by Lucia Ashta
A gasp rattled through my chest as I spotted Liana behind her. And Irving! Even the mermaid rescue huddled next to them, folded in on herself as if she carried Lizbeth’s torment atop her frail shoulders.
They’d survived! They were here.
I struggled to pull in a proper breath to fuel my tangible relief.
“Fine. You’ve made your choices,” Mulunu said, and I recognized the finality of her statement. She wasn’t going to offer the goblins another chance.
The wind whipped around Mulunu, slinging her hair in every direction. Her eyes began to glow as brightly as the opal that crowned her staff.
Behind her, Liana swept her long hair into a bunch and held onto it, taking a step closer to Irving and further away from the witch.
Mulunu was a force to be reckoned with. Some goblins were about to be pummeled.
Through their bright magic, it was difficult to be certain, but I counted five goblins still single-mindedly keeping to their master’s orders. Their magic was a kaleidoscope of lethality, which was about to come to an end. Even so, they didn’t turn to face their executioner.
A bright, shocking bluish-white light, like the ice of the Arctic, beamed from the jewel of Mulunu’s staff, plunging into one goblin and then the next, until every one of them still attacking us shook from the amount of power tearing into them.
They screamed and went rigid. Their magic fell from their hands; their knobby fingers clenched at the overload of power they had no way to rid themselves of.
Finally free of pain, I sucked in the deepest breath of my life. As if I’d drowned, died and been resuscitated, I greedily pulled in the breath of life. I heard Brogan doing the same.
Quinn, however, still hadn’t so much as twitched.
Oh God.
I forced myself back up and dragged myself nearly on top of him. Liana, catching on, kept Mulunu and the goblins in her sights as she ran toward me, giving them wide berth and stumbling only once on legs that were so foreign to her. She slid to the ground on the other side of Quinn just as the goblins Mulunu had speared with her magic crumbled to the ground in unmoving heaps.
The goblins that remained standing flicked nervous looks between each other and the open landscape around us, no doubt considering their chances of escape.
“Is he all right?” Liana asked me of Quinn, enormous eyes pinned on mine, while Brogan grunted repeatedly as he tried to drag himself closer to us.
“I...” Swallowing, I tried again. Though the goblins’ attack was over, the effects lingered; nothing within me was back to functioning as it should. “Dunno,” I finally settled on, and pressed back against the ground, face first.
“Q!” Irving yelled in that deep, stormy voice of his as he rounded our little group and squeezed between Liana and Quinn. Immediately, he shook him gently. “Q?”
No response, and a cry rocked through my fallen body. Had I been the one to damage him so badly instead of the goblins? I had no way of knowing!
“Now, the rest of you,” Mulunu snarled, and I forced my head to turn in the other direction, scraping my nose against the ground when I couldn’t lift my head sufficiently. Her eyes still glowed that terrifying, milky white as she examined each remaining goblin in turn. “Did you do the vampire’s bidding of your own free will?”
I didn’t wonder how Mulunu seemed to know so much about the vampire and his relationship with his peons. The wily sea witch was as astute and perceptive as they came.
With a strong hand, she gripped her staff at the ready, her threat tacit. The opal at its crest pulsed with her intentions.
After exchanging worried glances, the goblins finally started shaking their hairless heads, their overly large ears flopping with the movement. “No, Masta,” one of the bolder ones said.
“Do you now consider yourselves free of the vampire’s influence?”
As one, the dozens of goblins who remained standing looked from the crumbling pile of wet, soppy ash and dust to the unmoving, slightly charred bodies of their fallen comrades. Again as one unit, they directed their attention to Mulunu.
“We are free,” said the same goblin.
Mulunu raised her brows in question. “All of you agree?”
Every gray, ugly head nodded.
“Good. Then I don’t have to kill you.”
The goblins startled at her revelation, as if they’d automatically expected that end despite how she was steering them.
“Masta … won’t hurt us?” another with a particularly large, bloated belly asked.
Mulunu narrowed her eyes at them. “Not if you don’t give me reason to. If you give me reason to, I won’t hesitate.”
