"You toad!" I shrieked, striding forward only to stop short at the shimmering wall of ever-after rising up from the protection circle. It hummed aggressively, and I pulled back, stymied. Hands on my hips, I glared at Nick, heart pounding and pissed, growing hot in my strawberry-and-ash-covered coat.

"You summoned me, didn't you!" I accused him, and Nick hunched, brown eyes avoiding mine. "I was driving, Nick. Ivy and Jenks were with me. We hit something, you little prick. If they're dead, I swear I will hunt you down. There is nowhere you can hide from me. Nowhere!"

A clatter of pixy wings turned into Jax, and Jenks's eldest son, dressed in black and looking so much like his dad it hurt, darted erratically in front of Nick. "I gotta get to a phone!" the pixy exclaimed, and he vanished through the open skylight and into the early dusk.

The sight of Jax was a shock, and realizing what I must look like - practically foaming at the mouth and raging like... a demon - I forced myself back from the barrier, the warning buzz having escalated into cramping my toes. Most circles didn't burn, but this one had been drawn to hold demons. To hold me. I am not a demon. I'm not!

The surrounding witches held to their posts to keep the circle strong, but Nick, who had apparently done the actual summoning, seeing that he knew Al's name, was picking up his stuff and jamming it in a worn, army-green satchel. "It's cold in Cincy, Nick," I said, shaking. "You son of a bitch. Even if he survived the crash, he's going to have a hard time staying alive."

The witch with the laptop shifted to draw my attention from Nick's grim expression. She was the tallest one there, wearing a black business suit and gray hose. Her legs were too muscular to be called pretty, and her sandy blond hair was in a simple cut with gray highlights. She looked familiar, like from a news article, but it wasn't until I saw her Mobius-strip pin holding a sprig of heather that I finally got it. Crap, it was the coven.

Worry colored my anger, and I moved back to the center of the circle, looking over my summoners again to see the balances in play. Vivian was still in Cincinnati, but if she had been here, there'd be three men and three women, an equal number of earth and ley-line users, all carefully selected to supplement one another's skills. Remembering Vivian's strength, I knew I was in trouble. Yes, they had been voted into the position, but they'd been trained for it from early childhood like Olympian athletes, skills and traditions embedded into them until magic was like breathing - instinctive, fast, and powerful. This was going to be... tricky.

The woman with the laptop seemed to be the high witch, since she did a quick look around at the others before asking Nick in a pleasant voice, "Is this Morgan, or the demon?"

I wrapped my arms around myself, wanting to demand that they let me out, but I knew they wouldn't. They wanted me in a hole in the ground - quick and quiet. I was in so much trouble.

Nick obviously knew it was me, but he came close, as if unsure, faded satchel in hand, shoulders at an uneven slant and a tired look in his eyes. He appeared old and weary, and the sheet of ever-after between us hummed as I moved so close that my breath came back to me. His wrist was a mass of scar tissue where his hand had almost been chewed off during his stint as a rat, and his black hair was longer than I remembered. Slowly, my hands formed fists.

I'd slept with this man, thinking he loved me. Maybe he had. But he'd betrayed me, selling secrets about me to demons and then trying to double-cross me after I'd saved his life. My fist jammed out, hitting the barrier inches from Nick's stomach. Pain cramped my hand and clawed its way up my arm. There was a collective gasp as I danced back, shaking my fist. Rubbing my knuckles, I met Nick's sad expression with a heightened feeling of bitterness.

"I thought you were smarter than this," he said, a toss of his too-long hair the only clue that I'd startled him. The demon scar on his brow that he'd gotten from Al showed for an instant, then was hidden. "Are they right?" he asked. "Did you go into partnership with Al? Is that why you showed up instead of him? God, Rachel. You were supposed to be the smart one."

"I didn't have much choice, Nicky," I said sharply.

His eyes flicked away for an instant - his only sign of guilt. "Neither do I. Remember that when this is done. I'm settling a debt you foisted on me," he said loudly. "Did you think I wouldn't have to answer for you running off with the focus?"

My chin rose. "It showed up on my doorstep with my name on it. Tell me you weren't going to sell it to the highest bidder. Tell me that, Nick."

"I was," he said belligerently, his attention shifting to the witches around us. "Them."

Them again. The same them who now had me circled like an animal. "Looks like I made the right choice in giving it back to the Weres then, huh?" I was so ticked I could scream.

