Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the men approaching with a long curved knife.

Trix screamed. She tried to turn her body but the man on her back was too heavy. She kicked her legs ineffectually. The crystal lay a few inches from her face, drops of blood beading on the surface. The man with the knife reached her and crouched down at her side. He grabbed her hair, pulling her face up painfully to expose her neck. Terror brought sudden clarity as she focused on the ragged edge of the knife, the sweat on the man's lip, the metallic smell in the air. Her mind did not believe that she was about to die, such things do not happen, she thought. There was surely a way out. She had hurt the man earlier, a little, with her power. That was her only tool, her only advantage. They wouldn't be able to protect against that. She remembered when she had scryed with Jeremiah, how she had been able to push more power into the ritual, more than flowed out naturally. What had Salome said? That there was no limit, really, That the only limitation was what it would do to a human body, and that we protected ourselves against that damage, instinctively. But if she was going to die anyway, then why not. Why not just use it all?

As the knife pressed up against her neck, she opened her mind, letting her attention float outwards. She found the man on her back, and filled his mind with her power. She imagined it flowing into him like water, saw it fill him and overflow, spreading out through the room, finding the man with the knife, then the third man, who was watching not far away. The more she gave, the more easily it flowed, gushing out of her now in a great torrent of energy. The limits were gone now, the dam was thrown wide open, and behind it she found a bottomless reserve, unaffected by her outpouring. A great lake of power, still and calm in the centre of her chest.

The man had begun to notice, now. The room thrummed with energy. Their teeth creaked and their heads ached with the pressure that was building up. The man who had been watching tried to run, but instead fell to the ground clutching his head in confused horror, pressing his hands against his eyes as though worried they would be forced out of their sockets from within.

Trix floated in the sea of power, rocked comfortably by its waves. She tried to remember what she had been trying to do moments before. She was so comfortable here, warm and weightless. She could no long see the room around her, only bright and beautiful colours. She smiled and breathed out, a long and happy exhalation that took with it all the stress of the last weeks. Yes, I should stay here she thought, where else is better, what awaits me, out there? She felt that great lake beckoning to her, just let go, let yourself sink into my depths, there is no pain under my waters. Something imperfect broke through her ecstasy. A smell. The metallic smell of blood. Blood? Oh yes, the men were trying to kill Salome, my friend. She shivered. I will come back later... She rolled over, the man on her back easily falling off and curling into a foetal position. The room shimmered around her. She bent down and picked up the crystal, marvelling at the rainbow of colours that were now shining through the thin layer of blood. The whole room was shining, the crystals on the ceiling and walls covering everything with stained-glass beauty. She laughed and spun, letting the colours flick over her skin, lighting it up in purples and red and greens. One of the men looked up at her, horror on his face, he muttered something, a prayer? She smiled, her teeth gritted in happy anticipation of the pain she was about to inflict.

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Trix awoke with Salome sitting on her chest.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"You got out?" she asked, struggling to raise her head and look at the cat. The room was still flooded with rainbow light, The shimmering colour from the crystals playing on the faces of the three twisted corpses that surrounded Trix's body, throwing dramatic shadows that seemed to bring their tortured faces to life.

"You untied the bag, before falling on your face like a felled tree."

"Oh. I don't remember what happened, after the...fight."

"Three men shaking their fists at a volcano does not make a fight. You expended enough power to split this rock in two."

"You saw?"

"No, but I felt it, even through the bag."

"Oh." said Trix, she dropped her head back to the floor.

"I imagine they felt it on earth. With the racket you made they probably felt it on every world from here to heaven."

"I'm tired." said Trix.

"Yes. Yes, I can see that." Salome was quiet for a while. "You should perhaps be slightly more conservative, in future. Your body will struggle to recover, otherwise."

Trix felt the cat shift on her chest, pawing at her softly with its claws slightly extended, a disapproving look. Salome coughed. "Humans are foolish, the young doubly so. I despair at your kind, sometimes. You must get up now, we should find the others and bring the here."

"Here? But, they'll see the bodies?"

"They will see the crystals and marvel at this magnificent battery that you have created, that will be able to power the ritual to return us home. I'm sure they will be very impressed by the bodies though, that is true."

"I need to move them, they...I don't want them to see what I did."

Trix struggled to her feet, every muscle crying out in pain, and dragged the men through the exiting passageway and closed the door. She would have preferred to move them further, but even this much had exhausted her again.

The climb back to the surface was slow. Trix struggled to walk and had to rest every few minutes to catch her breath. Her lungs fought to pull enough oxygen from the air, leaving her constantly gasping even at a slow pace. Salome walked ahead, complaining loudly about how long the trip was taking, and the weakness of mankind, but Trix noticed that every time she lagged behind, the cat would pause and put on a show of washing herself, or observe a carving on the wall, giving her time to catch up.

They arrived back at the designated meeting place many hours after Trix had run off in rescue of Salome. Jeremiah, Wilbur, Emma and Dean were sitting where she had left them, deep in conversation over a book. Jeremiah saw her first, he looked up and started in a sarcastic drawl "Oh you found the demon again, how unfortunate--" before seeing how much difficulty Trix was having to walk, then he ran over to help her sit down.

Trix waved off their questions, saying that she had exhausted herself by using her power to scare the men off, and that they had dropped the bag containing Salome in fear. She told them of a cave she had found, where the crystals were somehow full of energy, and how she thought this could be the fuel for their ritual.

"You should not have exhausted yourself so completely for her sake." Jeremiah had said loudly. At this, everyone had glared at Salome, as though the entire ordeal was her fault.

They told Trix of their hunt for information in the city, how they had tracked down the book Jeremiah wanted, and bought it with forbidden knowledge. They had learnt that the worlds would shift in relation to each other, becoming more or less distant over time.

"It seems that Earth is especially close right now, but will begin drifting further away very soon -- if we read this chart correctly, that is -- and therefore that this would be the perfect time to attempt our trip. Once you are sufficiently rested, that is. Of course we could wait, but our next window would be in two months and--"

Salome sat quietly, a short distance away, swishing her tail and staring at Jeremiah with hate in her eyes.

Jeremiah was still talking "-- we were just planning to find a place to sleep, and you are clearly in need of a good rest. We were concerned about how to pay for our accommodations, but since the cat is back in our midst, then I imagine we should be able to find something quite comfortable.