THE BAZAAR (The Devany Miller Series) (16 page)

I yanked on pants and tied back my hair, then called on Arsinua and Neutria. "I don't know what I'm dealing with. You both will have to help me. Got it?"

Hunt. Kill.

I will. Please, hurry.

Neutria's excitement and Arsinua's terror mixed with my adrenaline. I imagined this is what being high on meth would feel like. The hook exploded into existence. 

What are you doing? You can't hook to another spot on your world.

"If you hadn't been hiding the whole time, you'd know that I spent the night doing that, thanks."

With the Skriven's help.

"Are you on my side or aren't you? Now shut up and hang on." I concentrated hard on the hook Zech had led me into. Concentrated so hard pain shot through my temples and burned across my forehead.

You shouldn't be able to do this,
Arsinua shouted.
There's something wrong!

I stepped through the hook anyway.

TWENTY

I
hit the alley, cracking down on one knee. I staggered upright, my neck straining as I searched for Zech. He stepped out from behind a dumpster, nearly scaring me out of my pants. 

"Shit! What are you doing here? I told you to stay put."

"They found me. One of Yarnell's minions. The magic was faint but I could still sense it when they arrived. I left by the back window. Tore myself up getting over the fence." He held up his arm and showed me the long, angry gash that ran down its length.

I winced. "Here. Take this." I put two lodestones in his hands and would've laughed at the expression on his face if I hadn't gotten the feeling that a ghost walked over my grave. Ghost. Or demon.

I spun again, my breathing light, quick. "Did you feel that? Tytan?" I raised my voice, searching the shadows. Was it my imagination or were the shadows even darker in one far corner? I stared hard, frozen, but nothing moved.

Zech held the stones up to the faint street light that filtered into the alley. "How did you get these here?"

"Long story. I spelled one with protection. The other you can use to defend yourself. I do not want you going back to Midia. Not yet. Understand?"

He nodded, and then slipped the stones into his pocket. I could feel the circle around him and breathed a little easier. Why the hell I hadn't made one for myself? "Stupid."

"What?"

I shook my head. "I can be lame at times. I can. Come on, let's get you back to the shelter." I took his arm, intending to use the heart to take him home when something blew us both out of the air. It tossed me into the far wall and Zech against the dumpster where he slumped, unconscious.

My head rang, my vision blurred. I squinted at the figure coming toward me, a darkness deeper than any I'd seen before, gathered from the shadows themselves. Then I felt it, a sensation like hot, melted wax. I pushed with my shoes, kicking up dirt but not getting anywhere of course, because my back was against the wall.

"What is it?" I screamed out at Arsinua, Neutria, anyone who could answer me.

A smell of burnt asphalt assaulted my nose before a gust of air blew it away. The thing leaned in close and a face materialized out of the umbral darkness. "The true question is, what are you?"

My mouth opened, shut, opened again. I squeaked, but no other sound came out of my throat. A female formed from the shadows and darkness draped like silk around her. She shook her head and tendrils of night fell like locks of hair around her face. She looked nothing like the woman in my vision or the one in the park but I knew it was her.

"You stole from me. You pulled magic through me but I didn't make you. I remember the Skriven I have made and I didn't make you." Her feet were bare and muddy. Her skin was dark but glowed red as if embers burned within her. "It wasn't a large pull, barely a trifle. But I felt it. I felt you."

"I'm not Skriven." And thank goodness for it, too. "I'm not anyone. Just need to be going." I tried to get up but she tipped her head and a weight pressed on my body. I couldn't move, though lord knows I tried. 

"You pulled Strands from me. I felt them go. Unraveling. Yet no gift in return."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know I was pulling anything from you. It won't happen again."

She smiled. "But I liked it. It felt different. You are different."

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Zech. Should I warn him to run? Would he try to be a hero? I had a bad feeling that I'd end up dead in this alley. No need for him to join me.

“Liam. Bethany. I'm sorry.” For a panicked moment, I considered running, but I couldn't give up. Not yet. "I'm Tytan's uh." Blast, what the hell was it? Archaic Tesseract? No. Shit. Oh! "Archaeon Tezrya."

