“You’re very calm for a man covered in demon blood,” the demon observes from the circle. His red eyes track Knox’s movements with an unnerving intensity, dragging down his body and back up with an openness that would be indecent if it weren’t so deliberate. “Is this a regular evening for you, then?”
“This isn’t even the worst bodily fluid I’ve had on me this week,” Knox replies back, and caves in the skull of another creature.
The demon laughs despite himself. It’s a sharp, startled sound, warm in a way Knox does not expect, and it cuts off abruptly when another crack of light splits up his forearm. He hisses through his teeth, curling his hands into fists at his sides.
“I think I found it!” the witch shouts. “There’s a banishment spell, but it’s—it says I need a blood sacrifice to close the circle and send the entity back.”
The warehouse would be awfully quiet, if it weren’t for the growling, snarling beasts still lingering in the shadows.
“That doesn’t sound right,” the demon says. His voice has changed. The acidic humor is gone, replaced by something careful and flat. “Blood sacrifices are for binding, not banishing.”
“It says it right here.” The young man holds up the book, pointing to a page Knox can’t read from this distance. “A sacrifice of blood freely given to seal the doorway and return the summoned entity to its plane of origin.”
“Let me see that.” The demon leans toward the edge of the circle. The light flares and he jerks back with a snarl. “Dammit—”
He regroups. Turns those red eyes on Knox and lets his voice go smooth, reasonable, almost kind, as though they are two sensible people having a conversation over drinks instead of screaming over the sounds of things trying to eat them. “Just let me out of the circle. We all walk away. I’ll even deal with the dogs on my way out. Everyone wins.”
“Don’t break the circle,” Knox tells the witch firmly.
“Why not?” he asks.
“Because the second that circle breaks, he’ll possess you.” Knox meets the demon’s gaze. “He’ll wear your body, and I’ll have to kill you both. I’d rather not do that tonight.”
The demon grins at him. It’s slow and sharp and full of teeth, and it should not make Knox’s pulse kick the way it does.
“You can try,” the demon says softly.
Knox holds his gaze and feels that heat again, low and unwanted and entirely inconvenient, and turns away from it. Another creature crashes through the rift, and he buries the feeling under the weight of the mace.
They’re coming faster now. The rift is widening, the edges of it fraying, and the light pouring from the circle is getting brighter, hotter, more desperate. The demon is running out of time. They all are.
“Can you do the spell or not?” Knox asks.
“I can do it.” The young man’s chin comes up. His hands are still shaking, but there’s something stubborn in his freckled face, something that refuses to buckle. “I can do it. But I need the blood.”
Knox kills two more creatures in quick succession, the first with a swing that takes its jaw clean off, the second with a downward strike that drives it into the concrete. Then he hooks the mace back on his hip and crosses to the barrier in three long strides. He rolls up the sleeve of his coat and holds out hisforearm. The blessing rings on his left hand glow faintly in the violet light.
“Use mine.”
The witch stares at him. “You—are you sure?”
“Do it. Quickly.”
The witch drops the barrier just long enough to grab Knox’s arm. He produces a small silver knife from somewhere inside his jacket, so at least he came prepared for something, and draws a shallow cut along the inside of Knox’s forearm. The pain is bright and clean, nothing compared to the acid burns sizzling on his coat. Blood wells up, dark and vivid, and drips onto the concrete.
The witch works fast. He draws a chalk outline around the pooled blood with trembling but determined hands, connecting it to the summoning circle with a series of symbols Knox doesn’t recognize. Then he opens the book, presses his palm flat against the page, and begins to chant.
The air changes.
Knox feels it immediately, a pressure drop, a shift in the atmosphere, as if the entire warehouse has taken a breath and is holding it. The symbols on the floor begin to glow, not white but deep arterial red, the color of the blood that feeds them. The beasts in the shadows shriek, but don’t advance, which is a bad sign in and of itself.
The demon has gone quiet, which is the other sign something isn’t right.
Knox looks at him. The demon is staring at the chalk lines, at the blood, at the spreading red glow, and the fury is gone from his face. The sharp grin is gone. What’s left is something Knox can’t name, something that looks almost like recognition. Almost like dread.
“Boy,” the demon says slowly. “What exactly are you reading from?”
The witch doesn’t answer. His eyes are closed, his lips moving rapidly, and the chant is building, each word layering on the last, the sound of it vibrating in Knox’s teeth and the base of his skull.
