Declan

Declan wished he could appreciate the improvement the girls were showing. Even Ruby, with her constant frown and aversion to sweat, could keep pace for the entire round. Kitty kept Audra on her toes, and Sara Elizabeth, much to everyone's irritation, two rounds. Kitty claimed it was because of the physical conditioning the girl received during cheerleading practice.

"Just imagine how much better you'd be if you weren't a lazy bum. At least these last few weeks have knocked some chub off of you," Sara Elizabeth goaded Kitty as she passed her, wiping sweat from her face with a towel.

The earth rumbled gently and the ground beneath the Sara Elizabeth's feet buckled and sent her toppling over. Kitty didn't even try to hide the glow around her emeralds as she clutched her stomach in laughter. The laughter was brief because the cooler full of ice water found itself dumped over everyone sitting on the ground.

"What the hell?" Travis shouted, "Bad form. Bad form."

Ruby shot to her feet, a river of black kohl streaming down her pale face, the channeling stone around her neck flaring brightly before dimming as if she struggled to control it. She'd yet to demonstrate her powers, which had lulled Kitty and Sara Elizabeth into believing the girl was weak. Declan considered warning them. Fire witches were not to be trifled with on a good day, and Ruby didn't appear to have those. Audra's gaze linked with his and they both shrugged. Let Ruby teach them a lesson.

"Go for it, kid," the wind witch encouraged before moving to stand beside the tense sorcerer. Ruby didn't need further encouragement, and the frown on her lips became a wicked smile. Dark shadows curled around her black painted nails, and she let it drift to the instigators. Travis, far wiser than the neophyte witches, scrambled away as the bright green and rich blue of their channeling stones signaled they weren't going down without a fight.

"I'm surprised it took this long," Audra joked. "We had at least three shows of power in my first week of training. Though, it's usually among witches of the same element. Doesn't matter if you've got a dick or not, everyone wants to have a measuring contest."

Declan almost choked He still wasn't used to this century's lewdness, but every time he thought he was settling in, Audra proved him wrong. His heart clenched. Lux used to delight in making him blush, but he'd ruined any chance of finding that easy camaraderie with her again.

"What's up, dude? You look like you've been sucking on lemons. Does it have anything to do with our missing Circle member?"

He waited a moment to answer, wincing as the shadow spell Ruby cast struck the girls and the screaming started. This had never been a fair fight from the beginning; the fire witch had spell training almost as extensive as Audra's. The other girls were basically tossing raw power about and hoping it did as they willed it.

"She won't be back," he replied, the words like ash and dirt in his mouth. He'd thought she was lashing out in anger, but her absence proved otherwise. "Perhaps... perhaps it's best. We could talk to Phoebe about binding her powers. It would be safer than her running about with a channeling stone."

The petite witch beside him snorted. "You know, I don't know what the girl sees in you."

"Excuse me?"

"I thought you might have a little edge to you when I saw you two dry humping on the lawn."

"Dear god," Declan groaned.

"I mean, here you are a sorcerer- the High Sorcerer, ready to fornicate with the High Priestess. And then you play the safe card. I'd run off too."

"Were you not the one that chastised us for our relationship?"

Audra flipped her thick, red braid over her shoulder. "Yeah, because it got the results I needed in that moment. But I say a lot of shit I don't mean to motivate people. And I don't think you actually heard me condemn what y'all were doing. All I'm trying to say is that if you approach Lux to bound her powers, you can kiss any chance of reconciliation goodbye."

"Um, hello! Are one of you going to stop this?" Travis shouted frantically. At some point the girls had stopped screaming and lapsed into open-mouthed horror, frozen by whatever terrors Ruby wove into their minds. Travis crouched next to Kitty trying to shake her awake but her blue eyes remained unseeing.

"Ruby, enough." Ruby witch ignored Audra, and the shadows grew thicker.

Travis pleaded with her. "Please, she's my best friend. Please, she isn't breathing."

"Look," Declan hissed, pointing at the shadows as they took shape. Tattered wings and barbed tails flapped about the clearing, and the sunshine faded. He called forth his cestuses and staff, grateful he had it with him. Made primarily of alder, he bound it with ash for strength and healing and elder to increase his access to Circle magic- for all the good that would do him right now.

"Ruby!" he roared, swirling the staff over his head as a shadow materialized before him.

"I'm trying," the fire witch wailed, the channeling stone at her neck flashing wildly. "Something else is trying to use my stone."

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," Audra fussed, her hands moving to summon the air. It whipped around the shadow demons to contain them, but they burst into smoky plumes and reformed on the other side of her wall.

