Then Traveler shouldered his way through the crowd of elves, pausing to loom over Reggie. He was at least a foot taller than the telepath.
I realized he was talking, but I understood only every few words. “… my liege … ward builder … sealed …”
Had they been speaking Elvish this entire time? And I’d only understood it because of the gemstone? Yes. I’d known that already. That the gem also operated as a translator, and had apparently fixed at least a few words in my head. But then why had I been able to talk to Alivia? Ah — she’d been speaking English. That was why I’d picked up her accent.
Intense, golden magic blew open at my back. It raged forward, consuming the fallen elves, scouring every drop of my blood from the floor and walls. It engulfed me, searing the blood from my flesh and clothing, churning around me, lifting me forward and up onto my toes.
Dragon magic.
Guardian magic.
Someone stepped up behind me. Someone almost too large to fit into the narrow hall.
At the mouth of the corridor, Reggie’s eyes widened in pure terror.
A strong hand grasped the back of my belt. I screamed, twisting, but I couldn’t break free from his hold. “No! I have to get to Warner. Warner!”
Pulou the treasure keeper yanked me against him, practically shouting in my ear, “I can’t hold the portal open any longer, dragon slayer.”
I fought him, but I was wounded and weak … and the magic of the portal was so, so overwhelming.
“You!” Pulou shouted, pointing at Reggie. “I’ll be back for you!”
Then he picked me up and tossed me through the raging portal standing open behind us. I flew through its golden magic, tumbling into the gilded interior of the dragon nexus. And as I did, I slammed into one of its nine pillars and fell senseless to the marble floor.
3
The intense taste of black tea and heavy cream churned around Pulou as he stepped through into the nexus. His massive fur coat brushed the edges of the door that led to the North American territories. He was alone.
Alone.
He was leaving the others behind.
His tumultuous power settled, folding back on itself. The First Nations-carved door behind him began to close. The portal leading to the stadium was about to be shut down.
“No!” I screamed, struggling to gain my footing on the white marble floor. I managed to gather all four limbs beneath me, then launched myself across the central hub of the nexus. “Warner is there. He’s almost out. Kandy … Kett …”
I slammed against Pulou’s outstretched arm. He had raised it to block me from throwing myself through the portal as it closed. I hadn’t even seen him move. His thick fur coat did nothing to mitigate the blow. My lower ribs snapped.
I fell to my knees, choking on the pain. The door was half closed … only inches away from me …
“I told you, no.” The treasure keeper’s English lilt was edged with a full-throated growl. He loomed over me. “Punching through the witches’ city ward was destabilizing enough. Now the elves have sealed the breach in their own …”
Not listening, not caring, I started to crawl. Pulou placed his booted foot in front of me. I edged around it.
The door clicked shut. And a completely different type of pain shot through my chest. Heart-wrenching, soul-sucking terror.
“They’re dying …” I whispered, reaching for and digging my fingernails into the edges of the elaborate carving etched into the heavy wooden door. I slowly pulled myself up, making it onto my knees. My ribs healed.
I reached for the door handle.
Pulou knocked my hand away. “That doesn’t lead anywhere now, stupid child. I won’t be the one to tell your father you’ve gotten lost in the portal network. Again.” Derision laced every one of his words.
Anger flooded through me — a deep, simmering outrage that helped me make it all the way to my feet. I turned to face the treasure keeper.
His frown deepened, creasing the skin around his eyes and dour mouth. His dark gaze swept over me, head to toe.
I pulled the strap of my satchel over my head, dropping the bag to the ground. I’d lost hold of my katana when I tumbled through the portal. It was lying on the far side of the nexus, sheathed. The dragon slayer … waiting for me to retrieve it.
Pulou’s eyes narrowed, assessing me.
“You will reopen the portal,” I said, my voice clogged with emotion. “If you are too much of a coward to come with me, I will go myself.”
“Coward?” he snarled. “You dare —”
I jabbed my finger at his chest. “You have done this! Your arrogance and prejudice —”
“That is enough! You will not speak to me —”
“Open the portal!” I screamed. Pain raked through my brain, pounding, pulsing within my skull. I felt blood start to seep through the T-shirt on my forehead again, so I reached up and tore the sodden mass off. I’d ruined the shirt Kandy had made for me. Never mind the cupcakes. I can totally kick your ass.
I’d … I’d ruined everything.
Something shifted in Pulou’s expression. His anger was suddenly muted by concern, maybe. But I didn’t care about what he thought or felt.
“I have to get back,” I whispered.
“Be patient.”
I sneered at his suggestion as I turned my back on him. I focused on the door, shutting him out.
I had absorbed Shailaja’s magic. The daughter of the former treasure keeper had been able to manifest portals … tiny ones, and possibly only short range. But still portals. So therefore, it was possible that I could make use of her magic now to open the goddamn door back to the stadium myself.
I called forth the magic teeming in my blood. I filled that energy, that power, with every ounce of intent I could muster through my anger, and my fear, and the agony of my damaged brain.
I reached for the handle.
Pulou’s hand fell on my shoulder.
