The Outlaw Demon Wails Read Free

He couldn’t take me to the ever-after unless I let him; he’d have to drag me to a ley line.
    Somewhere in my frazzled brain, something clicked. He couldn’t hold me and go misty at the same time. Grunting, I pulled my knee up, connecting right between his legs.
    Al grunted. Agony smacked into me as he flung me away and my back hit a display. I gasped for air, holding my bruised throat as packets of freeze-dried herbs sifted over me with light thumps. Sucking in the scent of amber as I coughed, I held up a hand to fend them off, angling my legs under me to stand. Where is the chalk?
    â€œYou sorry bitch of a succubus whore!” Al groaned, holding himself as he hunched over, and I smiled. Minias had told me that as part of Al’s punishment for letting his old familiar go when she knew how to spindle line energy, he’d been purged of the accumulated charms, spells, and curses he had built up over the millennia. It left him, while not helpless, at least reduced to a limited spell vocabulary. Obviously he’d been in the kitchen recently, since his upper-crust Englishman persona was a disguise. I didn’t want to know what he really looked like.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Al?” I mocked, wiping my mouth to find I’d bittenmy lip. “Not used to anyone fighting back?” This was freaking great. Here I was in a charm shop, and nothing was invoked but vanity charms and bust enhancers.
    â€œHere, Rachel!” my mom cried out, and Al’s head swung around.
    â€œMom!” I shouted when she threw something at me. “Get out!”
    Al’s eyes tracked it. I stiffened as a shimmer of black ever-after coursed over him, healing whatever I had damaged. But the magnetic chalk thumped safely into my hand. I took a breath to yell at her to get out again, and the shimmer of a blue-tinted ever-after circle rose up around her and the clerk behind the counter. They were safe.
    An odd, unexpected sensation of ice swept through me, and I stiffened. It felt like the chime of a bell ringing through my bones. Oblivious, Al let out a roar and lunged.
    Yelping, I dropped to the floor and out of his reach. From behind me came a crash as Al sailed over me and fell into the rack I’d knocked over. I had seconds. Arm extended, I sat on the floor and scribbled a circle, rolling back and away as a premonition honed by years of martial arts told me he was reaching for me.
    â€œNot this time, witch,” he snarled.
    Eyes wide, I spun on my butt. My foot came up to kick, but he moved with an inhuman quickness and my boot struck his palm. I froze, lying on my back with my ankle in his grip and my scarf in my face. One good twist, and he’d break it. Shit.
    Al had lost his glasses. His eyes glinted maliciously as he smiled, but before he could move, an explosion rocked through the store and blew out the windows. My hands jerked to my ears and I yanked my foot out of Al’s grip. The demon’s goatlike eyes were wide as he stumbled back, but his shock quickly became anger.
    Frightened, I scrabbled to knock over another display. Packaged amulets rained down. The shush of tires against wet pavement became obvious as my hearing returned, the sound coming in through the broken window along with the calls of people. What had my mom done?
    â€œJenks!” I shouted, feeling the icy cool of a damp night. It was too cold. It might throw him into hibernation!
    â€œI’m fine!” he exclaimed as he hovered in a red haze of dust. “Let’s get the bastard.”
    I gathered myself to stand, then hesitated in a crouch when Jenks’s gaze fixed on something over my shoulder and the pixy went white.
    â€œUh, bastards,” he amended shakily, and a new fear settled in when I realized Al wasn’t moving anymore either, but watching whatever Jenks was. In the hush of ambient street noise, a wave of burnt-amber, tainted ozone flowed over me.
    â€œThere’s another