All righty then. That vision wasn’t happening yet.
Liam hunkered down beside the wide concrete pillar, murmuring as he ran his finger along a pentagram that had been etched into the concrete at his feet. This entrance was clearly one of the five anchor points the sorcerers had set up previously. Magic glistened around Liam, most likely a ward of some kind that I hoped was blocking him from view. He straightened, looking at me as he tucked his sweater into the front of his jeans and double-checked the placement of the badge clipped to his belt. Then he pulled his gun from his holster, holding it ready by his side.
From his vantage point, he had a perfect view of the entrance the oracle had led us to. And for some reason, that soothed me. Liam would be there to help if someone who needed it exited the stadium. And if an elf happened to be chasing that someone, I had no doubt the sorcerer would put them down.
I nodded to Liam and he returned the gesture, then tilted his head slightly as if listening to something I couldn’t hear. He nodded again. “We’re all ready.”
Peggy, talking to him telepathically, at best guess.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s keep moving.” I stepped around Rochelle and Beau, striding across the walkway — and noting a large RV parked far down the street to my right as I did. It was dark enough that I couldn’t make out the driver or passenger, but it was an easy guess that it was Rochelle’s adoptive parents and her ride out of all this craziness.
Good.
Thank God, actually.
I was two steps away from the bottom landing when I felt the edge of the elves’ wards. So, pretty much standing out in the open in full view of all the windows. My father had followed me partway down the stairs, but was standing off to one side. Mory and Gabby were tight behind me — right where I was pretty sure the oracle had told them to stay at all times.
I raised my hand, ghosting my palm against the magic that prevented me from getting any closer to the building. It felt different, tasting of evergreen and fern, damp moss, and a hint of what might have been fuzzy apricot. Though I’d been a little out of my head the last time I’d tasted the power encasing the stadium, that taste was now thicker, richer than before.
Soft murmurs rose behind me. At the top of the stairs, Jasmine, Benjamin, and Bitsy were glancing back and forth between Rochelle’s sketchbook and pieces of paper that they each held. Most likely, they were comparing Mory’s maps to the sketches of the halls and doors between this entrance and the place where the prisoners were held.
I clenched and unclenched my fists, fighting through an urge to tear through the wards, race into the building, and rescue everyone myself.
“That way lies the apocalypse, Jade,” I muttered, reminding myself.
My father laughed quietly, then grinned at me when I shot him a look.
I lifted my hand a second time. “Ready or not —”
“Oh, shit. Shit!” Bitsy cried out behind me.
I whirled around, calling my knife into my hand — and almost skewering the junior werewolf as she barreled down the stairs toward me, holding a tiny black box.
“Tony gave this to me to give to you,” she said. “He’s been working on a locator device … with Jasmine.” She glanced back up to the golden-haired vampire. “They siphoned off bits of the elves’ wards. So, like the cellphones, it should hold against that magic. Um, hopefully.”
She passed me the tiny device, not even glancing at the deadly knife in my hand, then jogged back up the stairs. A sourness churned through my belly. They were all so untrained. So not ready.
And I really, really didn’t want to know why I was being gifted with a locator device, when as far as I knew, no one else had one. I met Rochelle’s steady gaze, then tucked the tiny black metal box inside a pocket in my leather vest. The oracle nodded, satisfied.
Mory touched my forearm, her gaze on my jade knife. I released the hilt, and the blade settled back into its built-in invisible sheath.
“Cool,” Gabby murmured.
“Tony worked on my phone as well,” Mory said quietly. “Not just the ones he passed out. He added the tracking thingy to each of our devices, including Benjamin, Bitsy, and Burgundy. So the oracle will be able to get through to us if anything changes. And … if we go missing …” She let the thought trail off, offering no indication of why I’d been gifted with a secondary tracking device.
“Sure,” I said as amicably as possible. “Until we’re within steps of the gateway.”
Mory nodded, undaunted.
“That’s why we have Peggy,” Gabby said. “She’ll be tied to the sorcerer perimeter, so she’ll be able to communicate with me, even when we’re at the gateway. Once they open the egress, for certain.”
“You know what they say about plans,” I said, turning back to the towering wall of elf magic hindering my forward progress.
“Best way to stay organized?” Mory said pertly. “And to adapt to sudden changes?”
I shook my head, shoving my left hand into my satchel to brush my fingers against Kandy’s cuffs, and then the hilt of Warner’s knife. Soon, soon, my pretties. Soon the artifacts would be back with their proper owners.
Then, unable to wait one moment longer to make that happen, I raised my right hand to the energy simmering before me. But instead of ripping through the ward magic, I knocked.
Yes, three polite taps.
Time to trigger another of the oracle’s visions.
My magic rippled across the elves’ wards, quickly fading within their viscous energy.
I waited, loosening my grip on my own magic and allowing it to accumulate around me. Just in case we were about to switch to plan B.
Nothing happened.
