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In Which Al Bares His Heart

I choked on a gust of Ever After grit suddenly flung into my face. As the little sparks of pain jolted me back to my body, I dove for the earth without even realizing why. On the heels of my bewilderment came a sudden blinding panic, as if all the shunned witches in the entire world were closing in on me with torches and pitchforks, and I screamed with the terror of it. And I wasn't the only one — all around me I heard the bellows of the gargoyles and the shrieks of surprised demons.

My eyes flew open as Ash landed beside me. But he, at least, had had the presence of mind to protect our asses, because his black protective circle bloomed to protect us from the mental onslaught of whatever horrors the seething cursed darkness was inflicting on us, plunging us into real darkness in the process. Techul's circle fell, he explained tersely. Fucking nexus curse — GAH. It wasn't until he eased himself from my mind that I realized he'd grabbed the joystick in my head so he could physically fling my body down, out of danger. I was too bewildered by what appeared to be a fireworks show exploding perilously close to our heads to be too mad about it. One of the lanterns had crashed into Ash's circle and would have set my hair ablaze before it rolled aside, had Ash's magic not lay between us. Stay down. And brace yourself —

"Bwah?" I managed, before this awful situation was compounded by a sudden, violent need to scream and crawl out of my skin with the worst case of the creeping heebie-jeebies I'd ever experienced. But my lungs couldn't draw breath. I writhed as what felt like a fishhook latched onto my intangible soul and some ghostly fisherman on the other end began reeling it in. Terrifying curses and shouts echoed from all directions, a cacophony of grinding gargoyles stumbling about, curses, explosions. The sensation waned, then waxed anew, even worse, after another gurgling cry was cut short. Cold emptiness filled the barrenness left behind, hurting like ice water on bare flesh, and I could swear I felt my aura guttering like candle flame in a draft. A woman's scream, high and agonized, echoed the cry that my soul couldn't manage to voice.

The sensation ceased abruptly, leaving me weak and shivering beneath Ash's body. I drew in lungfuls of the stinking, gritty air and I realized that he, too, was panting heavily and swearing under his breath. Something moved in my peripheral vision, and I groggily turned my head. A dark, man-sized mass leaned against the circle, outlined by bright red flashes of magic buzzing and crackling and singing the dark suit coat it wore as it slowly slid down. Techul, bent nearly double, had fallen against Ash's circle, but he was making no move to avoid the magic charring his clothing.

Ash's body jerked against me as he focused on something outside the circle, something that lay beyond in the darkness my eyes couldn't penetrate. I'm moving — make a new circle, Ash demanded, and when I didn't immediately comply, he sent me a stinging mental slap. Circle, Evie, NOW! He was up and away before I could even mentally voice the plaintive don't leave me, bursting through his own magic. The raspy sensations of panic arose anew as his protection vanished, tearing into my mind brutally. Far too sluggishly I forced my brain to comply with his order. But after a lifetime of panic attacks, making circles under pressure was something I could do. Circle. Make a circle. Got it. Techul fell across my legs once Ash's protective barrier vanished, but I had us both encircled again in an instant.

My circle was way more translucent than Ash's, so the feeble light of the lanterns could penetrate. But it still took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. Then I screamed, because my brain had finally processed that Techul had not simply been leaning over. Everything from mid-torso up was simply missing. It was his spattering blood from his exposed, stuttering heart that had been causing the magic of the circle to snap and crackle with little static shocks, and now that blood was spattering all over me. Holy shit! A curse did that?!

My mind went white. Whatever help I'd had to offer vanished into gibbering confusion. I've seen a lot of grim shit in my life, but the sight of Techul's pumping heart struck me with such blind panic that I flailed away, scrabbling backwards in the dirt like a crab to escape the sight, and burst through my own protective bubble in the process. The black-tinged green glow of my magic vanished just in time for me to see Pierce hammer Al with a curse that opened the demon's torso like a zipper, not a dozen feet away from me. It was exactly as gruesome as it sounds. Al couldn't even scream, and once more I fell limp with the horrific, nauseating sensation of the Collective curse, tapping into my immortal soul to power his resurrection. I fought to breathe as Pierce ducked and rolled to escape Ash's curse, bringing the witch within a foot of where I still lay sprawled and blood-spattered. The hand he raised was black with power, and his lips were already moving with the curse he intended for me.

