And why?

  Angie didn’t understand the normal power grab motivations of a lot of humans. She didn’t understand why people felt the need to have power over other people. The thought baffled her. But maybe that was because she had so much power, so much magical power to call on. She’d been trained to the “harm no other” principle as a guide for her life. She’d done harm of course—she ate food, including meat, she killed mosquitos and cockroaches, and sometimes things happened and you hurt someone on accident. The guide was impossible to follow perfectly. In fact, it was impossible to fully follow at all without dying of starvation because you refused to harm plants and animals.

  But it was a helpful balance point in decision making. Especially for someone with Angie’s level of power.

  So she’d never understood the need to dominate and control others. But she recognized that she was a rare case. That others had this desire. The three dancing men likely did.

  She just didn’t get it.

  “Rule who?” Angie asked the bat-winged demon, just to see if it would answer. Not that the answer had any real-world significance. Like Aidan implied, the whys mattered less than the getting-these-bastards-back-to-their-realms part did. But she wasn’t sure the men who’d made all these demon-bargains would survive long enough to explain everything to her.

  “Everyone,” the demon hissed.

  Well that didn’t clarify anything at all.

  “Careful talking to them,” Sebastian said. “They’ll twist your words into a bargain you didn’t mean to make.”

  She scowled at the side of his face. She wanted to snap that she knew that. Except that she hadn’t. And whose fault was that, exactly, Angela. The mental voice sounded entirely too much like her mother’s.

  “Okay,” Aidan said, “here’s what we’re going to do.” She finally looked away from the dancing men. “Angie, when I signal, drop the circle. I’ll take the three men and the blue bastard about to be released. Sebastian, you handle the ones behind us. Angie, find a good tree while avoiding all contact with demons.”

  “Avoiding?” She glanced around. They were surrounded by demons. “I’m not sure that’ll be possible.”

  “Sebastian and I will handle the demon fighting. You find a tree. Get ready. And…” Aidan met her gaze. “Brace. This won’t be easy.”

  Angie nodded. She hadn’t purposefully held open a portal into a demon realm before. Not on purpose. She’d only ever done it on accident. The on-purpose part seemed like a bad idea.

  But it was why she was here. And with all these demons on the loose, it was the easiest way to get them back into a demon realm.

  It did occur to her to wonder how the hunters would have handled all these escaped demons at once without her here to open a breech between the realms. But she decided not to ask while they had a demon audience.

  She glanced at the bat-winged demons again. The middle one was still doing that thing with its face that might have been a smile but also might have just been it baring its teeth at her. Ugh. So many teeth.

  How the hell was she going to avoid demons to search for the right tree?

  She kept the trigger word for her second spell at the front of her mind, and waited for Aidan’s signal to cut the circle.

  Moments ticked by, making Angie’s palms sweat, her heartbeat already hammered, slamming against her ribcage, but now she felt the anxiety and anticipation in her throat, in her gut. Clawing at her to get out on a scream.

  “Now!”

  Angie cut the circle.

  Aidan raced to the circle and the chanting humans. Sebastian dove toward the bat-winged trio. And Angie…

  For a heartbeat, she froze. Surrounded by demons, no idea how they’d get out of this, and aware that she wasn’t doing her part.

  She watched Sebastian drop and rolling into the middle of the demons, coming up on his feet in their midst. The move had all three turning rapidly to face him, moving with more coordinated grace than she’d expected. They swarmed toward him, but he tossed one into another and ducked under the third as if they were dolls and he was playing a game.

  The ease with which he handled the bat-winged demons snapped Angie from her frozen panic. She ducked a little—she had no idea why—and moved around the edge of the clearing, just a few yards, looking for the tree, the one with the natural V formed by its trunk, the tree she could use.

  To tear a breach into the demon world.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Angie bumped off a solid pine trunk as she made her way around the inside of the treeline, the spindly offshoot branches scrapping against her jacket. The scent of pine resin was strong in this section of the woods, but she’d spotted a couple of gambel oak trees that just might work. Careful not to look at the naturally formed Vs, at least not into them, she still had to find one that would work for the sheer number of demons running around the clearing. Something big enough for all these bastards to fit through.

  The surroundings were filled with the screeching screaming hiss of demons. She didn’t dare look at the hunters and their fights for too long and get distracted. But from the corner of her eye, she was aware of Aidan physically fighting with the three men while simultaneously preventing the blue demon from escaping—it wasn’t out of the circle so Angie assumed Aidan was doing that—and ducking away from the other demons attacking her while she tried to deal with the men who’d summoned them.

  Sebastian was still tossing the bat-winged demons around, but they’d been joined by two other demons which set the odds against him.

  Angie was so tempted to trigger her spell, but feared distracting the hunters. They had their knowledge and their wills to fight demons. Distracting someone using their will the way a hunter did was dangerous…to the hunter.

  Then Sebastian pulled a sword from somewhere. One moment he was physically fighting demons. The next he held a long sword in two hands, the blade thick and covered in red-hot flames.

  What the…?

  Demon hunters used swords? That was something Aidan hadn’t mentioned.