Nick looked me up and down, his gaze lingering on my strawberry-covered coat before he put a hand to the back of his neck and walked away. "It's her," he said to the tall witch with the laptop, and there was a soft exhalation as they all relaxed.

My tension, though, spiked as the witches left their posts to join the tall woman at her computer. The humming of the barrier eased as they lessened their collective attention holding it, but the circle was still strong enough to stand.

The oldest man was wearing a large amulet, probably defunct this close to the coast. Earth-magic user, obviously, which made the older woman with the laptop their ley-line master. His cuff links were Mobius strips, and my face warmed when he handed Nick a stack of bills.

Nick shoved the money in his bag with unusual haste and turned to me. "We re even now," he said, his brow furrowed, and I flipped him off. His lips tightened and he looked away. "Don't call me again," he said to the man as he started for an elaborately tooled wooden door, but upon reaching it, he hesitated. "You either," he said to me, and then he... sort of... smiled?

Dont call him? I thought. Like I ever would? But I forced my breathing to remain slow as I glimpsed the hallway beyond the door, an idea trickling through me. Carpet and soft colors, pictures on the walls. I was in a private home, not an institution. As the witches watched the door shut behind him, my hand crept back to my jeans pocket to find the lump of my phone. Holy crap, Nick had reminded me of a way to get out of here. An active phone line could break a circle - if one was skilled enough in taking them down.

The door snicked shut, and I heard a sigh from one of the five witches. "I really dislike that man," one said.

"Me, too," I said loudly, then pulled my fingers back from the cramping sensation of the barrier. It was still too strong - they needed to lower their guard more.

Apparently they'd been waiting for Nick to leave, because they gathered behind the sandy-haired witch with the laptop to face me like a jury. The woman looked to be an athletic forty, but I was willing to bet that her surfer-toned body was actually closer to a hundred. You don't find that grace or confidence in a mere forty years, even if you can keep your balance in a tight curl. Her short hair was bleached by sun and salt, not chemicals in a salon, and her narrow, angular nose was peeling from sunburn.

Balancing her was the older witch with that nonfunctioning amulet. He appeared to be about forty as well, and his clothes were stodgy and expensive looking. They clung to him a little tightly, telling me he usually had a slimming charm. Settling in behind them was the middle male/female pair who both appeared to be a spelled thirty, and behind them, a young, gawky guy who was more than likely Vivian's counterpart, probably close to my age and still gaining his full, deadly potential. They all wore the coven's Mobius glyph, the chunky thirtyish woman using it to hold back her long blond hair.

"Rachel Morgan," laptop woman said, her voice taking on a formal cadence. "You have been brought here before the coven of moral and ethical standards to answer for several serious crimes."

I sighed, holding little hope of coming out ahead here. "Why didn't you come see me? We could've settled this over coffee. It would have been less dramatic than Vivian destroying some store's produce section. The FIB was there and everything." I mentioned it only because I wanted them to know there was a report filed. This wasn't going to simply go away.

Sure enough, the woman looked up, cool and unshakable, but her finger twitched.

"Brooke?" the older man said in sharp warning, eying my strawberry-tangled hair. "We agreed Vivian was there for reconnaissance only."

Oh! It really is her name then, I thought. Brooke barely shrugged, but I could tell she was pissed at me. Yeah, this is all my fault.

"The subject's pattern changed. I was afraid we'd lose her," Brooke said. "There wasn't time to ask everyone's opinion. It was a calculated risk, and Vivian was willing to take it."

The subject's pattern changed, eh? Al sending me home early, perhaps? Just how long had they been watching me? Angry, I rubbed an ash-coated chunk of strawberry off my sleeve. "I don't care what Kalamack told you, I'm not a threat," I said, and there was a nervous shifting among them. Clearly they were surprised I knew he was involved.

Brooke's lips tightened, and she glanced back at them, irate. "We think you are."

"I'm not," I shot back, glancing at the witch with the long blond hair listening to the oldest man whispering in her ear. "Trent's a big drama queen."

Damn it, I was going to smack Trent. I was going to smack him good. I was not a demon to be pulled around like a pull toy.

Peeved, Brooke turned to the whispering behind her. "Will you do that later?" she griped, and I tested the barrier to find it still strong. The line I was connected to surged, and I scrambled to handle it. Earthquake, maybe?

The oldest man, the one with the useless amulet, gestured mockingly to Brooke to get on with it, and she gave him an equally sour look. Is there a schism? Can I use that?

