“I felt so much rage, Derek. She was afraid. It was as if she knew….” Her voice faltered, then strengthened. “And I was her mother. I was supposed to protect her. That rage overflowed and I fought him on instinct, no idea what the hell I was doing. I got lucky.”

Her tone suggested just the opposite. “It knocked him on his heels. In hindsight, I realize he hadn’t expected any resistance at all, so he hadn’t projected with any real strength. I vanquished him back through the opening he’d come from. I fought him, Derek. I fought a demon.”

It terrified him, just imagining her standing alone against something like Asmodeus, whether he’d done a lazy, half-assed projection or not. But she’d done it. His girl had done it. At a terrible, terrible cost.

“He hurt me…. injured me. The trauma…. She died inside me, Derek.” Her voice trembled anew. “I was connected to her soul, hers inside of mine, and I felt her die.”

Holy Goddess. A mother might feel a fetus die in the womb, which was terrible enough, but a witch, with her enhanced powers and connection to the Earth…. It would have felt like her very soul was being ripped out. Especially since it seemed the child had possessed nascent abilities, abilities that had very likely twined their essences together, in a manner similar to twins, but different. The baby had been nourished not only on her mother’s body, but on her soul as well.

“He’d thrown me into the street before I sent him back to the Underworld. When I rolled off the windshield of a car, I was lying on the pavement, holding my stomach. Crying, feeling that life slipping away. She’d been laughing, Derek, and now she was afraid. She could feel herself slipping away, and she was reaching for me, crying for me. I couldn’t let her go. I had to protect her,” she repeated.

She’d studied so much, growing up in her mother’s shadow. He’d been in and out of her life enough during those years to remember how her academic interests had blossomed on their own, until she’d become a veritable encyclopedia of all things arcane. Not just for dutiful recitation. She comprehended it at an amazing level, made connections far beyond her years. She’d have impressed Roger Bacon. In fact, he saw quite a few similarities between Ruby Night Divine and the learned monk who’d explored the scientific aspects of sorcery.

Early wizards, such as himself, had come before order and science was applied to nature. He’d been part of both worlds, the instinct and chaos that was felt intuitively, that required genetic acumen, and the later world, where magic became about understanding the patterns and lines, the order in Nature.

Her unborn child had helped her unlock her inherited acuity, and her years of study had already been there, ready to marry it. Apparently that night, that union had occurred. Her vast knowledge had unfolded like a sky of constellations in her head, while her intuition had been the navigator, knowing exactly which course to take among the hazards.

“I pulled from the elements around me. I’m sorry to say that night I didn’t care if I was draining them. That didn’t matter to me.”

Raina had said that was mentioned in the police report, how the trees lining the streets were dead, birds limp and fallen as if they’d hit windows. A water main busted, a storefront on fire. She’d assumed whatever had attacked Ruby had done it. They hadn’t considered it was Ruby herself.

“I put her somewhere secure. And just like that…. I wasn’t pregnant. Not a mark on me. No stretched skin, my breasts suddenly just back to the way they were before I was pregnant….” Her voice broke. “It was horrific, wrenching, like it had never happened.”

Which was why the medical report didn’t indicate a pregnant woman, Derek realized. It was a remarkable piece of magic. One that would have required as much Dark magic as Light to pull off, because reverting a near-term pregnant woman back to her pre-impregnated state was about as adverse to Nature as any magical act could be. He held the thought, even though the significance of that told him she was about to head into even more troubled waters.

“I simply shifted her into a different kind of womb,” she said softly. “I wove a temporary illusion so she thought she was still there. I hummed a lullaby, wove it in with her, so she’d hear it whenever she needed it. I hoped that would hold her until I got out of the hospital, and it did. Once I got out, I went to work. That’s when I brought it all together, figured it all out. How to embrace my powers, how to twist together Dark and Light in a unique way. And I used it not only to give her a permanent Paradise, but to find my potential at last.”

She looked up at him again. “My mother, you, Raina…. You all had the fireworks and the knowledge for so long. When I started embracing that power, it was the first time I’d ever felt the fireworks.”

He knew what she was talking about. It had been a long, long time for him, but he still remembered, as an apprentice, those glorious moments when experience and academic knowledge came together and became something tangible, useful, building until it became expertise.

