The Witch with No Name

Stepping carefully to not touch his spiral, Trent set a thumb-size bottle at the very center, upside down and still stoppered with a black wax. A faint glow raced from it to fill the spiral. Nina gasped, and I winced at the almost unheard whine. It set the bones in my ears vibrating. It was coming from the spiral itself, waves of glowing light pulsating from it like the heart of creation.

Even more carefully, Trent backed out.

“Ah, it’s working,” I said as more eyes showed, rising up from the grass like lions.

Crouching, Trent touched the red-drawn circle around the spiral, and a not-there shimmer seemed to rise straight up, not arching closed to make a dome but making a perfect column with the spiral glowing within it. It was his containment field, and the ache between my ears grew.

“Nina,” he said, hair falling into his face and a glow about his hands that made him look nothing like himself. “Once he shows, lure him into the spiral. You can pass in and out of it, but don’t touch any of the lines. The spell should ignore you, even if you touch the spiral, but no need to take chances. Once the surface demon touches any part of the spiral, he’ll have no recourse but to walk it. That will force his essence into the bottle.”

Is this how he captured my soul? I wondered, a faint memory of chant chilling me.

“Are you sure?” she warbled, clearly ready to break.

“Pretty sure.”

I looked at the glowing eyes inching closer, my unease growing. We’d come into this knowing what to do, but not what would happen. Trent’s magic was attracting every surface demon within a hundred miles. “Trent, how can I help here?” I asked, and Nina made a hopeless cry of despair.

Something dangerous plinked through me as our eyes met. He could sing souls to him, mine included, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. “Keep the rest off us,” he said, words having an odd cadence, not quite chanting, but oh so close, and it pulled at me. “I don’t like what your aura looks like. Stay out of the column,” he added, then more sharply, “Nina! On your right!”

The woman shrank away, hand to her mouth as a surface demon edged in, emboldened by the others behind him. I could hear them creeping closer, and I itched to invoke the outer protection circle. “Jenks!” I shouted, searching for the sound of wings. “Talk to me!”

But the surface demon had hesitated, his eyes fixed on Nina. “Try holding out your hand,” I suggested, and she shook her head, eyes almost entirely black as she retreated.

“That’s not him,” she whispered.

I turned to Trent for his opinion, and in that instant—the surface demon moved.

Nina shrieked. Adrenaline slammed through me. I jerked Nina out of the way, my other hand extended toward the slavering soul coming at us. “Detrudo!” I shouted, locking my knees against the surge of power.

The surface demon skidded to a halt, but my magic caught him square in the chest, bowling him back into the darkness in a flurry of long bare limbs and tattered clothes.

Shit. “Trent!” I shouted, feeling his chant rising through me. “There’re too many of them!”

“Look!” Nina screamed, pointing at the dark.

I couldn’t see crap. Jenks and Bis were still AWOL, and frustrated, I made a fist and pointed it at the sky. “Leno cinis!” I shouted, funneling a crapload of energy through me and into the faintest imagined circle above us. A burst of amber-tinted light lit the entire area in a flash.

Nina cowered as the surface demons hid from the light. I didn’t want to invoke the perimeter circle unless I had to, and I breathed a sigh of relief as the grass rustled like dead cornstalks on All Hallows’ Eve as they faded back. But they didn’t go far.

“I don’t think he’s here,” I said softly, not wanting to interrupt Trent’s chanting.

I turned, lips parting as I saw him crouched before his circle, the amber light from my slowly drifting spell making him look covered in old blood. A memory of seeing Al like this flashed over me, shaking me.

Shit, what am I doing getting Trent involved in this?

Nina cried out in fear, and I spun. But it was only Bis and Jenks, and I yanked the energy from a rising spell back, feeling it burn as I dissolved the outer edges and it collapsed.

“Do what you need to do and be quick,” the pixy said, then did a double take at Trent, still chanting. “It’s like someone yelled free lunch.”

And we’re the entrée, I thought, flicking the mostly spent charm at the circling demons.

“How do you know you’re not chasing Felix away?” Jenks said.