Page 89 of Transfiguration
It was braided, but not the thick rope of Bella’s tie to Molly. Luca wondered if he could strengthen it somehow and keep it from being severed. He could see how the red of Sam’s strand wove with a blue/green of Con’s. Did Luca still have a strand? Could he add to their weave?
When he stepped away from Bella, and Molly let him go, he feared the wind would blow him away, but it didn’t touch him, sliding around him and through him. A perk of being a ghost, maybe? He bolted in the strand's direction, as if pulled. He called to it, wanting to touch it, feeling drawn to it, to ease the buzzing anger in the bond. When he reached it, wrapping his hand around the strands, magic burned into him. It slid between his fingers, filled with power, and hurt to hold.
Luca gripped the rope tight, following the bond to Con and beneath the layers of the manifestation of the god who wanted to kill them all. Con was there, struggling to breathe, trying to regain control, losing the battle as he faded. Not his physical presence, but the soul.
Luca smiled as Con’s eyes widened and focused on him.
“Hey,” Luca said, not knowing if Con would hear. But Con threw himself forward, soul stretching to reach Luca and press their lips together. Luca sank into the feeling, offering warmth and home, the welcome he always provided his men whenever they left his side for more than a few hours. With the touch, Luca could feel the god ripping magic and energy from Con and Sam.
“Can I help?” Luca wondered, his lips against Con’s, a ghost of a touch rather than true skin to skin. He kept one hand wrapped around their braided strand, even while it burned and sizzled like some sort of electrical current. “I don’t think sexing you up is an option in this form.”
Con laughed, his eyes filling with hope for a few seconds.
“Maybe help me control this bond thing?” Luca added, tugging on the purple rope between them. Con blinked, like he had a hard time focusing on it. Both of them were losing strength fast, and Sam had vanished beneath the vines and woven wall of rock. Blood oozed as cracks formed. The wind refusing to ease its attack. Gabe didn’t seem to do much better. He fought, even with stone and vines encasing him, working to break free.
The demon lunged as if to rip Gabe from the wall and tear him apart so it could use him, but suddenly Seiran was there, looking like the Green Man, larger than human and swirling with earth. He slammed a fist into the demon, propelling it back a dozen yards.
Luca studied the array section where the vines still covered Seiran’s form and frowned. He was in two places at once?
Kelly curled himself around Jamie, who was sitting up, and had formed a shield of earth around them to ease the assault of the wind. Kelly added a layer of water to the shield, but they were still taking a beating. Bryar pounded at the barrier around Nate, unbothered by the wind at all.
Con traced his fingers over Luca’s chest, the feeling decadent and warm, even while Luca buzzed with too much energy, the bond burning into him as if it were trying to keep him out. The both of them were running out of steam. How long before it destroyed their souls? It seemed insane to think that a mortal being could contain the power of a Pillar. Scion or not, this power that Wind was claiming, a wild explosion ripped from the ley lines, but also only a fraction of the true power of the element, was too much for any single person. How could Con survive?
Luca glanced at Bella and the sentinel Molly formed around her. That was what he needed. To be strong like Molly, protect Con and Sam. Could he do that? Luca’s grip on the braided link between Sam and Con tightened, and he lifted it between them, focusing on it. Con slid in close, his touch light on Luca’s face, and Luca smiled at the feeling, even if it was faint. There was a question on his face, and Luca understood without words. They both set their hands to the braided tie and focused energy into it.
“I love you,” Luca said against Con’s cheek, uncertain if the man heard him at all.
FORTY
Wind raged, slicing into them as if it could split their connection. Sam had a vise grip on Fire, while Con was losing against Wind. The rocks and vines around Sam smoldered, but Fire hadn’t manifested to physical form. Con knew his physical body wouldn’t last much longer, even with the Focus bond, and felt Luca as a familiar of some type. It wasn’t the same bond as the Focus tie, which transcended the physical, but more of a spiritual calling, like Con could wrap the very strength of Luca’s soul around himself in a protective blanket of energy. It probably violated a million Dominion rules to have Luca as theirs. He didn’t know if it was possible for one person to be the familiar of more than one witch, but his plan was to make that bond between them as strong as iron.
