And then, suddenly, Locke sucks in a sharp breath, his shoulders relaxing like the incident never happened. Obie’s splitting headache vanishes just as quickly as it appeared, leaving nothing but the memory of pain in its wake.
When Locke speaks next, his voice is a rasp. “What wasthat?”
A horrifying suspicion creeps through Obie’s mind. “Locke,” he says slowly, pushing himself to his feet. “Locke, let me see your arm.”
Locke tenses, clutching his arm to his chest as he clambers upright. “Go to hell.”
“Oh, give it a rest, hunter,” Obie snaps, striding towards him. Locke brandishes his escrima stick, but Obie ignores it, grabbingLocke’s arm and yanking it forward to analyze the pre-cast incantation. Looks like he can still be rough with Locke, even if he can’t be physically violent.
And, belatedly, Obie realizes that his “punch” earlier didn’t burn his knuckles. No pain in the fingers currently wrapped around Locke’s wrist, either. Locke’s bizarre binding spell must have blocked the corrosion enchantment that makes hunters’ skin physically caustic to demons, too.
Small victories.
“So?” Locke asks grudgingly. His shoulders are still tense, but he seems more resigned than anything else. “What went wrong?”
Obie skims over the words, looking for anything out of place. Abruptly, his eyes widen. “You made it bidirectional.”
Locke squints at him. “What?”
“You made itbidirectional,lackey,” Obie bites out, jabbing a finger at the offending phrase. “You made the binding spell bidirectional instead of unidirectional.”
Locke stills. “So it backfired?”
Obie laughs humorlessly, releasing Locke’s arm. The hunter snatches it back to his side. “No, it worked exactly as written—exactly asyoupre-cast it. Instead of binding me to you, it bound the two of us together.”
“But what does thatmean?”Locke demands. “We clearly can’t control each other, so—so what did it actuallydo?”
“Well, we obviously can’t injure each other,” Obie says, splaying out his unburned fingers as evidence. “And since we both hadveryvisceral reactions when I tried to rift away, I’m guessing that we need to be within a certain range of each other, too.”
Locke’s eyes widen.“What?”
Obie’s stomach churns. “Stay there,” he orders, and he starts backing up, keeping his glare fixed on Locke.
He’s barely two parking spaces away when there’s a sharp stabbing sensation just behind his left eye. Locke flinches, pressing his fist to his mouth like he’s trying not to throw up. Obie forces himself back another foot, and the pain roars up to something explosive.
Sucking in a hard breath, he takes a few steps closer to Locke. Instantly, the headache recedes. “That’s our limit. Twenty feet, give or take.”
Locke looks appalled.“What?But we can’t—Ican’t live like that! I can’t just bring a demon back to the Sanctum!”
“You say that like I’d actually want to be there,” Obie says, massaging his temples. “Which, to be perfectly clear, I don’t. I’d rather eat glass.”
“How do we break it, then?” Locke hugs his arms across his chest. The posture looked prickly and defensive before, but now, it’s like he’s just trying to hold himself together. “The bidirectional binding?”
“Easy. We just use the counterspell.” Obie gives Locke a savage smile. “Oh, that’s right—The Magic-Weaver’s Companiondoesn’thaveany counterspells. And I don’t suppose you thought to do a thorough nuance analysis before playing with the dangerous spell book? Or even just researched other binding spells to check their reversals?”
Locke’s jaw works. He doesn’t answer.
“You’re in way over your head here, kid.”
“Imight not know much about creating point-by-point counterspells,” Locke snaps, “but we both know someone who does. Call Roma or—or Esmeralda Laguerre. One of them will be able to figure it out.”
All at once, the world goes very still around Obie. “Call Roma or Ez,” he repeats, cold realization flooding through him. “You chose this spell on purpose, didn’t you?”
Locke squints at him. “What?”
“You said yourself that you want Roma back.” There’s a roaring inObie’s ears. “Did you seriously expect me to fall for that? You really thought you could cast a spell that neither of us could break and convince me to compromise her? OrEz?”
Locke shakes his head sharply. “That’s not what I meant. That’s not?—”