A few of them nodded resignedly, used to the threats.
“All of you, sit down. Keep your hands and magic to yourselves,” she said. “I’ll decide what to do with you after I deal with the damage of your assault.”
A chorus of “Yes, Masta” swept across the creatures as they moved to follow orders.
Mulunu nodded her satisfaction, then turned to the mermaid, who was more feral than the goblins: hunched over, rocking back and forth, her eyes never remaining in one place for more than a few seconds. The witch crouched in front of her and the mermaid’s eyes shot to her glowing staff. Mulunu waited until the mermaid’s gaze settled on her.
“Trina, I want you to watch the goblins for me. If they do anything suspicious, you let me know right away. Can you do that for me?”
Trina simply blinked at Mulunu for a few beats until she finally nodded.
“Good,” Mulunu said, standing again. “Thank you.”
I’d rarely heard Mulunu so gentle.
Her gentleness faded the moment her gaze landed on Quinn, Brogan, and me. She rolled me out of the way like I was a dead fish, then took my place at Quinn’s side.
I dragged myself around her, scraping my naked body against the ground, trying to position myself to better see what was happening.
Mulunu was all business now, examining Quinn in ways the rest of us hadn’t. She traced her softly glowing staff from his head to his toes, before pursing her lips and huffing.
“Who attacked the vampire?” she asked, looking at Brogan for the answer since he was sitting instead of sliding around the ground like me. His hands behind his outstretched body, he appeared as beat-up as me, though his eyes were regaining much of their sharpness.
“He did.” Brogan pointed to Quinn with a partial nod, wincing at pain I understood all too well.
“Then his powers have activated fully,” Mulunu said, exchanging a loaded look with Irving. “If not, he couldn’t have amassed that much energy. To kill a vamp as old and powerful as this one, he had to have used everything he had.”
“Mm-mm,” I finally managed to eke out, though I’d been trying to speak since Mulunu first asked the question. When they all pinned me in their line of sight, I pointed to myself as it was easier to do.
“You killed Dimorelli, then?” Irving asked, looking between Brogan and me, before settling on my eyes.
“I saw Quinn do it,” Brogan insisted, making me wonder how on earth he’d managed that much awareness when my brain had felt like it was melting inside.
“Gave‘im mymagic. Both. Did I hurt … ’im?” Despite my incomplete thoughts, everyone there seemed to understand what I was trying to say.
Mulunu’s milky eyes widened in a way that would have ordinarily unnerved me. Right then I couldn’t summon the strength to react as she asked, “You channeled your angel magic and your siren magic through him?”
I nodded, making myself dizzy. “Maybe earth ‘n goblin too.”
Her eyes widened even more, making Liana scoot back a bit.
“You combined your fusion magic with earth magic and goblin magic?” Mulunu’s voice was an octave too high, and my pulse started beating a nervous rhythm through my head. “And then you sent that all into Quinn, who already contained unstable magic that shouldn’t be combined within him to begin with?”
�
��Mm-think so,” I slurred, working hard to make my thoughts and words more precise. Mulunu didn’t panic for no reason. I needed to sharpen up to help Quinn.
“Will ‘e beokay?” I asked.
Mulunu shared a long, dark look with Irving.
The shifter who’d reminded me so much of the sea looked at me with stormy, haunted eyes. “We don’t know, lass. This has never happened before in the entire recorded history of magic.”
Grief hooded his eyes as he finally lowered them to the boy he’d saved a decade ago. Pressing a hand to the center of Quinn’s chest, he shook him lightly. When Quinn didn’t react and Irving didn’t meet my waiting gaze again, a wail wove through my chest and erupted from me before I could stop it.
If I’d killed Quinn ... I couldn’t complete the thought as I broke inside in a way the goblins’ magic hadn’t managed.
Liana raced to my side and pulled me into her arms, rocking me as I cried for the man I’d barely gotten to know, but who’d captured my heart with a connection beyond this world and beyond explanation.
“Shh, it’ll be all right,” Liana cooed, running her hand across my hair. “He’ll be okay in the end.”
