"Pale Demon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Kim)

Twenty-two

Trent bowed his head as the auditorium erupted in noise. In Trent’s arms, Lucy woke and began to wail. I knew how she felt.

“Rachel,” Pierce said, and I pushed his hand from me, standing with my chin high even as I felt my one chance slipping away. Damn it. Damn it back to the Turn and hell again.

“You’d have us pardon the black witch who stopped another from killing a demon?” Oliver was shouting, and I cringed. “If you’re afraid and want the taint of black magic among us, the choice is simple! We should choose a demon killer, not the one who saved him! All in favor of Pierce regaining his position?”

My head came up. They wouldn’t vote for me; not now. The crowd became even louder, and as security came forward to keep them back, a bubble snapped into place over the stage. At the coven table, grim-faced people raised their hands. One, two, three, four.

“Trust me,” Trent said, standing with his lips inches from my ear as Lucy howled. “You saved me from demons, and I will save you from the witches. Just play it out. Trust me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, feeling his grip too tight on me. “Trent…”

“We are voting, Vivian!” Oliver stated, and the woman spun to him, her face tight in worry. “Either say yea or nay or your voice won’t count.”

“I vote against Pierce,” she said quickly. “Oliver. Wait.”

But Oliver was striding to the front of the stage. The noise was loud, and he shouted, “That is four for Pierce, one against. Pierce regains his position, exonerated from his past crimes of black magic, and is given leave to use such skills to destroy demons and save lives.”

This was a good thing, but my stomach was tight, and Oliver was far too happy. Pierce was being pulled backward to the table, absently shaking hands with nervous people now sworn to protect him by a brotherhood only broken in the direst of situations. And he in turn would protect them. From me?

“All in favor of permanently rescinding Rachel Morgan’s shunning and reinstating her as a white witch capable of doing black magic?” Oliver stated.

“Wait!” I said, then fumbled for my amulet. It was going too fast. And Trent was backing away with a crying Lucy—abandoning me.

“Oliver,” Vivian said loudly over the clamor of a hundred voices. “This is not fair, and you know it!”

He grinned at her, looking evil. “For or against, Vivian.”

“I vote for Rachel,” she said breathlessly.

“As do I,” Pierce said, but there were four hands raised against me, and my heart seemed to turn into a black stone.

It was over?

It was over that quickly?

“You lose,” Oliver said, smiling.

I fell back, stumbling until I put the three chairs between me and them. I had that security amulet, and I wasn’t helpless. “You promised me a fair trial!” I said, but no one was listening. “Oliver, I swear, you’ll give it to me, or I will talk. I’ll tell them everything!”

“No, you won’t.” Oliver wasn’t using his amplifying amulet, his back to the assemblage, and I felt myself pale. I looked past him to the crowd, visible now that the house lights had come up. I found my mother, clutching her hands to her chest and crying. My gaze fell then to Ivy, who was ready to live at last—without me. And then I found Jenks, looking aghast and unable to reach me because of the bubble between us. He’d be fine. He’d go live with Trent, the bastard, and his children would play with Lucy.

They’d all be fine without me, I thought, my throat closing as I fumbled in my pocket for the amulet that Pierce had given me. I was not going to Alcatraz. I’d call Al first.

“I did no wrong,” I said, reaching out and tapping a line, feeling my hair start to float as the broken jaggedness filled me. “I know black magic, and I will use it when threatened. I’m not a black witch—”

“Take her,” Oliver said, motioning for security, and Pierce stiffened, surrounded by his new peers.

I motioned for him to relax. Al was waiting for me. I could hide out in the ever-after until things cooled off, and then come back. I could always do a disguise or something. Who was I kidding? They’d know it was me.

“Oliver, you already tried Alcatraz,” Trent said, his voice calm and smooth. “As I recall, that was a dismal failure. You need something more permanent.”

I turned toward Trent, livid. Like a lobotomy? “What are you doing?” I all but hissed, and he retreated, putting more distance between us as Lucy howled.

“There’s nothing to stop her from escaping again,” Trent said matter-of-factly. “I’ve a better idea.”

Someone grabbed my arms from behind me, and I struggled, grunting when a zip strip was slipped over my wrists. As Pierce stood, made helpless by his new position, the jagged ley line left me.

“What do you have in mind?” Oliver asked as I shook the security off and stood in the hot spotlight, hearing some people cry for my blood and those I once trusted either silent or plotting against me. Trent had said to trust him, but every instinct I had said to fight.

