Every Which Way But Dead (32 page)

Hand clutching my hair, I scrambled to my feet. “Stop it! Just stop it!” I shouted, alternating my attention between his glee and the chunk he had cut from my hair. Damn it, it was at least four inches long. “Do you know how long it takes to grow my hair out!”

Al gave Ceri a sidelong glance as the scissors disappeared and he dropped my hair into the potion. “She's worried about her hair?”

My gaze shot to the red strands floating on top of Al's brew, and as I stood there in my soggy sweater, I went cold. That vat of potion wasn't for Al to give me more of his aura. It was for me giving him mine. “Oh, hell no!” I exclaimed, backing up. “I'm not giving you my aura!”

Al plucked a ceramic spoon from the rack hanging over the center island counter and pushed the strands of hair down. He had a refined elegance in his velvet and lace, every inch of him as trim and debonair as inhumanly possible. “Is that a refusal, Rachel?” he murmured. “Please tell me it was?”

“No,” I whispered. There was nothing I could do. Nothing.

His smile went wider. “Now your blood to quicken it, love.”

Pulse pounding, I looked from the needle between his finger and thumb to the vat. If I ran, I was his. If I did this, he could use me through the lines. Damn, damn, and double damn.

Numbing my thoughts, I took the tarnished silver needle. My mouth went dry as its heavy weight filled my grip. It was as long as my palm and elaborately tooled. The tip was copper so the silver wouldn't interfere with the charm. Peering closer, I felt my stomach turn. There was a naked twisted body writhing around the barrel. “God save me,” I whispered.

“He's not listening. He's too busy.”

I stiffened. Al had come up behind me and was whispering in my ear.

“Finish the potion, Rachel.” His breath was hot on my cheek, and I couldn't move as he pulled my hair back. A shudder rippled through me as he tilted his head and bent closer. “Finish it…” he breathed, his lips brushing my skin. I could smell starch and lavender.

Teeth gritted, I gripped the needle and stabbed it into me. My held breath came out, and I held it again. I thought I heard Ceri crying.

“Three drops,” Al whispered, nuzzling my neck.

My head hurt. Blood pounding, I held my finger over the vat and massaged three drops into it. The scent of redwood rose, briefly overpowering the cloying stench of burnt amber.

“Mmmm, richer.” His hand wrapped around mine, taking the needle back. It vanished in a smear of ever-after, and his grip shifted to my bleeding finger. “Give me a taste?”

I jerked back as far from him as I could, my arm stretched out between us. “No.”

“Leave her alone!” Ceri pleaded.

Slowly Al's grip loosened. He watched me, a new tension rising in him.

I wrestled my hand away and put another step between us. I clutched my arms about me, cold despite the heater blowing on my bare feet.

“Get on the mirror,” he said, his face expressionless behind his smoked glasses.

My gaze shot to it waiting for me on the floor. “I—I can't,” I whispered.

His thin lips pressed together, and I gritted my teeth to keep silent when he picked me up and set me on it. I inhaled, eyes widening when I felt like I slipped two inches into the mirror. “Oh God, oh God,” I moaned, wanting to reach for the counter, but Al was in the way, grinning.

“Push your aura off,” he said.

“I can't,” I panted, feeling myself hyperventilate.

Al pulled his glasses down his thin nose and looked at me over them. “Doesn't matter. It's dissolving like sugar in the rain.”

“No,” I whispered. My knees started shaking and the pounding in my head worsened. I could feel my aura slipping away and Al's taking a stronger hold on me.

“Capital and fine,” Al said, his goat eyes on the mirror.

My gaze followed his, and I clutched at my stomach. I could see myself in it. My face was covered in Al's aura, black and empty. Only my eyes showed, a faint glow flickering about them. It was my soul, trying to make enough aura to put between Al's aura and me. It wasn't enough as the mirror sucked it all up and I could feel Al's presence sink into me.

I found I was panting. I imagined what it must have been like for Ceri, her soul utterly gone and Al's aura seeping into her like this all the time, alien and wrong.

I shook. Hands clasped over my mouth, I looked frantically for something to throw up in. Gagging, I lurched off the mirror. I would not spew. I wouldn't.

