Something About Witches (39 page)

The green net parted as if sliced down the middle. Scrambling free, she leaped to another ledge of rock, an incisor over that gaping hole. She spun in time to see Derek engage Asmodeus again. He was wielding what appeared to be a thick staff, about a yard long. She recognized the rainstick she’d used when she integrated a gentle rain noise into the rotating array of illusions in Rose’s world. Just like
selecting the music options on an MP3 player, Rose’s mind could choose whatever gave her pleasure from moment to moment. Ruby hoped this moment wasn’t penetrating, unless it was like a soothing, distant roll of thunder behind that gentle rainstorm.

Derek could use anything to focus his energy, but it was incongruous to see him lifting the relatively fragile object as a weapon. Until it transformed, and he held a white ash staff instead, nearly as long as he was. But oddly, as he used it to absorb the shards of fire from Asmodeus’s random attacks, she could still hear the rainstick. Both males grunted with exertion to dodge, deflect and absorb the whistling projectiles they were hurling, and those noises of battle were mixed with that rain noise, like the tiny chuckle of fairies.

As Derek pivoted, Ruby could see the aura of the tether he’d used for the sphere, like tying a balloon to one’s wrist to keep it from floating away. With a direct line of sight, of feeling, she could tell nothing was disturbed in the sphere. Rose was still dreaming, unaware a demon had come to suck away that charged amniotic fluid, leaving her soul a defenseless husk, adrift forever if he was successful.

She couldn’t get a clear shot to help. Derek and Asmodeus were moving too fast, astoundingly, awesomely fast, ducking, lunging, attacking. Sharp rock was flying, such that she’d had to put her shields up again. Some were finding their target on both demon and sorcerer as they danced around the ledge. They didn’t stay on the ledge, though. Asmodeus used his wings, and when Derek moved into open space, it held him, as if he’d conjured a platform for himself out of air, and he likely had. The magic of all elements was available to him, after all, and he was not afraid to draw from them. He had the ability, the understanding.

You can’t use your power. It will only lead to tragedy.

She was standing here, impotent. She couldn’t do anything like what they were doing. How could she be anything
but a hindrance? It was the first rule of gun use. If you weren’t sure what you were doing, you were better off retreating, running or getting out of the way. Else pulling your gun would likely get other people or yourself killed.

Asmodeus howled and threw his body forward. Derek backpedaled, for a demon’s touch was as venomous and deadly. In that brief second, Ruby saw the shadows gather above and leap.

Fuck, soul-eaters.
Goddamn demon was cheating, calling in reinforcements. They landed on Derek as he backed right into them. Because of the protections on Rose, they stayed clear of the sphere, but they covered him, blinded him. His heels hit the ledge behind his air platform and he stumbled. Normally, he’d blast them right off. But he couldn’t, not while shielding Rose.

Asmodeus snarled, moving in, those long talons now glowing red like iron, reaching for Derek. He clamped down on Derek’s wrist through that dark blanket of shadows, and Ruby felt the reverberation of agony from the sorcerer as the soul-eaters, eager to drain him, sank their fangs into him.

Fuck you, Mother.

The power unfurled inside of her, Dark, Light and all shades in between. While this battle might be happening underground, lightning didn’t exist only in the sky. Unlike Derek, she wasn’t hampered by what she could draw from below. Reaching down, she called for a storm of energy from the bowels of the Underworld itself. Belatedly, she realized she’d stepped right out into that open space, but she’d conjured herself a platform of air, just as Derek had. Years of study had dovetailed into automatic instinct.

Asmodeus’s crimson eyes flickered toward her, surprise and alarm there. The cold wind spiraled up, straight from the mouth of the Underworld Asmodeus had opened himself, helpful bastard that he was.

Unfortunately, his shock was short-lived. His lips pulled back from his fangs, his hissing voice filling the chamber
like a thousand snakes. “You will unleash Hell on Earth, little girl, and you will not know how to put it back.”

“Pandora didn’t have him.” Jerking her head at Derek, Ruby let the power go like hitting the lever of a catapult. As she released it, she shouted the command at the top of her lungs.
“Derek, shield yourself. Now.”