I was no longer sure of it, and I gave into the waiting desperation and pain, and crumpled in Liana’s arms. I knew she wouldn’t let go.
11
“This definitely isn’t good,” Mulunu said, alternating between pinning angry glares at Irving and me. “And by that, I mean this is bad. Really bad.”
She’d taken a seat next to Quinn and folded the long locks of her hair across her breasts and into her lap. Her staff lay atop her legs, the opal glowing and then fading in waves as if it were on standby, waiting for her to use it again. Given the way the witch’s mouth twitched with her frustration, there was a decent chance she would; I just hoped she wouldn’t be pointing it at Quinn or me when she did.
“I told you the boy needed to die,” Mulunu accused Irving. “You lied to me. You promised you’d take care of it and you didn’t. Now this is what happens.”
I wanted desperately to ask what exactly had happened, and what else she expected to happen, but I didn’t want to draw any more of her fury toward me. Feeling a bit stronger, I sat up in Liana’s embrace, sinking into her side while I stared hollowly at Quinn.
At least ten minutes had passed and he still hadn’t moved.
“The boy isn’t waking, and there’s no guarantee he ever will,” Mulunu fumed. “And the girl’s eyes are glowing. Glowing, for Neptune’s sake! She’s like a tidal wave waiting to crash against the shores, obliterating everything in its path.”
“My eyes are glowing again?” I whispered softly to Liana.
She nodded, and for the first time I noticed that she took me in with a hint of wariness I’d never seen in her before. I sat all the way up, distancing myself from her ever so slightly, working to quash the sting of her rejection.
Crushing me, she pulled me back against her side. “Don’t you dare think there’s anything wrong with you,” my best friend said fiercely, her signature loyalty firmly in place.
“There is something wrong with her,” Mulunu hissed. “Don’t go filling her head with platitudes, Liana. There’s something wrong with both of them.”
“Mulunu!” Liana gasped in outrage.
“I’ve never been one to paddle around the truth, no point starting now. Selene and Quinn both contain incompatible magic. Incompatible elements. Do you understand what that means, girl?”
This time, girl meant Liana, who breathed too heavily through her nostrils in borrowed offense.
“Why don’t you tell me, Mulunu…?” Liana dragged out the sea witch’s name with a surprising amount of defiance given that we’d just witnessed her killing a bunch of goblins with a point of her staff. “I might not know Quinn, but I know Selene plenty well, and there’s never been a single hint of anything unstable about her. She’s the gentlest person I know. She isn’t dangerous. So what if her eyes are glowing? She isn’t causing any harm.”
I thought Mulunu would snap at my friend, but instead she sighed heavily. “Ah, the naiveté of youth. Child, the elements of nature are the very building blocks of magic. Some of them are relatively compatible, others aren’t, but either way, each one individually is a force onto itself. You’ve seen what the elements can do on their own. They can be gentle and life-giving. They can also be furious and wildly destructive. Any individual element could destroy the entire planet and all life on it if it were so inclined. There’s nothing any of us could do to stop its force. When you mix the elements in ways they aren’t meant to be mixed...” She shook her head, the shells in her hair clinking gently together. “Chaos. Destruction, on the levels of hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and so on. I’m not talking about a few sparks of uncontrolled magic, I’m talking about the big stuff. I’m talking about the big boom.” She flicked her fingers in the air and pushed her hands out. “Boom.”
Irving scowled. “There’s no guarantee any of that will happen. What we see here”—he pointed to the disintegrating remains of the vampire—“is a purposeful attack—in self-defense. What else were they expected to do? Allow the crazed madman to kill them when they possessed the power to stop him?”
When Mulunu didn’t answer right away, Irving continued, “Hybrids occur all the time. And they don’t explode or implode or whatever else it is you’re afraid will happen.”
“Regular hybrids happen all the time, Irving,” Mulunu said. “Not hybrids like the two of them. Hybrids like them are dangerous enough on their own. They should have never loved each other. Now everyone is in danger until we deal with the threat.”