"Pierce," I whispered, all the breath I had, and he hesitated. I'm not sure he'd known whom he'd been about to gut like a fish with that curse, but he definitely recognized me now. But he didn't lower the hand; he was debating whether I would live or die. And I couldn't even lift a stupid finger to protect myself; soul-siphoning and numb betrayal had stolen all my volition. But then Pierce's head shot up, and he launched himself away from the desperate curse Ash spat at him.

"RETREAT!" a voice called. Pierce shimmered and was gone, escaping back to reality. Another figure vanished from my sight as well, a robed figure with white hair. Oliver. A moment later the pressure of the curse-inflicted panic lifted as the large protective dome was reestablished.

Like most magical firefights, this battle had only taken seconds to decide, literally. It had ended once Succorbenoth had managed shut out the horrible panic-inducing darkness that surrounded and distracted us all. Knowing their advantage was about to be gone, the attacking witches had made their escape before they were trapped. Shivering with reaction, I stared at the carnage. Demons were still shouting angrily, battle lust thick in their voices.

Then they were gathering around their sole captive.

Brooke, face bloody and shirt soaked with gore, was sprawled in the dirt, clutching badly broken legs. I grimaced queasily when I saw the bones jutting through her left shin. She was panting with pain, or so I thought, until I saw the tense line of her jaw and the white-knuckled fingers. I looked up to see Dali several feet away, blood-soaked and white-faced, glaring at her with fury barely leashed.. My horrified eyes took in the extent of his injury, and my gorge rose. Dali had lost his entire right arm to a curse very like the one that had stolen Techul's head. A few inches to the left and he'd have joined Techul in being very, very dead. He spat the curse to heal the damage as I watched, but his attention was on his familiar. There was a battle of wills between them — Brooke was trying to speak the trigger word to invoke the black amulet clutched in her hand, and Dali was preventing her, his influence on her mind growing stronger by the moment as his pain eased. Her stiff fingers finally unclenched, and she whimpered with terror as her last chance at escape, be it an emergency teleport or a suicide charm, fell from her grasp. She was helpless to resist as Dali seized her wrist and forced a familiar bracelet of charmed silver over it.

I tore my eyes from the gruesome sight of Brooke's legs and Dali's blood-soaked suit with its missing sleeve to see that the gargoyles had mostly come through it unscathed, though two had lost large chunks of their stony flesh and oozed sluggish fluid that glowed orange. Most of the demons were uninjured as well. But Nebiros was also horribly dead. The witches had gotten him with a curse that had torn him entirely asunder. His legs were still twitching in the dirt, and his torso had somehow managed to get impaled on the horn of someone's gargoyle. As I watched, unable to look away, the wretched hunched beast stood and bowed its head, letting Nebby's limp body slide off with a sodden thump. Oh, God. Look away.

Except on my other side, there lay the fallen Algaliarept. My numb eyes skittered over the oddly colorful piles of freed organs that had burst from his chest and abdomen, pausing on his still-twitching heart. That did it. The strength left my limbs and my vision swam as I shook with dry heaves. I was only slightly comforted to hear another demon doing the same.

"How long?" Dali growled, and my attention snapped back to them. Demons were gathering to watch, and their collective, focused menace made my heart stutter. "How long have you had access to that level?"

Dali could have ripped the answer from her, reducing her mind to jelly in the process. But she was eager to tell him, apparently. "Since you forced your way into the Coven through my mind, asshole," she spat through a defiant grimace. "Did you think I wasn't watching how you did it? Why do you think I agreed to your plan?"

Dali looked taken aback for a moment. Then…

Had I really thought of Dali as a coldly rational businessman? The thin veneer of civilization was scoured away by her answer, and I knew that no deal in Hell would save Brooke now.

Ash was suddenly at my side, and he heaved me to my feet with a quick, merciless gesture. You can't help her. You don't want to watch this. Mind still sluggish with horror, I dimly heard Brooke's screams as six overly-adrenalized demons closed in, blocking her from view. Ash whisked us out of that place before I saw anything more. Thank God. I'd have enough trouble sleeping ever again as it was.

