spun into the water, whipped away. I wondered where the water went. It was rising from the deeps of the earth, a hot spring. It had to go somewhere. I looked down into the deep blue of the hole in the earth. It was so dark down there; it was blacker than the darkest night. Darker than my soul home. Darker than the shadow’s mind had been.
“Eli? Find a small stick? Something that will float?”
He squatted, holding a six-inch stick, dead and dry. “Hold it down in the water,” I said. He frowned at me but he bent over the water and stuck his arm in to the shoulder, lower and lower, until it was as deep as he could push without going under.
The water grabbed the stick. Whirled and spun his hand and arm. Sucked the stick out of his hand and down into the dark. He jerked away, his eyes hard. “You can’t—”
“The water comes up and shoots back down,” I said. “Don’t let go of us.”
“Not planning to, Janie. But we need to remove the silver shackle on Soul’s ankle. Anyone got an idea how to remove a magical ankle cuff?” No one spoke. Eli gave a tiny shrug, pulled a U.S. version of a Swiss Army knife from his pocket, and unfolded a pair of metal snips. He gestured Soul over. Unsure, she raised her scaled and burned ankle. “When in doubt,” Eli said, holding me with one hand and leaning out over the water, “use the training provided by Uncle Sam.”
I didn’t watch, not taking my eyes off the blackness of the deeps, but heard small clicks, one, two, a third. A moment later, Soul flashed by me and dove into the blackness. Just as she disappeared, she transformed into her rainbow-dragon form. And once again she had promised what she didn’t deliver. No arcenciel help. No helping me with the rift. Nada.
Yet . . . I had an angel to help me. And maybe angels and arcenciels didn’t mix?
I angled my gaze up to Eli and smiled. “Mr. Fix-It.”
“That’s me, ma’am,” he said, miming tipping a hat at me.
“Make sure that Shimon is still in pieces,” I said. “Keep him away from the water. Put the others in. Hold on to them.” I felt the presence of others being added to the pool with me, though I couldn’t have said how I knew.
I looked down at the magic within me, motes of scarlet, black, silver, and charcoal, from witch, vamp, Anzu, and skinwalker power, unique among magic users. Now that the magic had been cut and pierced with steel, the star shape was broken. I felt the magic in the corona, old and austere around my head. I thought about the Glob, a thing made of suffering, death, lightning, witch magic, and from my body. There was power here, magic and life. And there was no reason why I couldn’t use the magic in my middle to heal myself, to heal us all, if I knew how. Except that if I tried, I was as likely to kill us as heal us.
I pulled on the Gray Between, still open around me. Using my own skinwalker magic and the power of my soul home, I mentally twined the darker magic of le breloque with the brighter, newer magic of the Glob. I began braiding the three strands of magic. My own weird power, the Glob’s, and the crown’s. The braid began to glow, to sparkle, visible in the water to human eyes, which I knew when Eli casually asked, “Janie? Whatcha doing?”
“Changing my life,” I whispered. “Changing my magic. Flying by the . . . throne of my power.”
I took the long tail of strange new energies and draped it around the others, first around Bruiser, then Stacey, and Tex. My body was above the current only feet below, my neck and chest muscles the only ones still working. “Hold me,” I whispered to Eli. I let my head drop beneath the water. Eli’s fingers tightened on my shoulder, anchoring me in place. I arched my neck slightly, resurfaced, and said, “I call on Unelenehi, the great one, who is the sun.” I dipped my head below the water again, tying the braided power off, sealing it in place, and to a purpose. I resurfaced and said, “I call on Selu, first woman, the corn mother.” I went back beneath. I tried to resurface but I couldn’t, not alone. This time I needed Eli’s help,