Niley yelled, "You cannot cross the circle, Anita. If you kill us, all you can do is watch Charlotte die."
I risked a peek. Niley had taken cover. I could shoot Linus, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure what that would do to Charlotte. I didn't know what the spell entailed. I just didn't know that much about sorcery.
"What do you want, Niley?"
"Throw your gun out."
"You throw yours out, too, or I shoot Linus."
"What happens to Charlotte if Linus dies in midspell?"
"I'll take my chances. Throw out the gun."
He stood and tossed the gun off the side of the hill. I couldn't hear it hit over Linus's chanting, but he'd done it. I moved out of the trees and tossed the Browning away. I still had the Firestar.
"The other gun, too," Niley said. "Remember that Linus searched you earlier today."
I tossed the Firestar away into the broken grass. It was all right. This wasn't about guns anymore.
I felt the spell close. Linus's last word reverberated on the night like a great brass bell that had been struck slightly off-key, but it echoed for all the flatness of the note. It echoed and grew until the skin on my body tried to crawl away and hide, creeping as if every insect in the world were under my skin. For a second, I couldn't breathe or move. Then Niley's voice came, "You are too late, Anita. Too late."
Charlotte was screaming through the gag on her mouth. Screaming, over and over again, as fast as she could draw breath.
I stared across the meadow and found that there was something else in the circle. I wasn't sure if it was the blackness of it that made it hard to see, or if it was like smoke, never exactly one shape. It seemed to be about man height, maybe eight feet, not much more. It was so thin that it looked like it was made of sticks. Its legs were longer than they should have been, bent wrong somehow. I realized that the longer I stared at it, the more solid it was growing. The neck was a long serpentine, bent back on its shoulders like a heron, and it had a beak for a mouth. If it had eyes, I couldn't see them. The face looked blind and only half-formed.
"You are too late," Niley said again.
"No. I'm not." I stood and walked out of the trees. Niley seemed terribly confident now that the demon was here.
"Only Linus can send it back to whence it came. If you harm him, then it will certainly devour the fair Charlotte."
I ignored him because I knew the plan was for the thing to eat Charlotte. Let them think I believed they intended to save her. Let them think she was still useful as a hostage. I wanted to get close enough to see the circle of entrapment they'd put up.
Charlotte had stopped screaming. I could hear her voice trapped behind the gag, but she was speaking now, not screaming. A strong woman, a very strong woman.
The demon paced the edge of the circle, flicking a long, thin, whiplike tail. It was becoming progressively more agitated, moving around the circle like a prisoner trying its cell.
"The circle is complete," Linus said. "You are mine to command."
The demon hissed at him, and the sound made the inside of my skull ache. It turned and gazed at me, though it had no eyes. I was on the edge of the circle now. I could see that Charlotte had closed her eyes, and I knew now what she was doing. She was praying.
I dropped to my knees beside the circle. I didn't feel anything from it. Which meant it wasn't meant for me. Whatever it was meant to keep in or out, I wasn't one of them. "She's pure, Linus. She's pure of heart and soul. She isn't a fit sacrifice for this thing."
"The pure are a rare and fine treat for my master."
"No, you can't feed her soul to it, Linus. Her soul is spoken for, and this thing cannot touch her."
The demon moved as far away from Charlotte as the circle would allow. It wasn't happy. "Give it its orders, Linus," Niley said.
"I offer you a sacrifice of flesh and blood and soul. Take this my offering and do my bidding."
The demon moved to stand over Charlotte. It snapped its beak next to her face, and she shrieked. The prayers stopped, and it laughed, a sound like grinding metal.
"It's a circle against evil, isn't it, Linus? Just evil."
"You're a necromancer," Niley said. "You are evil."
"Don't believe everything you hear or even read, Niley."