Twisting to see Trent, I said, "We need to talk."
His eye twitched. Without a word, he unlocked his door and pushed it open, his foot catching the heavy door as it bounced back into him. Getting out, he shut the door and leaned against it, his back to me as he looked toward the Strip, a few blocks away.
Peeved, my eyes narrowed. I was too tired right now to push the issue. After I had a burger, I'd pin him to the wall and demand some answers.
Even though we were off the Strip, there was a definite flow of people headed for it, passing us with either a fast pace with loud chatter or silent with a dull drudgery. The high-magic amulet detector on my bag was glaring red, but the lethal-magic one was quiet. Remembering what Vivian had said, I reached for a ley line to see how some little city in the desert stacked up to my Cincinnati.
"Oh my God," I breathed as the reason for my slight headache became apparent. The ley lines were everywhere, thick, thin, long, and short, crisscrossing in a chaotic mess in every compass direction. It looked like someone had dropped a handful of pickup sticks. Las Vegas was on a damn rift or something, time fractured and barely holding together. Awed, I shook myself from the mental sight of so much power hovering over the desert sand, then promptly sneezed, my hair flying in my face at the quick jerk.
Oh, great, I thought as I wiped my nose, but the sun was still up, so there was no reason not to answer Al, if Al it was. Leaning over to the driver's seat, I popped the trunk and got out.
"What are you doing?" Trent asked belligerently as I shuffled through the trunk for my scrying mirror, giving him an insincere smile as I pulled it out.
"You ever use my mirror without my knowledge again, and I'm going to bust it over your head," I said. "And we are going to talk. We could all have gotten killed back there, or worse. Leave the magic to the professionals. Businessman."
He frowned as he took in my threat, and he looked like a spoiled brat standing there with his arms over his middle, wearing black from head to toe, a slight flush to his cheeks. Damn, he looked good, though, and I sneezed again as I sat down, leaving my door open for the cross breeze.
Trent turned to watch me set the mirror on my lap, and I shivered as the cold glass seemed to adhere to me, going right through my jeans. The silver-and-wine color threw back the haze of the setting sun, looking more beautiful yet. Another sneeze shook me, and I frowned. Yup, it was Al.
Ignoring Trent as he moved around the car to better spy on me, I put my hand on the scrying mirror in the cave of the pentagram. I connected to one of the smaller lines, and the rest was easy. Rachel calling Al, come in Al..., I thought dryly.
The link formed in an instant, with a fury that left me blinking. Son of a bitch! echoed in my thoughts, foreign adrenaline slamming into me. Al was in pain. He wasn't talking to me; he was in excruciating, mind-numbing pain.
Al? I thought, confused as flashes of power and half-understood spells roared through my consciousness, too fast to be realized. My lips parted, and I pressed my hand more firmly into the glass. Furious Latin uncoiled from his mind as he twisted communal stored spells. They rose from the depths of two thousand years, created during a time of war, and all the uglier for having been roused and thrust into existence with no warning. Black and sickly, I felt them pass through my mind, coating me in Al's memory of what it was like to be in pain and how to crush another with one's thoughts.
Al! I screamed into our shared thoughts, scared that the magic might turn on me. He was pulling on a line through me, and damn it if it didn't feel good even as I tried to cut him off.
Get over here, Rachel. I need your-ow! Al thought as he finally heard me, but then his splinter of awareness jerked away, and his howl at a burst of energy created to liquidize fat burned itself into my brain. He nullified it in an instant, leaving me dizzy and panting but knowing how to do it.
Al! I thought, but I must have said it aloud because Trent's shadow covered me.
"What's going on?" Trent asked, more irritation than concern in his tone.
Heat exploded in my chest, and Al and I both reacted-him with a furious shout and a thrown counterspell, me slamming my rising palm back to the mirror before my fingertips could leave the glass.
Line. Give me a line! Al thought, and I did, loosening my grip and letting the energy flow through my hand and into his mind.
The pain cut off, and I groaned in relief. My hand was trembling, and I pressed it more firmly into the scrying mirror. I looked up, feeling unreal. Past the car windows, the sky had gone hazy with red, and the gritty wind was blowing. Somehow I was using my second sight, seeing Las Vegas as if it was on fire. It looked like hell, the casinos and buildings burning, crumbling, and re-forming to crumble again. It had to be from the ley lines. There were so many that nothing was stable. I stared, transfixed, as, in the back of my mind, Al moved, dodged, and fought someone using spells so complex they looked like another language.
"Rachel, what's going on?" Trent asked again, his voice a faint buzzing as I struggled to hold my connection to Al. He'd all but forgotten me as he fought. Al was fighting hand-to-hand, teeth clenched as he struggled to keep something from his eye.
