Chapter 12 #5
The demon slammed a shoulder into Pippa’s barrier. As the pane shuddered, she channeled more magic into it, making it thicker, stronger.
“Then why did you say anything?” Pippa said, spluttering against her shock. “Why didn’t you ever ask me about it?”
“I wanted you to tell me!” Jules shrieked in the sort of high whistling tone that would have been audible to any nearby rodents. “I wanted it to happen organically!”
Through the wavering shine of the barrier, Pippa saw the Whisper Hound open its mouth.
She didn’t have time to brace herself before a piercing, bone-jarring amalgamation of magic and words drummed into the shield, which flexed only briefly before it shattered. Shards of her own magic exploded around her like warm sparks. Jules cried out and covered her face.
Pippa frantically glanced around for anything that might be useful.
Because of course, of course, she had been so swept up in the lusty excitement of the past few days that she had forgotten her life was constantly in danger.
She’d left the house this morning with her mind whirling around Maxim Sheppard and his hands and his tongue when it should have been whirling around defensive spells and which cardigans would adequately hide ensorcelled weapons.
The few boxes that had exploded lay torn and ragged, their contents spewed across the carpet. The other detritus consisted of broken desk lamps, old and obsolete motherboards, and several pieces of what must have once been a desk chair. Pippa couldn’t help but wish she worked in a knife factory.
The demon curled a lip at the fizzing scraps of magic by its feet, then charged once more.
Jules gave a hoarse, choking scream behind Pippa.
If she couldn’t use anything in the boxes, then she’d have to improvise.
Channeling magic through steel and aluminum and carpet fibers, Pippa urged the floor up in a wave right as the Hound struck the ground.
Floorboards cracked and carpet ripped as a tsunami of corporate pseudo-comfort threw the demon into the ceiling and drove its head into a fluorescent lighting fixture.
It was far too soon to feel victorious, but Pippa definitely had a strong desire to join in with Jules as she hissed, “Fuck yeah, GET IT— Oh Jesus.”
The demon crashed to the ruined floor beneath a cloud of drywall dust and broken conduit.
Pippa would destroy this building. Surely. Kill one demon who had a family with too many connections, and then before she knew it, she’d be responsible for leveling the entire Murphy-Eastman Office Park.
A bit of drywall and head-bashing wouldn’t stop a Hound for too long, though. Despite all she’d done, the demon shook itself off and stood easily.
Pippa raised her hands and began to back up, herding Jules down the box-lined hallway away from the danger.
Her skin started to burn. She looked down, frantic, only to see that her skin looked completely normal, but it didn’t change the sudden, desperate feeling that she needed to strip out of it. The drumming surrounded her, scalding and oppressive.
Words speared into her thoughts.
poor thing
the girl with two magics who uses only one
“F-fuck you,” Pippa gritted out.
More pulses of words, like thumb tacks pushed one by one into her mind.
how sad to see the daughter of harbinger so hobbled by her own choosing
“Don’t you call him that.” God, that awful name. That stupid, pompous, supervillain name. The demon either didn’t hear her or didn’t care, and more words were shoved into her thoughts.
i have changed my mind
i won’t get joy from killing you
You’re like a broken animal needing to be put out of its misery
Her skin screamed, and a tight burning agony began along her limbs, racing up her arms to settle in her head and pulse steadily behind her eyes.
Something tickled her upper lip and she tasted the rusty bite of her own blood.
From behind her, there came a whimper and a thump as Jules collapsed to the floor.
Pippa focused on the magic around her and forced her hands higher, pushing energy out through them.
A pitiful light leaked out, so sad and small she was a little surprised a comedic farting noise didn’t accompany it.
She was tired, distracted by the continuing beat of pain on her skin and in her head and whatever part of her body she tried to move.
She wanted to curl up by herself in a ball on the ruined floor and sob.
But she wasn’t alone.
Behind her, Jules was on the floor, wracked with an agony she didn’t understand. Because of Pippa, she was in danger.
The same anger from earlier burned bright and blinding within her, encouraging magic to flood into her body.
It settled in her head, mending and binding and healing, even as it swarmed around her hands.
