covencraft 04 - dry spells (15 page)

Sakkara’s words came back to her and Jade’s stomach rolled. She was on the other side of the portal. She was in the land of the demons. Demon land? Demon world? Did it have a name? She didn’t know. She was hot. She belatedly realized she was still in her running gear. She unzipped her jacket, waiting to feel sweat breaking out on her upper lip and in her hair.

“What did you do, Possum?”

Seth’s voice was lower and angrier than Jade had ever heard it and it made her eardrums cry out in pain. She winced, touching her fingers to one of her ears and finding dried blood caked on her lobes. Sakkara’s spell, curse, whatever it was had made her bleed from the ears and Seth’s voice was painful against the tender skin.

Suddenly, a hand gripped her by the arm and she was pulled roughly the rest of the way to her feet. She found herself face to face with a livid Seth. And he no longer looked entirely human.

He shook her so hard her teeth rattled and she nearly bit her tongue. “What did you do?” He had unnatural, rectangular ears, dark and almost velvet, sprouting from the top of his head. As he snarled at her, Jade caught site of a long, forked tail swishing madly behind him - whip-crack fast and looking as sharp as it sounded.

“I don’t know.” Her voice trembled and she pushed against him, trying to get some distance.

“You don’t know,” he repeated. His eyes flared for a moment, going impossibly gold before settling back down to their glittering, almost-black. His fingers tightened on her arm and she winced. “I dislike being pulled through a portal without warning and I certainly didn’t agree to it.”

“I was… Sakkara said… Is this the demon world?”

“Yes,” he spat, letting go of her with a slight push, sending her stumbling back, a sneer on his face. “Do you know how unpleasant it is to be yanked through without the proper runes? Or without a clue where you’ll end up?”

“I don’t…”

“You don’t know,” he finished, his tone cruel. “What did Mommy Dearest do? Send you here against your will?”

Jade nodded dumbly.

Seth rolled his eyes. “You’re all so insufferable. Humans.”

“Can you… can you take me home?” Okay, it was probably a bad idea to be asking for favors while she currently wondered if he was getting ready to permanently maim or kill her, but she really wanted out of the demon world.

His sneer faded and his eyes studied her. She felt like a bug under a microscope. If a bug had feelings. If a bug knew it was being catalogued and studied only to be torn apart. Then, he smiled. His perfect grin along with sharp white teeth and sudden expression change made her heart beat hard and fast in her chest.

“Why, yes. I can. For a price.”

Oh shit. Her heart sunk. Well, this was it, she guessed. After managing not to make a deal with Seth so far, she was going to have to agree to something to get home. Okay, she could do this. She could negotiate, but bottom line, she wanted to go home and didn’t have a lot of bargaining power. It sucked, but you played the cards you were dealt.

“I’m listening,” she said, forcing herself to meet his gaze.

Seth raised a perfectly curved eyebrow at her. “Well, well, well. You continue to make me proud. I expected tears or protestations at the least, but you’ve always been smart.”

“It doesn’t feel that way from where I’m standing,” she said.

He chuckled. “Very well, Possum. I’ll get you home. Although.” He glanced around. “I’m not altogether sure where we are. Could be difficult to get us out.”

“Why?”

“I told you, the physics are different on this side. I’m going to have to punch my way through. Normally, I’d have to be called with a demon summoning or find one of the weak spots I told you about - a place where the magic has worried away at the fabric of the barrier between our worlds. There may not be a spot like that around here. Not for a long, long way.”

“Could you find one?”

“Could I?” Seth answered her question with a question, watching her carefully.

“Uh, maybe? You could? Or?” She watched his face as he leaned in closer, prompting her with his expression. “Or I could?”

“Very good, Possum. You want to learn demon magic?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Lesson one: portal location.” He reached forward and grabbed her hand, tracing lines through the sky with it. A rune. He was making her trace a rune.

“Okay, make that rune?” she guessed. “And do I say something?”

“Click your heels three times and think of home.”

“Are you serious?”

“No.”

Jade frowned. He rolled his eyes. “Focus. You have to cast the rune perfectly. We don’t allow for sloppy magic on this side. Perfect angles. Pristine lines. And think of a portal. A veil between worlds. Think of the physics that must be involved. Force, mass, vectors. Everything precise.”

