The Outlaw Demon Wails (49 page)

The older demon shifted in his chair, and when our eyes met, I stifled a shiver. In a sudden motion, Dali reached for the scrying mirror. Setting it before him, he smiled wickedly at Al. “I'll see if she's cognizant this morning.”

My pulse hammered, and my palms sweated. Almost immediately Dallkarackint's brow furrowed in worry, cleared, and then he smiled. “Al…,” I whispered, backing up as I remembered Newt's utterly unbalanced, powerful presence tearing apart my living room and mastering three blood circles as she searched my church for who knew what. “Al, this isn't a good idea. This
really
isn't a good idea.”

He huffed and grasped my shoulders, forcing me to stand beside him. “You asked for a bloody miracle. Who did you think I'd have to go to for it? Be a good girl and don't slouch.”

I fought to get free of his grip, my motions stilling when Newt's androgynous shape misted into existence, bald and barefoot, her high cheekbones flushed and her brows raised in question. She wore a robe that was somewhere between a kimono and a sari, matching Minias's usual outfit, but hers was a dark red, billowing and lightweight. Her eyes were completely black, even the whites, and I remembered the touch of her hand on my jaw and how she had searched my face the first time we had met, comparing me to her sisters. Mouth dry, I tried to get Al between us, not caring if I looked scared. I was.

She slowly turned, her black gaze going from the bobbing dinghy to the ornate desk. “Dali,” she said. Her voice had a smooth but masculine edge to it, and the demon took his hand from the mirror. Her attention shifted to Al. “Algaliarept?” she questioned. “Shouldn't you be making a sun shelter about now?” And then her eyes fell upon me.

“You!” she said, stepping forward with a vehement expression and her finger pointed.

Heart pounding, I pressed into Al. Funny how he seemed so much safer now.

“Newt, love,” Al soothed, a black haze enveloping his extended hand, and I felt the tension almost crack. “You look
marvelous
. Don't muss your dress. She's here for a reason. Don't you want to hear it before you tear her head off?”

Newt hesitated, and as my pulse hammered in my ears, she graciously sank back into the deck chair Dali's secretary had been in. Dali was still behind the desk, but he was standing now. “Your familiar has something
that belongs to me,” she said almost petulantly. “I'm assuming you're here to sell her. Trying to buy space in the zoo, are you?”

Dali cleared his throat and came around his desk to offer her a tall glass of what looked like iced tea. It hadn't been there a moment ago. “Al is trying to weasel his way out of debt and thinks it will take that mark the witch owes you,” the older demon said as he leaned against his desk, ankles crossed in a subtle show of submissiveness. “Be a dear and sell it to him, love.”

She had taken the drink, the ice tinkling faintly as she set it on a round wicker table that showed up the instant she took her hand from the glass. “Since Al wants it, the answer is no.”

Al took a step forward, leaving me to feel exposed. “Newt, love, I'm sure—”

With a glance, she stopped him. “I'm sure you have nothing—love,” she mocked. “You sold everything down to your rooms to bribe for a late court date and post bail. I'm crazy, not stupid.”

My jaw dropped, and I warmed. “You did what?” I exclaimed. Great. I was the student of a destitute demon. But Newt was now looking at me, and I backed up a step.

“She has something of mine,” she said. “She wears my mark. Give her to me, and maybe I'll buy your rooms back for you.”

At that, Al smiled. Kneeling before her, he took up her drink. “What she has is a memory of you two meeting, of what you learned and no one else but I figured out. Give me the witch's mark,” Al whispered as he handed her the glass, “and I'll tell you what that is. Better still, I'll keep reminding you when that bastard Minias doses you into forgetting it—again.”

The glass in her grip cracked, and an amber bead of liquid formed and rolled down the side. It was followed by another. “Minias…,” she almost growled as she set the glass aside, her jaw tight in anger and her black orbs terrifyingly intent.

Her gaze fell on me, and I went cold. She stood, and Al casually backed up to get between us. “Yes or no, love,” he said, putting me behind him.

“Yes,” she whispered, and I yelped, shaking my foot when it gave a twinge.

Al steadied me, but his intake of breath shook at our success. “You put it on your foot?” he asked me.

