you.” He threw himself away from me. “Do you hear me? She doesn’t have to die for this to work.”
“We need a conduit and we need blood,” his mother snapped, bossy for someone without a demon of her own. I guess having a son who was possessed gave her some power.
“Then use me.” Before I could grasp his intent, Kane cut himself.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
He hit the ground on his knees and held out his bleeding arm over the sigil. His gaze met mine. “Saving you.”
“They’ll still kill me.” I could hear the discontent. A mob who would tear me limb from limb.
“Not if you give them what they want. Funnel the spell through me.”
“What spell? I don’t know any.” I huffed in a panic. “I thought the ritual needed my blood to work.”
“The spell needs your Earth based magic, but any blood can start the process.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I wailed.
“Just go with your instinct. Use me. Think of me as the battery.”
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. The people around us began to boo, their anger palpable.
Something had to be done. A glance to my side showed Darryl staring at the moon. We’d not reached the full peak of it.
I dove on Kane and slapped a hand over the gash in his wrist. As if I’d closed a connection, the sigil ignited, if weakly.
Fizzled. And wobbled.
About to extinguish.
Kane pushed me away. “There’s still time. Quick before the spell collapses. We don’t have much time. The planets are aligning.”
“No.” I shook my head.
He mouthed, Love you, sweetheart.
Before I could blink, a sword burst through his chest.
31
Darryl stood behind him, smirking. Triumphant. As Kane slumped, bleeding out over the pattern, Darryl aimed a sword at me.
“Cry, witch. Cry for your lover. It will make the magic more powerful.”
“What is wrong with you?” I exclaimed. “Did your mother not hug you as a child?” I huffed, icy rage and despair filling me.
“What will you do, witch? Nothing. Because I will kill you and drain you.” A cry drew my attention to my daughter being held in a headlock by her boyfriend.
She clawed at his arm, squealing, “Let me go.”
Jace sound almost apologetic as he said to Winnie, “If I do, you’ll die with her.”
“I’m okay with that,” Darryl drawled.
A bitchy mom would have said, something smart ass like, Hey kids, guess you wished we’d left when I said we should.
But I only had a moment to live. A second to do something.
Anything.
My emotions roiled, a tempest in a Naomi-pot, about to burst free in a hiss of angry steam. The angrier I got, the more the temperature dropped, and I remembered what the spell had shown me when I asked who controlled The Chill.
Me.
A magic that didn’t require a sigil to wield. It came because my chaotic emotions called it. It was mine, and I wanted to use it.
Let’s start a fight.
By accepting it, I invited it into me. The thing the magic had been trying to do all along. The magic my grandma left me. It finally came home. Filled me with strength.
The temperature plummeted, and people noticed.
Every breath fogged. My anger, my pain, my everything turned cold. The Chill was me, my emotions taking shape. Whisked out of me to leave me frozen inside.
“You shouldn’t have killed Kane.” The words were an icy mist.
“Even now you would forgive him?” Darryl sneered. “Weak. Like the rest of your family.”
“More like tempered steel, mother fucker,” I muttered, watching as Darryl’s dagger began its arc as if in slow motion.
“Today is not a good day to die. For me. In case that wasn’t clear…” I faded off on my ruined heroic speech and dropped to my knees to put my hand on the mark carved into the ice. They’d run it deep, making it into a channel that filled with Kane’s blood. It throbbed, wanting to release the spell, but it needed one more ingredient.
Me.
Only they’d not counted on me being alive when I was added.
I blew ice, and the fire in the sigil lines frosted.
“What are you doing?” Darryl exclaimed, lifting his dagger for try number two.
“You don’t mind if I make some modifications, do you?”
Darryl didn’t like that one bit. His arm went to slash, only to find out Kane wasn’t quite dead. He threw himself at Darryl, and the pair of them hit the ground and rolled, grunting. The blood ignited even more of the circle.
The matrix ignited all the way around the hole. The atmosphere electrified.
Darryl