Chapters (43)
- The Outlaw Demon Wails
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- The Undead Pool: An Excerpt
- Chapter 2
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Credits
- About the Publisher
Feeling Trent’s eyes on me, I pinched the wick of the white candle, muttering, “Consimilis, calefacio,” as I let it go. The spindled power in me dropped, making me glad I was lighting one candle to function as a hearth fire instead of lighting the two candles individually by magic. The flame flickered like a spot of purity amid the defiled air, and I held my breath and counted to ten. No demon showed up. Just as I had expected, they wouldn’t know I was here as long as I didn’t tap a line. I could do the spell.
Trent’s hesitant movements just outside my vision stopped. “What are you doing?”
My jaw tightened, but I said nothing as I took my bag of salt and carefully spilled it out into the shape of an elongated figure eight. It was a modified Möbius strip. This curse was one of the few I’d ever seen that didn’t use a pentagram, and I wondered if it was a completely different branch of magic. Maybe this wouldn’t hurt so much.
“Rachel?” Trent prompted, and I sat back on my heels and puffed a curl that had escaped my hat out of my way.
“I’ve got ten minutes, and I’m going to do the curse that will keep Al from being summoned out of the ever-after.”
“Now?” he said, wonder bringing his manicured eyebrows up. “You said demons could feel you tap a line. They’ll be on us in seconds!”
Fingers trembling, I carefully placed the pyramid of copper where the salt lines crossed. “Which is why I’m going to do this without the protection of a circle,” I said. “I have enough ever-after spindled inside me to do it.” Ceri said I did. I trusted her. Though twisting a curse without a circle had me really, really nervous.
Trent’s soft boots shifted in a show of protest, and I ignored him as I dug through the bag looking for the stick of redwood I had forgotten to pull out earlier. “Why are you risking it?” he said. “You’re doing a demon curse before the sun comes up. In the ever-after. In a defiled church. Can’t you do this when you get home?”
“If I get home,” I accused. He was silent, and I set the flat piece of wood beside Al’s sample. “If I don’t make it, I want to die knowing my friends won’t be taking the punishment Al has aimed at me. He’ll be trapped in the ever-after.” I eyed him. “For ever after.”