Chapter 44 #2
“Is that bad?” I asked, but whispers had risen around us. One was louder than the others; another language I couldn’t translate.
Ranth’s eyes closed, and he spoke in what I guessed was Aramaic. When he opened his eyes, the stiffening of his shoulders said it hadn’t gone well.
“Did they give permission?”
“Not only does the maker not wish us to read the pages, but his price to allow us to close the book is a soul shard.”
“A what?”
“What book makers use to make a book or artifact—an energy trace that you can’t get back. I can’t give the book that because I have no living energy, and don’t even think it. I’m not letting you do it.”
“Well fine. So now what?”
“We could not agree, and he said then he would destroy the book,” Ranth said, pressing his hands together.
“But don’t we need it?”
“I can turn the page and see. In an instant, I would know if the ritual was there, but it’s a risk.” He threaded his fingers through mine, sending sparks over my skin. His voice trickled like water melting ice. “I need you to know it could end badly.”
I squeezed his fingers. “We’re in a protective space. Whatever happens, it’s confined to us.”
“I want you to move to the plane.”
“No. That will leave you alone with…”
“It will, but with my particular state, the author’s anger doesn’t affect me, and I doubt he knows that.”
“And with me planar, I can pull you in if it looks bad…” I smiled. His eyes were liquid. I appreciated him as much as he did me. We’d gotten to a place of respect, and we were a good team.
“Okay, I’m ready. On three?” He returned the squeeze and then dropped my hands.
I flipped open my pouch. “One, two…” I popped the maca into my mouth and bit down before three. The bitterness overwhelmed my senses, allowing me to rise without thought.
Ranth turned the page as I went planar. I couldn’t quite see the full result, but flames burst from the page, and he jumped up. The book tumbled from his hands.
If the fire was magical and from the planar space, maybe it wasn’t actually burning. The flames licked at Ranth’s skin as he continued to flip pages. He held up the book and uttered some words.
The burning and the whispers stopped.
We’d won. Ranth motioned to me, but I couldn’t hear what he said in the plane. I spit the root out.
Pop.
Fabra burst into the warehouse at almost the same moment as a portal opened. I rummaged for another root as Essifers spilled out in a purple haze.
Flipping Foxgloves. How could Fabra have escaped my binding? She was supposed to rest in the cemetery until I deemed otherwise. She, or someone else, must have figured out a go-around.
Technically, neither Fabra nor the Essifers could magically cross the salt line, but that only gave us an extra minute.
I was pretty confident we could beat the six Essifers, but Fabra and the two muscled men who had followed her in were another story.
Someone was likely going to get hurt or killed.
I didn’t want to hurt Fabra, but my supplies were limited.
The last of the rose-touched jaggery would give Ranth protection long enough to get human help. I couldn’t use the earth magic without the elements. At least, I didn’t think I could. Maybe it was time to experiment. Ranth’s warning echoed. Five times. Maybe I shouldn’t go there.
“You know those lessons you were going to teach me? How about a crash course?” I asked Ranth, handing him a hunk of jaggery. “This thing about not using herbs. How do you do it?”
“You don’t need the herbs or stones to release your inner fire. You’ve been using the items to initiate your contact, but you don’t need them.”
“Do you think touching you would help?”
“I know it will,” he said, holding out his arm with a grin.
“You are way too happy for someone with a gun aimed at his back.”
“Technically, it’s at your back.”
“Don’t remind me,” I replied, grasping his forearm and pulling at my magic.
His power welled under my touch, and our tattoos flared.
He turned and gave me a straight view of Fabra as she raised a long-nosed gun at me.
Fear burned me from the inside, but I shot out a blast of energy, stopping the tranquilizer dart.
The wave knocked her back into the two black-clothed guards, sending them all flying.
It wouldn’t keep them down for long. I needed something else.
I let go of Ranth, dropped to a crouch, and placed my hands flat on the tinted concrete.
Then, I pushed. The floor rippled as concrete should never do, cracking and jutting up in pieces.
I shoved my hands forward, pushing the liquid concrete in front of me into a hill.
The concrete in front of us piled into a wall of broken pieces, between us and the fallen warriors.
That would take them a couple of minutes to get out of.
