Kal’s hands twisted, and a green-tinted ball of energy vaporated between them. It was ugly, larger and deadlier than the spell he had thrown at her on the presentation floor. This smacked of black magic, its only purpose to hurt or kill. If Kal was responsible for the plague, he’d have no problem killing her, much less Daniel, to cover it up.
“Septiens!” she shouted, imagining a circle around Daniel to deflect and protect him. It was undrawn, and therefore vulnerable. Exhaling, she pushed more energy into it until the molecule-thin barrier flashed with an instant of stability. Her hand flared in pain, and she funneled more through her, burning. Daniel, intent on reaching Kal, hit the inside of her circle, bouncing back with a grunt of surprise and falling in the loose rock between the tracks.
Kal’s energy hit her bubble at the same time, ricocheting away with a ping and an evil-sounding hiss, the black-and-green haze corkscrewing into a distant boxcar, where it burst in a shower of gold sparkles.
Her circle failed, and the power of the line rushed to fill the void the deflected energy had made, swirling toward it like water down a drain and vanishing. It hurt, but she wouldn’t let go of the line, and Trisk held her throbbing hand to her middle.
Daniel blinked, surprised to find himself on the ground. Kal stared at him for an unreal three seconds, trying to figure out why the man was down and not withering in whatever spell that had been. But then Kal’s gaze shifted to Trisk, his eyes narrowing as he saw her, shaking in anger as she stood protectively over Daniel.
“You will be held accountable for this,” she promised Kal, her hand aching as she pooled the spent energy from the circle into a mass of unfocused magic in her good hand. “You will be held accountable!” she exclaimed, thinking of the dead family behind her, of April, who would never smile at pretend again. “I will make sure the entire world knows it was you,” she vowed.
Kal backed up a step and her confidence swelled, feeding her anger.
But then he laughed, becoming again that prideful snot she’d grown up with. “Who do you think they’re going to believe?” he said in a show of confidence that was just that—a show. “You or me?” he added. “It was your project. I was sent to find the flaws, and boy, did I find one.” Saluting them with a casual finger, he turned his back on them and walked away, sure she wouldn’t have the guts to throw the energy pooled in her hand.
“You little bastard,” Daniel said as he scrambled up.
The world will thank me, she thought. But knowing that if Kal died, so did the only way to prove her and Daniel’s innocence, she warped the energy not with a curse, but something else, something she hadn’t known was possible until last week. It was a black magic; she didn’t care.
Perhaps Gally is right about me, she thought, her only emotion one of satisfaction as she threw it, the scintillating sparkles pulling off and away from her with the sensation of drawing a glove off inside out. She shuddered, feeling both clean and filthy at the same time. Coated in black, her spell sped toward Kal’s retreating form.
“Kal!” Orchid shouted, and the man turned, his toe elegantly sketching a circle like a figure skater. A whispered phrase of Latin, and a circle sprang up. Her spell slammed into it, slivering over the entire barrier like black lightning, little flashes of gold looking for a way in.
Kal’s fear showed for an instant, and then he stood from his instinctive crouch, a demeaning smile on his face when her energy seemed to spend itself and vanish into the earth.
“Looks like I’m not the only one doing a little correspondence study,” Kal said, and with a scoffing laugh, he let his circle fall and beat a hasty retreat, slipping between two cars and out of her sight. “Orchid!” he shouted, and the pixy rose up, hovering indecisively for a moment before darting after him.
This time, Trisk let Kal go. Shaking, she looked at her hands, still feeling the pinpricks of the spent energy. She was breathless and a little ill, and she swallowed hard, determined not to throw up. What Kal didn’t know was that her charm had reached him, sliding underground and then through an open pipe buried in the ground to cross his circle and gently settle into his aura like a second skin.
“It worked,” she murmured, looking at her hands and seeing no difference. It hadn’t been a spell or charm to hurt or kill, but one to mark. After seeing Gally move his curse’s smut onto her, she’d figured out how to then move it to Kal, coating him in her smut. It was a curse without actually cursing him, marking him so the demons could find him. It might be tomorrow, it might be in eighty years, but when one got out, he would sense the blackness on Kal like a lighthouse in the night and take him for his own, thinking Kal had earned the smut honestly.