The sun-bleached tips of Brooke's short hair swung as she focused on me. "What an elf thinks is of no concern. Your actions are. You have undergone the sentence of shunning but have not changed your ways. You leave us little choice, Rachel Morgan, and are hereby formally charged with willfully allowing a witch to be taken by a demon."

This was so full of crap, I almost laughed. I'd been cleared of this by the I.S. months ago. "Which one?" I shot out. I was being railroaded. This was so unfair.

Brooke looked annoyed by the interruption, but it was the oldest man who said, "You call him Al, I believe."

I grimaced. "Not the demon. Which witch?"

The gawky young man with the off-the-rack suit stammered, "There's been more than one?"

There had, but if they didn't know about Tom's dying and Pierce's taking his body, then I wasn't going to tell them. I pressed into the barrier, finding it wasn't humming anymore, but I jerked back as if it was. "I don't want to be blamed for someone else's stupidity. If we're talking about Lee, then yes. He dragged me into the ever-after and tried to give me to Al. I fought Lee, and lost. Al took Lee instead."

Brooke's smile was a bare hint of one, but it was ugly and I felt a shiver. "The better witch," she said, and I nodded, realizing she was not an honest, upright woman. I didn't care if her aura was a clean, almost clear blue; her morals were gray.

"Bet that didn't end up in your report," I said bitterly. "I saved the witch who tried to give me to a demon. Is that why you're doing this without a jury?"

The witches behind Brooke looked discomfited, but she simply glanced at the screen. "You are accused of calling a demon into a court of human law," she continued.

"To put a murdering vampire behind bars, yup. I did." No jury on earth would convict me for that. "What else you got?" My foot was shaking, and I pressed down on it to get it to stop. Brooke was starting to sweat, but it wasn't fear. It was excitement. She liked something.

"You are accused of giving a rare artifact to a Were to further your position in his pack instead of turning it over to us for proper reinterment," she said.

"You never told me you wanted it," I said, hand on my hip. Hey, if I was going down, I was going down bitching. "And I was David's alpha before I had the focus, so you can cut the crap about using it to better my position in a group that no witch cares about anyway." Worry for David rose up, and I felt my back pocket, ready to change my plan. "If you touch him..."

Brooke's eyes fixed on mine. "You are in no position to make threats, Morgan."

Not yet anyway. I exhaled, pretending to be subdued. Just relax a bit more, and maybe I will be. "Look," I said, feeling sticky, "the I.S. cleared me, and you shunned me. Case closed. You can't shove me in a hole to be forgotten." I hope.

The head earth witch with his salt-stymied amulet smiled, and the lonely sound of gulls crying came faintly as they settled on cliffs for the night. "Yes, we can," he said. "All of the listed crimes could be dismissed as the youthful exuberance of a young, talented witch. With the right conditioning, you might even be a candidate for my job when I step down. But with certain incidents coming to light, it becomes increasingly clear what you are."

Damn you, Trent. If I get out of here, I'm going to smack you so hard you wont be able to find your ass using both hands. "And that is?" I asked, knowing what he was going to say.

Facing me squarely, Brooke said, "You are demon spawn, Rachel Morgan. Survivor of the Rosewood syndrome, demon in all but birth."

Shit. Hearing her say it hit me hard, and I shouted, "I am not a threat to you!" I almost followed that with "and Trent can't control me," but I was scared. I wasn't ready to burn that safety net just yet, and I hated myself for it.

Brooke snapped her laptop shut with a sound of finality. "You are a threat, Morgan," she said loudly. "Your very existence is a threat to the entire witch society, and sometimes we are constrained to act on our society's behalf without them knowing. That's why you're here and why we are going to stick you in a little... tiny... hole."

Oh, ma-a-a-an, this is so full of crap! "You're afraid of me, isn't that it? Well, you should be if this is how you treat people!" I was shaking, but they weren't impressed, chagrined, or otherwise moved. Stymied, I crossed my arms over my middle and exhaled loudly, helpless.

"So all that is left is your sentencing," Brooke said, sounding happy about it.

Sentencing? Fear slid through me, and at my alarmed expression, Brooke smiled. They were railroading me into custody because a trial would bring it out into the open that witches were an offshoot of demons. Humans would massacre us in our sleep like they once had vampires.

This was so stupid. I was a good person. Shaking, my hand went back to my phone and pulled it out. I wasn't sure what to think of Nick right now. What was going to follow next was his idea. Did he stick around to help me? "Mind if I make my call now rather than later?" I asked, and the heavy man with the amulet paled. "You get a lot of bars out here, right?"

