Black Magic Sanction

The demon saw my shock, and he smiled. 'Surprised?' he said softly, voice low and seductive. 'Funny how these things work out. Doesn't mean anything though. Not really.'

'Ye-e-e-eah,' I drawled, gaze flicking behind him to Pierce. Either he was still out, or he was faking. Al's eyes were on mine when I turned back, and I felt cold as I recalled him tasting my aura after I did a spell to see the dead. 'Can we finish this?' I said, uneasy.

Head bobbing once, Al reached out and simply spun the stick a hundred and eighty degrees. 'Omnia mutantur,' he said firmly.

All things change, I thought, then blinked when Al shuddered. His eyes closed, and he breathed deeply, as if tasting something on the air. I'd never seen him with his eyes closed like that, and I noticed the faint lines at the corners. 'I take this,' he mouthed, not a sound coming from him. I remembered the imbalance hitting me when I did the curse. It had hurt like hell until I accepted it. For Al, there had been no pain —but he hadn't tried to avoid it either.

My head was hurting, and after glancing at Pierce, I breathed, 'My mark?'

Al's eyes opened, landing immediately on mine. There was nothing in his expression. 'It's gone,' he said simply, and a thrill spun from my head to my toes.

I scooted my chair back and fumbled at my boot. 'I said it was gone,' Al said indignantly.

'I believe you.' Heart pounding, I wedged my boot off, and it hit the floor with a thump. Fumbling with the sock, I peeled it off like a snake-skin and twisted my foot up and around. Tears filled my eyes, spilling out and down in a warm trickle. The underside of my foot was smooth and unbroken. The raised circle with a slash through it was gone. It was gone!

Blinking furiously, I smiled. 'It's gone,' I said, letting my foot go. 'I did it!'

'Yada yada yada,' Al said sourly. 'You tricked the big bad demon. Congratulations. The only way I'm going to save face is by snagging some excellent ley-line witches. Coven quality, you say?'

My exuberance died. 'Al, wait,' I said as I set my foot on the icy floor, feeling the cold soak up all the way to my spine. 'Do you know what they will do to me if you show up and try to snag them?' I'd known this was a possibility, but at the time, it had been me or them, and me always wins when the them is a bully.

Al stood, strutting over to Pierce and looking down at him, nudging him with a toe. 'Do you know how rare it is for a coven-quality witch to summon me? Raw and untutored in the art of containing a demon? They kill their own if they become skilled in the dark arts, don't they, Gordian Nathaniel Pierce?' he said to the unconscious witch. 'If you can get out of their circle, Rachel, I can, too.'

My face skewed up in worry as a sheet of ever-after coated him, and suddenly it looked as if I was standing above Pierce, far too sexy and slim in my working leathers, my hair wild and my lips parted. Oh. Shit.

'My name is Rachel Morgan,' Al said, mimicking my voice perfectly. 'I like black panties, action movies, and being on top.'

My jaw clenched, and I wondered how much I was going to pay for getting my name back. 'I'm never going to get my shunning removed if you do that,' I said as I shook my sock right side out again.

'I don't give a flying damn.' Looking like himself again, Al shifted his shoulders as if trying to fit back in his skin. 'I don't know why you even care about your shunning,' he said as he returned to the table and began gathering things. 'I've told you you'd be welcome here. Have a name that is respected. Have I not proved we can work together? That I can honor my word?'

'Only when I force you to.'

'That you're safe, protected?' he continued as if I hadn't said anything as he slid his pyramid away and shut the cupboard. 'Why do you fight this, itchy witch?'

I tugged my sock back on, eyes downcast. 'I'm not a demon. You said it yourself.' Lee thought I was, though.

His lips curved up in a nasty smile, and he tossed the used candles into a bin. 'Perception is everything, determining how others treat us. If enough people think you're a demon, you are.'

Snatching up my boot, I glanced at Pierce and away. I was eager to get home, even if I was loath to leave Pierce. He wasn't my responsibility, but that didn't mean I didn't care. I was going to have to make a call. The coven still had my old cell phone. Maybe if I warned them, I wouldn't get blamed when someone ended up dead or snagged. Maybe. Maybe not.

'You really should stay,' Al said mildly as he put the ashes back in the box he kept them locked in. 'Your friends are all going to die.'

'Not today they're not,' I said, feeling my anger rise

Al turned to look at me. 'No,' he agreed. 'But they will. Eventually. You won't. Not anymore. Unless you're stupid about it.'

My pulse hammered, and I stared at Ah Was he kidding?

'He's going to hurt you,' Al said, looking at Pierce. 'I can take care of you, teach you to survive. Be there for you, even if you do hate me.'

I shivered. 'I don't want him,' I said, and Al turned away, seeming smaller somehow.

'Mmmm.' Al stood before me, running his gaze up and down and lingering on the mess my hair had become. 'Do you think the coven might summon me tonight?' he asked as he took my arm and escorted me past Pierce to the elaborate glyph of the screaming face. His smile deepened, becoming pure evil. 'I do.'

'Al, wait,' I said as I hobbled with him, one foot in a boot, one in a sock. But I knew my protests would be futile. If I warned them, I wasn't helping my case of being a white witch, seeing that I'd have to explain why Al had his name back. If I didn't warn them and Al took someone... Well, if he took them all, I might stay out of jail, but how could I live with myself?

'If they don't summon me,' Al continued, 'I suspect that they'll likely spend their resources sending assassins after you. It's a tricky moral problem, isn't it? Warn them, and they survive to kill you. Remain silent, and they die and you live. My little gray witch.'

He reached to touch my face, and I swung my boot at him. Al only laughed. 'Get yourself cleaned up, will you? You're a mess,' he said, then gave me a shove.

I fell backward onto the screaming face etched into the marble floor, feeling my body dissolve into thought as my boot skidded across the stone floor. Before I could feel the cold of nothing, the black stone shifted to the familiar salt-laced linoleum of my kitchen. I was home.

Looking up, I found Ivy, Jenks, and Lee waiting for me. Silently they took in my blood-smeared hand and the lack of Pierce. Ivy sighed and Jenks's wings slowed and stopped. My jaw clenched, and I forced it to relax.

I was home. I'd gotten a demon mark removed. I couldn't be summoned by anyone but Al and my friends. And I didn't have the slightest idea what I was going to do.

Eighteen

Jenks dropped down on a column of glittering sparkles before I could get up from my hands and knees. My pain amulet was useless, the linoleum hurt my knees, and my tangled hair made a curtain between md the world. 'Rache!' he called, a gleaming sparkle darting erratically as he tried to get past my hair. 'Are you okay? Where's Pierce?'

Much as I hurt, I couldn't help my smile. Melancholy and elation were a weird mix as I sat back on my heels and got my hair out of my face. I'd lost a demon mark, but Pierce was still with Al. He was being beaten because he'd helped me, and it didn't sit well.

'I'm fine,' I said on an exhale, taking Ivy's hand as she extended it so she could pull me to my feet. Muscles sore and knees complaining, I got up, tossed my useless pain amulet into the sink, and looked at Lee sitting at my spot at the table with a chipped coffee cup in his short, laced fingers. Over the sink, the dark window was shining with streaks of moisture. It was raining.

Ivy let go of my hand and dropped back to put the usual space between us. 'What happened to your other boot?' she asked, and a slow smile grew despite my worry for Pierce. Leaning against the sink, I painfully twisted my foot up and around to pull the sock off again.