Ever After

stomach quivered.

“I think you need to be a demon before you can claim the right to a trial as one,” I finished, and Ku’Sox scoffed.

“You want us to let him go!” someone shouted. “He nearly destroyed the ever-after!”

I held up a hand. “You all nearly destroyed the ever-after by your cowardice. I can fix the lines with Bis. You’ve seen it. Ask your gargoyles. They’ve taught him the resonance of your lines. The proper resonance, not this jagged purity. I can have them whole by sunup. And I say, yes, let him go, but as you once were, not as you are now.”

The soft hum of decisions-yet-unmade started, and turning back to Ku’Sox, I reached out in my mind for Trent and Al. This was going to take all my finesse, and I didn’t have a clue how to do it. It would take wild magic to fix it to him, and ancient demon wisdom to find it.

You want to do what to him? I heard an echo in my mind, the shock of understanding tagging the masculine emotion as Al’s.

Like this, I said, eyes closing as a shimmer of my aura fell over Ku’Sox, tainted red from the ever-after. Ku’Sox stiffened, and as the memory of wild magic spun around and around in my head with the sound of fluttering wings, I showed Al a vision that he had shown me, a figure somewhat small, black as midnight, long fingers and toes, leathery wings, stretched like moonbeams. He would have an angular face, and wide black eyes, like Newt and Al now had. There would be long eyelashes, a small mouth, and whiskers, like a cat.

Al wove the charms at my direction, his shock and amazement making his attention skip and jump in mine. “My God!” whispered a voice, and I opened my eyes as the last of the charm melted away to leave Ku’Sox blinking up at us with large black eyes, looking exactly like I’d seen Al in his dream of blue butterflies.

“I had wings,” someone breathed. “I remember they shone in the sun and how cool they felt in the sand.”

“Black nails,” another said.

“I remember the taste of clouds,” came a voice from the back, soft and full of wonder. “Stardust in my ears.”

“What have you done?” Ku’Sox said, putting a hand to his throat when it came out in a mild, soft hiss. “What have you done to me?”

My head was down as I tried to separate myself from the spell, curse, whatever. Trent’s original curse denying Ku’Sox magic still held true, and he was helpless. He was a demon, the original form before mothers changed their children to make them stronger—into tools of war, images of man so well suited for it.

“Rachel?” Trent said, jerking me from my thoughts.

“I saw it in a dream of Al’s,” I said, looking up to see the wonder and awe in the faces around me. “Did I get it right?”

Trent shook his head in confusion, gazing at Ku’Sox as he tried to move, almost falling until he used his wing as support. “I have no idea.”

“Let me go!” Ku’Sox cried, his wings opening in alarm, and they all shifted back, stepping on toes and shoving those behind them until we stood in a wide space open to the night sky, ringed by silent demons. Newt was crying silent tears, trapped in a memory.

“Let him go,” I said, and all eyes came back to me as Ku’Sox felt his face in panic and tried to find his balance. “I say he has no right to claim demon law because he isn’t one. We hunt. If he runs far and fast enough, he can live with the memory of being hunted, of being a demon. He will deserve to live. But if he is caught . . .” I hesitated, seeing understanding trickle through them, reigniting their bloodlust. “If he’s caught, then kill him like the animal he is.”

“I am not an animal!” Ku’Sox cried out, his voice high as the demons cheered their approval.

“Yes, you are, dear boy,” Newt said, her cheeks wet as she came forward to help him find his balance. “I say that the elf, ah, that Trenton, has an excellent idea. Let Ku’Sox go.”

Ku’Sox tensed to jump up and away, and he was mobbed, beaten down. I backed up into Trent, and he held me in front of him, his grip warm and his breath coming over my shoulder as they dragged Ku’Sox up and spread his wings wide so he couldn’t move.

“Say you we hunt?” Dali shouted, and I winced at their shouts, fisted hands in the air.

Ku’Sox struggled, blood running in little rivulets from where they gripped too hard. “You can’t do this to me!” he rasped, his black eyes wide in fear. “I am a god!”

Newt came forward. “But we can, love,” she said, giving him a small kiss on his furry face. “Fly fast.”

“No!” he shouted, his word whistling in fear, and they let him go.

I ducked as he was away, his wings beating the ground as he surged into the air. Sounding like a dove, he whistled into the night sky. My heart thudded as I watched him go, his gray shadow quickly going faint.

“He’s getting away!” someone shouted, and Bis flapped his wings for their attention.

“I can find him,” the little gargoyle said as he took to the air, and I was proud of him for having lost his fear.

Al sidled up to me, leaning to mutter, “I hope you know what you’re doing. He’s going to be the devil to catch again.”

Ku’Sox’s shadow dwindled and vanished into moonlight. Clusters of demons were watching as well, discussing the best way to follow—giving him a generous head start but clearly eager to be away. “He was impossible to catch before only because you didn’t stand up to him,” I said softly, my gaze lingering upon Bis, sporting in the air over them, spiraling in his joy of flight. The gargoyles . . .

At my other side, Trent was frowning, still watching the sky. “We need mounts for a hunt. I’m not going to run after him.”

I turned to Al, seeing he had the same idea I had. “Winged mounts,” the demon said, and I nodded as he took a huge breath, and shouted, “Tre-e-e-ebl-l-l-le!”

Trent drew back in awe as Al’s gargoyle popped into existence right before us, looking as large as Etude, but thinner. She lashed her black-tipped tail and winked at Bis wheeling above her. “I’ll thank you for getting your demon to fix his holy-ass’s line,” she said brightly to Bis, her ears flat to her skull and making Al scowl. “How about the rest of them? It still sounds like hell out there.”

“Working on it,” Bis said breathlessly as he landed on my shoulder, and I sealed my thoughts off so I wouldn’t have to deal with the screaming line just yet.

Demons had noticed, and like a fantasy flick gone wild, dragonlike shapes were popping in everywhere, enthusiastic gargoyles eager for a chance to pay back some of the misery they had endured for the last week. I backed up into Trent as Al swung atop Treble, the gargoyle shivering as she rose easily up into the air before dropping back down. Wings were unfolding everywhere, yellow and red eyes swirling with an eagerness to be away. Shouts echoed, and I paled. Ku’Sox didn’t have a chance.

“Go! Go!” Newt cried atop a gray-faced, wrinkled gargoyle, and the behemoth rose up on two legs, wings stretching to show a patchwork of scars. His expression savage, he gnashed his black teeth and vaulted into the night.

Others followed, and I hid my face as the dust flew. The noise peaked and dwindled, and I looked up as they rose in a great spiral, cutting between me and the stars.

“They will find him,” Trent said, and I turned, my scuff sounding loud in the sudden hush. Behind him, Al waited with Treble, hungry to be gone. Trent’s face held resolute emptiness. He had wanted to go, needed to see an end, needed to be a part of it. And he had been excluded. We needed one more mount.

“Bis?” I said, and the little gargoyle’s eyes blinked.

“I’ll get my dad,” he said and vanished before I could tell him his father was likely lying broken next to the Loveland ley line. My shoulders sagged with guilt, and I thought of Ivy and Jenks. Why did I always leave such a huge amount of collateral damage? Maybe I should have taken the shame of simply killing Ku’Sox in his sleep.

“Having second thoughts, itchy witch?” Al said as Treble dug her claws into the earth to leave great gouging divots.

I took a breath to answer, my head jerking up along with Al’s as a great shape sprang into existence above us in the empty night sky. “Etude!” I cried out, and he waved, great gaping holes in his wings looking painful as he spiraled down, Bis darting energetically around him.

“Mother pus bucket, he’s a big one,” Al said, making Treble blush a deep black.