Lightning cracked through the chamber, shooting up from that opening. The soul-eaters screamed, their bodies flashing transparent, like a macabre cartoon where the skeleton could be seen. They let go of Derek. Asmodeus snarled as the charge reverberated through his soles, grabbing him. His bat-like wings snapped open, holding him up, even as he jittered in the grip of the voltage.

Ruby got a quick glimpse of Derek’s pale face behind a shimmer of power, a major relief, since she wasn’t sure if he’d managed to protect himself. He looked pissed off in a major way, even beneath the blood, which meant he couldn’t be mortally wounded— right? Of course, he was the type of guy who would react to being mortally wounded just that way. Trying not to think about that, she stepped farther out over the abyss, advancing on Asmodeus. Her hair was flying around her face, lightning shards crackling over her palms in a disturbing tingle as she lifted both hands. Her skirt whipped around her.

The Darkness reared its head, summoned by her anger, her desire for revenge.
You took my baby. You made me afraid. You attacked my guy, you son of a bitch.
As the barbed magic lashed out from her, she recalled the scene from
Lord of the Rings
she’d always associated with Derek. Khazad-dum….
You shall not pass
. Only instead of Gandalf, now she saw the Balrog, striking with that fiery whip at the last moment, taking him down. She was the Balrog, coated in darkness, and she’d take it all down with her. All of it. She could make Asmodeus suffer, writhe in pain, scream with the agony of it.

But Darkness was all about pain and agony. The more
Mikhael had given her, the more she’d wanted, the hunger only abated for short periods, not gone. Her gaze snapped to the sphere, where Rose lived in a world with no darkness, no pain. Even though her mother had dealt with Darkness to protect her, there’d been no Darkness in that spell, nothing in that chamber to touch Rose with fear or pain. There’d been a reason for that.

Twelve hours of love, of trust and healing…. Her heart might be fragile as glass, but it had made a key difference, given her back vital parts of herself. She saw Derek register what she was doing, his alarm and calculation, but she didn’t give him time to go beyond that, to decide what heroic and unacceptably dangerous measure he needed to take to protect her. She let go of the barbed magic, vanquished it with a sweep of her hands, a thrust of energy to send it spiraling off into the air, inert. It wasn’t the weapon she needed for this.

“Derek, let her go.” She shouted it over the din of the funneling elements. “Let her go.”

He locked gazes with her, verifying she’d said what she said. It was barely a blink, but if she survived this, she knew she’d recall it later as something much longer. Because in that split second she saw he understood what it meant to her to make that decision. And she wanted to tell him it was because of that comprehension, his love, that she had the strength to say it, mean it.

He let Rose go. Asmodeus, recovering way too fast from that strike, zeroed in on it like a torpedo’s tracking system. Before he could leap, Derek tossed a handful of sand in the air. In an instant, the grains became a hundred orbs the same size as Rose’s, spinning and moving through the chamber, confusing the eye and thwarting any attempt by the demon to interfere with the real sphere’s path.

When the illusion cleared, she’d called the sphere straight to her, anchored it in her hands. The power of it pulsed between her palms, the complex world she’d created. She’d become a Goddess, shaping this small world the way the
bigger one should be, not the way it was. And she’d told Linda that wasn’t the way the world was supposed to work, no matter the heartbreak that such a truth brought.

The meaning of that Goddess’s power, the choices, the good and bad of such energy, coursed through her as Ruby stared over her daughter at Asmodeus.

She was cognizant of Derek watching her, ready, alert, locked on the way she stood over the abyss, her magic holding her up, its strength continuing to blow her hair back in wild disarray. What held her up was solid. A foundation that could never be shattered. Her faith in herself.

I decide who and what I am, Mother. Not you. You doubted your own worth so much that you had to steal mine. But I forgive you for your weakness.

“Is this what you want, Asmodeus?” She rotated it in her hands, and the mist that wisped around it began to lengthen, twine around her wrists. All of it was here, the magic traded with the pieces of her soul. Given out of love, as Derek had said. “Then open wide, because here it comes.”

With a sharp word, she cracked it like an egg between her palms.

The contents zinged forth like a chaotic explosion of fireworks. She’d woven the magic with clever, painstaking care, but, like all power concentrations, if the wrong string was pulled, it could detonate like a bomb.

