That Old Black Magic - By Michelle Rowen Page 0,13

She sat down on the edge of her desk. “You can either help or you can get out of my way. What’ll it be, demon?” She squeezed her eyes shut.

Darrak approached and gently grasped her wrist. She opened her eyes to look at him warily.

“I’ll help,” he said, although he didn’t look happy about it.

“Good. So I’m open to suggestion at the moment. I haven’t exactly done anything like this before.”

His handsome face was now set in grim lines. “Okay, well, look at it this way. The spell Selina cast on me when she summoned me out of Hell should still be on me, kind of like a residue. It will be nearly impossible to detect by your average everyday magical practitioner, but it would have remained on the surface. That’s the sign of a spell. A curse is deeper, like rust. A spell is more like a light coating of paint.”

“Magic for Dummies,” Eden murmured.

“Present company excepted. If you share Selina’s magic, you’ll be able to clearly see the spell, and you may be able to focus on it enough to remove it. But don’t delve too deeply into the black magic for this. It’s not worth it.”

She couldn’t disagree with him more. This would be the solid proof of whether her future was bright or dark. It was something she didn’t think would even be possible, so she didn’t want to get her hopes up. But there they were—hopes up high.

“I can’t see anything.” She scanned his body as he took hold of her other wrist as well.

He grinned a little. “Well, no. Not with your eyes open. Human eyes are not the best things with which to see true magic.”

“Then what do I use?”

“Your soul. And you can best access that sight with your eyes closed. Magic 101, Eden. Class is now in session.”

Learn something new every day. “So how do demons and other non-souled entities do magic if they don’t have souls?”

“We don’t do the same sort of magic as witches and wizards. It’s very complicated stuff, trust me.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.” She exhaled and closed her eyes.

“See past the darkness. I’m touching you, so you should be able to sense me a bit easier on that level. To see me.”

He was right. With enough concentration she did see him. He looked different at that level of perception—not like a human form with two legs, two arms—more like a metaphysical presence, but it was still Darrak. She would recognize him anywhere. He was a warm presence who held her anchored to the real world.

“Do you see me?” he asked.

“Yes.” She saw shapes and colors shifting together and pulling apart, sort of like what it might be like to swim inside a gigantic lava lamp filled with black water.

“And what about the spell?”

She focused harder, and it felt as if she slipped down another level or two—as if she was in a high-rise apartment and the elevator had sunk down a couple of floors in the lava lamp world. Everything deepened and became more dimensional. She felt pressure—a force that pushed against her on all sides. She concentrated on the being that was Darrak. His form contained equal parts of light and dark—two separate pieces butting up against each other every few seconds like bumper cars at an amusement park.

He didn’t feel that light inside of him, she thought, but it was very bright. As bright as the darkness was dark. It was his celestial side, growing brighter every time he absorbed her endless supply of celestial energy. It fed him, kept him from fading away, allowed him to take form when for hundreds of years he’d been stuck bodiless and needed to possess humans. He’d absorbed humanity from those humans, even the nasty ones. He’d developed stronger emotions than what he’d had as an archdemon. He’d developed a sense of right and wrong. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, and perhaps he’d always had that sense, but he’d sided with the darkness before. He hadn’t been able to feel empathy, sympathy, worry, or compassion. Seeing him like this, the proof before her very eyes that he was changed, was a powerful thing to witness and it made her throat thicken with emotion.

He was different now and he’d never go back to how he’d been before, even if he wanted to. What had changed him hadn’t been a spell. It hadn’t been a curse. Those things had propelled him in this direction, but