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“You won’t until the dust settles more, but they’re all fine. The demons never broke through our inner barrier.”
“Is that what was glowing?” Samuel said. “Because it felt and looked like a whole lot more than a mere protection circle.”
“Remember that conversation we’re going to have over cake? Ask that question again then.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s going to have to be a bloody big cake at this rate.”
I smiled and drew another bottle of holy water from my pack. “You’d better use some of this on that cut on your cheek, otherwise you’ll be left with a scar.”
He glanced at the bottle but didn’t take it. “Save it for your mom and Ava. They need it more than me. I’ll go meet the team and the medics—I managed to call it in when the demons hit, so the team shouldn’t be too far away now.”
He walked out of the clearing, heading toward the path. It was only then that I noticed the wind had blown the salt ring away. No wonder the bastards had hit us so easily.
I offered the holy water to Ava, but she brushed it aside with a quick shake of her head, then headed through the fading curtain of dust, no doubt to check on her husband and daughter.
I knelt in front of Mom. “How’s your back?”
“It’s fine—”
“It’s not. And there’s no need to be stoic in a situation like this.”
She half smiled. “Stoicism is my go-to reaction when the unusual happens. Hard to change a lifetime of habit.”
Stoicism—and perhaps stubbornness—was something else many would say I’d inherited from her. I’d certainly been guilty of stating more than once that I was fine when I was anything but.
I pulled my knife from my pack, asked her to strip off her coat, and then carefully cut away the torn remnants of her sweater. Her entire back had been raked, and though the wound was relatively shallow, it was already festering. I carefully poured the holy water over the wounds. She hissed but resisted the colorful and rather appropriate swearing that usually left my lips in these situations.
“Why is it hurting now but not before?” she asked, clenching and unclenching her fists.
“Because these wounds were caused by a demon. Even with the holy water’s healing properties, you may be left with scars.”
She shrugged. “Did the banishment work?”
“Yes. The wraith wouldn’t have attacked otherwise.”
“And that surge of bright magic we all saw and felt?” Her gaze searched mine. “That was you, wasn’t it? Or rather, the wild magic you now control.”
I hesitated, but it was pointless lying. “Yes.”
“How?”
“I’m linked to the reservation’s wellspring. It was her power I called.”
“But how, when it is so far away?”
“Not for the Earth. Not for the power that resides in her. It provided a channel—a superhighway, if you want—to reach me in an instant.”
She was silent for several seconds. “This gene anomaly that we both carry—it was ignited in you by the wellspring that almost killed me, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you connected to the reservation’s wellspring rather than the one that changed you?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“But you do have suspicions.”
I recorked the empty bottle and tucked it away. “We think the wild magic woke within me the night Clayton tried to rape me. That was the reason Dad was so determined to find me, you know—both he and Clayton saw the wild magic in the spell that killed Clayton’s ability to get an erection.”
