Chapter 6
The sound of a scratch roused me from sleep, and I wondered vaguely if Angel had forgotten to leave my bedroom door open a crack before falling into bed. Peanut Butter hated being denied the choice of whose bed he’d sleep in, and more than once in my life he’d woken me by scratching at the door.
Angel’s arm was wrapped around me, his steady breath against my neck, making me hesitate to get up, but as it hadn’t woken him, maybe I could let the cat in before he roused us both. I climbed out of Angel’s touch, headed to my bedroom door, and found it open halfway.
Not Peanut Butter, then.
I frowned, scanning the dark apartment. Both cats, Peanut Butter and Nox, sat hunched a few feet from the apartment door, both on alert.
“What?” I whispered, hoping not to wake anyone, and that Nox wasn’t trying to convince Peanut Butter to escape.
Peanut Butter had been an indoor cat his entire life.
Used to the luxury of food twice a day, temperature control, and no predators, he wouldn’t survive a minute in the wild, even if it was just to run the halls of the apartment building.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
I froze, half-crouched near the cats as they both rose as if ready to pounce, tails puffing up. Nox glanced at me; his purple eyes glowing in the dim light.
Scraaatch.
The sound made my skin crawl, like nails on a chalkboard. Not at all like Peanut Butter’s little toe beans rubbing on the door to beg for entry. This was claws digging into the wood of the exterior door. What the fuck?
I held my breath, the whittling of wood on the other side of the door burning through the last of my sleep-addled brain like a match had been lit. Then the scratching stopped.
Three heartbeats passed and the apartment sat in perfect silence. I let out a long breath. The vacuum of sound was unnerving as the cats waited with bristled fur beside me.
The usual light that glowed through the peephole was gone, and it took me a half-heartbeat to realize that meant the hall was dark, the lights having gone out.
I sucked in air as a chill crept under the door with shadow-like spider legs, stretching to fit through the eighth-of-an-inch gap. Holy fuck, it was coming in.
I freaked out, glancing back at the counter and trying to recall the basic warding spells Remi had marked for me.
The stack of books still sat there, untouched.
I raced over, surprised the dark book on necromancy was gone, and in its place was a thick, cloth-bound book with a title stamped in silver.
Thresholds, Barriers, and Wards: A General Guide.
I reached for the book, desperate to stop the darkness from crawling under the door, and the book flipped open to a spell.
Reinforcing Interior Thresholds. A note scribbled in the margins stated for personal dwellings only.
I scanned the ingredients—tears of the earth, sky-kissed flowers, and breath of the cleansed.
What?
The words morphed before my eyes, changing on the page to salt, lavender, and sage.
Okay, I could do all that. I ripped open the cupboard, never having been so grateful for Nikki’s insistence on alphabetizing the spices, and grabbed the first and the last before snatching up the container of dry tea lavender and racing back to the door.
Nox slashed at the shadows, his claws making the writhing tendrils of darkness yank back under the door.
BANG!
The door jumped in the frame.
Angel appeared a half second later, gun in one hand, Taser in the other. “Jude!” He pointed the weapons at the door. I didn’t think they were going to help. “What the fuck?”
“Darkness came calling,” I said, balancing the book with my stack of supplies.
Bang! Bang! BANG!
Each hit sent a shower of dust cascading over us from the doorframe. A few more strikes and the whole damn door would pop out. Angel cursed and shoved his shoulder against the door, trying to hold it in place even as every bang reverberated through the front wall of the apartment.
“Now is not the time to cook,” Angel said as he braced his feet on the hardwood of the entry and pressed his back against the door, muscles straining.
Nox snarled and swiped at any shadows reaching for Angel. Peanut Butter hissed, his back up as he jolted back toward Ivan’s room, my brother appearing wide-eyed in his bedroom doorway as a blur of orange vanished into his room.
“Not that kind of cooking,” I agreed as I ripped open the container of salt with my teeth, spitting out the cardboard—hoping it didn’t matter that it was iodized—and spread a line at the base of the door, adding a layer of sage and lavender over the top.
The shadows hissed and retreated when meeting the salt line, but the banging continued.
Had I missed a step? The page turned and I stared at the lines for a half second before adding another heap of white granules and tracing an unbroken square, then a circle inside.
My fingers trembled as I traced the pattern in the salt, completing the final curve just as the door bowed inward with a sickening crack.
“Fuck!” Angel cursed and recoiled from the door, fingers of ice crackling down the length of it.
I slammed both palms into position, one against the glowing salt rune, one flat against the icy door.
The connection hit like a lightning bolt.
Raw power reverberated through my bones, rushing through my arms, my variant mark turning from bright red to inky black as the ward’s golden energy snapped into place.
My vision tilted, the power flow too much, and I felt the floor rushing up to meet me, but Angel caught me, dragging me out of the path that would interrupt the ward, even as it wound itself into existence.
I breathed deep as lights bounced and danced in a blinding array I wasn’t certain was reality or inside my head.
The darkness screamed.
For a long minute Angel’s grip was the only thing anchoring me to consciousness as the power crystallized, turning into a glowing barrier over the door. Amber light etched across the walls in a slow crawl of woven pattern, the scent of burning sage and oak washing over us.
Silence.
My heart continued to race as I sucked in air, but the shadows vanished, a dim band of light reappearing below the door, familiar, as I knew the hall lights to be.
The peephole’s glow returned, and Nox climbed into my lap as Angel’s hot breath warmed my neck, his arms tight around me as he kept himself between me and the door.
“Is it gone?” Ivan asked with a small voice from the doorway of his room.
“Yeah,” I said, the magic easing away even as I felt every inch of the apartment scribe itself in the threshold ward.
Was that supposed to be a spell that substantial?
Maybe I’d taken Remi’s choices for granted.
But I couldn’t find the energy to do anything other than lie there in Angel’s arms and breathe.
“But I think I’m going to need more cake. ”
“I’ll call it in,” Angel said, holding me. “And get you all the cake you can dream of.”
Which was good, because the weave of the ward crisscrossing the apartment settled and the last of the magic vanished, leaving me little more than a worn-out ragdoll in my boyfriend’s arms.