Swallowing, I looked to find Newt framed by the hallway, well within what had been holy ground. Rex was still in the demon’s arms, smiling a stupid cat smile. The orange feline wouldn’t let me touch her, but she’d purr while an insane demon pet her. Figures.
With her black staff tucked in the crook of her elbow and draped in her elegantly cut robes, Newt looked almost biblical. Her femininity was obvious once her gender was settled, her black, unblinking eyes placidly taking in Ceri’s circle in the middle of the all-but-barren sanctuary.
I crossed my arms over myself to hide my near nakedness. Not that there was that much to hide. My heart pounded and my breath came fast. The demon mark on the underside of my foot—proof that I owed Newt a favor for returning me back from the ever-after into reality last solstice—throbbed as if aware that its maker was in the room.
From beyond the tall stained-glass windows and the open front door came the soft whoosh of a passing car and the twitters of early birds. I prayed the pixies would stay in the garden. The knife was red and sticky in my hand from Ceri’s blood, and I felt ill.
“It’s too late to flee,” she said, taking the knife back. “Call Minias.”
Newt stiffened. Rex jumped from her arms to land upon my desk. Panicked, the cat leapt to the floor, scattering papers as she streaked into the hall. Red robe furling, Newt strode to Ceri’s circle, slamming her spinning staff into it. “Minias doesn’t belong here!” she shouted. “Give it to me! It’s mine. I want it back!”
Adrenaline made my head hurt. I watched the circle quiver, then hold.
“We have only moments after she becomes serious,” Ceri whispered, white-faced but looking more collected. “Can you distract her?”
I nodded, and Ceri began to prepare her spell. Tension pulled my shoulders tight, and I prayed my conversation skills were better than my magic. “What do you want? Tell me, and I’ll give it to you,” I said, voice quaking.
Newt began to pace the circle, looking like a caged tiger as her deep red robe hissed against the floor. “I don’t remember.” Confusion made her face hard. “Don’t call him,” the demon warned, black eyes shining. “Every time I do, he makes me forget. I want it back, and you have it.”
Oh, this just gets better and better. Newt’s gaze went to Ceri, and I blocked her view.
I had a half-second warning before the demon again jabbed her staff at the circle. “Corrumpro!” she shouted as it connected. At my feet, Ceri trembled when the outermost circle flashed into utter blackness as Newt owned it. With a little smile, Newt touched the circle, and it vanished to leave two thin, shining bands of unreality between us and death, dressed in a dark red robe and wielding a black staff.
“Your skills are much improved, Cerdiwen Merriam Dulciate,” Newt said. “Al is an exceptional teacher. Perhaps enough that you might be worth my kitchen.”
Ceri didn’t look up. The curtain of her pale hair hid what she was doing, and its tips were stained red from her blood. My breath was fast, and I continued to turn to keep Newt in sight until my back was again facing the open door to the church.
“I remember you,” Newt said, tapping the butt of her staff along the circle where it met the floor. Each jab sent a deeper wash of black crawling over the barrier. “I put your soul back together when you traveled the lines. You owe me a favor.” I stifled a shiver when the demon’s gaze went past my bare, pasty legs to Ceri. “Give me Ceri, and I’ll call it null.”
I stiffened. Kneeling behind me, Ceri found her strength. “I have my soul,” she stated, voice quivering. “I don’t belong to anyone.”
Newt seemed to shrug, fingers playing with her necklace. “Ceri’s signature is all over the imbalance on your soul,” the demon said to me as she moved to Ivy’s piano and turned her back on me. “She is twisting curses for you, and you’re taking them. If that doesn’t make her your familiar, then what does?”
“She twisted a curse for me,” I admitted, watching the demon’s long fingers caress the black wood. “But I took the imbalance, not her. That makes her my friend, not my familiar.”
But Newt had apparently forgotten us. Standing beside Ivy’s piano, the robed figure seemed to gather the power of the room into her, turning all that had once been holy and pure to her own purpose. “Here,” she murmured. “I came to get something of mine you stole … but this …” Tucking her staff into the crook of her arm, Newt bowed her head and held it. “This bothers me. I don’t like it here. It hurts. Why does it hurt here?”
Keeping Newt distracted while Ceri worked was well and good, but the demon was nuts. The last time I had run into Newt, she had been at least rational, but this was unimaginable power fueled by insanity.
“It was here!” the demon shouted, and I jumped, stifling a gasp. Ceri’s breath caught audibly as Newt turned, her black eyes full of malevolence. “I don’t like this,” Newt accused. “It hurts. It shouldn’t hurt.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, feeling airy and unreal, as if I were balancing on a knife’s edge. “You should go home.”
“I don’t remember where home is,” Newt said. Vehement anger colored her soft voice.
Ceri tugged at me. “It’s ready,” she whispered. “Call him.”
I pulled my eyes from Newt as the demon began to circle again, dropping my attention to the ugly, elaborate, twin-ringed pentagram drawn with Ceri’s blood. “You think calling one demon to take care of another is a good idea?” I whispered, and Newt’s pace quickened.
“He’s the only one who can reason with her,” she said, panicked and desperate. “Please, Rachel. I’d do it, but I can’t. It’s demon magic.”
I shook my head. “Her familiar? Would you have helped Al?”
While Newt chuckled over my nickname for Algaliarept, her demon captor, Ceri’s chin trembled. “Newt is insane,” she whispered.
“You think?” I snapped, jumping when Newt slammed a side kick into the barrier, her robes swirling dramatically. Great, she knew martial arts on top of everything else. Why not? She’d obviously been around a while.
“That’s why she has a demon for a familiar,” Ceri said, eyes flicking nervously. “They had a contest. The loser became her familiar. He’s more of a caretaker, and he’s probably looking for her. They don’t like it when she slips his watch.”
The lights in my head started to go on, and my mouth dropped open. Seeing my understanding, Ceri tugged me down to her pentagram drawn in blood. Grabbing my wrist, she turned it palm side up and aimed for my finger with her knife. “Hey!” I shouted, snatching my hand back.
Ceri looked at me, her lips pressed together. She was getting bitchy. That was good. It meant she thought she—we—might live through this. “Do you have a finger stick?” she snapped.
“No.”
“Then let me cut your finger.”
“You’re already bleeding,” I said. “Use your blood.”
“Mine won’t work,” she said from between gritted teeth. “It’s demon magic, and—”
“Yeah, I got it,” I interrupted. Her blood didn’t have the right enzymes, and thanks to some illegal genetic tinkering to save my life, I had survived being born possessing them.
The humming presence of the circle above us seemed to hesitate, and Newt made a sound of success. Ceri shuddered as she lost control of the middle circle, and Newt took it down. One thin, fragile circle left. I held out my hand—consumed with fear. Ceri’s eyes met mine, stress making her angular features