The meadows and ponies, butterflies and rainbows, candy and long naps on green grass…. all that, plus the incredible array of elemental and Underworld magics. The brilliant tapestry illuminated the room, filled it to bursting. She was plastered against the wall, the weight of it compressing her shields such that if they gave way, she’d be crushed.

She’d held off on her shields as long as she could so as not to warn the demon. It might be minutes or seconds; time lost meaning. She couldn’t see whether Asmodeus had managed to protect himself, whether Derek was all right. Though he’d probably give her hell about it later, she’d found the
power in that last blink to throw a net over him as well, not knowing how hurt he was at this point or whether he had the strength to protect himself from something of this magnitude so quickly.

Pieces of her soul had paid for that magic. Now that it was released, her soul weakened, the connection lost. She focused all her will on holding her own shields, holding Derek’s. And with fierce resolve, holding that one tiny spark against her breast, all that remained of the sphere.

As the light cleared, she blinked, oriented herself. It was hard. She was dazed, as if she’d been caught in a bomb blast in truth. But she had to see; it was critical, because the job wasn’t done. She wished it was, but she was sure it wasn’t.

There.
Asmodeus was still holding himself up, still corporeal, but he was struggling. The pieces, charged by love and Light, had embedded themselves in him like shrapnel, and they were eating at his skin. He was losing ground, but unless she could weaken that corporeal form further, he might rebound. Unfortunately, she was too weak, no magical energy left, and she didn’t see Derek. Just a pile of rock where he’d been, another chunk torn out of the wall.
Derek.

Goddamn it all.
Her lip curling back from her teeth, she reached beneath her shirt, drew the Sig and fired.

Fifteen shots in the mag. Despite her weakening body and the recoil of the powerful gun, she did it steady and one-handed, emptying every bit of it into Asmodeus, blowing chunks of his torso away, tearing those nice clothes. No, she couldn’t kill a demon. But an unexpected attack on the shell? Maybe that would be her ace in the hole. Goddess knew, it was the last card she had to play. She was slipping off the edge of the too-narrow ledge, had no strength left to hold her up. But that was irrelevant. She just had to stay high enough, long enough, for this.

The demon was howling, snarling, his body twisting. The precious bit of Rose pulsed against Ruby’s heart, even as her mother’s breath got more labored. She was going to slip,
needed to let go of Rose. Free, the baby’s soul would float, get where she needed to go. She hoped. If that happened, nothing else mattered. She had to believe Derek was alive, would make sure of it. He was invincible, her cowboy.

Then she felt him. His magic reached out to her, twining around her, holding her up. She sobbed at the sheer physical relief, like a climber who’d been hanging on to a ledge for so long that being hauled up was a pleasurable agony.

His hands were on her now, pulling her back into the widened opening to the anteroom chamber, which, thanks to the Asmodeus & Derek Demolition Company, had a spacious front-row view to the chasm of Hell. Managing a quick look up into his bloodstained face, she immediately picked up on his lead. Reaching out with her free hand, holding that spark against her breast with the other, she clasped his wrist so the reserve of power she found now, bolstered by his presence, came surging through her and joined his.

His body pressed against hers, arms out to either side, all that energy coalescing and firing through his palms as if he were a two-pistoled gunfighter. Every shard of power that shot from him like lightning from a cloud was focused as a laser, the circle of protective power and energy around him as solid as a wall. They let Asmodeus have it, a combined volley of Derek’s energy and Ruby’s will.

Twining together their magic with effortless artistry, he used it with ruthless power to send her enemy back to Hell where he belonged. And at every point their bodies touched, that power coursed through her as well.

Melded together in their intent, it was the most incredible thing she’d ever felt.

Then the feeling was gone, fading. She watched blearily as Asmodeus fell with his soul-eaters, disappearing in a chaotic spiral of wings. He bounced off those rocks, just as she’d imagined herself doing.
Boing, boing, bang.
And don’t come back, asshole. I’m not weak. I’m not your victim. I’m nobody’s victim.

She was suddenly having a hard time breathing. As Derek lowered her to the floor, she noticed the rainstick next to them, a rainstick once more, and touched it. It almost made her smile. He’d used it as a weapon, but it had also been used to soothe a little girl. That was the way power worked. As she moved it, it made its little metallic shower of comforting sound. Derek was there, crouched over her, cradling her face. “Ruby? Ruby, girl, look at me.”