They spread Silas’s sheet out underfoot, and he bent to chalk a protection circle. Darien watched for a moment, yearning after those tight shoulders and the long legs and that ass pointed at him and— he gave himself a mental slap. Your brain’s slipping. You don’t get to zonk out yet. Drill. Portal. Demons. The last thought gave him a boost of energy.
He helped Jasper lay out his fabric sheet, turned over to the blank side.
“How big?” Jasper asked.
“I don’t think it matters a lot. It’ll either work or it won’t. A foot across, maybe? Too big for a wisp of energy to seal over.” And small enough not to drain them dry.
“That works for me.” Jasper knelt, then sat down with a grunt, leaning forward to wield his chalk. The lines and equations and runes took shape quickly. Darien had a hell of a lot of respect for Jasper’s talents, but none more than watching him there, after five rounds of power-usage, in the vision-fuzzing double glow of the portal and Silas’s green power, sketching another drill head with the same precision as the first one they’d ever done.
Behind them, Silas said, “Everyone else in the circle. Closing it now.”
Darien glanced over his shoulder. Silas stood at the front of his circle, with Grim and Pip at his sides. Lyyll loomed behind Silas, and she’d lifted Xsing to her shoulder, giving him a clear view. Silas gestured, and his magic swept around the circle, bright green against the white of the sheet. The barrier walls sprang high, the shimmering haze forming a shield wall.
“Stand close,” Silas urged Darien. “So you can reach back if you need me.”
“Come on.” Darien gave Jasper a hand up, a much-needed one judging by the amount of weight Jasper put into his grip. Together they took a couple of steps and turned. Darien eased one hand behind him until he could feel the hum of Silas’s power close to his fingertips. In his core, his magic rose sluggishly at his call, the gold still threaded with a hint of borrowed white from the first gate, but thin and worn, more like lace than honey.
It would have to do.
He grasped Jasper’s hand and eased his power out and down and into his friend’s keeping. “Let’s do it.”
Jasper gestured with his free hand, and their power spilled into the chalk lines, racing through curves, dancing over runes. The drill bit formed, rose, solidified, steadied. Jasper lifted it, and Darien gave him more energy. Slowly they lofted the ridged point high, higher, easing it up the side of the glowing conduit and over the upper curve.
“I think that’s the top,” Jasper said on a short breath. “Spinning it now.”
There. And there. Push. Unbalanced. Spin. Darien set power and runes where Jasper guided him, and the drill began rotating, slow and then faster. “Are we ready?” Darien asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” Jasper replied.
Darien fumbled inside himself for shield energy, pushing a wad of it out in a curve, something he could work past, not through. The drill slowed as he tried to power two things at once. Darien eased his fingers back enough to touch Silas’s circle wall. Like a cool drink of water, Silas’s power flowed into him willingly, tendrils of chartreuse strengthening the half-wall he’d made.
“That’s as good as it gets.” He could barely breathe, but all the parts were in motion, and the half-shield might shelter them. “Go, man, go.”
Jasper grunted, and the tip of the bit touched the conduit. Unlike the blades, the drill didn’t bite in immediately. Sparks of red and white skittered across the surface of the portal, and a faint whine tried to tunnel from Darien’s ears into his brain. He gave more power to Jasper, then pulled from Silas and gave that too. Yours. Use it. Push.
The whine rose, sharpened, and then suddenly Jasper staggered as the bit sank into the conduit. With a crack of sound, a column of red and black spewed from the top of the portal tube, spraying sparks into the mist of the Veil. Darien yanked on Jasper’s hand, pulling him close and flinching back behind the half-wall of shielding he’d set in front of them.
A flash of heat and light poured across the space toward them. Darien scrabbled to close his shielding the rest of the way, as fire and sulfur battered them. Noise blasted their ears— a crash that could’ve been a building falling. Darien hugged Jasper under him and clung to the rags of the shield around them. He thought his back would catch fire, and the air turned too thick to breathe.
Then the heat was gone. The next breath he drew was foul-smelling, but not scorching, not clogged with ash. The skin on his neck smarted but no worse than the last time he’d sheltered someone from a hell.
“Darien!” Silas shook him, speaking right by his ear. “Are you all right?”
He blinked and uncurled himself from Jasper’s back. Every muscle ached like he’d been beaten. “The next time I decide to blow up some spell big enough to hold worlds together, maybe don’t let me?”
“But it worked,” Pip said by his knee. “You did it.”
“Yeah?” He had to grin as he looked around. Silas’s green glow, no red. Jasper still breathing. No big-assed tube of demons. “Yeah.” He bent toward Jasper. “Hey, Jas? You with us?”
“I think so.” Jasper didn’t move. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
Silas pushed to his feet and looked around them. “I think we should get out of here. Soon. Sooner.”
Grim rose on his haunches beside Silas, whiskers twitching. “Problem?”
“I hope it’s just the general foulness that leaked from the portal.” Silas sketched a rune and then another, turning slowly.
Darien recognized demon and find. A chill slithered through him. “Tell me we didn’t let a demon loose.”
“I hope not.” Silas scanned the mists of the Veil. “But it would be smart not to take chances.”
“A profound thought.” Grim tilted his head, pushing higher on his hind legs, then returning to all fours with a thump Darien could hear even in the muffling Veil. “Can you get us out of here, O necromancer?”
Darien wasn’t sure he was meant to hear Silas mutter, “I sure hope so.” But he really hoped so too.
Chapter 8
Silas pulled himself together as best he could. His head pulsed and throbbed with the backlash of having his circles battered by power, especially demonic power. An echo of Coldwell saying “Light the candle. I don’t care how tired you are,” came back to him. At this moment, he would shove the damned candle in the old man’s mouth. Or perhaps not. That relentless training was probably what was keeping him going.
“I think our best bet is for me to lead us out of the Veil onto the River shore. With luck, I can then head directly back to my circle on Home. None of us want to trudge back through the Veil as far as we’ve had to come.” He raised his head and tried to send his magic out seeking the River. His power sputtered and rose in wisps, thin and tattered, and the light he was keeping cupped in one palm flickered with it.
Darien got up, looking stiff, and staggered a step. Silas grabbed his elbow, reassured by the warm solidity of that arm. We’re still alive, still here. Well, as much as anyone is actually here inside the Veil.
Lyyll bent over Jasper, offering a clawed hand. “Can I assist you?”