Every Which Way But Dead

Chapter One

I took a deep breath to settle myself, jerking the cuff of mygloves up to cover the bare patch of skin at my wrist. Myfingers were numb through the fleece as I moved my next-to-largestspell pot to sit beside a small chipped tombstone, beingcareful to not let the transfer media spill. It was cold, andmy breath steamed in the light of the cheap white candle Ihad bought on sale last week.

Spilling a bit of wax, I stuck the taper to the top of thegrave marker. My stomach knotted as I fixed my attention onthe growing haze at the horizon, scarcely discernable fromthe surrounding city lights. The moon would be up soon, beingjust past full and waning. Not a good time to be summoningdemons, but it would be coming anyway if I didn'tcall it. I'd rather meet Algaliarept on my own terms—beforemidnight.

I grimaced, glancing at the brightly lit church behind mewhere Ivy and I lived. Ivy was running errands, not evenaware I had made a deal with a demon, much less that it wastime to pay for its services. I suppose I could be doing thisinside where it was warm, in my beautiful kitchen with myspelling supplies and all the modern comforts, but callingdemons in the middle of a graveyard had a perverse rightnessto it, even with the snow and cold.

And I wanted to meet it here so Ivy wouldn't have tospend tomorrow cleaning blood off the ceiling.

Whether it would be demon blood or my own was a questionI hoped I wouldn't have to answer. I wouldn't allow myselfto be pulled into the ever-after to be Algaliarept'sfamiliar. I couldn't. I had cut it once and made it bleed. If itcould bleed, it could die. God, help me survive this. Help mefind a way to make something good here.

The fabric of my coat rasped as I clutched my arms aboutmyself and used my boot to awkwardly scrape a circle of sixinches of crusty snow off the clay-red cement slab where Ihad seen a large circle etched out. The room-sized rectangularblock of stone was a substantial marker as to whereGod's grace stopped and chaos took over. The previousclergy had laid it down over the adulterated spot of once hallowedground, either to be sure no one else was put to restthere accidentally or to fix the elaborate, half-kneeling,battle-weary angel it encompassed into the ground. Thename on the massive tombstone had been chiseled off, leavingonly the dates. Whomever it was had died in 1852 at theage of twenty-four. I hoped it wasn't an omen.

Cementing someone into the ground to keep him or herfrom rising again sometimes worked—and sometimes itdidn't—but in any case, the area wasn't sanctified anymore.And since it was surrounded by ground that was still consecrated,it made a good spot to summon a demon. If worsecame to worst, I could always duck onto sanctified groundand be safe until the sun rose and Algaliarept was pulledback into the ever-after.

My fingers were shaking as I took from my coat pocket awhite silk pouch of salt that I had scraped out of my twenty-five-pound bag. The amount was excessive, but I wanted asolid circle, and some of the salt would be diluted as itmelted the snow. I glanced at the sky to estimate where northwas, finding a mark on the etched circle right where Ithought it should be. That someone had used this circle tosummon demons before didn't instill me with any confi-dence. It wasn't illegal or immoral to summon demons, justreally, really stupid.

I made a slow clockwise path from north, my footprintsparalleling the outside track of the salt as I laid it down, enclosingthe angel monolith along with most of the blasphemedground. The circle would be a good fifteen feetacross, a rather large enclosure which generally took at leastthree witches to make and hold, but I was good enough tochannel that much ley line force alone. Which, now that Ithought about it, might be why the demon was so interestedin snagging me as its newest familiar.

Tonight I'd find out if my carefully worded verbal contractmade three months ago would keep me alive and on theright side of the ley lines. I had agreed to be Algaliarept's familiarvoluntarily if it testified against Piscary, the catch beingthat I got to keep my soul.

The trial had officially ended two hours after sunset tonight,sealing the demon's end of the bargain and makingmy end enforceable. That the undead vampire who controlledmost of Cincinnati's underworld had been sentencedto five centuries for the murders of the city's best ley linewitches hardly seemed important now. Especially when Iwas betting his lawyers would get him out in a measly one.

Right now the question on everyone's mind on both sidesof the law was whether Kisten, his former scion, would beable to hold everything together until the undead vampiregot out, because Ivy wasn't going to do it, scion or no. If Imanaged to get through this night alive and with my soul intact,I'd start worrying about me a little less and my roommatea little more, but first I had to settle up with the demon.

Shoulders so tight they hurt, I took the milky green tapersfrom my coat pocket and placed them on the circle to representthe points of a pentagram I wouldn't be drawing. I litthem from the white candle I used to make the transfer media.Every Which Way But Dead. Copyright © by Kim Harrison. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Every Which Way but Dead by Kim Harrison
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