There was a smattering of masculine guffaws, and finally they all shut up. It was like living with perpetual sixth graders. Dali lowered his hands, moving his middle-aged spread gracefully as he walked to the center of the narrow stage. Demons could appear as whatever they wanted. I still didn't know what Dali found appealing in being a fortysomething, slightly overweight, graying civil servant.
"As Al's parole officer, I am responsible for keeping Algaliarept's behavior within acceptable parameters," he said, and Al cleared his throat and made an elegant bow. "And you," Dali added, pointing at Al, "are responsible for your student's."
That would be me, and I turned a smidge to show off my curves. So I wanted to appear attractive. So sue me. I was surrounded by perfection.
Al visibly swallowed back his ire. With a small breath, he seemed to gain two inches, again bowing with an overdone flourish and sending a foot to smack me to try to get me to do the same. "Assembled countrymen," he said as he gracefully straightened. "May I say-"
"No, Gally," Newt interrupted as she took up her wineglass again. "You've talked enough. Your student's ley line has degraded to the point where we're losing enough ever-after to give me a splitting headache."
It might be the wine she was drinking, but I, too, had a soft throbbing at the base of my skull where there'd been none this morning. I had blamed it on whatever had been in Trent's fridge, but maybe it was more. Behind us, the demons muttered agreement.
"Why," Newt said as she fixed her eerie black orbs on Al, "haven't you taught her how to line jump so she can fix it?"
"You think I don't want to?" Al took a step to distance himself from me, and I felt alone. "Her gargoyle is a baby of fifty years, but he's bound to her already so we simply have to wait. And before you mention it, the scar tissue my student received from that cretin in the front row trapping her in a ley line prevents any other gargoyle from breaking through her aura to teach her instead."
It was true, and I winced when Ku'Sox rose up, looking lean and elegant. "Blaming this on me? How gauche." His expression turned mocking. "And typical, I'm afraid."
"Why not?" I barked out, unable to help myself. "You're behind this."
The demons around him eased back to give him more room, and an uneasy murmur rose. "Careful, Rachel," Al said as he leaned forward, blocking my view of them.
Jittery, I pushed his hand off me. "Ku'Sox kidnapped Kalamack's daughter and his, ah, common-law wife," I said, exaggerating. "And then the lines go sour? All of them? Doesn't that seem a little odd to any of you?"
Again, the demons whispered among themselves, very aware of, and not liking, Ku'Sox's genocidal tendencies. Al was a lot more direct, and I pulled away when he pinched my elbow. "Stop trying to distract them. It's transparent and obvious."
"Is it?" I said loudly to Al but talking to all of them. "Distraction seems to be working for him! Have any of you given any thought to why he might have kidnapped my former familiar's child and wife? My elfin familiar?"
The mention of their age-old enemies got the expected snarls, but Newt and Dali were listening. Their war had nearly killed all of them.
"I say we kill her and be done with it!" Ku'Sox said loudly.
Taken aback, I spun, the ring of flowers falling from me to land in the dry moat between us. "Kill me?" I said, unheard over the rising complaints. "Are you nuts?"
"I can't think straight, my head is ringing so badly from the lines!" one demon shouted as he stood, getting a round of agreements before he sat down in vindication.
"I was in the middle of some work, and I lost it all!" a second exclaimed. "You owe me restitution for a week's work down the crapper!"
Al's brow was furrowed. "My student is not responsible for your failure to record your curses in the collective," he said, and Dali nodded his agreement.
"We have a problem," a third said, a band of blue fabric draped over his shoulders. His voice was firm, and I wondered who he was. "The imbalance is impacting everything. It took two of you to summon her through the lines. Two! That's not normal. And it's getting worse!"
I took a step forward. "Well, that was because of Trent," I said, and Al jabbed me with his elbow to shut up.
Newt and Dali pulled their attention from the rising noise behind me. "Trent tried to block our summons?" Newt asked, her long legs showing from under her toga before she tugged it to cover them.
"It's never taken a collective to summon anyone!" the demon with the blue sash said loudly, enjoying the attention his claim had brought him. "The ever-after is falling apart!"
The sky is falling, the sky is falling, I thought derisively, and Newt shifted her feet to the floor, her expression seeming to mirror my thoughts.
"This is pointless," Newt said as she poised almost coyly. "Stay on track, gentlemen. Rachel, love, can you fix the line?"
I didn't like being called "love," especially not by her, but I let it pass. "No," I said sullenly.
"Of course she can!" Al shouted to drown out the immediate complaints, his hands raised pleadingly as he shot me a glare. "We need more time, is all."
"We have no time!" Ku'Sox asserted, aggressively riling them up. "She broke the balance. Killing her will fix it."
"It will not!" I exclaimed, but Al's wince and Dali's sudden deflation as he sat down made me wonder. "It won't, will it?" I asked Al softly, and the demon made a long, drawn-out, regretful noise of possibility.
Dali leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, ignoring the rising noise behind us for a moment. "Unfortunately it might," he said to me, giving the demons time to argue. "Lines created from a jump between reality and the ever-after are permanent, for the most part, but lines made from a reality-to-reality jump are not, and killing you might erase it."
"Might?" Panicking, I looked at Ku'Sox, hating his smug smile. "This is a setup," I said, wanting to retreat but there was nowhere to go. "The line was stable. Well, not stable, but it wasn't unzipping like this! Someone's tampered with it!" It was as close as I dared go without actually blaming him, and even so, Al lightly smacked me on the shoulder to shut up.
"We have nowhere to go if the ever-after collapses," Ku'Sox said, voice loud over the rising noise. "Kill her before it's too late!"
"Wrong!" I shouted, and Al sighed heavily. "They have nowhere to go. You do."