I dropped to my knees inside the circle and set the precious vial aside to brush the dirt from a swath of burned oak.
"What about my sample?" Trent asked, his voice tense, as if we might betray him in the last hour. His eyes were very green, and I watched the emotion pass behind them.
"I haven't been able to find one." Jenks dropped an inch in altitude. "I can't just type in ancient, pre-curse elf. It would help if I had a name."
Trent glanced at me, his face tight with sudden nerves. "Try searching for Kallasea," he said, and I slowed. Kallasea? An older version of Kalamack, perhaps?
"Give me a sec," Jenks said, and darted away.
Nervous as much from what I was doing as from Trent watching me do it, I sent my gaze over my stuff. White candle to serve as my hearth fire - check. Ugly big-ass knife - check. Two candles representing Al and me - check. Bag of sea salt - check. Ungodly expensive piece of magnetic chalk that I wasn't going to use - check. Little five-sided pyramid made out of copper - check. Ceri's written instructions and phonetically spelled Latin curse - rolled up like a scroll and shoved in the bottom of my bag - didn't need it. I had memorized everything while sitting on the steps of the basilica's altar.
Feeling Trent's eyes on me, I pinched the wick of the white candle, muttering, "Consimilis, calefacio," as I let it go. The spindled power in me dropped, making me glad I was lighting one candle to function as a hearth fire instead of lighting the two candles individually by magic. The flame flickered like a spot of purity amid the defiled air, and I held my breath and counted to ten. No demon showed up. Just as I had expected, they wouldn't know I was here as long as I didn't tap a line. I could do the spell.
Trent's hesitant movements just outside my vision stopped. "What are you doing?"
My jaw tightened, but I said nothing as I took my bag of salt and carefully spilled it out into the shape of an elongated figure eight. It was a modified Möbius strip. This curse was one of the few I'd ever seen that didn't use a pentagram, and I wondered if it was a completely different branch of magic. Maybe this wouldn't hurt so much.
"Rachel?" Trent prompted, and I sat back on my heels and puffed a curl that had escaped my hat out of my way.
"I've got ten minutes, and I'm going to do the curse that will keep Al from being summoned out of the ever-after."
"Now?" he said, wonder bringing his manicured eyebrows up. "You said demons could feel you tap a line. They'll be on us in seconds!"
Fingers trembling, I carefully placed the pyramid of copper where the salt lines crossed. "Which is why I'm going to do this without the protection of a circle," I said. "I have enough ever-after spindled inside me to do it." Ceri said I did. I trusted her. Though twisting a curse without a circle had me really, really nervous.
Trent's soft boots shifted in a show of protest, and I ignored him as I dug through the bag looking for the stick of redwood I had forgotten to pull out earlier. "Why are you risking it?" he said. "You're doing a demon curse before the sun comes up. In the ever-after. In a defiled church. Can't you do this when you get home?"
"If I get home," I accused. He was silent, and I set the flat piece of wood beside Al's sample. "If I don't make it, I want to die knowing my friends won't be taking the punishment Al has aimed at me. He'll be trapped in the ever-after." I eyed him. "For ever after."
Trent sat down where he could watch both me and the statue. Satisfied he wouldn't say anything else, I balanced the tongue-depressor-like stick of wood on the pyramid, the two ends hanging over the open loops of the Möbius strip. I was trying really hard not to think about what he had said about twisting a curse this close to sunup. This was bad. I mean, really bad.
"Okay," he said, startling me, and I looked up, incredulous that he thought I was waiting for his permission.
"Well, I'm glad I have your approval." Fingers shaking, I took the red candle for Al and placed it in the loop farthest from me, setting it with the word "alius." The gold one I set in my loop with the word "ipse." Gold. My aura hadn't been its original gold in a long time, but to use a black candle would just about kill me.
I poured a handful of salt into my grip, and after muttering a few words of Latin over it to give it meaning, I mixed it back and forth before dividing it equally and sifting it around the base of each unlit candle with the same words. Quickly, before Trent could distract me, I lit the candles with the hearth candle, again using the same words a final time. They were set three ways with the same strength and were immutable. It was a very secure beginning.
"Who taught you how to light candles with your thoughts?" Trent asked, and I jumped.
"Ceri," I said brusquely. "Will you be quiet, please?" I added, and he stood, stiffly going to stand beside the statue and out of my sight.
I felt my blood pressure drop, and moving slowly so as not to unbalance the stick of redwood, I snapped the tip of the ampoule off and tapped three ruby-black drops from it onto Al's side of the stick. The scent of burnt amber rose, almost chokingly thick. My eyes watered while I fumbled for the ceremonial knife. Almost done. It wasn't that difficult a curse, and hardly any magic was involved. The tough part had been in getting the samples. And I had mine right here.
