Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Mory and Gabby shoved up next to me, peering down at the elf just as the centipede started burrowing its way into her ear.

  “Holy fu … I mean …” Gabby gushed, talking over herself. “I knew you were … everyone said you put the ‘bad’ in ‘bad ass’ … but the cupcakes and the bakery … and the T-shirts … and the hair …”

  “What’s wrong with my hair?” I asked, genuinely dismayed.

  “Nothing!” Gabby snapped up straight, staring at me with wide, rounded eyes. “Absolutely nothing! I … just … I mean … it’s all curly and bouncy … and …”

  “Blond,” my father helpfully supplied.

  Gabby pointed at him emphatically. “Yes. Yes, blond.” Apparently, the amplifier had forgotten that she was also a blond, though without the bouncy curls.

  I shot my father a look. Mirth danced in his eyes. And also … pride?

  “Jade,” Mory said crossly. “I said with heads. What is that silver thing doing?”

  “Best guess? Scrambling their brains.”

  Gabby looked at Mory. “Do they need brains?”

  “I’m not sure. Nah, probably not.”

  I glanced over at my father, who was watching the fledgling necromancer with interest. “So it’s just me who can’t believe we’re standing around having this conversation?”

  My father smiled, but perfunctorily. “Retrieve the instruments, wielder. Let’s see what the necromancer can do.”

  I called the centipedes to return to the necklace. The three artifacts streaked back toward me, clicking into place and avoiding Warner’s parents’ wedding rings, as they always did. Gooey elf blood — and quite possibly brain matter — crumbled into fine flakes, dusting my black-leather-swathed chest. Well, now it appeared like I had breast dandruff, or a real thing for icing sugar. That seriously ruined the look.

  “Ready?” Gabby asked Mory. Apparently, the two of them had discussed whatever they were about to do ahead of time.

  I just utterly adored being kept out of the loop.

  “Yes.”

  Gabby stepped up behind Mory, who tugged her knitting project out of her bag — a colorful hat, at best guess — and faced the fallen elves. She began to knit. Inexplicably.

  The amplifier cupped the back of Mory’s neck, threading her fingers through the necromancer’s red-and-purple-streaked hair, cradling the back of Mory’s skull.

  Toasted marshmallow magic smeared in raspberry jam filled my senses, a flood of smell and taste.

  Freddie abandoned the necromancer’s shoulder, latching onto mine instead.

  “Rise and shine,” Mory said in a singsong whisper. Her necromancy power flooded out of her and sank into the elf nearest her.

  The elf’s feet twitched.

  Then Mory’s power flowed to the elf still hanging limply from the blade embedded into the wall. He shuddered.

  My father laughed huskily under his breath.

  “Up and at ’em,” Mory said, claiming the third elf with her necromancy as she did.

  All three elves stood, moving like puppets on Mory’s string. Except in the necromancer’s case, the string was yarn. She’d somehow knitted her power into the residual … what? Magic? Life force? The souls of the elves? Whatever it was, she’d used it to create herself some zombies.

  Zombie elves.

  Well. That was new.

  The zombies stood ramrod straight, shoulder to shoulder, and staring blankly forward with deadened eyes. They weren’t decomposing or crumbling into crystal, which made sense. Just like Mory’s necromancy held Ed in an undead sort of stasis, it would do the same for them.

  “Jesus Christ on a freaking cupcake,” I muttered.

  “Turn,” Mory said. “Await instructions.”

  The elves turned in one smooth motion, then paused. They filled the corridor side to side, each standing at least a head taller than me.

  Mory had created an elf shield.

  I thought my head might explode. I turned to share my disbelief with my father, but he was grinning madly.

  “Graduation day,” he said, laughing quietly.

  “We are supposed to be the distraction, right?” Mory asked, looking back at me. An uncertain tone warred with her defiant expression.

  “Right.” I shook my head. “Right.”

  Gabby dropped her hands, rubbing them together with satisfaction.

  “Lead the way, necromancer,” my father said. “Elves front. But you and the amplifier behind Jade.”