“Marvelous,” Al said as I hunched over, my teeth clenched and my bile rising. “You got all of it. Here. I'll just slip it into the vat for you.”

His voice was cheery and bright, and as I peered at him from around my hair, Al dropped the mirror into the potion. The brew flashed to clear. Just like I knew it would.

Ceri was sitting on the floor, crying with her head on her knees. She pulled her head up, and I thought she looked all the more beautiful for her tears. I only looked ugly when I cried.

I jumped when a thick yellowed tome hit the counter beside me. The light through the window was starting to brighten, but the clock said it was only five. Almost three hours before the sun would rise to end this nightmare, unless Al ended it sooner.

“Read it.”

Looking down, I recognized it. It was the book I had found in my attic, the one that Ivy claimed wasn't among the ones she planted up there for me, the very same one that I had given to Nick to hold for me after I accidentally used it to make him my familiar and the same book that Al had tricked away from us. The one Algaliarept wrote to make people into demon familiars.
Shit.

I swallowed hard. My fingers looked pale as I put them on the text, running down to find the incantation. It was in Latin, but I knew the translation. “Some to you, but all to me,” I whispered. “Bound by ties made so by plea.”

“Pars tibi, totum mihi,”
Al said, grinning.
“Vinctus vinculuis, prece fractis.”

My fingers started shaking. “Moon made safe, ancient light made sane. Chaos decreed, taken tripped if bane.”

“Luna servata, lux sanata. Chaos statutum, pejus minutum.
Go on. Finish.”

There was only one line left. One line, and the spell would be complete. Nine words, and my life would be a living hell whether I was on this side of the lines or not. I took a breath. Then another. “Lee of mind,” I whispered. My voice trembled, and it was getting harder to breathe. “Bearer of pain. Slave until the worlds are slain…”

Al's grin widened and his eyes flashed black.
“Mentem tegens, malum ferens,”
he intoned.
“Semper servus. Dum duret—mundus.”

With an eager impatience, Al pulled his gloves from his hands and plunged his hands into the vat. I jerked. A twang reverberated through me, followed by gut-wrenching dizziness. Black and smothering, the charm wrapped about my soul, numbing me.

Red-knuckled hands dripping, Al steadied himself against the counter. A shimmer of red cascaded over him, and his image blurred before settling. He blinked, seemingly shaken.

I took a breath, then another. It was done. He had my aura for good—all but what my soul was desperately trying to replace to insinuate between my being and Al's aura still coating me. Maybe in time it would get better, but I doubted it.

“Good,” he said, tugging his sleeves down and wiping his hands off on a black towel that had appeared in his grip. White gloves materialized, hiding his hands. “Good and done. Capital.”

Ceri cried softly, but I was too drained to even look at her.

My cell phone chirped from my bag on the far counter, sounding absurd.

The last of Al's fleeting disquiet vanished. “Oh, do let me answer,” he said, breaking the circle as he went to get it.

I shuddered as I felt a slight pull from my empty center as the energy went back through Al and into the line it originated from. Al's eyebrows were high in delight when he turned with my cell phone in his gloved hand. “I wonder who it is?” he simpered.

Unable to stand any longer, I slipped to the floor, my back to the counter as I hugged my knees. The vent air was warm on my bare feet, but my damp jeans soaked up the cold. I was Al's familiar. Why was I even bothering to keep the air moving in and out of my lungs?

“That's why they take your soul,” Ceri whispered. “You can't kill yourself if they have your will.”

I stared, only now understanding.

“Hello-o-o-o?” Al purred, leaning against the sink, the pink cylinder looking odd against his old world charm. “Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos! What a delight!”

My head came up. “Nick?” I breathed.

Al held a long hand over the receiver and simpered. “It's your boyfriend. I'll field it for you. You look tired.” Wrinkling his nose, he turned to the phone. “Feel that, did you?” he said cheerfully. “Something missing, now is there? Be careful what you wish for, little wizard.”

“Where's Rachel!” came Nick's voice, thin and tinny. He sounded panicked, and my heart sank. I reached out, knowing Al wouldn't give the phone to me.

“Why, she's at my feet,” Al said, grinning. “Mine, all mine. She made a mistake, and now she's mine. Send her flowers for her grave. It's all you can do.”

