Page 46 of Witchbane

“When we were trying to escape that dark thing,” Liam said, “you opened a lot of portals. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention at the time, but they all seemed to show different areas.”

“We were running for our lives. I was sort of panicked.”

“If you describe what you remember seeing through them, I could probably draw it, and tell you if it’s a place we’re aware of. We don’t leave the sanctuary very often anymore as there isn’t much left outside. There are a handful of places that aren’t accessible,” Nick said. “Opening a lot of portals would take an incredible amount of power. No wonder you passed out hard when you crossed over.”

“It didn’t seem difficult at the time,” Liam said looking at me.

“I wasn’t trying to control them. Mostly using them is erratic. I can open them at will and not really control where they go, or open them at random… and also not really know where they go.” It was kind of a useless skill, with the exception of us having used one to escape that odd darkness. “Something was killing the forest. Each time it touched a portal the portal shattered.”

“Perhaps it was magic from your world that Underhill wouldn’t let come through?” Nick asked.

“It chased away the forest god. Cornered us. One portal something came through but the darkness ate it.” Liam recalled. “It was fast. The portal shattered cutting apart whatever that was, and the darkness was on it, turning it to ash. Draining the life from it.”

Nick seemed to think about that for a few minutes while he worked his way around the library. I flipped through the first book he’d given me.

Kiran stepped through the open doorway of the library. “Open a portal.”

I blinked wide-eyed at him. “What?”

He gripped his cane and stayed close to the door. “You said you opened several portals to get here. Open a portal.”

“In the middle of your library?”

“None of this is really here. It’s all magic. My power shaped by my scion to be a comfortable space. Whatever you break I can fix. I want to see these portals of yours that you claim are out of control.” Kiran challenged like he didn’t think I could really do it. And in reality, I wasn’t sure I could. He pointed toward an open area of the room without shelves and enough distance from anything that it seemed like a good option.

Opening the portals in the mortal world was a bit like relaxing the grip on my power. Wild magic, I thought, based on Nick’s short breakdown of magic. Often, since the arrival of the kitsune and all its intense power, I spent more time trying to hold back, fearing it would break free and rage. An internal fear, I realized. Since I wasn’t sure the kitsune actually could break free, and I’d not been able to release it at all lately.

When I’d opened them in the mortal world while on the run it had been easy, casting magic like shaking off drops of water. Effortless, even while it shattered layers of ice around the cage that held the kitsune. Now it was hard, like trying to do a sit-up with an anvil on my stomach. Possible, maybe, but draining and a thousand times harder than I thought it should be. I even had to close my eyes to visualize it. Thinking more about a doorway, like the one Nick had opened before, than the portals into unexplored darkness we’d run through.

The dancing ants of rippling energy crawled over me and formed a sort of wriggling circle. When I opened my eyes, the portal was faint and unsteady. The other side didn’t look like any part of the mortal world I recognized filled with glittering blue and green bubbles floating upward. And the portal was not nearly as solid, though it was also much larger and misshapen.

A giant hand reached through the portal, stretching the edges of the opening and lunging into our space.

Chapter 12

The hand only had three fingers, each larger around than my entire body, was a bluish-green in color, and the nails on the end were pointed and sharp. It grabbed Kiran as though he were nothing but a doll. Fist wrapping around him and squeezing, pulling back toward the opening as though to drag Kiran through it.

“Kiran!” Nick cried.

I shifted because it was all I could do. For a few seconds I hoped for the demon to come out and save the day. But I was only a fox, and if Liam hadn’t reached down and yanked me free from my shirt, I’d have been useless trying to get out of it. Pants were easy to step out of, neck and arm holes, not really.

I launched myself at the hand, digging fang and claw into the back of it. It wasn’t the brutal assault of a werewolf, but I gave it everything I had.

Liam was right behind me with what appeared to be the leg of a table. He began pounding on the hand while I gnawed. He smashed over and over again as hard as he could, shouting like he was in karate practice.

I shook my head, trying to rend flesh, even though the monster tasted like rotting fish. My nails pierced its skin leaving trails of marks like a cat had gone running. Not much damage, but I wasn’t giving up yet. Liam added kicks and punches, both of us fighting like mad.

Whatever was attached on the other side of the portal screamed and the entire plane shook, portal, castle and all, like it was ready to yank the remains of Underhill through with Kiran. Liam stumbled backward, trying to keep his feet with all the shaking, and I clung to the monster like a frightened kitten.

Liam grabbed my tail at the last second to keep himself from sliding across the room. He stopped with a jarring yank that almost ripped me off the side of the monster.

Fuck, he was going to hear about that later if we survived.

The hand began to retract faster, trying to fit back through the narrow door, while not opening its fist to free Kiran. It squeezed and the crack of bones popping made me cringe. Not mine, but I panicked anyway. I was praying Kiran wasn’t already dead. What if the portal closed with Kiran on the other side? If he was the one holding together this last little sanctuary and was suddenly gone, we were all toast. I could feel the magic shards of the portal shattering bits of magic inside me, tearing down layers to keep it open. It was chaos, unabridged chaos. A tug of war as my kitsune power drain tried to latch onto the energy of the hand, and waves of magic already stored inside me tried to break free.

In a swift and graceful move, Nick brought down a sword inches from the edge of the portal, slicing a razor thin line through the giant hand. For a second everything froze, and I thought maybe the sword hadn’t cut all the way through; even though Nick had slashed to the floor with the enormous blade he’d found, the sound of the metal hitting stone clanging in an echo around the big space. He looked a bit like one of those warriors from video games in that moment, strong and fierce and unflustered, though he was breathing heavily, like he’d run hard.

Then a deafening roar sounded, bringing sparkles of darkness to my vision, like I’d pass out from the intensity of the sound. Everything rocked, books crashed around us, and I tumbled away from the hand as it fell, severed, away from the portal. Its grip around Kiran loosened, freeing him as dark oozing fluid poured from the cut end.