It was something he was dying to know, needed to know if he wanted to mimic her. And yet…“You are slime, Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos,” he intoned, the barrier popping when he poked a gloved finger into it. “And I will have you stirring my spells before the year is out. My current familiar is wearing thin and could use the help.”
“Stop,” Nick demanded, his gaze on the sudden sheen of black racing over the bubble. It was Al’s aura, and if the demon took the circle, it would fall. “I said stop!”
Gaze fixed on Nick, Al made a fist, pain arcing through him as he pushed it harder against the shifting band of time separating them. But the circle was drawn in blood, not salt, and he jerked his hand free as dark energy boiled and burned.
“You aren’t getting through that alive,” Nick said, but his confidence was cracked. It was all Al needed.
“Then we will die together,” he vowed, and in a swirl of energy, he dissolved, re-forming as a dog from hell. Snarling, he leapt at the barrier, yelping as it flashed a brilliant green and flung him back.
“Algaliarept, I banish you!” Nick shouted, ashen faced as he retreated. “I demand that you leave this place immediately and go directly to the ever-after. Do not stop on the way. Leave now! Now!”
The strength of the curse shocked through Al, the pain almost sweet as he forced himself to remain despite the pull, slavering like a mad thing as he stared at the loathsome human. It wasn’t just that Nick had chained him with a sliver of knowledge. It wasn’t that he had ruined another one of his books. The man was slime. Morgan deserved better.
“If you crease my books again, I will rip your throat out,” Al said, his canine jaws managing the words as a real dog could never do.
And then he gave in and vanished, letting the ancient elven curse pull him back to the ever-after, the demons’ pride and hubris made terrifyingly real.
Or as real as anyone can expect,he thought as he found himself in his library, safely underground and away from the swirling red sands and gritty wind at the surface. It was all that was left of their paradise. Huffing in satisfaction, he wrapped the image of a Victorian dandy about himself once again, shaking out the lace at his cuffs and brushing the green velvet frock coat of the last tingle of magic. There was an intoxicating security here among his books that even his spelling kitchen lacked. The multitude of tomes were arranged in a pattern only he knew, and the scent of power was as tangible as the thin film of dust upon the oldest. Thoughts made real: the original magic, one might say.
“I knew the dog would scare the shit out of you,” he said with a laugh—his smile fading when he saw his book, his abused, beautiful book, there on the table beside his chair.
“Ceri!” Al scooped it up, his fingers trying to smooth the creases as he noted what curses Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos had favored with his abuse. “Ceri! Tea!”
“Coming!” came back faintly, the elf’s voice holding an unusual amount of bother.
Mood introspective, Al touched the water-damaged cover, silently promising the leather and ink revenge for the violence wrought upon it. The book wasn’t alive in any sense of the word. But the pain in him was real.
Perhaps,he thought as he ran a gentle finger across the damaged spine. Perhaps learning how to mimic Rachel in the hopes of tricking her into the ever-after was not worth damaging his library. He could not fix the abuse.But Newt can…
“Your steps smell of reality.”
Ceri’s soft, somewhat dry tone turned him around. A fiber mat from the Asia steppe was tucked under one arm, and a clay pot from the Brazilian rainforests was in her grip, two tiny cups stacked atop. She herself was in a flowing silk gown from no era on earth. The elf dressed as if she was still a fey princess, even if she was a slave—favored, but a slave all the same.
“You know I don’t approve of mixing eras,” he complained.
Ignoring him, she unrolled the mat atop the table and began to pour out the tea. “Why do you let him destroy your books?” she asked, clearly appalled.
Al flipped his coattails and sat in his indulgent chair. “I didn’t let him. He claims it’s still readable and therefore no foul can be called. Technically he is correct. It is readable.” Focus distant, he held the cup under his nose, breathing the fragrant steam. Jasmine. Not his favorite, but it hid the stench of burnt amber better than most.
Taking liberty with her station, Ceri sat on the footstool and sipped at her tea. “I can recopy it. That’s it. But it will take me from my other tasks.”
His head moved in a slow bob. “The original is not to be destroyed.” Al looked at his gloved hands, curling them under into a fist. “I have warned him. He won’t do it again.”
Ceri eyed him over the rim of her cup. “Don’t trust him. You can’t convince someone who dog-ears books to not do it again. It’s a chronic disease.”
Al huffed. “I will keep my own counsel, elf.”
A flash of anger lit her, a flicker of her old self, seldom seen anymore. “You say that like it’s an insult.” Stiff and bitter, she stood, topping off her cup before walking off. “It’s not an insult!” she shouted over her shoulder.
He couldn’t help his grin at her pique. For all the skills he’d taught her, she was helpless—and his smile widened when he sipped his tea and found it bitter. She’d turned it.
“Little revenge,” he whispered, then hesitated, eyebrows high as he looked at his library. “What a good idea.”
Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos would summon him again and he would go; the lure to know more about Rachel was irresistible. Besides, he had warned him. If the wizard so much as sneezed on another book, there would be consequences.
But to capitalize on it. That…would take some prep.
Coattails furling, he rose, motions fast as he went to his shelves and ran his fingers over the spines to find something he could afford to lose. A wicked smile creased his brow as he drew a badly copied version of a much more valuable tome from the shelf with a dry hiss.
