The door crashed open, the sound of the drill they used to open the door, fading away as people rushed in. Two fell on Skimmer. She fought them, but her movements were blind and easy to overcome. Three more descended upon Ivy, and I heard the rhythmic chants as they started CPR. Oh, God. She was dead. Ivy was dead.
I crawled under the table, forgotten as feet rushed about to pull Trent from his corner and escort Mr. Ray and Mrs. Sarong out. A sheet was draped over Piscary. Both parts of him.
Ivy was dead. Kisten was dead. Jenks...
"No," I whispered, eyes filling as I slumped. Jenks, I thought in despair, throat heavy with an immovable lump. Where's Jenks? Piscary had hit him.
The pain was easing, the heartache wasn't. Jenks. Where was Jenks? My neck was cold, and I wouldn't touch it. My breath escaped me in a sob. Oh, God, I hurt. From under the table, I saw shiny dress shoes and three people kneeling before Ivy. Her hand lay outstretched as if looking for her salvation. As if looking for me. She was dying, and nothing could stop that.
But Jenks was somewhere, and someone might step on him.
I crawled to the back of the room, looking for him. The focus lay forgotten on the floor in an open box amid the nest of black tissue paper. I shoved it out of the way to find the shimmer of fallen gold beside my bag.
My heart seemed to cease. I felt nothing but pain. It was all I was. "Jenks," I croaked. Please, no, I thought, tears blinding me as I hunched over him. My hands, sticky with blood, tumbled as I picked him up. He wasn't moving, his face pale and one of his wings bent.
"Jenks," I sobbed, the release shaking me as I felt him light in my hand. Jenks was dead. Kisten was dead. Ivy was dying. My would-be protector had tried to kill me, only to be killed in turn. I had nothing. I had absolutely nothing. There were no more choices, no more options, no more clever ways out of a tough situation. And the rush, I realized in a brutal wash of despair, is a false god I've chased my entire life. One that cost me everything in the blind search for sensation. My entire existence amounted to nothing. Running from one thrill to the next with no regard to what really was important.
What in hell is left for me?
Everyone I had cared for was gone. It had taken me too long to find them, and I knew deep into my soul that their like would never come again. I had come too far from my beginnings, and no one else would understand who I really was - or, more important, who I wanted to be - under all the crap my life had become. I was now something no one could trust, not even me. I openly consorted with demons. My blood kindled their curses. My soul was coated with the stink of their magic. Every time I tried to do good, I hurt myself and those who loved me.
And those I loved, I thought, the tears blurring my vision.
Well, the hell with that, I thought as I fumbled for the open box with the focus in it. There was one final way to find an end to this, and now... now I had no reason not to.
A profound feeling of apathy took me, hollow and bitter, and my fingers shook as I wiped my face and pulled the hair from my eyes. Past the edge of the table, feet moved and voices were raised in urgency, but I was forgotten. Alone and apart, I pulled the focus out of its open box, knowing what I was going to do and not caring. It was going to hurt. Probably kill me. But there was nothing left in me except pain, and anything was better than that. Even oblivion.
Watching my hands as if they belonged to someone else, I scribed a circle encompassing most of the tile under the table with my metallic chalk. My heart felt like ash, unstirred by the power of the ley line as I touched it to make a shimmering black sheet bisect the table above me.
"Where's Morgan?" Trent said suddenly, his voice cutting through the excited babble. I could hear the CPR chant, but I'd seen Ivy's neck. She would die, if she wasn't dead already. She had wanted me to save her soul, and I had failed. It was gone, as if she had never been, never smiled, never taken joy in the day.
Edden's work shoes moved restlessly. "Someone check the bathroom."
Cold despite the warmth of the line running through me, I clenched the focus to me and scribed three more circles, intersecting them to form four spaces. I was crying, but it didn't matter. I was inside the circles. I was inside the circles.
"Morgan," Trent accused in a tired voice, and he bent at the waist, finding me. "It's over. You can come out of your bubble now."