"Sweet Jesus, she has a phone!" he shouted.

Yes, I had a phone, something demons didn't. I wasn't a demon, and to treat me as such was going to be their undoing. Pulse racing and angry with all of them, I hit Ivy's number.

"Rachel?" Ivy immediately answered, and a knot of worry eased. Finally something was going my way. She was alive and sounded fine.

"Strengthen the circle!" the older man shouted, and they all moved, scrambling to get back to their spots. But it was too late. I had a real, irrefutable connection with someone past the bubble, and the damage had been done.

"Ivy, listen," I said, pressing my hand against the bubble to feel my skin warm but not burn. It was a very good sign. "Are you okay? Is Jenks?"

"Yes." Her voice came back, tiny and small. "He's pissed. Where are you?"

"I'm on the West Coast. Keep the line open, all right?"

As Ivy exclaimed her disbelief, I shoved the open phone in my back pocket. My two palms went to the bubble, and I pushed. I'd once taken a circle. I'd thought it had been an act of serendipitous timing, but now I wondered if it had been because I could hold the stuff of demons.

This circle is mine, I thought, filling my mind with the scintillating, broken energy, filling my chi and spindling the excess in my thoughts to dilute the entirety so the weak spots would show. Before me, I fixed on Brooke's eyes, smiling when the energy spilling into me scraped along my thoughts, the shattered West Coast line filling me as it burned through existing channels to my mind. The weak spot in the bubble glowed, and with a surge of hope, I concentrated, pulling more until I could see the lines of energy I was drawing off the bubble.

I squinted at my success, and Brooke's expression became worried. I widened the imperfection. The more I took, the bigger the instability got. It was working!

My thoughts burned, and I began to sweat. The five witches tried to shore up the barrier, but with a ping, the circle became mine. I gasped as the entire line suddenly spilled into me. A lesser witch would have fried her chi, but the jangling discordance flowed to my mind where I spindled it like mad until I managed to break from the ley line. God, how could they stand manipulating this day after day?

I fell forward, landing half out of the circle on my hands and knees. "Ow," I gasped, not from the bump, but from the force in my head. The circle had fallen, and I stared at Brooke, nothing between us but air.

"She's out!" the old man shouted, and I moved.

My boots slipped, and I scrambled on all fours to plow into the weakest member, the youngest, gawky male witch. He shouted in fear and fell back, his training forgotten. His head hit the tile and his eyes rolled back. I waited an instant to be sure he was breathing.

One down, I thought, then rolled and kept rolling. A yellow ball of force hit the wall, sending goo splattering. It was the oldest man, his head high and his jaw clenched. I yelped and dove for the cover of the middle-aged woman coming for me. Her eyes widened, and together we fell.

"Sweet mother of God!" someone screamed, and I thought I saw pixy dust.

Shaking the stars from my vision, I pushed the woman away and punched to knock her out. She blocked it - badly - and I grabbed her, swinging her around to take the next yellow ball from hell that the head guy had thrown. The goo hit her full on, and I gasped when the ugly yellow splotches grew on my coat. Panicking, I let go, scrambling out of my coat and dropping it as the woman who had taken most of the spell fell to her knees and began vomiting, yellow foam coming out of her mouth and ears. It might be a white spell, but it was still nasty.

"Oliver, stop throwing that shit!" Brooke shouted, and I looked up. The thought to call Al for help pinged through me and vanished. If I did, not only would I owe Al, but they'd be right in calling me a black witch. I was on my own. And not doing too badly.

Breathless, I ran at the middle-aged man holding a ley-line charm, grabbing his wrist and spinning around to stand facing his back and jam his own charm into his side. With a groan, he went down, taken by his own spell. I eased him to the floor, narrowly escaping being hit by that foaming-ball-of-vomit spell again.

"Oliver," Brooke shouted. "Knock it off! I want her conscious, not puking on my floor!"

Ignoring Brooke, Oliver pulled his arm back. My eyes widened, and I dove for the nearest circle. "Rhombus!" I shouted in relief as I skidded into it, and a gold-and-black sheet of ever-after flowed up. I didn't expect it to last long, seeing that I was using that awful, fractured ley line, but at least I had breathing space. I was safe in my bubble.

"You're like a cockroach, you know?" came a soft voice behind me.

