unconsciousness by walnuts, and I thought of Davina surrounded by gray smoke in the forest, and I forced myself to drink.
The first thing I felt were my arms getting weak and shaky, and the tingling crept up them, starting at my fingertips and going into my chest, bringing along a cold, dark feeling. It was getting hard to breathe, and I was starting to feel a little dizzy.
"Just a little bit more, baby," Davina cooed. "You're doing great."
I put the bottle to my lips and forced a little more down, gagging a bit as I did. The world around me was spinning, and there was yellow light swirling around me in electric wisps, and Davina was sucking it in, her face glowing with the power as it infused her. And that's when I noticed that there was also something swirling around her: dark gray smoke. I started to stumble and it occurred to me, a little late, that perhaps I'd just done something phenomenally stupid.
A flash went up around us, bright red and crackling, and then calmed; the white powder that had made the circle was burning. I tried to speak, tried to ask a question, but my body felt like it was encased in iron, everything cold and too heavy for me to move. Davina grabbed my shoulders and I screamed as the pain slashed through me, like swords of light cutting from my shoulders into my chest.
"Hush, baby," Davina said, her voice thick. "It'll be all over in a minute."
I tried to scream again, but there was no air inside me anymore. I worked up the strength to open my eyes, and saw Davina standing over me, holding me by my arms like I was a rag doll, her eyes gleaming in the flickering firelight with greed and power and not a bit of concern for my obvious distress.
That can't be good, I thought.
I wriggled a bit, but she held on tight. That was when it first occurred to me that I was maybe going to die.
She's not your friend, Cain's voice said again in my memory, and I thought absently, You're right. She's not.
But now, it was too late. I was going to die, and I would be leaving what was certainly an insane person behind to do ... who the hell knew what? I felt pretty certain that saving the town wasn't as high on her priority list as she had led me to believe, though.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, I thought, but then stopped as I realized that beating myself up wouldn't help things. I had to work with what I had, which wasn't much. I closed my eyes again, tried to get past the pain, and did the only thing I could think of doing.
I spit in her face.
Chapter 14
"Ugh!" she said, releasing one of my arms as she instinctively swiped at her face. I jerked myself out of her grip and shifted in the air as I fell, using the force of my body - for once, I was glad I had some heft to me - to hurl myself toward the flaming edge of the circle. I hit it, breaking the circle with a skid as I hurtled into a world of hurt, and the fire went out instantly. I heard another thud after my own body fell; I figured it was Davina, and gained some comfort from the sound.
"You stupid bitch!" she rasped, and when I looked up, I saw her, clawing the ground, pulling herself toward me like some demented zombie from a bad fifties' pulp cover. I took a deep breath and clawed as well, heading toward the gurgling brook. I managed to crawl across it, the coldness from the water shooting sharp ice picks of pain through me. Finally, after what seemed like years, I made it to the other side and turned to see her, on her stomach, stopped at the moving water, shooting me the most vile look I'd ever received in my life. Lacking the strength to speak, I flipped her off and then fell back onto the ground with a thud.
I dipped into darkness then for a bit, and when I came to I was breathing, albeit with a lot of pain, my entire body seeming to protest every breath, every heartbeat, by shooting sharp shards of hurt through every nerve. I lay back on the ground, my chest arching as I gasped for air, and when I opened my eyes I could see vague