Heart's Blood(77)

She could see the battle with her eyes shut. The coruscating power nearly blinded her. If she focused on the magic, it shaded her senses somewhat. And she couldn't see the demon's . . . meal.

"Step high," Grey said. "There are bricks to climb over."

Her eyes flew open. She could watch the ground. Harry's path took them through buildings so recently demolished the dust still rose.

"It's not easy to hold the magic and climb over rubble." She held tight to Elinor to pull herself over an obstacle.

"Sorry." Harry didn't sound very repentant. "I think if we go through that way-" He pointed with the hand not clamped on Elinor's down a narrow alley. "-we might can block its path."

"Why don't they just send another angel?" Pearl complained. "Two angels would take care of it without all this-mess."

"Perhaps there's a rule." Grey helped her past a leaning roof beam half blocking the alley. "One demon, one angel."

"Well, it's a stupid rule, if you ask me," she grumbled. She'd worked out a method to keeping the magic together, although Harry's still wanted to slide back to the earth, and Elinor's had trouble keeping up, and Grey's kept trying to fly off. Now that she'd gotten the hang of it, though, she could control it with just a tweak here and there.

"Or maybe," Elinor said, "it's because we only value what we have a part in."

"No use speculating," Harry said. "Or whinging about it. Neither one does any good. We just have to use what we got."

"Not that that does any good." Pearl stumbled. The hands gripping hers kept her from falling.

"Pearl." The tone of Grey's voice brought her up short. She'd never heard it before. "That isn't like you," he said. "You don't give up. You go out the window and try another way."

He was right. Pearl frowned, letting her feet carry her along, automatically maintaining the magic. The bond with Grey didn't feel right. She reached for him, and found him reaching back. The despair cracked, but it didn't quite give way.

"That is how it is now," he said, as they scrambled through a gap into the open. "I am not going away. Not even if you send me. I will be here, reaching out to you, waiting for you to reach for me."

"Spread the magic," Harry said, setting his shoulder into it again as he stopped dragging them along.

Pearl held the magic together as they worked, watching Grey. He meant it. She knew he did, but would he mean it tomorrow? Would they survive until tomorrow?

"I mean it today," Grey said, somehow hearing her doubts without her voicing them. His fingers flicked, signing the sigils left-handed as he directed his ancient spirits. "And tomorrow, it will be today again, and I will mean it for that today. It's always today, Pearl. Don't worry about tomorrow, because it's always today, and every today we have, I will mean it. I will not leave you. Not willingly. Don't make my mistake. Let me unmake it. Don't throw me away."

Pearl sent a wild glance toward Elinor and Harry beyond. They focused on the magic, on confining the wild spray of power, as they should be. As Pearl and Grey should be.

"Don't." Grey caught her shoulder with his free hand. "This is important, Pearl, what is between us. Having it unsettled like this weakens us. It allows in fear and gives the enemy a crack through which it can pour despair."

Was that what had happened? But how could she fight it? What weapon would work against it?

"I love you, Pearl," Grey said. "With all of my heart. Haven't you forgiven me?"

She had. But had she allowed herself to trust him? To believe that he would love her, not only today, but in the todays that would follow? If she survived this and he didn't-                       
       
           



       

Wait. Maybe it wasn't Grey she needed to forgive. Perhaps it was her family, for dying and leaving her alone. Her mother and brothers hadn't intended to die, but she-she was still angry with them. And felt guilty for it. She forgave them, and forgave herself for the anger. She let it go. It was possible, knowing they hadn't wanted to die. But her father-

He had died long before his body stopped breathing, had abandoned her to cope on her own, and forced her to take care of him as well. Because he wanted to. Because he didn't love her enough to want to live. Because-The anger filled her up.

"Pearl?" Grey's voice sounded unsteady.

"It's not you," she rushed to say. "It's not you I haven't forgiven. It's my father. He left me. He-"

"Can we get a little 'elp 'ere?" Harry said. "There's a demon, eatin' people, in case you forgot."