"Al!" I shouted, shoving the line into him. It burned through his mind, and he groaned, directing it into his attacker's face. Outside the car, an explosion in the ever-after ripped off the corner of a building. I watched in awe as it fell in slow motion, a red dust rising from the impact. In Al's kitchen, I felt him shove someone away, and Al rolled to his knees, his savagery making my lips pull back in a snarl.
I blinked, and I was suddenly seeing reality-the demolished building became whole and serene, its elevator rising up, the windows glittering with neon.
Trent touched my shoulder, and I jumped as our auras connected.
From Al's kitchen, a savage explosion shook me. The curse falling from Al's lips was like tinfoil between my teeth, serrating into my spine and brain, and Trent felt it, too. I gasped as Al pulled on not only me, but Trent, and with a bellow of rage, Al flung the ball of death he'd pulled from us across his kitchen, exploding it against a quick black figure with silver hair. The attacker hit the wall, the tapestry that I hated going up in green flames. The fabric screamed, and with a clap of rushing air, the figure attacking Al vanished. On the floor, the tapestry shrieked and writhed as if in pain.
Trent's yelp of shock echoed in me as he pulled away. Stunned, I sat alone with my hand on the mirror. A slithering blackness had risen, and I felt it settle over Al as he huddled on his cold black floor, whispering, I take this, I take this, before the smut could hurt him. I shivered as the smut lapped about my consciousness, touching me and recoiling like a living thing before it slid back to Al.
Sweet everlasting shit. We're in trouble, I felt in our joined thoughts.
The attacker was gone, and I cut off the energy flowing between us. Al? I cautiously offered, and I felt his consciousness gather, trying to pretend that he hadn't almost just died.
Rachel..., he started, and then we both clenched in pain. A new rush of adrenaline poured into me, and I heard in our joined thoughts, You little runt!
There was another grunt of pain, and I doubled over. With a pop, I felt Al's thoughts leave mine. It wasn't the snap of disconnection because I could still feel what he was feeling. It was something else. Something was wrong, and this time, Al was in trouble. His mind wasn't working. At all.
"Al!" I shouted, forcing my thoughts into his and finding a glimmer. "Bring me across!"
I gasped as my body dissolved in a flash of thought. There was the burst of an expanded awareness, and then the awful division of self when I was again alone in the universe. A ping of fear lit through me. With a speed that left me reeling, I was yanked through the nearest ley line, stumbling as I suddenly found myself holding my scrying mirror and standing in Al's acrid-smelling kitchen. A thick haze of dust in the air, stinking of burnt amber, choked me, and the only light was coming from a book burning in the corner.
Chunks of rock had been gouged out of the raised circular fire pit where Al twisted his larger curses. More chunks of rock from the ceiling littered the floor. If it was wood, it was charred. If it was glass, it was broken. The tapestry was silent, a liquid black dripping from it like blood as it hung askew, half on the floor.
Before the smaller hearth, on his back, was Al, out cold and bleeding from several gashes as he lay before the black fireplace. And over him was Pierce, a black ball of death in his hand.
"Pierce!" I shouted, and he turned, shocked.
"What are you doing here?" he exclaimed, the blackness in his hands flickering.
Al groaned. Pierce spun to him, Latin coming from him fast as Al's eyes opened in fear.
I didn't think, just moved. Slipping on the chalky stone dust, I lunged at Pierce, knocking him from Al and landing front first across the demon. Frantic, I scrambled up, hearing Al grunt in pain as my elbow dug into his gut. Almost in the fireplace, Pierce had gotten to his feet as well, the invoked curse still in his grasp.
For an instant, our eyes locked, and then, after shaking his head, he threw the spell at Al.
What is he doing?
"Rhombus!" I shouted, and Pierce's curse hit, pinging through my awareness as I slapped his magic aside. It went spinning into the broken remains of Al's kitchen, and my anger peaked.
"Are you addled?" Pierce yelled, his blue eyes showing his anger as he stood, his hands bereft of magic. "What the blazes are you doing?"
At my feet, Al groaned, and I felt a twinge on my awareness as a red-sheened sheet of ever-after coated him, dropping away to leave him looking half dead but no longer bleeding.
"I had him!" Pierce shouted, arms waving. "I bloody had him, and you knock me away? Deflect my curse? What's wrong with you, woman! I could have been free!"
My mouth dropped open, and I glanced down at Al gazing up at me. Holy crap, had I just saved Al's life? "Uh," I stammered as Al levered himself up onto one elbow, his head drooping to the floor and his dark hair covering his eyes.
"I had one chance!" Pierce shouted, shaking as he stood by the fireplace. "And-"
"Septiens," Al wheezed, and Pierce collapsed, seizing as if having hit an electrical field.
"Al! Wait!" I shouted, seeing Pierce writhe.