Page 114 of Demon's Bluff

My pulse hammered as I struggled not to answer. “Off!” I exclaimed, feeling my will splinter as the agony mounted.“Ta na shay, sisto activitatem!”

Newt howled, her hands springing from my neck as the Goddess’s magic arched through her. I bucked her off, hand to my throat as I spun into a crouch and stood, shaking. Spent magic hung between us, sparking as it sifted into the ground.

“Elyse,” I rasped, shocked by my ragged voice. “Give her up, or this starts again.”

Newt’s black eyes narrowed on me. “You won’t survive a second time.”

“Stop!” came a faint voice, and we both started. It was Elyse, the young woman running toward us, the robes Newt had dressed her in fluttering blackly in the moonlight. She had my shoulder bag over her arm, and I stiffened. Adagio was behind her, his wings clamped in misery as he waited for his punishment for jumping her here.

“Newt, she won! She won!” Elyse exclaimed, her color high as she slid to a halt between us, my shoulder bag slipping from her. “We made a bet.”

A bet?I thought, then ducked, yanking on the ley line when Newt’s energy sizzled past my head.

“Which you lost.” Newt’s gaze went from one to the other as if deciding whom to pin first. “Adagio, you will starve for this.”

“You made a bet with the coven leader,” the gargoyle rasped, looking embarrassed. “It stands. Let the world breaker’s sword go. Elyse Embers got the best of you.”

Elyse?I thought, taking in the frightened woman’s shaky confidence even as she backed up into his protection, my bag clutched to her chest.What did you give her, Elyse?I wondered, worried that she’d done something that would haunt her forever.

“We made a bet,” Elyse said again, to make Newt grimace. “Now hold to it. Rachel escaped your snare; she goes free. She came for me; I go free. It’s done.”

I scooped upQuaere, uneasy. I was between the ley line and Elyse. To make a move toward one might result in losing the other. “You made a bet?” I questioned, and Newt dropped her head and beat the dust from her robe, her bad mood worsening.

Nodding, Elyse carefully inched toward me. “I did.” Her gaze shifted. “You might break your word with her, but I am a coven member, and you will hold to it with me!” she shouted at Newt.

The insane demon fumed, her robe hem shaking and her bare feet red from the dust that was all that was left of the ever-after paradise. “I call foul. You used an elven spell,” she spat, though I knew for a fact that she alone among the demons still tinkered with elven magic. “You broke my oubliette!” she added, her steps forward faltering when Adagio rumbled like an elephant, warning her. “That rubs out anything that scrawny coven member might gain.”

“Rhombus!”I shouted, but Newt brushed my undrawn circle aside as if it never existed, grasping my robe front and dragging me forward as Elyse shouted a protest.

“How did you get out!” Newt raved, and I struggled, my hand atop Elyse’s as we both pried at her grip on me.

“Quaere!”I said, my hands tingling as I dug at her fingers. “I usedQuaere. Let me go or I’ll stick you with it!”

“Stop!” Elyse shouted, frustration coloring her angry stance. “Both of you. We made a bet, Newt. She got free and she came for me. Now go away! Now!”

I gasped as Newt’s grip vanished. Shaking, the demon stared at us, wrathful and angry with little sparks of energy moving like rills over her. Behind Newt, Adagio was gesturing at the ley line as if wanting us to make a dash for it. One of us might make it. Beside me, Elyse stood, elated that she may well have gained our freedom. And wary. And sore. And beat up. Actually, she looked like I felt.Newt gave her slippers?

“She circled you when she could have run,” Elyse said, actually shifting to stand in front of me as if in protection, though I was the one with the magic dagger spitting sparks. “She circled you with the intent to force you to let me go. We made a bet, and bets made under the full moon cannot be broken.”

Newt’s expression was sour. “It’s not a full moon.”

“It is where I come from,” Elyse said, throwing the agitated demon another curve. “She gets her freedom if she finds a way out of her oubliette, and I get my freedom if she comes for me.” Elyse focused on the demon. “Well, she didn’t abandon me, Newt. She circled you. Demanded you free me. You lose.”

I wanted my bag, but didn’t dare reach for it. “The circle didn’t hold. I never got her to free you,” I said, and Elyse smirked.

“Yeah. I figured you might not best her, so the bet was to try, not succeed.”

I felt myself quail when Newt turned those black eyes to me, glinting in the moonlight. “And if I didn’t?” I asked.

Elyse shrugged. “You die in the oubliette and she gets my soul,” she said, and then louder, “but that’s not what happened, so leave! I beat you at your own game, demon.”

Newt seemed to shake where she stood. And then, without a single word, she vanished, red dust swirling in to replace where she had been.

I exhaled as the dust settled, and my grip onQuaerefinally eased. Dirt stained my fingers red as I studied it, shoulders slumping. Maybe someday I’d figure out how to put the thing away.

“My God,” Elyse said as she came forward and handed me my bag. It was heavy, and I looked to see not only my book in there but the one she’d stolen from Trent, too. “Rachel, thank you. I never want to do that again. I can’t believe you got us free.”

The night was empty. All we had to do was walk to the line. Even Adagio had vanished. “I didn’t make her hold to our deal. You did,” I said as I slung my bag over my shoulder. It felt good there, and I finally began to think we might have done it. “How badly did she singe you?”

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