She pulled on the magic in the air, the magic in the broken floor and in the walls and in the succulents that sat sad and over-watered on the floor above.
The demon strode forward and cocked its undamaged arm back, poisoned claws glinting in the light as it readied a swing at Pippa’s neck.
She gave the magic one last urgent pull, then threw it forward. White-hot energy flashed from her palms and hit the Whisper Hound directly in the throat. It staggered and gurgled, and in an instant, the pain disappeared.
Relief cascaded through her. She called on more magic to strike again, and again, and when the demon opened its mouth, she aimed right at the back of its throat. The demon choked, bringing both clawed hands to its neck.
A heaviness brushed her shoulders. She couldn’t keep hurling magic at it forever, and as soon as she slowed down or grew even more tired, it would be ready to use those claws.
Pippa ran forward, ignoring a sharp pain in her ankle and the ache in her scraped knees.
She snatched a broken lamp from the floor as she passed it.
It was a heavy desk lamp, the kind with a wide metal base to help balance a long, arched stem.
There was no bulb or shade, but it felt good in her hands and it felt even better as she swung it base-first into the demon’s jaw.
Both arms rattled with the impact. The Whisper Hound stepped back and one foot caught on a piece of exposed conduit that had fallen from the ceiling. One more blow to the jaw knocked the demon onto its back.
It snarled and swiped at her from the floor, but the swipe was desperate and uncoordinated, and she was able to throw herself out of the way.
Another swing from the lamp base impacted the demon’s head, and Pippa yelped as the vibrations nearly shook her elbows apart. If she had an hour, she could possibly do some damage, but that one swing felt like it had hurt her more than whatever she’d done to the demon.
What she would have given for anything sharp.
The demon had fallen next to the box of old motherboards that had split open and lay scattered around broken ceiling tiles and fluffy bundles of pink insulation.
Pippa snatched one motherboard, raised it high, and with magic swirling in her muscles and giving her every last bit of strength she could muster, she drove the plastic board down onto the demon’s neck.
Black blood splattered onto her face and the demon convulsed a few times. She drove the board down again just to be certain.
Pippa’s attention snapped to Jules, who had pulled herself halfway upright, bracing her hands on the carpet. “Are you okay?” Pippa said. “Are you hurt? Can you—” She drifted off as she caught sight of Jules’s expression.
Disgust.
Horror.
She could deal with that look on anyone else but Jules.
After all the years of their friendship, she’d be the one to end it with a revelation that the magic Jules had thought was neat and fun was actually something to fear.
Something to loathe. A weary ache bloomed at the base of Pippa’s rib cage and her throat grew tight. Anyone but Jules.
“Jesus fuck,” Jules snapped, though she sounded winded. “You do all that shit with the goddamn sorcery and fuck up all of that”—she gestured to the destroyed floor and ceiling—“and you don’t carry a goddamn knife with you?”
“I—” Pippa blinked. “Uh . . .”
“That’s disgusting.” Jules let out a short, high laugh before she slumped against the wall. “God, you’re cool,” she muttered as her legs gave out and she slid to the carpet.
Pippa struggled to stand and go to her, but from the other side of the door, she suddenly heard the rapid clang of footfalls on the stairwell.
Everything she’d just done had been loud, destructive, and of course people would have heard and were sprinting to investigate. Everything around her could be explained through a freak accident with shoddy workmanship except for the partially decapitated demon lying at Pippa’s knees.
Shitshitshit.
Pippa pulled on the magic, though in her state, it wasn’t quick to respond. Her shoulders ached, her ankle was certainly sprained, and as she held her hands over the demon’s body, she realized that the motherboard had cut deep into her palms.
The commotion was coming closer. She needed to get rid of the Whisper Hound’s body before anyone saw it. Anyone other than Jules, of course. Oh, and Maxim.
Hell, with all of the people she had inadvertently revealed the otherworld to, maybe she should just leave the body and let the Coven give up on her once and for all. Maybe Geoff would win some succubi over with a plate of muffins.
Maybe another day.