Frustration carried by a fierce wrath flashed through me. I screamed, giving voice to my terror of losing those I loved, those I’d left to the terrible mercy of the elves.
I attacked the treasure keeper.
A guardian.
My one-time mentor.
I grabbed his wrist with my left hand, twisted within his grasp on my shoulder, and slammed the heel of my right hand up under his chin.
Pulou grunted.
Bones shattered in my hand and wrist.
He tossed me to the side, using the hand I was trying to hold him with. I flew across the hub of the nexus, and my back and head slammed against another gilded pillar. I fell to my hands and knees, disoriented and dazed.
But rage had me in its grip. Fury overrode my pain. I called my knife into my right hand, facing off against Pulou, who hadn’t moved except to glance my way.
Wiping away the blood seeping from the wound in my forehead and threatening to obscure my vision, I reached up and untwined my necklace, bringing all the lethal magic I wielded into play.
Pulou pulled his shortsword, its power thick and potent. The emerald embedded in its cross guard was gleaming with magic.
But the treasure keeper’s blade wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as the weapons I carried.
With a flick, I coiled the entire length of my thick gold chain around my left hand, wrist, and lower forearm. I held the combined power of the three instruments of assassination in my fist.
Pulou curled his lip. “You dare to use the instruments against me.”
“You dare to stand between me and those I love,” I purred, deadly and focused. “Maybe it’s time for you to understand the meaning of caring enough to die for something. For someone.”
“You dare to suggest —”
“Yeah, yeah, asshole. The daring is done. It’s time to do.” I lunged for him.
The guardian’s stance shifted as he made ready to backhand me, to knock me sideways, executing a move I’d seen him use when Desmond had attacked us in his living room in Portland yea
rs before. Unfortunately for the guardian, he was about to find out that some moves only worked once.
Pulou’s reach was longer than mine.
He should have led with his sword.
I slid under his backhand. Completely sacrificing my footing and the strength of my legs in order to draw first blood, I stabbed through his fur coat and into the meat of his thigh.
He grunted, predictably grabbing me by my arm and hauling me to my feet. I let go of my knife, leaving it embedded in Pulou. But instead of giving him an opening to gut me, I used the momentum of him yanking me upright and coldcocked him with my fistful of necklace.
Potent, deadly magic exploded between us. Pulou flew backward, pulling me with him for a few feet before losing hold of me.
I tumbled but eventually landed on my knees, sliding halfway across the nexus.
The guardian crashed into a golden pillar, practically snapping it in half, then tumbled to the marble floor. The floor cracked, radiating out far enough that the spiderweb fissure brushed my knees.
The magic of the nexus shifted, rolling, writhing underneath me as I tried to gain my feet, to press my attack.
I scrambled forward, on all fours for a few feet, then stumbling fully upright. I called my jade knife into my right hand, wrenching it from Pulou’s thigh with a mere thought.
The treasure keeper reared up on his undamaged knee, bringing his sword into play. He was bleeding.
Bleeding.
From a cut that ran across his jaw and chin.
I grinned nastily, meeting the tip of his shortsword with my left fist. Its golden blade crumbled underneath the assault of my alchemy and all three instruments of assassination.
Magic erupted between us again, but I pressed forward against the onslaught, leaning into it until I was holding the tip of my jade knife only inches from Pulou’s throat.
The first hints of disconcertion flitted across the treasure keeper’s face.
“Open the portal,” I demanded.
“You open it,” he snarled.
“I was trying to —”
Then he punched me in the gut.
Apparently, even a five-hundred-year-old dragon understood the power of distraction when dealing with an infuriated child.
I flew across the room, fairly certain that a few of my internal organs were imploding. I hit something … wood … stone … then fell to the floor, limp limbed and face first.
The white marble underneath me rumbled with the might of the treasure keeper as he stalked across the nexus toward me.
I lifted my head. I got my hands underneath me, but I couldn’t seem to put any of my weight on them. I couldn’t control my arms and legs at the same time. Something was badly broken. It might have been my spine.
Pulou pulled another blade out of the depths of his fur coat. A steel knife with a gleaming golden edge — sharpened with magic. He was still bleeding from the slash across his jaw, and also from the knuckles of his knife hand.
I got one knee under me, but I couldn’t get any leverage. There was blood everywhere. Under my hands, my head. It sizzled and spit each time it dripped onto the instruments of assassination still twined around my left hand and wrist.
Pulou raised his knife.
He was going to kill me.
And then … and then … who would survive in the time it would take for the guardians to realize they needed to go back to Vancouver? If Reggie managed to fix the gateway and bring her army through, who would be caught in the invasion?
Everyone.
My entire world was in Vancouver.
Every single person I loved would die.
“Please … please …” I tried to speak, but I wasn’t certain I was doing so out loud. “Have to … go … back …”
Blood started gushing out of my nose, choking my words in my throat.
Dear God …
I was already dying.
Pulou hesitated. His knife was still raised, hovering somewhere over my shoulder blades.
