Every Which Way But Dead

I turned to the demon, seeing the thick black aura surrounding it and knowing a good portion of it coated mine. Then I looked at Ceri, hardly able to see her features, so strong was Algaliarept’s aura on her. She didn’t have an aura to combat the demon’s, having lost her soul to it. And that was what I had pinned everything on.

If I retained my soul, I still had my aura, smothered as it was under Algaliarept’s. And with my soul came free will. Unlike Ceri, I could say no. Slowly I was remembering how.

“Free her,” I rasped. “I took your damned aura. Free her now.”

“Oh, why not?” the demon chortled, rubbing its gloved hands together. “Killing her will be a banger of a way to get your apprenticeship started. Ceri?”

The slight woman scrambled up, her head high and her heart-shaped face showing panic.

“Ceridwen Merriam Dulciate,” Algaliarept said. “I’m giving you your soul back before I kill you. You can thank Rachel for that.”

I started. Rachel? I had always been Rachel Mariana Morgan before. Apparently as a familiar, I wasn’t worth my full name anymore. That ticked me off.

She made a small sound, staggering. I watched with my new vision as Algaliarept’s bond fell from her. The barest, faintest glimmer of purest blue rimmed her—her returned soul already trying to bathe her in protection—then vanished under the thousand years of darkness the demon had fostered on her soul while it had been in his keeping. Her mouth worked, but she couldn’t speak. Her eyes glazed as she panted, hyperventilating, and I leapt forward to catch her as she fell. Struggling, I dragged her back to my end of the circle.

Algaliarept reached after her. Adrenaline surged. I dropped Ceri. Straightening, I drew on the line. “Rhombus!” I shouted, the word of invocation I had been practicing for three months to set a circle without drawing it first.

With a force that sent me lurching, my new circle exploded into existence, sealing Ceri and me in a second, smaller circle inside the first. My circle had lacked a physical object to focus on, so the excess energy went everywhere instead of back in the ley line where it was supposed to. The demon swore, blown backward until it slammed against the inside of my original circle, still up and running. With a ping that reverberated through me, my first circle broke and Algaliarept hit the ground.

Breathing heavily, I hunched with my hands on my knees. Algaliarept blinked at me from the concrete, then a wicked smile came over it. “We’re sharing an aura, love,” it said. “Your circle can’t stop me anymore.” Its grin widened. “Surprise,” it sang lightly, standing up and taking the time to meticulously brush its coat of crushed velvet.

Oh, God. If my first circle didn’t hold it now, neither would my second. I had thought that might happen. “Ceri?” I whispered. “Get up. We have to move.”

Algaliarept’s eyes tracked behind me to the hallowed ground that surrounded us. My muscles tensed.

The demon leapt. Shrieking, I jerked Ceri and myself backward. The surge of ever-after flowing into me from breaking the circle was almost unnoticed. My breath was knocked from me as we hit the ground, Ceri on top of me. Still not breathing, I sent my heels scrabbling against the snow and pushed us farther away. The gold-colored trim on Ceri’s ball gown was rough under my fingers, and I yanked her to me until I was sure we were both on holy ground.

“Damn you all to hell!” Algaliarept shouted from the edge of the cement, furious.

I got up, shaking. My breath caught, and I stared at the frustrated demon.

“Ceri!” the demon demanded, and the scent of burnt amber rose when it set its foot across the unseen barrier and jerked it back. “Push her at me! Or I’ll blacken your soul so badly that your precious god won’t let you in no matter how you beg it!”

Ceri moaned, clutching my leg as she huddled, hiding her face, trying to overcome a thousand years of conditioning. My face grew tight from anger. This would have been me. This still could be me. “I won’t let it hurt you anymore,” I said, one hand dropping to touch her shoulder. “If I can stop it from hurting you, I will.”

Her grip on me shook, and I thought she seemed like a beaten child.

“You’re my familiar!” the demon shouted, spittle flying from it. “Rachel, come here!”

I shook my head, colder than the snow warranted. “No,” I said simply. “I’m not going into the ever-after. You can’t make me.”

Algaliarept choked in disbelief. “You will!” it thundered, and Ceri clutched my leg tighter. “I own you! You’re my bloody familiar. I gave you my aura. Your will is mine!”

“No, it isn’t,” I said, shaking inside. It was working. God save me, it was working. My eyes warmed, and I realized I was almost crying from relief. It couldn’t take me. I might be its familiar, but it didn’t have my soul. I could say no.

“You’re my familiar!” it raged, and Ceri and I both cried out as it tried to cross into holy ground and yanked itself back again.

“I’m your familiar!” I yelled back, frightened. “And I say no! I said I’d be your familiar and I am, but I’m not going into the ever-after with you, and you can’t make me!”

Algaliarept’s goat-slitted eyes narrowed. It stepped back, and I stiffened as its anger chilled. “You agreed to be my familiar,” it said softly, smoke curling up from its shiny, buckled boots as they edged the circle of blasphemed ground. “Come here now, or I’ll call our agreement breached and your soul will be mine by default.”

