Pale Demon

listen!”

I panted, turning to look back the way I’d come. “Show me,” I said, and he darted away, dusting heavily so I could follow at my own limping pace. “If that man gets himself killed, I’m going to pound him!” I muttered, starting up the gentle incline.

The back of my mind registered how cool and restful it was here, the grass thick and well maintained. The trees were huge, rising high overhead like a distant ceiling. Seagulls called, swarming a crying kid with a box of animal crackers. Breathless, I caught sight of two men vanishing behind a row of tall shrubs.

Damn it, I don’t want to do this again.

My shoulder bag held tight to me, I ran after them, seeing Jenks’s faint trail leading down a damp sidewalk. Ahead of me, the two men stood at a bunkerlike door built right into a wall of earth. In the distance, one of the arch’s huge legs rose up. Oblivious to me, the men slipped inside—and the door swung shut.

I slid to a panting halt before the brown-painted steel door, listening as I struggled to catch my breath and tried the handle. Locked—and not with a spell, which I could break, but probably with a mundane dead bolt from the inside. At least Jenks was in there.

“Damn it!” I hissed, dropping back and digging my phone out of my pocket. “Answer me, Ivy,” I said as I hit the button and wrenched on the door at the same time.

“Right behind you,” came her voice, and I spun.

“Where…,” I started, then shoved the thought out of my head. “The door,” I babbled, dropping the phone into my bag. “Two of them. In there with Trent.”

Ivy motioned for me to back up, and she gave the knob a side kick, yelling for strength. I heard metal snap, and I wasn’t surprised when the knob came away in her grip as she gave it a tug and the door opened. God, I had good friends.

Shoulder to shoulder, we looked down a long, dimly lit room that narrowed into a black hallway. The electric lights were pale, and the sun streamed in for only a few feet. It was silent, and a cool breath of underground air, blowing out from the depths, moved my hair.

“Which way?” Ivy said, and I crept inside, feeling the chill take me. The faint glow of pixy dust showed when she pulled the door shut, and I pointed.

“There.”

It smelled like oil and damp—of sweaty men, old machinery, and dusty paperwork that hadn’t seen the light of the sun for twenty years. This was not on the regular tour, and I wondered where we were as we followed the corridor down and around, shunning doors and open archways when Jenks’s dust pointed elsewhere.

“Where’s the third one?” she whispered.

“Back at the car, out cold. Don’t let them start to sing, okay?” I said breathlessly, and she nodded, taking that at face value.

We have to be almost under one of the feet, I thought, wondering how Quen kept Trent safe every day. I suppose watching Trent in an office was easier than trying to shake three guys in a Cadillac, but I was going to get the man a leash if we found him alive.

A soft crack of metal shocked through me, and then Jenks’s yelp.

“Shit,” Ivy swore, darting past me and running down a corridor.

Gasping, I bolted after her. Trent was shouting—it sounded like Latin—and, my boots skidding on the oil- slicked cement, I grabbed a rusty ceiling support and swung myself around a dusty machine and into a puddle of dirty light.

Squinting, I watched Jenks bust another bulb to make it darker yet. Two shadows were scurrying into the dark, Ivy’s sleek form chasing them. The ceiling was low, and the space was crowded with abandoned machines. Trent had his back to me as he knelt next to his suitcase under a light, a protection bubble around him. Relief hit me, and I paused, torn between seeing if he was okay and following Ivy, busy thunking people into walls by the sound of it.

The circle was larger than I thought Trent could make, almost one of my size, and I was glad I’d given him the magnetic chalk. He had a ribbon draped over his shoulder, and a cloth hat on his head that I didn’t recognize. I sniffed, wondering if that was an extinguished candle I smelled or just sulfur. He was kneeling and looked haggard as our eyes met, seeming almost scholarly with that hat and ribbon, but he seemed okay.

