"I'm sorry, I don't know what's gotten into her." Damon had hustled me away from Nat but fighting our way through the crowd was easier said than done. I shifted sidewise to avoid a couple staggering toward us, their unsteady gait suggesting they didn't believe in filters and anti-tox.
As soon as they'd passed, Damon moved closer, his hand firm on my back as he pressed us forward, heading for the door. "She was okay when you left home?"
"Other than being pretty insistent about going out tonight, but she can get hyper-focused about games sometimes."
"But you said the game didn't seem like her kind of thing?" He steered me through a small gap in the crowd.
I shuddered, remembering the hopeless expressions on the creatures Nat and her companions had slaughtered. Virtual or not, they haunted me. "No. Definitely not." I pressed closer to him, wanting warmth even though the heated smoky air and press of bodies in the club should've been enough to keep anybody warm.
"I'm going to call Ajax, see what she's been working with."
I stopped dead and he nearly cannoned into me, but sidestepped at the last minute and then pivoted to face me.
"You said she’d be working with a safe version. Are you saying this is what happened with the other testers?" I demanded.
He shook his head. "Not this specifically, but any strange behavior needs to be checked out."
Guilt made my stomach clench. I should have put two and two together. "We should go back. Get her out of here."
"Maggie, she just tried to punch me. I don't think she's going to agree to come quietly."
"We should still try." I turned but he caught my hand.
"No. She's not safe for you to be with right now." It was his master-of-the-universe tone.
"It's Nat."
"I know." This time he sounded gentler. "I know she's your friend, but I'm not letting you get hurt."
I tugged my arm free. "She wouldn't hurt me."
"Maggie, she just tried to punch me. I don’t think you can assume anything right now. Look, I'll call Ajax and get him to come down with some of the other testers and talk to her, try to get her home. But you and I are leaving."
I hesitated, twisting back, trying to spot Nat. Nothing. "Let's wait for them to get here."
Damon caught my hand again and stepped toward the exit. "We will. Outside though. We'll take care of her, I promise. But I'm getting you out of here."
"But—"
He started walking, and it was either follow him or get pulled off my feet. I gave in and went, torn between my guilt and distinct relief to be getting out of there.
The air outside was weirdly stale until I remembered the filters and ditched them, breathing in the tang of rust and seawater gratefully.
Damon pulled out his datapad and spoke briefly with Ajax. I fought the urge to go back into the club and drag Nat out of there. I knew Damon was right, that she wouldn't come and that it could only end badly, but I didn't want to leave her in there. Damon stayed silent, waiting beside me.
Ajax and a couple of other Riley guys arrived faster than I expected. Damon pulled him aside. I couldn't hear what they said, but Ajax's expression turned grim.
When they came back to me, Ajax tipped his chin at me. "Don't worry, Maggie. We'll make sure she gets home okay. I'll let you know when she's there."
Nat liked Ajax, I reminded myself. She would be all right with him. And he'd keep her safe.
"Thanks," I said. "I appreciate it."
That earned me another chin tip. Then he and the others headed back toward the club.
I let out a breath.
"Okay?" Damon asked.
"Not really, but it’ll have to do." I glanced back at the club's entrance, then made myself turn away. I couldn't do anything more here.
"We should get out of here too." Damon held out his hand and I took it, letting him lead me away. The crowds had thinned out, and most of the street stalls were closed down. He set a fast pace back toward the Embarcadero.
"Tell me what happened to the other testers," I said.
"Let's just get to the car. This isn't the place to stop for a chat."
I stopped walking, pulling my arm free to wave at the street around us. "There's no one around."
He stopped too, mouth flat. "What do you want me to say, Maggie?"
"I want you to tell me what you think might be wrong with my best friend."
His face twisted. "I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with any of them. The doctors can't find any medical reasons for their symptoms."
"You said Nat would be safe. You said the testers were using a clean version of Archangel." Anger sharpened my words.
He scrubbed a hand over his head, ruffling his hair into spikes. "They are."
"Then maybe it's nothing to do with the game."