“I didn't have a choice,” I said, knees weak. He had done it. That fast, he had gotten Newt's mark switched to him. Now all that was left was to return his name for it, and I'd be free of the mark completely.
This is working
, I thought, glancing at Trent, who was watching in numb shock.

“Tell me what I forgot,” Newt said, eyeing me with suspicion.

Al smiled. Laying a finger beside his nose, he leaned into her. “She can invoke demon magic,” he said, holding up a finger to forestall Newt's snort of anger. “She has made a human her familiar, though I broke that bond.”

“It had better be more than that, Al,” she intoned, starting to look pissed as she drew away from Al and looked out over the fake water.

“She stole my name and made it her own.”

Newt turned to face him, her expression empty.

“And she was summoned out under it.”

Black eyes going wide, Newt sucked in her breath. “I killed my sisters!” she said, and my brief elation at getting her mark shifted to Al twisted into fear. “She can't be kin!”

“Oh, she's kin,” Al said, chuckling as he pulled me to him, his grip tightening as I struggled. “Kin born not of us but of the elves. Stupid, stupid elves who forgot and fixed what they broke. You figured it out, and Minias stole the knowledge from you for long enough that I could realize it, too, and get her first.”

“She should be mine! Give her to me!”

But Al shook his head as Dali tensed behind his desk, the demon smiling as he breathed in the scent from my hair. I let him, numb and bewildered. Kin? Witches really were kin to demons? It went against everything I'd been taught, but damn it, it made sense!

I jumped at a soft pop of displaced air. Minias burst into existence, his sandaled feet on the old wood. He was wearing his purple robes, and I fingered my belt, starting to think that was the color demons dressed their familiars in when they were pleased with them. “Newt!” Minias exclaimed, drawing back when he realized who else was here, giving Trent
barely a glance. “What are you doing here?” he questioned, then paled at her venomous look.

“You made me forget what she is,” she whispered. “Come here, Minias.”

Red, goat-slitted eyes widening, Minias reared back and vanished.

“Wait!” I shouted, then turned to Al. “I need him. You promised me Trent!”

Al's expression at my outburst was one of pure disgust, and when Newt turned to me, I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. “You want that elf for a familiar?” she asked.

I licked my lips. “He put me in a cage,” I said, trying to come up with a reason other than rescuing him. Trent got to his feet, the dinghy rocking until he steadied himself against the dock, whereupon Dali kicked him back to the bottom of the boat.

“He's the perfect familiar for my student,” Al interjected smoothly over my head, his grip on my arm telling me to shut up. “Easily hurt, stubborn, prone to biting, but basically harmless. One must learn to ride a pony before tackling the stallion. He owes Minias a favor. I could press the issue since the elf is voluntarily wearing her smut, but honestly, it's easier just to buy a mark.” Al smiled with a delicious irony. “Maybe I'll offer to tell him about my new student. That ought to be worth something.”

I tensed as Newt's eyes narrowed. “You'll tell me again, if I forget?” Al nodded, and Newt's face grew ugly. “The elf doesn't owe Minias anything. I give his mark to you.”

Trent groaned and fell back, his hate-filled expression chilling me.

Dali's brows rose. “I didn't know you could do that.”

Newt spun, making her robe unfurl. “He's my familiar, bought and paid for. I can claim anything of his. Even his life.”

Al cleared his throat nervously. “That's good to know,” he said lightly. “Important safety tip. Rachel, write that down somewhere as lesson number one.”

Her lips pressed tightly, Newt pulled her attention from the false horizon and found me. Ice seemed to scum my skin, and I felt myself pale.
I had everything I'd come for. I had rubbed out Newt's mark, or at least I would when I gave Al his name back. I had saved Trent—I thought. So why did every instinct tell me everything was about to hit the fan?

“You will teach her?” Newt said to Al, looking at me with her black eyes.

Al nodded and pulled me closer, and I let him. “As if she were my daughter.”

Newt dropped back a step, her hands clasped before her and her head bowed. She looked funny, and I got the feeling that something was being settled that I didn't understand. “You're a good teacher,” Newt finally said when her head came up. “Ceri was very skilled.”

