Trial by Fire (Covencraft Book 1) (33 page)

Human Resources must have been the forgotten step-child of the Covenstead because their office was at the far end of one of the second floor wings, tucked into the last office down the hallway.

Although, as she stepped in, maybe it wasn’t so neglected. A large window wrapped around the corner, flanked by massive drapes and liberally allowing streaming sunlight into the office space. Filing cabinets and shelves dominated the inner walls, and the soft
whirr
of computer or server fans carried into the room from an open door. It was a quiet, cluttered space with a large desk set off to the side of one of the windows, covered in papers and files.

“Hey?” she called out. “I’m here to get the personnel files?”

A bookish guy came out from behind one of the shelves, pushing up his glasses on his face as he came toward her. He had messy brownish hair which kind of matched the nondescript brown of his eyes. He was so very ordinary that she shouldn’t have noticed him at all.

Except she did. Every fiber of her senses were tingling but she didn’t get any magic off him at all.

Nothing.

Magically speaking, it was like he wasn’t even there.

“I have them arranged in a trolley for you,” the bookish guy said, indicating to the side of the desk. He came closer to her and she instinctively took a step back as he moved. He looked up at her questioningly as he went behind the desk and shuffled a few things until he found a key and handed it out to her.

“That’s a lot of files,” she said, taking the key and trying for casual conversation while she stared at him.

“Well, yes. We’ve a lot of people working in the coven. If you tell me what you’re looking for, I can perhaps narrow it down.”

She looked him up and down, trying to find something about him that she could pinpoint, other than his general blankness, that was making her want to spit fireballs from her hands. Casual slacks, casual shoes, casual shirt - all of it was just so bland and normal.

And then she saw it. A golden chain flashed from around his neck and hanging from it, a small obelisk - the same obelisk she spotted in the scrying mirror. Her eyes darted down to the desk where a nameplate sat. Matthew Caulder.

She thought about the shape that had been trying to form in the mirror, right before it cleared. An ‘M.’

“You,” she practically hissed.

After all the buildup,
this
was her nemesis it seemed. She was a little put out as a matter of fact. He was so boring, so innocuous, she could have passed him by three or four times since she’d gotten to the Coven and never even noticed until she started looking for magic.

He didn’t seem surprised or concerned. In fact, he appeared sort of annoyed and unperturbed by her accusation. He sighed a bit, like he’d been expecting this.

“I really didn’t want to do this here. It’s going to be a mess to clean up this office.”

This would be another classic example of when her impulse control failed her. She could have just left, could have just dodged back and run out into the hallway, but she was so livid that she didn’t even register what she was doing until she was already up and over the desk, feet sliding on papers and files, tackling him like a linebacker.

She knocked him over and they slammed into the unyielding floor. She immediately kneed him in the groin and punched him with her cast.

“You son of a bitch!” she shouted even has he managed to get a foot up between them and push it against her chest, kicking her off. She hit the desk sideways, wincing with the blow, feeling the sharp edges digging into her hip and shoulder as she collided with the solid wood.

He shouted some curse and she felt it brush by her, cloying and sickly sweet - demon magic - and hear the door slam shut behind her, heard the
snick
of the lock engaging and the demon hex locking the door.

Matthew was already murmuring something under his breath and she had this quick flash in her mind of ‘oh shit,’ and she
knew
, she knew she had to keep him from finishing that spell or hex - whatever it was, it wouldn’t end well for her. She pushed off from the desk, using her good arm and made another lunge for him, scrabbling at his feet. He kicked out, easily avoiding her grabbing hands and finished his spell, spitting out the last words.

She heard an unnatural sound. A horrible, keening sound from off to the side, behind one of the curtains and she was afraid to look, afraid to turn her head and see what it was. It was like glass grinding or metal twisting - shrill and harsh. She locked eyes with Matthew and he smiled.

“I may not have a lot of power, but I can call someone,
something
that does. And he’ll get me your power. Power meant for a coven born witch and not some,” his face twisted a bit in disgust as he said, “some mundane who can’t even wield it properly.”

“Fuck you,” she said as she conjured a fireball and tossed it at him, feeling a little bit gleeful as it set his shirt on fire. He started screaming, rolling on the ground to put himself out.

She had a moment to enjoy her petty victory before two strong arms seized her from behind, lifted her towards the ceiling and tossed her hard against a line of bookshelves. She landed with a sick crunch and felt the impact travel up every single one of her bones. She shook her head, looked up and didn’t know how to process what she saw.

From behind the curtain, she could see part of a mirror and it was missing a section, a shape in the form of a man, a shape that was lumbering toward her, fluid and sinewy - sliver and slick - like he’d crawled out of the mirror and taken part of it with him. It moved with a foreign, abstract grace that made her brain stutter to watch.

As it slid toward her, flowing through the air, she started shuffling backward on her feet, trying to think of something, a spell, a hex anything she’d read in the grimoires. She remembered the one she’d used on Seth and she worked the incantation and spat it out, pushing it at the quick-silver shape.

It rolled off him, like water off an oily surface, sliding to the ground and pooling at his feet.

“Definitely ‘A’ for effort.”

She yelped at the voice in her ear and scrabbled away, turning to find Seth staring at her, crouched low, watching her with gleeful eyes.

“I didn’t call for you,” Jade said quickly.

“No, but I’m pretty hopeful you will,” he said, tipping his head toward the door. “Door locked by demon magic, so unless someone in your coven can work the hex, you’re on your own.” Seth then looked at the looming silver shape. “Lesser demon coming after you, partially trapped on the other side but still, pretty strong.” He finally looked over at Matthew. “And the demon is bent to his will. I reckon, since you just gave him third degree burns on his chest and arms, if he did harbor any misgivings or second thoughts - you just burned them out of him.”

