Unchained

Chapter 23

Reynard’s portal wobbled and slowly began to fold in on itself, the disk of burning energy collapsing like a wilted flower.

Holly caught the church, held it over her head, and danced backward. “Hey, you! Over here!”

But Tony couldn’t be distracted anymore. He was clearly fighting exile to the Castle—fighting and winning. Reynard swore. A portal was hard enough to maintain without a demon trying to slam it shut. He could feel the other guardsmen beyond the opening, doing what they could to help, but Reynard was the strongest.

Not strong enough, at least not this time. The collector demon might not be as powerful as a soul eater or a fire demon, but it was still hellspawn. There would be no quiet surrender.

Reynard let the portal go, dropping his arms as it swirled shut.

They needed to regroup.

He knew from experience that demons were more often caught through persistence than force. Backing off now wasn’t defeat, just the beginning of a testing process. Reynard would find the creature’s weakness. He was the captain of the Castle guard. Fighting monsters was what he did.

He wiped his hands on his jeans, getting ready for the next round. A perverse part of him was enjoying the challenge—but he was tired. Being near the urn wasn’t enough. He needed to find it and get back to the Castle.

That was the last place he wanted to go. Then again, he might not make it there. An end was coming either way, but Reynard couldn’t afford to think about that right now.

The thing that had been Tony the bookseller opened huge, fanged jaws and screeched like a banshee, the sound rattling bones and teeth. The sour stink of demon magic rolled through the store as it stretched nightmare wings.

Huge and dark, the demon swelled to fill the front of the store, its shadow creeping across the ceiling like an advancing tide. The air grew dark, as if the lights were fading. In the false twilight, there seemed to be nothing to breathe, the air itself robbed of vitality.

Holly threw a ball of energy. The dark tide shrank back, but only for a moment. She turned and bolted down the aisle, the miniature church under her arm. With a huge rush of air, the demon flapped its wings and launched into the air, sailing after her like inevitable doom.

Reynard charged forward to intervene, but it was too late. No sooner had Holly’s feet touched the tiles of the main mall than the demon grabbed her shoulder in its beak, plucking her into the air.

Reynard lunged for her. Holly’s hand brushed his, but couldn’t catch hold. The miniature church fell from her grip, exploding into a rain of stinging shards as it smashed to the floor. They scattered with an oddly musical sound.

With a snarl, Alessandro sprang, sword ready for a two-handed blow. The bound took him ten feet in the air, using the vampire’s power of levitation. As the silver blade arced through the air, the demon faded into mist. Holly dropped like a stone, but Alessandro caught her in one arm, holding her as they landed.

Reynard kept his eyes on the demon. It spun, winding itself to a long rope of black mist, and threaded itself between the plain doors across the mall marked, STAIRWAY TO PARKING. His first instinct was to storm after it, but a jolt of panic pushed everything else aside.

Where was Ashe?

Ashe sat bolt upright with a rasping gasp, nearly colliding with Reynard’s concerned face. Someone had rolled her over and pulled the paper off her face. She was mummified in drawings of baskets, chicks, and bunnies. “Get. This. Off of me!”

Three pairs of hands began unwrapping her. Holly was to her left, Alessandro at her feet. The vampire gave her a look from under his brows, amber eyes amused.

“It’s not funny!” Ashe snapped.

“You look like an Easter egg,” he replied, all suave calm.

“I thought you had smothered,” Reynard growled, deadly serious. “How do you feel?”

“Fine,” Ashe said automatically. She was panting, trying to catch up on lost oxygen. Her head hurt—but she wasn’t broken or bleeding, so that made her fit for duty.

Reynard’s expression said he understood her need to fight.

Ashe shook off the last of her wrappings and clambered to her feet. The card store looked like a snowstorm had hit it. Drifts of pastel paper covered the floor, but at least they were mercifully lifeless. I’m sending e-cards from now on.

“The demon headed for the stairs down to the parking area,” said Reynard. “My suggestion is that the trip downstairs is a diversion. Sooner or later, it will return to its hoard. We can trap it there.”

Alessandro nodded. “Got it.”

“I’m just afraid Tony’s gone back to human form and driven away already,” Ashe said.

“Not with those sirens going,” Alessandro put in. “The police are cordoning the place off. We’ve got about two minutes before they find us here.”

Ashe checked her weapon. “Then let’s get to it.”

Alessandro took Holly’s hand and strode toward the store entrance, cards kicking up around his feet like autumn leaves. Ashe and Reynard followed.

By the time Ashe and Reynard reached the main mall corridor, police and reporters were everywhere. From the corner of her eye, she saw Gary, the bookstore clerk, trying to shoo some of the reporters back out the front door. It was a lost cause. The press had found a breach in whatever official barrier had kept them out, and the whole notion of security had collapsed like a paper bag full of water.

“What is this?” Reynard snapped, raising his voice to be heard above the babble of voices.

Ashe dragged him from the path of a determined-looking woman brandishing a mic. “Welcome to your first modern disaster scene. Smile for the cameras.”

The city had only three TV stations and a handful of radio stations, but there seemed to be more press than that. Of course, police officers, firefighters, paramedics, mall management, and what looked like the health department added to the fun.

She also saw hellhounds, werewolves, and some groggy-looking vamps she knew by sight. Alessandro must have called in his troops.

Ashe had lost track of her sister. She elbowed through the crowd, which was growing thicker as they neared the demon’s hoard. She couldn’t see Alessandro, either. Growing less and less polite, Reynard began clearing a path. She had to admit, there was something about pure male aggression that worked like a charm when it came to managing a milling crowd.

