Page 82 of Death Trap

“If I had my powers and didn’t need you to get me out of here, I would have.”

That was comforting.

At least she was being honest this time.

When I looked up at the ceiling, I was disappointed to see the bloody circle unlit. The door unopened.

Once I completed the circle, the door should have opened. At least, that’s how it worked with the spirit doors.

“Did we do something wrong?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “We just need to say the magic words.”

Did I hear her right? Or was the blood loss really affecting my ears now?

“Magic words… But you don’t have your magic anymore.”

“Don’t need to be a witch to open portals to Hell and summon demons. You summoned Xaver, didn’t you? You aren’t a witch.”

Actually, Wyatt had said the summoning spell to pull Xaver out of Hell, but I guess that proved Tamara’s point even more. Wyatt was human. Not an ounce of magic in his blood, and he did it.

“Do you have any idea of what to say?” I asked.

She smiled, and as she raised her hands toward the ceiling, she began speaking passionately in Latin, her voice loud and vibrating. If she were her normal level three witchiness in full power mode, I would probably be shaking in my boots right now. When she was reciting spells, she was in her element.

A flicker of light appeared above us, and my gaze snapped upward. The more of the spell she said, the more sparks flared here and there, until the entire circle was alight with red light.

I gasped. “Shit…it’s working.”

Tamara snapped the last words out of her mouth like a whip, and the ceiling opened up, revealing a street, a foggy night sky, and glowing lamps. The strong scent of gasoline, fish, and sitting water wafted through the door. The sights and smells of Fairport harbor.

Tamara’s grin spread wide. “Your blood must be pretty damn strong for it to work on the first try,” she said. “But we need to get through before it closes.”

“Why would it close?”

“Because what we did is unstable, and things that are unstable normally collapse.” She glanced up, and her smile faded fast. “Let’s just get out of here and not test my theory.”

We both hopped on the table. Tamara leapt up and grabbed onto the side of the circle to haul herself up. She kicked her legs as she struggled to pull her weight, so I put my wounded hands under her boots and shoved her out.

When she got onto the street, she crawled over to the circle and looked down at me.

In that moment, something flashed across her face.

Uncertainty.

And my heart dropped.

Was she thinking about closing the door and leaving me down here? It would be really easy for her to do it, just smudge a part of the circle.

The red light surrounding the edge wavered. I realized I couldn’t waste any more time. If Tamara didn’t lock me down here, the unstable door we’d created just might. So, I jumped up and gripped the door’s edge, feeling the cool, rough pavement of Fairport’s uneven street under my fingertips. But the movement made me so nauseous and the wounds on my hands split open even more that I cried out. My already weak hold loosened, and I felt myself slipping.

The light sputtered again, and for a second, I lost sight of Tamara and Fairport altogether.

Nails sank into my forearms, and when I looked up, Tamara was there again, clutching me and doing all she could to try and lift me up.

But with my wounds and the exhaustion, I couldn’t do much more than dangle there.

That’s when two shadows rushed toward us from behind Tamara.

---