The silver shape was on her, reaching out with massive paws for hands. Jade flipped over onto her stomach and tried to slither way from it, around the corner of the bookshelf. Everything hurt. In the movies, people got tossed around all the time and still got up to fight but in reality, even with her adrenaline, it fucking hurt and she didn’t know if she could trust her legs to hold her.

It grabbed her by the ankle and started pulling her toward the mirror. Her shirt rucked up and the floor burned her skin, scraping along it painfully. She kicked, she wiggled, she struggled but couldn’t break her foot free. She looked around desperately for something to use as a weapon. There was nothing. Jade managed to grab a shelf on her way by and felt an awful pop in some of her joints as the demon kept his relentless tow, dragging her towards the mirror.

“Once he gets you on the other side, he’ll try to extract your magic,” Seth said conversationally, hunkering down next to her. “I’m doubtful it will even work. Old witch legend at best. Take the heart of a witch, take their power. Unfortunately, it does mean he’s going to carve it out while you’re still alive.”

Jade kicked again, trying to yank herself back and away from the silver demon. It was faceless, expressionless - like fighting an automaton. Her arms, hands and fingers were exploding in agony from the strain she was exerting to keep herself anchored to the bookshelf.

“Still not willing to deal?” Seth asked, his bottomless eyes hopeful.

“No,” she said, jaw clenched.

Jesus, if she could just hang on long enough for Paris to get here. Surely someone had heard all the ruckus, or Callie and Henri would figure she should be back and would call him. She wasn’t above needing a rescue, she could admit that much and keep her individuality.

The silver demon pulled and she shrieked. Holy God, her fingers were starting to slip as they cramped and popped. She just couldn’t gain enough leverage.

“Are you sure?” Seth asked, crouching even closer, putting his face in front of her.

She didn’t get the chance to curse at him before her hands gave out and she slid hard across the floor, being dragged mercilessly by the demon. Jade yelped, clawing at the ground, becoming more frantic in her movements, kicking, thrashing, twisting. She managed to break free for a moment and scramble to her feet only to feel arms wrap around her waist and pick her up off her feet and carry her backward toward the mirror. She was screaming, frantic, loud, wordless screams but she still couldn’t say the words Seth needed to hear. Even in all the chaos, she had this sense that if she agreed, if she said yes to him, it would somehow end up worse than this. Seth’s smile and his eyes were so much more horrifying than the faceless demon because Seth looked human but wasn’t.

The silver, faceless demon may overpower her but Seth… Seth could outsmart her and she had no idea what she would be getting into.

Her hands pinwheeled out, trying to grab onto something, anything. She heard an awful, sick, sucking sound behind her and then her hands collided with something and she realized it was the frame of the mirror. The demon had already stepped in and was trying to pull her in with him. She felt the mirror at her back, felt its resistance and remembered what Paris said about having an anchor on this side, something that was keeping her here. She thought it might be her secret, the one she would carry for life, Lily, but she couldn't be certain.

Lily was dead.

She grabbed at the edges with clawed hands, her fingers feeling stuck permanently in place. She kicked out with her legs and managed to find the outside of the mirror with them and wrapped her ankles around the frame.

She felt pressure around her chest, under her ribs, demon-strong arms pulling at her, trying to yank her backward.

“Possum, come now,” Seth said, standing in front of her. “Valiant effort, but one word and I can help you out here. Just say it. ‘Deal.’ That’s it. So easy. Everyone deals. I’ll keep you from crossing over, and I’ll even take care of him for you.” Seth jerked his head toward Matthew and Jade’s eyes flickered over.

He was still on the floor - his shirt a charred mess, sticking to his burned flesh where her fire-spell had caught him. He was clutching the obelisk in his hands and…

He was still spell-casting.

There was another solid heave and she felt something cold and sharp pierce under her ribcage, stealing her breath. Pain radiated out from her body and she looked down and saw blood blossoming out from her shirt.

“Or if he can’t get you all the way over, I suppose he can just take your heart like this,” Seth said easily with a shrug, staring at the red liquid pooling from where a silver prong had pierced her. “I still don’t think it will work. Either you’ll be dead or you’ll be powerless. I’m betting on dead.” He leaned in closer, his lips almost touching hers, so close that she had to go a bit cross-eyed to keep looking at him. She gasped in pain as a second spike started punching its way through her skin.

“Say the word, possum. Seal our deal.”

Jade turned her head and focused instead on Matthew. The squirrely HR stooge was clutching that obelisk like his life depended on it.

Matthew who, according to Seth, was controlling the demon.

She’d been fighting the wrong thing. Stop Matthew and she’d stop the demon. She’d been focused on the demon because it was horrific, it was big, it was powerful.

But it was still just a tool. And Matthew was wielding it.

Jade tried to conjure her fire but couldn’t square her focus. Another spike of pain shot through her and she shrieked. She tried to think of something else, of anything else she knew of her magic which didn’t require her full attention, because, holy God, her attention was on the unbelievable suffering directed at the middle of her chest. But she couldn’t think, she couldn’t focus, she just wanted Matthew to stop.

Just stop what he was doing, just be incapacitated by something, anything that made him stop.

Pain made her vision double and blur for a moment but then she focused on the gold of the chain, around Matthew’s neck. The obelisk swinging a bit as he clutched the chain, back and forth, back and forth. She felt like she had in the lab when Paris was testing her power, getting sleepy and dazed, watching it move back and forth, back and forth.

Then it stopped and Matthew grabbed at it with his fingers and Jade pushed at him as hard as she could, pushed with all her power, thinking of what she wanted him to do, pushed so hard she felt something give a little in her brain and it hurt, like a blow to the head.