Con cursed the Dominion again for hiding information. But fuck it, he’d go out in a blaze of glory to save his guys if he had to. If it brought Luca back, tied them all together, or destroyed them all to kill the monster trying to steal power, so be it. A familiar was a spirit bound as a protector to a witch. Could Con bind Luca’s spirit? Con examined the waves of energy linking him to Sam, and Sam to Luca, and thought of himself as grabbing the magic with metaphysical hands, wrapping all of it around both Luca and himself, adding his layer of whatever this color was.
He understood Luca without hearing him, could see the way the connections undulated and pulsed in pain. Con cast his will outward. The last of his free will focused on building the layers of magic over their link. It was as natural as breathing. His soul sought the touch and warmth he knew, asking gently, but wrapped with power. Con basked in the touch of his lover. Con and Sam needed Luca. Destiny set them as three, not two.
“Will you accept?” Con whispered, uncertain Luca could hear him at all under the onslaught of power gone mad. “Both of us? Knowing the power that wants to tear us apart is inside?”
“I am yours,” Luca’s voice echoed through Con’s mind and a roll of energy slid into him, the magic wrapping around them, tying them together in a thousand ways Con could feel like knots within his own soul.
Ours.Con heard Sam as the surrounding ties looped and circled, dragging Con back even as the manifestation of Wind fought to retain control. It would tear him apart if it lasted much longer. Was this what Seiran battled for all these years? No wonder the man worried about losing control. The element wanted to destroy everything. Luca wrapped his arms around Con and the power plugged into him, clarifying him before Con’s gaze, and Con wept with joy. The tie expanded, filling and draping around them, extending to Sam as if it were a blanket or one of Con’s quilt projects, more than a strand or a single tie, but an entire woven tapestry of power.
Luca put a hand in the wind and it swirled around him like a rainbow of cotton candy forming. His soul became tangible and buzzed with magic, as he pulled energy from the rage of the wind, and the god weakened.
Con dragged the wind barrier toward him, forcing the revenant of Luca’s body with it. Could Luca return to it? The wind battering the walls fluttered, fading and dying. Gabe broke his way free of vines and stone to land at Seiran’s side and launched himself at Matthew and the demon back in the vampire’s body. Gabe was bleeding, but fighting like only a vampire could with speed, strength and ferocity; Seiran beside him, yielding magic like the master he was, trying to bind Matthew with stone and roots. Matthew ripped through everything, smashing rock and taking handfuls of the roots to yank them free of the ground.
If this was the power of a demon, what chance did they have?
Nate held something in a bubble of magic at his side. With only one arm and having lost his runes, he could not attack. He drew a shield in the surrounding dirt. Was it the demon who had given him the power to cast without symbols or runes, and now that the demon was fighting for a body, his power was more limited? They needed to break that shield somehow.
The vines crawled the walls forming stone barriers, keeping the walls from tumbling down around them. One small growth rippled up through the ground beneath, sliding up through the edge of Nate’s shield, and slamming through the drawn line as though it weren’t there at all. The barrier burst with a pop, and Nate screamed as Bryar sliced into him, severing the other arm and taking the man by the throat. Bryar opened a rip in the veil and dragged the screaming man into it, both vanishing from sight.
The power of the demon stuttered, Matthew’s physical form shifting like a broken movie frame, popping in and out of focus. An internal battle for the body waged. Smoke wrapping around it in a suffocating grip.
Page bolted across the room to the mound binding Seiran’s physical form, a spell glowing between his hands. What the hell? The dirt mound moved, and changed, shifting into the familiar form of the golem. Had they fooled Nate with the golem? Holy fuck!
Con clutched the bond between him, Luca, and Sam, imagining it binding faster, thicker. He could see a manifestation of rope, which Luca clung to, and worked to strengthen it with the last of his waning power. He could feel Sam copying his will, sliding it into a spell to wrap a familiar bond around Luca and Con at the same time. The physical form of the Wind god fought for control, ripping strength from Con. It was a battle of waning strength as the god began to weaken, but Con fed everything into their bond, wanting them to be unbreakable, and willing to give the last of himself to tie them together.
The black smoke of the demon power whipped around the space, the smell of sulfur rising like it called more of its kind. Could it do that?