“I’ve made sure she’s in Heaven, Derek,” she concluded softly. “Not the kind where there’s doubt whether or not it truly exists, or a temporary way station to a new life. She’s in a place where she’ll never be afraid, never know anything but love and beauty. Every day is something different, but it’s always sunshine, happiness. Laughter.”

Holy Goddess. He repeated the mantra to himself, even more fervently. Ruby had created a soul prison.

Chapter 17

DARK SORCERERS KNEW HOW TO CREATE SOUL PRISONS, the ultimate torment to any living thing caught in them, and they fed off the energy of that fear. Ruby had done something impossible, and just as dangerous. She’d reversed it. Her daughter’s soul was in a soul prison, but one created to give her never-ending happiness and peace. The price of twisting the magic was that it was feeding off Ruby’s soul.

The knowledge required to do such a thing was extraordinary, unprecedented. His heart was breaking, for several different reasons. When he turned her, she anticipated him, resisting, clinging to his arm. “No.”

He forced her to face him, with gentle but ruthless hands. “Ruby, the baby would have returned to the Hall of Souls. She would have been loved.”

“No.” She shook her head. “That’s what they always want us to believe.”

“You know it’s possible that Asmodeus’s touch infected you with this kind of despair, that it’s still clouding your viewpoint.”

“There is nothing of him in me,” she shot back. “My child died, Derek. That’s enough despair for the whole world. That bastard doesn’t need to do a thing to add to it. And what if they do care for her in the Hall of Souls? Eventually, they have to let her be born, to another set of parents. Can they protect her? Will they love her? This is my baby. Mine to care for. Because of me, she will always experience happiness, contentment and no fear—”

“But it’s not real, Ruby. It’s not living. Her soul never has the chance to rejoin the flow of divine energy and try life again.”

“Who cares? Why is that so important? Because some divine power says so? Well, fuck them. They weren’t there when I needed them, and neither were you. No one has ever been there for me; no one has ever been willing to give up or sacrifice a single bit of themselves for me. Maybe I’ve done nothing to deserve it, but a child always does, and my child is going to have that. Forever.”

She was out of the bed, facing him with hands clenched, her eyes wild and feral, mouth curled in an ugly, determined line. He rose from the bed then. Fuck it. He didn’t usually take advantage of such a mundane magic, but he concentrated, brought his clothes to him from where he’d left them in the cottage. Yanking on his jeans, he shrugged into his shirt, facing her in a better position than bare-ass naked.

“This magic is a death wish. No one can interact with Dark forces for long without being pulled into full servitude to it. You’ve been avoiding that fate by using your soul as bargaining chips. And bravo— you’ve turned yourself into a formidable witch, possessed of great abilities. Abilities that will serve no one and nothing in the end, because they’ll be consumed in the fires of the Underworld like popcorn.”

“You need to leave. This is no longer your concern.” But the desperation in her voice said she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

“Ruby, I can’t let you do this. You know I can’t.”

“So the sorcerer steps forward. The cop.” She spat it out. “It’s always that side of you that takes precedence, isn’t it? You’ll never simply be the man who loves and supports me. Fine. You want to try, you try. But you will have to kill me to do it. If you have the balls to do it, to kill the woman you claim to love, then do it.”

“Damn it.” He seized her shoulders before she could evade him. “Ruby, you can’t see; you’re too mired in it. This is wrong. And if telling you that, forcing you to face it, makes you hate me, then that’s the price I’ll pay for loving you…. and for loving her. Because I would have loved decorating a nursery with you. I would have loved knowing the very second you were carrying her. I hate like hell I was trapped in a Fae world, unable to be there for you. I hate it enough that I’m willing to change everything in my life, right now, to make sure I’m always there for you going forward, but there is no moving forward unless you let her go. You’re killing yourself, Ruby, destroying your soul. Worse, you’re keeping her from having the life she should have.”

“Who. Fucking. Cares.” She screamed it, loud enough that she could probably be heard on the street, if it wasn’t deserted this time of night. He saw it rise again in her eyes, that Darkness, the fear and despair that fed it. “What does life bring you except pain, rejection, hatred, loneliness—”

“Love.” He brought her to her toes, eye to eye with him. He wasn’t losing her to that darkness. He hadn’t lost her yet. He hoped. “I love you, Ruby. Everything, down to your broken soul. And we can do this together. If I’d been here, we could have gotten through it together. You trusted me enough then. Can you trust me again?”