"I hope so. But it's not worth the risk. We'll get Ellen to check her out tomorrow."
"If we can get her to come to work. I'm not sure how cooperative she'll be." I stared out at the water, visible through the rubble-strewn gap where a building had been demolished. Lights flickered over the harbor. It was pretty in a warped sort of way, but I wasn't in the mood to enjoy the scenery. Instead I was battling frustration and anger and fear spiked with a healthy dose of worry.
The water was almost still, just the tiniest of waves rippling across the surface and making the lights smear into each other in sparkling blurs.
"She's your friend. You'll think of something. Besides, she really wants this testing job. Use that. Now let's go."
"Where's the car?" As I turned back to Damon, something about the movement of the water caught my eye.
"This way," Damon said. He took a step, then stopped again when I didn't follow. "What?"
I turned back slowly, staring hard at the play of light and shadow on the water. Yep, there was definitely a swell of darkness on the surface. A blot that seemed to soak up the sparkles of light as they touched it.
A blot that was moving in the direction of the water's edge.
Toward us.
That couldn't be good. I didn't know what it might be, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as the darkness rolled toward shore.
"Damon?" My voice was tight, and I had to swallow hard to finish my sentence. "How far to the car?"
"A few minutes." He sounded puzzled.
"Okay." I stepped backward slowly, not taking my eyes off the blot. "I think we should run.”
"Maggie?"
I pointed in the direction of the approaching darkness. "Don't argue." I walked faster, hoping my stupid heels wouldn't catch on the broken pavement. The blot oozed onto shore, slithered forward, and resolved into something with more legs than anything coming out of the ocean had any right to possess.
More legs than anything of this earth should have.
With each skitter of its legs came a sound like twisted iron scraping over concrete.
Simple instinctive terror flooded me. "Run." I turned and propelled myself forward, fleeing as desperately as one of those pathetic game creatures Nat had been hunting.
Damon's footsteps pounded behind mine, and in a few seconds he caught up to me, grabbing my arm and pulling me along. This time I didn't mind at all.
I didn't know where the car was, so I let him lead as we bolted through the broken buildings, taking as straight a line as the crazy architecture of Dockside would allow.
The screeching scrape still came from behind us, and I twisted my head as we ran, trying to see where it was.
"Don't stop," Damon ordered.
No chance of that. I'd spotted the thing following us easily enough, skittering too fast with a jittery gait, legs bending at angles that were all wrong. I accelerated and Damon kept pace as we bolted for a row of lights in the distance. I was all for lights. Until they suddenly went dark and every instinct I possessed screamed, Not that way.
I lurched to the right, into the mouth of an alley. "In here."
"Wrong way," Damon yelled.
I shook my head. "Trust me." The alley was darker and full of God knew what, but anything was better than heading toward those dead lights and whatever had killed them. I sucked in air, ignoring the pained protest of overburdened lungs, and put on speed.
Over the harsh whistle of air as I gasped and the echoing pounding of our feet, the scraping sounds grew louder. I risked another glance back. At the far end of the alley, light glinted blackly off the creature. It was gaining on us.
Fuck. I didn't know how much longer I could keep up the pace. The alley narrowed ahead of us, angling so I couldn't see what came next.
"What is that thing?" Damon panted.
"No idea, but at a guess, nothing good." I wished I'd paid more attention to Sara—or anyone, really. What sort of creatures could a demon send after me? Because I was dead certain that was what was happening. And I was also certain that if it caught us, it was going to try and hurt us. Kill us even.
I had no idea what to do. Sara wasn't here. Cassandra wasn't here, and as far as I knew, Damon had about as much magical ability as me—aka zero.
But we had to do something.
Not that I had any idea what might work. But I did know that running would stop working at some point.
Probably sooner rather than later. We were slowing down, gasping for air. Neither of us could run forever.
Think, Maggie. Think fast. I scanned the alley, looking for something, anything to use as a weapon.
Nothing. Rotten cardboard was useless, and the rusted dumpsters weren't exactly the sort of thing you could pick up and throw at a nightmare.
