'Sure,' I said, stifling a laugh; I was pretty sure it would come out sounding hysterical.
Trent wove through the boat with a disturbing lack of urgency. I could smell hot metal and smoke. Trying not to snag my dress, I peered into the dimness. 'There it is!' I shouted, pointing. My finger was shaking, and I dropped my hand to hide it.
Trent strode forward and I followed, hiding behind him when he crouched before a metal box with wires coming out of it. He reached to open it, and I panicked. 'Hey!' I cried, grabbing his shoulder. 'What the Turn are you doing? You don't know how to turn it off!'
He caught his balance without getting up, looking at me in annoyance, every hair on his head still perfect. 'That's where the timer will be, Morgan.'
I swallowed hard, peering over his shoulder as he carefully opened the lid. 'How much time?' I whispered, my breath sending his wispy hair drifting.
He stood, and I took a step back. 'About three minutes.'
'Oh, hell no.' My mouth went dry, and my phone started ringing. I ignored it. Leaning, I looked closer at the bomb, starting to feel a little unsteady.
Trent pulled on a watch fob to bring out an antique-looking timepiece and set the modern timer on it. 'We've got three minutes to find a way off.'
'Three minutes! We can't find a way off the boat in three minutes. The glass is bulletproof, the doors are thicker than your head, and that big purple disk will soak up any spell we throw at it!'
Trent's eyes were cold on me. 'Get ahold of yourself, Morgan. Hysterics won't help.'
'Don't tell me what to do!' I exclaimed, my knees starting to shake. 'I think best when I'm having hysterics. Just shut up and let me have them!' Arms wrapped around myself, I glanced at the bomb. It was hot down there, and I was sweating. Three minutes. What in hell could you do in three minutes? Sing a little song. Dance a little dance. Make a little love. Find a new romance. Oh God. I was making up poetry.
'Maybe he has an escape route in his office?' Trent suggested.
'And that's why he locked us in there?' I said. 'Come on.' I grabbed his sleeve and pulled. 'We don't have enough time to find a way off.' My thoughts went to the purple disk in the ceiling. I had influenced it once. Maybe I could bend it to my will. 'Come on!' I repeated as his sleeve slipped through my fingers when he refused to move. 'Unless you want to stay and watch numbers count down. I might be able to break the no-spell zone Lee has on his boat.'
Trent rocked into motion. 'I still say we can find a weak point in his security.'
I headed up the ladder, not caring if Trent noticed I wasn't wearing undies or not. 'Not enough time.' Damn it, why didn't Kisten tell me what he was doing? I was surrounded by men who kept secrets from me. Nick, Trent, and now Kisten. Could I pick 'em or what? And Kist was killing people. I didn't want to like a guy who killed people. What was wrong with me?
Heart pounding as if marking the reducing seconds, we went back to the gaming room. It was silent and still. Waiting. My mouth twisted at the sight of the sleeping people. They were dead. I couldn't save them and Trent. I didn't even know how I was going to save myself.
The disk above me looked innocuous enough, but I knew it was still functioning when Trent glanced at it and paled. I guessed he was using his second sight. 'You can't break that,' he said. 'But you don't need to. Can you make a protection circle big enough for both of us?'
My eyes widened. 'You want to ride it out in a protection circle? You are crazy! The minute I hit it, down it goes!'
Trent looked angry. 'How big, Morgan?'
'But I tripped the alarms last time just looking at it!'
'So what!' he exclaimed, his confidence cracking. It was nice to see him shaken, but under the circumstances, I couldn't enjoy it. 'Trip the alarms! The disk doesn't stop you from tapping a line and making a spell. It only catches you when you do. Make the damned circle!'
'Oh!' I looked at him in understanding, my first wild hope dying. I couldn't tap a line to make a protection circle. Not sitting on water as I was. 'Um, you make it,' I said.
He seemed to start. 'Me? It takes me a good five minutes with chalk and candles.'
Frustrated, I groaned. 'What kind of an elf are you!'
'What kind of a runner are you?' he shot back. 'I don't think your boyfriend will mind if you tap a line through him to save your life. Do it, Morgan. We're running out of time!'
'I can't.' I spun in a tight circle. Through the unbreakable glass, Cincinnati glowed.
'Screw your damned honor, Rachel. Break your word to him or we're dead!'
Miserable, I turned back to him. He thought I was honorable? 'That's not it. I can't draw on a line through Nick anymore. The demon broke my link with him.'
Trent went ashen. 'But you gave me a shock in the car. That was too much for what a witch can hold in his or her chi.'
'I'm my own familiar, okay!' I said. 'I made a deal with a demon to be its familiar so it would testify against Piscary, and I had to learn how to store ley line energy for it. Oh, I've got tons of energy, but a circle requires you stay connected to a line. I can't do it.'
'You're a demon's familiar?' His face looked horrified, frightened, scared of me.
'Not anymore!' I shouted, angry to have to admit it had even happened. 'I bought my freedom. Okay? Get off my case! But I don't have a familiar, and I can't tap a line over water!'
From my bag came the faint sound of my phone ringing. Trent stared at me. 'What did you give it for your freedom?'
'My silence.' My pulse hammered. What difference did it make if Trent knew? We were both going to die.
Grimacing as if having decided something, Trent took off his coat. Shaking his sleeve down, he undid the cuff link and pushed his sleeve past his elbow. 'You aren't a demon's familiar?' It was a soft, worried whisper.
'No!' I was shaking. As I watched in slack-eyed confusion, he grabbed my arm just below the elbow. 'Hey!' I shouted, pulling away.
'Deal with it,' he said grimly. Gripping my arm harder, he used his free hand to force me to take his wrist in the same grip acrobats use when working the trapeze. 'Don't make me regret this,' he muttered, and my eyes widened when a rush of line energy flowed into me.
'Holy crap!' I gasped, almost falling. It was wild magic, having the uncatchable flavor of the wind. He had joined his will to mine, tapping a line through his familiar and giving it to me as if we were one. The line coming through him and into me had taken on a tinge of his aura. It was clean and pure with the taste of the wind, like Ceri's.
Trent groaned, and my eyes shot to his. His face was drawn and sweat had broken out on him. My chi was full, and though the extra energy was looping back to the line, apparently the stuff I had spindled already in my head was burning through him.
'Oh God,' I said, wishing there was a way I could shift the balance. 'I'm sorry, Trent.'
His breath came in a ragged gasp. 'Make the circle,' he panted.
Eyes jerking to his timepiece swinging from its fob, I said the invocation. We both staggered as the force running through us ebbed. I didn't relax at all as the bubble of ley line energy blossomed about us. I glanced at his watch. I couldn't see how much time was left.
Trent tossed his hair from his eyes, not letting go of my arm. Eyes looking haggard, he ran his gaze over the gold smeared bubble over us to the people beyond. His expression went empty. Swallowing hard, he shifted his grip tighter. Clearly it wasn't burning him any longer, but the pressure would steadily build to its previous levels. 'It's really big,' he said, looking at the shimmer. 'You can hold an undrawn circle this big?'
'I can hold it,' I said, avoiding his eyes. His skin pressing against mine was warm and there were tingles coming from it. I didn't like the intimacy. 'And I wanted it large so we have some leeway when the shock hits us. As soon as you let go or I touch it—'
'It falls,' Trent finished for me. 'I know. You're babbling, Morgan.'
'Shut up!' I exclaimed, nervous as a pixy in a room full of frogs. 'You may be used to having bombs blow up around you, but this is my first time!'
'If you're lucky, it won't be the last,' he said.
