Hollows 11 - Ever After (47 page)

“Wear my ring,” Al said, his glove gone as he held out one of his wedding bands. I didn’t think he’d ever wear them again.

Trent reached for it, and Al closed his fist. “Rachel is the fulcrum upon which all things will shift tonight. You, Trent are bound to her. She and I are bound together. Only Rachel can focus both our strengths. An elf’s drive for justice, a demon’s lifetime of skills, and Rachel’s strength.”

I swallowed hard, flinching at a spark of energy cascading over our bubble. Al and I wearing his wedding rings? Now that I knew what they really were, it held an entirely different feeling.

“I’m okay with that,” Trent said, and a slow smile curved over Al’s face.

Al looked at Trent for a moment as he remembered something, then his eyes rose to mine. “I never thought I’d work with an elf—again,” he said, and he slipped his ring on my finger.

I wavered as his energy mixed with mine, Bis hissing as the strength of both men seeped deep, reading their own surprise as they found common ground within me. “Can I survive this?” I said, meaning to be flippant, but finding I really wanted to know. I was humming, overly full and both of them demanding I do something. It was too much. I looked past our bubble to see Newt standing next to Dali, watching without a hint of emotion showing.

“Prince of the elves, eh?” Al said as his heavy hand took my elbow and shifted me to look east.

“Yup,” Trent said, and I shivered as his music fell through my mind. I knew what to do with it. I had only to speak.

“And you are the world breaker,” Al said to Bis, and the gargoyle’s grip on me tightened.

“No!” he exclaimed, delighted. “Really?”

“And I’m your sword,” I added. I had once been Trent’s sword, too, when he was on his elf quest.

“You still are,” Trent whispered, reading my mind through the bond of the rings.

I sighed. “And what am I to you, Al?”

“My maid,” he said brightly. “Shall we do this?”

I let the bubble fall. We would meet the next day free, or dead.

Ku’Sox snarled at us, and I thought he looked like a dog. “The moon is rising! Rachel, face me and die!”

“Quite right!” Al said. “Make war when the moon rises. Make love when it sets.” He winked at me, and I gathered the line to me. “Ku’Sox, you slimy little worm!
Now
you will see what a demon is!”

“By the Goddess!” Trent cried as my knees collapsed and I fell, the serpent of black magic unwinding from my head. The power of the demon bands was twofold, not just each of us having our strength combined, but instinctively knowing what the other was doing. It was beautiful. It made us deadly. It was an ancient war machine. The rings were made for this. And now we had access to the weapons vault.

Chapter Thirty

U
p! Stand up!” Trent muttered, his tight grip on my arm pulling me upright. Dazed, I felt Trent steady me as Al metaphorically cleared his throat, opening up his arsenal of black charms stored in the collective more than five thousand years ago during the bloody war between his people and Trent’s.

Ugly black monstrosities rose and fell in my mind, charms to mutilate, break, and destroy by playing upon the base desires, guilt, and fears of another. It was numbing, and I felt the alien desire to crush rise up in me. Al’s presence was smothering.

I leaned on Trent and opened my mind to him.

With a whimper, we both fell as Al’s bearing sucked in Trent. “Stand up!” Al demanded, and we did, overshadowed and panting. It was getting easier to bear. “We have a worm to crush!” Al cried out, his eyes alight with the promise of vengeance.

“I’m okay,” I said softly, then lifted my chin, accepting who I was and the history of those who came before me. I may not have written these hideous expressions of hate, but I understood them, even as I shuddered at their monstrosity.

Ku’Sox didn’t have a clue or a prayer.

“Ku’Sox Sha-Ku’ru!” Al shouted, his voice echoing back from the broken earth. “Come forth and die!”

I took a deep breath as the painful, unharmonious jangle of lines merged into the collective. I felt Trent’s awe, and with the imaginary sound of sliding bolts and echoing thumps, an ugly curse grew as if rising from the depths. Al’s chanting pulled it into being, and I felt my face go ashen. It would do unspeakable damage, destroying Ku’Sox from his mind out, burning with endless fire and crushing his soul to nothing. That such things were possible seemed the worst kind of punishment.

