Mael swore and drew in a hiss. A brief smile tugged at his mouth, sharp and satisfied, and her stomach flipped. He looked like him. Like Zacharias. The magus—the demon-half—that had brought her such pleasure. Felix pressed her lips together. She didn’t cry. She never cried.
“It worked then?”
Mael pressed his hand to a chair and in a rush of chilled air, it was gone, the failing cloud of varnish drifting to the floor. “As you see.”
He flicked open the jewellery box on the dressing table. His groan as he plunged his fingers into the mess of gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones was almost…obscene—
Something boomed. A deep vibration that rioted through Felix. Her blood-wards. They… She cried out at the sudden, fierce backlash of released magic surging through her flesh.
Mael grabbed her arm and yanked her from the room. “It works. But it’s not enough. I’m hollow. He was beyond my control for too…” The sentence ended in a foul curse. “What I am. It’s consuming the earthmade as fast as I pull it in. There’s no time.”
He pushed her along the landing and through the open bathroom door. “Find plastic. Toothbrushes. Combs. Disposable razors. Anything.” He already had his fingers wrapped around the old copper taps, his other hand gripping the cast-iron claw-footed bath.
The metal groaned under his feeding touch as he made it a part of himself. All too soon, it was nothing more than flakes of paint, his thumb, and a whispered spell stopping the gush of water from the exposed pipes. Not the clean transformation of a magus, but still his strange, Bringer-flesh magic.
“I have everything.” Felix held up a plastic wash bag.
“What’s left in your flesh?”
She closed her eyes and a heartbeat later met the yawning emptiness Feoh had left in her muscles. If they got out of his place alive, she’d have to start again. Fuck. Seeding crystals was…painful. “I have a few splinters of turquoise…but they’re broken beyond use. Everything else is gone.”
Mael swore. “The demon is still taking it all from me. Come.” He grabbed her arm again and hauled her along the landing. He stopped, dead still, and she thudded into him. “Our way is blocked.”
The narrow window he stood before looked out to the yard below, one bisected by a brick wall. It was only a sliver of a waning crescent moon, but still there was just enough cast light to see movement.
Bringers. Thick in the shadows of the various barns and outbuildings. Felix’s scattered thoughts scrambled to find some order. Primary training kicked in. Identify. The thin shadows didn’t spike with horns…so Bringers of the fifth breed and below. A shape scuttled across the line of the roof and silver light edged it, chasing its long, long wings against the dark tile.
Her stomach turned over. “Belial.”
“Indeed,” Mael murmured.
“A heptad.”
“More than one.”
Belial were vicious little Bringers that formed in groups of seven. And Mael was right, there was more than one heptad skulking in the shadows of the barns, in stone archways and open doorways. “They know we’re here.”
“Every demon in a three-mile radius knows that we’re here. Your magic exploded. They’ll have converged on this place even as we left the cellar.”
“The wards are down. But they’re not attacking.”
“Belial are skittish. They don’t trust what they sense. And individually, a strong blood-ward would incinerate them. Until they work up their courage, they’ll hold back. When they find it’s gone, however…”
Belial were locusts in their ferocity. Once roused, they were unstoppable. Certainly by two magi with hardly a sliver of useable magic between them.
“You planned to leave though the front of the house.” It would be impossible. The Belial would take them in seconds.
“I was expecting the colony of Mulciber that congregate over by Hay Tor.”
A flutter of wings darted along the guttering of the low stables. Felix held back a curse. Those Bringers she could pick out with ease. “They are also here.”
Mael pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course they are.” His jaw tightened. “Why did I ever think anything about you would be easy?” He rubbed his thumb under his nexus ring and splinters of light sparked in the clear-quartz.
“Your ring.” Felix almost touched him, but her fingers curled back tight into her palm.
Mael stared at his hand. “Something remains.” He pulled in a breath and his shoulders settled. “All right. We risk the cellar.” He turned and headed for the stairs. Felix could only follow.
“But the Bringers there…” Fed on a glut of her magic, they would be wild, strong. Almost as bad as the swarm of Belial coating the darkness of the farm buildings.
“We fight three of them or go down under a multitude?”
“So…we get past them. Then what?” She picked her way through the darkness, feeling for smooth plaster and the carpeted treads of each stair. “We’re still outside. As are the Belial and the Mulciber.”
“Think.”
She didn’t want to think. Her nerves were stretched thin with fear and want and disappointment. Much more and she would snap. Mael had to tell her. She was hardly a shining example of a magus, after all. “I don’t know.” His ring flared, sparking white in the shadows. “Outside you can contact the magi. Bring them here.”
“I can also contact the magi.”
He stopped in the kitchen. The last of the day’s light cut across the top of the window, the rest of the room falling to a deep blue. A shadow darted across the long window. A Mulciber, pulling closer. A blood-ward of even the poorest quality would ash a Mulciber in a heartbeat. But its caution wouldn’t last long. And the Belial would follow.
“Gods below, Mael, tell me.”
She cried out as the little Mulciber flattened itself against the window. Wood groaned and the glass splintered. The sharp stink of vinegar and the almost rancid stench of unwashed flesh burst across her senses.
“No time.” Mael shoved her towards the cellar door.
“You could ask.”
“Why would I do that when I can manhandle you?”
The shock at his words had her stumbling into the dark stairwell. That had been her demon. Did he escape sometimes? Breaking free of Mael’s tight control?
She grabbed for the cold plaster and brick of the wall to right herself. Mael’s hand caught her shoulder, adding steadiness…and running a deep shiver through her flesh.
The splinter of glass and the thud of—something—hitting the sink and draining board jerked her thoughts away from the change in the man at her back.
“They’re in,” he muttered. “Move.”
“The door won’t hold them?”
“Nothing will hold them.”
“I can’t mask my magic…”
“Relax, Felix.”
Her heart twisted, pain and want knotting the ache in her chest. Not now. After. If she survived, she would talk to him. She made that vow.
She fished about in the wash bag, using her elbow to steady her against the brick, as her feet slid down. She jabbed the toothbrushes behind her. “Here.”