An invisible line held the crowd back a dozen feet from the demon’s lair. Still too close for common sense, but at least no one was sticking a tape recorder into the demon’s beak. The hounds and wolves were moving forward, helping the cops move everyone back. Ashe shoved through to the front, ignoring the curses raining down on her from the cameramen as she spoiled their shots.

The demon was looming in the corner of the empty store, wings spread wide, black eyes glistening like something wet and foul. For the moment, it was pinned down. Holly and Alessandro crouched behind piles of the demon’s shopping, Holly zapping the hellspawn whenever it tried to move, Alessandro protecting her from the objects the demon sent spinning their way.

Reynard ran forward in a crouch, ducking a set of copper-bottomed pots sailing through the air.

Ashe hurried after him, thinking hard. There was nothing she could do to beat up this demon. She was strong and a good fighter, but this needed high magic, and she had none. A sick feeling bubbled up in her, expanding to fill every cell to bursting with acid knowledge that she had once had that power and thrown it away.

Reynard was opening the portal again. It hovered over their heads, swirling energies of green and orange. The edges of it seemed burned, reality melting away like film caught in a projector. Ashe thought she caught a glimpse of Mac on the other side, ready with his men.

Standing poised, his lean swordsman’s body a study in leashed potential, Reynard raised his hands. A cold glow began to gather around them like spectral gloves. Ashe caught her breath. She had never seen this kind of magic before.

The light spread from hand to hand, growing in crystalline geometry. Cold as Jack Frost, precise as a spider’s web, the chill radiance rose as far as the ceiling, holding the demon’s darkness in a snow-white cage.

She stood spellbound a moment, but then pulled herself away to search the fallen piles of debris for the urn. She moved as quickly as she could, but the magic in the air was so thick every motion dragged, like walking underwater.

Holly’s fight with the demon had been brief but destructive. China had fallen and smashed. Books had been trampled, toys broken. Worry clenched her lungs, making breaths come hard. He said the urn was just pottery. It can’t be safe in this mess. She followed the piles to the other side of the store, forcing herself to focus. If she let her attention wander, got sucked into the spectacle of the portal and the crowds, she’d never make it through the mass of things the demon had gathered.

But she could tell the demon was fighting, struggling to stay in the world. A shock wave shuddered the floor. People screamed. Boxes toppled. Ashe grabbed the wall to steady herself.

And there she saw it, where the boxes had fallen. A stoppered pottery jar, decorated with gold, and beautiful in the simple curves of its shape. She began to run toward it, the heavy magic in the air making everything happen in slow motion.

Reynard felt the demon straining against the pull of the portal, like a huge dog fighting its leash. Reynard had learned from their earlier skirmish, and adjusted his technique. A regular portal wouldn’t drag the demon through, but with the added strength of the guardsmen on the other side, and with Holly Carver beside him, Reynard had made the portal into a vacuum. They could not fight the demon hand-to-hand, but the combination of their magic could suck the creature right back to where it belonged.

If this went well, no one else would be hurt, and no more property would be destroyed. That did not mean it would be easy.

Reynard made himself the focus of the spell. Power crashed through him, a raging torrent fed by sorcery and witchcraft. His body was mere flesh and bone, not enough to contain it all, but his warlock blood directed the magic like a wick in oil. It was brutal but effective.

Burning pain flared like an awl piercing the length of his nerves. He hurt worse when the demon struggled, every thrash, every twist against the portal’s pull a searing jolt. The moment the demon faltered with exhaustion, the punishment stopped. Reynard felt hollowed out, a dry sponge with mere membranes to shape the nothingness inside.

And then the demon began fighting again.

In a remote part of his mind, he was conscious of sweat gluing his clothes to his skin. He dropped to one knee, bracing himself. I am a guardsman. I am a weapon.

The demon’s voice slid into his mind. Let me go. Take your soul, but let me go free.

Reynard didn’t answer, refusing to let his mind waver for an instant.

All I want are a few things to amuse me. Is that so terrible? A few pots and pans? A few books? This world has so much. Surely it can spare a bit?

The demon strained forward, beak snapping, wings thrashing, trying to cover its treasure with the stain of its shadow. Reynard roared at the agony, letting out the pain before it broke his mind. The demon reared, flapping its great wings.

Freedom! You want it, too! I can taste the bitter gall of yearning in your thoughts!

That was Reynard’s weak spot, his Achilles’ heel. No matter what he achieved, no matter how many lives he saved, he was forever chained to the misery of the Castle. No matter how this battle ended, there would be no joyous future, no hero’s triumph.

So there was no reason to spare himself. Duty, dignity, and death.

Resentment and frustration had boiled inside Reynard for centuries, but he could use that. Furious, he thrust all the power he could hold at the creature.

Holly and the others dug deep, answering the demand of Reynard’s attack. He hammered at the demon, rage lending strength.

The onslaught pushed, shoved, drove the dark shadow into the portal. He felt the magic of the other guardsmen sink claws into the demon’s body. But the creature would not surrender its hoard. It made one last lunge forward, desperate to claim its treasure—chained by its lust for objects as surely as Reynard was chained to his curse.

The magic broke, like an elastic band strained beyond endurance. Power recoiled, slamming into the demon, smashing it to smithereens. The explosion ripped through the empty store, hurling the piles of lamps, toys, movies, and everything else into the walls.

Reynard, the guardsmen, and everyone else flew like discarded dolls. The last thing Reynard remembered was that the blinding pain had finally stopped as he was sucked into the Castle along with the demon.

Ashe dove for the urn, letting the huge force hurl her toward the fragile vessel and the life inside.