"You!" I raged, my confusion vanishing as I saw the youthful, clean-cut features of the I.S. officer standing before the long conference table in Betty's basement.
Angry, I gathered myself and stood, hunched until I knew I wasn't going to hit the green-tinted ever-after over my head. I was on that low stage, standing in the middle of a large circle filling the cave of a pentagram. Greenish white candles marked the corners, which were hazy as they existed both here and in the ever-after. A tarry black sludge marked the limit of my cell. Horror trickled through me as I realized they had used blood to draw the circle, not salt. Damn it, I'm at the center of a black circle.
My gaze went to the crack in the wall, and I felt the assembled people draw back. There were six of them, including Tom Bansen. Music thumped in through the ceiling, a low bass that sounded like a heartbeat, and I thought I recognized it. The stench of bleach and mold told me Betty had been cleaning, but it didn't begin to push out the reek of ever-after I had brought with me. God, I needed a shower in the worst way.
Tom's eyes were wide as they took me in: my long duster white with ash and dried salt, my hair a tangled mess, and the dust and grit from the ever-after coating me. There were five men in front of him, all in those hokey black robes. Their hoods made them look like a joke, but these people had been intentionally summoning Al and letting him go, knowing he was going to try to kill me.
Furious, I took three steps, almost running into the arc of ever-after I was trapped behind. Claustrophobia clenched my heart and I took a sharp breath. "Let me out!" I yelled in frustration, feeling the energy cramp the muscles of my hand when I got too close. That had never happened before, even when I had been in someone else's circle. God help me, what had Trent's father done to me? I'd kill him. I'd freaking kill Trent for this.
"I said, let me out!" I shouted. I was helpless. For all my skills, I was completely helpless. The little pissant had me trapped with a stupid circle. "Let me out, now!" I said again, giving in and smacking the shield between us. It hissed and burned, and I held my hand to me as the pain shocked me to my senses. I was not a demon. This had to be a mistake. Al had said I wasn't one. My mom was a witch, and Takata was a witch, and that meant I was a witch. One who can kindle demon magic and be summoned with a name?
From behind the living wall of trembling acolytes, Tom bowed his head. "Of course, lord demon, Algaliarept, after the formalities have been observed. We have prepared."
My next snarl died, and I steeled my face to show no emotion. I glanced down at myself, then back at him. He thought I was Al in disguise?
A slow smile came over my face, which seemed to scare them more than my anger had. If they thought I was Al, they were going to let me out. After all, I had to go kill myself. "Let me out," I said softly, still smiling. "I won't hurt you." Much.
My voice had been low, but inside, I was seething. The FIB wanted proof that Tom was sending Al to kill me? Okay. I was willing to bet I was going to get it. Seeing me calmer, Tom bowed, still looking stupid. No wonder Al got off on being summoned. This was sickening.
"As you will," the man said. "We have everything you demanded." He gestured, and two of the men peeled off and went to the back room that I'd never looked into. "I apologize for the delay. We had an unexpected interruption last night."
"The animal control people? How pathetic," I said, and Tom paled. I smiled, enjoying watching him squirm. Al was right. Information was power.
"There won't be any more delays," Tom stammered, his underlings whispering among themselves. "Once you show us the curse, you may go."
You may go, I thought, stifling an angry snort. I'm going to go put my foot right up your ass, that's where I'm going to go.
The conference table had a drape of red velvet on it, but I hadn't noticed the three nasty knives, the head-size copper pot, or the three candles until the two outermost guys had left. The pot and candles were ominous enough, but the knives made my gut clench. They had everything but the goat. Nervous, I plucked the damp cuffs from my wrist as I had seen Al do with lace. My eyebrows rose when I realized the band of charmed silver was gone, and I reached for a line, finding it. Thank you, God.
"You don't care that I'm going to go murder one of your own?" I asked, fishing for the incriminating words.
"Rachel Morgan?" A hint of disgust crept into Tom's voice. "No. I thought you appeared as her again to taunt me. Kill her and I'll get a raise."
Son of a bastard... Anger burned, and I pointed at him, my scraped palm on my hip. "I showed up as her because she's better than you, you puking, stinking excuse for a witch!" I shouted, then drew back when the circle hummed a warning.
"We are unworthy," Tom said sullenly.
Yeah, like I really believed he thought that.
The door to the back room swung open, and I lifted my attention over Tom to see two men wrestling with a frantic, tied woman. My gaze darted to the knives and the bowl, then to her bandaged wrists and the blood on the floor holding me. Shit.