Double jeopardy. I knew it would come to this. “I’ve got your stinking aura all over me,” I said as Ceri quivered. “I’m your familiar. If you think there’s been a breach in contract, then you get someone out here to judge what happened before the sun comes up. And take one of these damned demon marks off me!” I demanded, holding my wrist out.

My arm shook, and Algaliarept made an ugly noise, deep in its throat. The long exhalation set my insides to quiver, and Ceri ventured to peek at the demon. “I can’t use you as a familiar if you’re on the wrong side of the lines,” it said, clearly thinking aloud. “The binding isn’t strong enough—”

“That’s not my problem,” I interrupted, legs shaking.

“No,” Algaliarept agreed. It laced its white-gloved hands behind its back, its gaze dropping to Ceri. The deep fury in its eyes scared the crap out of me. “But I’m making it your problem. You stole my familiar and left me with nothing. You tricked me into letting you slip payment for a service. If I can’t drag you in, I’ll find a way to use you through the lines. And I will never let you die. Ask her. Ask her of her never-ending hell. It’s waiting for you, Rachel. And I’m not a patient demon. You can’t hide on holy ground forever.”

“Go away,” I said, my voice trembling. “I called you here. Now I’m telling you to leave. Take one of these marks off me and leave. Now.” I had summoned it, and therefore it was susceptible to the rules of summoning—even if I was its familiar.

It exhaled slowly, and I thought the ground moved. Its eyes went black. Black. Black, black, then blacker still. Oh, shit.

“I’ll find the way to make a strong enough bond with you through the lines,” it intoned. “And I’ll pull you through, soul intact. You walk this side of the lines on borrowed time.”

“I’ve been a dead witch walking before,” I said. “And my name is Rachel Mariana Morgan. Use it. And take one of these marks off of me or you forfeit everything.”

I’m going to get away with it. I outsmarted a demon. The knowledge was heady, but I was too frightened for it to mean much.

Algaliarept gave me a chilling look. Its gaze dropped to Ceri, then it vanished.

I cried out as my wrist flamed, but I welcomed the pain, hunched as I held my demon-marked wrist with my other hand. It hurt—it hurt as if the dogs of hell were chewing on it—but when my blurred vision cleared, there was one scared line crossing the welted circle, not two.

Panting through the last of the pain, I slumped, my entire body collapsing in on itself. I pulled my head up and took a clean breath, trying to unknot my stomach. It couldn’t use me if we were on opposite sides of the ley lines. I was still myself, though I was coated with Algaliarept’s aura. Slowly my second sight faded and the red smear of the ley line vanished. Algaliarept’s aura was getting easier to bear, slipping almost into an unnoticed sensation now that the demon was gone.

Ceri let go of me. Reminded of her, I bent to offer her a hand up. She looked at it in wonder, watching herself as she put a thin pale hand in mine. Still at my feet, she kissed the top of it in a formal gesture of thanks.

“No, don’t,” I said, turning my hand to grip hers and pull her upright and out of the snow.

Ceri’s eyes filled and spilled over as she silently wept for her freedom, the well-dressed, abused woman beautiful in her tearful, silent joy. I put my arm around her, giving her what comfort I could. Ceri hunched over and shook all the harder.

Leaving everything where it was and the candles to go out on their own, I stumbled to the church. My gaze was fixed to the snow, and as Ceri and I made two trails of footprints over the one leading out here, I wondered what on earth I was going to do with her.

Two (#u501e15e7-86a2-5b87-8582-3daeb4ea34d7)

We were halfway to the church before I realized Ceri was walking barefoot in the snow. “Ceri,” I said, appalled. “Where are your shoes?”

The crying woman made a rough hiccup. Wiping her eyes, she glanced down. A red blur of ever-after swirled about her toes, and a pair of burnt embroidered slippers appeared on her tiny feet. Surprise cascaded over her delicate features, clear in the porch light.

“They’re burned,” I said as she shook them off. Bits of char stuck to her, looking like black sores. “Maybe Big Al is having a tantrum and burning your things.”

Ceri silently nodded, a hint of a smile quirking her blueing lips at the insulting nickname I used so I wouldn’t say the demon’s name before those who didn’t already know it.

I pushed us back into motion. “Well, I’ve got a pair of slippers you can wear. And how about some coffee? I’m frozen through.” Coffee? We just escaped a demon, and I’m offering her coffee?

She said nothing, her eyes going to the wooden porch that led to the living quarters at the back of the church. Her eyes traveled to the sanctuary behind it and the steeple with its belfry. “Priest?” she whispered, her voice matching the iced-over garden, crystalline and pure. “No,” I said as I tried not to slip on the steps. “I just live here. It’s not a real church anymore.” Ceri blinked, and I added, “It’s kinda hard to explain. Come on in.”

I opened the back door, going in first since Ceri dropped her head and wouldn’t. The warmth of the living room was like a blessed wave on my cold cheeks. Ceri stopped dead in the threshold when a handful of pixy girls flew shrieking from the mantel above the empty fireplace, fleeing the cold. Two adolescent pixy boys gave Ceri a telling glance before following at a more sedate pace.