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"You can't leave the children unprotected," I said again, shoving my travel altar into my rolling bag. The locater amulet I'd made was invoked and hanging by a cord around my wrist.
The argument with Imogen had been going on for the last hour and I wasn't about to give in and take a pregnant woman with us to find fugitives who were being chased by a demon.
I rubbed my forehead, the beginnings of a headache forming behind my eyes.
"They won't be unprotected. Stephan is here, as are five other teachers, all of them very capable." I didn't know who Stephan was, and Imogen didn't give me time to ask as she continued. "I'm going to get some things. Do not leave without me."
"I will if I can get packed fast enough," I muttered, but softly enough that I was certain she couldn't hear me. Cole was down in the car already. If I could sneak down the stairs before Imogen got back, we'd be gone before she could stop us.
The headache intensified, then redoubled into a blinding flash of pain. When my sight cleared, I was on my knees, the room spinning around me. In front of me stood a pale woman with smoke colored hair wearing a lounging outfit straight out of 1950s Hollywood. She was beautiful, but alien. Her face was oval, but longer than a human's, and her skin held a faint, almost-not-there hint of green.
"Who are you?" I asked, pushing to my feet. As I spoke, my view of her zoomed in so that only her upper torso and head were visible, like looking through a window.
"That isn't important," the woman said. "What I want to know is, who are you?"
I couldn't help it. I laughed. Telling a stranger who I was just wasn't in the cards. Especially not one who had shown up the way this one had. I might not be a super-witch, but I knew names had power, and I wasn't about to give her mine. "I asked you first," I said.
Reaching down, the woman picked up a knife, bringing it into view. She pricked her finger and held it over something below my sightline, allowing a single drop of blood to fall. Pain seared up through me from the balls of my feet to the top of my head, rocking me.
"Who are you?" she asked again. "Tell me, or—"
Not real, not real, not real, I chanted inside my head.
Char? Sasha's voice in my head sounded concerned. What's going on?
Give me a minute and we'll talk, I responded.
Demons used all kinds of magic, but their go-to was illusion, magick that could trick you into doing what they wanted, but caused no real damage. This spell, cast at a distance, and as far as I knew without an object belonging to me to focus and target the power, had to be an illusion. But that didn't mean the pain didn't hurt.
It did mean that, if I could ignore the pain long enough to tap a line, I could make it stop.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed through the burning sensation in my arms and legs, reaching down into the Earth for the power I knew awaited me. I hooked a thread of my will into the line and whispered a word of intention and invocation. "Bacainn."
Power flooded through me, cutting off the pain so abruptly that I had to steady myself by resting my hand on the back of Imogen's overstuffed chair.
I fought to keep my expression calm as I recovered. It was the elder demon Grag had spoken of. It had to be. "Is that all you got, Drakat?"
Shock tightened the demoness' features. "You know my name. How?"
I shrugged, covering my fear. I'd never fought a demon before and I didn't want to start now, but if I let her know I was afraid, I'd be toast before I even got started. "I'm not giving you any information, and I'm a little busy, so I'm going to need you to release the summoning." Anger filled me when she didn't respond. "Now."
Rage darkened her pale features, and she poked at the minor wound she'd cut in her finger, squeezing out three drops of blood. I froze, watching them fall in slow motion. I braced myself, fully aware that if she pumped enough agony into my body, illusory or not, I might not be able to concentrate hard enough to hold on to the line.
Pain slammed into me, unhinging my mind from my will, raging through my body like a forest fire. I couldn't stop the scream that tore out of my throat, but I cut it short, throttling it back into a whimper.
Doirsain warmed against me, and I could feel Sasha pressing her into my flesh. Energy flashed up from the ley line, amplified into a tsunami of power while the stone shielded me from being consumed by it. Channeling the magick, I funneled it through my body, finding and snapping each of the connections Drakat had formed.
I was aware of a shout behind me, but couldn't afford to lose focus. Snap, search, snap again. The spell weakened, and the agony decreased with each broken tie.
Drakat's image darkened, the edges folding in on themselves as the pain eased until both of them winked out and I collapsed.
I don't know how, but Cole was there to catch me, easing me to the floor and putting a pillow from the couch under my head.
"Char?" He leaned down, peering into my face, stroking my cheek. "Are you all right? What happened?"
"Dra— The demon... summoned me," I said, trying to bring my breathing back to normal along with slowing my heart rate. "I... can't figure out... how, though."
"Doesn't she have to have something of yours?" he asked. "What did you call it? A focus object?"
"Yes. Something that belongs to me, or that I've handled extensively..." I frowned. "Shit. Grag. I not only touched him, I spelled him." My heart, which had been slowing as my adrenaline ebbed, pounded again. Anyone powerful enough to scrape my aura off someone I'd spelled was dangerous. Far more dangerous than anything I'd ever come up against before.
"But the binding you put on him — would that have been enough to track you?" Cole asked.
"Not ordinarily, no. The little bit of me he carried would have dissipated quickly. Within a couple of hours, max. Even if she got to him within an hour, it shouldn't have been enough for her to trace it back, unless..." I trailed off.
"Unless she is as powerful as I told you she was." Imogen stood at the door, pale and visibly shaken. "You were right, Charlotte. I can't go with you, even though everything in me is shouting that I need to get to Ryleigh. I can't leave the children without as much protection as I can give them. And I can't endanger our baby." She crossed her arms protectively over her stomach, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
Cole helped me to my feet, and I wobbled over to her, the last aching threads of pain ebbing from my body. I could see the guilt in her eyes, and the anger.