She was scared, fighting them though her ankles and wrists were bound with duct tape and she wore a gag. "Who is that?" I demanded, struggling to hide my fear. Oh, my God. She is the goat.
"The woman you requested." Tom shifted in his sneakers to look at her. "We had to go out of the city to find her. Again, my apologies for the delay."
Her bare arms were brown from the sun, and her long red hair was bleached by it. Shit on toast, she looked like me, but younger, her limbs lacking the definition of my martial arts practice. Her fear redoubled as she saw me, and she shrieked, starting to fight in earnest.
"Don't hurt her!" I demanded, then shifted my expression to one I hoped looked lascivious enough. "I like untouched skin."
Tom flushed. "Ah, we couldn't find a virgin."
The woman's eyes glistened with tears, but I saw the hint of fury in her. I quite honestly thought that Al wouldn't care if she was a virgin or not. "Don't hurt her," I said again, and the two men wrestling her out dropped her on the floor, standing with their arms crossed above her.
She looked like me. What Al had been going to do with her was sickening. Please let her be the first one.... "Let me out," I said, standing at the arc of ever-after. "Now."
The acolytes shifted with an excited tension. They wouldn't know what hit them.
"Let me out!" I demanded, not caring whether I sounded like a demon. Hell, maybe I was one. My head hurt, but I didn't touch it. Let this be a mistake. Let this all be a big mistake.
Tom looked at the woman, and the first hints of remorse at what he was going to allow to happen to her flickered in his eyes. But he turned away, greed pushing the guilt out. "Do you vow to show us how to successfully perform the spell we want and leave us unharmed, exacting your toll on that woman instead of those who called you?"
I vow you'll never see the outside of a cell again. "Oh, yeah," I lied. "Anything you say."
The idiots behind him smiled and congratulated each other.
"Then be free," Tom said with laughable showmanship, and with the six of them clapping once in unison to indicate their agreement, their collective circle fell.
I shuddered as the prickling vanished, realizing how much it had bothered me to be helpless like that. It hadn't been anything like being in Trent's cage.
The smarter acolytes backed up a step, reading in my posture that they were going to be hurting in the morning. I reached behind me to the splat gun, putting one foot on the circle so it couldn't be invoked anew. "Tom," I said, smiling, "you are so stupid."
His confusion showed, and when I brought out my gun, he jumped to the side.
I shot three of them before anyone else had the smarts to move.
The room seemed to flow into motion. Shouting in fear, the three men left standing scattered, looking like frogs with their silly black robes streaming behind them. The woman on the floor was crying behind her gag, and I shot over her as she rolled to her hands and knees and tried to get to the metal door at the stairway out of here.
A tingle of ever-after prickled through my aura, and I left the raised stage, heading for the nearest guy. They were setting a net, basically an undrawn circle that took three or more proficient ley line witches to hold. He was on his knees, wide-eyed and scared, and when he saw me coming at him, he increased the volume of his voice, screaming Latin at me.
"Your syntax sucks!" I shouted, then grabbed the copper pot off the table and threw it at him. Yeah, I was ticked, but if I didn't get him to stop talking, they might have me.
He ducked, and in the instant he was distracted, I plowed into him.
Yanking him up by his shirtfront, I drew back to slug him, my balance shifting forward when something hit me from behind. Yelping, I let go and stood up, trying to get out of my coat. It was smoldering, covered in green goo.
"Hey! This is not my coat!" I shouted, turning to see Tom winding up again.
The guy I had pulled up from the floor skittered away, and swearing, I remembered my gun and just shot the poor sucker. He dropped like a bag of flour, sighing as his nose broke and blood soaked the ugly carpet. Poor Betty. She was going to have to get out the Shop-Vac again.
The woman screamed, and I spun at the piercing sound. My look-alike had gotten her gag off and was curled up at the door with her hands and feet still bound. I could hear Sampson on the other side, yapping and trying to dig his way through. The sound of her fear dove to the primitive part of my brain and set my adrenaline flowing.
"Please let me out," she sobbed, trying to reach the knob with her bound wrists. "Someone please let me out!" She saw me looking at her, and she scrabbled harder. "Don't kill me. I want to live. Please, I want to live!"
I was going to be sick. But her fear turned to wonder, and her eyes tracked behind me. My skin prickled, and when her mouth opened in a little round O, I threw myself to the floor.
A small explosion shifted the air, and my ears rang. Pulling my gaze up from the damp carpet, I saw another puddle of green goo slowly sliding down the dark paneling, eating away at it. Damn, what had Al taught them?
I rolled, intuition telling me there was another one coming.
