Besides, it’d gall the hell out of him if I saved his life. I grinned at the demons and bared my teeth.
“You hungry?” I yelled over the chaos. “You want a piece of this? You want a piece of me?” I had a ball of blue fire in each hand, and the demons were circling me. There was one of me, two fireballs, and three demons.
And a whirlwind of searing flame curling and twisting in the center of my chest.
The Saghred.
Oh no.
Not now. Not here. Please, no, not here.
The whirlwind turned into a tornado. My breath hissed in and out from between clenched teeth. My chest was on fire. The fire and the Saghred’s power that fed it blazed under my breastbone, white-hot and raging.
Take the power, or the power will take you.
It wasn’t a voice; it was the Saghred’s desires manifesting itself in my head.
It was also the truth.
I shoved down the fire and my fear. I swallowed them hard and held them down. The fire flickered and writhed, trying to get around my will. I pressed harder and it just increased its struggle, wild and untamable. It knew it was stronger. It knew it was going to win this time. I was its instrument, its bond servant, and I would do its will, surrender to its desires.
No!
The sounds of battle faded until all I could hear was my own breathing, and the sibilant words of the demons who had backed off a step or two, but no farther. I couldn’t tell if their words were death spells or demon-speak for “You first” and “No, you go first.”
It didn’t matter, the Saghred didn’t care, and no one had asked me what I wanted. Those demons just thought they were hungry. The Saghred hadn’t had a decent meal in nearly a thousand years. And as I’d discovered a few days ago, I was the Saghred’s bond servant, and part of that job was accepting soul sacrifices to feed the Saghred. And right now, the Saghred had a hankering for blue demons.
There was no way in hell demon souls were flowing through me to feed that rock.
The demons knew, and one of them moved in a blurred flash to snatch up Carnades’s quasi-conscious body as a hostage, the mage’s bared throat clutched in talon-tipped hand. It looked at me and bared dozens of needle-sharp teeth in a smile that told me Carnades was about to be the second elven mage to die today.
Not going to happen.
Time slowed for me until the demon’s fingers constricting around Carnades’s throat barely moved at all-but they were still moving. One of the pointed nails punctured the mage’s skin and a thin stream of blood flowed leisurely down his pale neck, vanishing into the collar of his robes.
I took a deep, shuddering breath. Then I clenched my jaw, gritted my teeth, and with every ounce of strength and sheer stubbornness I possessed, forced down the Saghred’s starvation, its demands, its desires. Forced them down bit by struggling bit. When I had as much control as I knew I was going to get, I aimed the stone’s power directly at the demon holding Carnades hostage.
The demon’s eyes widened in terror and disbelief. You’d have thought I’d shoved him headfirst into the business end of a cannon. He knew the power I was packing, and he knew the barest touch of that power wouldn’t leave enough of him to fill a dustpan. He froze. So did the other two. Everything and everyone in the room went dead silent. Waiting.
For me. For what I was going to do.
I slowly raised my arm and extended my hand, leveling it at the demon. I think it was glowing; I think I was glowing. Carnades’s eyes opened and he saw the demon.
And then he saw me.
Rescue now; explain later, I told myself.
“Put. Him. Down.” My teeth were clenched and my voice shook against the power I was barely holding in check.
But I was holding it. I had it under control.
And Carnades knew it. Now I saw a flicker of fear turn into raw, unreasoning hatred. He saw-completely and clearly for the first time-the level of power I had, and he knew its source. It didn’t matter if I saved him. He didn’t care. What I could do-what I was-was all that mattered to him now. I’d just sealed my fate. Carnades would not only see me arrested, he would see me executed. Today if he could get away with it. In his misguided and twisted reasoning, I had just become too dangerous to live.
Part of me was tempted to let the demon finish its job. The instant Carnades died, most of my problems would die with him.
I’d never liked that part of me. I knew it’d be the worst mistake I’d ever made, but I kept my hand-and the harnessed Saghred’s power-on that demon where it belonged.
The demon may have been evil incarnate from the lower hells, but he wasn’t stupid.
“Gently,” I added, showing him more than a few of my teeth.
The demon complied. His movements were slow, jerky. I was making him do something he didn’t like and he wasn’t happy about it. His yellow eyes were glowing orange.
No, he definitely wasn’t amused.
I didn’t care and I probably should have.
Carnades took a step back, staggered, then steadied himself. His blue eyes blazed with hatred and every dark and twisted thing that lay beyond. He wanted that demon dead and cold, and me the same way beside it.
I felt them move before I saw them. In a blink, the other two demons were on me, then the third one joined them.
And Carnades did nothing to stop them.
Son of a bitch.
I released the hint of power that I’d held in check, and the three demons vanished in a hiss of steam and sulfur. Not just vanished.
Vaporized.
Sickened and gasping for air I couldn’t find, I staggered to my feet. Releasing that power released the hold I had on the rest of it. I’d just pulled a rock out of a dam with a wall of water on the other side, pushing through the hole I’d made, punching against the dam that held it back. Cracks were spreading; nothing could hold that torrent back; nothing could stop that power.
I couldn’t stop that power.
“Raine!” It was Mychael’s voice sounding like it was coming down a well. I was at the bottom of that well, trapped, with no way out.
“You’ve got to discharge!”
I was going to implode or explode or something fatal and final if I didn’t get rid of the power charge that had built up inside of me. I couldn’t force it back where it came from. There was too much of it, a wall of power bearing down on me. It was coming, and I couldn’t stop it. The Saghred and I were one. Mychael said the containments were failing.
Clearly, no containments held the Saghred now.
Or would ever hold it again.
“His magic grew him; your magic can destroy him,” Sora was calling down that same well.
I had no idea what she meant, but I knew what I could do, what I had to do before the power that surged through my veins killed me-and everyone else.
Then on some level, I understood what Sora meant. It was so simple.
I extended my hand, fingers spread. The yellow demon was massive, but it was across the room, and my hand covered it completely, at least that’s what it looked like. It was a distance illusion, but illusion was magic, too.
I began slowly curling my fingers closed. The demon began compacting like I was crushing a wet sponge in my hand. It roared, then those roars turned to screams, and finally a thin shriek as I closed my hand until it was the tightest fist I could make. I tasted blood in my mouth, and black blooms danced on the edge of my vision. I opened my hand and released what was left and heard a wet, sickening plop from across the room. Then came the retching noises from a few of the watchers.
That and awed-and horrified-silence.
The last thing I heard before silence and blessed unconsciousness took me was Carnades’s calm, cold voice.