Ash. I couldn't even form a coherent thought. The sudden violence had turned off the rational, thinking portion of my brain pretty thoroughly. I was sick and miserable, and Therese writhed with silent shame at my utter ineptitude in battle. Hadn't I risen to the occasion before, when a homicidal elf was trying to kill me? What the hell had happened just now?

The soul-siphoning curse had struck, that's what. No wonder my demon companions had lost their brief battle at the Coven when I'd been roasted by Zee earlier today. Yes, now that I'd been inducted into the Collective curse, I could safely say that having a small sliver of my own soul shaved away for the purpose of resurrecting three temporarily-dead demons was, indeed, rather distracting. But demons, though easily distracted, are not easily ambushed, and with the conucopia of protective curses they wear, they are not easily killed. That three Coven witches had managed to inflict such damage so easily had clearly shocked the demons as much as it had shocked me. Demons, first and foremost, are warriors from birth. From before birth, actually. Demons who have been properly pre-natally cursed and properly trained, that is. Not demons like me, who freeze like a useless lump, then leave the protection of a circle in the middle of a freakin' battle.

Then there was that blinding panic… like madness personified, consuming rational thought. Who could think through that, unprepared?

My rationalizations didn't help. We rematerialized somewhere on the blistered surface of the Ever After, on a level plain of dim nothingness that stretched endlessly away. Still clutching Ash's arm like a lost child, I fought to breath through my rising anxiety. Oh, shit. The panic attack that was coming was going to be a bad one, I could tell. I raised my eyes to Ash, to find that he was similarly blood-streaked, his entire side soaked in gore… probably from rolling through the blood Techul had left behind. He was also breathing heavily, a hungry, dangerous expression on his face.

He whipped his head to face me and my heart stuttered again. I could see the battle lust transforming in his eyes to straightforward lust. Blood and battle and death apparently had a different effect on Ash than it did on me, and it wasn't difficult to guess what might be happening to the luckless Brooke right now. So I expected Ash to take my mouth in a savage kiss, even if I wasn't really sanguine with the prospect of a hot and heavy fucking out here on the surface, covered in another demon's blood. But he didn't kiss me. He searched my face, lips set into a snarl. Was he angry that I was going to panic, now?

But it wasn't entirely panic I felt. I was still thinking far too clearly. Panic attacks hit quickly, but this rising, bubbling morass of emotion was taking its slow time. I shuddered. What I felt was unacceptable, horrible, damning. To look too closely would be to admit the true evil locked in me.

But the moment I'd thought that, Ash gave me a stinging, impatient slap. I reeled back, shocked, but he grabbed my hair to force me to meet his eyes. "They're just fucking emotions," he hissed, voice intense and words clipped and quick. "There's no right or wrong, they just are. For once in your life, feel them. Don't make me get inside your head, Saenat. I will, if I have to," he said, lips curling into a mocking grin. "You know you couldn't stop me."

My chest was heaving now, anxiety morphing into rage. Overwhelming, furious rage, overlaying a mental state that was curiously calm and numb, devoid of fear. I fought to contain it, because the last time I'd felt this… no, the last times I'd felt this, the world went red and I lost all control. Terror and fury mingled and I vibrated under their alternating blows. I wanted to explode, to gather power and decimate those who threatened me. I wanted blood; I wanted pain. I wanted to annihilate. The lines burned around me, teasing, tempting, and it would be so easy to grab them all and just pull. "Last time—"

"You weren't mated then. Draw the lines through me."

The boiling morass of horrific non-Evie thoughts paused to allow me an incredulous scowl. "Are you crazy? I'll kill you!"

"You won't. Our bond won't let you. You must trust me. Draw the power. I'll guide you."

"No, I can't—" I couldn't. I'd kill us both, magic no-fry-zone bond or not. We'd come back, yes, but we might come back half-insane. Al had damaged my mind. I'd shift lines. I'd damage reality again. The enemies I wanted to crush weren't here, only the two of us. No! I clamped down on the rising waves, pain flaring in my chest as I fought the part of myself I'd named Therese. Therese was ascending to dominance anyway, and I feared that this time she'd stay ascendant forever. Under the weird red haze of whatever this mental state was, real panic reared its chaotic head and threatened to make this day even worse.

