Pale Demon th-9 Read online

  I stood, pushing my nasty hair from my shoulder in invitation. “One of us will run into town for it, and then we’ll get out of here. Trent will just have to suck it up.”

  Jenks rose unsteadily and laboriously flew to my shoulder, and my earring pulled as he fell against it. I looked up the path to the unseen car, taking Ivy’s arm to be sure she was okay, too.

  “You didn’t get hit by anything, did you?” I demanded, but she wasn’t listening, her eyes riveted to the outcrop of stone behind me. The pixies were shrilling at the piercing croak of a bird, and I turned.

  A bird? I thought, and then everything shifted. The Ku’Sox Sha-Ku’Ru wasn’t a party; it was a bird. A big-ass bird, like a stork. And it was…“It’s eating them,” I whispered, horror filling me. “Oh my God, that bird is eating them!”

  I stood frozen in disbelief, not comprehending it. The second and third leaders were shouting directions, so fast and high-pitched that I couldn’t understand them, but it was clear enough as the arrows and spears once pointed at us now fell on the bird. It cawed, the harsh sound crawling through my mind and making me shudder as it echoed off the stone.

  “Oh my God,” Ivy gasped.

  I spun, blinking when a new shadow fell over us. “You!” I exclaimed stupidly as Trent half-slid to a halt beside us, breathing hard and looking tired. “I told you to wait in the car! We’ve got this!”

  “I can see that.” His words clipped, Trent eyed the battle, his lips pressed tight. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

  Pixies were screaming, the sound becoming panicked. “What, now?” I exclaimed. “We have to help them!”

  “The pixies who kidnapped your partner?” Trent said, frowning. “Why?”

  “Why?” I echoed him. “Because it was a misunderstanding! We got it worked out. I just need three gallons of maple syrup!”

  Trent’s face became white. “Oh.” He licked his lips and shifted from foot to foot. “Um, maybe we should leave anyway,” he said, taking my arm and pulling me a step up the path.

  “Rache?” Jenks warbled. “I can’t fly.”

  “Do you not see what’s going on here?” I said as I yanked out of Trent’s grip and pointed, my finger dropping when a pixy screamed, trying to free itself from the bird’s long beak, even as it vanished in a toss and a sharp snap. The pixy’s clansmen and women were stabbing at the gray, storklike bird, firing arrows and throwing spears, but it simply jerked its head to catch another warrior who got too close, wings flapping as it hopped to a rock where its footing was better. Feathers gave it protection, and it seemed immune to the poison.

  “There is a bird,” I said, “eating pixies. Do you have any idea how wrong that is?”

  “We need to get out of here,” he insisted, and my attention snapped back to him. He tossed the hair from his eyes, and my heart seemed to stop. His ears were bleeding. Again.

  “What did you do…,” I whispered, scared. Trent began walking away, and I glanced at Ivy, seeing her closed expression. Pushing into motion, I followed him, my heart pounding. He stank like cinnamon and spoiled wine. “What did you do?” I demanded, and he ignored me, not slowing down.

  “I thought you needed help,” he said, and I yanked at his arm, pulling him to a stop at the top of the hill. Frightened, I grabbed his chin and shifted his head. He let me do it. There was a handprint on his neck, but it was the blood dripping from his ears and nose that struck fear in me. The arch. He had bled at the arch, too, and he smelled like elven magic. Thought we needed help?

  “Tell me what you did!” I said as I looked down the hill to the car. The trunk was open, and my scrying mirror was out, glinting in the sun. Vivian was slumbering in the back as if immune to the noise. Sleeping or out cold? “Oh my God!” I exclaimed as I pieced it together. “Did you use my mirror to make a deal with a demon?”

  The bird cawed. Ivy stood next to me, and Jenks started swearing. Trent’s jaw clenched, jerking as a horrible croaking came from over the hill. “Yes,” he said.

  The single word hit me like a slap. “That was you under the arch?” I stammered, being drawn forward as Trent doggedly paced downhill to the car. “You put yourself in a ley line and called on a demon under the arch!” I accused. “That force I shoved into those assassins wasn’t from you, and it wasn’t from the assassins. It was from a demon! And when I pushed the energy back into him, he tried to bury us all under the arch. You asked a demon for help and it almost killed you. And now you go and ask for his help again? Are you insane?”