Jade nodded and began tracing the rune in the air, narrowing her thoughts. A portal. A doorway between worlds. Like a wormhole, or a transporter beam.

Something arced out of the air - lightening from the sky, touching her fingertips. It caused a painful jolt to run down her arm and felt like acid in her veins.

“What the fuck?” she cursed, shaking her hand out.

Seth pursed his lips. “It appears you’re not immune to the rules of this world. Pity.”

“You knew that would happen?”

He waved a hand. “Knew, suspected.” He sighed. “Magic over here has a price. If you can’t pay…”

“You get zapped? That fucking hurt!”

He shrugged again. “Don’t be dramatic. It could have been worse.”

The pain settled into her shoulder in a deep-seeded ache. “How?”

“Cut, or dismembered, banished somewhere else. It’s hard to say.”

“You could have warned me.”

“Why? We needed to know if you were immune.”

She shook her hand once more, biting her bottom lip. Fucker. “So what does that mean? No portal close by?”

“If there is, we can’t access it.”

“Sooooo, now what?”

He eyed her carefully, gaze narrowing.

“What are you doing? Why are you staring at me? What are you going to do?”

Seth smiled wider and she leaned her body back, away from him. “It’s not me that’s going to do anything. It’s you.”

Jade shook her head. “No. Fool me once, blah blah blah.”

“This is easy, Possum. I just need your power.”

“I don’t-“

“Understand, yes, yes. There’s a lot you don’t understand.” He waved his hand dismissively. “The good news is, you’ve got oodles of power. I’m going to use your magic like a battering ram and punch a hole through the barrier.”

“That sounds interesting?” Jade said, her voice trailing up like it was a question.

He laughed in amusement. “I’ll remember you said that when you feel like your magic is turning you inside out.”

“What? Wait a minute-“

“Now, now,” Seth interrupted, taking a step closer to her and gripping her arm again. She instinctively pulled back and he yanked her in closer. “That’s the deal. I’ve got the know-how, but the way is assuredly barred for demons. Keeps us in our place. Your magic might be the ticket out. Deal?”

Jade swallowed, but the lump in her throat didn’t move. She licked her lips as her eyes flickered to the foreign landscape around her. Everything was dry, desiccated and hot. Moments ago she’d been in the Preserve, in the cool winter air. She was relatively safe at the Coven. Or so she thought. At least, she hadn’t imagined she was in mortal peril. But here… everything looked strange and slightly wrong - like the angles of the world were off. She didn’t feel right. It was bright outside, like the harsh light of the desert should be, but she wasn’t sweating. In her winter running gear and with her adrenaline, she should be dripping by now. Her ears felt weird. Like they were packed with cotton and sounds should be muffled, but they weren’t. Seth’s horns, or ears, she guessed they were, sat atop his head, clearly visible for her to see, along with his tail. It swished behind him as he spoke, keeping a steady metronomic time along with his words.

This place was wrong - and right now, unless she made a deal, she’d be stuck here. With Seth. Her teeth ground together and she nodded.

“Out loud, Possum. I need to hear the words.”

“Yes.” She coughed, and had to try the word again, not even hearing herself the first time. “Yes, okay. Deal.”

“Wonderful.” Seth’s eyes glowed gold again and she felt a horrible, awful pulling sensation against her insides. She had a sudden recollection of sea cucumbers. About how they expel their viscera when in danger, leaving it behind for their enemy to feast on while they swam away to regenerate.

She imagined what she felt now was akin to what that odd creature felt as it regurgitated its innards. Her insides felt like they were being pushed and pulled at the same time, both motions her body was also vehemently opposing. Seth’s fingers tightened on her arm, much like Sakkara’s had when she’d sent Jade here. She couldn’t breathe. God, this was a horrible idea. Instinctively, she reared back from Seth, or tried to, at least. He yanked her hard against him, his mouth in a grimace and then he yelled something. Yelled at her, but his words were like Sakkara’s strange incantation and she couldn’t make sense of it. The force of his grip pulled her up onto her toes and she raised her hands, pressing them against his chest, trying to push away. Under her palms, his chest felt wrong. It wasn’t like skin and bone under her hands, but more like plasticine, left too long out from its container. Seth’s eyes glowed and she had to look away, the light of them burning her retinas. With a shout, he shoved her away, sending her sprawling on the sand, trying to catch her breath. Jade managed to get to a seated position, her legs stretched out in front of her. Her right shoulder burned, more cold than hot. She reached up and grabbed it, feeling something akin to nerve pain shooting down her arm. She didn’t understand what had happened. They were still where they had started out. In the demon desert.

