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In a move too fast for me to see, the creature broke the mage’s hold, spun and sent Pritkin sailing into the window. He struck it hard, knocking the colored glass panes out of place, sending them exploding outward. The creature whirled on me again, and his eyes were a flat, solid black, as if the pupils had bled out.
I threw out a hand, a scream rising in my throat, but I never uttered it. Because suddenly the attack just stopped. There was no sound, no movement. Nothing.
After a stunned second, I realized that the red spots in front of my eyes were a few shards of ruby glass, slung in my direction by the fight. They remained halfway through their arc, hovering in midair as if waiting for permission to fall. Everything else was also frozen in place, from the dark-eyed demon to Pritkin, caught halfway through the broken surface of the window, its sharp edges digging into his skin. In the entire room, I was the only thing moving.
Agnes, the former Pythia, had been able to do this, to literally stop time for short periods, but I’d never learned how. With an abrupt, white-hot spike of fear, I also realized that I didn’t know how to undo it, either. I decided to worry about that later and deal with the problem I did know how to solve. I grabbed a bottle off Pritkin’s shelf, uncorked the stopper and threw the entire thing in the demon’s face.
Other than turning his hair slightly pink, nothing happened. I panicked a little after that, and started throwing everything I could lay my hands on. Vials of liquid, clear and odorless as water, were followed by others containing syrupy, viscous substances with odors that made my head swim. But despite the fact that Pritkin’s arsenal was especially designed for battling demons, nothing seemed to have the slightest effect.
I emptied the entire shelf, all the while unable to look away from the potion-streaked face in front of me. The sensation of being watched from behind those glittering black eyes was more than creepy. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as my own stare began to waver, and suddenly everything started up again.
Pritkin crashed the rest of the way through the window, and the demon screamed. The sound mixed with the silvery ring of broken glass and seemed truly agonized. I guess the potions had failed to take effect because of the timeout I’d taken, but they were sure doing something now. Some set his clothes and hair alight, searing the air with the smell of burning leather. He tried to put the flames out with his hands, but that only blistered his skin. And the last potion I’d thrown, dark red with a thick, peppery smell, made his face begin to run like melting wax.
After a moment, he gave up trying to save himself and instead grasped at me. I reached for my power, but it was sluggish, the cost of that momentary hiccup in time tremendous. I threw the lamp at him, but he batted it away with a roar, half rage and half pain. His hair was almost gone now, burnt down to the roots by the fire consuming him with inhuman glee. But it wouldn’t be soon enough.
I raised my right arm, where two glowing, gaseous knives emerged from the bracelet I wore. There was only one Pritkin in the room now, and I didn’t much care what they did to this one. That was lucky since they tore into the demon with their usual abandon.
“Cassie!” Billy was waving at me frantically over the smoking skull of my attacker. “Over here!”
Like I didn’t know where the weapons were. “What do you think I’m trying to do?!” My knives were flying about, sticking into and out of their prey so wildly that I could barely see them. I didn’t dare move. “Get me something!”
Nothing happened for a moment, then a clanging avalanche of weapons hit the floor. Billy had managed to knock over the closet shelf. Most stayed where they fell, but a single knife slid across the floor and bumped my foot. I grabbed it, but the demon was thrashing around at my feet, not staying still long enough for me to use it.
“Finish him!” Billy was flickering in his agitation. “Do it!”
“I’m trying!”
The demon couldn’t see me, being blinded by the acid that had almost completely eaten away his face. But he could hear, and he rolled toward me, hands outstretched. His skin was a cracked mess of charred black and red, and the leather coat had melted against him in patches. I stared down at him, feeling suddenly queasy that I had done this to anything, even something as vile as him. What the hell was happening to me?
He turned what had been his face up to me, beseechingly, and I hesitated. In less time than it took to blink, he had me by the foot, the raw bones of his fingers sliding against my skin in a slick caress. Immediately, the horrible draining sensation was back, my power flooding into him from that one small touch.
Pain made the world go white for a heartbeat. Then I screamed and tried to jerk away, but it did nothing except to unbalance me. I fell on my butt and kicked out at the same time, hitting the blackened face hard enough that crumbled skin fell off in a withered cascade. Stark white bone showed through, but the demon only bared its teeth at me in a parody of a grin.
“You’ll look worse in a moment,” it whispered, and upped the speed of the drain.
For a second, the world went gray. “Don’t even think about it!” Billy said frantically. “I got nothing left, Cass. Pass out and it’s over!”
“I’m fine,” I told him, biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood. My knives were continuing to stab and pull out, over and over, but it was as if the creature had stopped noticing them. “The neck,” I told them, my voice barely audible even to me. “Sever it.”
To my lasting shock, they not only heard but obeyed. They set to work with a will, sawing away at the tendons and flesh, until I heard them hit bone. Blood roared in my ears and my eyes were growing dark, but I wouldn’t let them close. Little pinpricks of light had started exploding in front of my vision by the time the knives finally completed their task, severing the spine with an audible crack.
The room was immediately filled with a hurricane. Clothes, bedding and shards of glass went whizzing by in dangerous parabolas that had me clutching my head and trying to shrink into as small a space as possible. I could feel everything spin crazily around me while my gut clenched and tried to force itself up my throat and my whole body seized up like a giant cramp. I wanted to pass out. I wanted to know what was happening. I wanted to see Pritkin’s face and I didn’t want there to be blood on it.
Dimly I heard yelling from somewhere nearby, but I couldn’t even work out the separate sounds. Scream after scream of tortured air passed over me, around me, but I huddled into myself and refused to look. Then, as quickly as it had started, it was gone. Utter silence descended, except for the sound of my faint, whistling breaths.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. It was all I could do to heave the air into and out of my lungs. My hand lay open on the floor, fingers still slightly curled around the knife I’d never used. Even with solid concrete under me I felt dizzy, like I was going to fall right off the edge of the world. At least the creature’s body was gone, I thought dully, right before I was violently sick.
It seemed to go on for a while, although my time sense was so screwed up by then that I really had no idea. My vision kept trying to go dark again, and cleared only spottily, black fading away until I could see the scuffed toes of Pritkin’s boots and the pale skin on the inner side of his bicep as he held me. My head was pounding and my body was shaking in a way I’d have been embarrassed about if I hadn’t been so busy trying not to give a repeat performance.
I got a hand on the floor, trying to get enough leverage to push myself upright, but Pritkin merely pulled me in a little closer. “Give it a moment.” His voice dripped fury, but his fingers were warm and gentle against my skin. That was good, because I felt really odd, cold and light, like a frozen bubble.
Blood speckled him from where the window had torn his flesh, tracing winding trails from his forearm to his elbow, and his eyes looked like they were having as much trouble focusing as mine. I had no idea why he wasn’t a smear on the parking lot, but then, it seemed I’d been underestimating him all along. I stared at him, speechless, but Billy Joe knew just what to say.
“So the Circle’s best-known demon hunter is half demon himself,” he commented, floating over from beside the closet. “I have to tell you, I didn’t see that one coming.”
I had to admit, neither had I.
Chapter 15
