bird had been with him for nearly a decade, and their minds were linked very closely. He wanted badly to glance through the bird’s eyes and see what had entered the circle, but he didn’t’ dare turn from the ritual. He poured the ashes of the priest’s bone marrow carefully into a bowl in the center of the altar. He’d already added the other ingredients, one by one, stirring, mulching, pummeling some of it to paste and straining out imperfections. When the ashes were beaten in, only blood remained. The vial that held all that remained of Vanessa rested on a silver stand beside the bowl.
Something dark shot across in front of him, but he didn’t feel the familiar lurch — it was not the raven. He continued to mix the ingredients, fighting the urge to watch, to look and see what it was. There was so little left to do. Then the shadow returned, closer, and with lightning precision, Asmodeus plucked the vial from its stand.
Ezzel cried out. As he did so, he reached for the speeding bird, missed it, and his hand collided with the raven, diving in pursuit. The bird’s beak slashed Ezzel’s wrist, and he drew back. Blood poured from the wound in his wrist, and he held it up instinctively. The blood splashed down into the bowl, and the mixture sizzled. Ezzel clutched his wounded wrist and stared at the bubbling formula in horror. He backed away from the table, but it was too late.
His bird, stunned, wobbled to its feet. It recovered fast and made a lunge for the portal, where Asmodeus had disappeared from the ring. Ezzel turned, watching in horror. He was afraid the bird would break the ring — then as he realized what had just happened, he hoped it would break — mercifully — and blast them all to oblivion.
The raven shot into the opening, and it seemed it would burst through to the other side, but something stopped it. Ezzel stumbled toward the circle, watching the rear end of his familiar twitch in the grip of something and feeling the dark tendrils of that something reaching into his mind through the bird’s thoughts. It felt like ice.
On the altar, the bowl cracked, and he whirled, crying out a charm to prevent the mixture from spilling. It was only partially effective, and he saw the thick, viscous fluid leaking into jelly-like puddles on the altar. He started toward it, stopped, and dropped to his knees as pain shot through his limbs and stopped his heart.
Asmodeus shot back through the portal, past Donovan, and out of sight, clutching the vial of blood tightly. Donovan maintained the portal, shaking with the effort. If he released it suddenly, it would snap. The crystals would shatter, and all of them would cease to exist. He fought the hammering of his heart, watched the portal, and allowed it to close of its own accord. The crystals remained in resonance, but without the catalyst of his will, the portal was unfinished and incomplete.
As it closed, a dark head snapped through and Donovan gasped. He dropped his hold on the crystals too suddenly, but something prevented the portal from snapping. Something dark and sleek. Its head protruded from the mist and it glared at him in wild-eyed anger and hatred, unable to move. Donovan watched in dark fascination as the portal, unable to remain open, slowly forced its way through the creature’s flesh. The raven let out a pained squawk, but the sound died almost the second it was born. The bird hung loosely from the smoke, as Amethyst had dangled from the shadow tentacle moments before, and then it let go.
The bird’s body, severed cleanly, slid down to the floor against a surface that Donovan could not see, but only sense. There was no blood. It appeared that whatever force had dropped half the animal on the outside of the circle had separated it completely — turned the one animal into two separate, lifeless lumps of flesh, bone, and feathers.
Donovan spared it no more attention. The portal was closed. He whirled and saw that Amethyst had managed to roll over and push herself groggily up on her knees. He ran to her side and lifted her carefully.
“Nothing broken,” she said. Her breathing was pained, and she clutched her ribs tightly. “Might have cracked some ribs, but I’ll live.”
“We have to get out of here,” Donovan said. He glanced toward the door. Asmodeus had landed on a small table just inside the door and stood beside a large, clear crystal globe, watching them intently.
“Ezzel?” Amethyst asked, glancing back at the circle.
“He’s in there,” Donovan replied, “But the ritual will never be complete. He’s going to have to offer something to whatever he summoned, and I’m guess that nothing short of everything is going to do the trick. He won’t break the circle unless he’s certain there’s no other way out. I’m guessing that buys us time to get the hell out of the way.”
She nodded, shuddered, and he led her toward the door. When they reached Asmodeus, Donovan reached out and took the vial carefully from the old bird’s claw.
“Good work,” he said solemnly.
The bird ruffled its feathers, preened one wing, and stared back at him. There was no emotion to read in those dark, predatory eyes, but Donovan had no need to see. He felt the bond, and he smiled.
“Looks like your new friend is here to stay,” Amethyst said.
Donovan shrugged. Asmodeus hopped to his shoulder, and the three of them hobbled out of the room. The elevator still stood where Donovan had left it, and they stepped inside. It operated with a set of only four buttons, and he punched the lowest of these. The doors closed silently, and they began to descend.
Amethyst leaned heavily against him, and he knew that she was hurt more badly than she was letting on.
“Just a little more,” he said. “We’ll get out of here and to my place. I can help you with those ribs once we’re safe.”
She glanced up at the roof of the elevator, as if looking through the walls and floors to the room far above, and the circle. She knew as well as he did that if Ezzel chose to try and break the circle and escape, they were not far enough away to escape the damage. If he did that, the building would collapse around them and bury them in a mountain of steel and dust, and there was no spell, charm, or wards that either could call on to prevent such a thing.
The elevator reached the ground floor, and they stepped into a dark room. Donovan whispered a word, and the buttons on his jacket illuminated. They saw the outline of a door directly ahead, and made for it as quickly as they could.
“Neat trick” Amethyst whispered hoarsely. “You’ll have to show me how you made that work one day.”
“It’s a promise,” he answered. When they slipped out the door and closed it behind them, it disappeared into a perfectly white stone wall. They stood in the outer lobby of the Tefft complex. The five regular elevator doors were lined up down that wall. They walked to the front of the building, exited quickly, and with Asmodeus flying high over head, started down the street as quickly as Amethyst’s injured ribs would allow.
A few blocks away, Donovan led her into an alley, and after seven quick turns, they descended a short, dingy stair that opened onto the street across from Donovan’s home.
In the circle, Ezzel worked frantically at the altar. He tried charm after charm, but he was frightened, and the fear caused him to slip words in where they didn’t belong. He didn’t have much with him, because he hadn’t expected to need it. The bowl threatened to explode and plaster him with the imperfect formula, but he held it in check, barely, with a continually more complex web of containment spells.
At some point, his wrist began to throb where the raven had cut it. He ignored the pain and concentrated. He wished that Le Duc had been a better magician. There might have been more in the journal on controlling this ritual, or an escape if things went badly. There was nothing.
The throbbing grew more intense, and he glanced down impatiently. When he saw his wrist, he screamed. He clamped his other hand over the wound, but it was too late. The cut had opened wider, and blood seeped down his arm to soak his robes. He turned and lurched toward the portal, determined to try and break through at that one weak spot. He took a step, then another, and then was lifted from his feet violently. The wound in his wrist erupted in a geyser of blood. The blood gathered in the air, whirled, and drained down to the bowl through an invisible tube of energy. He struggled. He tried to speak, but something gripped his throat and prevented it, and eventually the struggles weakened.
When the last of his blood drained away, he dropped headlong, breaking the bowl and shattering the stands and vials. The wand he’d stolen from Alistair Cornwell cracked as it struck the stone floor, and the murky, sticky fluid in the bowl dripped slowly to the floor, forming a puddle that clotted, and then grew still.
The mist snapped from the circle as though inhaled by a god. It was there, and then it was not. There was no breeze, and no flame burned in candle or brazier. Cold and dead as its owner, the room stilled. Broken on the altar,