“What did you do?” Seth said, just as he had before.

“Nothing! I didn’t do anything. Was I supposed to do something? You didn’t tell me that!”

Seth stalked toward her and she scrambled back like a crab. Something she was getting pretty good at given all the times she’d been doing it lately. Seth grabbed her jacket and tore the seam of the shoulder, ripping off the arm, sending feathered down flying.

“Hey!” Jade said, more an automatic reaction than a real protest. She’d be foolish to antagonize Seth while he was vibrating power. It came off him like an out of tune note, off-kilter and jarring. She could feel it in her teeth, in her bones.

His long fingernails tore at her long sleeved shirt and it suffered the same fate as her jacket - ripped from its seam and then yanked down her arm. He pushed the remainder of her shirt up and over her shoulder.

“You accursed witch!” Seth hissed.

His tone made Jade’s stomach roll over. She didn’t know what he meant. “I didn’t do anything, I swear.”

“Not you, Possum. Sakkara.” He spat out Paris’ mother’s name. If he’d been Bruce, Jade would have expected him to spit three times on the ground like an Eastern European Grandmother. Instead his lips curled into a snarl and he pushed Jade away from him. He reached up and tore at his own shirt, craning his neck around to look at the back of his shoulder. Whatever he saw made him curse again. At least Jade thought it was a curse. It wasn’t like she spoke the language he cursed in, but you didn’t always have to speak a language to get the gist of something.

Jade did the same as Seth, peering over her shoulder. Poking out from under the torn part of her shirt, she could see charred flesh. But that couldn’t be. She didn’t feel any pain there. Not hot pain, anyway. Only the cold persistence of nerve pain. She sniffed. She didn’t smell burning flesh either. She reached up and carefully poked at the surrounding skin. Nothing. She poked further. Nothing still.

“You won’t feel it in this world,” Seth said. She looked up at where he still stood over her. “I told you. The rules are different here. It might hurt like hell fire when you get out. If you get out. But while you’re here, your body’s nervous system doesn’t work the same way.”

“What is it?”

“It’s Sakkara’s insurance.” He rolled his eyes at her confused expression. At the rate he was doing that, they would roll right out of his head. “It’s a demon brand. It keeps you here until you’re done her bidding.”

“You have it too?” Jade asked, eyes flicking to his shoulder.

“Yes,” he ground out. “Because someone called me and grabbed me while she was still getting branded.”

Oh shit.
“I didn’t know that would happen.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Seth replied, his tone clearly conveying he thought she was a raving idiot. “I’m sure you called and figured I’d solve all your problems. Well, guess what, Possum. Now we’re trapped here.” He leaned over and flicked his forefinger on her brand, sending a shock of something down her arm. It was like hitting her funny bone. It didn’t hurt, but she definitely didn’t like it.

“No,” she said, pushing to her feet. “We can’t just be trapped here. There’s got to be some kind of magic you know or that you can do.”

He placed his hands on his hips and raised an eyebrow at her. “You know so much about demonology that you’re sure about that?”

Jade fought the urge to squirm under his glare. “Look, there’s just… I mean… I don’t…” Her throat made an aggravated kind of sound. She didn’t scream - she didn’t want to attract any undue attention with that. Although looking around at the deserted landscape, she didn’t know why she was worried about it. “You’re from here, right? I mean, you could…”

“What, Possum, what could I possibly do? Right now we’re in the middle of the desert on my side of the portal. It’s actually a lot like being stuck in the desert on your side of the portal. Unless you’re hiding a Ramden Sextant in your back pocket, we’re fucked.”

Okay, she didn’t even know what that was. It must have been clear from her face because Seth rolled his eyes at her again, epically. She didn’t think humans could roll their eyes that hard without detaching their retina.

“It’s the triangle-swingy thing you see on ships in historical movies.” He motioned with his hands and she nodded like she understood. He exhaled, pursing his lips tight and looking around. “Would you automatically know which way to go if you found yourself stuck in a desert on Earth?”