Where was a witch when I finally needed one?
Maybe she was lying about your power.
The thought dropped into my head with the force of one of Nat's death-strikes. I almost fell, but Damon caught my arm and kept me moving.
I ran on autopilot, trying to deny it might even be possible. I wasn't a witch.
“Emotion is energy. Energy is power. That's what we use.” Sara's voice sounded clear in my head, and tears suddenly washed out my vision. I swiped them away with the back of my hand as another screech and clatter rose from behind me.
Emotion. Energy. Power.
Right now there was plenty of emotion. Our frantic sprint wasn't the only reason my heart was trying to leap out of my chest. Fear and shock ricocheted through me. What if it was true? What if I had power? I had no idea how to use it. Or even if you could use your own energy. I'd never paid attention. Hadn't wanted to pay attention to the things Sara did.
Everything she did involved trappings. Candles and herbs and oils.
Just for show, baby, the voice whispered again as my foot skidded on something noxious on the pavement. I scrabbled for balance, and Damon's hand clenched around my forearm, keeping me upright and hauling me forward as I flashed on a memory: Sara laughing to herself as she counted a stack of twenties. The client had been very impressed by her incense and candles and the reek of spice that rose from the potion in the fancy glass bottle.
But she'd started laughing almost before the trailer door had closed behind them. Laughed like a hyena as she tucked the money away. Then she'd grinned at me and said something about power coming from within.
What the hell did that mean?
We rounded another corner, gasping in unison. From behind us, the wind rose suddenly. It carried the stench of the creature, sweet and rotten and pure run-hide-flee that bypassed rational thought and spoke to the instincts deep within. I tried to speed up, my legs doing a remarkable impression of concrete blocks, fighting me every step. The stench filled my nose, alien yet somehow horribly familiar. Up ahead I saw nothing but brick.
Dead end.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I stopped dead and twisted, hoping it hadn't caught up yet, that maybe we'd have time to backtrack and correct our mistake.
No such luck.
It rounded the corner as I turned, and I knew time had run out.
I had to try something. I'd always believed I had no power, but I'd also had no idea I'd been bound to a demon. What I believed wasn't worth a damn anymore. Trying something was better than nothing. I couldn't just stand here and wait to die.
"Get behind me," Damon said.
"No."
"Don't be—"
"Shut up." I needed to focus.
For one second his eyes met mine, and I drank in the shocked flare of blue in case it was the last time I saw it. Then I turned away, searching inside for any glimmer of anything.
I didn't know what power felt like.
Didn't know how to use it.
So I just hoped like hell, and reached for whatever might be there and, as I felt something blaze in response, screamed, "Burn," as I flung a hand toward the creature.
Then I just screamed as invisible knives slashed through my body, shredding me. I had just enough time to see the creature engulfed in a wave of flame before the knives cut the lights.
I came to with my head cradled on Damon's lap, the stink of acid and smoking rot stinging my nose, and sirens shrieking in my ears. My right arm burned, and as I cracked my eyes open, pinwheels of light bloomed across my vision.
"What happened?" I croaked. It seemed the obvious question. I rubbed my eyes with the arm that wasn't killing me, trying to clear them. Trying to see him.
The light in the alley wasn't good and it flickered like a fire. No, not like a fire—there was a fire. A small burning heap of something spat sparks about twenty feet away from us.
Maybe it was the weird light, but Damon looked terrible, eyes reddened and face smeared with ash and smoke. He brushed my hair back. "It's okay, the paramedics are on their way."
"I can hear that." I tried to sit up, but he pressed gently on my shoulder, holding me where I was. I gave in because the movement made everything hurt. "But what happened?"
"There was something chasing us and you—" He stopped, swallowed. "You did something and it burst into flames."
What?
I sucked in a breath as the memory hit me. The water. The creature. That noise. The overwhelming sense of terror and desperation. But I couldn't explain what I'd done.
"I don't understand."
