your life!” Trent exclaimed, and then he spun, throwing his magic at the three men storming in instead, their mundane weapons pointed as they shouted.
“Trent, no!” I gasped as I felt Trent’s pull on the line. It was too much. He was angry, and it was too much. I cowered, Jenks held close, as Trent’s magic flowed through us, tainted with his anger as it struck the guards to no effect.
“Fool witch,” Landon said, and then I yelped as he yanked me to him by my hair.
“Ow! Let go!” I exclaimed, but if I hit him with raw line energy, it would fry Jenks, too. And so I clutched the pixy closer and let Landon jerk me closer. His grip shifted, and I froze when his other hand wrapped around my chest to hold a knife to my neck. It was a ceremonial blade, so clean and shiny that I knew it had seen blood and bone before.
“Trent!” Landon shouted, startling at the boom of sound and the splinter of stone. Trent had thrown another spell. He was taking Landon’s apartment apart. An outer wall cracked, and dust sifted from the ceiling, choking. “Everyone stop, or I slit the demon whore’s throat!”
Trent spun, fear cascading over his face and shocking him still. His eyes went to Jenks in my cupped hands. If I dropped him to save myself, either the cat would get him or Landon would step on him. Seeing me helpless, Trent fisted his hands and put them in the air.
Immediately the three men tackled Trent. There was a muffled thump and grunt, and then they yanked him up again. His hair was disheveled and his lip was bleeding, but it was the new silver strap on his wrist that took the fight out of him. Trent stumbled, going down when they shoved him to kneel before Landon.
“That’s a curious curse,” Landon said, jerking my attention back from Trent. “On your neck?” he added, and I twitched when he flicked the knife tip against a painted line. “You both have them. Are they for the baku? Who taught it to you?”
I was silent. On the other side of the room, Trent tried to rise, only to be shoved back down.
“Was it Officer Glenn?” Landon said, breath hot on my ear. “It looks demon. The Order doesn’t know demon magic. Yet,” he added threateningly.
“Go to hell,” I snarled, and his grip on me tightened.
“You’re amusingly easy to manipulate,” Landon said, stinking of burned cinnamon and spoiled wine. “You’d be surprised how long you might live if you’d stop caring.”
“You’d be surprised how much you sound like a demon,” I said as I held Jenks tighter, worried that he hadn’t woken up yet. But Landon had a point. I’d been caught by my need to protect Jenks. Trent had been caught by his need to keep me safe. Perhaps we’d get more done if we didn’t try to work together, I thought, despair rising up through me.
“We came to help,” I said, panicking when Landon tugged at a hand to force them apart. “Let go!”
“Strap her!” he demanded as he shoved me at two of his security, and I almost fell, my need to keep my hands about Jenks making me awkward. At least that knife wasn’t at my throat, and I did nothing, almost paralyzed as they fixed a band of charmed silver around my wrist and every last erg of power drained away. Trent’s eyes were full of frustrated, helpless anger. But I wasn’t helpless. I’d survived without magic before.
“The baku will take you,” I promised, staying passive when the man searching Trent turned to me and took my phone and borrowed ID. “The Order will turn you into a zombie to contain it. Don’t be stupid, Landon.”
“Says the demon with no magic,” Landon mocked as he upended my bag over the glass table. My stuff spilled out, the bottle hitting with a crack and rolling until another of his security men set it upright among my spare sleepy-time pellets, magnetic chalk, and boat keys. “A baby bottle? Is this a joke?” Landon said, brow furrowed as he set it down with a hard click.
“It’s your salvation,” I said, watching his security set our phones and borrowed IDs with the rest.
“You have to sleep sometime.” Landon sniffed. “It has to kill you to get what it wants, and I won’t let it back into me until it does. Nice that we want the same thing. And then, when