  She looked to Aidan, but she wasn’t using any weapons. Just herself. She was chanting now, something that must have upset the humans because they dove at her. Between one moment and the next, Aidan seemed to disappear. And then she was there again. A few feet away, chanting once more. As the humans looked around in confusion.

  Angie shook off her own distraction and returned to the tree hunt. The longer she watched them fight, the longer they’d have to fight.

  The perfect tree rose up from the surrounding woods suddenly, almost as if it had materialized there just where she needed it. That flight of fancy had her shaking her head. Silly witch. But the size of the Rocky Mountain maple trunk and the V-shape formed when the trunk split and grew in two different directions was perfect.

  Almost in the same instant she found the tree, though, a bat-winged demon dove from above, aiming at her head. She ducked instinctively. Spun to face it as it swooped between the trees, screeched, and dove at her again. She murmured a few words and cut her fingers in a sharp gesture, then flung her hands up in front of her.

  A strong wind blew the bat-winged demon up into the tree branches, sending a shower of pine needles to the ground. The trees captured and tangled the demon up, long enough for Angie to breathe.

  Barely.

  Then another demon, this one of the larger ones with molten lava skin, stepped in front of her.

  Damn it, she wasn’t supposed to be facing demons. Aidan had said to avoid them. Spells and her kind of magic took time. And she had no hand-to-hand training. She could throw a punch because she’d grown up with brothers and their mother had made them all learn how to throw a proper punch without breaking their thumbs. But she didn’t want to get close enough to the lava demon to touch its skin—skin that would melt her fragile human body—nonetheless punch the bastard.

  She was about to trigger her last stored spell, the failsafe still waiting for her to call it. Then Sebastian was between her and the lava demon. One moment he hadn’t been there. The next he was.

  Blinking in shock, she did another unfortunate freeze, unable to process the reality of him being there for a full forty seconds. Which didn’t sound like long, but in a fight with a demon was an eternity.

  He swung that giant flame encased sword at the lava demon. It went through the beast like butter, opening the center of the demon up so that the lava dripped down its front like blood.

  The demon roared and threw itself backward. More lava dripped to the ground, catching some of the dry needles and grass on fire. Angie cursed quietly before murmuring another spell.

  Aloud, she said, “Sorry about this.” Then triggered the spell. Rain dumped out of the sky.

  There had only been a few clouds close enough and not nearly enough moisture in the air for her rain spell to create much of a shower, but it was enough to put out the small fires created by the demon’s wound.

  “Good option,” Sebastian said, grinning at her over his shoulder.

  She blinked a few times. For a split second, she was tempted to smile back.

  Then the men who’d summoned the demons started cursing loudly and Angie shook herself back to the situation.

  Dangerous. Losing track of her surroundings because of a stunning smile in a too-handsome face.

  The lava demon lunged at them again. Before Angie could shout a warning, Sebastian had his sword up.

  He forced the demon away from her, shouting, “Get ready. It’s almost time.”

  She couldn’t tell if his sword or his will did most of the work driving the demon back, but she’d guess both.

  She spun toward the tree she knew would work, keeping her gaze lowered enough not to accidentally look into the V too soon. She’d get caught and be helpless once she did, especially if she wanted to hold the damned breach open. She couldn’t afford to have that happen before she was ready.

  Not that she was ever ready. She hated all of this. A lot.

  She glanced back at Sebastian. Maybe not all of it.

  Hunting for Aidan, she saw her standing between the three men and a row of demons—three of the bat-winged creatures and the one gray and tentacled beast. The gray was in the center and a little forward, the leader, and it was smiling at Aidan with rows and rows of sharp sharp teeth. That one had a more human adjacent face, so the expressions were easier to read. Not pleasant. But easier.

  “You can’t banish us all, hunter,” the gray said. “We will have this world.”

  Aidan shrugged, as if this wasn’t a horrifyingly terrible situation. And when the gray lurched at her, she didn’t even flinch. She stood her ground and stared at it, and when it tried to reach for her, its tentacles hit an invisible wall. The demon hissed and drew its tentacles closer around its body.

  Aidan chuckled. Actually chuckled!

  “My will is stronger than yours,” she said.

  “No mere human’s will is stronger than mine,” the gray hissed.

  “You’d be wrong there. And it’s time to go back. You’re not welcome here.”

  One of the bat-winged creatures screeched so loudly Angie covered her ears. Ouch. The sound was high and piercing and cut right through her despite her hands. And wow, why was that making the stench of sulfur stronger?

  She looked around. Sebastian held off three demons—the lava, a bat-winged beast, and another tentacled creature that was a different species to the gray. Angie wanted to help him, but didn’t know what to do that wouldn’t distract him.

  All of it came down to will—according to Aidan. And she’d just watched Aidan deflect a demon attack without moving, without magic. With only her will. Will, the way demon hunters used it, sort of looked like magic, though. From the outside. If they survived this, Angie was going to ask more about that.

  The gray laughed at Aidan and lunged at her again. It smashed up against her will, will she was using to create a shield of some kind—at least that’s what it looked like to Angie’s magic trained gaze—and the creature screeched in frustrated response.

