That sound vibrated in my chest.Help! Help!
I scrambled to my feet. “They’re breaking it!” Panic gave my sprint wings. Harry leaped at my arm but I batted him away, leaving a shred of sleeve in his jaws. I hit the shed door and yanked it open. Whatever the magic ward was, I felt nothing as I burst through. “Stop! Don’t hurt it!”
Two bearded men wearing flannel and jeans whirled to face me. The younger held an axe in both hands. The older raised his palms and shouted something. A shimmering red wave splashed over me, eye-wateringly bright, somehow smelling of sulfur, and yet it left me untouched. Anger tunneled my vision.Get him!
I grabbed up a length of two-by-two leaning beside the door and swung it like a baseball bat. I was a great shortstop in high school. The end of the wood hit the older guy upside the head with a jarring impact that almost made me drop my weapon. A flash of crimson at the point of impact gave me a moment of terror that I’d killed him, before I realized the red wasn’t blood but his magic somehow blocking the blow an inch from his temple. He staggered, though.
No time to recover!I swung again, following through like I was aiming for the bleachers, and he slipped to one knee. I hit him forehand, backhand.Again. Again.My blows landed on each side of him, hitting that flaring red defense he put up between my weapon and his head. The impacts shivered hard through my palms. He raised his hands at me but that was fatal to his balance. My next stroke landed him on his ass.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the younger man jolt out of his paralysis, raising the axe, coming at me. Then he screamed as Harry leaped in the air and fastened his teeth into flesh, blood spraying. He dropped the axe. I couldn’t spare the time to watch.
Hit the sorcerer. Again.This time, my blow shattered through the older man’s protection and found his temple. His head snapped sideways and he fell.
Again!I landed a hit askew, more on his shoulder than anywhere vulnerable, but I swung back upward and caught the bastard under his chin.
The sorcerer collapsed, sprawled flat, gasping on the floor.
I’d have hit him again, the mist of fury still bright in my eyes, but Alaric shouted, “Enough,” in my ear and grabbed my arm. “Let me get him.”
He leaped past me and knelt, drawing a white chalk line around the flailing man, scrambling on his knees to encircle where the sorcerer lay. Then Alaric completed his circle with a flourish and called out a breakneck string of unfamiliar words. Bright green flared high like a translucent curtain where the white line had been drawn.
I flinched at a thud close behind me. The younger man had managed to shake off Harry and flung him to the floor. Harry landed hard, and staggered, shaking his head. The man turned wild eyes on the glowing green circle, then sprinted out the door clutching his bleeding arm. Harry dashed after him and I heard the man yelp but his thudding footsteps didn’t stop. I made out another yelp, a scream, athump,and then the sound of a car door and a motor starting. The car receded in a hail of pinging gravel and a more distant squeal of tires.
Harry reappeared in the doorway. “He has a high pain threshold, I’ll give him that. I didn’t taste any magic in him, so I didn’t want to mutilate him to stop him.” He came over and sat at Alaric’s side.
“If he’s just human, we can deal with him later.” Alaric turned to the trapped sorcerer who’d begun moaning and clutching his head. “Barnes, on the other hand, definitely has a demon.”
“Indeed.” Harry and Alaric peered at the green circle with matching intensity.
Despite my curiosity, I was pulled away from the flaring green magic toward the cabinet. A shallow gouge marked one of the front doors.I hope they didn’t harm the book.I knelt in front of it, running my hand over the raw gash, and the door swung open. There inside sat the magical book, its pages seeming to glow in the dusty shed. I reached forward—
Alaric yanked me onto my ass, his fingers digging into my shoulder. I batted at his hand and he grabbed my other arm too, hauling me backward across the floor.
“Let go. Let go!” I swung a punch toward him, a blow that glanced off his arm.
“Stop!”
The word echoed through my chest. For a moment, I stopped— no movement, not even a breath. Then I whirled to stare at him. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t touch that book. Bad enough you touched it once. A book’s not a as bad as a demon, but it’s full of dark magic, bound in human skin flayed off a slave. It’s not safe.”
“Human skin? Ew!” I glanced at the leather covering the thick pages, sitting there… shining… full of magic… desirable— “Crap, I think it’s doing something to me. I want to touch it, help it.”
Alaric wrapped his arms around me and pulled me farther away. “Can you resist? Wait till reinforcements get here?”
“I don’t know.” I thought about that and realized I’d scooted forward a foot while pondering. “Can you make it stop?”
“Not just yet. We have to deal with the demon first.”
“Can you…” I peered around the room, noting how my eyes kept being dragged back to the cabinet, how I’d shifted my weight forward again without meaning to. “Can you do, like, a spell to block it?”
Alaric shook his head. “Not without knowing how the book created its hold on you.”
“Then… could you tie me up, maybe? I don’t like the way it calls me.” A shiver racked my body, but when my shaking was done, I was three feet closer to the book. I scrambled back on my ass, putting my shoulders to the wall.
“I can do that, I suppose.” Alaric scanned the shed, then fetched a coil of extension cord. “Not the best rope, but it should serve. Give me your hands.”
I held them in front of me and watched as his long, competent fingers wound the cord around my wrists and knotted it. The book called to me in a siren song that dulled my eyesight and pushed me to my feet.