I raised my hand to knock again when one of the lower doors opened and Alivia half-stepped out. She had a sword in one hand as she swept a glittering, green-eyed gaze across the Adepts arrayed on the steps before her. Then she glanced up at the dark sky. “Took you long enough, wielder,” she said in her lyrically accented English. Her gaze settled on my father. “And you brought company.”
“I did.”
“Will you be attempting to close the path today?”
“We will.”
“I am forewarned, then.”
“And who else is forewarned, elf?” my father asked, magic threading through his words.
“No one, warrior,” Alivia said, proving that she knew who was standing before her. Then she smiled, displaying wickedly sharp teeth. “No one yet.” She settled her smug gaze on me. “She has yet to figure it out.”
“Reggie? That we’re coming? Or that you’re helping us?”
She laughed mirthlessly. “No. She has yet to learn how much, much more powerful true loyalty is on the battlefield.”
My father glanced toward me. “Are we being used to teach an elf a lesson?”
“It seems so.”
“True loyalty?” Yazi stepped up beside me. “Is there any other kind?”
“Everything can be falsely created, warrior.” Alivia swept her hand forward.
The magic shifted before me, creating a slight opening in the wards. “You call it magic. We call it science and technology. Both can be used to create, to connect, and to destroy and kill.”
My father stepped through the opening in the wards, pausing on the other side and scanning the area before him. “They are one and the same, elf.”
“Ah, but build your fortress on sand and what happens?”
“You are susceptible to the elements.”
Alivia laughed, sounding actually delighted. “And so I invite the storm. To sweep this mess away.”
I followed my father through the ward line, keeping Mory and Gabby close behind me. Jasmine, Benjamin, and Bitsy were tucked up behind my father.
Alivia eyed us for a moment, then glanced up to Rochelle and Beau on the stairs behind us. I didn’t think she could see Liam from her low point of view. “This is all of you?”
“For now,” I said.
She nodded. T
he magic sealed behind us. “I cannot clear your path any further than I have already. Not without drawing attention sooner than is prudent. And I will not aid you a third time, Jade. Magic moves differently in this realm, and I would not have you placed in my debt.” She hesitated, then added, “Not all who stand before you wish to be here.”
“I can’t distinguish the difference if they’re all trying to kill me.”
“I know.” The elf glanced at all of us, all the power arrayed on the concrete steps before her. “Try to be worthy of my betrayal.”
“Try being the leader your people need,” my father said.
Alivia twisted her mouth into a snarl, but quickly tempered her response. “I shall endeavor to do so.” Then she slipped back into the stadium without another word.
My father darted forward, grabbing the door before it clicked shut, then stepping inside the stadium. The others filtered in after him. Mory lingered behind with me.
I glanced back up at Rochelle and Beau. The oracle was standing at the top of the concrete stairs with her sketchbook clutched tightly to her chest.
I waited, taking a moment to breathe in the cool night air. Waiting to see if she had any last-minute revelations.
But Rochelle only shook her head, then raised her hand in farewell.
I smiled but didn’t wave back, because I really didn’t want to say goodbye to an oracle a second time. Why tempt fate?
Beau took Rochelle’s hand, and together they stepped away.
Still smiling, I turned back to meet Mory’s earnest gaze. “Ready, my necromancer?”
“Yes, wielder,” she said, nodding her head in a formal bow.
“I trust you, Mory,” I said. Willing myself to accept my own statement, to believe it.
Mory lifted her chin. “I’ll do my best.”
The shadow leech on her shoulder ruffled its wings and chittered quietly.
“You too, Freddie,” I said. Then I turned to lead us into the future, fervently hoping it wasn’t the destiny pictured in the first two sketchbooks Rochelle had shown me.
There was nothing to do about the visions now. I could only follow the plan as best I could, save those I could save — and try like hell to not be the one to bring the gateway down.
As I remembered from escaping the stadium while brain-damaged, every inch of its newly raised white hallways glistened with elf magic. In the section through which we entered, ceilings had been added, effectively completely boxing us into the maze.
And of course that was the moment when I figured out why everyone but my father and me were wearing light-colored clothing. The other five practically blended into the walls — and would help guarantee that all the elves’ attention would be on Yazi and me.
Following Mory’s map of the interior, we regrouped at a three-way fork in the corridor. The way we’d come from the side entrance lay behind us. A long hall with no exits stretched out to the left and right.
Jasmine and Bitsy bowed their heads over the map in Benjamin’s hand. “Left, then two right turns,” the dark-haired vampire murmured.
Far, far away, I could feel the steady pulse of the gateway. It felt practically on the opposite side of the stadium, though I knew it was closer to the center than that. The feel of its power indicated it was open. Wide open. With God knows how many elves funneling through it.
Yazi pressed his palm against the wall closest to him. He was reading its magic by touch, as I did just by intention.
Jasmine, Bitsy, and Benjamin slipped away to the left without any fanfare, quietly following their portion of the oracle’s carefully laid out plan. Mory and Gabby watched them go. But I tracked their magic much farther than I could see, until I lost the taste of it among the elves’ walls and halls and ceilings, all pungent evergreen and moss. Layers and layers of enemy magic between me and those under my protection.
