Black Magic Sanction

I could feel my pulse lifting my skin to touch him. His heavy weight pressed into me, and my breathless reflection was in his red, goat-slitted eyes. 'Get off,' I panted.

Bis hissed, and I saw a flash of reaching claws.

'You need to learn your place, goyle,' Al said, and I jerked when his eye twitched and Bis thumped to the carpet, unseen but wheezing in what had to be shock and pain.

'Hey!' I shouted, squirming to get out from under Al.

The demon leaned into me harder, and my breath whooshed out. 'And you need to develop some manners. Or is it respect?'

A part of my brain realized he wasn't using magic, and I struggled to move. My hand got free, and he shifted to grab my wrist, bringing it to his nose as he breathed deeply. Sensation spilled down, and I realized he had the wrist that carried his mark. Damn.

Behind me, Bis mewled, 'It's gone. It's gone. I can't hear them.'

Double damn, I was in trouble, and I tried to see Bis, failing.

'That runt of yours tried to drop me with your charms, Rachel.'

My eyes flicked back to Al's.

'Lie to me,' he coached. 'Tell me you had nothing to do with it or you will fund my mansion. I don't care if your brats will be demons or not.'

'What are you doing to him!' I exclaimed as Bis mewed. 'Bis, go home!' I added, knowing a circle couldn't hold him.

'I can't,' the kid panted. 'I can't feel the lines. Rachel, I can't see them!'

Holy crap, what had Al done?

Al pressed my wrist against my chest, his fingers against me. 'Pierce could have killed me. Me, who has survived... everything!'

Teeth clenched, I grunted, 'Let Bis go.'

'I'd be more concerned about yourself, itchy witch. Bis is simply existing without contact with a ley line. It hurts the mind. Deprivation.' He eased up a little, and I got a good breath of air. 'The sooner I'm happy, the sooner I'll stop blocking his contact. Is killing you going to make me happy, Rachel?'

Burnt amber coated me, and I could feel myself start to sweat. 'Pierce took my gun,' I said again, hoping he believed me this time. 'I didn't know he had it when he followed me. I forgot, I mean. I really did. Go ahead, search my thoughts. I'm telling the truth. Why would I want Pierce to kill you?'

Shock flickered in the back of his goat-slitted eyes. He let go of my wrist and pushed himself to a stand. It was too fast for me to get in a parting shot. Shaking, I straightened in my chair. Bis's whimpering took on a shade of relief, and I looked for him, finding him curled into a ball beside my chair. My hand dropped to touch him, and he clenched into himself. 'Bis, go home,' I said, and he looked up, his ears pinned to his skull, making his eyes look even bigger.

'Not again,' he said, tail uncurling from his feet as he shook. 'I won't run away again.'

We both jumped when Al looked at the ceiling and bellowed, 'Treble!'

His gargoyle? I thought, excitement mixing with my fear and spent adrenaline to make me feel ill. Was he going to teach me now so I didn't try again and kill myself? It would almost be worth the pain of pushing myself out of that line.

Bis shivered, and Al put his glasses on and turned to the lit fireplace as a gargoyle three times Bis's size scraped from the flue, wings spreading submissively as she hopped to the hearth.

Treble had black tufts on her ears, long and flowing, where Bis had white. The lion tuft on the end was black, too, and her entire tail looked shorter in proportion than Bis's. Stubby horns like an antelope's were between her ears, and when her golden eyes landed on Bis, she hissed, wings spreading aggressively and black teeth bared.

'Manners, Treble,' Al said lightly as he rummaged in a chest to bring out a tin and a coffee press. 'Bis is a guest.'

Bis hugged my leg, and I extended my hand, helping him up to sit on the arm of my chair, putting him even with the larger gargoyle. His ears were pinned, and his red eyes wild as he shook, his tail wrapped around my wrist like he was holding my hand.