“
Terga et pectora telis transfigitur!
” Al proclaimed, pushing out with both hands.

Trent jerked, and the energy of the spell pulled through me, burning my brain. The curse sped to Ku’Sox, unseen with a faint distortion as if the very air was recoiling from it.

Trent touched my arm, and I followed his gaze to the black haze coming at us. “Incoming!” I cried, and Al shoved me from him.

I fell on Trent, the ground slamming into us. A shimmer of a protection circle rose up, pulled into being by one or all of us. Al’s charm nicked the edge of Ku’Sox’s own circle, making an ear-numbing scream as it ricocheted to pinwheel erratically into a tall tower of rock.

I propped myself up on an elbow, jaw dropping when the mountain took the hit and collapsed inward, sucking into a loud bang that echoed to the black horizon.

“I’m not taking the smut for that,” Trent whispered, inches away as the demons watching applauded. We got up, shaken as we looked across the space to see that Ku’Sox was staggering but upright, grim faced and determined.

“You don’t really think water made the Grand Canyon, did you?” Al smirked. His circle fell as he flicked a ball of energy at Ku’Sox. The demons watching grudgingly applauded when Ku’Sox just as easily absorbed it.

“Throwing stones at each other is getting us nowhere,” Trent said, his expression more annoyed than anything else as he tugged his lab coat straight.

“And apparently the ever-after has an expiration date?” I prompted, looking at the east.

Al sighed dramatically. “You have a better idea?” he said, slipping into our bubble to sidestep Ku’Sox’s next attack. It hit with a muffled thump to make the earth tremble, and our circle quivered.

Trent frowned. “I do. Listen,” he said, and my eyes opened as wild magic blossomed in my thoughts. With the memory of drums and wildly dancing lithesome shapes, I felt Trent’s magic spill into me. It tingled to my fingers, and Al gasped. My hands clenched so I wouldn’t move as the foreign memory of an intoxicated swaying to a greater will filled me. It was magic from the elven war, magic that demons had never been able to best.

I felt Al’s stark terror melt into understanding, but Trent was lost to it, pulling everything to him, shaping it with no thought other than to build. I could feel the power growing with the strength of the sun, the certainty of the tides. A wing-lidded eye opened, purple and stark. It found me, and I shook.

“Bind it,” Al whispered. “Rachel, bind it! It’s wild magic! I can’t!”

But I could. The wild magic had acknowledged me. I owed it, and it would see me through so I could pay my debt. With the energy of the lines, I wove a resonance about Trent’s charm, binding it in a form that would find the one it was intended for and no other.

“Now,” I whispered, feeling it grow. “Now!” I shouted, severing Trent from the magic and shoving it at Al.

“
Ex cathedra!
” Al shouted to give our curse strength, and Ku’Sox cried out as it blew through his circle unimpeded. Ku’Sox fell to the earth, the elven curse crawling over him like a thousand green snakes, eating his aura, his magic. In my mind, I heard a chiming laugh.

“Bind him!” Trent called out, springing forward through our joined auras as if he had done this a thousand times before, and perhaps in his mind, he had. “He has no magic, but he can still run!”

I ran for the unmoving slump of fabric, not wanting Ku’Sox to turn into a bird and eat us, but I slid to a stop when Al popped into existence right over him. Expression harsh, he put a foot on Ku’Sox’s neck and leaned over him.

Trent was beside me. I could feel the auras of the surrounding demons, hear their harsh cries for revenge, taste their desire on the gritty wind. My heart pounded, and I watched as Al’s face twisted and he bore down, choking Ku’Sox with his foot. Elven magic had downed him, and I felt a growing fear in the demons, even as they urged Ku’Sox’s end.

Appalled, I watched as Ku’Sox pushed at Al’s foot, pounding at his leg, his face becoming red as he arched his back and struggled.