The demon listened for a moment, emotions flickering over him. “Oh, don't be making promises you can't keep. It is so-o-o-o lower class. As it happens, I'm not in need of a familiar anymore, so I won't be responding to your little summons; don't call me. She saved your soul, little man. Too bad you never told her how much you loved her. Humans are so stupid.”

He broke the connection with Nick in mid-protest. Snapping the phone closed, he dropped it back in my bag. It started ringing immediately, and he tapped it once. My phone played its obnoxious good-bye song and shut off.

“Now.” Al clapped his hands. “Where were we? Ah yes. I'll be right back. I want to see it work.” Red eyes glowing in delight, he vanished with a small shift of air.

“Rachel!” Ceri cried. She fell into me, dragging me out of the broken circle. I pushed at her, too depressed to try to get away. It was coming. Al was going to fill me with his force, making me feel his thoughts, turning me into a copper-top battery that could make his tea and do his dishes. The first of my helpless tears dribbled out, but I couldn't find the will to hate myself for them. I knew I should be crying. I had gambled my life to put Piscary away and lost.

“Rachel! Please!” Ceri pleaded, her grip on my arm hurting as she tried to drag me. My damp feet made a squeaking noise, and I pushed at her, trying to get her to stop.

A red bubble of ever-after popped into existence where Al had pinged out. The air pressure violently shifted, and both Ceri and I clasped our hands to our ears.

“Damn it all to heaven and back!” Al swore, his velvet green frock open and in disarray. His hair was wild and his glasses were gone. “You did everything right!” he shouted, gesturing violently. “I've got your aura. You've got mine. Why can't I reach you through the lines!”

Ceri knelt behind me, her arm protectively about me. “It didn't work?” she quavered, pulling me back a little more. Her wet finger traced a quick circle about us.

“Do I look like it worked?” he exclaimed. “Do I look happy to you?”

“No,” she breathed, and her circle expanded about us, black-smeared but strong. “Rachel,” she said, giving me a squeeze. “You're going to be okay.”

Al went still. Deathly quiet, he turned, his boots making a soft sound against the flooring. “No, she isn't.”

My eyes widened at his frustrated anger.
Oh God. Not again.

I stiffened as he tapped a line and sent it crashing into me. With it came a whisper of his emotion, satisfied and anticipatory. Fire coursed through me, and I screamed, pushing Ceri away. Her bubble burst in a glittering sensation of hot needles, adding to my agony.

Curled into a fetal position, I frantically thought the word,
Tulpa,
slumping in relief as the torrent coursed through me and settled in the sphere in my head. Panting, I slowly pulled my head up. Al's confusion and frustration filled me. My anger grew until it overshadowed his emotions.

Al's thoughts in mine shifted to stark surprise. Vision blurring as what I was seeing conflicted with what my brain said was true, I stumbled to my feet. Most of the candles were out, knocked over to make puddles of wax and scenting the air with smoke. Al felt my defiance through our link, and his face turned ugly when my pride for having learned to store energy seeped into him. “Ceri…” he threatened, his goat eyes narrowing.

“It didn't work,” I said, my voice low as I watched him from around my stringy wet hair. “Get out of my kitchen.”

“I'm going to have you, Morgan,” Al snarled. “If I can't take you by right, I'll by god beat you into submission and pull you in, broken and bleeding.”

“Oh yeah?” I came back with. I glanced at the pot that had held my aura. His eyes widened in surprise as he knew my thought the instant I had it. The bond now went both ways. He had made a mistake.

“Get out of my kitchen!” I exclaimed, dumping the line energy he had forced me to hold back through our familiar link and into him. I jerked upright as it all flowed from me and into him, leaving me empty. Al stumbled backward, shocked.

“You
canicula!
” he cried, his image blurring.

Staggering to remain upright, he tapped the line, adding more force.

Eyes narrowing, I set my thoughts to loop it right back at him. Whatever he was going to send into me was going to end up right back in him.

Al choked as he sensed what I was going to do. There was a sudden wrench in my gut and I stumbled, catching myself against the table as he broke the live connection between us. I stared at him across the kitchen, breath rough. This was going to be settled right here and now. One of us was going to lose. And it wasn't going to be me. Not in my kitchen. Not tonight.