And this time instead of denying it, I accepted it. "Non sum qualis eram," I said bitterly, angry tears spilling from under my closed lids. I would take the curse into me, and I would keep it. It would end everything. There was no reason not to.
I felt the white candle go out, and I opened my eyes to see a thin trail of smoke showing me the lost path to eternity. I had set the taper with the word for protection, but I was beyond its reach. Nothing could protect me. The focus was empty, and the curse was inside me, beating like a second heart, crawling through my aura and clouding my sight. I could feel it, alive like a twin awareness beside my own. But I wasn't done yet. I still had to seal the magic.
A wild impulse to flee filled me, born of the curse. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to stay still, chaining the second awareness with my will. But it fought me, slipping deeper when I struggled to keep it separate. Eyes fixed on the black candle, I willed it to go out. With a soft puff, the light was gone. The curse's need to run grew stronger. My hands started to shake uncontrollably.
My bowed head swung to the gold candle. It would seal the curse into me so it couldn't unravel. It flickered in a wind only I felt, and then, as soft and surprising as a butterfly wing upon one's cheek, it went out. The last black candle burst into light. The curse was twisted anew.
A groan slipped from me, and I felt light-headed. It was done. I was a demonic curse. I could feel it within me, poison seeping from my soul to my mind. Now all that remained was to see if it would kill me.
Lips parted in the shock at what I had done, I lifted my head to find Trent sitting under the table in his white tux shirt without a coat. He was watching me, Quen behind him ready to drag him away. I blinked, my chest burning. There was just enough time for me to take a breath, and then the reality imbalance from twisting the curse hit me.
I jerked, my head hitting the bottom of the table and my elbows breaking the circles. Gasping, I convulsed as a wave of black coated me. I couldn't breathe. My cheek hit the cool tile, and I clenched in pain. The curse saw my will weaken, and its need to run redoubled, twining into mine until they were the same. I had to run. I had to flee! But I couldn't move... my damned... arms.
"Will she be okay?" Trent asked, worry and bewilderment in his voice.
"She's taking on the payment for the curse," Quen said quietly. "I don't know."
Someone touched me. I screamed, hearing only a guttural groan. The curse dove deep into my psyche, melding with me. There was no way out for it anymore, and it flowed into every facet of my memory and thought, becoming me. I was dying from the inside out. And through it all the smut of the imbalance burned, threatening to stop my heart.
"I take it," I panted, and the hurt ebbed. "I take it," I sobbed, clenching into a ball. It was mine. The curse was all I had left. A frightening need to run was filling me. It was the demon curse, but we were the same. Its need was mine.
Why am I fighting this? I thought suddenly, the agony of the demon smut burning my blood. And with that last, bitter feeling, I let my will die.
My fear vanished in a ping of singular thought, the heartache left in a blink of bewilderment that I cared, and the turmoil of mental anguish evaporated in the sudden realization that everything had changed.
My eyes opened. Peace filled me. It was as if I was reborn. There was no anger, no heartache, no sorrow. My breath filled my lungs in a smooth, unhurried motion. I stared at the world in a pause of time, my cheek resting on the cool tile, and I wondered what had happened. My body hurt as if I had fought and won, but there was no torn-apart corpse lying before me.
And then I saw my prison beside me, knocked askew from where I had placed it behind the trappings of demon magic. Oh. That.
Eyes narrowing, I reached for it. It would never hold me again.
"Celero inanio," I snarled, not caring it was a demon curse, not caring I didn't know how I knew it. The bone shattered where I touched it, superheated to flake into fragments. I jerked my hands back and sat up, the pain surprising but nothing against my satisfaction. That prison would never hold me again, and I welcomed the imbalance for breaking the laws of physics as it flowed into me, coating me in a comforting layer of warmth, protecting me. On to other things...
Above me I felt the flat smoothness of wood and above that a crisscross of metal, plaster, carpet, and space. I was in a building - but I didn't have to stay here.
Someone was watching me. Actually, a lot of people were, but one was looking at me like a predator at its prey. My eyes searched the silent, questioning faces until they found the vivid green eyes of an elf, framed by dark hair. Quen, I thought, giving him a name, and then I saw the open door beyond him.
"Watch out!" someone yelled.
I leapt for it, tripping on my dress. Someone fell on me to pin me to the floor. I fought silently, lashing out with my fists. A man was yelling at me to be still. The memory of the clatter of pixy wings was like a knife through my soul, and I felt the last of myself, of Rachel Morgan, vanish, hiding from the heartache.
There was a grunt as my fist found a tender spot, and in the slight release, I clawed for the door. Someone grabbed my wrists, and I cried out when they were wrenched behind my back.
Snarling, I fought to be free, then went still as I lay on the floor, a crafty smile curving over my face. I didn't have to fight with my body; I could fight with my mind.
"Someone strap her!" shrilled a pixy from above. "She's tapping a line!"
"Rachel! Stop!" a woman cried, and I whipped my head at the familiar voice.
"Ivy?" I warbled. My breath hesitated at seeing her sitting slumped against the wall, a hand pressed to her neck and pale from blood loss. Reason tried to force its way through my brain, but a heady feeling of power shoved it out. Men stood between me and the door. The woman on the floor wasn't enough to best the curse's demands.
Shivering, I twisted to sit upright. Latin spilled from me, the words coming from somewhere in my past, my future, from everywhere.
"I'm sorry, Rachel," a gravelly voice said behind me. "We don't have ley line bands."
I turned, savage in my need to hurt someone. A fist swung at me. Stars exploded, lighting my conscious thought, dying away to leave only the blackness of sweet oblivion.
But as my breath left me in a gentle sigh and I fell, I could swear that the drops of warmth upon my face were those of tears, that the shivering arms holding me from the cruel coldness of the tile had the luscious scent of vampire. And someone... was singing about blood and daisies.