  Mory and Gabby slipped back behind me, dutifully standing between my father and me.

  “You didn’t use the new needles,” Gabby said quietly to Mory.

  Mory shrugged, keeping the bulk of her attention on the magic connecting her to the elves arrayed before me. I could actually feel the thin tendrils of toasted-marshmallow power stretching out past me.

  “It didn’t feel like I needed them yet.”

  Gabby laughed. “You totally didn’t.”

  A thought occurred to me. “Hey, Mory. Can you, like, read their last thoughts or anything? I really wouldn’t mind knowing how many elves have made it through the gateway already. Or what Reggie knows about us, if anything.” Though I didn’t say it, I was also worried about whether severing the telepathic elf’s connection to the three elves-turned-zombies was already a dead giveaway that we were wandering the halls. I had no idea how often Reggie bothered to check in on her warriors between issuing orders.

  Mory gave me an utterly disgusted look, though. “No. They’re dead. That’s a seriously creepy idea, Jade.”

  My father snorted back a laugh.

  “Well,” I drawled, “it’s always good to know where the line is, necromancer.” I gestured dramatically toward the elves. “By all means, lead the way with your undead minions. No one is going to think that’s creepy as all hell.”

  Mory lifted her chin, sniffing her displeasure at me.

  The elves started walking. In sync.

  I glanced back at my father. “By the way, that’s Jade 3.” I gestured toward the undead elves with three fingers, then tapped my chest. “Yazi 0.”

  A grin spread across my father’s face. “I’ve been hunting elves for over three hundred years. I’d say you’ve got some catching up to do, little one.”

  Ignoring the way my heart warmed at the term of endearment, I snarked back. “The count reset when we crossed through the exterior wards. Because if I can’t remember how many I took down before, you can’t count them either.”

  My father nodded his head formally. “By all means, wielder. Your invasion, your rules.”

  I laughed — and understood as I did how joking about murdering sentient beings made it really obvious just how close I was to the edge.

  But what else was I going to do? Fall apart?

  “Right,” Mory muttered behind me. “Because necromancy is just so disturbing …”

  We continued forward, the zombie elves leading the way. After allowing us the time to get a few steps ahead of him, my father tossed a small stone over his shoulder. Magic tasting of freshly cut grass and lilacs exploded behind us — and the walls, floor, and ceiling all warped, as if the corridor had folded in on itself. We’d be safe from attack from behind.

  But there was no exit anymore.

  No way back.

  Seven turns, six white-walled corridors glimmering with magic, and another half-dozen elves incapacitated later, and we paused for a respite — hunkering down behind what was rapidly becoming Mory’s zombie-elf army.

  And yeah, ‘incapacitated’ was a nice way of saying ‘murdered then roped into service to a necromancer.’ Three of the elves had fallen by way of the centipedes, one met my knife, and two had their necks snapped by my father.

  I was pretty sure we’d all be suffering nightmares for years if we got through the next couple of hours alive. Except for my father. This was everyday life for a guardian. But I couldn’t imagine myself living in this state of fearful anticipation, of continually meting out justice and
violence. I’d never been more pleased to be only a half-dragon in my life. There was no guardian mantle in my future.

  Brushing those thoughts aside, I pressed my hand to the wall, feeling the intense magic of the gateway just on the other side. I was achingly aware of how far away I was from where I really wanted to be — namely, releasing Warner, Kandy, and Kett.

  “Mory,” I whispered. “The gate is closer to one side of the stadium, yes? This side?”

  The necromancer nodded distractedly. The bulk of her attention remained trained on her zombie elves, which were currently forming a blockade at the opening to the next fork in the maze, about a dozen feet in front of us.

  Gabby pulled the folded maps out of her pocket, shuffling through them to find the detail of the center of the stadium. Tony had taken notes from Mory via Ed, using that and any camera footage that survived the intense magic emanating from the gate to generate various maps with different directions for each objective. Each group — the infiltrators, the rescuers, and the backup — held copies of everyone else’s objectives, just in case everything went sideways. Because everything always went sideways, didn’t it? Best-laid plans and all that, yadda yadda.

