“This way, then.” Xsing led out with less enthusiasm than before. Darien wondered if the hours of tracking down gates were wearing the Professor thin too. But his floating rune led them forward as clearly as ever.
Number five was… different. Darien stared at the humming portal that crossed their path. “The hell you say. How’re we going to bag that one?” The thing was huge, like a brontosaurus and a radioactive worm had a baby. Its bloated length stood taller than even Lyyll’s head, and the lower side seemed to brush what passed for ground out here.
Beside Darien, Jasper sat down with the jerkiness of a man suddenly feeling his limits. “My sheet isn’t nearly big enough to draw the blades that diameter would take.”
“And I doubt I can get under it to complete a circle.” Silas moved in close to the pulsing conduit, and Darien had to clench his jaws not to call out a warning. Kneeling, then lying on his stomach, Silas slid his hand close to the lower edge. “Nope, not a chance.” He pulled back and came to Darien’s side.
“What if we left this one?” Lyyll asked. “On the display, the tethers held several fireworlds blocking Earth. If all but one tether is gone, surely we can hope that a path to Earth from Home is opening up, even if one fireworld remains between them.”
“I don’t want to fucking hope,” Darien grated. “Begging your pardon, but we didn’t come this far and do all this shit to leave a highway to hell open on Earth.”
“We might close it from the other side,” Silas suggested. “Now we know what to look for. If we can find the sorcerer who built it.”
“Or we might break it right here and now.” Darien stalked restlessly along the side of the looming portal.
Pip trotted at his heels, as buoyant as ever. “Maybe I could squeeze under. Or dig under.”
Darien squatted to rub Pip’s ears, the warm softness comforting to his hands. “Thanks. But I don’t think that’ll work. Silas couldn’t even get an arm under it, and this ground stuff we’re walking on isn’t something I’d want to start digging up.”
“I don’t think I can jump over it. Grim might?”
“Grim might not.” The big cat twitched his whiskers. “I might try, if it’s our only option, but I’m not a flying squirrel or a kangaroo.”
“Ooh, maybe Xsing could take bird form?” Pip turned to look at the rest of the group. “He hasn’t taken any Familiar shape yet.”
“Were you sleeping through your classes?” Grim shook his head. “Assuming a familiar’s form requires a template for the magic to work with. Unless there’s a random bird hovering here in the Veil to copy, Xsing can’t just wish himself a pair of wings.”
Xsing said, “At least, not ones that work for more than gliding. Although if someone threw me as high in the air as they could, perhaps I could form membranes and glide down on the other side.”
“If I can’t link the circle underneath the portal, having you on the other side won’t help,” Silas pointed out. “So let’s not throw anyone over that thing.”
They stood for a while, eyeing the pulsing red-and-smoke magic in their path.
“What if we just break it?” Darien asked at last.
“Break it?” Silas’s eyebrow climbed.
“Yeah. Crack it, smash it, disrupt it somehow. If you break one rune in a construct, the whole thing falls apart. Same for a circle. Maybe we don’t have to cut right through the portal. Just damage it enough to make it fail.”
“That’s… not unreasonable,” Jasper mused. “The more elaborate the spell, the more fragile.”
“I’d call that pretty freaking elaborate.” Darien waved at the monstrosity.
Xsing said, “I have less experience with human magic and portals, but that sounds plausible.”
“Shall we use the same size shears?” Jasper asked. “Cut a gash?”
“I was thinking a drill,” Darien suggested. “We’ve done that one enough to be good at it, and it’ll take out a chunk of the construct.”
“Drill. Right.”
Darien set a hand on Jasper’s am. “Can you manage? If not, maybe I can just punch a hole through it with pure force.” His eyes kept trying to squint shut, and it felt like his right eyebrow was having little seizures, but he’d bet he still had more reserves than Jasper.
Jasper dredged up a thin smile. “I can do a drill. That’s a single solid shape, no separate parts in different motions. And it’s familiar. Give me a minute.”
“I don’t like it.” Silas stepped forward far enough to put himself between Darien and the gate. “If I can’t create the containment circle, there’s no knowing where the energy will go when it blows. If it blows. You could be hit with the backlash.”
“I’ll drill a hole on the top,” Darien suggested. “Maybe even a little over the other side. Anything that shoots out will head away from us.”
“Unless the whole thing breaks apart like we want it to.”
“Then you tell me.” Darien met Silas’s gaze, unable to hide his irritation. He was tired and hungry and that thing was huge, and did he mention tired? “How should I do this so we can scrape this damned hell off our world? Huh?”
Silas’s pupils looked dark and wide in the thin light. Darien saw himself reflected there, too small to tell what was showing on his face. But Silas touched his shoulder and said under his breath, “I want to get home with you, safely.”
“Oh, me too.” Darien rubbed his forehead. “I’ve just got no better idea. I’m beat and I’m pissed off, and either the power drain or the Veil is starting to make me feel really spaced out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. But if we’re doing this, it needs to be soon.”
Jasper said, “I vote yes. Look at that thing. How many demons are on Earth now? How many more could it send?”
Grim said, “I’m with Jasper on this one. Trust the kid to pull it off.”
I’m not a kid. But since Grim was on his side, Darien kept his mouth shut.
“All right.” Silas stepped back and looked around. “Everyone but Darien and me behind a shield and—”
“Everyone but Darien and me,” Jasper corrected. “You protect the rest, instead of doing a containment, while Darien and I put a leak in that thing.”
“Darien, can you work through your expanded shields?” Silas asked.
“Not really, not yet.” He’d done some experimenting, but the rule about pulling shields down to throw magic around seemed to be hard to get past. “I’ve got a work-around though.”
“A work-around,” Silas muttered. Then louder, “All right. I’m trusting you to stay safe, though. And I’ll write you into the circle. If you need to draw power, touch it.”
“Thanks.” Darien took a moment out of his fuzzy planning to smile at his tall, handsome necromancer. I want to be home with you, not here mucking about with hellfire.
Maybe some of his thoughts showed, because Silas smiled back more warmly than he ever did in public. “I do trust you, you know. Stay safe and give it a dose of its own hell.”