  One of the men at Aidan’s back raised a knife. Angie opened her mouth to call a warning, but Aidan raised a hand in her direction, almost as if she’d known what Angie was about to do and was quieting her. Then the human drew the knife down across his own arm, releasing a line of blood.

  Angie had cut herself only once for a spell. It hurt like a bitch. She hated blood magic so avoided it. That sort of spellcraft wasn’t her specialty anyway.

  The blood distracted the demons. All the demons in the woods. Including the bat-winged beast who was swooping overhead and heading toward Angie. She ducked as it changed directions, but it hadn’t actually gotten close enough to grab at her. Thankfully, since she hadn’t seen it coming.

  Fuck, she was out of her depth here.

  Another rain spell would be nice, at least provide them some cover. But there wasn’t enough moisture in the surroundings, and if she pulled out too much, she’d dry the trees and maybe even start a forest fire. They didn’t need that. Wind worked against the winged beasts, but she was pretty sure it would have no effect on the other demons.

  She had a shield spell that might help, but she was still perfecting it and was afraid she’d screw it up if she tried it under these circumstances. She had a confusion spell, a spark spell—which required her to get too close to the demons for her comfort—and a few others that were not suited to combat.

  Especially with immortal beings they couldn’t kill.

  One of the few things she did know about demons was that humans couldn’t kill them. Not even a demon hunter. The hunters sent them back to their realms. They cut them off from this realm. But they couldn’t kill them.

  She had a moment to wonder about Sebastian’s sword. Could it kill a demon? That seemed unlikely. If there was a weapon humans could use to kill them, there’d be more of those weapons about. Every hunter would want one.

  Then the man who’d released some of his own blood started to chant again. A spell this time. Like a witch’s spell.

  One Angie recognized.

  Oh. This was not good.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Panic clenched Angie’s throat. The bastard who’d cut his arm and was now chanting was working a witch’s binding spell. A binding spell.

  There were two kinds of binding spells. One, the kind that bound up another magic practitioner’s magic. Kept that magic caged, shackled, so that they couldn’t use it. Those spells were hard to pull off if the witch or wizard was strong enough. It took a lot of resources and time and patience and skill to bind another practitioner’s magic. The bound magic wielder could, with enough skill, eventually break most binding spells. And there were consequences to the caster. There had to be a serious reason to do that kind of binding, because doing so also bound up the caster’s magic. It meant the person casting the spell could no longer use their own magic either.

  The chanting man was not attempting that.

  The other kind of binding spell involved tying oneself to another person. At least in humans. Binding a human to another human meant they were so tightly linked that when one was hurt, the other felt it, and when one had power, the other could use it. They could see through each other’s eyes, they could hear through each other’s ears, they could speak through each other’s voices.

  Sometimes the binding spells were temporary, a way for two close people to stay…entangled while separated or while working a particular kind of magic together. Very very few were permanent because, really, who would want to be permanently entangled with someone else so that you felt their pain and suffering and, maybe worse, they felt yours.

  But those types of spells existed and were occasionally used. The spell the chanting man was invoking with his blood was that second kind of spell.

  He wasn’t attempting to bind himself to another human, though.

  He was binding himself to one of the demons.

  A spell that would tie him to one of the demons? That sort of thing seemed… Stupid was maybe too kind a word. Suicidal more like.

  She had no idea what binding himself to a demon would actually do. The very idea of something like that had never crossed her mind. What would happen to him if he was still bound to the demon once it was back in its own realm? Could he even accomplish this?

  Fuck, she had no clue.

  She could disrupt his spell, try to prevent him from casting. But doing so would have consequences she couldn’t predict. Magic was a bitch that way. Calling it took a lot of control and messing up in mid-casting had a lot of potential for disasters.

  “Aidan,” she called, because she needed to warn the hunter. “He’s trying to bind himself to a demon.”

  Maybe Aidan would know how to stop him.

  Angie’s last spell, the one still hovering in her mind, ready to trigger, could make thing worse here. It was an illusion spell. A distraction spell. She’d designed it to keep the demons confused so the hunters could send them back to the demon realm easier. But confused demons chasing hallucinations while bound to a human… Seemed potentially disastrous.

  Aidan didn’t curse out loud, but her mouth turned down in a frown Angie recognized. An irritated and frustrated expression rare for the hunter.

  Sebastian startled a yelp out of Angie by appearing next to her suddenly. “Don’t do that!” Angie snarled at him.

  “Sorry. The binding spell? What demon is he attempting to bind to?”

  “Got me. I don’t know the names of all these demons, so I can’t tell which one he’s invoking. He’s calling it a…”

  She listened a moment longer. The chant was a mix of Latin and English, and it was hard to distinguish the demon’s identity among the Latin. She knew the spell, what type and flavor it was, but not well enough she could have invoked it herself. Which meant she didn’t have all the words memorized, and that complicated parsing out the demon’s species.

  “…a Bakka demon. I think. That’s not Latin or English, the languages he’s using in the spell. It’s the only word I don’t recognize.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7