Page 85 of Transfiguration

“It will get bad before it gets better,” Bella said.

This wasn’t bad? Luca watched Nate drag the unconscious woman to an empty array circle and drop her. He waited, standing a few feet away, and the wind rose. Was this the Pillar of Wind? A tear formed in the rippling rainbow of life in the arboretum just a foot from where the prone woman lay. Something dark and massive slunk out, stalking around the edge of the array like a shadow waiting to strike. A hulking beast made of gloom, like every horror movie Luca had ever seen, paced around her. Was it fae?

“Sometimes we have to be the bad guys,” Bella said. “Break her array. Let them in, and free her.”

Luca got up, trusting Bella to guide him since no one else could communicate with him, and crossed the space to the woman’s side. She lay unmoving, barely alive? He knew little about the array as it pulsed with magic and when he ran his hand over it; it didn’t stick to him, in fact it repelled him. He glared at the symbols and thought about what little he knew from Con. They drew the lines on the ground in the dirt. Did that mean they were like those chalk lines Con sometimes used? Break the line and break the spell? But he was a ghost, or a floating soul, or some shit. Could he move any of it?

He thought about the power he’d been absorbing and projected it at his feet, then kicked at the edge of her line. A bit of dirt moved. He focused, pushing as much power as he could into his feet. It took three tries to move the dirt enough to break the circle.

The wind power around her popped, stuttering as a true break in the larger picture. The shadow thing leapt at the woman, breaking her neck with a nasty snap.

Luca gasped, horror filling him. Had he done that? Was that his fault? He looked up at Bella and remembered her words. Free her. Was she free? Death was a type of freedom. Did that mean they all had to die to be free? That didn’t bode well for the world or for him and his guys. The power snapped away from the woman’s section of the array; the wind vanishing completely with her death.

Nate cursed. Did he see the shadow monster?

Luca worried and focused on the other arrays. Could he keep the beasts from attacking if he freed them? He made his way to Sam’s side, hoping to break that bubble too, but the menace of the demon thing inside Matthew made it feel like walking through molasses. He couldn’t get close, and the thing stalked around Sam. Luca could feel their strand of power tighten as he got closer and fed energy into it. The fire chains sizzled, heat fading as a barrier formed around him. Sam sucked in a full breath of air, his gaze searching, but Luca didn’t think Sam saw him since his gaze slid right past him.

The protective layer Luca slid over Sam wasn’t enough to break the array but limited the drag on his power. Luca glared at the demon thing. Maybe he could draw it away and break the bonds completely?

Nate paused as he stalked toward the dead wind Pillar to glare at Sam, as another dozen shadows swirled, crawling out of a small opening in the rift. Was that the veil? The shadows slunk around the dead woman like beasts marking their prey. Wolves, who weren’t wolves at all, had fangs and claws like the scariest canine Luca had ever seen. They were the size of horses and oozed darkness for slobber.

Luca hesitated to break the array around Kelly, worried the beasts would attack him, too. A woman appeared beside Bella, looking whole and relieved. She reached for Bella’s hand.

“You can go,” Bella told her softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” the woman whispered, her voice only a hint of wind. Her gaze found Luca for a moment and she said again, “Thank you.” She touched Bella’s hand and vanished.

Was Luca supposed to touch Bella so he could move on? He didn’t want to move on. He wanted his guys. Was that selfish of him? He wasn’t ready to let them go.

But she had already touched him, and he hadn’t vanished. What did that mean? His gaze fell on Sam’s bound form. Wishing he could get to him or add more energy, but he’d used up a lot, breaking the wind array. The demon thing passed nearby, its gaze going to the urn abandoned outside of the array; Nate, and the book he held. Was Nate in control of the demon?

Nate cursed and screamed at Kaine. “You lied. You can’t lie! It will visit back on you tenfold! It means death to the fae!”

Kaine remained expressionless and unmoving.

Another slit in the veil appeared, and the fae warrior Bryar stepped through, dragging Con with him. Con gasped and flailed, not bound by Nate’s magic as Sam had been, and Luca felt a stir of hope. If anyone knew how to fix all of this, it would be Con. Magic, rituals, and spells were his skill set.

Bella stood, and Molly grew as a shield around her. Could her familiar protect her from the shadows? The dark beasts swirled around Bryar as if called by him. Luca sank down beside Kelly and slowly worked on the array symbol in the dirt. His energy was waning, the large pool he’d pulled from gone, and this incorporeal form used up a lot of strength.

Luca saw a very faint rise and fall of Jamie’s chest. He was alive. Tears dripped from Kelly’s eyes as he gazed at his prone husband a few feet away, unable to move or help at all. Jamie bled from a dozen wounds, not unlike the knives Luca remembered from his attack, though he didn’t have any daggers holding him down. Nate must have sliced him up when entering the house, and now Jamie struggled to heal the massive amount of damage.

Luca didn’t have enough strength left to break Kelly’s array. The strands he absorbed had been used to break the wind Pillar’s leg of the spell. But maybe he didn’t have to be the one to break it. Jamie was close enough and if he could heal, he could break the spell holding Kelly, fortify his husband’s power, and they could both help take Nate down, right?

Luca ran a hand over Jamie, searching for the green strands he knew were earth, and pulling them upward to loop around Jamie. He didn’t know how the fuck he was doing it, but Jamie’s breathing deepened. The strands wove together, adding strength and a web of green around him. Healing him?

Jamie opened his eyes a narrow slit, careful, searching. Could he feel Luca? Luca kept tugging on the strands, looping the green around Jamie, his gaze pulled back to Con, and briefly to Bella. The giant spider familiar was creeping away, a shadow more than a physical thing, trying to get to the urn.

Was that part of it? Luca released the strands around Jamie, watching them expand and fill him with strength. He knew he couldn’t get between Kaine and Seiran, but thought again to help Sam. But that meant Luca would have to distract the demon somehow. Would taking the urn do something? Maybe destroying it would release Matthew’s soul. What then? Would the demon be free? Or would it have to let go of the body it was using?

Molly kept a distance from the shadow beasts and didn’t stray far from Bella. Luca could tell the spider wanted to move further, but hesitated. Would Bella’s shield fall if the familiar got too far away? He narrowed his gaze on the urn, nodded to Molly, and headed for the urn. He hoped breaking it would be a distraction to the demon, at the very least. If he could free Sam, maybe Sam could stop Nate and help Con.

Luca needed Sam to be free. Sam was the one who fixed things. Con found the answers and Sam fixed it. Luca clung to them like the life raft they created for him. He gathered energy from the rainbow weave of the world around him as he crossed the space, all the elements intertwined into one, pulling everything he could until the weight of it felt like an anvil on his back, and the power burned him up. It felt wrong, like he was ripping pieces from the veil between worlds, but no gaps opened up, only a drain on the surrounding colors. A warning that he was taking too much flashed like a red light in his mind. Or maybe this form couldn’t hold energy at that level. He focused on the urn, determined to smash it to bits even if it meant the end of him.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Con struggled to breathe, drowning in his own blood as the demon in Matthew’s skin grabbed Sam by the throat and pressed his lips to Sam’s.

Fuck! Con’s vision narrowed, his brain and body screaming for air. The magic trap had lured them away, and stopped his runes from working to heal him, or the wind from touching him.