Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [80]
“There’s Magoth,” Cyrene said, poking him with the toe of her sandal. He moaned gently.
“I am not giving him his powers while he’s in the mortal world,” I said hastily.
“No, not all of them—just the ability to travel through rips and such.”
I thought about that for a minute, then looked at Jim. “Is that possible?”
“Maybe for someone who was familiar with the power, and had a firm grip on it, but you?” It made a little face. “Nope. Not doable.”
“What about Jim?” Cyrene asked brightly.
“I just told you I can’t do that without a direct order—”
“No, no,” she interrupted, turning to me with a sunny smile. “What if you give Jim Magoth’s powers? Then it can open up a rip for us and we can escape.”
“Leaving Jim in full possession of a demon lord’s powers,” I pointed out.
“I am so behind that idea,” Jim said.
“Well, I’m not. Cy—it’s a demon. As in . . . demon.”
“Why do people always talk about me like I’m not here?” Jim asked no one in particular.
“It’s a good demon,” she pointed out.
She had a point. Not a big one, but it was a point. I eyed Jim for a few moments, amused despite myself by the big puppy dog eyes it was giving me. “No,” I said, deciding it was just too big of a risk. “I can’t do it.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, then give the powers to me,” she said, disgusted.
“You? Miss ‘I am the purest thing that ever walked on two legs’? The one who pledged an oath to not do anything wrong for the next year? I bet Neptune would take a dim view of a proscribed naiad.”
She whomped me on the arm. “I’m an elemental being, silly. We can’t be proscribed.”
“You can’t?” I’d never heard that before. “Since when?”
“Since always. Why do you think I survived Magoth enthralling me? A thrall kills most beings, but not us. Elemental beings are particularly resistant to dark powers. Everyone knows that.”
“I didn’t know,” I said slowly, wishing for a second that doppelgangers were considered elemental beings.
“Well, now you do. And don’t pull Neptune on me again—using the power to get us out of here is a good act, not bad. He can’t say a thing about it.”
“Yes, but who’s to say that you won’t inadvertently use the powers in some other way?”
She straightened up, giving me a look that was almost intimidating. “I am over a thousand years old, Mayling. I think I can handle a little demonic power.”
I wasn’t convinced, but after another twenty minutes of arguing the point, I conceded that there really was no other option, and proceeded to—reluctantly, and with many dire warnings regarding the misuse thereof—transfer the power to her.
“This is going to be so handy,” Cyrene said, her voice filled with excitement as Jim guided her to the proper procedure for tearing open the fabric of space. “I can’t believe I never thought of doing this before. No more flying, Mayling! No more long lines at a portal station. No more trains and cars and ships! Just a rip and a tear, and a shove through the fabric, and voilà! Instant transportation.”
She swung her hands around as she spoke, tearing off little strips of reality.
“Don’t forget to focus on where you’re going,” Jim warned, ducking as one of her swings went a bit wild. “You have to keep that focus or you’ll end up in Timbuktu. Man alive! You almost took off my ear!”
“Sorry. Focusing.” Her face scrunched up as she held an image in her mind. “Now tear?”
“Yeah.” Jim retreated back to where I stood, well out of her reach. “You do know that there’s going to be a price to pay for this, right?”
“What do you mean, a price?” she asked, her eyes still screwed tight as she reached out blindly to select just the right possibility, the threads of location that would take us where she wanted.
“Dark power isn’t free. You use it, you pay a price.”
“I’m elemental—”
“Yeah, yeah, you can’t be proscribed, but you still pay a price.”
One of her eyes popped open as I asked, “What sort of a price? It’s nothing dangerous, is it?”
Worry gathered in my belly. Had I just done something extremely stupid?
The demon shrugged.