Dim Sum Asylum(84)

As evocations went, I was playing fast and loose with the wording, but my call was sincere, especially since the goddess in question aided women and the imprisoned. I started with a handful of rock salt I’d scraped up from a seacoast cliff, the uneven chunks ruddy with a good dose of my own blood—most of it from my knuckles when I’d harvested it—then added a piece of crackled glass held together with a strip of tinting. Shaking the plastic bag so the salt scraped at the glass, I began the first passage of the rite, looping back to the beginning when I added the final component, a handful of the scorpion netsuke Trent had dragged from my throat.

I was destroying evidence, knowingly ruining any case I’d want to try against the spell caster, but it was a risk I—and the SFPD—was willing to take. Gaines cautioned me in a flat monotone when I’d signed out the fragments, a necessary red-tape mantra I was forced to listen to fully before signing the netsuke out for destruction. I’d scribbled my name, a swirl of loops and jagged marks I’d have to swear was mine in a court of law, then handed the broken bits of stone over to the librarian waiting to bind it to the rite we’d created. I’d never be able to press charges with the scorpion destroyed, because the caster’s magical imprint always needed to be verified in a trial and in front of a jury.

Considering the carnage and death he’d left in his wake and the seemingly endless parade of golems he’d created, one little netsuke that clawed up my throat was a small price to pay to nail this guy down.

There was enough water in the air for me to catch a mouthful to swish around my teeth and spit into the bag. I tried to keep it out of the rain, not wanting to soak the components, so I only caught a glimpse of Trent’s power surging through the dragonfly’s body, flashes of blue light spearing up from cracks along its wings.

The heavy rain plastered Trent’s jacket to him, and while I’d hoped it was strong enough to deflect some of the dragonfly’s force, there were tears in its heavy fabric, and I got a peek of the hard plating sewn into the lining. Its magic still held, though, the jacket’s zipper blinking green at the end points, a sharp reassurance for the lump I had in my throat.

When the Hell did Trent start to matter? More than any other person I had in my life at the moment other than Bob and my uncles Will and Brae? When did I begin to feel like I’d swallowed the scorpion whole and it was making a nest of my stomach?

“Any time, MacCormick!” Trent yelled through the crackle of icy rain surrounding him.

The dragonfly was frozen along its joints, but I could see the wintry grip Trent had on it weakening. It glittered, covered in frosted fern patterns, but the heat of its animation slowly ate away at the cold. Chunks of ice were falling from the sculpture’s body, and its wings dipped once, a piece of concrete tumbling from a jagged rip forming along its thorax. Trent’s hands were closed on the creature’s tail, his fingers connected to its length by a trembling webbing of ice.

“Break off when this goes off!” I shouted back across the courtyard. “Or it’s going to go right through you! Not into necrophilia!”

I had everything ready to go with just a bit more to throw in. Chanting out the final round of lines from the rite, I took a deep breath, braced myself, then plunged my hand into the bag, closed a fist around everything I could hold, and felt the glass break from its constraints and its shards drive into my flesh.

My blood and spit lit the spell, and I turned my head, averting my eyes so I wouldn’t be blinded by the flaring light pouring from the plastic bag. The power ricocheted around the courtyard, seeking its target. Ribbons of light curved and danced from my hand, a tapestry of white and pale green tinged with copper and gold. The spell suckled at my strength, weaving through my blood and sipping my energy, but I held on, my knees shaking with the effort. We’d worked out the lines to seek the base of the animation spell, hoping it would be buried in the thickest core of anything the caster brought to life, and I could only watch—fearful, hopeful, and a whole other set of ’fuls I couldn’t even name—while the spell unfolded, kneading my hand through the glass to spill more blood to fuel its course.

The spell’s ribbons struck the dragonfly at the same time Trent jerked himself free. It hit hard and fast, spreading over its stone-hard body. Finding cracks in the concrete, the lightning threads burrowed down into the crevices along its thorax Trent had dug into with the ice he’d been able to pull from his core.

The ribbons wrapped around the sculpture, squeezing as tendrils of light snapped and crackled under its surface. An odd red line formed along the dragonfly’s tail section, and it whipped about, slamming the length of jointed pieces across Trent’s side. Tumbling, he hydroplaned across the sidewalk, rolling with the hit, his elbows up and his head tucked. The odonate convulsed, and the red line began to smoke, jagged black stripes radiating from its tail.

Trent struck the fountain’s base, then scrambled to his feet, his hands coated with ice shards. His shoes slipped across the walkway in his haste to get away from the trembling sculpture, and it snapped at him, catching the back of his jacket.

I dropped the bag and broke into a run toward him. My stomach clenched into a knot, and the cup of coffee I’d gulped down threatened to burn back up my throat. I couldn’t get my gun loose from its holster, and my hand was bloody from the glass gouging into it—but none of that mattered. I’d tear apart the damned dragonfly with my fingers if I had to.