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Well over the four meters mentioned by John—the dead man Belle had questioned—with black scales that shone a rich purply-green and a head that was at least triple the size of a human’s, suggesting this fucking thing had grown since it had been summoned here. Its mouth was open and its fangs—as long as my arms—gleamed darkly in the sunlight.
“Sunglasses,” Monty shouted. “Whatever you do, don’t look directly into its eyes.”
I quickly wrapped the elastic attached to my sunnies tighter around my ponytail, then called to the inner wild magic.
A wave of magic from the men rose with mine. It was fierce, sharp, and powerful, but even so, I feared it wasn’t going to be enough. Not against a basilisk that was bigger—more powerful—than any demon we’d dealt with before.
“Get into the forest,” Aiden said. “It’s too fucking open here—the trees will slow it down and give us a fighting chance.”
We took off. Aiden’s form shimmered briefly, but he didn’t shift into his wolf. Instead, he twisted around, grabbed my hand, and pulled me on. My feet flew over the ground, matching his for speed, the threads of wild magic tumbling around us, urging us to hurry, to find shelter, to escape.
Katie didn’t think our magic was going to be enough, either.
The ground trembled as the basilisk drew closer. Wild magic twisted around my fingers, mine and Katie’s combined. I dared not unleash it. Not yet. Not while we were out in the open. Aiden was right—our best chance to snare this thing lay in the trees.
“Once the basilisk is a few meters in the forest,” Ashworth shouted, “unleash net spells. If we layer them, the combination should hold the bastard long enough to deal with him.”
Net spells, not cage.Perhaps he feared, as I did, that none of us could make a cage big enough—strong enough—to contain this thing for long.
I risked a look over my shoulder, making sure I kept my gaze away from the upper portion of the basilisk’s body. The dust caused by its undulating movements surged before it, a wave that shrouded its form and chased our heels. But that didn’t hide the fact it was closer now than it had been only a few seconds ago. It was faster—far faster—than any of us. We might not even make the trees before it hit us…
The dust rolled over Aiden and me, a brown curtain that snatched the other men from sight and turned day into dusk. Fear sharpened but I ignored it, concentrating on the barely visible forest, on the need to just get there, getinthere, before the basilisk.
It was going to be close, so damn close…
We ran past one tree, two, then deeper. We were a good twenty meters in when, as one, Monty, Ashworth, and Eli tossed their spells over their heads and kept on running. As their magic skimmed over our heads, I jagged to the left, pulling Aiden with me, needing to see the position of their nets before I unleashed mine. The three spells hit a tree, then spooled out to the right and the left, one spell layering across the other as they formed a U-shaped net.
The basilisk hit the tree line. My breath caught in my throat, my tension so fierce my whole body vibrated. Would it see or feel the trap? Some demons were magic sensitive, and given how little we knew of these things it was entirely possible.
But the sinuous, shadowy form didn’t alter its trajectory, and it hit the layered nets with enough force that it ripped the first spell to shreds.
But the other two held.
I sucked in a relieved breath, then cast my spell, sending it to the rear of the basilisk to close off the trap. The basilisk reared up and hissed, a deep sound that echoed through the silence, then began to lash its tail back and forth, testing the boundary of its cage, trying to force a break.
“What now?” Aiden asked.
“I don’t fucking know.” I glanced around, frowning, as Ashworth, Monty, and Eli appeared. “Where’s Joel?”
“We sent him on, just to be safe.” Ashworth stopped a few yards shy of the net and thrust his hands on his hips. “We need to send this bugger back where it came from, and quickly.”
“But how?” I asked. “When we sent the rusalka back, we had the pentagram to protect us—”
“Because we were summoning it to us. As long as we don’t look into its eyes, the banishment spell should work just fine.”
“Whatever we do, we need to do it now,” Monty said, “because the nets aren’t going to contain it for long if it keeps thrashing about like that.”
Ashworth nodded. “Liz, you’d best stand behind your section of the netting—which is likely to be the strongest given the wild magic woven into it—and take the lead. You do remember the banishment spell, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I grabbed my knife and a couple of bottles of holy water from the pack, then dropped it onto the ground at Aiden’s feet.
After dropping a quick kiss on his cheek, I ran down the side of our trap, passing Monty as I headed toward the rear. The basilisk hissed and lunged toward me, its black teeth scoring the netting between us, causing the magic to ripple and shift. Another lunge: this time the netting bulged out, bringing the basilisk’s dark and dangerous fury altogether too close. I leapt sideways, increasing the distance between us, but it kept hitting the net, determined to get through, determined to get me.
Which at least took its attention from everyone else.
I ran around the tree that anchored my spell, then stopped at the middle point. The basilisk didn’t attack my section of the netting, thanks no doubt to the wild magic running within it, but it slithered back and forth along its length before attacking one of the junctions where my magic latched onto the others. Another thread tore and slowly began to unravel.
We had to get this done. We were running out of time.
