Demons of Good and Evil by Kim Harrison

            “Got it!” Bis called as the door slammed shut.

            “Hey, Trent!” Jenks called as he hovered beside Bis. “This thing doesn’t have a lock.”

            “On it.” Trent double-checked the nurse he had downed, then strode forward, a muttered curse flaring through my awareness as he spelled the door.

            “Cassie, we need to get them clear,” I said as I grabbed the security guard’s shoulders and dragged him across the small room. “I’m not sure how the countercurse works on unprotected people,” I explained as she touched Kylie’s shoulder and lurched to help. “Everyone needs to be in a circle.”

            “Please don’t hurt me. Please!” the young nurse begged. “I have a little girl. Please!”

            “Good God, I’m trying to help you,” I muttered, feeling guilty as the security guard began to threaten me in one-syllable words.

            “Rache?” Jenks called out, hovering before the door as someone began violently thumping on it.

            Pulse fast, I dropped the security guard beside the two nurses. Turning, I dug the ring from my pocket, and, after a heartbeat of hesitation, I stuck it on my finger. Immediately the ring’s dead feeling vanished, and my breath came fast at the sudden tingling warmth. “Jenks?” I called to draw him back.

            “Here!”

            “Cassie?” I said next.

            “Good,” she said as she tugged a straying leg clear of the circle Trent had drawn. “Will you shut up!” she added, giving the security guard a nudge in the ribs.

            “Bis,” I whispered, feeling him before I saw him, and he flew to me, tail wrapping firmly across my back and under my arm. They were safe, but that door wouldn’t stay shut much longer. It was now or never. Sorry, Vivian. “Trent, you got ’em?”

            “Secure!” he said, and I felt him set a circle holding everyone but Bis and me.

            “Here we go.” Rhombus, I thought, encasing us in our own protection circle, strong from my uncertainty. Breath held, I extended my arm, hand fisted as I angled the ring toward the four unconscious men. The line poured into me, and the ring on my finger became warm—glowing white-hot with the tingling heat of magic.

            It’s gathering mystics, I suddenly realized.

            “Now!” Bis said. “Rachel, you have enough. Now!”

            “Humus, fluenta, accenderaet,” I said, arm shaking as my aura flashed into the visible spectrum. I watched it, somewhat horrified as it turned from red to orange to yellow. Vertigo hit me, and I staggered.

            “Rachel?” Trent shouted, and I waved him off with my free hand, almost knocking myself down. Bis’s wings beat the air, and I again stood tall.

            “Aer, aether, lucem . . .” I whispered, my aura spinning from green to blue to indigo. “Spatium!”

            I had an instant of clarity as the world flashed into a translucent violet black, and then a blinding flash of light exploded from the ring. A sodden thump of thunder slammed into me, and I stumbled as I felt the power of the ring blow through my circle, taking it down.

            No! I thought as it collapsed, and then I staggered as Trent made a new circle, larger than his first, to hold me as well.

            But I wasn’t the only thing his circle entrapped, and I was suddenly choking, unable to see as mystics swamped us in a humming thrum of power.

            “Holy crap, Rache!” Jenks exclaimed, and I squinted past Trent’s circle. Outside of it, it was even worse—as if the sun itself was imprisoned by frail walls. “Your hair!” he added, and I reached up, finding it a halo of red.

            Mystics, I thought, not surprised. They were so thick in the room that I couldn’t see the walls. I felt overly full, overwhelmed by something I couldn’t name. Tears spilled from me, and Trent wiped them away, his touch painful. The room past the bubble was a blur. The cries in the hall were frantic, and I hoped everyone was okay.

            “Are you singed?” Trent asked, his brow pinched in concern, and I shook my head.

            “I think I’m okay.” The hospital personnel were slumped around us. Someone was crying. Other than that, it was silent. Even the alarms had been stunned by the brilliant light.