"Me neither," he said, and the look on his face made me wish I hadn't asked. I closed my eyes again and listened to the sirens wail in time with the pain shooting down from my shoulder to my wrist and the rhythm of thudding footsteps running toward us.
The EMTs gave me something for the pain, and by the time we reached the ER I was floating. But not quite enough to completely block the fear lurking beneath the pharmaceutical calm.
My right forearm was burned and peeling like a bad sunburn. The paramedics had muttered over it as they'd carefully wrapped a gelskin around it.
The doctors in the ER were umming and aahing over the injury when Meredith arrived.
She took one look at my arm and shooed everyone out of the cubicle. Well, almost everyone. Damon remained right where he was. Meredith shot him a look and then called Cassandra. I went from scared to completely terrified.
It felt like a very long time with me avoiding eye contact with Damon and Meredith, refusing to answer any questions, until Cassandra arrived.
Just like Meredith, she took one look at me and her expression turned grim. She turned to Damon. "I need to speak to Maggie alone."
His expression went mulish. "I'm staying right here."
"You can stay right here after we're done talking. Run along now." Her voice dripped ice.
I shivered, glad that particular tone hadn't been turned on me. Mrs. Claus as Ice Bitch Queen of the Universe was unnerving.
"It's okay," I mouthed at him.
"No, it's really not," Cassandra said as Damon departed through the curtains enclosing my bed. She moved closer and gently picked up my arm, running a fingertip very lightly down the gelskin before stepping back. "What the hell have you been doing?"
"I don't remember, exactly," I said.
"Try hard," she suggested in the ice queen voice as she lifted my chart from the end of the bed and studied it.
I decided it would be easier to start at the beginning. "I went to a Dockside club with my friend. Nat. It was kind of dicey and she was acting strange, so I called Damon to come help me get her out of there. Nat threw kind of a fit."
Cassandra looked up from the chart, eyes narrowed. "Define 'fit.'"
"She got all upset because I wanted to go, and then she tried to hit Damon."
"And she doesn't usually take potshots at people?"
"Not unless she's playing. She games." I reached for the water they'd left me and took a nervous sip.
"Go on."
"Anyway, we figured we weren't going to get her out of there, so we left after Damon called a couple of other people at work she knows to look after her. It was late, not many people around. We were walking back to Damon's car, and something came out of the water and started following us."
"A little more specific, dear."
"You'd have to ask Damon for a description. It's all a bit of a blur."
She put the chart back with a snap. "I'm not surprised. So something chased you and you did what, exactly?"
"We ran but eventually wound up in a dead end, and I knew I had to try something. So I—"
"You set it on fire?" Her tone was sharp as a blade.
"No power, remember?" I forced myself to meet her gaze, trying not to let the weight of her eyes make me burrow under the hospital blanket.
"Try again."
"I couldn't have. That would be impossible."
"No, just very stupid. What were you thinking? You have no training."
"I never needed any training." I twisted my hands in the blanket. "I don't have any power."
Cassandra nodded at my arm. "I think you just disproved that theory."
"But how? My mother told me I didn't." My voice sounded whiny, like a teenager protesting detention. "She tested me on my thirteenth birthday. She made me stay up until midnight on the night before my birthday so she could do it as soon as possible. It was a big deal because I'd only been home from the hospital a few days."
"I think we've established your mother wasn't exactly a beacon of truth," Cassandra said. She pursed her lips and stared at me for a moment. "Wait. Did you say hospital?"
I nodded. "Uh-huh, just before my birthday. I remember being worried that I might miss cake at school. I was sick for almost a week. They never worked out what exactly, just a really high fever and vomiting. I was mad when I got home and Sara made me stay up late."
Cassandra's eyes turned thunderous. "I see. I think your mother is lucky she is no longer with us, Maggie."
"What do you mean?"
"That I'm almost certain that she's the one who bound you to the demon. Just before your power showed itself."
The words hung in the air like tiny bombs. Then they zeroed in on me and exploded in my chest. I gasped and doubled over. I'd been trying to deny it but couldn't really, having recognized the truth somehow back in the alley when I'd wondered if she'd lied to me.
