With a cry of frustration, Algaliarept pulled his fist back. His red eyes glared with a frustrated wrath, and the circle holding him crackled with energy. It dripped from the sides, hissing as it met the tile floor and magnetic chalk outline. Shaking, Trisk rose from her knee, her burned hand cradled to her middle. “You will . . . stay,” she panted, panicked but steady.
“For now—little bird,” Algaliarept snarled.
Only now did Trisk turn to see Daniel out cold and slumped against the hallway’s wall. A ribbon of alcohol from the dropped bottle was running a slow path to her circle, and with a frightened quickness, Trisk took off her lab coat and dropped it on the rivulet, stopping its advance. From behind the barrier, Algaliarept made an angry noise of frustration.
Flustered, Trisk looked up and down the otherwise empty hall before grabbing Daniel’s foot with her good hand and awkwardly pulling him into the room. Still hunched, she went back for the master bypass key.
“You will be mine, someday,” the demon intoned. “And then you will pay for this, in ten times the agony you put me through.”
Trisk eyed Daniel, hoping he was okay. “I didn’t make you push your hand into a focused barrier,” she said. “Leave.”
“You just told me to stay,” Algaliarept said, giving his tortured hand a shake. It wreathed itself in a gray mist, dissipating to show untouched skin and unblemished lace. “Now you tell me to go,” he muttered, examining his ruddy hand for signs of damage. “I want to see you explain me to him. You looked adorable together in your matching lab coats.” The demon’s eyes widened, and his form went misty until he reappeared looking like Kal. “Well, well, little bird. Your passions are showing. We are alike, are we not? Trenton Lee Kalamack and your human?”
She shuddered as Kal’s full name fell from the demon’s lips. Maybe it had been a mistake to give it to him. Trisk looked up from Daniel to Algaliarept, the demon posing coyly within his circle of confinement. “Apart from the eyes, of course,” the demon added, having apparently forgotten his attempt to escape. Trisk knew it would haunt her nightmares.
“You look nothing alike,” she lied, testing the strength of her singed hand and wincing. Daniel would be fine, spelled into unconsciousness until she woke him. Flustered, she took her purple ribbon off and dropped it back into the dusty box before going to peek out into the silent hall, close the door, and lean back against it. Algaliarept stood, beaming at her.
“Demon, I banish you directly to the ever-after,” she said, and Algaliarept pouted.
“No. I want to stay,” he said petulantly. “I promise I’ll be good. Quiet as a mouse. Hell, I’d even be a mouse if you wanted.” His gaze dropped to Daniel. “Did you intentionally find a boyfriend who looks like an elf, or was it purely subconscious?”
She said nothing, embarrassed, and Algaliarept’s smile widened. “You envy Trenton Lee Kalamack?” he said, and her jaw clenched. “You hate him, but envy him as well. Of course you do!” His face lit up, scaring her. “I have an idea . . . growing in my brain,” he said. “It will solve all your problems, but you won’t like it.”
Daniel doesn’t look like an elf. Bothered at the thought, she edged closer, knowing he did, apart from the glasses. “Algaliarept,” she said forcefully. “I banish you directly to the ever-after. Go now.”
But Algaliarept pressed closer to the circle, his excitement obvious. “Why call me if you don’t listen to my counsel?”
“Go!” she shouted, and his expression clouded.
“Good God. You don’t have to be so bitchy,” he said, and with an inward-rushing pop of air, he vanished.
The candle went out. Not trusting he was gone, Trisk leaned forward. But the ash had vanished, and knowing it meant he was no longer there, she let her circle drop. The energy flowing through her left with a scintillating feeling of ice sparkles against her burned hand, and she exhaled. At the ceiling, a faint residue of burned fat remained. She’d leave it for Kal to find. He’d know she’d been summoning demons, and the little dipstick might give her some respect lest she set the demon on him. Not that she ever would. Summoning demons wasn’t illegal, but setting them to kill people was.
Edging past Daniel, she wiped the chalk lines to nothing and swept up the salt, her motions awkward with her burned hand. She grimaced at her whiskey-soaked lab coat, putting it and everything else into the dusty box to take home. Finished, she crouched beside Daniel. “Ita prorsus,” she whispered to undo the charm she’d knocked him out with, and Daniel took a quick breath. Eyes still shut, he straightened his legs, grimacing.
“Something is burning,” he slurred, then blinked his eyes open. “Trisk?”
She smiled thinly, wishing she could turn on the exhaust fan, but the stench might bring someone investigating. “You passed out,” she said. “Why are you drinking whiskey?”
Struggling, he sat up against the desk. “That’s not whiskey. It’s regret, with an ‘I’m screwed’ chaser.” He felt the back of his head, wincing. “Ow. You heard, right? The government is sending someone to look over my work before they buy it. You weren’t at the meeting. How come you never go to meetings? Everyone else has to.”
“It’s in my contract,” she said, glad he wasn’t talking about demons and candles and circles. With some luck, the episode would be lost in his drunken stupor. Thank God. If he remembered, Daniel would be killed to keep the silence. “Are you okay?”