“Give me a minute.” Jasper’s fingers twitched in a feeble wave, perhaps to prove he wasn’t dead, but he didn’t lift his head.
Silas stretched his Othersight as wide as he could, searching for that familiar pull of the eldritch water. There? Maybe. The tug of the River seemed strongest off to his left, but the whole space around them was tainted with brimstone, the vile scent strengthening instead of dissipating. The skin on the back of his neck prickled. “It would be good to get moving,” he said, even though his own muscles wanted to seize up and the hard ground looked way too appealing. “Now.”
“Not sure I can,” Jasper said.
“If you will allow it, I can lift you,” Lyyll offered.
Jasper repeated the feeble wave. “Give it a try.” He pushed his chest up off the ground and Lyyll squatted, scooping him up in her short front legs. Jasper wrapped his arms and legs around her, looking like some nightmare version of a sleepy toddler being carried off by the bogey monster, as she settled her grip under him.
Lyyll took a few short steps. “Yes. This works.”
“This way, then.” Silas kept his grip on Darien’s arm, leading him forward toward that faint hint of River.
Xsing said, “There is power all around us, but amorphous. I don’t sense a clear entity.”
“That’s reassuring,” Grim answered. “Nonetheless, I think Silas is right. Step lively, folks.”
They staggered, more than stepped lively. Silas was relieved to feel the River’s call strengthening. “Yes. Not far now.”
They broke free of the Veil five steps later. The pinkish sky and barren rocks and glinting, unnatural water had never looked so good. Silas took a deep breath. Now to find our way Home.
Xsing wandered toward the River. “How spectacular. Is that the waters of the dead? Familiars have told us about it, but I didn’t have a clear mental image before. Do we have a moment to go—”
Grim bellowed, “Silas! Incoming! Shields up, everyone!”
Silas whirled and saw the red-smoke power coalescing a hundred yards away. He scooped up Grim’s heavy weight and pulled together a hasty shield around them, his power thin and patchy. Darien threw up a golden dome around himself and Pip. Lyyll had some kind of energy sparkling around her and Jasper like a swarm of fireflies, but Xsing just whirled around and stared, eyestalks waving. “An entity! Incredible. Is that a fireworld denizen?”
The demon drifted their way, moving slowly but gaining solidity as it approached.
“Xsing, can you shield?” Silas asked.
“That’s not part of our magic.” Xsing stretched taller, eyeing the demon.
Darien hurried to him and dropped his shield. “Get over here.” Pip added an urgent bark, and when Xsing extended a limb to Darien, the gold of Darien’s shield wrapped around the three of them. His shield doesn’t look strong either.
Silas couldn’t tell how powerful this demon was. His sense of its hellfire wavered, either because it was still forming or because his magic was worn to rags. It hardly mattered, since he was pretty sure a one-syllable demon could take him right now. “We’re heading Home. Now. Keep your shields up and move with me as fast as you can.”
He set a rune drifting in search of his own power back Home. There. The click of latching back on to his source was muted but unmistakable. “This way. Quickly folks.”
He parted the Veil with a gesture, leading them back into the mists. He could sense the demon following, although not fast. Perhaps it was disoriented or had been damaged by its abrupt expulsion from the portal. He would’ve liked to take up the rear, between the demon and Darien and the rest, but he had to lead the way. He glanced over his shoulder to confirm they all were close behind. Darien had taken the rear, the gold of his shield pale and wan in the muffling Veil.
The magic of Silas’s circle pulled at him gently, a thread to follow, not a life rope. He strode forward as fast as he could without losing the way. His sense of the demon grew, stride by stride. Looking back, he couldn’t spot any hellfire in the power-threaded fog where it closed behind Darien, but he was sure the demon was coming. “Faster,” he urged, breaking into a trot despite the ache and tremble of his legs. “Come on.”
Stride by stride, the way Home grew clearer and closer. He stumbled to one knee and dragged himself back up.
“You okay?” Darien called.
“Fine.” His head spun and his knee smarted but the circle was there.
A hiss behind them was their only warning before a lash of hellfire jolted Darien forward. Silas whipped around to see Darien staggering and the air sparking red.
“Run!” he commanded. None of them except Lyyll had more than dregs of power left, and Lyyll had said her world didn’t know demons. Leaping forward, he parted the Veil with sheer willpower, ripping the mist apart. The odd walls of the alien warehouse flickered into view, wavering and thin, with their frozen forms waiting. The image shimmered, then solidified.
He burst into the circle, shuddering as his mind and body melded, and glanced down at Grim, dropping his shield to let the cat out. “Break the circle carefully at the lock and get everyone through. I’ll try to trap the demon.” Grim leaped for the chalk lines and Silas raised the rags of his shielding as the circle walls fell.
Beside him, Jasper’s body collapsed on the floor. Lyyll shook and jolted a step, then turned his way. “What—”
“Get Jasper out.” Silas pointed at where Grim stood.
Lyyll swept Jasper’s shaking form off the floor and strode out of the circle, carrying him past Grim without debate. Bless her.
Darien arrived, his knees giving way as he sat down hard. Pip jumped up and down to lick his face. “Come on! Grim says to come.”
Silas grabbed a fistful of Darien’s shirt and hauled him to his feet. “Go.”
As Darien and Pip stumbled toward the edge of the circle, Xsing stood his ground, turning to look at the Veil. Idiot. Silas pointed at him and said, “Pip! Fetch!”
The pup’s barked spell yanked Xsing backward as the demon boiled up out of the mist gate in front of Silas. Using reserves he didn’t know he had, Silas flicked a power lash across its face, the shower of sparks hopefully blinding it. He backpedaled until his feet crossed his runes and fell to one knee. Grim dropped the chalk into his waiting hand and he repaired the lock and threw everything he had left into the circle. As he did so, the gate to the Veil, deprived of power, snapped shut and vanished.
His circle rose, green and translucent, as the demon turned to look toward the closed escape route, then roared and threw itself at his walls.
Darien grabbed Silas’s wrist, sharing strength, and together, they held off the first onslaught. Then Darien grabbed Lyyll’s leg with the other hand, said, “Can I?” and at Lyyll’s “Yes,” their magic was buoyed up on a stream of power like glacier water, cool and deep and oddly flavored.
Magda bent to them. “Give me the chalk. I’m not worn to the bone.”
Silas uncramped his fingers from around it and watched as she crouched, duck-walking as fast as she could, ringing his circle with her own.
A high-pitched voice he couldn’t identify said from behind him, “What have you brought into our domain?” but he ignored it, focused on holding his walls, holding them, holding, against the press of demonic power. If the demon had focused on one spot, he didn’t think he’d have fended it off, even with Darien pulling power from Lyyll. But it bounced around the circle, throwing itself from side to side, and the walls didn’t break.