"Shit," Declan echoed. His voice drew one demon toward him, and he dropped to a knee and rolled as it dive bombed him, coming up with his staff thrust into the air and splitting the beast in half. And just like before, the shadows regrouped.

"We're going to have to put Ruby down," Audra hissed. Travis's protests turned to screams as one of the shadow monsters descended on him. His eyes took on the same glazed look as the other two. "Hopefully, it'll break the connection someone has hijacked."

"Do what you have to," Ruby whimpered. She no longer fought to call back her spell. Her fingers clawed at her neck, the skin around her choker inflamed and cracking.

"I miss one class and this happens?"

Declan spun around to find Lux sprinting ahead of Hanish and a young black girl. "You need to leave now," he demanded, knowing she would only be hurt in this fight.

"I thought you said this wasn't demonic. Sure as hell looks demonic to me," the newcomer said, visibly shaking as she watched the screeching devils approach. Between Audra and Declan they could keep them at bay, but those in the clearing were running out of time.

"Brooke, not now," Lux snapped.

The Sylph watched the surrounding chaos. "I think between my power and Audra's we can create a disturbance big enough to disrupt their forms all at once which would allow someone to get to Ruby."

"That's a lot of power. You'll be down for days," Audra warned.

"We do what we must," the Fae replied. "Besides, after this, we have bigger problems."

"Bigger?" Declan choked out, unable to take his eyes off of Lux's determined face. A silver ring glowed softly around gray eyes that hadn't moved from Ruby's thrashing form.

"On my count of three," Audra began, "One-two-three!"

They called forth a wind so great, Declan's feet lifted from the ground. Drawing power from the earth through his staff, he grounded himself and stepped toward Ruby. Once he reached her, he could administer a drop of a sleeping draught to sever her connection to her power, but Lux rushed ahead of him, taking her first step on the count of two.

"Lux!" he yelled.

The shadow demons were already reforming as the tempest died down. Hanish dropped to the ground. Audra looked as though she might join him, but she stayed upright. Neither would contribute to the fight again.

"Lux!"

She didn't stop. Her long legs ate up the distance, and she slid as one monster dove toward her. Declan wanted to bolt after her, but the creatures had realized no shield stood between them and their prey. Whirling his staff, he cut through each beast, wincing as Audra cried out. The monsters were too many.

"They're going to get her," Brooke pointed. He cut down one last monster and stopped to see the largest devil zooming towards where Lux sat crouched next to Ruby.

The first dark tendril of shadow touched Declan, and his body burned from the inside. But he kept his mouth closed, unwilling to feed the spell with his fear. He could see no flames. It was a mental attack. Another demon wrapped around his neck and the pain intensified. Brooke's screams joined everyone else's. Now, he opened his mouth, but not to cry out in agony. To warn Lux before she became a prisoner like the rest of them.

"Lux, please," Ruby panted, her eyes wild and her neck soaked in blood.

The dark haired girl smiled sweetly, grasped her Circle member's red stained hands, and spoke a single word.

"Exilium."

The sputtering ruby channeling stone flared, washing the clearing in a red haze that sliced through the shadows, turning them to ash. The glow flickered: once, twice, and it was gone. At once, all was calm in the clearing.

"Well I'll be damned," Audra said, rising to her feet, reflexively rubbing her arms as if to rid them of the flames the spell had conjured in their minds.

"Aren't we all?" Brooke asked.

************************

"Here, drink this." Declan handed Ruby an infusion he'd designed to calm nerves and expedite healing. To her credit, she didn't make a face as she knocked back the malodorous drink.

They'd retreated to Lux's house after the attack. Battered and bruised, no one spoke much, but there was a tense expectation in the room. A silent demand for an explanation Declan knew couldn't be put off. He just wished he had the answers they were looking for.

With color back in Ruby's cheeks and the scratches on her neck looking less inflamed, he turned his attention to Travis, Kitty, and Sara Elizabeth. Identical haunted expressions clung to their faces, and they couldn't stop fidgeting. Both of the girls had tracks where tears had cut through the dirt. Travis reached over and patted Kitty's knee before reaching beyond her to squeeze Sara Elizabeth's hand reassuringly. More and more Declan wondered if there was more to Travis's ancestry than human. To find the strength to strengthen others so quickly after such a brutal assault.

Brooke hung back from the others. Her presence had yet to be explained, but he knew there must be a good reason. He looked at Lux. Yesterday the makeup hid the dark circles and sallow skin, but today, no amount of foundation could cover it. The skin beneath her eyes looked bruised, and her clothes hung like sacks on her once curvy frame. Yet she still had the same serene look that she'd had when she'd banished the demons.