"You idiot!" I shouted as I leapt to my feet, cursing my habit of talking during fights and righteous sex. "You want a piece of me? You want a piece of this? I'll shove it down your damn throat!"
In an inexcusable act of cowardice, Tom pushed the last acolyte at me. The man fell at my feet, begging for mercy. So I shot him with a sleepy-time potion. It was all the mercy I had right now.
Pissed, I spun to Tom. "You're next, little man," I snarled, taking aim. I squeezed the trigger, and a sheet of green-tinted ever-after rose up around him.
I leapt forward, pinwheeling to a stop when I realized I was too late. Tom had reset the circle I had been summoned into, putting himself in its center. One of the candles had been knocked over, and it rolled off the stage, trailing melted wax and a thin plume of smoke.
The insufferable man panted, confused, as he put his palms on his knees to catch his breath. "You broke your word," he panted, brown eyes savagely bright. "You can't do that. You're mine." He smiled. "Forever."
Hands on my hips, I faced him. "If you summon demons, you lousy, stinking piece of crap, you'd better be sure the right one shows up before you let her out."
His face lost all expression, and he turned to the stage. "You're not Al."
"Ding, ding, ding," I mocked. "Give that man a prize!" Inside I was shaking, but it gave me an obscene amount of pleasure to watch Tom realize his life had just run full tilt into a pile of demon dung the size of Manhattan. "You have the right to remain silent," I added. "Anything you say I'm going to put in my moss-wipe of a report, and you'll fry faster."
Tom went a beautiful shade of green.
"You have the right to an attorney, but unless you're a hell of a lot richer than this basement looks, you're one royally screwed witch."
His mouth opened and closed, and his gaze darted behind me to the woman by the door. "Who are you? I called Algaliarept," he whispered.
My breath hissed in. "Shut up!" I shouted, hitting his bubble with a side kick. "Don't say that name!" It was my name now. Oh, God, it was my name, and anyone who knew it could pull me into a circle. What would happen when the sun came up, I couldn't even guess.
Tom stared. "Morgan? How did you...You killed Algaliarept! You killed a demon and took his name!"
Hardly, I thought. I took a demon's name and killed myself. Maybe Ivy had been right and I should have just tried to knock off Al. My demise might have been quicker that way. None of this lingering mess to deal with. "Not so tough without your wand, are you, eh?" I said, hearing an intercom buzzing somewhere, barely audible over the woman sobbing by the door. Tom had drawn himself straight, and I pushed on his bubble, appreciating not being burned by it. "Nice," I said, then, frustrated, I hit his barrier with my foot again. The man stumbled back, almost knocking into his circle and sending it down. I started pacing, limping around him as the intercom hummed. "Get used to it, Tom. You're going to be in a cage for a long time."
But Tom's look went crafty, reminding me he knew how to trip to a line. I stared at him, and his smile grew. He wouldn't. Al was his demon contact, wasn't he? He wouldn't risk it. Al would feel it and be on him in a second. But Al was in jail, so maybe it didn't matter.
"No!" I shouted, desperate to keep him from jumping. Steeling myself, I put my left hand on the barrier and pushed. I knew what it was now. I had taken his circle before, and with one candle missing, this one was compromised. I could do this. How am I going to do this?
My aura burned, and teeth clenched, I stared at him from around the lank strands of my hair, panting as I tried to absorb his power. Take control of the line he had tapped. All of it.
I felt something shift, as if the entire field had gone see-through. I looked at Tom. His eyes were wide; he had felt it, too. And then he was gone. His aura-laced shield of ever-after vanished and I fell forward.
"Damn it all to hell!" I shouted as I caught my balance. I turned, seeing that poor woman watching me, her sobs temporarily halted. The intercom was still humming, and I stood with my hip cocked and my good hand to my forehead. I could have had him, but I had monologued. Damn it, I was not going to do that again.
But the woman was still cowering by the door, and forcing a smile, I headed toward her, grabbing the smallest knife in passing to cut her bonds. The intercom finally quit buzzing, a blessed relief.
The woman's gaze widened in panic. "Stay away!" she screamed, scrabbling back. From behind the door, Sampson barked furiously.
The utter terror in her voice stopped me cold, and I looked from the knife in my grip to the bodies laying around. There was a sharp scent of ozone in the damp air, and the scent of blood. Her wrists were bleeding around the duct tape. What had they done to her?
"It's okay," I said, dropping the knife and kneeling to be on her level. "I'm one of the good guys." I am. Really, I am. "Let me get the tape off you."
