Spirit (32 page)

Wading across
the wide but shallow river, I made my way to the other two trees and drew the
same lines in the ground. On this side, I drew different symbols. This time I
drew summoning symbols, hoping my intent to open a portal would work, but
really, I was just making this up as I went along. I reminded myself that the
very first spells of the very first practitioners were all just made up as
well, trial and error until they got it right.

Finishing that
last symbol and not feeling any answering magic was strange, but I couldn’t let
that deter me. I didn’t have the same powers I used to; this was probably
exactly how “regular” people felt when they performed magic. I remembered the
coven helping us to summon the Angels of the North and how none of them had
felt the rushing air when the angels answered. They hadn’t felt the air, but
they had performed the spell and it had worked just fine. My spell would work
just fine, too.

I waded back
through the water, the current pulling at my ankles and the slack in my pants,
but I managed to get back across and onto dry ground. Balor waited for me
patiently, sitting and chewing at his paw.

“All right,” I
said, getting his attention, “I have no idea what I’m doing here, okay? I mean,
it may not work right away, so just bear with me.” Balor dropped his paw and
stood, moving until he was next to me, facing the same way. I felt a little
surer of myself with him standing there, ready to try this with me, whether he
understood me or not. Just having another being with me really helped to steady
my nerves.

“Now usually I
would do this with a circle and do a cleansing and all sorts of things, but
we’re already in kind of a land of the dead, right? So there isn’t anything
here to cleanse because I’d be able to see any interfering entities. So we can
skip that part. Then we’d usually invoke the four elements, but I’m trying to
shift realities here, so I don’t think that’s appropriate. And I can’t call on
the angels to help me, so that’s out too.”

Balor huffed
then, even dropping his head and shaking it.

“Okay, okay, I’m
not used to this. I’m just trying to work it out before I try anything so I
don’t waste our time.” Balor lifted his head and quirked an eyebrow at me in a
very human gesture. “This isn’t wasting our time, shut up.”

I paced back and
forth, repeating nonsensical words as I tried to figure out how to do it. I twisted
my hands and pulled my fingers. Without my usual order of things, I really
didn’t know how to start.

“So, I guess I just
do whatever then, right?” I turned back to face Balor, who just stared at me.
“Right, so I need to activate this side,” I said as I walked over to the
symbols between the trees. I squatted and pressed my hands to the ground,
letting just the tips of my fingers touch the line closest to me, and closed my
eyes to concentrate.

“This is for the
here and now, anchoring me in this place. This is for the here and now, letting
me move from this space,” I whispered the incantation as it came to my mind. I
willed the symbols to come to life, fill with magic and power, to answer me.
When I opened my eyes, I tried not to be disappointed the symbols were still
flat designs in the dirt. I kept my silent belief that it would work.

Back across the
river, dripping wet and squatted down in front of the second set of symbols, I
placed my hands on the ground and whispered, “This is for the there and how,
pulling me to that place. This is for the there and how, letting me move to
that space.”

“Sounds as good
as anything else I’ve ever come up with,” I said to Balor when I was back at
his side. “Now we just have to figure out how to make this happen.”

I turned my back
on the symbols for the here and now to face the river. Balor turned with me,
his ears pricked up and ready. I touched his fur and prayed he’d stay with me.
I imagined I could feel the pulling force of the running water in front of me,
imagining that when I activated the spell, a doorway would open for us, letting
us step from one reality to the other.

“As I will it,
so shall it be!” I cried out. “By the powers of three times three, so smote it
be!” I curled my fingers into the scruff of Balor’s neck and pulled him with me
as I took off at a run, leaping into the air as I reached the river’s edge. We
were airborne for a few heart stopping moments, giving me hope just before we
fell in a tangle of limbs and hands and paws, crashing into the water.

Balor twisted
and pulled out of my grasp before he got to his feet and trudged to the
opposite side of the river. Water rushed off of me as I got to my feet and
followed him to the bank.