Juke was going to kill me if Fabra didn’t get me first.
The Essifers had already circled us, but Ranth had one of the six already writhing in a cloud of pink smoke.
Ranth’s hands radiated a green glow, and with his tattoo lit, he trained it on the next closest demon.
I tossed a ball of energy at the third, who rolled under it and then charged me.
I chomped down on maca and blasted it. It exploded into pink goo.
Three down.
I looked over at Ranth, and my jaw dropped. He was magically hogtied by electric pink glowing hairs twisting around him like a cocoon.
“Noooo,” I screamed, already moving. The aether of the plane slowed me down as the Essifers pulled Ranth after them back to the portal.
Whispers cut through all conscious thought like drumbeats.
The voices of the Sisters.
I dropped to my knees as the cocooned Ranth edged closer to the portal.
I rooted through my belt for cornflower. If I could do this without herbs... I closed my eyes and visualized my head with a barrier around it.
The whispers stopped, and my eyes snapped open.
Around me was a silvery transparent shield. I pulled energy into a ball with each hand and threw the two balls across the planar floor. They bounced once like a bowling ball and zoomed at the Essifers, knocking them into a spray of pink goo.
But Ranth was still moving toward the portal, and I wasn’t going to make it before it sucked him in.
I threw myself forward with my arms outstretched.
Falling in planar is kind of like falling in heavy air.
In the second before I hit the ground, I sent out an energy lasso.
I landed with an oof, my weight tugging the rope tight.
Using what energy I had left, I yanked hard on the rope.
The counterweight stopped his movement, and I pulled myself toward him.
When I was at arm’s reach, I tore at the pink energy threads holding him.
A demon, with a massive oval head and a dozen eyestalks protruding from it, jumped out of the gaping pink smoke hole. I tore faster, shredding my hands on the wrapping. Ranth’s face was exposed, but his eyes were closed.
We were in big trouble. Ranth needed to wake up now.
Hands still tearing at the cocoon, I threw whatever I could into a kiss hoping for a sleeping beauty energy spike. His lips were like apricot skin. My heart jolted when his eyes flew open. He squirmed, breaking the threads faster than I was.
“That’s a Dereller,” he choked out.
Shastas. According to Ranth, Derellers were sentient and much bigger than Essifer. Likely stronger.
My blistered hands throbbed.
“Let me heal you,” he said, grabbing my wrists.
The Essifers were bounding toward us, but the buffeted slow motion of the plane was our time advantage.
My hands tingled, flowing with that greenish-gold light which I now associated with Ranth’s scent.
Despite our harrowing circumstances, Ranth’s touch infused me with fresh energy.
“You take the Essifers.” I turned, raising my hands at the Dereller.
The first ball of silvery energy went right through it. That can’t be right. I threw a second, but the Dereller waved a hand, and it deflected.
The good news was Ranth had taken care of the Essifers with twin golden blasts. He now focused on the Dereller. “Our magic won’t be enough. They’re stronger than us.”
“What? No. They?” I grabbed his hand and spit out the maca.
When Fabra had flown back, her gun had slid to the side.
The black and red tranquilizer rifle rested under a jagged piece of broken concrete.
I clambered over to it and crouched down.
I’d never fired a gun, but I’d played video games.
If magic wasn’t going to work, an energy-wrapped dart was the only thing I could think of.
Ranth bent over the salt triangle.
I leveled the gun and pulled the trigger. The recoil threw me off-balance. I stumbled back over a hunk of concrete.
Ranth opened the book, and flames engulfed him.
He screamed in pain, then said something like Broken Careening Ficus.
The dart had stopped midair and glowed with an unearthly purple light.
Ranth traced symbols in the air, and the bullet shot in a green streak at the Dereller.
In an eye-searing flash, the Dereller exploded, covering everything in a fine mist of sticky purple stuff.
The portal disappeared with a sucking wet pop, and Ranth dropped to the ground.
I wiped the goop from my eyes as I ran to Ranth. The flames around him were waist high. He wasn’t moving. I pushed through the magical fire and nudged the book off him, and then using the gun as a stick, I closed the book cover.
The flames disappeared, and I draped myself over Ranth, looking for life.
He was unresponsive.