“I can curse her,” Trent said, and Vivian’s eyes widened. “Send her to the ever-after, which is where she’d flee anyway, but curse her so that she can’t return unless summoned.”

“You son of a bitch!” Jenks shrilled, a hot red dust spilling from him.

“Like the demon she is?” Oliver said, smiling wickedly, but I could do nothing except stare. Was there such a thing, or was this part of his plan? Put some fake curse on me so I was off the coven radar? Brooke had offered me something similar. What would my life be like now if I had accepted?

“Well, she is a demon, isn’t she?” Trent said with a nasty boys’-club smile on his face.

I didn’t know what to do. He had said trust him, but this…

“Oliver, we can’t,” Vivian exclaimed, aghast enough to tell me she thought it might be possible. “That’s inhuman!”

“She’s a demon!” Oliver shouted. “Human morality doesn’t apply to her!”

A thump reverberated across the barrier sheltering the stage, and everyone cowered as the shimmering ever-after pulsed. Ivy had ripped a chair from the floor and thrown it. She looked wild, eyes black, shaking with anger given free rein. Oliver gave the incensed vampire a disparaging glance. “Can you do it?” he asked Trent.

Pierce was being restrained. I knew he could break from it and was following my lead of wait-and-see. Trent glanced at him before nodding. My heart thudded. Trust him?

“I need a collective,” he said, and I could imagine my life ending. I’d never be able to return, I’d never see the sun—unless this was part of his plan. How bad had it been, I wondered, when he had been a demon’s slave? How much hatred had he hidden from me? Was he going to laugh at me now? Hurt me?

“You putrid elf! That’s my daughter!” my mother screamed, and Trent twitched. He’d been named. His secret was out. But I didn’t think it mattered. He had left his daughter’s ears undocked. The elves were coming out of the closet with her. The directive of the next generation. He’d given me a say in it. Or had it all been a lie?

Oliver shifted into motion. “Isolate them,” he directed, pointing at my mother and Ivy, now struggling violently. “Form a collective! We do this now!”

“Oliver! We need to think about this!” Vivian demanded as she confronted him, but Oliver motioned for security, and she was restrained.

“You are outvoted,” Oliver said with satisfaction. “Put her with coven member Pierce.”

I felt sick, unable to move. It wasn’t the plastic straps with the charmed silver at their core that kept me from reacting; it was Trent. He had said to trust him. He had said I had to lose. He’d told me to go quietly, but I didn’t know why!

The light from above was eclipsed as security shoved me into a circle one of the junior coven members had sketched and I fell to my knees. Trent’s shadow lay heavily on me. I looked up, his stone-cold face scaring me. Lucy was bawling in someone else’s arms—her wailing giving my unvoiced fear a sound. “T-Trent?” I stammered. He could do it. He said he had a curse, and I believed he could do it. He’d been dropping elven wild magic the entire trip, and apparently he had a new trick to show me.

“Betray me, and I’ll never rest until you’re dead,” I vowed, my hands bound behind me, kneeling before him and the entire witch council.

He grabbed my shoulder, hauling me up as the crowd shouted its approval. Not as far from our witch-burning past as I had hoped, I guess.

“I’ve got a demon curse to give you,” he breathed for me alone, green eyes turbulent as his wild magic seeped from his fingers and sent tendrils of power I couldn’t use through me, tingling, warming, seductive. “I’ve been carrying it since the arch fell. Ku’Sox gave it to me. I had to take it to free him. It doesn’t do anything to me but give me a headache. You, though, I think it will work on.”

Ku’Sox? I went cold, the memory of an elven assassin singing me to death rising high in me, pulled into existence by Trent’s magic seeping through me like a soporific, soothing even as excitement sparked from his touch. I’d almost died under wild magic. And now he wanted to give me Ku’Sox’s curse with it? I was a fool. Elves fought demons. He’d used me again.

Trent leaned in closer, his hand light on my shoulder. “Once I give it to you, you can—”

“No!” I cried, my bound hands coming up to shove him away, but Trent had grabbed me, his eyes looking behind me. “I’d sooner get a lobotomy,” I said, scared. “You son of—”

Agony exploded in my knees as something hit me from behind, exactly where the guards in Alcatraz had gotten me. Gasping in pain, I crumpled, my knees exploding. I looked up, finding Trent staring down at me, his brow pinched, his unsaid words swallowed in frustration.