"Saenat." I refocused on Ash's face, panting with the effort to keep it all in. He was baring his teeth in a feral grimace, but he wasn't scared. "You are not Therese. There never was a Therese. Let go. And let me show you what we were bred to do."

Well, if he was wrong, here was my chance to prove it. Had I felt like I'd stepped into an abyss earlier today, when I'd discovered that I'd murder a friend to stay alive? Letting go, letting myself open to the rage inside me felt like I was choosing to sink into a smooth-sided well of oily dark liquid, seeing the light recede and knowing there was no escape, no way to climb out, no way to unleash this monster and yet remain myself.

Not sinking, Yvette. Rising. Metamorphosis. Let me guide you.

With my yazataksh to guide me, my familiar from whom I could draw the power, my new mate to anchor my mind, it was different. I reached for one line after another, drawing their energies greedily to myself, spindling and allotting them to the various nooks and crannies in my chi. White, singing, and vicious, they poured into me, even with Ash regulating the flow so as not to burn himself out. More and more poured in, until my body cramped with the magnitude of the tide I now held back. And I kept pulling, shaking, trembling with rage and pain and the rising need to do this, to truly reach for my own limits. Once before I'd tried this, and my mind had lost itself into those myriad threads of power. Another time, long, long ago, I'd pulled too fast and hard and the memory of the burning cold shredding my chi made me cringe. But now, this was right. This was power.

Dimly I heard Ash's swear of disbelief as I pulled and pulled and pulled. I tamed what I'd stolen, wrapping and spindling like a huge greedy spider trussing up a whole flock of fluttering swallows. The simmering rage began to ebb, to shift into the heady euphoria I'd felt before. But I was still whole, still anchored, and the terror of what I was doing transformed into a curious glee.

Ash whispered a curse into my ear, and without thinking I repeated it. "Diadtse tovidxo!" Silence surrounded us for a shimmering, liminal moment, and then energy tore from me in a geyser, shooting into the grim emptiness of the Ever After sky. "Mahia ethshae ogonove!" My voice was darker, louder, echoing about me like a force of nature. The energies pouring from me began to spin about like a huge cosmic wheel, though it was eerily silent in the eye of the vortex where we stood. I had to shut my eyes against the vertigo — it'd be a shame to end this grand display by puking all over my new mate, after all. Even with eyes closed, I still felt it, was still connected to the great dome of wildness that surrounded us.

I felt Ash move within my mind, shaping the flows ever so slightly, inducing eddies and whorls in the grand stream. He whispered again, adding his own influence to the mix. Creation energies continued to flow from me, massive and unstoppable, until I felt weightless and suspended in the rush. Dimly, I felt him take a firmer hold on me, but it was the eerily silent thunder of what I was doing that held my full attention. "Complete it, Saenat. Ikiku kavaosche."

I opened my eyes and found that we were both kneeling in a small, perfectly serene protective circle. Within it, there was utter silence, with unruffled sand beneath us, while without… eye-gouging energies ripped and tore about us, obscuring everything about the landscape and grim sky. "Holy—"

Ash laughed, then closed my eyes with gentle fingers. "Hush! You're not done. Finish it."

"Ikiku kavaosche," I gasped, and it was like flipping a switch. The last of my awareness over the massive energies around me snapped, and with it all of my control. The curse was reaching into the deepest recesses of the Collective, accessing their most devastating, powerful curses, and pressure began to build around us in wave after wave. It was only then that I realized we had an audience — I could feel the eyes of the Collective on us, even if they were trying their best to be silent. They, too, were lending a bit of their will to this… this… whatever the hell I was doing. Far from being irked about it, I felt a rush of pleasure. This was indeed what I was meant to do, and whatever it was I had the full approval of demonkind for doing it. Hopefully this would be a great comfort when I discovered what devastation I'd wrought…

Without thinking I reinforced Ash's circle around us, but the mounting pressure kept pulsing straight through it. It was striking me on the spiritual level, as if I were pitting my will against that of a deity of this plane, forcing changes in the very fabric of reality and feeling reality itself resisting. But the Collective fought back with me, and there was a silent, agonizing, blissful moment where the pressure finally broke. Abruptly the swirl about us became fountains of earth and fire as the energies broiled up, dissipating into the angry black sky. Then there was nothing but the distant thunder of what had to be billions of tons of white-hot rubble raining down in the distance.

