Neon Blue E Frost (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

empty. That’s why I’m calling them home. They’ve been scattered, hidden, because Jou’s power cannot stand against his father’s.

But mine can. As soon as I think it, I know it’s true. My power is different from his, from Jou’s, from any fire Elemental’s. My power’s the strength of Earth—

And Air.

Huh?

Air, c’mon, sweet meat. Haven’t you figured it out? How d’you think you called those fucking bats that took such big chunks outta me?

I look wonderingly into his eyes, their neon glow undulled by our lack of substance. I . . . never thought about it. The nethancs just came when I called. They’ve always come when I called. It’s never occurred to me to wonder why.

Think later. Help me make something unbreakable now.

Earth and Air. Earth to strengthen the foundation stones. I reach down into the ashy soil, into the strange, unearthly substrate of Hell. It’s not Earth. I feel the difference immediately. The otherness of it lies across my magical senses like a shadow. But it’s close. Close enough that when I call, the bedrock responds, surging up through the tower. Pinions of rock and metal and mineral to anchor Jou’s home to the very substance of Hell.

But even the strongest walls can be breached. Even stone can be broken. Worn away. It doesn’t even require force. Just time. And wind.

I stretch my not-arms to the sky. Air. I’ve never consciously called on Air before, but as soon as I do, the winds of Hell answer. They roar across the tortured landscape, flattening everything in their path. Even the distant firestorm thins and cowers before their force.

Unbreakable walls. Unbreachable walls. Walls of Air. Walls of Killing Wind. I hold my hands out to the tower.

The winds whirl around us, through us, pulling at my mind the way they would pull at my flesh if I were really here. If Jou wasn’t somehow keeping me safe. Here and not here. Encircled and protected by his power. His warmth swells within me. His thoughts and feelings. Emotions he controls and doesn’t let rule him but feels all the same. The way he feels about his family. The way he feels about me. His emotions are so strong. He doesn’t feel love. Not the way I think of love. He’ll never put me first or care more about me than he does himself. But his emotions are strong and deep and wonderful and they call on what is strong and deep and wonderful in me. I could love him. Even though he’s a demon. Even though he terrifies me. Even though he wants me to become something completely different from everything I’ve ever known. I could still love him.

Good. ‘Bout time you realized that.

I turn to look at him, with insubstantial eyes and substantial heart, but he guides me back to the burning tower.

Stay focused, sweet meat. We’re almost done here.

No, we’re not. I’m not. There’s more I want to do, and see, and know. This is more than his home. This is his heart. The soul he says he doesn’t have. I want to know it as intimately as I know his body. I push my mind outward, up through the tower. Up from the web of power anchoring the tower to the hill, up into the walls that I wrap with wind. I let them eat away the rock until there’s nothing left but whirling walls of air. I pull on Nevida’s power, which is the essence of Jou’s smoky, sexy edge. Where Jou controls his passion, leashing it tightly with his will, Nevida lets hers burn. I drink in Nevida’s essence and breathe it out into the whirlwind. Watch it catch fire. Burning strands circle the tower, wrapping it in fire. I feel Nevida’s delight, Jou’s delight, as the walls of air turn to flame.

But it’s not enough. Jou’s father is a fire Elemental, and I can’t leave Jou with defenses his enemy can control. And there’s more here for me to work with. With a tentative thought, I touch Fulsome’s mind.

I expect him to push me away. I felt his disdain in that moment that I called him home. He despises me. Because I’m human, and because Jou has brought me here to do what he couldn’t. Any sign of weakness enrages Fulsome, ignites that cold-burning core of hatred that powers him. So different from Jou’s warmth. And yet they taste the same. Fulsome’s bright-white rage; Jou’s dark desire. They both feel the same. They both come from the same base urge.

I draw hard on that primal source, that crucible of emotion. Harder, pulling against the cores of both demons. There’s so much here. I thought true power lay in the elements: earth, air, fire, water. But suffused with Fulsome’s power, and Jou’s, I’m no longer so sure. Their emotional energy is more readily available. More pliable. Easier to work with. I twist it into rings, into explosive glyphs that have meaning only for the three of us, into a spiral of power to encase the burning tower. An outer line of defenses incomprehensible and impenetrable to anyone else.

I leave Fulsome collapsed in Nevida and Cazin’s arms, Jou shaking against me, and reach for Reece.

Panicked, the demon pulls back.

Don’t fight me.

For a wrenching moment, I see myself the way Reece sees me. A small, pale, naked ghost with burning eyes and hands, wrapped in Jou’s misty arms. Power blows off me in dark veils, whipping into the burning whirlwind of the walls. An echo of a memory.

Neferure. Her name whispers through all of the demons’ minds, these four children of the demoness who raised the hill on which we stand. To protect her children. To defend them after she was gone. And another emotion floods me. Anguish. Neferure’s anguish, raising the hill with the last of her strength, knowing she was dying even as she brought forth new life, knowing she wouldn’t survive to protect the small new lives she bore. Reece’s anguish, unmothered, unfathered, the weakest of the clutch,