“You were a mistake!” Al exclaimed, and Newt’s androgynous form shoved another aside so she could see. Dali was beside her, and they served as stone-faced witnesses as they killed one of their own. “You were a mistake . . .” Al said again as Ku’Sox struggled, his fingers clawing Al’s leg until they bled.

“Trial!” Ku’Sox rasped, his eyes fastening on Dali’s.

I fixed my horrified gaze on Dali, seeing the demon clench his teeth.
Could he claim that?

“Trial! I have a right . . .” he choked out, hardly audible over the surrounding din.

Dali grimaced and bent his head toward Newt’s. “I think he said trial.”

Al’s teeth showed, and he bore down harder. Someone jostled me forward, and Trent pulled me back before I fell.

“I did!” Ku’Sox got out. “I have a right for a trial by demon!”

“He dies!” Trent shouted, his desire flowing through me by way of the slavers. “Now!”

I looked to the east, frightened when the angry mob of demons at my back began to subside into frustrated mutterings. “We don’t have time for a trial!”

But Al was moving his foot.

“Al! You want them to put him in jail?” I shouted, and his eyes met mine, shocking me with their hatred. It would have been better if Trent’s spell would have killed Ku’Sox directly, but elves apparently liked their prisoners alive.

“No.” Al backed up a step, Ku’Sox lying between him and Newt and Dali. “I want to fucking kill him. Slow had been my intent, but fast would have been acceptable.”

Ku’Sox was smiling wickedly as he sat up, scooting backward into the surrounding demons when Al made motions to kick him. “I’m a demon,” he said, his voice smoothing out as found his aplomb. “I have a right to a trial.”

“Let go of me!” Newt cried, wiggling in Dali’s grip. “Let go! I will kill him myself if you are all too
afraid,
and then you can put me on trial!” she shouted.

“Be still, Newt!” Dali exclaimed, but the haze in her eyes scared me, even as I wanted to see an end to Ku’Sox.

“Ah, I have an idea,” Trent said softly, his voice both musical and hard. “That is, if you are willing to listen to an elf. The one whose magic caught him.”

I turned to Trent, wanting to protest that it had taken all three of us to catch him, but I held my tongue when I saw the harsh light in his eyes, the chilling bone-hard expression of dealing out a harsh death. I’d seen it once aimed at me, and I’d almost died.

Newt jerked from Dali, breathless as she faced us, Ku’Sox slowly getting up between us. “I’ll hear the elf,” she said bitterly.

“An elf?” a demon from the back called. “We should kill him, too.”

There was a muttering agreement, and I stiffened. Trent’s chin lifted. The wind shifted his stringy hair in the moonlight, and Trent said, “If he was a thief in my house, his actions stealing the space I claim, the air I breathe, I would do a trial by Hunt.”

A chill lifted through me. Trent wouldn’t meet my eyes as he stared at Dali. Al was shifting foot to foot, and a murmur of discontent was rising around us like a hot wind. “You would hunt him down?” a demon at the front of the circle said. “As an animal? As your ilk did before we beat you off?”

It was true, then. The demons had been the slaves of elves before the tables had been turned. My new alliance between the elves and demons was falling apart before it could even form, and my heart pounded. On my shoulder, Bis tightened his grip, promising a quick escape, but I didn’t want to escape. I wanted justice. I wanted . . . the Hunt?

“I think it’s a good idea,” I said, my palms going sweaty as the memory of hate swirling in the demons landed on me.

“As they hunted us!” someone cried out, and Al winced. “Like animals!”

I stiffened when someone pushed me, and I stepped into Ku’Sox’s space. “Yes. Yes!” I said again, louder, and they quieted. “Like animals. And you proved them wrong.”

They shut up, and I turned to look at them, finding all eyes on me. “You are
demons,
” I said forcefully, “not animals, and the elves stand at the brink of
extinction
from the force of your correction. Is it not enough?”

Trent stood unrepentant in his lab coat. He could have been in a T-shirt and flip-flops, and he still would have looked noble—proud, determined, harsh, and taking the blame of an entire people that came before him.

