Black Magic Sanction

'Fine with me,' I said tightly. I glanced at Pierce, but his eyes were still shut.

Still humming, Al opened the small black bag. White glove gone, he reached in and removed a handful of gray grit, tracing a foot-long Mobius strip on the slate between us. The greasy dust sifted from him as his humming took on the sound of a chant. Low and tonal, the sound struck deep in my primitive brain and made me sit straighter. It was like the chant of Asian monks, the foreign power of something else, mysterious and alien. Though nothing changed, Al looked utterly different, sitting before me with words I'd never understand coming from him.

'That's not salt,' I said as the last spilled from his hand and he wiped it on a white cloth that he pulled from an inside pocket.

'I'm not going to use salt,' he said, and tossed the soiled towel at me. 'What do you take me for? It's cremation dust.' Al's gaze went distant. 'She died screaming. I was inside her at the time. God, I could feel everything. It was like I was dying with her.'

What am I doing here?

Repulsed, I leaned away, my breath hissing in when Al reached over his glyph and put his hand atop mine. I pulled back, but he gripped me harder, forcing my hand to the table. His gloves were still missing, and his skin was darker than I would Ve thought. A tingle was spilling from him to me, and I yanked out from under him, thinking it shouldn't feel that good.

'It's power, Rachel,' Al said softly, gaze fixed to mine. 'Thinking that it's evil is only because of your bad upbringing. You should go with your instincts and enjoy it. Gordian Nathaniel Pierce does.' His hand returned to his side of the table, and I remembered to breathe. 'Give me the pyramid.'

I couldn't get the frown off my face, and I stared at Al. He was waiting, confident that I'd reach across the table and hand it to him—when he was closer to it than me. The drug was completely out of my system and I felt drained. Al's gaze slid to Pierce in a silent threat, and I reached for the pyramid. To show defiance now would only hurt Pierce more.

Al's thick lips parted in a smile as my fingers pressed into the warm metal, finding purchase on the engraved figures. It was heavier than it looked, and I could feel my arm take the weight, but I hesitated as I looked at the odd writing on it that my ley-line pyramid lacked. The metal, too, wasn't friendly copper like I'd originally thought, but something denser, darker, feeling like salted iron to my fingers.

It was hard to explain, and I reluctantly set it on Al's waiting hand. His palm was crisscrossed with heavy, distinct lines where most people had only a few. I'd never seen his palm before, and he frowned when he saw me scrutinize it.

Al curled his fingers around the pyramid and placed it in the middle of the figure eight where the dust lines crossed. His chanting started up again, and I stifled a shiver. Naked fingers reaching, Al set the gray candle in the cave of the figure eight nearest me, and the gold one before him. I caught the placing words ipse and alius among his monotone mumbling.

'You're doing it wrong,' I said, and Al's chanting ceased.

'I'm doing it properly—student,' he said as he took up another handful of dust.

'But my aura is gold,' I protested. 'Why do I have the gray candle? '

'Because I say so. You're gray, Rachel. Grayer than fog, and just as dense. Besides, I'm always the gold candle.'

It wasn't a reason, and I wasn't going to let him screw this up on purpose.

'Light your candle,' Al said. 'There are tapers in the can.'

I glanced at the jar of thin strips of wood beside his hearth fire, then jerked when he snatched my wrist, forcing my palm up and dropping a handful of dust into it. It felt alive, greasy and staticky. If only to get rid of it, I sifted it around the base of the unlit gray candle saying the setting word, ipse, then grumbling that I should be the gold, not him.

'Ipse' Al echoed, mocking me as I set my candle with the same word he used. His fingers pinched the cold wick, and when they parted, the candle was lit. Smirking, I did the same, whispering ipse again. The candle might be gray—which was not a good choice—but I'd set it twice with the proper word. If the spell failed to work, it wouldn't be my fault.

'Who taught you how to light candles from your thoughts?' Al said, his goat-slitted eyes on Pierce.

The man was still out cold, and I shrugged. 'Ceri,' I said, but my gut was tightening. This had to work. I wanted it done, and done now.

Grunting in acceptance, Al balanced a narrow shaving of redwood atop the pyramid. It was a small relief that this, at least, was unchanged. Al took off his glasses. Arms on the slate table, he leaned over the spell, now ready for the focusing objects. Expression eager, he handed me his ceremonial knife.

'Can I use the other one?' I asked, looking in distaste at the curved blade and the image of a tormented, naked woman writhing about the handle, hands and feet bound and mouth open in a scream.

'No.'

I took a slow breath. Just do it, I thought, touching the blade to my finger.

'There is no almost when it comes to magic,' Al said, and adrenaline surged when his hand clamped down over the knife and pressed it against me. I jerked, my hand suddenly warm and slick as I pulled away. Pain was a pulse behind it.

'Damn it, Al!' I shouted, staring in horror at my bloody palm, then the knife in my other hand, slick and gleaming. My grip tightened on the handle. Frightened and angry, I looked at Al, but his hand was even worse. When Td pulled away, I'd cut him deep. Most of the blood on me was his. I think.

'I thought your blood wasn't an accurate focusing object anymore,' I said, and the demon met my gaze, having been eying his palm with interest as to which lines I'd cut across.

'It wasn't—until you set it back to zero with that little stunt of yours,' he said, holding his hand over his end of the balanced stick. 'All together now... '

My heart was pounding, and my hand shook as I set the knife down. Black magic. Just do it. Finish it. Shivering inside, I held my bleeding hand over the stick, and with a few rubs at my finger, the blood started to drip. Al squeezed his hand until a red rivulet started down the inside of his fist. Three drops to mirror mine hit the stick, and his bloodied hand opened.

He made a pleased sound, and the scent of burnt amber rose to mix with the scent of redwood and wood smoke. Almost done. 'Finish it,' I said, then jerked when he leaned over the table and grabbed my wrist with his bloody, sticky fingers, yanking me half out of my chair. 'What are you doing?' I demanded, scared.

'Relax,' Al said, smearing our blood together on the last candle. 'Count yourself lucky I don't want to share the twisting another way.'

He meant sex, and I tugged my hand from Al's, only to find it recaptured and pressed against the candle again. 'Try it and you'll be walking funny for a week,' I said, glaring.

'One night, itchy witch, you'll come to me,' was all he said. Still holding me halfway across the table with my arm outstretched, he smiled and whispered, 'Evulago'

My hand in his grip, I stared. My heart hammered, and the wax beneath our fingers became warm. That was the word that would start it all, the one that registered the curse and made it stick. And through my hand touching his, I felt a sensation of disconnection, as if the floor wasn't quite under me. If I closed my eyes, I wasn't sure if I would be here when I opened them, or if I'd be lost in an open, whispering space of the collective where everyone was talking and no one listened. But this time, when Al's word echoed in my head, it was as if someone paused.

Al glowered. 'You've been recognized. This is exactly why I didn't want to do this.'

His hand let go, and I eased away. Immediately the feeling of the open room and vertigo faded. Nervous, I picked up the white cloth he had thrown at me earlier and wiped my hand as clean as I could get it before tossing it into his hearth fire to burn. I'd not leave it around with the blood of both of us on it.

As the cloth caught, I could feel the curse winding its way through me, settling into my bones, becoming a part of me. My vision was blurry, and I realized I was seeing Al's aura, untainted and unsullied by his millennium of ever-after imbalance. Lips parted, I shifted my eyes from his to mine, also visible as we did the curse. Al's aura was a freaking gold. It was shot through with red and purple, but it was gold, same as mine. Same as Trent's.