Page 11 of Rites of Passage

Alicia blew out a sigh and rubbed the back of her head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Relief loosened the knot in Nikolai’s belly. “Thank you.” He cocked his head at the sorcerer. “Put her in the middle of the magic circle.”

Gregory climbed to his feet and hurried over to the glowing runes, the golden retriever and the cat at his side.

Rita cleared her throat. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Her companions and the soldiers looked similarly uneasy.

Nikolai studied the figure Gregory placed on the ground. “We won’t know until we try.”

Alicia followed him to where the possessed woman arched her back and kicked her heels on the stone floor, determined to escape her brother’s hold.

“You’ll have to pin her down,” Nikolai warned Gregory.

The sorcerer swallowed and nodded, determination hardening his face.

Nikolai pressed a hand to the crow on his shoulder. “You ready, Al?”

Alastair nuzzled his cheek, his eyes blazing.

Nikolai knelt on the ground next to Agnes. He inhaled, laid his palms on the bedeviled woman’s belly, and concentrated. Air whooshed above him. Startled gasps echoed around the basement chamber. He didn’t have to look around to know that Alicia had changed into her reaper form.

Magic flooded his veins and warmed his blood as he focused his powers deep within Agnes’s body, seeking out the corruption rotting her soul. Blackness danced against his fingertips a moment later.

It took a single heartbeat for him to realize they were in trouble.

A horrendous roar ripped through the chamber, causing several soldiers and a witch to cry out in alarm. Agnes’s mouth split impossibly open from ear to ear. The whites of her eyes shifted to an ominous obsidian.

“Shit!” Nikolai grated out. “Alicia! This doesn’t feel like a regular demon!”

“That’s because it isn’t.” Bone clinked against stone as the Soul Reaper queen landed next to him. “That’s a ghoul.”

Nikolai could feel Agnes’s soul flickering weakly in the center of the dark miasma fighting his magic. He knew instinctively that the only thing stopping the young woman from fully transforming was sheer will.

“Talk to her!” he urged Gregory.

“What?” the sorcerer mumbled, his horrified gaze riveted to the monster trying to take over his sister.

“She can hear you! Just talk to her!”

Tension tightened Nikolai’s shoulders as he poured his magic into Agnes’s body. The ghoul shrieked, the sound making his eardrums throb.

Gregory jerked. He started speaking to his sister, his voice low and urgent.

“Lock those doors,” Alicia ordered the nervous soldiers watching them, light from the magic circle catching on the edge of her dark scythe. Her pupils flared crimson as she looked over at the coven sorcerers and witches. “Shield us. Nothing comes in and nothing gets out of this circle.”

They nodded and took up position around the glowing ring, faces ashen. A haze formed on the periphery of the runes as they engaged their magic.

The air trembled where Nikolai’s powers clashed against the hellish energy throbbing from the monster clinging desperately to his host. A wave of lassitude swept over him. He sagged and blinked sweat from his eyes. Dread curdled his stomach.

His magic core was nearly depleted.

“Al!” he cried out, fear raising the pitch of his voice.

The crow squawked. Power seeped into Nikolai’s body as his familiar’s soul merged fully with his own. The ghoul’s shape came into focus.

Now!

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