“Curse her,” Oliver said as I tried to breathe. “And hurry up about it,” he added.

Squinting in pain, I looked up when Trent’s shadow fell over me. “You not trusting me is going to get you killed,” he said, his expression grim as he bent to lift me up, failing when I refused to cooperate. “As I was saying, take the bloody curse and give it back to Ku’Sox.”

My muscles went slack, and my mouth opened in an O of surprise. Give it to Ku’Sox? That would mean I’d have to, like…touch him!

Seeing my understanding, Trent stopped trying to get me to stand up and turned to the audience. A gold-tinted wash of ever-after sprang up around us, and as the watching people chanted in unison to show their collective spirit, I felt the tingle of wild elven magic spark through me again, making me tremble. Ku’Sox wanted to dissect me. And Trent thought I could hold him still long enough to curse him? Was he nuts, or just tragically overestimating my abilities?

Trent was inside the circle with me, and I tried to get up, falling back against it when he shoved me back down. “No,” I pleaded, my hands bound before me, but he began to chant, low and under his breath as he gathered his magic. I took a wild breath, collapsing slowly when a wave of lassitude spilled into me, carried by his music, circling over and over in my mind, becoming my world. Wild magic. Oh no…

It promised peace, and even as I tried to fight it, my eyes slipped shut against the harsh glare. My soul hurt and needed to heal. Too much had happened, and I wanted it all to be over. That’s what the magic promised, and I wanted it even as I fought its peace.

My head bowed, and Trent knelt before me, singing in words I couldn’t understand, his beautiful voice rising and falling so softly, it was only for me to hear. A tear slid down my face, a tear for all that I hadn’t done, that I should have done differently. Regret. But it didn’t matter now.

Trent’s energies prickled against me, and I suddenly realized he wasn’t singing anymore.

“Rachel?” he breathed, and I lifted my head, numb. “Si peccabas, poenam meres,” he said softly, putting a hand on my shoulder, and I shivered as the curse slid gently from him to me, settling like tattered silk atop my aura.

“Why?” I pleaded, thinking I’d been stupid to trust him. My eyes met his, begging for mercy. It was just us, though we were surrounded by hundreds bearing witness to the event.

“Because you’re the only one who can,” he said, and I stiffened as the curse began to soak in, making me want to scream. Like a thousand beetles boring into my skin, I felt the curse burrow into me, finding a place among my cells, wiggling, squirming maggots embedding themselves in my soul. A smut-tainted wash of ever-after coated me, and as I heard the howls of the crowd become muffled, I knew I was being pulled into a ley line. And yet Trent gripped my shoulder, not done with me yet.

“She’s still here!” Oliver shouted, his ugly face shimmering behind Trent’s circle.

“The first part shifts the curse,” Trent said, talking to Oliver, but looking at me, his fingers pinching my shoulder so hard it hurt. “It’s the second one that severs it from me and banishes her.”

He was telling me how to do the curse, but I could hardly focus on him, my drive buried under wild magic and my senses dulled. Somehow my gaze found my mother in the mass of howling people. She was crying, leaning on Ivy, who stood stoically as her heart broke. Seeing me look at her, my mom rallied, pushing away the man blocking her and striding forward.

“Give them hell, Rachel!” she shouted at the edge of the bubble, tears streaming down her face. “I’m proud of you!”

Trent yanked me up by the shoulder, and I staggered, my knees barely able to hold my weight. “I curse you, Rachel Mariana Morgan, to be fixed to the reality I banish you to. There you are cursed to remain until summoned, be it day or night, forever bound as a demon.” His eyebrow lifted, mocking me. “You got all that? Want me to write it down for you?”

The curse. He wanted me to give it to Ku’Sox. Should I be pissed or marvel at his foresight? “Okay,” I said numbly, and a hint of a smile flickered in his eyes. My jaw trembled, and doubt hit me. Why was I trusting him! “Trent? Wait!” I cried out, knees throbbing.

“Just so you know, I’ve trusted you since camp,” Trent said, then shouted dramatically, “Facilis descensus Tartaros!”

His hand let go, and it was as if I was sucked into myself, yanked backward into nothing. The jagged disjointedness of the San Francisco lines took me, dissolving me to thoughts and memories, and dropping me into the infinity of time.

He trusts me? I thought. Trust me, Trent had said. I wanted to. But to risk death to curse Ku’Sox? Why should I even bother?

The world had turned its back on me. I should turn my back on it.