With a guttural cry of exertion and the feeling that she was hoisting a boat anchor out of a tar pit, Pippa gave the magic around her a final, exhausted pull.
The demon’s body smoked under her hands, embers spreading and flaring along skin and beneath sparse fur. It sank into itself as ash settled and sifted over ceiling detritus right as the door flew open and several people ran in.
Pippa didn’t recognize most of them: the barista from Get Buzzed who was wearing an apron stained with coffee, a few people in suits, and a custodian who instantly shouted, “Get a first-aid kit!” to someone who hadn’t yet made it out of the stairwell.
Her head was swimming. She tried to tell them to take care of Jules, to pay attention to Jules, but no one listened.
They surrounded her and told her to lie back and keep still, that an ambulance was on its way, that she would be all right.
A voice to her right demanded to know what had happened, and then another voice to her left shouted that the building was obviously falling apart, and what was next, asbestos?
Everything was too loud and too close. She could stop it, though. The darker magic wriggled awake. It would be so easy to have everyone be quiet and leave this floor and forget what they’ve seen.
She could do it.
She could be more than a broken animal, a half-functioning witch.
No one would be hurt, no one would be the wiser, and when someone found the destroyed hallway, they would scrounge up conclusions that didn’t involve Pippa whatsoever.
But with one pull of that magic, it would mean all those years wasted. She had spent so long pretending it didn’t even exist; if she used it, she’d be no better than her father. Than Harbinger. Her stomach pitched and threatened to empty.
Over the bobbing heads of the three people now clustered around her, she saw someone else come through the door. Blond hair artfully rearranged, sharp jaw, furious eyes, crooked nose.
Pippa let out a cry of relief, and the barista beside her grabbed her arm, thinking she was in pain.
Entirely the opposite. She saw Maxim Sheppard, and he saw her, and she wanted to sob with the absolute, total rightness that flooded through her because now, everything would be okay.
Maxim charged forward, squeezing between the people clustered around Pippa.
“I’m fine,” she told him as he nearly dove down to get to her. “I’m fine.” The bruised ligaments in her ankle were already mending, and if anyone around her looked closely, they would have been able to see the cuts on her palms knitting together beneath the bloody smears.
Maxim’s lips were pressed in that firm, delectable line. “You—”
“Is Jules okay?” Pippa interrupted. “Maxim, is she okay?”
“She’s here?” He glanced over his shoulder as Jules used the custodian to pull herself bodily to her feet. The poor man was at least a half-head shorter than she, and he staggered in surprise.
“How did this happen?” the barista said to the pile of debris.
Pippa hoped no one noticed how quickly she aimed an intent look at Jules. Unfortunately, Jules was one of those who did not notice.
“The ceiling fell,” Pippa said before Jules could cheerily tell everyone how amazing it had been to watch Pippa decapitate a demon with old computer parts. “We heard a cracking sound above us and it just dropped.”
“I think I’m gonna barf,” Jules said as a contribution, and the custodian stepped as far away as possible. She’d gone pale and was shaking, and someone in the crowd mumbled a sentence that included “shock.”
Pippa scrambled upright, pushing past the person trying to apply bandages to her hands, and took the place of the grateful custodian.
“Hey,” she whispered. “You okay?”
Jules gripped Pippa’s shoulders and closed her eyes tight. Pippa used the contact to push crumbs of healing magic into her, settling her stomach, calming her panicked pulse. Her breathing came slower and she nodded at last.
“Yeah. I’m good.” Without opening her eyes, she went on. “But we’re going to talk about this, right? You’re not going to keep changing the subject when I ask you, and you’re not going to pretend it didn’t happen? Because—shit, Pippa, I saw all of it, and—”
Pippa made a soft “Mmmm!” to silence her, then sent up a quick, silent apology to her own future self.
And then, another apology for opening up to someone who wouldn’t be able to accompany her into the Ash Coven life.
“No one can know what happened here. Lie your ass off, fake amnesia, whatever it takes. Please, just . . .” She took a slow, unsteady breath.
And then for the second time in her life, she said, “I’ll tell you everything later, I promise.”
Somehow, it didn’t feel any easier to say it.