  Jenks had taken to the air, hovering backward and watching our backs as well as our faces. He looked as scared as I felt.

  “It can’t kill me now,” Trent said, his jaw clenched. “You’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  “Trust you!” I shouted, and Ivy grabbed my arm as I went to shove him. Feeling it, Trent stopped, looking angry and unrepentant as he turned to me.

  “It can’t snatch you because of me!” I exclaimed, shaking off Ivy’s hold and pushing him in the chest. Trent stumbled back, but I was moving forward, getting in his face. “You used me! I freed you as a familiar, and you used me!”

  Trent became more grim looking, his gaze darting behind me as the sound of fighting pixies grew loud and the harsh cawing of the stork echoed. Ivy was at my shoulder, a hand on her hip. “The coven might be interested in that. Trent Kalamack dabbling in demonology.”

  “If you tell her, then Rachel doesn’t have a chance,” he said, and I realized it was true.

  “Uh, Rache?” Jenks said nervously, perched on Ivy’s shoulder. “They’re coming this way.”

  “You are an idiot,” I said softly, shaking inside. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

  Trent tugged his clothes straight as if he were wearing a three-piece suit and not a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans. “I suggest we leave before it finishes eating them.”

  I dropped back a step, almost laughing, as disgusted as I was. Ivy was staring at him in disbelief. “I’m not going to walk away from this. It’s eating them!”

  “Rachel, no!” Trent shouted, but I was beyond listening, and I leaned back as he came forward, bringing my foot up just in time for him to run right into it. He hit with a jarring that shifted me, and he fell backward holding his middle, taking Ivy with him. They sprawled on the paved footpath, and as Jenks darted to my shoulder, I turned to the bird.

  “Celero inanio!” I shouted, throwing a ball of glowing ever-after at the harshly croaking stork, its ugly neck skin flapping. Yes, it was a black curse, but it was a bird eating pixies—pixies I had found a way to deal with peacefully. I was already mumbling, “I take the smut,” as the curse to boil the blood in a living creature sped across the short distance, slamming into the bird to destroy it in a ball of curse-ridden magic.

  Except it didn’t.

  My ball of death exploded inches from the bird, breaking against a flash of black that had enveloped the large bird, protecting it. Sparkles lit the afternoon, falling like a cascade over the protection bubble. The pixies darted back with frightened cries, gathering in a hazing cloud as the bird shook itself and the protection circle vanished.

  Cawing, the ugly black stork turned a red eye to me. My gut clenched as I noticed it was slitted like a goat’s.

  “You stupid fool,” Trent gasped from the ground, his eyes tearing as he tried to catch his breath. “It’s not a bird. It’s a demon.”

  Eleven

  “ Um, Jenks?” I said, taking a stumbling step back into a cloud of pixies now seeking shelter with me. “Tell me the sun is up.”

  “The sun is up,” he said, hearing the panic in my voice and knowing what that black bubble had been about as much as I did. “Damn, Rache. You telling me that’s not a bird?”

  Ivy shoved Trent off her and got to her feet. Trent was next, and we walked backward to the car, the pixies retreating with us as they continued to shout insults at the bird. The sun was up. It couldn’t be a demon. But it wasn’t a bird, either, and I didn’t know if that
scared me or simply made me angrier. An ignorant bird eating people might be forgiven, but not if it was another intelligent being, demon or not. My instincts screamed demon, but the sun was up. This isn’t possible. Maybe it’s a really bad witch Trent thinks is a demon.

  The cloud of pixies behind me started talking, too fast for me to follow, shrilling about Ku’Sox and fables and the past coming to life. “Kill it!” the head pixy shouted, and the snick of Jenks pulling his sword rang in my ear.

  “No!” he yelled, and they halted, hovering behind me. “It’s not a bird! You can’t fight it as if it is!”

  My mouth went dry as the stork croaked, eying me as it jumped from rock to rock, coming closer. Crap, it was getting bigger, too. My thoughts went to the petroglyph of the bird with a figure in its beak, and I paled as the memory of a pixy scream echoed in my mind, the bird gulping it down. “Uh, guys…,” I stammered as I turned, seeing Trent and Ivy still standing there, scared pixies wreathing them. “We’d better get to the car.”

