The trial had officially ended two hours after sunset tonight, sealing the demon’s end of the bargain and making my end enforceable. That the undead vampire who controlled most of Cincinnati’s underworld had been sentenced to five centuries for the murders of the city’s best ley line witches hardly seemed important now. Especially when I was betting his lawyers would get him out in a measly one.

Right now the question on everyone’s mind on both sides of the law was whether Kisten, his former scion, would be able to hold everything together until the undead vampire got out, because Ivy wasn’t going to do it, scion or no. If I managed to get through this night alive and with my soul intact, I’d start worrying about me a little less and my roommate a little more, but first I had to settle up with the demon.

Shoulders so tight they hurt, I took the milky green tapers from my coat pocket and placed them on the circle to represent the points of a pentagram I wouldn’t be drawing. I lit them from the white candle I used to make the transfer media. The tiny flames flickered, and I watched for a moment to be sure they weren’t going to go out before I stuck the white candle back on the broken grave marker outside the circle.

The hushed sound of a car pulled my attention to the high walls dividing the graveyard from our neighbors. Steadying myself to tap the nearby ley line, I tugged my knit cap down, stomped the snow from the hem of my jeans, and made one last check that I had everything. But there was nothing left to procrastinate with.

Another slow breath, and I touched my will to the tiny ley line running through the church’s graveyard. My breath hissed in through my nose and I stiffened, almost falling as my equilibrium shifted. The ley line seemed to have picked up the winter chill, slicing through me with an unusual coldness. Putting out a gloved hand, I steadied myself against the candlelit tombstone while the incoming energy continued to build.

Once the strengths equilibrated, the extra incoming force would flow back to the line. Until then I had to grit my teeth and bear it as tingling sensations backwashed at the theoretical extremities in my mind that mirrored my real fingers and toes. Each time it was worse. Each time it was faster. Each time it was more of an assault.

Though it seemed like forever, the force balanced in a heartbeat. My hands started to sweat and an uncomfortable sensation of being both hot and cold took me, like being in a fever. I took off my gloves and jammed them into a deep pocket. The charms on my bracelet jingled, clear in the winter-silenced air. They wouldn’t help me. Not even the cross.

I wanted to set my circle quickly. Somehow Algaliarept knew when I tapped a line, and I had to summon it before it showed up on its own and robbed me of the thread of power I might claim as its summoner. The copper spell pot with the transfer media was cold when I picked it up and did something no witch ever did and lived to tell of it; I stepped forward, putting myself into the same circle I was going to call Algaliarept into.