I threw a glamour over it too and a turnaround cast. Though it was unlikely anyone would wander into the park this late, the cast would change their minds, turn them in another direction. I knew it would use up a chunk of my magic. My own shield faltered, then fell.
Something grabbed my leg and I kicked out against it. A waroval demon clung to the ankle of my jeans, its tiny thorn gripping the sturdy fabric.
It opened its long mouth, like a crocodile, it was lined with rows of razor sharp teeth. But unlike the crocodile, these teeth contained a paralysing poison. I wasn’t too keen to find out if my abilities included an immunity to poisons; I sent a blast of white energy at it. The thorns retracted back into its stumpy hands and it scurried towards a low bench. My golden bubbled wavered. Fuck.
“Get back here and die already,” I yelled to the creature as I dashed after it. When I reached the bench it launched from beneath it, tackling me to the ground with the force of its impact. The thorns again dug into the denim of my pants, but they didn’t pierce my skin. I used both hands and brought the energy forwards, blasting it just as it opened its mouth. The bolts hit its throat and severed the top portion of its mouth, grey goo spewed from what was left of the creature’s head.
I detached the thorns and dashed over to where Jax was fighting a meriko demon.
The thing had three heads each like a bear’s but covered in scales like a snake. It whipped at Jax with two of its six arms, but he slid beneath them coming to stand beside me. The meriko clawed at us and its sharp nails slashed past my face but an inch from my eyes.
We ducked and weaved, almost like a dance, avoiding it’s attacks. Jax pulled me one way and I ducked then spun to avoid the next blow.
“Desmoree!” A familiar voice called. “You might find this useful.” King Blake tossed a shimmery sword into the air towards us. I freaked. Who throws a sword at someone? I didn’t know how to sword fight—I cut myself in the kitchen. But as the blade neared, my hand rose to meet the hilt at the perfect time.
I stared wide eyed at the sword in my hand. The demon took advantage of my distraction and hit me with one of his many arms. I fell to the ground, Jax tumbling on top of me.
There was an oomph and a gurgle then the meriko landed beside us in a bloody heap. Jax climbed off me and helped me to stand. King Blake stood over the creature, his own sword in hand, glistening with the blood of the demons he had slain.
“Are you fucking insane? Who the hell throws a sword at someone? What, passing me the sword is too much effort for an elf?”
“But you should have seen your face when you caught it,” King Blake laughed, clearly enjoying battle way too much. He swung around and decapitated a narkorous demon that I didn’t even see coming, without the smile dropping from his face. “It was made for you, and so knows it belongs in your hand. There was no doubt you would catch it.” He leapt over another meriko, slashing it down the spine mid-flight, then landed on top of a feratacs trying to take off to the sky.
A spout of black mist erupted by the barrier wall to my left and I saw it rise then fall back into the mist with a splash.
Jax and I both headed for it. My new sword in hand I slashed through the mist as we went, demons squealed and moaned as they fell. I saw a flash of rainbow in the dark and pulled up short of the barrier wall.
“Ava,” I called into the sky. She landed beside me a moment later. “Be careful, stay clear of the demons, let us take care of them, it is too dangerous.”
She frowned at me, hovering a meter from the ground, her beautiful angelic wings outstretched behind her.
“You worry too much, Mum, I will be—”
She didn’t finish her sentence. Her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. A logaras spike protruded through her stomach.
“Ava, NO!” I cried as I leapt around her and swung the sword true. It decapitated the logaras, its head tumbling into the mist. Ava dropped to her knees.
I used my magic and cast it towards the spike, a healing spell, a protection spell, every cast I could think of that could help. Then the shield cast clasped down onto it and locked in place. I could feel the spikes poison trying to escape but it was held within the power of the cast.
The barrier wall to the left wavered a little and I thought I saw smoke escape into the human world before it sealed again.
“Mum, I am sorry,” Ava said, her hands moving up to touch where the spike extended out from her. She dropped to her knees and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder to prevent her from falling either forwards or back.