  We ran. Arms pumping, I followed Trent and Ivy down the hill to the car, hitting the rocks and jumping over low walls to make a beeline for it rather than the safer, serpentine route. I could make only one circle. We all had to be in it, Vivian included. Behind me, the bird squawked, and the pixies scattered with shrill sounds of panic as heavy wings beat the air.

  “Make a circle!” I shouted as I saw Vivian, awake and standing next to the open trunk, my scrying mirror in her hand, her mouth hanging open as she gaped behind us.

  “Make a friggin’ circle!” I shouted as the path became level and I ran on pavement instead of asphalt. The heat ballooned up, almost a wall. Ivy and Trent reached the car first, landing against it to turn and stare. I didn’t look as I skidded to a halt beside them, searching my pockets for chalk that I didn’t have. I had been hunting pixies, not a friggin’ day-walking demon!

  It couldn’t be. But I’d seen its eyes. It had made a circle.

  Behind me, the bird croaked out a weird call. It echoed in the heat-beaten stillness as if coming from time itself. Leaning into the car, I found my bag, and digging through it for my chalk, I thought about my scrying mirror in Vivian’s hands. Did Trent swipe my chalk, too?

  “A circle won’t hold him,” Trent said grimly, and I pulled myself out of the car, chalk in hand. Vivian was beside Ivy, and pixies circled, darting about in an eye-hurting mass.

  “It’s the Ku’Sox Sha-Ku’Ru,” one shouted. “You brought the left hand of the sun upon us!”

  “Chalk,” I said triumphantly, holding it up and turning. “Oh, crap,” I whispered. It was flying. And it had gotten even bigger—the size of a small plane, maybe.

  “Rachel, duck!” Jenks shrilled as it angled for me, but I was already dropping.

  I screamed as I felt talons rake my hair, and I dropped to the pavement, rolling under the car. My cheek burned from the pavement, and I held my breath as the wind shifted my hair. Then it was gone, and I looked up to see it swooping around. Holy crap, I had to do something.

  “Is it a demon?” Jenks shrilled, inches from my face as I rolled out from under the car and got to my feet, squinting in the sun as I wiped the grit from my palms. Trent looked shaken as he crouched beside the car, and Ivy was helping Vivian off the ground. Pixies were a cloud over them, drawn to the very person who had caused their kinsmen’s deaths. “Well, is it?” Jenks asked again.

  “I don’t know.” Dazed, I looked at the frightened pixies seeking shelter with us. A day-walking demon? It couldn’t be. But as I looked at Trent, I had a bad feeling that it was. Just trying to help, eh? Thanks a hell of a lot.

  “What is that thing?” Vivian asked.

  “I think it’s a demon,” Trent said, trying to wave the pixies away.

  “You think!” I exclaimed, but the hard look he gave me stopped my next words cold. Ivy looked up from wiping her palms, and even Jenks turned, hovering in the hot air over the car. And as Trent slid his gaze to Vivian, then back to me, my jaw clenched, and I remained silent. I could say nothing. If the coven knew he’d summoned a demon, even to help us, his words in my defense would mean nothing. Damn it! Damn it all to the Turn and back!

  “It can’t be,” Vivian scoffed, missing the hatred I directed at Trent. “It’s daylight!”

  “It’s coming back!” the pixy leader exclaimed. “Scatter!”

  “No, come closer!” I called out. “Jenks, get them closer!” Then immediately wished I hadn’t as he laboriously flew from the car to try to corral them.

  So Trent had summoned a demon to help us. God save me from businessmen with too much money and not enough to do, I thought as I leaned against the car and tried to imagine a circle big enough to hold us all. It would be large for most witches, but I could do it. It wouldn’t hold long, either, but if I did it right, it would give me time to make a real one.

  The pixies vacillated between following their leader, now flying away, and Jenks, almost browbeating them to get them to the car. Croaking three times, the huge bird came at us, talons outstretched. I quivered, remembering the time I’d been a mouse.

  “An undrawn circle won’t hold,” Trent said softly, his eyes wide as he stood beside me, two of the pixy leaders at his shoulder. Stupid-ass elf might get hurt, but the demon couldn’t snatch him, and he knew it.

  “You need to shut up,” I snarled, starting to shake. “I think you’ve helped out enough for one day, okay?”

  He dropped his head and rocked back, looking not nearly chagrined enough. Turning to the approaching bird, I touched the line, pulling it into me and imagining the strongest, bird-hating circle I could think of. Oh God. The yellow claws looked as big as tree roots, and they were getting bigger.