“Rachel! Some help here!” Ivy yelled, and I gave him a look telling him to stay put and ran. The glow of Jenks’s dust lit a dark corner, and I winced at a loud clang. Crap, if that had been Ivy’s head…

I barreled into another puddle of light, scrambling to catch the arm of the man she had flung. It was the short guy, and using his own momentum, I threw him into a rusty ceiling support. He hit with a thud, grasping weakly at it as he slid to the dirt-caked floor. With a dull crack, the beam he’d hit broke from the ceiling, falling right on him. A splattering of ceiling dust slipped over him, patterning him with rust. I wedged a toe under him and flipped him over to see his pained expression. “Surprise,” I said, and his eyes widened.

“Duck!” Jenks yelled, and I dropped, feeling the rush of metal over my head.

“Son of a bastard!” I whispered as I rolled away, finding my feet when I hit a piece of machinery the size of my car. I scrambled up, the lethal-magic detection charm on the strap of my bag clinking. The guy with the long hair was in front of me with a metal rod the size of a baseball bat. Damn it, is Ivy down?

I couldn’t see her, and I backed up as he came forward, swinging his pole in some lame-ass elf move as if it were a sword. My hands were empty. I had Jack’s splat gun in my shoulder bag, but there were no charms in the hopper. Licking my lips, I tapped the ley line that St. Louis was built on. If he started singing, I was going to fry him, black charm or not.

Energy tasting of dead fish and electric lights slammed into me, and my eyes widened. It was as if it hit every square inch of my skin all at once, and I sucked in my breath, exhilarated. Crap, I think we’re right under the ley line!

The guy I’d slammed into the pole was moving, and his buddy took a moment to help him up. “Ivy!” I called out, worried, and she coughed from the darkness.

“She’s okay,” Jenks said, darting in circles around my head.

The two men stood, a ribbon of blood seeping from a scalp wound the short one had. Grinning, ponytail guy pointed at me, then Ivy, and I cringed when someone pulled hard on the ley line humming somewhere above us. Their heads shot up as if surprised, and I dove for the shadows.

“Grab some air, Jenks!” I shouted, my heavy-magic detection amulet flashing red as I found Ivy, upright but holding her head. I never got a circle up as the tingle of wild magic hit me. Too late, I thought, doubled over in pain as a surge of energy swamped me. It was as if they had found a way to dump the entire line through me, forcing me to hold it. I screamed, trying to channel the entire ley line or spindle it—anything to get atop the massive force burning me.

Gasping, I managed to ride the wave of cresting energy, and with a triumphant cry, I shoved the spindled energy back out of me and into them, breaking my connection with the ley line entirely before they fried my synapses. It wasn’t wild magic, and this I could handle. Son of a bitch…what demon had taught them that? And how much had it cost?

I looked up from my half kneel, not remembering having fallen. Ivy was standing beside me, and I peered through my watering eyes to see the two elves picking themselves up off the floor. I would have felt pretty good if my mind wasn’t aching from the pain.

“You okay?” Ivy said, her grip on my arm hurting as she pulled me up. My skin felt as if someone had forced sand through my pores. She let go when I winced, but she didn’t look much better than I felt, her cheek swelling and dirt caked on her entire right side.

“Great. How about you?” I snatched my bag up from the grimy floor and faced the two assassins.

“I’ll live,” she said darkly. “Which is more than I can say for them.”

Yeah. I felt the same way, and I stifled a groan as I stepped forward with Ivy, ready to take them on if they wouldn’t just go away. Somehow, looking at them, I didn’t think they would. I took a breath to let them have it, hesitating when the faint sound of rumbling echoed up through our feet. A soft pattering of dust sifted down, and the two elves looked up. The one who’d hit the support looked terrified. Pointing up, he turned and ran the way we’d come in.

“Hey! Come back here!” I shouted as the other one bolted after him.

Jenks darted up, his face scared. “Out!” he shrilled, the sound of rumbling growing louder. “Run!”