I tried not to think of my niece, whimpering on the other end of a line that seemed to be strangling under the vine’s hold as I watched the demons prepare to whip up on me. Their gestures seemed random, so I dismissed signed magic. But they had to be pulling power from somewhere. I concentrated on the Magistrate. His psychic scent was the strongest, least pleasant, and most familiar. I let it draw my Sensitivity, what the reavers liked to call my Spirit Eye, into full focus.
“Leave her alone, Magistrate!” I shouted.
He glanced sideways, reached down as if to pluck a blade of grass out of the ground. But now that I was concentrating I could see he’d actually flicked a braid out of one of the shining black cords that bound him and his companions to their own world and snapped it toward me. It struck me square in the chest, numbing my entire untorso, spinning me backward yet again.
I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t been able to see their cords before. But I thought it had something to do with Raoul saying I needed training if I wanted to fight effectively in this dimension, combined with what I knew about Vayl’s ability to camouflage. The Magistrate knew how to disguise his cords so that I wouldn’t see them unless I was looking for them. Which made them highly significant.
Problem was, I had no idea how to cut them and very little time to do so. The vine they’d brought was tightening like a boa constrictor. More flowers had begun to bloom. Any minute now I expected E.J.’s cord to go as limp as a drowning victim. The only thing I could think of was to use my cords the way they had theirs.
I flew to Albert’s cord, misjudged my speed, and stopped against it so suddenly that it twanged dissonantly. The Magistrate’s buddies covered their ears.
“Watch your aim, there, nimrod!” barked the larger one. When his hands came away I saw his earlobes were bloody.
“Don’t you like that?” I asked. I grabbed the cord and whacked it, making a harsh noise that caused the smaller demon to wince and stick his stubby fingers in his greenish brown ears. A drop of blood escaped his nose.
The Magistrate lashed at me with his newfound weapon. It snaked out to sting me, so much like his whip I wondered if that was why he carried one in the first place. At the last moment I dodged, shoving Albert’s cord into the gap I’d just vacated. The Magistrate’s cord wound around it and immediately began to sizzle. I took a second to watch the shock work its way back up the line, enjoy the clench of the Magistrate’s teeth as his body began to twitch. He jerked on his weapon, trying to free it as I raced to Vayl’s cord.
I hit it hard, bouncing off and then smacking into it again as the Magistrate’s companions howled in protest.
“Stop!” they screamed as blood spurted out of every orifice. They were prone now. Writhing in pain. The vine looked none too healthy either.
Holy crap, I think this might just do the trick!
I ran the circuit of the golden cords that connected me to those I cared for. Evie. Cassandra. Bergman. Cole. Albert. Vayl. Dave’s was still missing. But E.J.’s looked brighter every time I slammed into a line, bringing from it a razor-sharp tune that cut into the demons and their cords like broken glass.
When the first cable gave, it split with an unearthly scream, as if it were a living thing and not just a conduit. The largest demon disintegrated. His buddy wasn’t far behind. As I slammed into Cole’s cord, his exploded, along with his unbody.
Yeah, baby!
I felt amazing. Elated. Damn near invincible. Nobody could stop me now that I’d figured out the key to destroying these evil sons of bitches.
I should’ve known better.
As I moved to strum the Magistrate’s death song he broke free. The speed at which he came after me made my movements look like somebody upstairs had hit their remote and consigned me to slow motion for the remainder of the battle.
He’d reached up for another section of his braid while he was struggling. Now he held two whiplike weapons. He snapped one around my waist, pinning me to my current position just three feet shy of E.J.’s shining cord. The other he snaked around my neck. Immediately my vision began to dim, as if he were cutting off blood supply. Which he wasn’t. So what the hell?
Exactly
, said Granny May as she wound up her bridge game and began packing the snacks.
Name one other place that made you feel this kind of horror. This awful sense of futility.
So what’s your point?
I asked her dully.
She snatched a popcorn kernel out of the bamboo bowl she held and poked it at me impatiently.
What? Have you forgotten what we talked about all those Sunday afternoons?
After church. After lunch. During our long, ambling walks around her farm. We’d talked about everything. But those were usually our get-serious times. When we kids could tell her anything that was on our minds and expect a nugget or two of wisdom in return. Often, however, due to how we’d spent our mornings, our talks had turned to the nature of good and evil, everything that fell between, and how to tell where you stood at any given moment.
“Hell’s a real place,” she’d informed us. “Don’t you let anyone tell you different. And it’s not just a destination. It’s one of those powerful, sneaky places that will move in next door, wait until you’re looking in the other direction, then reach out and grab you if it can.”
“How do you fight something like that?” I’d asked.
Granny May had pursed her lips and looked at me sideways, her way of applauding me for asking the question she’d hoped for. “Purity of motive,” she’d responded. “Innocence of spirit.”
Why, you sly old witch,
I thought as the Magistrate loomed over me, his finely sculpted face set in a triumphant smile as he watched me weaken,
you’ve fought demons before
. Later, when I had time, I’d delve into Granny’s past. Right now, I’d just take her advice.
I closed my eyes. And concentrated on the purest, most innocent person I knew.
I could feel her. The same way I often felt Vayl through Cirilai and through my senses. E.J. hung out there at the edge of my psyche like a new star. So fine and bright I could feel the beauty of her being burning away my own darkness.
The Magistrate jumped and squawked. I opened my eyes. His coils had retreated. He’d reared back, rubbing his hands as if they’d been singed.
I reached out. Wrapped my own hands around E.J.’s cord.
As soon as I touched it, the last, wilted vestiges of vine dropped away. I strummed it. Made the music uniquely suited to my niece. It filled the air, loud as a symphony, joyous as a Christmas carol.
“No!” screamed the Magistrate, blocking both of his bleeding ears with his hands. “STOP!”
I played on until the echoes of that fresh, uncorrupted song bounced off all the other cords around us, pulling out harmonies that made me weep with joy. Not so the Magistrate.
He clutched at his black, glistening line. Tried to ride it back to its source. But it began to shred. Then
he
began to crack, like one of Evie’s porcelain dolls after a tumble off the shelf. His model’s body developed long fissures, as if everything inside it had shifted. His perfect face split. Skull and teeth, muscle and blood, replaced smooth red skin. But I continued to play until the Magistrate’s entire unbody shivered into pieces and the cord that bound him finally melted into tiny black globs of horror that fell like black rain back to where they’d begun.