“It will be okay, Ava, try to relax. JAX!”
“What the hell happened?” he asked rushing to my side and reaching for the spike.
“Leave it! For now it is encased but if my shield falls the poison will spread. I need time Jax. Keep them off us.” I nodded towards the several demons that had begun to advance. I might not have had enough power to heal myself when I was stabbed, but my energy shield around the spike was holding. I would be able to help her.
I have to! I can’t lose her.
I forced the energy down harder on the spike and felt it crack within the shield. Then the skin at Ava’s back, where her wings protruded, began to glow with red veins. The veins branched out and down towards the spike and I felt them wrap around my energy shield. They glowed bright scarlet and then my shield, the veins, and the spike all disintegrated.
Ava slipped through my hold to collapse to the ground, her wings spread behind her. I took her hands in mine and closed my eyes, focusing my energy. I sent my magic into her, sent it to the space the logaras had damaged. I felt my magic, my love wash over her. When I opened my eyes the tips of her wings glistened with a silver sparkle that then moved like a wave up her feathers and down to her chest. Tiny silver threads spread across the wound opening and quickly stitched it closed.
“Ava, can you hear me?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
Her eyes fluttered.
“Mum, what happened?”
“You were hurt, but it is okay, you are okay. I am the one who is sorry, if it wasn’t for me you would never have been hurt.”
She sat and hugged me tight then almost jumped to her feet.
“Ava, wait, you need to get to somewhere safe, you nearly died, I don’t know what I would have—”
“Mum, stop. You need my help. I can do this. Please. I will stay to the sky with Drendor and the dragons. I promise. Please let me help.”
I didn’t want to let her anywhere near demons. She was less than a week old, and just nearly died. She should be sleeping eighteen hours a day and crying the remaining six, not battling demons in the human realm alongside dragons. But if she stayed with the dragons, Drendor would keep her safe. The dragons swore to help the fey now their fire had returned. He will keep her safe. I told myself. Then I nodded and watched Ava fly into the sky to battle demons
“How the hell did this become my life?”
“Just lucky,” Jax said, planting a kiss on my cheek before running towards a harnet beast that had an elf pinned down in the brush. The harnet beast looked like a body builder had been skinned and dyed green. Jax was quick and deadly. He landed on the harnet beast, wrapped his arms around its head and with one swift move snapped its neck. The beast fell dead to the ground, the elf climbed free of it, and headed back into the battle with barely a nod to Jax. Not that he noticed, he was already after another narkorous demon.
I went after a logaras demon that was moving towards a group of Nazieth. I threw the sword and pinned it by the shoulder to a tree trunk. It clawed at the sword unable to grasp it and pull free.
“Hurts doesn’t it?” I spat, striding towards it. I pushed an energy ball towards the hilt of the sword and it forced the sword in deeper. The logaras moaned in pain. I smiled.
“Foul creature, you should have stayed in hell.” I brought my magic to both hands blasted it into its chest. The demon’s eyes went blank and I could see through the two holes I had made in the logaras, right through to the trunk of the tree i
t was pinned to. The shield around the park wavered at the edges. Fuck.
I let go of the magic sitting at the end of my fingers and reached out to grasp the sword. The hilt shone in the light, streaks of shimmery white that twisted around the handle beautifully. I wrapped my hand around it.
I felt strong.
Just like I had earlier, in the opal caves.
The sword must have had opals worked into its handle. I pulled the sword free then used the strength of it to help me lock back in the barrier around the park.
King Blake’s words rang in my ears. The sword was made for me. I could feel its connection to me, and I knew it would do whatever I needed of it.
I slowly turned in a circle looking for another logaras.
No entity could help them now.
They will all die screaming.
A logaras demon had an elf trapped to my right and I dashed over slicing it in its side. The demon howled out in pain but didn’t die, instead it began to dig.