"It's the right choice," I said when she looked up at me. "We'll find Ryleigh and Nate, I promise."
She reached up, gripping my hands in hers. "Just...bring them home, please. We can protect them here."
I could only hope that was true.
DRAKAT REPLAYED THE encounter with Char over in her head like a video, searching it for clues as to the woman's location. Like most of her species, the demon possessed an eidetic memory, and the pictures in her mind were sharply detailed and indelible.
Zooming in on the wall behind Char, she examined a portrait of two women, both in wedding dresses, smiling at each other rather than the camera. "Ah, Ryleigh O'Connor. I knew that was you in the alley today. But who are your new friends? Based on her accent, Char is American, so what is she doing poking her nose into Irish demon business?"
Tapping her fingers against her leg, she concentrated briefly, and the lounge-wear transformed into a pair of black leggings tucked into tall leather boots with silver buckles across the arch. A belted knit tunic in the same shade as the leggings covered her from shoulder to thigh. Drakat went to the mirror, muttering words under her breath that left a black smear on the air. The runes glowed black and gray as the glass clouded over.
"Trócaire House," she said in a commanding tone. The glass cleared, revealing the requested location in such vivid detail that it appeared one could step through and be there.
Drakat stepped through, letting the portal revert to a mirror behind her.
"YOU NEED TIME TO REST," Cole said. He'd said it upstairs, and repeated it again when we reached the foyer. "We don't even know where to look for them. Running around without a destination makes us a target of opportunity for Dra—"
"Excuse me, Sir?"
I stifled a sigh of relief and turned toward the sound. A fine-boned little boy of around ten stood in the archway leading to the gathering room, as Imogen called it. The mop of unruly red curls nudged my memory, and it only took me a second to recall his name — Billy. Nate Byrne's roommate.
Behind him, I could see a number of boys and girls engaged in various activities. One group hunched over a game board, while others sprawled on the floor or furniture, books in hand. None of them looked like they were paying attention to us, but the atmosphere of tense expectancy told me they were listening carefully.
Cole crouched down next to the child. "What's up, friend?" he asked.
"It's Billy, Sir. Billy Doitinel. You'll remember me from upstairs, yeah?"
"Of course I do," Cole replied. "You were beating the crap out of that imp."
The boy grinned. "I was. I'd have had him, too, if he hadn't tricked me." A steely look came into the charcoal-colored eyes, and vanished with the next blink as he continued. "But I wanted to thank you and your missus, sir, for your help."
I saw no profit in explaining that Cole and I weren't married. We were a couple, and that was close enough, for now. "We were happy to do it," I said. "I'm glad you weren't hurt."
"Thank you, missus. But, Georgina says you two are after finding Ms. O'Connor and Nate. She says you plan to bring them back. Is it so?"
Cole nodded. "It is. Do you know anything that could help us?"
Why didn't we think to talk to the kid before? Even as I thought the question, I knew the answer. Too much happening in too short a time. Something was bound to slip through the mental cracks.
Billy gave us an uncertain look. "Nate has a couple of places — hideouts, do you see? For when a stunt's gone arsewise and he's like to be caught by the guards."
"Language, William." Imogen came down the stairs, pausing on the last one to listen.
Billy flushed. "Yes, miss." He turned his attention back to Cole. "Anyways, his favorite is on the edge of town, in Galley Street."
"Are you certain?" Imogen asked. "There's nothing there but abandoned houses. Most of them condemned."
Excitement rose in the boy's face. "As you say, ma'am. But Nate says that's what makes it a quare good hideout, you see? No one lives there, and you can hide away for days, a week, maybe, before anyone comes looking. And then, you can slip out and find a new place quick as you please with the guards none the wiser."
Imogen laid a hand along the back of her neck to rub at the tension there. "That boy will be the death of me."
"Oh no, miss." Sincerity creased Billy's brow. "Nate likes you well, he does. He just likes a bit o'fun here and there. And some coin in his pocket. He'd never do anything to hurt you or Ms. O'Connor."
Her features easing, Imogen allowed a faint smile to lift her lips. "I know, Billy. Thank you."
"Right, miss." He looked up at Cole, then turned his gaze my way. "You'll find them, won't you? You'll keep them safe?"
Against my better judgment, I nodded. I hated making promises I wasn't sure I could keep, especially to a child, but his trust pulled at me, and I couldn't refuse.
Cole rose to his feet. "Is there an address or a cross street we can use to find this place?" he asked.
Billy frowned. "I never been there myself. And Nate never gave me the particulars. But he said it was a big house, and his favorite color. Blue."
"It isn't a large area. Two or three square blocks at most." Imogen waved Billy back into the gathering room with the other children. "But the old packing factory is there. Let me see if I can find..." She trailed off, pulling out her phone to do a search. "Yes, here it is. Try this."
She flipped the phone around to show me the address and I typed it into my notes app. You had to love technology. I had the locater I'd made, but it would only work within a mile. This would at least give us a place to start.
I nodded to her and followed Cole into the courtyard. He entered the address into the onboard navigation system and we were off. With any luck, we'd have Ryleigh and Nate home by nightfall.
Too bad I never put much stock in luck.
