Free The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil by Heidi Cullinan Page B

me?” Jonathan had shifted his grip on Timothy’s arm, gently forcing Timothy’s hand open, and with the gesture opening the finger knife mechanism as well.
    Smith pulled his hands from his pockets and guided Charles out in front of him, holding him firmly in place by the shoulders. “With my little pet,” he said, then yanked hard on the back of Charles’s hair, lifting his face.
    The pale, dull eyes were no longer blue. They had no iris or pupil, and they glowed a hot, angry gold.
    Beside Timothy, Jonathan tensed, then buckled. Then Jonathan roared.
    “ Yes !” Smith cried. He lifted one of Charles’s arms, which Timothy realized held a sword; the alchemist murmured a word, and Charles lifted it up farther on his own, ready to strike.
    Jonathan straightened, no longer hampered by his injury. He pushed the release button on the side of his walking stick, sending the casing skittering away on the ground as he raised his own blade. Timothy caught a look at Jonathan, and he staggered back at the ferocious expression on his face and the unnatural red light of his companion’s eyes.
    “Daghata,” the gold woman whispered, holding Timothy up the way Smith was holding Charles, though by his arms, not by his hair. She kept Timothy’s hand inside Jonathan’s grip by the force of her own. “It is almost time. Keep your hand in his. It is almost time to fight.”
    Timothy didn’t want to keep his hand in Jonathan’s. “ I have a demon inside of me ,” Jonathan had said. Timothy had always assumed Jonathan was being metaphorical. And yet if Timothy had to describe what he was looking at now, he would have to say he was looking at something demonic. It was not a virus. Not an infection. There was something else wearing Jonathan’s skin. Something dark and terrible.
    A demon. He was not standing next to Jonathan. He was standing next to a demon.
    And then, like the flicker of a flame, it was Jonathan again, just for a moment. Then it happened again, and again. Charles Perry had nearly drawn the sword fully over his head, and he still looked completely possessed by the alchemist’s spell, but Jonathan was fighting whatever had come over him. The flicker became a beam; the demon vanished, and Jonathan turned to Timothy, wrapping his hand tighter around his friend’s wrist.
    “Now!”
    Now, what? Timothy wondered. But Jonathan was already swinging them both around. He brought up the blade of his sword stick in time to block his brother’s blow, but at the same time he was raising Timothy’s wrist, lunging hard at the alchemist’s midsection. Jonathan’s leg gave out; he leaned hard on Timothy. Timothy was weak and could not bear him.
    The gold-glowing woman caught them both. Then she reached over and plucked the pin from Timothy’s sleeve.
    “Now, Raturjula! Now is the time to fight!”
    Timothy felt his head clear, the enchantment not gone but pushed back by a great gold ring that expanded out beyond his consciousness. He could see only the alchemist, and with this sudden clarity and narrow focus, he truly saw the alchemist. He had one hand on Charles, gripping his hair tightly as he murmured strange words, but his other hand was in his pocket, and his fingers were moving.
    Pin and anchor. The pin was in my sleeve. The anchor is in his pocket.
    Jonathan was trying to lift Timothy’s hand again, and Timothy realized it was this he was aiming for: the alchemist’s pocket. Timothy didn’t fight Jonathan’s direction, only helped it along, standing upright at last and supporting his friend as he drove the small, wicked finger knife straight down across the seam of the alchemist’s coat. Timothy gave it an extra push at the last second so that the knife went into the bastard’s tender skin. The alchemist screamed, and Timothy felt the last of the enchantment break as seven silver stones tumbled out, then shattered against the ground. Charles Perry stumbled, then fell to the ground as well, shaking his head as he