“Oh, no way are you getting out of here,” I called, casting a secondary shield, sending my magic into the ground below me and up through the soil the logaras had begun to claw through. It hit him and sent him bursting from the dirt and up into the sky. Drendor swopped down and caught him in his enormous mouth, crunching the demon in half before spitting it to the ground.
The logaras moaned, still alive, even in pieces.
Good, you need to suffer.
Drendor landed beside me in a thump and shot a small fireball at the logaras. It squealed as it burned alive. I smiled, suddenly understanding why King Blake seemed to be enjoying himself.
Drendor soared back into the sky, blasting feratacs and monoterras as they tried to fly away.
Before I had put up the barrier, even with the help of the elves and dragons, we had struggled to keep the demons contained to the park.
I had no idea how many may have gone underground or flown away before the barrier was in place. Not to mention how many had transformed into non-threatening creatures to try to hide.
The molask demon could transform into almost anything about the same size. Not a person, we are too big. But a cat, dog, large bird. All those were possible, and not exactly uncommon to be seen in a city.
We couldn’t go killing all the animals in the city in case it were a demon, either. There needed to be a better way.
I thought of my dome of containment, I could use it somehow, but I would need every one else to be out of it first.
“Everyone, except the dragons, need to leave the barrier,” I yelled to those fighting. No one heard me.
I drew my magic to voice and sent the words out again. Louder. Amplified by my magic it was like speaking through a megaphone. They didn’t question, they all started to retreat. They could pass through the barrier with ease. A factor that angered the demons locked within. More of the logaras tried to tunnel out but they too hit the barrier. Some came at me. A narkitte sent its poisoned spears towards me, but they hit my shield and fell to the ground at my feet.
“When the last fabled is free, blast the entire area with your fire,” I called to Drendor and the other dragons circling. Derendor landed in a thump beside me again.
“Dragons don’t burn, but I am afraid you will, Desmoree,” he said, bending his neck down to look me in the eye.
I swallowed, trying for confidence. “I know. I am the reason they are free, I must take the chance to stop them being set loose on the city.”
“The park will be destroyed, all creatures that dwell within it.”
I nodded firmly. “It is the only way.”
Drendor howled and roared in pain. My eyes followed his head as he turned to his tail. A large spear had the tip of his tail pinned to the ground. He snapped at it with his teeth, but it didn’t break. A matador landed a moment later next to him and shoved another spear into Drendor’s foot. Drendor howled again, I sent out an energy blast and its body fell to the ground, lifeless.
Drendor lifted his clawed foot towards me and I dropped the sword. As soon as it left my hand I felt weaker, but I reached out and gripped the spear with both hands, heaving as I reefed it free from his flesh.
He wailed and another dragon fell to the ground beside us. It was slightly small than Drendor and was coloured an acid yellow. I took hold of the second spear and tried to pull it free but it had gone through his tail completely, and was embedded into the ground. The other dragon took the tip of Dendor’s tail in its mouth then yanked it up in the air. The spear stayed in the ground. The tail scraped up over the smooth length of it, Drendor’s blood stained the wood on its way free. Drendor turned to the other dragon and they touched heads for a moment before he shot me a look and took off into the sky.
Drendor circled us as he built the fire within his belly. His belly scales glowed hot with each second that passed. More than ten dragons joined him, they flew above me in circles around one another as their fires grew. They looked like fireflies, only bigger. And their fire is about to destroy the entire park.
I had a chance at surviving the fire of one dragon, my shield was strong, and I had a knack for living through things I shouldn’t. But the fire of more than ten dragons…Not really holding up much hope there.
I searched for Jax and Ava. I felt him before I saw him. Jax was trying to get back though the dome, but I had made it one way. Once the fabled had left, they couldn’t come back in. That way no one but me would get hurt. I did this. I had to end it.
The demons thrashing at the dome turned to me. Some ran full pelt. My barrier held but quivered when a matador kicked it with its hooved foot. It drew my eye to where it had kicked and I saw my bag, the one with the few strands of yowie hair left. I took one step closer, then kicked it across, out of the dome. Ava could use that hair to help the hytersprites.