Still, the first words that came were "You're wrong."
"I don't think so. I'm sorry, Maggie."
"My mother wouldn't do that." My voice caught, the voice of an eight-year-old who'd just found out that Santa wasn't real. It hurt. The truth often did. And this felt true. Utterly and completely true. And if my mother could do that—could sell me to a demon—then she must never have loved me at all. Not even a little bit.
Which meant she wasn't going to get the satisfaction of making me cry about it now. I stared at the weave of the hospital blankets and let the anger burn away the hurt.
Cassandra sighed. "It makes sense. The illness just before you turned thirteen? It's too convenient."
"What does me being sick have to do with anything?"
"If I had to guess, I'd say it was most likely a reaction to whatever she gave you so you wouldn't remember the ceremony."
"But why?"
"Sara always was frustrated."
My head snapped up. "Nobody sells their child to a demon out of frustration."
"It would be nice if that were true. But for some people, the power is like a drug. They want more. Whatever the cost."
"Sara wasn't like that," I protested, wondering even as I spoke why I was still defending her when she'd completely failed to defend me.
"What I remember was that she was ambitious. She wanted things and didn't care too much about how she got them. There'd been rumblings about her over the years," Cassandra said. "Then she suddenly went off the radar. I guess that's when she got pregnant with you."
"Why bother even keeping me? She could've taken care of it." The bitterness must've shown on my face.
Cassandra pulled a chair over to the bed, taking my good hand as she sat. "This is hard for you."
The gentle warmth of her fingers felt too much like the things I'd never had. "You think? God."
"Once she was gone, she was gone. I never heard about her. We would've kept a much closer eye on her if we’d known she had a child but no one ever told us about you. Including her."
"Did she have to?"
"There's no official register of those with power," Cassandra said. "But most people let us know when they have children, so we know who to watch for if something ever happens."
"I guess if you're planning to make sure your child never show any power, then you wouldn't bother." I bit the inside of my cheek as tears threatened again.
"Even for Sara that sounds kind of far-fetched."
"Does it? You said it yourself. She went off the map when she had me. Left everything and hid out in small towns. Sounds like someone with a plan to me."
"Maybe. But I guess we won't ever know." She tilted her head as she studied me. "What we need to understand now is exactly what she did to you."
"Why? The binding is broken."
"That doesn't seem to be sitting too well with the demon concerned. Imps don't just randomly appear and attack people—"
"Is that what that thing was, an imp?"
"That would be my best guess. Imps have to be called or sent through. Unless you've pissed off any other witches lately, I'm betting on the latter. Which means a demon sent it. Your demon."
"I'm no good to him—it?—dead, surely?" My voice shook a little.
Cassandra patted my leg. "I don't think it would've killed you. It was probably carrying a spell of some sort."
I shuddered. "To do what?"
"My guess would be something to lower your will or get you to consent to the binding again."
Not going to happen. "Would that even work?"
"Consent under magical duress? Maybe. Maybe not. But lowering your will might."
"How?"
"A binding takes consent—at least when a witch casts one it does—but possession doesn't. The demon can overwhelm you psychically if you're not mentally strong. Maybe that's how they got around your consent in the first place. Maybe Sara gave you something to make you sick and that lowered your psychic barriers somehow." She looked a little rueful. "It's actually quite clever when you think about it."
"I don't want to think about it." I swallowed as nausea twisted my stomach. A demon was after me. Had sent that thing to attack me. And I was a witch. Right now I didn't know which was more horrifying.
"You're going to have to. And it seems it wants you back. Probably more now that you've used your power."
"Why?"
"Witches are an even more attractive energy source. For one thing, the demon can feed on the magic, not their life force. So a bound witch is a source that doesn't die." She perched on the end of the bed. "It explains why you've survived the binding. Especially if Sara limited it somehow."
"What do you mean?"
"Made sure the demon could only feed on your magic. I'm guessing that's why you've never been able to do anything before now."
