Ever After (The Hollows #11)(59)
Author: Kim Harrison

Bis was well within my circle, and he fidgeted, a wingtip sliding out and back in through my bubble. He was the only person in two realities who could pass through my circle. It was why it took a gargoyle to teach a demon-or a witch, for that matter-to line jump. Gargoyles could hear the lines and tell those they were bonded to how to tune their aura so they would be sucked into the right line. What gargoyles got out of the deal was beyond me.

"Okay," Bis said as he reached out to take my hands. The harsh discord immediately fell on me, and I tried not to wince. His hands felt small in my grip, and I forced myself to smile reassuringly. "Take a look at your line here," Bis went on. "I’m going to focus on it, and hopefully the rest of the background noise will go away."

My breath came faster as suddenly the only thing I was hearing/seeing in my mind was my ugly ley line with the purple core screaming at me. I couldn’t even hear the pure ting of energy behind it. It was disgusting. "Rachel?" Bis said in a pained voice, and I opened one eye a little. Behind him, Trent was scribing a larger circle around mine that could hold all of us. Wise man.

"Right." I turned my awareness to the purple sludge, careful not to get my thoughts near it and possibly get sucked in. Purple, everything was a blaring purple with fading striations of red, the sound of it rushing through me like ants, but the deeper I looked at it, the more I was able to listen past the purple coating to the twining colors behind it. Reds, blues, greens, oranges, and even browns and gold, just like auras, they swirled together but never mixed.

"Find Newt’s imbalance," Bis whimpered, and I peeked at him again.

"Newt’s!" Jenks shouted, and my eyes opened wide to see him sitting on Trent’s shoulder, unable to stay away. "You telling me the line in the backyard-where my kids play-is Newt’s?"

Bis’s face was screwed up, and he nodded, the tufts on his ears waving. I didn’t like the idea that the line I had claimed as my primary source had been created by Newt, either, but it was what it was. Trent looked a little ill, and I wondered whose half-a-mile-long line was running through his office, back room, and gardens.

Fingers holding Bis’s, I resettled myself on the gravel path. It was obvious that this tight of contact with the line was hurting him. The discord was too loud, too painful.

Bis’s grip on my hands tightened. "Now, Rachel."

I plunged my thoughts back in the line, ghosting through the purple haze, finding it easier now that I’d done it before, searching, discarding, sifting until I found the half step of red, tiny and lost among the rest. "Got it!" I whispered, heart pounding as I gathered it to me, struggling to pull it free of the rest. It was stuck like Velcro.

"Bubble it," Bis said. "Bring it out with you. With us."

With a curious flip-flop of thought, I bubbled the color/sound. My eyes snapped open as the connection broke and I suddenly found myself holding the memory of a mess of half-step red vibration in my mind. Trent was sitting before us, just outside the bubble with the line behind him. His eyes were wide, and I wondered how much he was getting through the rings.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Jenks said, rising up on a dusting of blue. "That sounds like line jumping to me. Isn’t this what you did to make your broken line to begin with?"

Bis was smiling, looking exhausted as his wings drooped. "She’s just going to move the imbalance, not herself." He looked at me, his craggy brow furrowed in warning. "Right?"

My hair was tickling my face, but I didn’t dare let go of Bis’s hand to brush it aside. "Right," I said. "And besides, Jenks. I’ve got it already."

Trent’s face was alight, and I nodded at his unspoken question. Yep, I had it. It was doing flip-flops in my soul, and I didn’t want to think about what might happen if I accidentally let go of the bubble and the imbalance became a part of me, but I had it. It sort of hurt.

"Your line sounds better already," Bis said, his hand still in mine. "Do you remember what Newt’s line sounds like without the imbalance?"

I bobbed my head, afraid to move. "Tune my aura to it?"

"No!" Bis shouted, startling me as his wings half opened. And then softer, almost sheepishly, he said, "Not your aura, just the bubble around the imbalance."

I fidgeted, embarrassed that Trent had seen the near miss. "Should I think about Newt?"

Bis’s red eyes widened. "I don’t think so."

"I wouldn’t," Jenks said sourly. "Rachel, will you just dump that imbalance and get on with it? Your aura looks really creepy holding a chunk of Newt’s."

Trent was nodding his agreement, so I closed my eyes to better focus on the bubble of imbalance trapped in my mind’s eye. It was coated with my cheerful gold aura and a thin layer of demon smut, and I needed to shift it to . . . silvery gray red. Licking my lips, I screwed my face up as I tried to imagine silver pinpricks blossoming on my gold sphere, growing to encompass everything.

"Tune it higher," Bis whimpered, clearly in pain.

"I’m trying!" I said, tightening my focus. My breath sucked in as the bubble flashed silver, overfocusing to a solid black. With a curious sideways shuffle, I pulled it back to silver, imagining a shading of a pure tinge of red lined with gray. For one breathless moment I held it, feeling my entire soul chime with the sound of silver light . . . And then it was . . . gone. There was a faint tug, and then even that severed, my awareness snapping back with a twang.

"Rachel?"

My eyes flew open at Trent’s call. He’d felt it. I thought he might. Heart pounding, I looked at Bis in the lamplight, Trent standing behind him with Jenks on his shoulder. The gargoyle looked as shocked as me. "Holy crap!" I shouted, my voice echoing back from the trees. "Did we-"

"You did!" the small gargoyle exclaimed, and I ducked as he made one push with his wings and was through my circle and airborne, flying loops with the bats and yelling in delight.

I beamed at Trent. We had done it. And if we had done it once, we could do it again and again until the line was fixed!

"You did it, Rachel!" Bis said, startling me as he skidded to a landing on the gravel path, peppering my circle with kicked-up stones. His wings were spread and his eyes wild. "You did it! Look at that line! It sounds better already!"

"We all did it," I said as I dropped the circle to put a hand on his shoulder. The glory of the lines flooded me, and yes, once I got past the discord, I could tell there was the faintest lessening of the leak. Relief filled me, and I swear, I almost cried.