Al's posture was again his completely proper British nobleman, and I wondered if I'd been seeing him as himself earlier—which just made me wonder all the more. The tin opened, and the smell of burned coffee drifted out. Al's back to us, he measured a portion of the grounds and tapped them into a dry coffee press.

'Bis, this is Treble,' he said, and the large gargoyle hissed all the louder. 'When you're older, she's going to teach you how to properly jump the lines. Until then, you stay out'

'Why not now?' I asked, feeling betrayed and disappointed.

'Teach him? Never, never!' Treble protested, tail whipping almost into the fire. Her Voice had that same deep resonance that Bis's did, but was more musical. Glaring at Bis, she spread her wings and hissed, her long, forked tongue raised aggressively.

The air seemed to crack, and my mouth dropped open when ever-after cascaded over Al to turn him clawed, winged, and blacker than sin. Treble cowered, abasing herself and going utterly white. I pressed back into the chair with Bis, horrified.

Like Dante's demon, Al stood over her, wearing nothing and his well-endowed privates not so private anymore. The hint of hard muscle I'd seen under his shirt was like sheets of obsidian, throwing back the firelight in gleams of red. He blinked, his red, goat-slitted monstrosities chilling me. Was this what he really looked like, or was it simply what scared Treble the most? On my wrist, Bis shivered, stinking like cold iron.

'You refuse?' Al hissed, his new forked tail shifting like it had a mind of its own, curling about to tuck under Treble's chin and lift it. 'Why do you think I let you live this long?'

'Oh God, no,' Treble whispered, her wings spread so the tips came to a point past her bowed head. 'If I teach the young buck, you'll kill me!' she added, squirming to get out from under him, her skin a pale white. 'Like you did my mother and brothers!'

'Kill you?' Al said, his voice like gravel and his tail whipping back around himself. 'No. I want you to teach Bis so he can teach her. Look at them. Tell me I lie.'

I shrank back even deeper into the burnt-amber-smelling cushions as Treble sent her golden eyes over me. They flicked to Bis, and her lips pulled back from her pushed-in face, and she smiled wickedly. 'Fortunate, fortunate witch,' she said slyly. 'But teach him? Why? The little gravel pit has no finesse, he's tearing holes every time he jumps.' She turned her gaze on Bis, her skin darkening. 'Don't think we can't hear what you're doing, stumbling into lines, breaking songs and rhythms, making everyone else step to your stumbles!'

Bis lowered his ears, and I put a hand on his shoulder. God, Al looked scary. Hung like a horse. No way was he getting anywhere near me.

'That's why you're going to teach him... Treble,' Al said, his voice precise and so low that it was almost hard to hear. 'We can't have a repeat of this evening.' Looking like the devil, he turned his goat-slitted eyes to Bis in recrimination, and Bis's breath caught.

'Don't worry, Bis,' I said, putting a hand on his clawed foot. 'You can't know how to do it right unless someone shows you properly,' I said pointedly. Clearly Pierce hadn't.

His gaze fixed on Al, Bis crawled up to my shoulder and wrapped his tail around my neck. Treble gave him a yellow-eyed stare, and I almost choked when his grip tightened.

'The lines are still ringing from his latest jump,' Treble said caustically. 'He's thicker than a rock. And too young. Can't even stay awake when the sun is up. I wouldn't teach that pebble if he was the last living 'goyle in either plane,' she said disdainfully, then glanced at Al. 'Unless I was told to.'

'Well, I'm telling you,' Al said, his features melting into his familiar vision of himself in lace, clothed once more. 'You weren't any older when I stole you from your mother.'

My shoulders dropped, and I exhaled, surprised that the crushed green velvet and lace that had once terrified me had become not only familiar but welcome. And yet, if I squinted, there was a hint of that black monstrosity in the curve of his shoulders, the depth of his chest.

Treble crouched, her skin darkening. 'Right before you killed her. Bastard.'

Treble's words were harsh, but her tone was bland, like a response in a play that has run too long. Al wasn't really listening either as he took the steaming kettle from the fire and poured the boiling water over the