent’s hand fell from me. “Go back! Stop them! Al, she filed for custody on the basis that leaving them with you is child abuse!”
Al spun, the bug in his fingers crushed to nothing as the sting of that soaked in. “Just. So,” he said succinctly, the pain of betrayal simmering in the back of his goat-slitted eyes.
“Al!” I begged him. “You can’t leave them with her!”
“I don’t f**king care, Rachel!” he shouted, and I stumbled back. “I am a demon!”
I lifted my chin, frustration making me reckless. “Liar.”
Al’s eyes almost glowed in the light from my mystic-powered globe. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Trent was edging toward me as Al came forward, and I stood firm. “Now either get your butt back there until we can get ourselves out of here, or get us out of here yourself!”
“Ah, Rachel . . .” Trent was wincing, and I stiffened.
Al was toe to toe with me, and my knees shook. I stared up at him, not willing to kowtow to him anymore. So I had mystics in me. I didn’t ask for them, and they were coming in handy.
“Get out of here yourself,” he said, and I stifled a jerk when he flicked a strand of my hair. “You are disgusting,” he said with a sneer. “Slimy with elf shit. Covered in them. How do you stand yourself?”
It wasn’t really a question, but at least he wasn’t throttling me anymore.
“And you should be glad of it,” Trent said.
Al spun to him, and I took a grateful breath of air when his eyes left me. “Glad?” the demon spat, and I swear the hem of his trousers shook with his anger.
“Yes, glad,” Trent said. “Landon is trying to shove the lot of you back into the ever-after and break the lines.”
A low growl of disbelief and dismissal came from Al. “Never happen.”
Trent eased forward to come between me and Al. “What if it did? The only magic will be Goddess based. You’d have to learn wild magic or stay helpless.”
Al’s eyes flicked to me, and I shrank back. Yep, I could do elven magic. So could they, but they’d have to admit that it was stronger than theirs, or at least more versatile. The chances of that were on a par with, say . . . us making it out of here alive. That is, possible, but only after a lot of hurt and effort. “You’ve made me late,” he said darkly.
“Hey! Al!” I shouted as he grabbed both of us by the shoulder, but he was only jumping us out, and I felt nothing from the mystics even as the shadowed darkness of the room seemed to fold in on itself, replaced with the brighter warm glow of Trent’s upstairs living room.
“Thank you,” I breathed, and then my jaw dropped. “What did you let them do?” I said as I looked over the mess the living room now was.
“Ah . . . ,” the demon said, clearly surprised as well.
Trent shoved Al’s grip off him. “Lucy? Ray!” he shouted as he darted into the nursery.
“Three seconds?” I said tightly, striding after Trent.
“Well, ah . . . ,” Al stammered.
“Rachel!” Trent shouted from the nursery, chilling me. “Call the switchboard. Tell them we need a med team.”
Shit. I shoved past Al to look into the once-cheerful room. Fear made my pulse fast, but the room looked normal apart from Trent kneeling beside Quen, prone on the floor beside one of the toddler beds. Memories of seeing Quen dying in a field after trying to protect the woman he loved flashed through me.
But Quen was still conscious, and a hand reached up to grip Trent’s shoulder. “We found them alone,” he said, pain-filled eyes touching on Al briefly. “Ellasbeth had a court order and eight magic users. Jon . . . followed them. He wasn’t hurt. Better than me, I suppose.”
Better? No. But he was more savage.
“Where?” Trent demanded as he helped Quen sit.
“He’s very upset, Sa’han,” Quen choked out, then touched his mouth to have his fingers come away red with blood. “That’s not good.”
“Where!” Trent asked again, and Quen eyed him with a hot, fervent gaze.
“If we knew that, he wouldn’t have to follow.” Quen winced as he got his legs straight and tried to get up. “Ahhhhh, that’s going to hurt tomorrow.”
Trent’s exhalation was loud as he stood, arm down to help Quen stand as he looked at me. “Did you call them?” he asked me.
“No.” I turned to leave, needing to dodge around Al. “Don’t you have to go to work or something?” I said bitterly. The girls weren’t in any danger, but it still pissed me off.
“Uh . . .” Al held up a finger in thought, but his confusion was coated with guilt.
“Whatever.” Was it zero for the switchboard, or one? I thought, not remembering in my panic.
I reached for the phone. Pain ripped through me, hard and fast. Gasping, I fell, the shallow stairs cutting into me as I landed. My breath came out of me in a pained groan. Eyes wide in agony, I could do nothing as my hand shook on the upper tile floor, outstretched for the phone and cramping as fire burned along my long muscles.
It was a curse, the same smothering black that had found me on the West Coast, now rolling over me with the unstoppable strength of waves against a cliff. A bright red seeped from a cut on my hand, the sharp throb hardly noticed over the spike driving through my head with each panicked pulse of my heart. The curse dove deep, the way easy for having been in me before. It was stronger, more focused, and I took a gasping breath, feeling it tear me.
“Rachel?” I heard Trent call, and my eyes found Al.
He was down as well, eyes open and glazed as he fought the same thing. Synchronized to the beat of ancient drums, we both clenched as the curse dug into our souls and began to pull.
“Trent . . . ,” I tried to shout, but it came out in a whisper. My eyes opened, finding the clock in the kitchen. Sundown. This was the elves.
My teeth clenched. “No,” I gasped, pulling my knees forward and inching toward Al. I might be able to fight this off, but Al . . . Al had no escape. “Not. Al!” I groaned, trying to get up the two stairs between us. My hand shook as it stretched out. Grasping. Reaching. I could not . . . breathe!
“No!” I said again, dragging myself forward until I finally touched his hand.