  Gabby pressed the detail of the center of the stadium up against the wall, smoothing it out.

  I tapped the map, indicating the hall I was fairly certain we were currently standing in. A notation on the map informed me that the gateway was approximately twenty-five feet away. Through that wall.

  “Given the tenor of the magic,” I said, tapping the map again, “It feels like we’re here.”

  My father glanced over my shoulder, then down the hall behind us, watching our backs. He had closed two more halls behind us as we’d drilled farther into the maze, spiraling ever closer to our objective, but none of us were taking any chances. “I concur.”

  “I’m surprised we haven’t encountered more resistance.”

  “They know we’re here.” My father nodded toward the zombie elves. “The telepath, if she’s any good, would have been able to sense when she loses connection to one of those under her command.”

  “If she cares to check. I’m fairly certain she only keeps tabs on those she’s utilizing in some way.”

  Yazi twisted his lips grimly. “Yes. If she cares. But either way, the telepath has chosen to hold the open ground instead of utilizing the maze as soon as she became aware of our presence.” He gestured to the large space around the gateway. “The elves will attack en masse when we try to exit this hall, keeping us bottlenecked.”

  “Tony said their plan would be to drive us back if we got this far,” Gabby offered helpfully. “Keeping us trapped and confused in the maze. Easy to pick off. Especially if we get separated from each other.”

  “Exactly.” My father offered the amplifier a quick smile.

  She grinned, pleased.

  I nodded thoughtfully. “So what if we do something a little more … unexpected? We are supposed to be the distraction, right?”

  “Whatever we’re going to do,” Mory said, “we need to do it quickly. The others are waiting on us before they implement their part of the plan. We don’t need them getting snatched before they’ve even attempted the rescue.”

  My father flashed me a grin, glancing up at the open girders way, way above our heads. The elves hadn’t added ceilings to this section of the maze yet. “Go over the wall?”

  I answered his gleeful anticipation with a grin of my own. “Or through? Like we discussed before, except now we’re on the right side of the gateway. So going through won’t contradict the oracle’s visions. Plus, it’ll be easier for Mory and Gabby to follow.”

  My father laughed huskily. He gestured Mory and Gabby back against the far wall. “Zombies for cover, necromancer.”

  Mory shifted four of her nine dead elves in front of her and Gabby. The zombies’ movements weren’t as smooth as before, as if Mory was jerking on them with her own power. Nine might have been pushing the limits of what she could command, but despite her drawn face, the necromancer didn’t complain. And I didn’t question her. As promised.

  My father stepped back to eye the wall before us.

  Gabby pulled out her phone, applying her thumbs to her screen. “Texting Jasmine,” she murmured.

  “The walls haven’t appeared to be unusually thick,” my father said.

  “Coated in magic, though.”

  Yazi pulled his golden sword out of thin air. Its magic rushed through the corridor, reflecting back at us from the walls. “And what is such magic to the likes of you or me, my Jade?”

  Mory snorted from behind us, talking to Gabby. “Good call. Looks like the sneaky part of the plan is about to be tossed out the window.”

  “Nah.” I stepped back from my father, giving him room to move as I covered the exit. “We’ve got to make the window first. Or, rather, a doorway of our very own.”

  Mory and Gabby peered around the shoulders of the zombies.

  “Behind the elves,” I said, momentarily forgetting I was trying to be cool about their involvement.

  Mory stuck her tongue out at me. Then she and Gabby hunkered down behind the zombies. I was fairly certain there was some snickering involved.

  Seriously, even I was quaking in my freaking boots. Mory had seen what we were about to face through Ed’s eyes. I would have thought she’d have been a little more —

  Ah. The difference was … the necromancer had me standing between her and dismemberment. Me and the warrior of the guardians. But I knew that neither of us were automatically capable of quelling an army of elves and getting our companions through unscathed.