I ignored him. My fingers hummed with force, and from my bag I pulled the candles I had bought for my birthday. Why, God? What in hell did I ever do to you? Trent's face went pale, and he sat down when the Latin spilled from me as I lit and placed them. First the white one, then the black, and lastly the yellow one, the yellow one that would represent my aura. There was no gray, so I put a second black one in the middle, confident that because my soul was the color of sin, the magic would work. This one I left it unlit. It would burn when the curse was twisted and my fate was immutable.
Quen tried to pull Trent up, and, failing, he bent to look himself. "Bacchus save us," he whispered, knowing what I was doing. The focus no longer had a protector. Everyone knew I had it. I couldn't give it to Piscary - the bastard was dead. I had to get rid of it another way. Just because I had screwed up, that was no reason to send what was left of the world into war. The blackness on my soul would have no meaning if there was no love, no understanding, no one to share my life with. I just wanted it to all go away, to stop. And because I didn't think I was going to survive this, it was all to the better.
Edden bent at the waist, swearing when be reached out to find that the shimmering black shadow between us was real. From the hallway came Mrs. Sarong's complaining voice, going faint as she was led away. "What is she doing?" Edden said. "Rachel, what are you doing?"
Killing myself. Numb, I set the focus in its spot and myself in the other. The third space where my ring of hair would go was empty. I was in the circle; I didn't need a symbol of connection. My chest clenched, and I drew my will together. Jenks's body lay outside my circle. Ivy's was beneath the mirror. Kisten was dead. I had no reason not to do this. I had no reason at all. Piscary had ripped everything from me in less than twenty-four hours since his release. Not bad. Maybe he was a little more pissed than I'd thought.
"Rachel!" Edden said, louder over the chants of the EMTs who had arrived to push the FIB officers away. "What are you doing?"
"She's getting rid of the focus," Quen said tightly.
"Why didn't she just do that in the first place?" Edden said, his expression annoyed. "Rachel, come out of there."
Quen's voice was empty. "Because it will take a demon curse to do it."
Edden was silent for a moment, and I jumped when I felt his fist hit my bubble. "Rachel!" he exclaimed, then swore as his knuckles met my bubble again. "Get out! Now!"
But I couldn't stop and I didn't want to. Almost having forgotten, I touched my finger to my oozing neck, and, using the blood, I scribed a figure on the unlit black candle. I still didn't know what the figure stood for, and now I never would. Silence ached through me when the EMTs knelt before Ivy, their heads bowed as they slowly put their things away.
Tears spilled, and I started to get angry. I touched the interlaced circles, willing energy to fill them. I didn't even need to use my trigger word - it happened just as I willed it.
Edden swore again as the tainted bubbles rose about me, and I wondered if he knew that the arcs of gold where the circles intersected were what my aura was supposed to look like.
"Will it kill her?" Trent whispered.
Let's find out, I thought bitterly, not believing I could hold the power of a demon curse. And when they killed me - which they would for working demon magic inside a public building in front of credible witnesses - the power of the curse would die with me. Problem solved.
Except a small part of me really wanted to live. Damn it, hope is a cruel god.
Fingers still shaking, I knelt in my tiny space and clasped my hands, willing the trigger words back into my memory. They came. Exhaling, I said harshly, "Animum recipere."
Quen's breath hissed, and he pulled Trent back.
The power of the curse flowed into me, warm like sunshine. I stiffened as the scent of burnt amber coated me, tasting bittersweet, like dark chocolate. It felt good. It tasted sweet. My thoughts wailed in despair. What in hell have I become?
Jaw clenched, I knelt under the table, my unseeing gaze lifting upward and my breath held against the sensations. It felt good, and that was wrong. The power of creation coursed out of the focus and into me, familiar and welcoming. It sang, it lured, it whispered behind my eyes of the lust of the chase, the joy of the capture, the satisfaction of the kill. Within me stirred the need to dominate. I remembered the feel of the earth beneath my paws and the scent of time in my nose, filling my memories, making me want more.