“You mean kill us?” I said in a deadly cold voice.
“If I have to. I’ve already explained this to you, Selene. I take no joy in it, but I will do what needs to be done here. Someone has to.”
“What’s so bad about Selene being half siren, half angel?” Liana asked. “It was never a problem before. Why does it have to be now?”
Brogan was following the conversation with interest, but Mulunu only pushed up to her feet, grunting softly in complaint. “We have to get out of here before we’re found.”
In his emaciated condition, Irving took longer to claim his feet. “Brogan, will ya help me carry ma boy?”
“Of course,” Brogan replied right away, rising to his knees, waiting until he steadied before standing. He looked like he couldn’t carry a strand of kelp. Irving staggered over to him.
Liana and I exchanged a stare, until I looked down, remembering that my eyes were glowing like I was some freak of nature. According to Mulunu, that’s exactly what I was.
“Can’t we wait a little longer?” I asked. “Quinn still hasn’t woken up, and I’m not sure some of us should be moving yet.” I eyed Brogan and Irving some more before studying Quinn. At least his chest rose and fell with steady breaths; that was a blessing I’d take.
“Sorry, lass,” Irving said. “The vampire and his goblins weren’t the only supes hunting us. Mulunu left a little … distraction for the rest of them, but it won’t hold them for long.”
“Hold who?” Brogan and I asked at the same time.
“Witches, vampires, shifters, the usual,” Irving said. “Probably all part of the Voice, all wanting power that doesn’t belong to them.”
“Where? Where do we go?” Liana asked, panicked.
“And what of the other prisoners?” I asked. “Did they make it out?”
I knew the answer before Irving even opened his mouth. His stormy eyes mourned for a few brief seconds before he abruptly shook his head. “We were too busy fighting these bastards off. We weren’t able to save anyone else before the castle lit up. If the prisoners weren’t able to get out of their own accord, then they perished.”
My stomach wrenched and churned while my eyes burned.
Liana placed a hand on my shoulder, squeezing. “We managed to open some of their cells. Maybe they got out.”
May
be, but unlikely. They were too damaged.
At all the questions that must have formed across my face, Irving just shook his head. “Later,” he said. “We have to move.”
“Indeed we do,” Mulunu said. “Any witch worth a lick of salt can cast a simple spell to track the power you and Quinn are throwing off. Even asleep like he is, power is still flowing from him.”
She scowled at us another time for good measure, including Irving in her condemnation, then rounded on the goblins, extending her staff and its now-glowing opal. Many of them squeaked in alarm, but most of them slumped over their extended bellies, seemingly resigned to the cruel fate of their lives, as if they hadn’t really believed they’d get out of this alive.
“You will have your freedom,” Mulunu announced in a booming voice while circling her staff to encompass the entirety of their seated group. “I promise you I will set you free. But I ask that you aid in our defense before I grant your freedom. After what I assume has been a life of servitude, I wish I could set you free now, but others hunt us, much as your former master did.”
The goblins all stared at Mulunu without blinking. The effect was eerie, but the sea witch didn’t seem bothered by it. In fact, she seemed more compassionate with them than with Quinn and me. I understood the goblins had only been following orders when they’d attacked us, but they’d still hurt us—and badly. Quinn and I’d done nothing to hurt anyone beyond Dimorelli, and still Mulunu apparently planned to kill us … just as soon as we survived this next wave of attacks.
“Do you want to earn your freedom?” Mulunu asked, and every single goblin nodded, one of them speaking for all of them. “Yes, Masta. Tell us what to do.”
“Kill any mage, shifter, or vampire that pursues us or tries to hurt any of our group.”
“Kill?” I whispered to Liana, whose eyes were wide with shock. But Irving was the one to answer as he shifted next to Quinn’s body on the ground. Mouth pressed into a tight, forbidding line, he said, “It’s the only way to deal with them. They’re like Dimorelli. They won’t stop hunting you until they get what they want from you, or until they’re dead. I’m not willing to have Quinn run from their greed for the rest of his life, always looking over his shoulder.”