“I know. I miss her.”

Her head moved up and down, and then she turned to me. “When you're ready, come to me. Maybe by then I'll have my memory back and I'll know what in hell is going on.”

I clenched my hands so no one would see them tremble, but when I took a breath to answer her, she vanished.

Dali's exhale was loud and strong. “I give Minias two days.”

Al's shoulders slumped. “He's used to evading her. I give him…seven.” He shifted uneasily, looking at the sparkles in the surf. “Rachel, collect your elf. I'm tired and I want to wash the cell-stink off me.” I didn't move and he gave me a shove in Trent's direction before turning to Dali. “I'm assuming the charge of uncommon stupidity will be dropped?”

Dali smiled. “Yes, yes, take your student's familiar and get out. Are you going to remind Newt as you said you would?”

Al smiled. “Every day until she kills him. Yes.”

Unsure, I looked at Trent gazing murderously at me, then Al. “Uh, Al?” I prompted.

“Get your elf, itchy-witch,” he said under his breath. “I want to get out of here before Newt remembers a rule or something and comes back.”

But Trent was looking at me like he wanted to jam a pen in my eye. Taking a shaky breath, I strode to him, falling into a crouch and extending a hand to help him out of the bobbing boat. A low sound rose from him. I stared at him, frozen, as he lunged at me.

“Trent!” I managed before he got a grip on my throat. My back hit the dock, and he landed on me, pushing my air out. He was straddling me, his grip cutting off my air—and then he was gone and I could breathe again. I heard a thump, looking up to see that Al had backhanded him off of me.

Trent slumped to the dock, a leg hanging off it and threatening to pull him into the water. Shocked, I stared as he curled into himself and retched over the side.

“Lesson number two,” Al said as he yanked me up with a white-gloved hand. “Never trust your familiar.”

“What in hell is wrong with you!” I shouted, glaring at Trent as I shook. “You can kill me later, but right now, I want to get out of here!”

I reached out, and this time he did nothing when I pulled him to Al. I didn't know how to travel the lines, but I assumed Al would jump us, seeing as I had just saved his demon ass.

“Thank you,” I muttered, very conscious of Dali watching us with calculation.

“Thank me later, itchy-witch,” Al said nervously. “I'm popping you and your familiar back to your church, but I expect to see you in fifteen minutes in your ley line with your spelling supplies and a new stick of magnetic chalk. I need some time to, ah, rent a room somewhere.”

My eyes closed in a long blink. Al really was broke. Swell. “Can't we start this next week?” I asked, but it was too late, and I felt Trent's grip on me tighten as my body was torn apart by time, then melted back into existence. I was so tired, I could have cried.

I didn't even feel dizzy when the stink of the ever-after vanished. The acidic scent of cut grass hit me, and wavering on my feet, I opened my eyes to the somber gray and green of my graveyard. Slowly I slumped. I was home.

“Dad!” a tiny voice shrilled, and I jerked to find one of Jenks's kids staring at me. “She's back! And she's got Mr. Kalamack!”

Blinking back the tears, I took a deep breath and turned to the church shining in the morning sun. It had to be later than that. I felt like I'd lived a lifetime. Seeing Trent at my feet, I reached to pull him up. “We're back,”
I said wearily, hauling on him. “Get up. Don't let Ceri see you on the ground like that.” It was over. At least for now.

Still on the ground, Trent yanked on my arm. I sucked in my breath and tried to land in a front fall, but he pulled me off balance and I landed on my side instead.

“Trent—” I started, then yelped when he jerked me up, slamming my head into a tombstone. “Hey!” I shouted, then howled when he twisted my arm.

Quicker than I could follow, he slammed my head into the stone again. My vision blurred as the pain swelled, and trying to figure out what the hell was going on, I stupidly did nothing when he wrapped an arm around my throat from behind and started squeezing.

“Trent…,” I managed to get out, then choked, feeling my face seem to bulge.

“I won't let you do it!” came his voice snarling in my ear. “I'll kill you first!”

Do what?
I thought, struggling to breathe.
I just saved his ass!

Putting my heels to the ground, I shoved backward, but we only fell over. His grip loosened and I got a breath, and then his grip went tighter.