"You are human. Yet not human." She studied me as if pulling me apart at the seams to see the stuffing inside. "You used Skriven magic yet no being can use it but the Skriven." She reached out a hand and I cringed into the wall. I didn't want her to touch me, but touch me she did and her finger burned like a brand on my collarbone. "I shall speak with Tytan. Until then, you can give me a piece in return."

Pain lanced through my body. My back arched with the fury of it and I thrashed in agony. I'd like to say it was over as fast as it happened but even after she took her finger away, the spot on my collarbone burned white hot. 

"I think I like you," she said, and then the acrid smell returned, the shadows enveloped her and she vanished.

The alley felt lighter, looked lighter. I didn't. I felt dirty. Unclean. I rolled to one side and vomited. My head spun and I knew, I knew I wouldn't try jumping from one spot to another on Earth. Not without Tytan. Not ever again. Was that what he meant when he said it cost him? What had she done to me? What exactly had it cost me?

Confused, hurt, shaky, I pushed up from the ground as Zech wobbled to his feet. "Do you know what that was?"

He shook his head. "A Skriven. I don't know. Awful. I can't believe Arsinua would ever make a deal with one." He spat as if the idea left a bad taste in his mouth. Wait until one touched him. 

I took his arm. "We're going to have to do this another way. Jump to Midia then jump back to the shelter. I don't want to risk another visit from that thing." I stopped. "Shit." The death warrant. "Would it take effect even if we were there only a moment?"

Zech nodded. "If there's an active one, then yes."

"Crap." I hadn't brought my purse, money, anything. "Can I make money? You know, magic some dollars?"

“No. That’s black magic,” Zech said, his lip curling.

It wouldn’t last anyway. Not here on Earth.

I looked at Zech. "I'm not sure how we'll get home."

The air shimmered in front of us. I yelled at Zech to run as figures materialized out of the hook that connected Midia to Earth. I'd forgotten about it, forgotten about Zech's worries. A silver flash spun toward me and I ran too. A spell? It wasn't. It was a bolo-type weapon and it wrapped with a whip of fire around my feet and dropped me.

Zech fell to the alley too. Again. 

I rolled to my back and felt for the heart. The power welled up inside me and when it had built up enough I thrust my hands out toward them with a yell. Nothing happened. Nothing, what the hell? I yanked at the thing tangled around my legs but couldn't get it loosened in time. Rough hands grabbed me—damn people always grabbing me—and hauled me to my feet.

Zech yelled,then something exploded. A body flew past me. Had he managed to use the lodestone to draw some magic here? I didn't know, but someone still had hold of me. I swung my elbow back and connected with a gut. A grunt. I slammed my hand back and my knuckles connected with a nose. I didn't hear a crunch but the guy howled. 

I twisted away and landed hard on my hip this time. I kicked at the thing around my legs as I looked for Zech. A man and a woman circled but I could see the ring of protection around him. Why oh why hadn't I spelled something for myself? I guess I had figured the heart would protect me.

'I need you, Neutria.'

She didn't need urging. She stretched. In the Slip, the change had hurt—here it killed me. At least I prayed for it to kill me. I guess the magic in the Slip had protected me somewhat but damn I was tired of pain. Sobbing, gasping, I huddled in the back of the spider's mind as she burst forth into being, the silver bolo falling to the ground. Why had she been able to access the heart but not me? What had I done wrong?

I think her touch blocked your access to the magic.

Neutria chittered, her hairy black legs raised, her fangs exposed and dripping with poison. The man she attacked had time to scream once before she sunk her fangs into his chest. I couldn't avert my gaze, I couldn't retreat, only huddle there feeling shamed that I had asked her to come forward. To kill for me.

Another scream. Neutria spun. Through her I saw a glowing aura of light surrounding Zech. The man was on the ground, the woman slicing at Zech with a sword. Why a sword? She should use a gun. Blam. 

What side are you on?

'Sorry, sorry.' Still. I had a point. 

The sword rang when it hit the wall behind Zech's head. He'd managed to duck out of the way, rolling to his feet to cast another crackling ball of energy as Arsinua had when I first met her. This one hit the woman in the chest and she crumpled to the ground.