My breath came in cleanly, and I dove into his mind, finding the toehold the elves’ curse had. Not him! I said once more, wedging the curse out of him with the clear, pure energy from the mystics.
With a resounding crack, Al’s presence snapped from the elven curse. The how of it flew on wings of thought to the rest of the demon collective, and I felt them all break from it.
For an instant I hung in the demon collective, seeing them all as individuals, their fears, their pain, the tiny slip of hope they allowed themselves. Smothering them like a fog was the elves’ plan of how they were going to imprison them and break the lines, committing the entire demon collective to a slow, terrifying death as the ever-after shrank to nothing and finally vanished.
And then they realized that they’d escaped once more.
Rage filled me, not mine but no less potent. With one thought, the demon collective bounced the curse back into the elves.
No! I demanded, overwhelmed as the elves spinning the curse were struck by the demonic anger, swamping them and turning their magic against them, snuffing it out to send their intent coiling up like a plume of smoke from an extinguished candle.
No! Stop! I demanded as the demons gleefully rolled the elves about, disorienting them so they could affix the curse to them and shove them into the lines and oblivion.
I reached for a frightened presence, trying to save just one . . . But the elf fought me, thinking I was trying to harm him. Claws raked through my aura, and I had to let go. Stop! Stop this now! I demanded, and it was as if someone backhanded me, sending me flying into nothing.
“Rachel!”
My eyes flashed open as Trent touched me. Mystics swarmed over us, blanketing the fire in my thoughts. I couldn’t hear them, but they could hear me. Stop this! I screamed into my thoughts, and with the clean stroke of a knife-sharp thought, the mystics severed the demon collective from the dewar.
Beside me on the floor, Al gasped.
“Oh God, that hurt,” I breathed, then groaned when Trent yanked me to him, almost crushing me as he sat on the highest step and held me in his arms.
“Are you okay?” he said, fingers splayed behind my head as he held me. “They burned you! Look at me! Rachel, are you okay?”
He let go just enough to see me, and groggy, I peered up at him, wondering why my skin wasn’t red. It felt like I’d been burned. “’S okay,” I lisped. “I’m here.” I started to shake, cold though my skin burned. The mystics were thick. Everything hurt. “I’m fine. I’m okay. Look. I can tap a line and everything.”
I didn’t tap a line, but my hair floated as if I was, and the burn ebbed to a familiar tingle. “Where are the girls?” I said as I ran a thumb under his eye. For crying out loud, he was worried about me.
“With Ellasbeth, I presume,” he said, and my gaze flicked over his shoulder to Quen staggering out from the nursery.
Al picked himself up, stiffly tugging at his lace cuffs and brushing cookie crumbs off his crushed velvet. He was avoiding me even as he stood there, listing slightly. He had to see the mystics on me, making my skin tingle. Had the collective seen them? But how could they not?
“Thank God you’re okay,” Trent said, crushing me to him again.
“The girls,” I protested.
His breath came fast, and he held me tighter, so close I couldn’t see Al. “Ellasbeth has them, not a terrorist. We’ll get them back.”
Quen coughed, and I pulled back to see him leaning heavily against Ceri’s old high-backed chair. He held his ribs, and his nose was bleeding. “You are a poor babysitter, Al.”
Al opened his mouth to say something, and Trent gave me a little shake.
“How am I supposed to let you go off and do things when you might be pulled out of my reality like that?” he said, and I winced as his aura seemed to tingle through mine.
“I don’t feel very good,” I said, the sensation of being overly full making me ill.
Trent tensed when Al leaned over to peer into my eyes, his hands on his knees as his back hunched. “I’m not surprised,” he said dryly, giving me a final grimace before he slowly, almost painfully, walked down into the living room. “May I use your phone?”
Surprised, Trent’s grip on me eased. “Sure,” he said cautiously, and I took the tissue that Quen handed me.
“What does a demon need with a phone?” I said as I eased myself out of Trent’s lap and just sat there on the stair, heart pounding and wishing the mystics would go check on something. Anything. Would just leave me alone.
Al gave me an askance look, hesitated as he peered over his glasses at the phone as if never having used one before, and then began punching buttons. My nose was bleeding, and I dabbed at it. “Al?”
“What,” he said flatly, turning to stand sideways to me.
I cautiously brought up my second sight, relieved that it didn’t hurt. His aura was patchy but enough of it was there that he could do magic. Trent’s glowed with agitation, and Quen’s was dark with regret and guilt. “I’m glad you weren’t pulled back.”
He frowned at me, then turned his back on us. “Good evening. This is Al.” He hesitated. “Then why did you give me this number? You’d rather I just pop in?” he drawled suggestively.
Trent sat on the step with me. Leaning over, he whispered, “Who?,” and I shrugged.
“E-e-e-exactly.” Al looked back at us with an uncomfortable expression. “I’m informing you that circumstances require that I will not be able to clock in this evening at the required time.” I froze as Al’s eyes met mine for a moment. “As a matter of fact, I am, so I would appreciate it if my restitution would reflect that fact.”
Restitution? As in paycheck?
“Not long,” Al said, again looking at his nails. “Fifteen minutes ought to do it.” He smiled wickedly. “Thank you. You too.”
You could almost hear the silence crash down as he hung up the phone. “Where did you learn your phone etiquette?” I asked. My long muscles ached, and I rubbed at my calves.
Al fluffed the lace at his throat. “I had a craving for secretaries in the eighties until the hairspray began to catch in my teeth. Excuse me.”
Quen pulled himself upright, the tissue wadded up in his fist. “Take me with you.”
“Take you?” I said, becoming alarmed. “Where are you going?”
Al made a face at me, then looked at Quen. “Why should I?”