I went after. Roots and thorns grew into them. Living stakes. The vampires awoke and fought. But the tree, sentient and eager, would not be stopped. Taking a sacrifice. Just like the demon did, I thought.
From belowground, local vines pushed through cracks in the concrete slab foundation and into the walls, the wood once grown on nearby land. The wood in the walls, awakened by my blood, bloomed. Put out roots. Growing. They twined with the vampire tree. Roots and vines and thorns. Jason screamed in unearthly agony. Dying.
Using the vampire blood I fed the earth.
Loriann threw herself at the body of her brother, held in the demon’s fist, trying to save him. The fist and the tree both accepted her as a willing sacrifice. She was dead before she could scream. Her ashes scattered across Jason. Ashes and dust clogged the air; bits of dissolving vampire clothing, shoes, hair, and desiccated flesh fell and were devoured by the roots that broke up the concrete slab foundation. The tree tore apart the house and the vampires and their humans. Soulwood took its due, and sucked the remains into the earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Jason laughed, the sound all wrong. “I did it. It’s all mine.”
A different voice shivered through the ground and into the house. “I accept the bargain.” The power of the demon began to unfurl within Jason. The vampires in the cages began to bleed and to scream as the bargain was sealed.
My roots found the most powerful of the vampires and slammed thorns into him like wooden blades. Wood like stakes. The vampire tree drank his blood. I had never met Godfrey. I had seen him twice, as he tore out the throat of a store clerk and later killed a young boy. But he wanted to rule this hunting territory, drink down its people, destroy the life in the land. No one ruled here but Soulwood. I gave Godfrey to the tree. The Green Knight and I reached to the vampires still alive in cages and twined around the bars. Ripped them apart. The freed vampires raced away. Terrified of the living wood. The vampire tree was gaining strength. I didn’t care. Because Soulwood drank too, drank down the sacrifices that gave it power. Bloodlust was slowly diminishing.
I looked through the blood and the life and death all around me. Determined that Unit Eighteen and all our humans and cats were safe and free, standing in the perimeter of the yard, keeping Ming’s vampires from approaching. Good.
I found the fist inside of Jason, the demon fighting for its power, its freedom, Jason bargaining for his life. I looked back along the track to the circle. The magic was active, open. Clouds of power bloomed into the night behind the stockyard. The demon was rising. The earth shuddered, bounced, roiled like boiling water.
Earthquake.
The circle was open and protected. Any attempt to close it or break it was doomed. But … No one had ever tried to close a circle from belowground, using the power of life, the power of the earth. If I could break it before Jason was fully possessed or died …
I directed the vampire tree to find the witch circle. The roots tunneled through the earth, seeking the power of the circle. Seeking the dead flesh at the stockyard, so much not yet carted away. The tree and Soulwood found the bodies of the Blounts, buried in the yard, and together, devoured them.
B’KuL shoved through, rising into the night. The stench of sewage and plague and rot filled the air. It rose, an arm, a leathery wing, a brutal, muscled shoulder. I wasn’t going to be in time.
The tree roots and Soulwood found the circle in the same instant. They tore into the power structure belowground. The land vibrated. The demon saw the powers tearing into the mathematics of the circle. The fist opened, clawed at the power of Soulwood, but the magics were too dissimilar. The smoky fist caught nothing. It tore into the tree, but the roots were too thick, too many, and they began to siphon off the magics in the circle. And then the magics of the demon. The roots regrew, the Green Knight ripping the demon energies apart, sealing up the earth from below. Life cutting into the darkness and the filth of the demon’s passage, disrupting the bargain with Jason.
B’KuL dropped the sorcerer. The fist of B’KuL ripped away and traced its own power signature back