  “Now!” Jenks shouted.

  “Rhombus!” I screamed, flinging my hand out to give my spell more strength.

  I went down on one knee as I pushed the energy out of me instead of letting it flow naturally. With a clap of sound that reverberated like thunder, my bubble flashed into existence. Screeching, the bird tried to backwing, head flung high and claws yanked tight to its body.

  “Hold,” I whispered, hands in fists as it hit. “Oh God. Please hold.”

  The bird hit, and I shook, bowing my head as the impact reverberated through me. And then my circle fell. Panting, I looked up. The bird had glanced off the top of the bubble, pulling up enough to avoid a full, neck-snapping strike. Tumbling, it hit the ground, getting smaller as it rolled across the parking lot and smacked into a rock.

  “Did you kill it?” Trent said. “Rachel, did you kill it!”

  He sounded frightened, and I gave him an ugly look. For all the smooth callousness he showed the world, perhaps he wasn’t as immune to death as he wanted everyone to think.

  “We should be so lucky,” I said sourly, crab-walking a quick circle around the car with the chalk to make a more secure barrier. Ivy looked frustrated, pixies perched around her for security since Trent had driven them from himself. Vivian was pale. Scared. The lump of feathers now lying at the base of the rock wasn’t moving, but I invoked the circle, shaking in the hot sun, waiting.

  “Are you going to go look at it?” Vivian asked and Jenks landed on my shoulder.

  “Yeah. Right,” Jenks said, dusting heavily in exhaustion. “You don’t poke the monster when it’s down. You run away.”

  “I’m not getting out of this circle,” I said. “Give it an hour or two, and if he still doesn’t move, we can throw rocks at him.” Demon. I was starting to believe that it was one.

  Trent edged closer, stopping when I gave him a withering look. But whether we should poke the downed bird or simply drive away became moot when the lump of black shifted and stirred. Fear tightened my shoulders as a man rose, shedding feathers, the foot-long shafts of obsidian gray falling from him to reveal the simply cut gray pants and shirt underneath and the soft gray slippers. His slate gray hair was silver where the light hit it, and when he turned, he smiled as if pleased that I’d hurt him. He was talle
r than me. Pale. Silver. Shiny. Demon.

  I glanced at Trent, thinking I’d rather have him as an enemy than a friend if this was his idea of helping. Trent’s head was down, and it ticked me off that I was the reason he was safe and the rest of us weren’t. God! I was a fool. Al had been right.

  Vivian was staring, slack-jawed, at the approaching form, and Jenks hovered at the edge of the bubble, hands on his hips as he assessed the new threat. Ivy was scared but trying not to show it as the demon came to a halt before us, looking stronger and more certain of himself. He looked young, even with the silver hair, and I squirmed when his goat-slitted eyes moved from Vivian to me.

  “But it’s daylight!” Vivian whispered, and Ku’Sox smiled in delight, his attention leaving me to touch upon Trent and slide away. Can’t touch this. His look at me had been one of casual disinterest. Bet it wouldn’t stay that way.

  “It’s the Ku’Sox!” the pixies shouted from the car, and Ivy waved at them to go away as they swarmed her. “The Ku’Sox Sha-Ku’Ru!”

  “I’m the eater,” the narrow-faced man said, and I breathed. Crap, his voice was as gray as he was. Silver and gray, with a weird accent I’d heard only once. It was Newt’s.

  Ku’Sox squinted at my bubble, making me even more nervous as he leaned one way, then the next, evaluating its size and the black haze of demon smut crawling over it. I blanched when I realized the smut crawling over my bubble was being attracted to him, congregating where he was, looking like it was trying to get to him. “Guys,” I said, wishing I could back up even more. “I don’t think I can hold a drawn circle this size against him.”

  “No, you can’t,” Ku’Sox said, his eyes landing on me. “Aren’t you an odd sort of witch.” He breathed deep, surprise cascading through his expression. “Wearing a man’s clothes,” he added, his bloodred eyes shifting to a pale blue. “How curious. You’re female.”

  “Look out!” Jenks shrilled, but I was suddenly gagging, my hands digging at Ku’Sox’s fingers gripping my throat. He had me, his hands lightly around my neck as my feet dangled. Somehow he had yanked me out of my circle, broken it without a thought. It was too large for me to hold against him, and he’d taken it.