While Trent watched from behind, I pricked my index finger. My heart pounded at the sudden jolt, and I massaged three drops out to land on my end of the stick. My shaking increased as I pushed out a drop more of blood and smeared it on the red candle. The curse was done but for the invocation. No demon would sense what I had done. I wasn't tapped into any line. The energy would come from the spindle in my chi. I looked at my watch, then Trent. I had to do this. I didn't like it, but I liked my other choices even less. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes. "Evulgo," I whispered to start it.
I had used this word before. I had a feeling it was to register the curse, a feeling that strengthened when a wave of disconnection slipped over me and I felt the eerie sensation of being in a large room with hundreds of people, all talking at once and ignoring everyone. My heart was pounding. I could feel the curse strengthening in me, winding its way through my DNA, becoming me, pulsing with the force of an unheard heart. Dizzy, I opened my eyes.
Trent was standing above me. There was a faint glow of yellow surrounding him. I looked at my hands, seeing my aura for the first time without the aid of the scrying mirror. It was beautiful, gold and pure. No smut. I could have cried, seeing it. If only it would last, but I knew it was only because things were in flux.
"Are you okay?" he said, and I nodded. I had to finish this before I chickened out.
Mouth dry, I turned the stick a hundred and eighty degrees to move his sample to my loop and vice versa. "Omnia mutantur," I whispered, invoking the curse.
All things change, I thought, then jumped when a feeling of being peeled out of my skin rippled over me. My hands shook, and when I looked, my aura was gone. It just...wasn't there.
"I had no choice," I said to Trent in explanation - maybe apology - then clenched my gut when the imbalance hit me.
Pain struck deep, doubling me over, and I pushed violently away in a panic. My foot scattered the curse as I curled into a ball, and I smelled extinguished candle.
"Jenks!" Trent shouted. "Something's wrong!"
I couldn't breathe. Bent into myself, I tried to open my eyes. My face scraped against the decaying carpet, and I grunted as I tried to find control. My head felt like it was splitting in two, and I cracked my lids, desperate to see. That made it worse. Oh, God, the imbalance was stronger than anything I'd ever felt before.
"Rache, you okay?" Jenks said, inches from me as he hovered over the carpet.
I got one clean breath in before the pain hit me again. I didn't want it, but the imbalance would kill me if I didn't take it as my own.
"Hold her!" Jenks shouted. "I can't help her, damn it! Trent, hold her before she hurts herself!" he demanded, and I sobbed when I felt Trent's arms go around me to keep me from rolling down the stairs.
"I take it," I gasped, my head exploding and my chest cramping. "I take the damn curse."
Like a light switch cutting off, my muscles quit seizing, and I sucked in a ragged breath of air that tasted like candle smoke. I took another breath, then another, content to simply exist without pain. Slowly my muscles relaxed, leaving only my throbbing head. Trent was sitting behind me with his arms wrapped around me. My face was wet, and Trent let go when I moved to wipe the dampness and carpet off my cheek. Slow and lethargic, I looked at my hand to make sure it had been tears and not blood I wiped away. My head hurt that badly.
"I'm okay," I rasped, and Trent's hold dropped. I heard him slide away and get up. Jenks was watching us from a railing, his face pale and pinched. "Did any demons show up?" I asked him, and he shook his head.
Utterly wiped, I shifted myself farther from Trent, embarrassed and trying to find some semblance of self again. I had done it. Damn it, it hurt so much that it had to have worked. I looked at my hands, both wanting to and fearing I might see an alien aura. They were shaking. My aura was again hidden, and I was too afraid to ask Jenks if it was mine, or Al's, or nonexistent.
I looked at Jenks, and he smiled. "It's yours," he said, and my eyes closed as a lump grew in my throat. I pushed the emotion down. We had a run to finish.
"Do you have Trent's sample?" I asked. "We have to get out of here." I'd cry later over what I had done to myself. Right now, we had to leave.
"It's coming," he said. "I found it under 'Kallasea.' Female elf installed in...three fifty-seven B.C., if I did my subtraction right. They mark everything from when the elves abandoned the ever-after. Your court date wouldn't have come up for five years." The pixy laughed. "That's what organized justice will do to you. Rome didn't fall. It was strangled in red tape."
"Bring it to me!" Trent shouted, and both Jenks and I jumped.
"All right, all right," he muttered as he zipped to the statue. "Don't have a hairy fart."
They mark the years the same as us, I thought, shoving things into my bag and hesitating when I couldn't find Al's sample. Where in hell had it rolled to?
"Got it!" came a faint call, and Jenks burst back out in a glitter of gold sparkles. A new ampoule was in his grip, with a faint amber tint to the glass. Trent gazed hungrily up at him, looking like Rex following a pixy toddler. "Once I had a name, it was as easy as pulling the wings off a fairy," Jenks said smugly. "You got anything sweet in your backpack? I haven't eaten in hours. Damn, I'm as tired as a pixy on his wedding night."