“Let me go,” Ku’Sox said, his voice oily. “I’m a demon. I deserve a trial, not by some perverted elf tradition, but by my peers.”

I looked at him as a scuffling arose from the unsure demons ringing him; then I walked over to stand before him, my hands on my hips. “But you’re not a demon, Ku’Sox,” I said, smiling beatifically. A sense of satisfaction grew within me. “Every demon here, every demon still alive has been a slave, has been hunted, even me. And you have not. You have
never
felt the anger of being made powerless, controlled, bought and sold.” I stood, speaking now to those around me. “You have not,” I said softly. “You have not felt the unfair lash, been pissed upon by those who call you animal, underling, an object.” Al was thinking. They all were, and my stomach quivered.

“I think you need to
be
a demon before you can claim the right to a trial as one,” I finished, and Ku’Sox scoffed.

“You want us to let him go!” someone shouted. “He nearly destroyed the ever-after!”

I held up a hand. “You all nearly destroyed the ever-after by your cowardice. I can fix the lines with Bis. You’ve seen it. Ask your gargoyles. They’ve taught him the resonance of your lines. The proper resonance, not this jagged purity. I can have them whole by sunup. And I say, yes, let him go, but as you once were, not as you are now.”

The soft hum of decisions-yet-unmade started, and turning back to Ku’Sox, I reached out in my mind for Trent and Al. This was going to take all my finesse, and I didn’t have a clue how to do it. It would take wild magic to fix it to him, and ancient demon wisdom to find it.

You want to do what to him?
I heard an echo in my mind, the shock of understanding tagging the masculine emotion as Al’s.

Like this,
I said, eyes closing as a shimmer of my aura fell over Ku’Sox, tainted red from the ever-after. Ku’Sox stiffened, and as the memory of wild magic spun around and around in my head with the sound of fluttering wings, I showed Al a vision that he had shown me, a figure somewhat small, black as midnight, long fingers and toes, leathery wings, stretched like moonbeams. He would have an angular face, and wide black eyes, like Newt and Al now had. There would be long eyelashes, a small mouth, and whiskers, like a cat.

Al wove the charms at my direction, his shock and amazement making his attention skip and jump in mine. “My God!” whispered a voice, and I opened my eyes as the last of the charm melted away to leave Ku’Sox blinking up at us with large black eyes, looking exactly like I’d seen Al in his dream of blue butterflies.

“I had wings,” someone breathed. “I remember they shone in the sun and how cool they felt in the sand.”

“Black nails,” another said.

“I remember the taste of clouds,” came a voice from the back, soft and full of wonder. “Stardust in my ears.”

“What have you done?” Ku’Sox said, putting a hand to his throat when it came out in a mild, soft hiss. “What have you done to me?”

My head was down as I tried to separate myself from the spell, curse, whatever. Trent’s original curse denying Ku’Sox magic still held true, and he was helpless. He was a demon, the original form before mothers changed their children to make them stronger—into tools of war, images of man so well suited for it.

“Rachel?” Trent said, jerking me from my thoughts.

“I saw it in a dream of Al’s,” I said, looking up to see the wonder and awe in the faces around me. “Did I get it right?”

Trent shook his head in confusion, gazing at Ku’Sox as he tried to move, almost falling until he used his wing as support. “I have no idea.”

“Let me go!” Ku’Sox cried, his wings opening in alarm, and they all shifted back, stepping on toes and shoving those behind them until we stood in a wide space open to the night sky, ringed by silent demons. Newt was crying silent tears, trapped in a memory.

“Let him go,” I said, and all eyes came back to me as Ku’Sox felt his face in panic and tried to find his balance. “I say he has no right to claim demon law because he isn’t one. We hunt. If he runs far and fast enough, he can live with the memory of being hunted, of being a demon. He will deserve to live. But if he is caught . . .” I hesitated, seeing understanding trickle through them, reigniting their bloodlust. “If he’s caught, then kill him like the animal he is.”