I was passing out. I felt it happen as if in slow motion, parts of my brain turning off, the horizon growing dark, and noises becoming dull. There were congratulations to Al even as he struggled to put space enough between us and them to jump out. Ku’Sox raged until someone shoved him in the trunk. The last thing I remembered was someone, Dali, I think, kissing the top of my hand as I slumped in Al’s arms.

“Welcome home, Rachel Mariana Morgan,” he said, his goat-slitted eyes holding a new, dangerous light. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Twenty-six

The dry hush of sliding coals woke me, and I jerked, clutching to me a black blanket smelling of Brimstone. I didn’t sit up since I was warm and comfortable, a hazy lassitude still heavy on me as I lay against the gently curving bench surrounding the central fire in Al’s kitchen. I’d fallen asleep here before, but this felt different.

A dim light glowed on a new honey-colored slate table set before the smaller hearth. Al sat before it, his back to me as he chanted. At least I thought it was Al. It didn’t look like him, but it didn’t look like Pierce, either.

Al had been in my head. He’d made my thoughts real. He’d seen me down to my soul, and I’d seen nothing of his…and he’s…humming?

The masculine figure was taller than Al by quite a bit but narrower, lacking the wide shoulders that I was familiar with. Short red hair pretty much covered him in a curly pelt where it showed past a lightweight black shirt and trousers. Muscles were well defined, with a long strength rather than heavy bulk. A shiny ebony hardness just above his ears might have been horns, and by God, I think he had that same prehensile tail I’d seen before when he’d threatened Treble.

“Al?” I croaked, putting a hand to my throat when the sound came out rusty.

The gravelly chantlike words cut off, and he spun, a ley-line doodad clattering until it fell off the table and he caught it with a long-fingered, double-jointed hand. A wash of black ever-after coated him, falling away to reveal the more familiar vision of Al, though he still wore that pair of casual jammies and had a surprised look in his red, goat-slitted eyes. The mirror he’d been looking into he slammed to the table, facedown, covering up the pentagram and glyphs he had scribed on the new slate table.

“You’re awake!” he said, and I cowered when his voice seemed to boom inside my head.

“Yeah,” I gasped, hands over my ears. I cracked an eyelid, seeing him muttering another curse and a new wash of ever-after falling from him. What is he doing in here while I’m sleeping? “I don’t feel so good,” I said as I sat up. “What are you doing in here?”

“Trying to remember what I look like,” he muttered, his skin turning red from embarrassment, not a curse or a charm. He touched the mirror, and it vanished.