"If no one is going to speak, I'm leaving," Brooke announced, her arms crossed over her chest.

Audra and Hanish had moved to a corner and were whispering frantically, but they jerked apart at the sound of someone else talking. With a pale face, Audra moved so everyone could see her. Keeping one hand on her stomach and another wrapped around her red braid, she took a deep breath and spoke.

"I know everyone wants to talk about what happened in the clearing, but Hanish has bigger news."

Kitty and Sara Elizabeth snapped to attention. The cheerleader surged to her feet. "I don't care what his news is. I want to know what the hell Ruby did to us, and then I want her removed from this Circle."

Ruby, while not as verbal with her sass, was never one to cower, but at the words of her Circle sister, she trembled and dropped her eyes to the floor.

"See, she doesn't even defend herself!"

"Ruby's spell was never intended to be as potent as it became," Audra explained. "It was designed to make a person see the thing that scared them the most. Face their personal demons, if you will. Not the kindest spell, but certainly not a dangerous one."

"Then why did we all feel like we were burning alive? Kitty stopped breathing." Travis was asked, and while his voice held no condemnation, he couldn't keep the anger out of his eyes.

"The explanation is complicated," Audra began.

Kitty spoke this time. "Then uncomplicate it."

"I've got this Audra. I think I know what happened. Fire witches-well most fire witches- are a little different than other types of witches. You both have an affinity for the element which rules your channeling stone, and while that's true for me as well, I-" Ruby paused, biting her nail as she gathered her thoughts. Declan knew what she was about to say, and he hoped for her sake, the others would not panic. "I draw power from the underworld."

"I'd be lying if I said it was nice to meet you folks. I'm gonna be leaving now," Brooke said while the others sat in stunned silence.

"Stay," Lux commanded, and the Brooke immediately stopped.

"You draw your power from hell? From the very place we are trying to keep locked up?" Sara Elizabeth stuttered.

"No, it's different. I mean, we use the term interchangeably because they're in the same place: underground, but they're still separate dimensions. The Gateways guard the prisoners of the Uprising. It was originally a place for the Fae when the gods decided- well, never mind, that's a long story. But after the Uprising, it became a prison. And then there's the underworld that's a home for the afterlife. That's where I draw my powers from."

"So what does any of that have to do with what happened out there?" Sara Elizabeth demanded.

"Think of it like this." Audra lifted her hands. A smoky substance formed above her hands, so similar to the shadow monsters that everyone in the room flinched. The petite witch gave everyone a sheepish grin, and the smoke turned pink as it drifted into the shape of a triangle. A thin line ran across the horizontal center, and another thin line ran vertically on the bottom section.

"The top is us. The bottom is the underworld. These lines represent the veils. The Gateway our Circle is responsible for sits here." She pointed to the spot where the lines converged. "It's the most vulnerable because it's the one place where all the dimensions intersect. The veil is thinnest there. Ruby's spell required her to draw on her connection to the underworld, and it would've gone through this point. If our Gateway is as weak as we think, it's not unthinkable that someone from the wrong side hijacked her spell. Kind of like a possession."

"So Ruby didn't attack us? Not on purpose as least?" Kitty had tears in her eyes as she walked over to the fire witch's side, and then she shocked the hell out of Declan when she wrapped her arms around the stout little girl. "I'm sorry we doubted you."

A rare grin split Ruby's face, transforming her plain features into something extraordinary. "I understand. You don't know me or the Craft well enough to have thought otherwise."

"I think it's something we should work on changing," the earth witch said, making Declan's chest swell with pride. Perhaps there was hope for this fractured Circle.

"I can't believe you're just going to accept that bullshit explanation," Sara Elizabeth fumed.

"That's enough," Declan finally said, "We need to move on to Hanish's news. We can't do anything about the veil until we can perform the Rite."

"No," the water witch insisted. Spittle flecked her lip, and her blue eyes were wild. "I want answers."

"You know what," Lux jumped in, standing and walking across the room. Gathering her height, she glared at the angry girl. "I'd like some answers too."

"I don't have them," she snapped. "Go stand next to your boy toy and get the hell away from me."

"Let me see your ring, Sara Elizabeth."

The girl deflated. Holding her hand against her chest, she took a step back. "Why is that important?"

"Let me see it."

"Really, Lux. A witch's channeling stone is sacred. She doesn't have to let you touch it."

"Audra, I need you to be silent. Show us your ring."

"Lux, what is this about?" Declan asked, concern tinging his voice. She was acting out of character.

She turned her gray eyes to him before letting them drift to Brooke. "I think Sara Elizabeth knows something about Corinne Bailey's death, and her ring is evidence that she's involved."