“Not one word,”
I said.

I was trying to
wring out some of the excess water from my shirt tails when I noticed my hip
quiver, my empty hip quiver. I swore as I spun toward the river, rushing back
into it, searching desperately for my lost arrows. My crossbow was still hooked
to my belt with one precious arrow knocked in it. Balor barked from the water’s
edge as I splashed around, plunging my hands into the water, blindly searching
for the arrows, but I only grasped at water and rocks.

My boot slipped
on one rock and I fell backward, water splashing up around me as my head went
under. I sucked in a breath just before I was submerged. The current pulled me
a few yards before I got my bearings and managed to put my heels to the silt
and pebbles of the riverbed, slowing me to a stop.

I fought to
stand. The water was a hip deep here, and the push and pull of the current kept
throwing me off balance. Balor barked again as he bounded down the river,
watching me as he ran.

“I’m all right,”
I called back to him to stop his barking. I brought my fist down on the water,
cursing again. My arrows were definitely lost. I pushed the few loose tendrils
of hair out of my face and slogged back to the bank. I checked to make sure the
looking glass was still tucked into my belt and my crossbow wasn’t going
anywhere as it bounced against my leg. I had to stop getting ahead of myself
and start concentrating more; every step I took forward, I did something stupid
and slid back two.

I pounded up the
riverbank and walked back to the two trees where I’d drawn what was supposed to
be a portal. I knelt, feeling the dirt become mud and cake my knees as I
studied the symbols I had drawn. I had an invocation pentagram and the symbols
for Water and Air along with a symbol for balance and transformation.

“I mean,” I
rubbed my neck one handed, “that looks right, so I don’t know what could be
missing here.”

Balor’s head
snapped up, his red eyes staring off into the distance across the river. I kept
my mouth shut as I twisted to look over my shoulder, trying to hear or see
whatever had gotten his attention. When he flattened his ears and growled low
in his throat, I knew I needed to move. Pushing to my feet slowly and quietly,
I took a step toward one of the nearby trees, but then Balor’s head whipped
around in the other direction, looking into the trees around us.

“Seriously?” I
hissed. I turned to look the same direction, but I still couldn’t see whatever
he was waiting for. I pulled my crossbow off of my belt and gripped the handle
tightly, lifting it and keeping my finger on the trigger, ready to fire. I
turned in a circle, looking for whatever or whoever was trying to sneak up on
us. Balor lifted his nose in the air and sniffed, switching back and forth,
trying to divine which direction it was coming from. When the ground shook
under me as a loud step thumped behind me, there was no question of where it
was coming from.

I turned toward
the woods behind us, putting the river to my back, and touched Balor, silently
telling him which way to turn. I saw treetops moving, birds taking flight as
they cried out in distress. Trying to hide in a tree was pointless if the thing
was big enough to reach me there. The dirt shifted and tiny pebbles rolled down
to be lost in the river with each thundering step this thing took.

“Balor, what is
it?” I breathed. My heart thudded in my chest and a lump formed in my throat,
making it very difficult to swallow. Balor growled again, his black lips
curling up and baring his massive teeth. He took a few steps forward, putting
himself in front of me as he squared his shoulders, curling his claws into the
ground.

Through the
trees, I saw a shadow moving, a shadow big enough to steal what little light
there was among the trunks and bushes. I glanced at my little crossbow and knew
it wouldn’t do me one damn bit of help. I could smell the sour sulfur of its
breath as it sniffed the air just as Balor had done moments ago while I
frantically worked to get the arrow out of the chamber, nearly breaking it. I
threw the crossbow somewhere behind me and held the arrow by the shaft in a
false grip, just as Michael had taught me.

A roar rang out,
a strange mixture of bleats and warbles, pitched high enough to make me cringe
and desperate to cover my ears. I knew that roar; it had haunted me the entire
time I’d been there. Balor howled long and loud in response, accepting the
challenge. My stomach turned, and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck
stood on end.