"Time to come back to me, Saenat," Ash said, gently cradling my limp and very tingly body. Panting, I opened my eyes to gaze into his own, which were burning with fierce intensity. "Al was right."

Somehow I knew what he was referring to. Difference, not damage. Another knot of worry released in my chest, to be replaced by a new one. What the hell had I just done? Did I hurt you?

"No, you didn't harm me. Or yourself. Or anyone in reality," Ash said, anticipating my thoughts. "How do you feel?"

How did I feel? I moved a limb experimentally. It did follow my brain's commands, though it felt numb and clumsy, like my entire body had fallen asleep. I mentally assessed my mood, next. No white-hot rage, no fear, no triumph, no pain, no angry Therese, no scorched chi. Shocky? Bewildered? Serene? I finally settled on a serene, only slightly slurred, "Trippy."

Ash grinned at me, though his eyes were still fixed on me with that look I'd always considered feral and possessive. Indeed, his fangs were out, as were his claws, so I took this as a sign that whatever the hell had happened, he highly approved. "Yes, indeed. That's about how I felt, my first time." He dropped the circle, and heat poured in from all around. It wasn't unbearable, but it would become oppressive very shortly for anyone who hadn't been cursed to withstand it. I smiled, basking in the warmth. The Ever After surface was always so cold, but I'd definitely fixed that little problem for the moment. There was still a haze of stinking dust floating about, moving in fantastic eddies from the heat currents and obscuring the surface of the world beyond us. Squinting through it, I saw what appeared to be eight vague pillar-like shapes in a circle around us. The pungent stench of burnt amber billowed in, burning my nose. But I was well used to that aspect of the magic now, and it seemed to me that the earth of this reality had a right to complain when I'd just abused it so dreadfully.

"Your first time what?" I asked, as we waited for the dust to clear. Just outside the untouched sand that had been inside our circle, the ground was blackened, the sand fused into glass, and sloped down a bit. In the back of my mind, I imagined the two of us on top of an untouched spire amidst a smoking pit of devastation. The mental image was as ugly and ruinous as that rage had felt, and I tried not to let trepidation ruin the sense of peace I felt. I truly was a demon. I was making my own hell.

"This. The vyaximemnya. Eh… challenge? test? battle?"

"Rite of passage?" I offered hopefully.

"Not really. More of a state of mind." He shifted, sitting cross-legged in the dirt. He propped my still-tingly body against his chest, pressing his cheek to mine. After a hesitant pause, he said, "Do you want to see it?"

"Yeah, is there a curse to make this dust go away faster?" I asked, even though right at the moment something told me I really didn't want to use magic again until my body recovered.

"I meant my memory."

I froze. "Really? Yes!" I tried to turn to face him, but his arms locked me down. He was silent long enough that I wondered if he regretted offering.

"All right. I'll try to isolate it. It's really old. Just… give me a second."

Ash was going to share a personal memory with me. I'd wait for days if he wanted, though anticipation was killing me. Still, something in his voice was raising flags for me. Did I want to see a memory of his youth? Did I want to see what he was, long ago? Yes, of course I did. I'd chosen this man as mine, despite all his warnings that there were plenty of aspects of his past that I'd find difficult to accept, much less forgive. And yet… he'd gone exploring the deepest recesses of my soul, and only given me fleeting glimpses of his. Clearly he'd decided now was the time to start evening that score. Could my death and resurrection really have changed him that much? Surely not… and yet here he was, allowing me in.

"Okay. I've never done this before, so it might be a bit overwhelming." His arms tightened around me. "Just try to remember that you're not really there, and you're not really me."

And suddenly I was Ash.