"Why would she do that?" I doubted Sara had had any thought for my well-being. There had to be something in it for her if she'd limited my bond.
"Maybe she thought she could guarantee herself access to a demon's assistance for a lifetime."
"Until she died."
"Yes. And the demon was stuck with a binding that meant it could never use your full potential. A tame witch doing its bidding would be a prize. Witches can bind others to the demon. Give it enough energy to feed from and it might even break through. Trust me, we don't want that to happen again."
"Again?"
She shook her head. "A story for another time."
"A demon came through and it was defeated?"
"At a high cost." Sorrow swam in her eyes, and the pain seemed so real that I almost started to cry all over again.
Cassandra blinked and the emotion in her expression changed to resolve. "The important thing is to stop that from happening this time by keeping you safe."
Keeping me from becoming bound again, she meant. I clamped my teeth together until I was sure I wasn't going to retch. "How exactly are you going to do that?"
She looked at me like the answer was obvious. "By teaching you to use your power."
"No." I shook my head violently, chest tightening. "I don't want anything to do with magic.”
"You have to learn to control it or you're going to end up hurting someone. Or yourself." She looked at my arm. "That could’ve been a lot worse than a mere burn. You could've set yourself on fire."
The pain in my chest came back. Fear spread like icicles through my veins, and I pulled the blanket closer to me, desperate for warmth. "Isn't there another way? Can't you do something to take my powers away?" The demon wouldn't want me if I wasn't a witch, surely?
"Not without sending you insane or catatonic. You have power, and you're going to have to learn to live with it. You need to learn to control it before you can decide how exactly you're going to do that."
"But I don't want to." My inner teenager surfaced again.
She let go of my hand and straightened. "We all have to do things we don't want to."
"How long will it take?"
"Depends on how hard you work and how much talent you have."
"You can't even give me a ballpark figure? If the demon—" I stumbled over the word, fighting a terror-fueled adrenaline rush that had me tasting bile. "If it's going to try again to get me back, don't we have kind of a deadline?"
"We have some time," Cassandra said. "Sending an imp through will have cost it in energy, particularly so soon after losing you. Assuming it doesn't have enough others bound."
That wasn't exactly a cheerful thought. "How can we tell?"
"If it has others? I think we should just assume it does. Some, at least. The more powerful the demon, the more energy it needs. And Sara would’ve wanted to deal with a powerful demon."
"Why?"
"To deal with a demon at all, you need to be desperate. You have to want something very badly. And if Sara wanted more power, then she'd want enough to make the risk worth her while. Do you have any idea if she was in trouble at all back then?"
I shook my head. "No more than usual. Not that I could tell. We did move not long after my birthday." One of our harder moves. She'd dragged me from the heat and sunshine of Florida to the cold, wet mountains of Virginia, landing us in a small hill town that had been my idea of hell.
Those same mountains took her life when her car went off a bend a few months later. After that, Gran had taken me back to California and I'd spent as much time as possible soaking up the sun, feeling like I'd never get warm again.
Cassandra looked down at the gel on my arm. "In a way, it's too bad the binding is broken. We might’ve been able to tell something from the spell."
"You'll have to excuse me if I don't share that sentiment."
"Of course." She smiled. "Still, Sara did protect you in a way. If she hadn't limited the binding, you'd probably be crazy by now. Or dead."
"She probably thought she could get something out of me staying alive," I said. "Leverage maybe. Threaten to cut off the demon's food supply, so to speak."
Cassandra gave me a long look. "I'm not sure that's even possible."
I shrugged, not willing to cut Sara any slack. If there'd been an angle to work, she would've worked it. "Well, like you said, we'll never know, will we?"
"No, so let's focus on the present. You can come to me tomorrow and we'll begin."
"I have to work."
One gray brow arched. "Money is more important than your life?"
"This job is. After all, if the demon got to me through the game the first time, then it could get to others."
She looked concerned. "If it got to you through the game, you should be staying away from games."
"Trust me, I will be. But I need to keep working."
"After work, then. The sooner we start this, the better."