hole in the wall. Power was a warming blip through me, and I smiled. I was getting the hang of this double-energy stuff.
“You can’t!” Landon cried out when his faltering protection vanished. His fear was heavy on him, and I steeled myself against it. Pity had always gotten me in trouble.
He made as if to run, and my prey drive kicked in.
“Stabils,” I shouted, physically throwing the glowing curse at Landon—then scrambled to pull half the energy flowing through me back again. My palms itched as I funneled it into the earth, and what was left hit Landon squarely.
The man froze, my will racing over him like a spiderweb and soaking in. His momentum carried him several feet before he half fell, half slid to an undignified sprawl facedown on the glass-and-artifact-strewn rug. The watching security tensed, then relaxed when Landon began to swear, his muffled protest growing louder. Unfortunately the curse didn’t affect the vocal cords. I think Al designed it that way because he enjoyed hearing people rail helplessly at him.
“You bitch!” Landon shouted. “You used a demon curse on me. A demon curse! Your soul is black, and you will die for this, you stinking demon!”
But I’d heard it too many times to let it bother me. Much. Still, I had to fight to keep from giving his ribs a swift kick as I went to get my things out of the bowl and his former security picked themselves up. “You owe me a purse,” I said as I searched his pockets to find that baby bottle.
“This isn’t over,” Landon raved as Trent gathered the scattered rings one by one. “The Order wants you, not me. All I have to do is wait for you to go to sleep so it can find you.”
A flash of fear lit through me and died. “All I have to do is stay awake,” I said. “It almost has you, Landon . . . ,” I crooned as Jenks came to sit on my shoulder. “It’s only Trent being alive that keeps it from taking you. But I’m not killing him, and when it figures that out, it will take you anyway. You will be a zombie. Forever.”
Landon went ashen. In his silence I heard his knowledge that he was likely going to lose, not only his dewar position, but his life. The baku was so close now, I could pretend to see it lifting off his skin like heat. The bottle in my pocket was obvious, and guilt pinched me. I could save him. If I cared to. Damn it all to the Turn and back, Rachel. Just let evil priests die.
I turned away. The pounding on the door had returned, and I shifted to make room for Trent as he came closer, a pile of rings in his hands. We were still stuck down here, but at least no one was shooting at us. “Which one is Hodin’s?” Trent asked as I gave him his phone back, and then I flicked through the rings in his cupped hands until I found the dented thing.
“Thanks,” I said as I put it on, my eyebrows rising when Trent pocketed the rest.
“You common thief, you,” Jenks said, laughing, and Trent stepped back, insulted.
“They don’t belong to the dewar. They’re demon. I’m going to return them. Goodwill gesture.” Trent looked at the stairwell at the sound of an ax. “We should leave.”
“There’s only one way out,” Landon spat. “Your lives are mine!”
“He’s right,” Zack said as he helped the last of the guards rise to his shaky feet. “There’s only one door.”
I took a breath and steadied myself. If Landon was right about anything, it was that I was a stinking demon. “We don’t need a door,” I said as I looked at Trent’s stubble, wanting to run my hand across it.
Trent put his phone away, never having gotten any further than his address book. “Bis?” he guessed, and I nodded. It was dark. Bis would be awake. I was a demon, even if I didn’t have a spelling lab like Al, or a job, like Dali. But I did have friends.
“He can jump us out one by one,” I said. The noise of breaking wood was getting louder, and Zack began organizing the guards, directing them to move a large wardrobe in front of the opening to the stairs. A feeling of urgency took me, and my focus blurred as I strengthened my hold on the ley line and sort of melded