Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(114)
Author: Kim Harrison

Again Al touched me, but this time, his hand was gentle on my shoulder. "And if you’re not, it’s Ku’Sox. He knows you’re too protected here, and you’re a threat to him. He’s summoning you. He’s summoning you to where I can’t follow. He’s going to try to kill you!"

I panted, feeling my muscles shake as the pull worsened. God, I felt like I was being split in two. "Can’t be him. He doesn’t know my name."

"Trent does," Al said, his grip on me tightening into pain for an instant. "I told you to take that elf firmly in hand. Trent let Ku’Sox out. They’re working together. They want you dead."

Holding my breath, I managed to look up, feeling a wash of betrayal. It couldn’t be Trent. I’d just gotten the Latin wrong. Right? "I gotta go," I wheezed. "This is shitty, you know? How do you live like this?"

"Rachel!" he cried, but it was too late, and I let go of my hold on the world. The pain subsided, and the comforting gray of Al’s kitchen vanished as I found myself yanked into the ley lines. Fear, hope, and anticipation rose high. If it was Ku’Sox, he was in for a nasty surprise. I was a self-pro-claimed demon, and I should start acting like it.

But even as I thought it, my throat closed, and I felt a pang of homesickness. Ivy. Jenks. What would I tell them? Pierce, how could I explain what had happened? Trent…how would I kill him if he had betrayed me?

Okay, so it might not be all bad.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The discordant jangle of San Francisco’s broken ley lines flooded my mind, and I watched as they all cycled down to one, foremost in my thoughts. I tried to listen to it without looking past the bubble of awareness that I was cocooned in, but without Bis to safely bring the sound in past my bubble, they all tasted the same.

I shivered as my lungs formed and the memory of my body rose, giving my soul something to reside in. With a pop of sound, I found myself almost exactly where I’d been not three days ago, in the dead center of the stage where I’d been cursed.

The lights were off, and it was dark but for the hiss of a kerosene lantern making a puddle of light on the stage. The circle imprisoning me took up most of it. Darkness made the huge room a cavern of black echoes from the drone of a generator in the distance. Acrid and sharp, the smell of broken cement tweaked my nose. Something had happened. The power was out.

"You see!" Pierce said, and I spun to see him standing between Oliver and Vivian. There was a fourth witch in coven robes huddled on the floor behind them. "If she was a true demon, she could not be summoned in the day. Let your claims go, Oliver."

Pierce! I thought, then anger slid through me. They’d circled me. Like the demon that I was. Sucking on my teeth, I looked at the three witches standing in a row staring at me, the fourth completely out of it and shaking behind them. I wished it had been Ivy or Jenks-or even Trent.

"Hi, Pierce," I said dryly. "This your idea?" I added, pinging the barrier with a finger and drawing back before it could burn me. How they knew my summoning name, my real summoning name, not Al’s borrowed one, was a mystery, until I remembered that Pierce had probably been haunting me when I chose the stupid thing. Great, I’m a demon for less than a week, and already I’m fielding calls.

Expression pained and a little lost, Pierce strode forward, his full-length coat coated with dust. His hair was mussed, and his motions were quick. My flash of anger died. Tired. I was tired. For one brief moment in Trent’s hotel, I had entertained the idea that even with our differences we might make a go of it. He loved me. I could love him, if I let myself be stupid. But I couldn’t even pretend anymore that circumstances might change someday. He was coven, and I was a demon. What was wrong with me? Why was I attracted to the very things that could hurt me?

"Let her out, Oliver," Pierce said, squinting in anger at the stoic man holding the bubble, and my heart clenched in regret. "She’s not a demon."

Yes, I am.

Oliver crossed his arms over his chest, the dim light catching the Mobius-strip pin on his lapel. His circle looked well drawn, and with a little effort I might have been able to break it. But the reality was, I just didn’t care.

"Hi, Vivian," I said in greeting, not surprised that they were treating me like this. I’d saved her life, and here I was, circled like an animal. Hearing my bitter sarcasm, she dropped her gaze, ashamed. The last witch on the floor shivered, showing a masculine arm and blood-matted hair. The coven was down two witches. What had happened?

"Drop your circle before I throw you into it!" Pierce said stridently. "Rachel is not a demon!"

Again, Oliver made a grunt of negation, peering at me as if I were a bug, not a person he’d condemned three days ago. "No," he said, his voice rough, as if he’d been yelling. "If we let her out before she agrees to do what we want, she won’t do it."

I couldn’t help my snicker at that, and I shifted my weight to my other foot, wishing I had something on my feet other than socks. It was cold in here, and I wrapped my arms around my short-sleeved shirt. "I got news for you, Ollie," I said. "I’m not going to do what you want anyway."

Eyes wide, Pierce spun, making his coattails furl. "We are asking for help, not demanding it." His eyes shifted to mine, pleading for forgiveness. "I’m sorry. The circle was not my idea."

But you went along with it. "You think if you ask for my help, I’ll give it for free?" I said, hearing my voice echo as my arms dropped to my sides. "After you let an elf curse me and label me a demon? In front of everyone?" Oh yeah. I have to talk to Trent. I looked at Oliver, seeing not a hint of guilt. "After you promised me a clean slate?"

Pierce dropped his head, hearing my rebuke. Hell, I knew it had been a slip of his tongue that had put me here and him working for the coven. It hadn’t been intentional, but here I was, in a circle, and there he was, outside it. God, I was stupid. Tired, I was putting up a hand and glancing to the empty seats when a rumble echoed through the air. They all hunched, as if expecting the roof to come down, and the cowering witch shook, curling deeper into himself if that was at all possible. Leon?

"What happened? Where are the rest of you?" I asked, fatigue lapping about my ankles.

Vivian came forward into the light. Dressed in jeans and a sweater, she looked tired, as if she’d seen too much in too short a time. "We lost them," she said, her expression closed. "Ku’Sox…"

A pulse of adrenaline lit through me and my eye twitched when her words cut off in heartache. Ku’Sox. Why am I not surprised?

"He killed them," Pierce said bluntly. "Ate them as they screamed for succor. Then he ate their souls as they watched. Consumed them. That was yesterday. It could have been averted if the rest of these lily-livered ‘fraidy-cats had listened to me sooner."