It burst free. The earth at the circle erupted, rock and dirt flying into the air. The fist opened into the evening air. B’KuL’s open hand, reaching for the curse, reaching for the blood that powered the spell.
Jason summoned B’KuL, the sound of the name vibrating through the land. I felt blood flow. The blood sorcerer had cut the throat of a waking vampire.Calling.
Dark power blasting, the open hand of B’KuL flew through the night. Into... into the house where T. Laine and SWAT were. Where Occam was. Where Rick was. Where Jason was.
The hand of power wrapped itself around Jason. Jason’s spell reached for Rick.
I might kill my boss. My friend. But—
I concentrated on the broken black stone. And I shoved the entire might of Soulwood through the stone into Rick’s tattoos. Shredding the magic in the ink. The magic that held him, bound him, used him. The magic that tied him to Jason and, through the blood witch, to the demon. And maybe tied all the magic to Rick’s soul. The broken chunk of black marble shattered.
Rick’s were-magics sizzled. Exploded. Magic like a flashbang. But bigger. Hotter. The magical mesh constrainingRick’s tattoo magic erupted. I yanked Soulwood from him. Freeing Rick from the tattoo magic. And from Soulwood. Rick tore himself from the tatters of the old spell that had trapped and tortured him.
His power burst free, burning through the last strands of the tattoo magic. But he was still trapped in a silver net with a raging, panicked Occam-cat and grindys. He opened his mouth and I thought he said my name.
Soulwood and I shoved a single vine of our might against one tiny spot on the silver net.
I thought of life. Of the roots of trees that broke apart boulders. My land, my tree, forced a hole through the silver net that held the cats and grindys, and attacked it from within. Growing, wrenching, ripping the silver needles from the cats’ flesh. Tearing into the spell set within it. Cleaving the spell. It fell into shavings and strips and strands of silver that tinkled to the concrete beneath the cats. I ripped Soulwood away.
The demon needed a sacrifice to push more of his power to the surface. B’KuL’s hand curled around the blood witch, evaluating the life and years and time in the cells of his summoner. Jason made a gurgling sound. “Your sacrifice is there. Take his years,” he pointed at Rick.
Rick and Occam were free, but disoriented. Weak. The cats were staggering away from the silver wire, crawling to the doorway behind them. The grindys rode the cats’ backs, holding on, cat fur in their cute little hands. The cats pushed through the vines waving in the air and headed for an exit.
B’KuL dropped his host to the floor, into a springy mass of leaves. But instead of reaching for the cats, the demon shifted his attention from Jason to the explosion of power that was Soulwood. I yanked myself away. But the fist of demon power opened and reached for my land, running its metaphysical fingers through the energies of life, through the leaves filling the basement, as if entranced.
I rolled away. Or tried to. I opened my eyes. Saw that the roots along Roseberry Road had grown up and trapped my feet. “Cut me!” I shouted. “Cut me free!”
The steel blade slashed through the roots anchoring my feet to the land. But my arm was rooted to the pot of Soulwoodsoil. The vampire tree had grown a cage around me. Trapping me to itself.
“Stupid tree! Fine. I’ll use you. Cut my feet free!”
“I’m trying,” FireWind snarled. He hacked through the roots tying me to the ground. His single black braid whipped back and forth with his effort. The pressure fell away. My feet were unshackled.
I thrust upright, grabbed my gobag, and raced to the house. Fell against the wall, to the ground, cracking the pot and dumping the soil and the sprig of the vampire tree against the house. It had grown roots, a twisted mass of them. I landed on the gobag. From my pockets I yanked the baggie with the smear of Jason’s blood and tore through it with my teeth. Dumped it onto the soil of Soulwood and onto the vampire tree.
“This one,” I said to the tree. “Stop him. He’s yours.”
The roots sent me an image of the Green Knight. Leafy armor. Pale green horse. It tunneled through the ground. Growing faster than was possible except for the power that was Soulwood. I fed my land to the vampire tree. It was eager. It was hungry. So was my land.Blood. It wanted a sacrifice.
So did the demon. But the earth power of Soulwood slipped through his clawed fingers.
The boy who called the dark power cut a still-sleeping vampire. Jason whispered, “Not enough. Not enough. I need more.” The vampire woke, screamed in terror, and bled. The dark fist wrapped around the vampire and sucked the undeath from him. The vamp disintegrated into ash.
SWAT retreated from the dark power and T. Laine threw up ahedge of thornsto protect them.
B’KuL’s hand whipped back to Jason. Its forefinger sliced the skin of Jason’s chest. Reached inside. Jason made a strange sound, strangled, shocked, full of terror. The demon was attacking him. Possessing him. The bargain Jason had planned to betray was instead folding back onto him, devouring him.
And I had given that same boy to the Green Knight. I followed the tree through the earth and up through the openings in the walls made by the local flora as it burst into leaf. Soulwood and the vampire tree unfurled; vines and thorns andreaching tendrils wrapped themselves around the blood witch. The tree extruded thorns and jammed them inside him. Blood splattered. Feeding the earth. I had a momentary fear that the demon would turn on the tree, but it seemed that the fist of B’KuL had no frame of reference for the vampire tree that was stealing its prey. The demon didn’t even notice.
Jason writhed in agony. But the tree wanted more, cutting into the life and undeath of humans and vampires in cages, even as it claimed the blood witch. I hauled the tree back from the cages. Consumed with its own needs, its own bloodlust, it almost refused my call to save the prisoners.
The sun set. The power of the curse grew.
Through the vines and leaves and thorns I felt/saw/tasted/knewthe energies of the blood sorcerer. And Loriann, racing into the fight to save her brother.
Elsewhere, the blood and the power of the vampires were being spilled in the house. The ones in cages, the Green Knight and I ignored. The ones free and barricaded in the back of the room, those the tree and I went after. Roots and thorns grew into them. Living stakes. The vampires awoke and fought. But the tree, sentient and eager, would not be stopped.Taking a sacrifice. Just like the demon did,I thought.
From belowground, local vines pushed through cracks in the concrete slab foundation and into the walls, the wood once grown on nearby land. The wood in the walls, awakened by my blood,bloomed. Put out roots. Growing. They twined with the vampire tree. Roots and vines and thorns. Jason screamed in unearthly agony. Dying.
