Neon Blue by E Frost (best book reader .TXT) 📗

one’s an Air elemental. I wonder if that’s a bad sign. The Walking Dead’s sphere is Air.

I bow to the two elementals and call gifts into my hands. A river stone for the ondine, imbued with a charm to let her walk on land. She takes it from me with a bow of her wet green head.

I walk around the edge of my cauldron to give the other gift, a salt crystal, to the pyroclast.

The air shimmers. Three nethancs appear in a rattle of leathery wings. They hiss in a chorus, twisting their reptilian heads around to stare at the pyroclast and the ondine.

Three. Whoa.

I give the salt crystal to the pyroclast, who consumes it immediately with a fiery leer at the ondine. While they’re glaring at each other, I call gifts for the nethancs. Steaks. Rare. One from my kitchen counter and two from my freezer. They’re going to have to take them cold. I wasn’t expecting more than one.

The Air elementals don’t seem to mind. They snap down the steaks in one bite. In concert, all three scaly necks moving as one.

A hydra. Water and Air.

I bow to each Elemental again but am careful not to thank them aloud. Old magics don’t like to be thanked by young magics. They find it insulting.

I reach and draw my churi out of its shadow-sheath. I salute each of the Elementals with it, and then the Squire, drawing him into the ritual. Stooping, I plunge the tip of the churi into the earth just inside the glowing sand circle, and begin to draw the third circle of protection.

As soon as the churi touches the ground, the final circle flares to life. It’s usually just a line in the dirt, drawn with the churi and sealed with a drop of my blood. Tonight it’s a blazing silver circle, balls of witchlight leaping off it and zipping up into the trees.

Oh, magic is definitely walking tonight.

I lift the churi and power ruffles along my skin, hot, cool, wet, gritty.

A swirl of magic and I rise into the air.

I grimace. I don’t mind levitating, but I prefer to do it on purpose. And I prefer not to do it when I’m wearing my ritual robe, which rises around me, giving the Squire a view of my bare legs that will probably offend him down to the tips of his fae boots.

But no gift from the Elements should be refused. I rise until I can hover over my cauldron, twist to wrap myself in the steam, and reach into the front pocket of my robe for the surgical tape.

The Dead don’t give me any time. They sweep through my hearth room in a screaming, swirling tide. My wards have held them off long enough and now that I’m protected, they’re not waiting any longer. They roar through the ring of trees, pressing inward, spectral hands reaching for me. The pentacle glows, its moonlight outline reaching toward the sky. The two circles blaze, gold and silver, so bright I’m blinded.

I reach for the wards, tamping them down so I can feel the Dead. Closing my eyes makes it easier. The Dead are a glowing blue stream. Individual faces bubble up through the flow. There are many here tonight who have something to say. In opening the way for my ghost, I’ve called a whole host of unquiet Dead.

I focus, grasping my churi between my hands to whittle my concentration down until it’s as sharp and bright as the edge of my blade.

Peter’s face flashes behind my eyes.

I’m so startled – I wasn’t thinking about him, wasn’t thinking about him at all – that my eyes snap open.

And there, just at the edge of one of the points of the pentacle, framed by the leathery wings of two of the nethancs, is my ghost. That faint, female outline. A hint of a scent, sweet and powdery, like an old woman. A suggestion of silver-gray curls. They bob as the ghost twists, writhes. She screams. High-pitched. Agonized. The nethancs on either side of her shudder, and, beside me, the Squire raises his sword.

I hastily shut my eyes. She looks exactly the same in my Inner Sight. But the stream of the Dead doesn’t. It’s gone black and what’s reaching out of it now are nightmares, skeletal hands, skulls, the snapping, snaggle-toothed jaws of ghouls.

The Dead are walking, and they are pissed off.

I sheathe my churi and hold my hands out to my ghost. Talk to me, I invite.

Please . . . make it stop. She flutters, her shape compressing and expanding, like a candle flame in a draft. I’ve never seen a ghost do that before.

Tell me how. Her pain is clear, and very real. But I have no idea how to help her.

Make him stop! She screams and the Dead scream with her. I feel their screams like a hundred sharp stones pelting me. A thousand tiny cuts open on my exposed arms and legs. Blood oozes, drips into the cauldron.

My cauldron’s used to the taste of my blood, but tonight, with so much magic abroad, just a few drops enflame it. Light explodes all around me. Protective light. Ghost-killing light.

I turn, spinning in the air, wrapping the light around me before it tears into the Dead. The spirit-stream circles wildly, hands clawing, faces stretched wide in silent screams.

I twist, turning in a tight circle, pulling the light into me. Firelight, witchlight, ghostlight, all arc toward me, wrap around me in multicolored streamers. I pull it into me, open my mouth wide and swallow it down. Feel it burn its way down into my stomach. Erupt stinging out of my pores. I’ll pay for this later, but for now it seems to quiet the Dead. When the screaming stops, I pause and try again.

Tell me how to make it stop, I ask the ghost.

She raises those black pits of eyes to me. “Thank you,” she whispers.

And then she’s gone.

The Dead go with her. The Elementals follow a moment later, winking out