“I only snapped every bone in her body and mended it to get you to come face me,” he said, mocking me as he grabbed her shoulder and pinned her where she sat. “It took me a day before I realized you were unconscious and not simply afraid, but I thought, why stop now? I was bored, so she got a little more. We had fun, didn’t we, Ivy girl?”

I seethed, my hands in fists, as Ivy didn’t look up.

“It was only play,” Ku’Sox was saying. “Nothing permanent. I—”

In a smooth motion, I pushed the energy from my chi into my hand. Grunting, I threw it. There was probably little besides eating her that Ku’Sox could do to Ivy that Piscary hadn’t done already, but something in me had snapped.

Ivy screamed defiantly, kicking his feet out from under him and rolling away before the demon could direct my energy into her. Ku’Sox fell, arms flailing. My ball of unfocused energy arched to him.

“Celero inanio!” I shouted, exploding it right above him.

He cowered, a dark sheet of ever-after snapping over him. I knew such a common spell wouldn’t hurt him, but it shut him up.

Ivy had staggered to her feet and was limping fast to Pierce, not me. Wise woman. I needed room to work, and I shifted my stance for better purchase.

“Oh, really. Grow up, will you?” Ku’Sox muttered as he got to his feet and his bubble flickered out of existence.

There was a tweak on my awareness as he pulled heavily on a line. Not trusting anything but a well-drawn circle, I dove to the side, landing with my back to that squat building between Ku’Sox and me. I watched his black ball of nastiness thump into the sand at the edge of the sidewalk. Water and grit sprayed up, a tiny crater hissing as it cooled to a green, milky glass.

“That’s how the big boys do it,” he said with satisfaction, but I couldn’t see him. Crap, I had to get away from this building before he simply blew it up around me.

“Ivy?” I called, praying as I hurriedly sketched a circle around me. He’d simply break through it, but there were no bells ringing yet. I had to stall him.

“I’m good!” came back, and I crab-walked to the edge of the building and looked, seeing her with Pierce, crouched beside a broken bench. They were both inside an uninvoked circle, relatively safe.

“Keep her alive,” I mouthed, and he nodded, even as Ivy read my lips and grimaced.

The clink of sliding rubble jerked my attention back to the beach where a black, oily smoke drifted from the person-size crater.

“I can hear you…Rachel,” Ku’Sox mocked, his voice coming closer as I edged back to my circle. “I hear you breathing.”

I couldn’t help it, and I held my breath, sitting with my back against the building. My heart pounded, and sweat made clean tracks in the dust on my arms. I listened for the sound of church bells, hearing nothing. Come on, Vivian…