I was assuming the magic the Tanzieth gifted me with to defeat Traflier would return to them if I died. If not, maybe she could use it to help them too. I tried to locate Ava again, having not found her with Jax. I couldn’t feel her.
My stomach flipped. My heart sank. I scanned the darkness running at me, bouncing off my shield. I couldn’t see her.
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Mum, let’s do this,” she said, and my magic reacted, growing stronger. The quivers as the monsters hit my barrier died down to barely a hum. The shield didn’t move, no matter how hard they hit it.
I looked up at the dragons, their stomachs red with heat.
“Do it now!” Ava called.
They circled once more, then opened their mouths. With a roar that made the ground shake, balls of red and blue flames grew larger as they spilled from their mouths. The heat drew every demon’s eye.
I watched as the fire grew from their mouths and shot towards the ground at the far edge of the barrier. The first to feel the flames didn’t have time to scream before it engulfed them.
Pity, I liked hearing them scream.
The others realised what was coming for them. They thrashed and clawed at the barrier. The ones that could fly tried to swing around the side of the dragons, to catch them by surprise, but the dragons turned on them and the fire cooked them to crisps. The charred bodies fell to the still burning ground.
Then, the wall of red and blue extended, swallowing everything it encountered. And it was headed right for Ava and me. The air became thin, I phased into my fairy form and pushed Ava back with my wings, trying to push her to safety. She ducked beneath them, as stubborn as me, and darted between me and the flames. The red exploded before us. I waited for it to hit my shield. Burn us both to ashes.
A flash of light blinded me, white pressed to my vision.
And as it cleared, I saw her. Saw what she had done. Ava had opened a portal. Actually, she had encased us in one. So no matter what angle the flames hit, they were sucked away, hopefully into the lake of fire.
I never would have thought of it.
The air continued to thin as the roar of the flames entered the Outer
Reaches, my head full as my magic waned and my body automatically returned to its regular form. I dropped to my knees, still feeling the heat rumble against the portal. I couldn’t let the dome down yet. The fire was too strong, it would devastate the city.
“Take my hand,” Ava called, past the fire’s screams. I reached up and grabbed it. Her magic hadn’t faltered. If anything, she was stronger that I had ever felt her. She helped pull me to stand and I saw the magic flowing through her entire body. It ran through her blood even down each strand of rainbow hair, and then I saw it. My sword in her other hand. The opals were giving her the control she needed. Or she is just more badass than you.
The colourful curls hung straight, paling with the weight of her exertion of power, but her portal cocoon stayed strong. I felt my magic, my body recovering. Ava was sharing her power with me. Even without using any of the yowie fur, she could transfer it. Like my transfer to Max after the battle. She was so young, but already she had mastered so much magic.
The roar subsided and Ava turned to me.
“I will drop the portal, but keep the shield up. There is not much air in your dome. Even the dragons had to flee it.”
I nodded and did as she said. The portal disappeared and a blackness stood before us. The City Park decimated by the dragon’s fire. Not a single demon survived, but neither did a single blade of grass.
Trees were burnt down to smouldering ashes.
“I can’t lower the dome. There is too much heat, the influx of oxygen could ignite the ashes. If caught in the wind we could burn the city down.”
“What do we do? We can’t stay like this.”
“We need to either saturate it with water, or cool it down. But without letting in any air.”
Ava smiled. “Piece of cake.”
Before I could stop her, Ava raised her arm. A portal appeared over the park and grew to the size of a football field. Water flooded through, it rushed in like a torrent.
“Where is it coming from?”
“The lake,” Ava replied, flatly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
The water hit the back of the dome and filled outwards, flowing around the decimated park land until it was entirely covered by a meter high pool of water. Ava and I remained untouched within my shield. I watched the ashes float through the lake water, and the occasional fish swim by. It was like being inside a snow globe.
Enchanting the Fey- The Complete Series Page 45