“In this place, is there anything else?” she said.
He turned away from her. “There should be.”
But, no, this was one of the bad places. Despair, the Sapphire Witch had said. A name that could be applied to a whole lot of layers.
That didn’t get the stupid lock open, though.
The witch had almost let him use his light energy. And he’d been almost stupid enough to do it.
Creatures of this level were probably already sniffing the air. Catching vibrations from the psychic currents that ran through everything and everyone. It wouldn’t take long for the beasts and their masters to figure out something new was in the unseen world.
Even with Rachel’s strangely excellent shielding, the presence of normals in the unseen world would be like a stone dropped in a still pond The ripples would soon be touching the entities of this world. And they would be turning, rising from their terrible tasks and seeking the source of this new disturbance.
With great excitement.
Why had the Sapphire Witch brought them here? How much magic would it take to get Larry out of the van anyway?
Air brushed his back. Her presence made his skin crawl. The scent of leather and spice washed over him. His grease painted skin prickled as the Sapphire Witch brought her lips to his ear. Hot breath brushed his skin. There was another scent in the air…oil? And something else…
“Do you remember?” she said, “Can you still use the power?”
He couldn’t use light energy here. It would be a blazing beacon. Visible across this realm. It would draw an army on them like vampire moths to blood.
She meant dark power. The energy that coursed through the unseen world. Energy that pooled in the bad places. Like oil, waiting for a spark to set it ablaze.
Most creatures of the unseen world used dark energy in some form. It was fuel, sustenance. But for some…those who had talent…they could shape it to their will and turn it into tools. And weapons.
Dark energy was the blood that pulsed through the veins of the unseen world. It was life. Such as it were in these places.
And in his time in the bad places, he had become pretty darn good at using dark energy. Not dark mage good, of course. Nowhere near as good the werwitches of the TripleSix. But he wasn’t a slouch.
He could more than protect himself with dark energy.
But he wouldn’t be able to stop the corrosion on the tattered bits of his soul that he still clung to.
He put his hands down. Relaxing his fingers before they could take on the charge of dark energy the casting would call.
“Of course I remember,” he said, “But I won’t use it.”
The Sapphire Witch’s breath was hot on his ear. Hot as a demon’s mouth.
“You can,” she said, “To protect these normals.”
Maybe just a little wouldn’t hurt.
He focused on the lock. It was as big as his head. A thick, flat, misshapen disk with an old fashioned keyhole in the center. The black iron was spotted with orange rust. The rust streaked shank hooked around loops of thick, black chain.
It looked like it hadn’t been opened in hundreds of years.
He lifted his hands. Cupped his palms toward it. Let his inner senses listen to the lock.
What did it contain? Metal or enchantments?
The lock echoed only metal. There was no tight buzz of coiled magic that he could feel.
It seemed unlikely any lock in this place would be made of only metal. Why would the Sapphire Witch make him open it? She should be able to strike the lock from the chain with a look. Throw open the gates and stride through like the conquering force she was.
Breath. Hot as a demon’s mouth.
Oh.
Poop on a stick.
Apparently he was stupid. Really, really stupid.
“Hurry, clown,” The Sapphire Witch said, “Use your darkness. Save these normals from what awaits them in this realm.”
A tinge of sulfur came with her breath now. The thing calling itself the Sapphire Witch unable to fully contain its true nature in the excitement of the hunt.
Just metal.
No enchantments.
Hilario snapped his fingers.
The Sapphire Witch pulled back. Her brows drew down over her brass rimmed goggles.
He honked his clown nose.
“I’ve got just the thing,” he said, pulling his white gloves back over his thick fingered hands.
“Clown? What are–”
Hilario pivoted and did a floppy shoed clown walk back to the van.
“Clown?”
Hilario swung his arms back and forth and wiggled his butt, falling into his clown routine. He honked his nose again and jazzed handed his way to the van’s side door. Sweat trickled down his back. His blubber encased heart pounded with barely restrained terror.
How much power did that thing have?
How did it make its way into the normal world? It should have been pulled back into the unseen world. Creatures from the unseen world, especially from the bad places, couldn’t hold their forms in the normal world. They would disassociate, their components sucked back into the hole they’d come from.
Larry the ghost stuck his head out of the window.
“Hilario, my-a friend-a, what-a is-a this place-a?” he asked. “It-a smell-a worse-a than my mother-in-law’s-a eggplant parmesan-a.”
“This is one of the bad places,” Hilario said. He stopped. Looked up at Larry. “Look at the Sapphire Witch–discretely–and tell me what you see?”
Larry’s face scrunched up in perplexity. He gave her a sidelong glance. Got an even more perplexed look.
“Uh. She’s fuzzy,” he said, “Do things look different when you’re a ghost? It’s like double vision. Two people standing there. Overlapping kind of.”
“Are they the same person?”
Another sidelong glance.
“Not really. Kind of. I’m not sure.”
Cold fear pooled in Hilario’s belly. Oh this
