Rick, in black cat form, and Occam’s spotted cat lunged past us, toward the house. Grindylows raced in from somewhere, following. Claws out. I was too late.
Pulling on Soulwood’s strength, I wrenched Loriann’s fingers back and straight-armed her to her knees. “I felt magic,” I said. “That was a spell! You’re manipulating the tat spells on Rick. Right now.”
Loriann laughed.
“She’s using the tat binding,” I said into my mic. But it was covered in my blood and I didn’t know how clearly JoJo would hear. “She sent Occam and Rick to save Jason. Two grindys are after them.” I could feel the magic coursing through her, following Rick.
FireWind finally arrived, silent. He clubbed Loriann to the ground, a single, vicious fist to the head. It knocked her unconscious. He strapped the silver blood-cuffs back on Loriann’s wrists. With hands that were far stronger than a human’s, he untwisted the wire of a second, similar cuff and wrapped it around her head. Herwyrdmagic stopped. Like a clean slice through the air. But Rick and Occam were already inside.
FireWind was cold and brutal, his expression blank ferocity. “Can you call them back?” he asked me.
“I can try.” I dropped down and curled my legs onto the blanket. “But you might have to cut me free. Use steel.” FireWind ordered someone to watch Loriann Ethier and he knelt beside me.
I dug in the gobag, fingers finding the broken piece of black stone from the time of Rick’s original inking. Stolen from Rick’s house in my B and E. I had no idea why he kept it. I didn’t care. It was part of the spell that had bound him. I had stolen it to use in a last ditch effort that might help him. I dropped it in my lap. Put a fingertip on the earth. Shoved my hand into the pot of Soulwood.
I reached for my land. And for Rick. There was strange power in the ground. A swirling miasma so thick it was like heavy oil and clotted blood. Light and dark energies, swirling, struggling. The fist was uncoiling, its dark energies anathema to the life of the earth. The fist shoved up through the stockyard ground, reaching for freedom it could only gain as the dark of the moon fell below the horizon. Magma boiled behind the fist, full of power.
The massive sentient sleeping presence beneath the earth, the soul of the land, stirred. The earth trembled. Demon, Soulwood, and the spirit of the earth were about collide. This would be very bad.
Closer to me, magics clouded the air and beat against the surface of the ground, contained but powerful. There was blood everywhere. I called to Soulwood and through my land I called to Occam. My spotted cat answered with a growl, always human enough to know me. I called to Rick. And... there. There he was. I found him.
His magic was hot and cold and prickly and furred. Burning bright. He was different from the last time I touched hispower. He was more... more were-creature. Hewasmagic. Hewaspower. Flaring, intense. He was an alpha, one who carried magic in every cell of his body. Yet that magic was constrained, packed down, restricted. Unfocused. Inward turned. Trapped.
His magic was trapped.
As if in a net.
The tattoos were the trap I sensed, the magics holding him back.
“Ethier!” FireWind coming to his feet. Shouting. Blood in the house. Gunfire. The sound of a body falling and the drumming of running feet. Loriann getting away.
I reached out. Soulwood reached out. Rootlets and leaves burst from the wood in the walls of the house. I placed Soulwood over the net that constrained Rick’s power. Soaked Soulwood into the fibers of the spell that controlled him. It burned. The cold burning of witch magic, wrapped around and into the hotter magic of the wereleopard. Geometry and mathematics in every tiny, microscopic witch strand. Soulwood stretched and sprouted, like rootlets seeking water. And grew into the witch magic...
The strands were... the tiny punctures that once punched ink and magic into his skin. The pigments of the tattoo. And the vampire blood.There. That frozen, clotted bit of magic. Soulwood found the blood and took it. Broke it down. Whisked it away and into the earth. Ate it. And more foreign bloodthere. Cat blood. Easy to use, a useful sacrifice for the land. And... Jason’s blood.
Rick screamed. Occam screamed. Silver. Silver was everywhere. Silver and blood and burning. My magic was ripped away from the tattoos.
Occam’s leopard took him over, an emotional reaction so fast, so full of fear, Soulwood couldn’t follow. It wasfear-flee-death-flame-burn-run-death...
I reached through Rick’s eyes. Saw the cats had been caught in a silver mesh trap, one with spines that shoved through their pelts and into their flesh. Jason had set a magical and physical trap to capture Rick. He had instead caught both cats. And both grindys.
Black cat blood. Spotted cat blood. Both of them magic.Two grindylows. Surely magic too. Their blood on the magical cuffs Jason wore.
The new moon below the horizon.
The spell in the earth.
The ground beneath me quivered. Shook.
Earthquake.
The fist in the circle, in the stockyard, beat against the power that had imprisoned it in the dark eons ago.
Light. Might. Purpose. Some unimaginable power holding it trapped.
The fist beat that cage. Cracks began to form at the point of impact. The witch circle fed power to the fist’s battering. My mind was open and aware of everything the magic touched, everything and everyone.
Rick screamed. His cat in agony. The fist hardened. Solidified by the power in Rick’s cat blood. Trapped in Jason’s spell. The silver net stealing Rick’s life. The fist hit the boundary of the power holding it in stasis.
