The demon had been arrested mid-motion as it exploded from the disk. Its coiled energies controlled by the castanets on the floor.
And then EJ’s finger twitched, just a fraction. A strand of his hair shifted.
EJ’swyrdworking wasn’t a timestop, like Aunt Jane used to do. Like I used to do, bubbling time. This was simply slowed action. Everything in slow motion. Had EJ and Section Seven learned how to do that? Or had EJ on his own?
Or…had his working been an untested, last-ditch effort to give me a chance to “do my thing,” as EJ sometimes said.
“Angie—”
“Stop,” I said. “Don’t move, Villetti. Don’t get any closer.” Without taking my eyes from the tableau, I said, “Walter? You here?”
“To your right.”
His liquid Jamaican words were steady and peaceful. The calm tones helped me get my breath. “Get everyone out of here. Fast. EJ has the demon locked down, but it won’t hold. I need space to work and if the house blows, I don’t want anyone in here with me.”
“I’m not leaving,” Villetti said. “And if your bodyguard touches me, that is assault on a police officer, so don’t even think about picking me up and hauling me out, Walter.”
“I cannot stop you from being an idiot, Detective Villetti,” Walter said, his voice without inflection. “No one can. With the exception of the wounded Mithran in the front closet, I will clear the house of all others still alive, though that will disrupt your crime scene. And the queen will not be happy that you are not safe, Detective.”
“I don’t care what your queen wants,” Villetti spat. “I’m staying on the job.”
“Shut up,” I said. “Let a girl work.” I followed the intermingled workings, the knots and tangles of light and power and…that single thread that already connected me to EJ. That single thread of light was twined with the tiniest thread of pure black.The black thread extended to the big thug of a vampire beneath EJ and ran to the pair of castanets near EJ’s fingers. There, the darkness was tightly knotted into EJ’s bright magics. EJ, the fanghead, the demon, and now my magic were all knotted together.
Black threads weren’t simply black, as in a crayon or tube of artist paint. They meantdeath magicworkings and demon magic woven together. The black was the black of hell and darkness and eternal screaming created by adeath witch.
A death witch had bound this demon into the backward-facing vampire. I knew a death witch who had worked long and hard to keep her energies under control, tightly bound, deep inside, so she wouldn’t kill everyone and everything around her. Our mother, Molly Everhart, had death magics. Death magic witches were executed if anyone ever found out.
But this wasn’t Mama’s magic. This was another witch’s power.
In my side vision, I saw Walter lift two forms from the bloody floor. One was a female cop. The other was Londyn. He tossed each of them over a shoulder, and carted them through the open back door, their feet and arms swaying with each step. Vampire strength.
Both women were bloody. I hadn’t seen the cop get injured.
A good two seconds later Walter was back and gripped the backward-facing muscle-bound vamp’s feet to drag him out. The strands stretched.
“Stop!” I said.
Walter stilled.
I shoved my own magic, my power, into my right hand. Coated my flesh with what I called agauntlet, a personalhedgeI had created from a few drops of my blood and raw magic. It allowed me to work death energies with relative safety. If I was very,verycareful.
Carefully, gently, I reached out and tweaked the thread of death from the vampire. Between my fingers, it whipped in the air, stinging. Even through the gauntlet, it was like pinching a swarm of killer bees, the pain shocking through me like electricity before my magic could coat it.
Giving it a delicate tug, I pulled, twisting the blackness of death free. Holding it between two fingers, a cavernous desperation and depression opened beneath me.Death. War. Helpless emptiness…
I tied the black thread off and dropped it, leaving it hanging in the air. Breathed out the misery that wanted me to slit my own throat.
The bright thread that attached me to EJ was next. It was currently a shimmering yellow. I rubbed my fingers to my thumb to restore feeling inside thegauntlet. Tugged the thread. It was attached to EJ’s castanets, and from them to EJ’s mouth. Hiswyrdworking. I slipped the thread from the castanets, coiling it away from the death strand, tucking the clean and brilliant yellow one into my brother’s collar.
I whispered to Walter, “Vamp. Fast. Take his head.”
Walter whipped away the gigantic fanged goon. To the door and outside. The vamp’s head bumped on the steps with hollowthonks. Five seconds later, Walter entered the front door, a bloody vamp-killer in his hand. He wiped it on the clothing of the staked vamp at the front, sheathed it. Lifted a male cop, a young kid, really, and the vamp, and carried them out front. Vampire speed. In less than fifteen seconds after I separated my brother’s magic from the death magic, the house was cleared so far as I knew, except for EJ, Walter, Villetti, and me. And the demon that was tied by another yellow thread, one woven with orange demon power, to the castanets. It was trapped with EJ’s power, hung in thedemonstasisworking.
I took a breath that shuddered with relief. Partway done. I had never unwoven such a tangled mass of workings and power, the energies of will and intent. I blew the breath out. Shook mygauntletedhand. It hurt. The skin looked as dead as my left. Time for that later.
“How can I help?” Villetti asked.
“Open a containment vessel and shoot me if I get possessed. Otherwise sit down and shut up,” I said, as I placed my staff on the floor. I unlatched the null cape and tossed it to the detective. “Put that on.”