I nearly
screamed when I saw the first scaly, gray foot appear out of the darkness. It
was bigger than Balor and the claws that protruded from it where sinister and
black, as big around as my forearms.

“Oh no, no, no,”
I whispered, shaking my head, desperate to turn and run, but I couldn’t leave
Balor like that, not if he was going to stand his ground. “Balor,” I whispered,
urging him to come with me, but he only barked, angry and frantic as the rest
of the monster emerged.

It was something
from my nightmares; not even the Hell Hound had looked so terrifying. It was as
tall as the trees, and grey, scaly skin like boiled leather covered it from
head to foot. Its red eyes were aflame in the night. Black wings burst from its
back, dripping down to boney points that gleamed in the moonlight. Its
dragon-like face was split with a black mouth full of greenish-black teeth. Saliva
dripped out as the dark maw opened again, letting a bone jarring roar ring out.

My legs became
like hardened cement, refusing to answer my command to move, and I forgot to
blink. Balor answered the roar with another howl, his sharp pitch snapping me
out of my daze. I rushed to the nearest tree, pressing my body to it, trying to
hide every last inch of me. I whispered to Balor to come to me, but if he heard
me, then he ignored me. He moved forward, his body crouched lower as he stalked
the creature. I peered around the edge of the tree and saw it watching Balor,
lowering to all four feet, mimicking the dog. They began to circle each other.

My mouth went
dry, and for one moment, I thought I would pass out. I bent my legs and bounced
lightly on my feet, making sure the blood was circulating, trying to remember
everything Michael taught me about fighting a larger opponent, though I doubted
I could hip check that thing. A hysterical laugh burst out of me at that
thought. I clapped my hand over my mouth, holding my breath. But it was too
late; I heard the whiffling noise it made when it heard me. That massive head
turned in my direction.

The ground shook
when it changed directions and walked toward me and my hiding place. Balor
sprang into its path, snapping his jaw madly, dashing out to bite its ankles
before bounding backward again. The monster made a sharp noise of protest but
continued determinedly for me. I clung to the tree with one hand, squeezing the
arrow shaft with the other, as I watched its progress. When he stood up on his
two hind feet, lifting one clawed foot in the air, I counted to three in my
head. When he let those massive claws slice through the air, I got to three and
made a frantic dash forward.

He struck the
tree with such force the branches snapped off and flew, littering the ground
with shards of wood and leaves. I ran for the monster, thinking if I was under
it, it couldn’t see me. Balor barked in protest, growling at me and attempting
to catch me with one quick snap of his jaw, but I danced out his reach and
ducked under the belly of the monster. My lungs burned, threatening to rip
apart as I tried to breathe quietly through my nose, making my nostrils flare.

The monster
whipped its serpentine body back and forth, searching for me, roaring in
frustration. I crouched to keep from being knocked over by its undulating belly
while staying on my feet so I could scuttle back and forth. Balor kept dashing
forward to bite at the creature, ripping chunks of grey flesh from the legs and
feet. The sulfur smell grew with each new wound. I swallowed against the bile
rising in my throat.

Balor lunged
again just as the monster reared his far leg to swat at the huge dog like an
annoying little gnat. Balor arced through the air, hitting a tree with a thump
and a whimper before he slid to the ground in a heap of fur. I screamed
wordlessly, thrusting my hand up, and stabbed at the belly of the beast wildly,
puncturing it until my arm was slick with black, slimy blood. When the monster
lurched forward, attempting to both get away from me and go after Balor, the
tip of my arrow caught on a bit of bone or scale, and he dragged me with him as
I refused to let go of my only weapon.

“Balor!” I
screamed, loud enough to strain my throat. “Balor, run!” Almost drunkenly,
Balor lifted his head, his red eyes dull and blinking, trying to focus on the
direction of my voice.