The Curse Servant (The Dark Choir Book 2) (43 page)

Tyrel’s arm dropped down on Carmody’s gun hand, and he slammed his shoulders into Carmody’s ribs.

Wren twisted in Carmody’s grip, shrieking as she wrenched her hair free.

Tyrel and Carmody careened across the kitchen, smashing into a door jamb on their way to the floor. I backed away and watched as the gun emerged from the two-man pile with two sets of hands gripping it. Tyrel had slipped the meat of his thumb over the hammer, though he grunted as Carmody lifted his knee repeatedly into his side.

Edgar slid past my legs and clamped his fingers over the revolver chamber. He wrestled with the gun with a series of quick jerks, but couldn’t pry it from Carmody’s hand. He shook his head with enough violence to send his spectacles flying across the floor, and with a ferocious baring of teeth, bit down hard onto Carmody’s wrist.

Carmody yelped, and finally the gun released. Edgar pulled away and rolled back into the refrigerator, the gun in his hands.

Tyrel pulled his sledgehammer hands around to Carmody and gave him two quick jabs, sending his head back onto the kitchen tile with loud claps. Carmody went limp, and after looming over him for a minute, Tyrel stood up, panting.

I put a hand on Tyrel’s shoulder. “Thanks, T. You’re getting a God damn fruit basket for Christmas.”

He gave me a satisfied nod.

I checked Edgar, still cradling the gun like a live grenade. He was trembling, refusing to look up from the floor. It was going to take a moment before he’d return to us, I imagined.

And Wren? She stood near the kitchen table, oddly stiff. She stared down at Carmody with intensity. It wasn’t until she lunged forward that I spotted the chef’s knife in her hand. I flung myself across the table and reached for her arm as she slashed down at Carmody’s face. I jerked her arm back, and the knife stopped just short of his nose. Tyrel reached in and helped me hold Wren, who was growling like an animal.

“Get off me!” she snarled. “I’m gonna kill him!”

“Wren, no. This isn’t your way.”

“He did this! He has to pay!”

“He will,” I whispered. “But you can’t kill someone. Not anyone. The price is just too high, Wren.”

She loosened in our grip, and Tyrel let her go. I fished the knife out of her hand and handed it over to Tyrel. Tears streamed down her face as she grimaced.

“Why, Dorian? Why can’t we ever win?”

“We will.” I guided Wren to her feet and looked down at Carmody’s unconscious frame.

Tyrel shifted uncomfortably nearby. I saw where this was going, and Tyrel needed to leave before he became an accessory to something.

“T?” I muttered. “Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but you might want to bounce.”

He nodded and gave me a solid slap on the shoulder before slipping out the kitchen door.

Wren looked up at me in perfect grief. “What about Elle?”

Edgar mumbled, “Get more blood. We can still do the Curse.”

I looked over to Edgar, now fumbling across the floor for his glasses.

“I don’t need it anymore,” I answered, then turned to the front room. “Isn’t that right, Quinn?”

Gillette stood in the kitchen doorway, surveying the scene spread before her. Her eyes hovered in jerking motions, but her face was focused tight on Carmody’s frame on the floor.

She replied, “Are you changing our arrangement again?”

“Yes, I am. You take the servitor out of Elle, and we hand Carmody over to you.”

She crouched down and stared at Carmody’s face.

“Come on, Gillette. This is what you really wanted. You were settling for a curse, but given the choice, wouldn’t you rather take him home with you? Get really creative?”

Gillette looked Carmody over, then stood back up. “Agreed.”

I reached down to give Wren a hand. She dried her face on her sleeve and took my hand. Then, with a sudden, fierce motion she pulled her foot up and smashed it across Carmody’s jaw.

“There,” she panted. “I feel better.”

Edgar helped me fasten Carmody’s wrists and ankles with some plastic zip-ties I kept in a drawer, and tied him to one of the kitchen chairs. Carmody was secured, and the outsiders were out the door. I was left with the Swains and Gillette.

And one servitor about to become homeless.

led everyone down into the work room, Edgar carrying Elle in his arms. I spread them out around the tight space, ensuring Gillette had enough room to do her work. I cleared the curse materials from the table and helped Edgar sit Elle on its surface. It wasn’t large enough for her to lie down, so I stood behind her and held her shoulders steady as she bobbed and swayed. Edgar lifted the charm from around her neck, and returned to Wren’s side, holding her hand.

Gillette gave everyone a solid hand gesture to stay where they were, which was utterly unnecessary. I kept my focus tight as she turned to Elle. She was pliant in my hands; I could guide her forward or backward as Gillette made several waves of her hand to the sides of Elle’s face. Gillette’s energy snaked out of her body, rushing across the work table in waves. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect it was the typical energy pattern of an untrained novice who hadn’t learned yet how to center properly. But as the energy pushed and pulled into and out of Elle’s body, I recognized the gentle pressure it was putting at the base of her mainline.

A subtly cyclonic motion formed in the room, pulling up at the center of Elle’s crown chakra. This was slow, deliberate work, and I respected it. Emil had drilled into my brain the value of slow pressure when it came to sharp-edged magics. And as I observed and palpated Gillette’s procedure, I recognized that this was a working for which I was utterly unqualified. It was no wonder Ches had utterly ruined this thing simply by creating it.

