“What do you want?” Kal said as he got to his feet, then blanched when Saladan turned to him. Anger etched the witch’s face, his fingers hazed from the energy from the ley line he was channeling. Seeing Saladan’s shoulders hunched in anger, Kal suddenly realized that in trashing Trisk’s reputation, he’d utterly destroyed the man’s product—the one that Saladan had mortgaged his entire family’s wealth on.
Thin lips pressed into a line, the tall, dark witch pointed at Kal. “Tell me why.”
Power dripped in sparkling purple threads from Saladan’s fingers, and Kal retreated deeper into his living room, forced back as Saladan came farther in. “It was Trisk,” he lied. “She holds a grudge longer than any person I’ve ever seen, and she was tired of you trying to weasel out of the patent transfer.”
“You blame your failed schemes on a woman?” Saladan exclaimed. “You coward!”
A flicker of anger in his eyes gave Kal bare warning, and he dove to the side as Saladan sent a hissing, tangling curse at him. The black threads cored with purple twisted and writhed like dying snakes until one touched the leg of the couch. With a soul-stealing keening, the arms of the spell fell upon the couch and tightened. There was a crack of breaking wood, and in three seconds, his couch was twisted into a shredded pile of upholstery, wire, and wood.
Holy shit. He knows black magic. Aghast, Kal backed up, hands raised even as he tapped the nearest ley line. Energy limped into him, slippery from the frequent quakes. I can’t best black magic, he thought, his eyes wide as he deflected another ball of energy. The two forces struck, and Saladan’s spell pinwheeled onto the table where Kal’s orchids were set to catch the morning sun. With an ugly, wet splat and snapping, his entire body of work was gone, reduced to torn blooms and wet bark. Anger flashed through Kal, smothered by the fear of self-preservation. It could have been him.
“Was this a personal vendetta for you, Kalamack?” Saladan said as he came in another step, fingers twitching in another ley line spell. “Or is destroying my family something the enclave wants?”
Still angry, Kal held a hand out, trying to reason with him. “Do you honestly think I’d hang around here if I was trying to swindle you? For God’s sake, Saladan, I gain nothing by your downfall.”
The older man’s lip twitched. “Neither does Trisk,” he almost growled. “But the enclave might. You are the enclave’s representative. You signed off on the patent. Everything I own was tied up in those damned tomatoes, and my fields are nothing but black goo and my workers dead in the field. And I will know why!”
“I don’t know,” Kal said, then, gasping, flung up a protection circle around himself as Saladan threw another spell at him. “Will you stop it!” he exclaimed as a purple haze coated his circle, trying to eat its way in. “That tomato was perfect. If there’d been a problem, I would have seen it. She changed it to bring me down by framing me for gross negligence. If you want revenge, get it from her!”
Saladan made a quick, almost unnoticed motion with his left hand, and the sizzling evil eating its way into Kal’s circle crawled into itself and vanished. Relieved, Kal darted a glance at his demolished orchids, then met the man’s eyes in the new quiet. “I don’t believe you,” Saladan said softly, and Kal pulled himself to his full height, anger buoying him up.
But the witch had stopped trying to kill him, and Kal let his protection circle drop even as he continued to pull ley line energy into himself. “I’m making muffins and watching TV,” Kal said, glancing at the kitchen. Orchid’s bubble had drifted into it, and the pixy was doggedly trying to pierce her way out of the floating sphere, her dust an angry black. “Trisk has fled the city and is under suspicion for murder. I have nothing to do with it. Any of it.”
Saladan’s expression blanked. “How do you know she’s fled the city?” he said.
Kal’s eyes widened. “Ah . . .” He scrambled for a reason, but they all sounded false.
“The demons were right,” Saladan said, the glow strengthening around his hands. “You should all die. Down to the last pointy-eared newborn.”
“Saladan,” Kal started, then backpedaled. “Hey!” he shouted as an icy thread of purple-cored blackness spun through the air toward him. Fast from panic, Kal marshaled his energy into his hand, narrowly throwing the unfocused energy at the incoming spell. The twin powers hit, and the black coil writhed, overcome by the gold haze. Kal took a relieved breath and looked up.
Saladan was on him.
In a tangle of legs and arms, they hit the floor. Long, thin fingers twined around Kal’s throat, choking him. Kal dug at him, his nails going slick with blood. Panic was an icy wash, and he lashed out, hitting hard flesh.
“No one swindles me, Kalamack,” the old witch said through his gritted teeth, his bloodshot eyes inches from Kal’s. “And not some upstart elven whelp from a dying line.”
“Get . . . off . . .” Kal rasped, flooding them both with ley line energy.