In the distance, sirens screamed.

'We have to get out of here, Neutria. Fast.'

She didn't listen. Of course. Instead, she pounced on the downed man despite my protests and sunk her fangs into him as well. I tried to stretch, to take back my form, but she wouldn't let me. Here I didn't have enough strength. She wrapped the last man in silk and then skittered up the side of the wall, her gruesome burden in tow. Sickened, I tried to shut off my awareness of her actions. I concentrated on my kids. Zech. Prayed he'd managed to escape from both his killers and the cops.

Neutria hid the body on the rooftop of the building we were on and then proceeded to begin making her meal. Sounds civilized when I say it like that, doesn't it? Trust me. It wasn't. After the night I'd had, I would be lucky not to end up in a nut house, lying on a leather couch talking about my panic disorder, my post-traumatic stress disorder, my schizophrenia, my dissociative identity disorder. 

When she was done, finally done, she crawled across the rooftops until we were well away from the alley. Then she lowered herself down before allowing me to change back into myself.

I was thankful that the magical process that allowed us to do such an amazing transformation also managed to leave me with the clothes I started with. It didn't make sense. In the movies I'd watched, werewolves woke up naked.

But hey, I was different, wasn't I? A were spider, not a wolf.

I limped down the street, hoping a cop wouldn't stop me. I had to look terrible—I felt terrible. My knee ached, my hip sung out in pain with each step and I couldn't forget the still burning ember in my collarbone, could I?

"How do I call him?"

The Skriven? You don't want to do that.

"Yes I do. I'm tired, I have no money, I can't jump in my world without owing that freakish monster and Zech is out here somewhere. You do remember him, don't you?" I looked like I was talking to myself. The homeless woman with a dirty stocking hat on despite the heat of the night gave me wide berth.

You'll be indebted to him even more.

"At the moment, I don't care."

You keep saying that. Soon he'll have you so wrapped up that you'll never escape. Your soul, your body. He will own you. Do you want that?

"I want to go home. I want my normal life back. I want my sucky, sad marriage that will end in a sucky, sad divorce. I want normal, damn it." I leaned against the side of a closed café, the brick still warm from the day's sun. I couldn't walk anymore. Didn't see the point.

Say his name. His true name. Tytan Serce. Call him as his Archaeon Tezrya. He'll come.

"Thank you." She didn't answer. I didn't care. I called his name, demanded his presence. In moments he appeared, looking too good, too heroic in my head.

"What the fuck did you do?"

I laughed. I slid down the wall and laughed until I cried.

Tytan crossed his arms over his chest, unmoved by my waterworks. "You pulled Skriven magic."

Laughter and tears dwindled to snorts, the tired amusement still hanging on even though it wasn't funny. My cheeks were wet. "Don't know how. Don't care. Just get me home."

He squatted down in front of me. "Ravana wants you for her own. You don't even want to know what that means." He ran his hand through his hair, a human gesture that looked strange on him somehow. Maybe I expected his hair to be an illusion. I giggled again.

"Humans and their weak minds." He laid his hand on the side of my head and at once a soothing calm flow over me. I sagged a little as my muscles relaxed under his ministrations. "Everything I do goes through Ravana. It's for her I made,” he paused, giving me a look. “Lucy. For her I made the new formless one that I plan to keep far from you." He shook his head. "Shit."

I nodded, too tired to speak. I needed sleep. "Where's Zech?"

"Hiding in an unlocked car a half a block away."

"Can you take me home? Get him to the shelter?"

"What do I look like, a nurse maid?" He slapped me on the cheek—not hard enough to hurt, only a few light taps. "What am I going to do with you? The only thing that saved you was our bond. Even she can't take away an Archaeon Tezrya. Lucky you." He held out his hand. I stared as if it were a brick, dung, or something just as incongruous. "Take it. I distinctly remember you ordering me not to grab at you."

My eyebrows rose. "And you're listening?"

His dimple reappeared. "Don't get used to it."

I took his hand and he pulled me to my feet, slipping an arm around my waist. "Home James," I said, slurring the words. When he snorted, I laughed again.

"Home. If you hadn't helped me so well tonight I would let Ravana have you."