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Back Black Magic Sanction Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Title Page
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. Four
  6. Five
  7. Six
  8. Seven
  9. Eight
  10. Nine
  11. Ten
  12. Eleven
  13. Twelve
  14. Thirteen
  15. Fourteen
  16. Fifteen
  17. Sixteen
  18. Seventeen
  19. Eighteen
  20. Nineteen
  21. Twenty
  22. Twenty-one
  23. Twenty-two
  24. Twenty-three
  25. Twenty-four
  26. Twenty-five
  27. Twenty-six
  28. Twenty-seven
  29. Twenty-eight
  30. Twenty-nine
  31. Thirty
  32. Thirty-one
  33. Thirty-two
  34. Thirty-three
  35. Thirty-four
  36. Thirty-five
  37. Thirty-six
  38. Acknowledgements
  39. Also by Kim Harrison
  40. Copyright
  41. About the Publisher
  42. Cover

“We can do this,” I said, reaching out and touching a thought to the nearby ley line. If I could shift my aura to match the tone of it, I’d be inside it, even though I stood in my church’s kitchen. I could feel the line outside myself, warmer than I was, tasting of chlorophyll, sour like dandelion sap. My entire soul vibrated, and I let the line pour through me, trying to match its resonance. Warmth, taste, sound, they all blended, and with a gasp, I felt the line take me.

Bis’s tail tightened, and I felt him do that curious step-the-mind-sideways twist that Al always did when he pulled me to the ever-after. Yes! I thought exuberantly as I mimicked it and felt my bubble snap into place around me as my body dissolved.

And we were gone.

Twenty-six

Twenty-six

Listen, I thought, feeling the ley line within me, tasting it. I was everywhere, in every line on the continent. Or at least I had the potential for it. Bis’s presence was with me. His mental texture slipped through my protective bubble, bringing with him the discordant sensation of another line. It was as if I could see, taste, hear, the lingering aura that Al had left behind on it, shifting the sound a little deeper, the taste a little more bitter. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever felt. Bis brought the taste of the new line in with him. Otherwise, I’d never be able to sense it past my own bubble. And now that I knew what it sounded like, I could find it.

Confident from success, I reached a thought past my bubble to pick out the line he’d used from the myriad lines crisscrossing the Cincinnati mindscape.

That was a mistake.

Shock vibrated through me—and then the pain hit.

I had no breath, but I screamed. Fire poured through my veins to illuminate my soul—the entire line filled me, unfiltered. My mind rebelled, and my thoughts went white. Tulpa! I screamed, but there was too much. I couldn’t spindle creation, and my neurons burned.

Al! I begged in my thoughts, but he couldn’t hear me. I’d done something wrong. My memory was charring, flaking from me in sheets of thought.

I had to get out before I burned to nothing. There had to be a way. I had … to listen … through the pain. Where was Al?

Somehow I found him. Somehow I found Al’s sarcastic thoughts, bitter and old. Tired, angry, bored. Alone.

Whimpering, I shifted what was left of my aura, modifying it to match the line he had used, and with a last gasp, I shoved myself into it. With the feeling of spiderwebs made of ice, and fog made of fire, I tore my way back into reality.

My face hit a dirty flat carpet, and I dropped my pain amulet.