They were on their own, and I felt their absence as a chill down my spine. A dreadful, foreboding chill.
My father stepped away from the wall. “I suspect I could go through.” He pointed in the direction in which I could feel the gateway.
I nodded. “I don’t doubt it. But that would put us on the opposite side of the gateway than what was pictured in the oracle’s sketch … if I’m remembering the layout of all this correctly. Assuming the elves haven’t shifted or changed anything since I last laid eyes on it. But in any case, if we bust through, we might find a legion of elves between us and where Mory and Gabby need to be to close the gate.”
My father nodded, already stepping forward, turning right. “Better to be sneaky then, and follow the oracle’s direction for a little while longer. Getting the necromancer and amplifier closer to the gate before announcing our presence would be ideal, even if a little boring.”
I followed, wanting to laugh at his ‘boring’ comment, but finding I needed to focus in order to force myself to put more distance between me and the rescue team. My every step felt weighted with guilt and terror.
“Usually there are guards patrolling the halls,” Mory said from behind me. “Concentrated closer to the center. It actually feels weird that we haven’t seen any yet. Sometimes Ed would have to wait ten or fifteen minutes for a hall to clear. Though that wasn’t as much of an issue after Jade gave him the power of invisibility.”
My father glanced back at me, oddly disconcerted.
“Not true invisibility,” I scoffed, brushing off the necromancer’s claim.
“The elf, maybe,” Gabby murmured. “Alivia? She said she wasn’t going to help again, but she also said something about clearing our path as much as she could. If I were her, I would have cleared the halls to cover letting us in.”
My father grunted, unconcerned. But then, facing elves and other beings that wished the world ill was his life’s work, so little about this situation would concern him. Being a demigod had to come with some perks.
“Left, right, or straight?” my father asked.
We’d arrived at another fork without me even seeing it. Everything in white all the time — walls, floors, ceilings — was playing hell with my vision.
The elves were smart, smart cookies.
Unfortunately.
Paper crinkled behind me. “Left,” Gabby said, checking the map.
My father gestured to the left, ceding the lead to me. As I stepped past him, he fell in behind to sandwich the necromancer and the amplifier between us.
I whispered a prayer for the others, already feeling cut off from all the plans upon plans we were implementing. But I was just one small part of those plans. As it should be, really.
I called my knife into my hand, a not-so-nice smile stretching across my face. My facial muscles protested. “Coming for you, Reggie,” I murmured, hoping that somehow, magic might carry my threat to its intended recipient.
The time for questions was long past.
And honestly, I always felt easier not thinking quite so much anyway.
At best guess, we were halfway to the center of the stadium and had just taken another left when three elves decked out in their white blood armor stepped directly into our path. Aside from their magic and their green eyes, they blended into the corridor perfectly.
I honestly hadn’t thought about that function of the all-white decor. I always was a little slow to put two and two together. But I usually eventually came up with someone or something to knife, so it was all good.
I laughed. Yep. Utterly and manically delighted.
I blamed the head wound.
But even recognizing my own inappropriate anticipation didn’t stop me from raising my jade knife and widening my stance.
Then Mory had to ruin it all, tearing through the mounting tension by piping up behind me as she attempted to peer around my shoulder. “With heads, please.”
The elf in the center of the trio stepped forward, the two others directly behind. The hallway was too tight to fight three abreast. Each elf manifested short, deadly sharp, milky-crystal blades on the fly.
“What?” I asked Mory.
“It’s just a theory …”
“Mory!”
“You said you trusted me.”
My father started laughing, his magic rumbling through the floor and quaking along the walls.
The elves hesitated, disconcerted.
“Jesus Christ in a muffin basket!” I snarled, running my hand down my necklace and collecting all three silver centipedes in one swift pass. The metallurgy capable of killing a guardian trilled excitedly — though hopefully only I picked up on that.
My father continued laughing, though he managed to tone it down to a snicker.
Okay, it wasn’t like I hadn’t known where I got the whole humor-in-the-midst-of-adversity thing.
The elves recovered their bravado, raised their weapons, and rushed me.
I unleashed the centipedes with a flick of my wrist. The deadly artifacts arced forward, streaking silver-tinted magic through the blindingly white corridor.
The first centipede hit the chest of the nearest elf. He dropped so suddenly and heavily that the floor lifted underneath my feet.
The elf on the right got his sword between the centipede and his face, slashing horizontally to block the artifact with such vicious strength that he embedded his blade in the wall. Unfortunately for him, the instrument of assassination simply latched onto the crystalline weapon, then skittered up the blade, twining around the elf’s arm — and apparently freezing him in place, still clinging to his sword.
The third elf, who’d been a step behind the other two, threw herself to her knees, attempting to slide underneath the centipede aimed for her head. She actually managed to clear its arcing path, twisting forward while pinning me with a smug look as she continued her attack.
The centipede reversed course in midair, slamming into and latching onto the back of her head. She fell flat, sliding to within a few inches of my forward foot and lying there, shocked still.
“Huh,” I said. “They really lock onto their prey. Good to know.”
Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9) Page 21