White Witch, Black Curse

I turned to Ford to see that the green shimmer was gone and that Holly was crying beside him, in the curve of his body. Ford shifted his face off the cement and relief spilled into me. He was alive. Thank you, God. I got to my feet and tugged my coat straight, rubbing my sore hand where a new scrape and probably another bruise would run come morning. But it was done. All that was left was the mopping up.

He was going to snatch her baby? I thought, shivering as I turned Mia over with a foot. Glancing at the gun in my hand, I debated hitting her with one of my few remaining sleepy-time potions since I couldn't make a circle to contain her. But if I'd given her a concussion, the charm might send her into a coma. I'd just have to watch her like the predator she was until the FIB caught up with me. And Mia was a predator. A freaking tiger. A crocodile shedding crocodile tears.

"Stay there, sweetheart," I whispered to Holly when she crawled to pat at her mother's face and cry baby tears. I couldn't help her. God help me, why did I feel like such a bad guy?

The soft scrape of wood on cement whispered, and I spun, gun pointed. Not only was Tom awake, but he was moving, and I gaped at him as he scooped his wand up from the floor with his bandaged hand and looked at me from under his raggedy bangs, hatred in his every motion. I'd hit him. I knew I'd hit him! This wasn't fair!

"Anticharm gear," he explained, rubbing his nose and wiping away the blood. "You think I'd come against you without something to defuse your infamous little blue sleepy-time charms? You need to diversify, Rachel."

My eyes narrowed, and my grip shifted. "It will probably hurt if I hit you in the eye," I threatened.

"Don't. Move," he said, and I froze. That wand was a lot more dangerous. Seeing Holly unattended, his eyes took on a satisfied glint.

"Tom," I said, shaking my head in warning. "Don't be stupid. You give Holly to Walker, and Mia will freaking kill you."

"I think she'll be more angry at you than me," he said, twirling the wand dexterously. "Or at least she will be when I get done with her. Back up. Get away from the kid."

I had nothing. Well, I could talk him to death, maybe. "This is a bad idea," I said as I edged away while he moved closer, pushing me from Holly with his presence. "Think about this. You're not going to walk away from it, and if you do, you won't be alive for long."

"Like you know a bad idea from a good one," he said, motioning with his wand for me to keep moving back. "If a human can touch the kid, then I can, too," he added as he scooped her up.

"Tom, don't!" I exclaimed, and Holly keened, an eerie coo of pleasure and delight that chilled me to my core. The man stiffened. His eyes bulged, and his mouth opened in a silent scream. He fell to his knees, and I tensed to knock the child from him, only to fall back and cower as a wave of bright force burst from him. I couldn't see it—my eyes were blind to it—but it was there. I could feel it, and my skin tingled, as if a thousand summers were pressing on me in the smothering dark of the sunken room.

Tom's cry of pain echoed against the curved ceiling and came again a thousand times. Back arched, he hung poised as Holly pressed her hand to his cheek, rapture infusing her.

"Holly, no!" Remembering my gun, I aimed at Holly and pulled the trigger. The ball went wild when someone hit my arm.

Shocked, I dropped back when I saw Al. Pierce was behind him, looking afraid, and that chilled me to my core. "What are you doing?" I asked, shocked.

But the demon, in his green velvet and with his reddish complexion, only smiled. "Celero inanio," he whispered, and I yelped, dropping my suddenly hot gun.

"Damn it, Al," I said, frustrated as I shook my hand. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping you alive, itchy witch." He held a warning hand out behind him at Pierce, and the man rocked back. "Stay put, or the deal is off and you're really dead."

Deal?

Tom moaned in pain. I didn't care if he was a black witch. No one should die like that. Giving up on any help from Al or Pierce, I ran to help him, only to fall when Al tripped me. Gasping, I fell, and pain whitened the world as my cheek scraped the cement when I didn't turn my head fast enough. I looked up, shocked into stillness.

It's Tom's life, I thought in despair as I shook the hair from my eyes. Holly was taking him, like she had tried to take me. The room pulsed with the force of Tom's soul, a hidden heartbeat of intent that measured his life. I could feel it as his aura was sucked away and nothing was left to hold his soul to his will. And it was fading.

A soft scuff behind me was my only warning, and I yelped again when Al roughly pulled me up. He grinned, his flat blocky teeth glinting in the light from Mia's lantern. "Too late," he said, smiling as he watched in macabre rapture, almost salivating at the death of the black witch and making me wonder if Al was here to collect on a debt. "Too late and perfect timing."