The door closest to me slammed open, nearly taking the top of my skull off. Magic thundered through the activated portal. The warrior of the guardians, dressed in black, hard-shelled armor with his golden sword at the ready, entered the nexus in a blinding torrent of smoky, dark-chocolate power.
The mind-boggling magical power of the warrior’s broadsword vowed the utter annihilation of anyone who stood before it.
My father stepped over me, avoiding the pool of blood forming around my head and shoulders.
Pulou took a step back.
My father bellowed.
Bellowed.
It was a vicious sound, saturated with anger, fear — and retribution.
His magic raged through the nexus, ricocheting off the walls and back again. Between that and the open portal, my mind turned to mush. Even my teeth ached as I let my head drop, cheek pressed into the blood cooling on the marble floor.
“What have you done?” My father’s question was fiercely cold.
“Warrior.” Pulou held up his hand, but he didn’t drop his weapon. “Your daughter attacked me. With the instruments.”
“Was that before or after you attempted to take them from her?”
Pulou looked affronted. “I did no such —”
“And the wound?” My father glanced down at me. I blinked up at him. His sword was glowing so brightly that it hurt my eyes. “On her forehead? Was that before or after?”
Pulou hesitated.
“I see, treasure keeper. You chose to assault my child while she was mortally wounded?” My father shifted his stance, sword at the ready.
That sword was the only other weapon that could kill a guardian dragon … or so I’d been told.
Well … I hadn’t put that together before. The wielder of the instruments of assassination was also the warrior’s daughter. It fit, didn’t it?
I started giggling. Yes, apparently I could laugh while dying.
“What is so amusing, my daughter?”
I somehow found the strength to roll over to my side, then sort of slump onto my back, allowing the arm wrapped with the instruments to rest across my chest. I tried to flap my free hand at the question. I managed to wiggle my fingers. “It’s not funny … it shouldn’t be funny.”
The door leading to my father’s territories in Australia clicked shut. Yazi hunched down, gently tucking his fingers underneath my chin, examining the wound on my forehead. Fear replaced the fury etched into his face.
Pulou cleared his throat, sheathing his knife in his coat pocket. “Warrior, my judgement was —”
“The healer,” Yazi snapped. “I presume you’ve called him already, guardian?”
“No, I …” Pulou spun away, reaching for the nearest door. I could see only his feet and the edge of his fur coat as he stepped through into the portal magic he’d wordlessly called forth.
I tried to sit up. My father placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, holding me down.
“Dad. I have to go back.”
“Yes.”
“Now. I have to go back now.”
“Listen to me, Jade. My darling girl. You are very badly wounded. I need you to lie still. And stay awake. You should be healing …”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” I coughed up more blood, then had to hawk up the rest so I didn’t choke on it. “Oh … that’s … disgusting.”
My father swore in Cantonese … or maybe Mandarin. Or maybe I’d damaged my brain so much that I was losing my grasp of English.
“No … Dad, the elf … Reggie, she made me do things.”
My father touched my cheek lightly. “Never mind now.”
“It’s important now.”
“It’s not.”
“It is. What if I’m dying?”
“You are impossibly stubborn.”
“Kettle meet pot.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“I opened a dimensional gateway. I managed to curtail its … aperture so that only one elf cou
ld pass through … every … hour … or …” The gilded room around me went black at its edges. I kept trying to explain, kept trying to talk, but I didn’t think I was forming words anymore.
Then suddenly, there was music and magic.
And pain. So, so much pain.
Searing, questing pain focused through my forehead, pushing deep into my skull, radiating down my back.
I cried out.
Somewhere nearby, my father was shouting.
“I’m sorry, dragon slayer,” a gentle voice said.
The music increased. I couldn’t quite hear the tune … or maybe it was that the tune was every note ever played, all at once …
The pain faded.
Numbness tugged at my limbs. I relaxed into it.
“Jade … Jade …” The gentle voice with its delectable, irresistible Latin accent belonged to the healer. Qiuniu. But he didn’t sound so gentle now. “Stay with me.”
More magic radiated out across my chest, then my forehead. Qiuniu was trying to heal me.
And it hurt.
“Stop it,” I said. I tried to brush the magic away, but I couldn’t lift my arm.
“Jade, Jade. Stop.” Qiuniu sounded stressed. His voice shifted away, indicating he was talking to someone else. “The instruments are fighting me. Who does she trust enough to hand them over to?”
“Not you,” my father snapped.
“Of course not,” Pulou said, affronted. “Blossom can do it. Yazi, warrior, I had no idea —”
The treasure keeper’s voice cut off sharply. As if, just maybe, someone might have punched him.
I smiled. But only on the inside.
I let the numbness tug me under again. The pain was exhausting. Letting go of it would be …
Qiuniu touched my shoulder and the music swelled. “Jade. I need you to hand the necklace to Blossom.”
“Mistress?” The taste of lemon verbena tickled my taste buds. The brownie’s deep, gravelly voice was shaky. Fearful. “Mistress?”
“The instruments, Jade,” the healer repeated. “They are hindering my healing. Hand the necklace to Blossom. Please. Time is of the essence.”
Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9) Page 5