The ebb and flow of the extraction energy was nearly mesmerizing. My grip on Elle’s shoulders loosened, and she twisted on the table and swung a foot at Gillette. The servitor was indeed awake and aware, and the gravity of the moment had settled on whatever passed for its mind. Gillette parried the kick with preternatural ease as if she had read the shift in energy before the kick was thrown. I re-secured my grip on Elle’s shoulders, receiving a pointed glare from Gillette.

A rumbling gurgle bubbled up from Elle’s throat as the energy in the room tightened. Tiny fingers slashed out against my arms, but I held them fast. The gurgle blossomed into a scream. I gave the Swains a warning look. To their credit, they were holding their ground.

Gillette reached out and planted her palm on Elle’s forehead, her face adopting a menacing glare.

“The trap?” she grunted.

“Hmm?”

“You wanted this thing?”

“It’s time?”

“Quickly.”

I nodded Edgar over to take Elle in his hands while I withdrew to the bottom of my worktable. I had an old perfume bottle handy, a trinket I’d picked up on one of my travels. I had never actually planned on trapping a soul in the damned thing. It was just one of those things practitioners owned. And yet here I was, ready to drop a living servitor directly into the tiny blown glass vial.

“Anything I need to do with this?” I asked Gillette, brandishing the bottle near my face.

“Is it consecrated?”

I wiggled the bottle again.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Never mind. It was just a thought.”

Gillette sighed. “Do you have any quicksilver? Sandalwood?”

“Sandalwood I got. Mercury is toxic, so no go on that one. Look, if it’s an issue, just kill the thing.”

“No, no,” she growled. “You wanted it, we can do this. I can hold it for now.” Gillette looked over her shoulder at my racks of reagents, now stacked one on top of another to make room for the guests. “Clear the glass with frankincense.”

I jumped to the rack and ran a finger along the clear mason jars until I found the tiny nuggets of resin I was looking for.

“Got it.” I fished out a single tiny crumb of frankincense and dropped it into the bottle, following that with some grapeseed oil. I spun the oil along the interior of the bottle, the nugget of resin swirling it top to bottom. I could feel the Veil thickening around the glass. Satisfied it was thoroughly cleared of latent energies and now fortified against spiritual permeability, I emptied the oil and the resin into the leftover slag inside my cauldron. “Now what?”

“Thinking,” Gillette mumbled.

Elle kicked again, landing a solid strike to the inside of Gillette’s thigh. She exhaled hard, and cleared her throat.

“Rosemary,” Edgar offered.

“Rosemary?” I echoed.

“Strong protection reagent,” he explained. “Creates a barrier along the interior of the Veil. Plus it acts as a memory inducer thereby creating a cycling memory state for the entity―”

“―which keeps it docile while in storage. Jesus, it’s so simple, it’s brilliant.”

Gillette grunted, “So, now would be good.”

I fished out a couple rosemary needles from another jar and dropped them into the bottle. The oil wasn’t thick enough to swirl. In fact, it only served to stick the needles to the side of the bottle. I fished them around the best I could, and as I reached for more grapeseed oil Gillette sighed.

“Good enough. Bring it here.”

I handed the vial to Gillette, who took it in her free hand. Her other hand maintained its hold on Elle’s forehead.

Elle’s eyes swished left to right, and when they found me, they pulled up in the middle. It was panic. I couldn’t tell whose… Elle’s or the servitor’s.

Gillette huffed three times in a row, and her energy rushed out of her crown chakra, cascading over Elle’s body. With a clench of her fist over Elle’s bangs, the energy shifted, almost crystallizing over Elle’s body.

“
Exu-de
,” she chanted in a near-baritone. “
Exu-de. Exu-de
.”

Elle’s body spasmed. Choking noises filled the room, and her hands flew up to her throat.

“Hold her!” Gillette bellowed.

I reached for one arm, and Edgar gripped the opposite from behind.

Gillette continued her mantra as Elle’s face contorted into a mask of desperation. Elle’s throat throbbed, likely from her gagging and gasping, though it wasn’t hard to imagine something writhing up through her windpipe.

“Her lips are turning blue,” Wren cried from the corner.

“Almost over,” Gillette stated. “
Exu-de! Exu-de!”

Elle’s spine stiffened, then wrenched backward, pulling her head away from Gillette’s hand. Her eyes blinked rapidly behind her, searching Edgar for some kind of intervention. Her mouth drew open, gaping as hot breaths lashed out into the air. Gillette held the vial above her mouth.

With one final shift, releasing the hardened energy into something blazing hot like molten lava, Gillette shouted, “
Kata tropho
!”

I nearly blacked out from the incantation. It was as if the gravity in the room shifted to the ceiling and back again. Something sprayed against my face. It could have been spittle, possibly blood if we were very unlucky. Elle’s hand went limp in mine, and her body fell back onto Edgar, sending us both sprawling behind the work table to keep her from dropping to the floor.

The single bulb light hanging in the work space flickered, settling back to a steady glow as I caught my balance.