"D-Don't touch me!" she shrilled, her green eyes wide when I reached out.
My hand dropped to my middle. I felt filthy. "Sampson!" I shouted at the door. "Shut the hell up!"
The dog went silent, and my tension eased in the new quiet. The woman's pupils were huge. "All right," I said, backing up when tears kept slipping down her cheeks. "I won't touch you. Just...stay there. I'll figure this out."
Leaving the knife within her reach, I searched for a phone to call for reinforcements. Someone's bowels had let go, and it was starting to stink. The intercom began buzzing again, leading me right to it. It was one of those intercom phone systems, and ticked, I thumbed the circuit open. "Betty, is that you?" I shouted into it, releasing some tension.
"Are you okay down there?" came her worried voice. I could hear the TV on in the background over the music. "I heard screaming."
"He's tearing apart that woman," I said, trying to make my voice lower and winking at the girl. Her whimpering stopped, and her green eyes were wet and beautiful. "Get off the damn phone! And turn the music down, will you?"
"Well, so-o-o-orry," she muttered. "It sounded like you were in trouble."
The line clicked, and the buzz of an open phone line hummed out. My gaze went to the woman, who was sniffing loudly. Hope was in her expression and the knife was in her still-bound hands. "Can I get the tape off you now?" I asked, and she shook her head no. But at least she wasn't screaming. Shaking, I punched in the FIB's number and Glenn's extension.
The ringing phone was picked up immediately, and Glenn's preoccupied "Glenn here" never sounded so good. I sniffed back a tear, wondering where it had come from. I didn't remember starting to cry. "Hey, hi, Glenn," I said. "I got Tom to voluntarily admit he was letting Al go to kill me. Even got a motive. Could you come over and pick me up?"
"Rachel?" Glenn gasped. "Where are you? Ivy and Jenks think you're dead. The entire department does."
My eyes closed and I sent a silent prayer of thanks out. Jenks was with Ivy. He was okay. They both were. I bit my lip and held my breath against the tears. A big bad-ass runner doesn't cry. Even when she finds out she's a demon. "I'm in Betty's basement," I said, keeping my voice low so it wouldn't warble and give away how upset I was. "There are five black ley line witches down here out cold, and at least one upstairs. You're going to need some salt water to wake them up. He tried to make some poor girl into a goat," I said, tears starting to flow. "She looks like me, Glenn. They picked her because she looks like me."
"Are you okay?" he asked, and I forced myself to stop.
"I don't know," I said, feeling my life end. "I'm sorry for dumping this on you, but I can't go to the I.S. I think Tom's doing this with their blessing." I looked at the last spot I'd seen him in, hatred briefly overpowering tears from the adrenaline crash.
"She's alive," Glenn said off the phone. "No, I'm talking to her. You got the house number? You got the number?" There was a crackle of static, and he was back. "We'll be there in five minutes," he said, his deep voice soothing. "Sit tight. Don't move unless you have to."
I slumped to the floor with the phone to my ear. I felt worse than the woman, who was chewing at her duct tape. "Sure," I said listlessly. "But Tom is gone. Watch Betty. She may look stupid, but she probably knows some nasty stuff." I felt dizzy. "Anyone who kicks their dog is nasty."
Glenn sighed in frazzled frustration. "I'm on my way. Damn it, I'm going to have to leave this phone. Talk to Rose until I get there, okay?"
I shook my head, drawing my knees to my chin. "No. I have to call Ivy."
"Rachel...," he warned. "Don't hang up on me."
But I did. The tears slipped down, cleaning the grit of ever-after from my face, but nothing could clean the shame from my mind. A demon. Trent's dad had made me into a freaking damned demon?
Miserable, I sat where I was with my knees to my chin. A light touch on my shoulder jerked my head up, and the woman, who had freed herself, jumped back. Her eyes were wide, and she was shaking in her jeans and red top. "I thought you killed them," she said, her gaze darting over the destruction. "They're asleep?"
I nodded, only now realizing what my attack on them must have looked like. Relief cascaded over her, and she dropped down in front of me, looking like she needed a shoulder to cry on but was afraid to touch me again. "Thank you," she said, shivering. "You look just like me."
I sniffed back my tears and wiped my face. "That's why they kidnapped you."
Her head bobbed. "You're stronger, though." Smiling, she flexed her bicep. Her smile faded, and she clutched her knees to her chest. "How did you get in that circle? You must be a really powerful witch." She hesitated. "Are you?"
My eyes shut and I clenched my teeth. "I don't know," I said, eyes damp when I opened them. "I really don't know."
