Black Magic Sanction

Eyes struggling to focus, I latched onto Al's hands around my throat. God, I was never so happy to see him. "Rachel?" he asked, an understandable question at this point.

"For a little bit longer, yeah, you son of a bitch," I panted, terrified as I felt the soul in me start to recover. "You told me it was an aura. It's a goddamned soul! You lied to me! You lied to me, Al! And it's... taking me over, you son of a bitch!"

His eyes narrowed as he looked across the room at Pierce. "I told you to watch her!"

"Accident," Pierce said as he untangled his legs. "She dropped a candle. The early scratchings burned, and she put it out with the water. The soul wasn't harnessed by invocation before escaping. I twisted the curse to get it out of her. I don't understand why it didn't work!"

Al let go of my neck and swung me into his arms, cradling me. "You're not a demon, runt," he said distantly, talking to Pierce as he peered into my eyes. "You can't hold a soul other than your own."

But Al thought I could? I took a breath as I stared at Al's red eyes, then another, feeling the soul in me begin to push against the protection circle, probing, looking for a way to regain control. I jerked when a slow flame started in my mind, burning, expanding. It howled against the inside of my skull, and my hands twitched. "Get it... out!" I forced past my clenched teeth. I couldn't fight forever.

Al's goat-slitted eyes showed a flash of panic, and I felt him sit down before the fire, right there on the floor. "Let me in, Rachel. Into your thoughts. You've got Krathion in there. I can separate him from you, but you have to let me in. Let go and stop fighting so I can come in!"

He wanted me to stop fighting? "He'll take over!" I panted, gripping his arm when a new wave of outrage spun through me. "He'll kill me! Al, this soul is crazy!"

Al shook his head. "I won't let you die. I've got too much invested in you." The look in his eyes scared me—it wasn't love, but it wasn't just the fear of losing an investment either. "Let me in!" he demanded as I clenched in pain. Shit, I was drooling. He didn't say trust me, but it was in his eyes.

Inside me, I felt the satisfaction of a steady progression of fire. I wasn't driven enough to survive this. Maybe after being imprisoned in limbo for a thousand years, but not right now. Either let Al in or the soul won. I had to trust him. "Okay," I breathed, and as Al's eyes widened, I stopped fighting.

The soul screamed in victory, and my body shuddered. And then... I was nowhere. I wasn't in the echoing blackness of the demon collective, and I wasn't in the spi

I wondered suddenly, was Kist here? My dad? Was that his aftershave I smelled?

"Rachel?" someone called, and I gathered myself, trying to focus. "Dad?" I whispered, not believing it.

"Rachel!" The voice became louder, and I felt a sudden pain.

Coughing, I took a huge gasp of air, my hair in my mouth, my face. The world was upside down, but then I realized I was on my hands and knees, taking snatches of air between the dry heaves. The sour taste in my mouth fought with the stink of burnt amber pouring off me. My face hurt with each gut-wrenching clench, and I felt it carefully with shaky fingers. Someone had hit me. But I was here, alone in my body. The perverted soul was gone.

I looked up from Al's floor to see a pair of elegantly embroidered slippers. Sending my gaze higher, I found an androgynous robe with a martial arts look about it, and above that, Newt's mocking expression. The demon was bald again. Even her eyebrows were gone.

Her face wrinkled when she saw me looking at her. "Honestly, Al, you're going to have to do better," she said, her words long and drawn out. "You almost let her kill herself. Again."

Al? That must be whose hand is on my back.

"Rachel?" Al said again, close and intent. I recognized it from that in-between place I'd been in. His hand fell away, and I sat back to bring my legs to my chest. Forehead on my knees, I hid from everyone. "What's she doing here?" I muttered, meaning Newt. Cold, I shivered.

"It's her," he said, his relief clear as I heard him stand. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. This wasn't free." The soft shush of her slippers was loud, but I didn't look. I was alive. I was alone in my mind. Al had been in there. No telling what he'd seen.

"I ought to file charges of uncommon stupidity against you for letting her try this alone," Newt said dryly, and I took a deep breath. Not out of it yet, apparently.

"She wouldn't have been alone if, to begin with, you'd given me a suitable soul," Al said, and I jumped when a blanket smelling of burnt amber fell across my shoulders. "Krathion? Are you insane? He was a lunatic!"

"One man's opinion," Newt said smugly, and I pulled my head up. "And what a typical male response," she added, glancing at me. "Blame everyone but yourself. You left Rachel in the middle of a highly sensitive curse. You could have brought her with you. Brought the bottle with you. But you left her alone. Face it, Al. You don't have the smarts to raise a child."

"You did this on purpose!" Al raged, sounding like a little kid calling foul. Newt looked smug, and Al turned away, frustrated.

Shaking, I tugged the blanket higher. They were my hands. My hands. Tears prickled when I looked at the small bottle on the table, green and swirling again. I wanted to laugh. Cry. Puke. Scream. "What's she doing here?" I asked again, my voice stronger.

"Krathion is insane," Al said. "It took two of us to get him back in the bottle."

I fingered the wool blanket, worried. I had a bad feeling that Newt had tried to kill me. "You were in my mind?" I asked her, fearful now.

Newt made a small sound of regret, stepping silently across the room. "No," she said petulantly as she stopped beside Pierce, slumped beside the empty tapestry. Even the moving figures made of weft and weave were afraid of her and had hidden. Pierce was nursing a swollen lip, and was sullen, even scared maybe. I was surprised to see him here at all.

"Al took teacher's prerogative," she said as she ran her fingers through his hair. Pierce stiffened, the tightening of his lips giving away his anger. "I merely put the soul back in the bottle once Al got it out of you. Gaily, if you can't demonstrate the ability to keep her alive, then I will take over her care and get you a dog instead."

My eyes widened. Fear got me to my feet, and I wobbled until I reached for the table for balance. "It was my fault, not Al's. I'm fine. Really. See? All better."

Al stiffened. "I didn't leave her alone. I left her in the care of my trusted familiar. The curse was invoked by accident. One you probably pla

Trusted familiar? I looked at Pierce, knowing laughter would sound hysterical.

"Excuses, excuses," Newt drawled, clearly seeing through it. "He tried to save her life. I see it in his thoughts." She shifted a stray hair from Pierce to set it straight. "It was his skill that failed him, not his spirit. He was here. You were not." Smiling, she turned to Al. "Think on that before you kill him."

"Kill him?" Al blurted out. "Why would I kill him?"

Yeah, seeing as he was Al's trusted familiar, but when Newt looked at the to-go cups spilled on the black floor, Al stiffened. His gaze flicked to Pierce, then me, and there it stayed, scaring me. Al thought I had freed him. The coffee had come from somewhere, and I couldn't line jump.

"No more warnings, Al," Newt said, and both Al and I jerked our attention back to her. "Your mistakes are starting to have an impact on all of us. Another error, and I take her."