Or not. Still sitting on the floor, I turned to see a pair of sensible black shoes in here with me. Swallowing, I followed the gray nylons up to find Brooke with her hand on a hip and a speculative look on her face. "I'm not a black witch...," I whispered.

She reached for me, but I couldn't get my foot up in time, and instead of the expected grasping hand, she shifted at the last moment and fell right on me, her elbow hitting my middle. My head hit the floor, and I might have blacked out for an instant as I struggled to breathe. I tried to shove her away, but she'd filled my mouth with something that tasted like propellant.

"Turn over," she said, and arms made strong from battling waves manhandled me onto my stomach. There must have been something in that handkerchief, because I couldn't resist. My arms jerked up behind me, and I froze, tears starting from the pain. Please dont dislocate them, please, I thought, going passive in her grip.

With a satisfied harrumph, she slipped a ring of charmed silver around my wrist and zipped it tight. I groaned when the ever-after washed out of me. It hurt like an old ache, even if the line was nasty, and I tried to breathe through my nose. My circle fell, but I didn't think Oliver was going to hit me with his flaming ball of puking death. Not with Brooke sitting on me.

"My God," Oliver whispered over the sound of the witch retching in the corner. "Did you feel what came out of her? She could have leveled the house!"

I wheezed when Brooke got up off me, and Oliver's sensible shoes scuffed into view. "Her aura is blacker than any I've ever seen," he added scornfully, and I grunted when Brooke's foot wedged under my ribs, and she rolled me over. Three faces peered down at me, Brooke, Oliver, and he youngest, gawky guy, again conscious and holding his head. A faint sparkling sifted from the high windows, and I closed my eyes. Jax. Nick mew what had happened here and done nothing to help. Same old Nick.

"Oliver, get Amanda unspelled, will you?" Brooke said as she held her wrist. "And check on Wyatt while you're at it. I don't know why you use four ley-line skills. You're not good with them."

"Because you insisted on doing this too close to the ocean for my charms to work," he snarled.

"What does it matter? We've got her."

Interesting, I thought as I finally got that wad out of my mouth.

"Barely," Oliver said, and Brooke arched her eyebrows and nudged me in the ribs. "I didn't like this, and I still don't," he added. "We could have gotten a demon instead."

"Don't be silly, she's not a demon. She's just a witch," Brooke said. "A stupid one at that, who thinks she is in control and clearly isn't. Besides, it's not illegal to summon demons."

"It should be." Oliver was still breathing hard from the exertion, and starting to sweat.

"I think the media made her out to be more than she is." Brooke peered at me like I was a bug. "She didn't do one spell. She had the opportunity and the motive."

"It was a demon name that wizard used to summon her," Oliver protested, examining the eyes of the witch I'd knocked out before then clapping him on the back in support.

"We only have his say-so that it was a demon name," Brooke said. "He could have lied, trying to pay us off with a wooden coin painted gold."

From out of my sight, Amanda rasped between her gagging, "Oliver. Some help, please?"

Expression thoughtful, Oliver and the gawky witch went to take care of Amanda and Wyatt, leaving only Brooke. I glared at her, grunting when she nudged me with her toe.

"A witch couldn't have broken a coven circle, phone or not," she whispered, looking almost hungry. "No, you're something special, Rachel."

"I'm going to take my something special and shove it up your ass," I muttered, helpless.

Lips pressed, Brooke flipped me over. I immediately turned back, but she had taken my phone from my back pocket, and I stiffened when I heard Ivy, telling me she was going to kill me if I didn't answer her. Brooke smirked at my glare and closed the top, breaking the connection before tucking it in her pocket. The sound of chanting drifted to me, and finally Amanda stopped retching.

Brooke leaned close under the pretense of pulling me to a seated position. "Why didn't you call your demon? You know how. I can see the smut on you."

I lifted my chin. "I'm not a black witch," I said, but a sharp tug on my arm cut my argument short. "Ow! Watch it, will you?" I was sitting upright as the others came back and ringed me in a justice that went all the way back to our beginnings. No one would know. And in time, no one would care.

"Rachel Morgan," Brooke intoned, and I knew this was it. "You hereby have the choice of becoming magically neutered and rendered incapable of bearing children - or permanent imprisonment in Alcatraz."

I stared at them, appalled. "You are bullies. All of you," I said, then yelped when Wyatt shoved me over. My breath whooshed out, and I flipped the hair from my eyes, glaring at them.

"Alcatraz it is," Brooke said, pleased.

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***