"That's what we're doing." Grey smiled at him, past the ladies. "Clearing things out to make the magic flow better."

"How can I trust you," Pearl said, revelations flowing. "When he didn't-" She couldn't say it, not aloud.

"Because I am not your father," Grey said firmly. "Just as you are not mine. Don't let him control your actions from the grave. I've had to learn that lesson. Besides being a great deal prettier than my father, you have no desire to control me. I know that you truly have my benefit at heart. Can't you give me the same chance?"

That's what it came down to. Taking the risk. Daring to hope. He had a strength her father never had. Grey had faced adversity and loss at a young age, and overcome it. Even now he fought for her, refused to give up on her. She loved him. She owed him, and herself, the same determination.

"Marry me?" she asked. He would understand what that meant.

"As soon as we can find a vicar." He grinned at her, and the lingering bits of despair confining the magic between them were swept away in the rising surge.

Pearl poured it into the movable wall they'd built, and the momentum allowed the others to push it, fast and hard, against the struggling demon.

Two other quartets of magicians had spaced themselves around the demon, one with Amanusa as sorceress and Archaios as alchemist, the other with the older student, Fiona, acting as sorceress. Both groups had wizards Pearl didn't know. Her quick glance took in a third group coming up on the far side of Fiona's team. She couldn't see who any of them were. Too much dust and glare of magic in the dark night.

The conjurers coordinated the teams through their spirit messengers, and they began a slow, grinding, united push at the demon.

It shrieked and roared as the magic trapped it under the power raining down on it from the angel. The demon darted this way and that, trying to escape through the gaps between teams of magicians, but they were able to squeeze the gaps shut.

The angel gave a triumphant shout, and the power it wielded suddenly ramped up. Sparks flew from the power collision with the demon, and hit the magicians' shields. The shields held, glowing bright with power. So the angel increased its power again.

The demon's shrieks numbed Pearl's metaphysical ears, as the brilliant power blinded her. She had just enough magic sense working to know she kept the four magics bound.

And then, suddenly, it was over.

The demon was gone. The battle was done. Pearl blinked, peering through the choking dust and the after-burn of the angel's shocking power. Could she let go of the magic?

The angel stood in the midst of the rubble, staring at the death and devastation around it, an expression of grief on its impossibly beautiful face. Then its gaze passed over the teams of magicians, and a smile rose, like-

Pearl couldn't think of anything amazing enough to compare it to. Not even the sparkling magic she and Grey made together, though that perhaps came closest.

The angel bowed to them, still smiling, a gesture of respect. Then it damped its glow almost to the point of extinguishing it. Pearl cried out, feeling the loss. The angel seemed to look at her alone, for just a moment, and-did it wink?

It flicked a finger, and a surge of such power filled the magic shield still held together by Pearl-and the other sorcerers, she was sure-that the power flowed through into all the magicians. It held love and goodness and justice and-no, it was all those things, and more. How could that be a weapon? But against hate and greed and selfishness, perhaps it was.

"Share." The angel said. And with another glorious smile, it was gone.

The power continued to flow into them another long space of time. Only when it was finished did Pearl dare take down the wall of magic.

"Hurry." Elinor dropped the hands she held. "We need to hurry back to the hospital before this goes away."

Harry caught her elbow before she could dash off. "No need for so much 'urry you trip an' break your neck. I think the power will 'ang on long enough we can share it all out."

"That's what it was waiting for," Pearl said, turning to head back to the hospital with them. "The angel was waiting for us to figure out how to protect the innocent, and ourselves, from the full force of its power. It was holding back on our behalf."

"If it had gone full force right away," Grey grumbled, "it might have avoided all this carnage." He paused in midstep. "Of course," he mused, "it might have blown up half of London, us included, if it had done."

"We don't have time to discuss it now," Elinor insisted. "There are injured to care for. We can have a thorough postmortem later. Let's go."