I laughed at the image. It was marginally obscene, but also funny.
EJ frowned at me, his eyes saying,Two demons. In one night. And the staff still has power to keep working.His eyes dropped to my staff, and my laughter slid into silence.
Most amulets had to be recharged, and the bigger the amulets, the more powerful the working within them, the longer the recharge took. Except, not the staff. It had taken in aBes, and something more powerful, just now.
The staff was still at full power.
I guessed at the thoughts in everyone’s mind. That they could have used a weapon like my staff in the war. That good people had died. Died because demons could be captured only in containment vessels, and there had never been enough of those. And maybe I had been sitting on a weapon that could have saved friends, civilians.
PsyLED might take it now, if they could.
EJ and I needed to have a long talk about the war. For now, I decided to tell more of the truth. I gave my brother an eyebrow-shrug in apology. “I tested it the first time this evening in the stairwell. I didn’t know if it would work.”
EJ closed his eyes and his mouth tightened. My brother seemed to be holding in both words and frustration.
Fine. Maybe using an untested working wasn’t the smartest thing I had ever done but—
Voice cold as the undeath he carried in his veins, Walter interrupted my thoughts. “You…you used an untried weapon. Against a demon,twodemons. And you didn’t tell your parents or your brother or me.”
“Well. Yeah,” I said, hearing the defensive note in my voice. “There wasn’t time for a conference call or the bureaucratic negotiations of a coven.”
“And if it hadn’t worked?” EJ asked. “You could have been possessed. And Walter would have had to kill you.”
“So, it’s a good thing it worked,” I said, stating the obvious, defiant, and hoping no one commented on how bad my left hand looked. Unintended consequences were part and parcel of using untested workings. There was always a price for power, and the bigger the magic, the bigger the cost.
“Where do the demons go?” Villetti asked.
“Into a portable pocket dimension,” I said.
“Like, hell?”
I shrugged. “Maybe?”
“And where did you get thisportable pocket dimension?” Villetti asked.
“From the queen. When she was a child,” Walter said. Whatever Walter saw on my face made him smile, a real smile, not the slightly vicious one he used on Villetti. “Yes. She knew you took it, Angelina. She has always wondered what your magic could do with it. A demon banisher is the result. She will be pleased.”
I didn’t quite know how to respond to that, except a shrug and a frown. I hadn’t told my brother everything earlier.
EJ was still ticked. His eyes were staring into the distance, his jaw clenching and unclenching. That look, that PTSD look, said that all the bad things in the war would have been easier if I had told him I had a piece of the queen’s magic.
“I didn’t have the trigger figured out until after you were home,” I said softly. “Until after the war. I had no idea if I could even use Aunt Jane’s magic. Less of an idea if I could capture a demon. If it then would hold a demon. But I saw demon energies in the bomb. I had to try.”
“You had aportable pocket dimension,” Villetti said again. “If you had turned it over to the military, they could have done something with it.”
“Could they?” Walter asked softly. “Were you not aware that the Dark Queen gave Section Nine one of the pocket dimensions?”
EJ’s head came up. “Theyhad one?”
“Yes. And Section Nine managed to accomplish nothing with it,” Walter said. “No one was able to access or duplicate the queen’s magic. Once the war ended, they should have returned it to the queen, but they did not. They broke treaty with the queen. There will never be another agreement between the Dark Queen and the United States military.
“Angelina, however, created a trigger all by herself, without the millions the R and D of the military complex had at their disposal. It took her years, most of that while married to a vampire from whom she hid all she was and everything she did.”
EJ blew out a breath. “This sucks.”
“Indeed, dear child,” Walter said.
EJ scowled at the “child” comment and Walter chuckled softly.