  My father carved an arc up and through the wall in front of him. His brilliant sword sliced through the elves’ magic like a spoon through creamy chocolate mousse — with the deep, smoky cacao aftertaste and all.

  My father took a step back, barking over his shoulder, “You step through after Jade, necromancer. With your zombies tight at your and the amplifier’s backs. You will stay between us and the zombies at all times.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mory said, without a hint of sarcasm in her tone. Gabby threaded her fingers through Mory’s. She was wearing gold bangles on her other arm that I hadn’t noticed with all the other magic surrounding us. Angelica’s bangles, most likely powered up with all the magic the sorcerer could layer into the jewelry to protect her amplifier daughter. Generations of magic, if I was correct about the origins of Angelica’s jewelry.

  My chest squeezed, pained with the insanity of involving Gabby and Mory and all the others in any of this. Not all of us were going to make it out whole.

  “Ready, my Jade?” my father asked.

  “I’ve been ready for half a freaking day.”

  Yazi laughed. His guardian magic vibrated across the walls and floor, electric against my skin.

  I stepped up behind him, calling my knife into my hand. “Go to Mory, Freddie,” I whispered to the shadow leech perched on my shoulder. “No one touches her, no elf brings her harm. Drain anyone who tries. Drain them down.”

  The leech chittered quietly in my ear. Then its magic contracted and disappeared with a snap.

  “Hey, Freddie,” Mory whispered.

  I didn’t glance back. We were past that, past the point of no return. All of us were barreling forward into a future with only a single thread of hope. A hope that by following the oracle, we were carving a new path into the unknown.

  I swiped my fingers across my necklace, releasing the centipedes into my left hand. The metallurgy bit into my skin — gleeful pinpricks of contentment and anticipation that echoed my own.

  I inhaled.

  Without another word, my father slammed a thrust kick to the section of the wall he’d cut. Magic reverberated, literally rippling around us as an archway cracked open. We charged through the opening even as the chunk of wall flew forward, revealing the center of the stadium. I was right on my father’s heels.

  Dozens of elves hit us from either side.

  Ap
parently, they’d been waiting.

  My father’s sword moved, streaking golden magic through the air. I unleashed the centipedes, even as I jumped up to skewer the warrior closest to me through the gemstone embedded in his head. Landing on my feet, I called the centipedes back to my left hand.

  Four elves down.

  I exhaled.

  The section of the wall my father had freed with a kick got sucked into the gateway, which rose up about twenty feet in front of us. It was wide open. Its narrow aperture was rooted in the tech that I’d been deliberately sabotaging, but it appeared completely functional now. The gateway spiraled upward in a conic shape for about twelve feet, easily spanning twenty feet across at the top.

  Haoxin was suspended in the churning well of magic above the gateway, fueling it with her life force. Her limbs hung limply. Her hair was a blond maelstrom around her head, her eyes closed. If not for the epic amount of power radiating from her — being siphoned downward into the tech, then converted to fuel the gateway — I would have thought she was dead.

  She was still wearing the T-shirt that Kandy had designed. Fueled by coffee. And epic mystical powers.

  A fierce, desperate anger seized me. It infused my torso and limbs, grounding my heart, quieting my fears.

  I caught a glimpse of Reggie standing on the far side of the gateway, her arms akimbo and head thrown back. But I lost sight of her and whatever magic she was engaged in as the thirty or so elves arrayed between us and the gate shuffled back to form a blockade. Bristling with weapons, they stood shoulder to shoulder between us and our objective.

  Mory and Gabby pressed up behind me, practically climbing into my back pockets. Not that I had any in my leather armor. It wasn’t because they were scared, though. They were simply following Yazi’s orders.

  I could practically feel courage radiating off them. Courage that tasted like sticky-sweet, toasted marshmallows dipped in tart raspberry jam. And I decided in that moment that if I ever made it back to the bakery, back to the haven of my kitchen, I would design that exact cupcake.

  Mory’s nine zombie elves stepped up, covering us to the sides and rear. All of them held weapons at the ready, plucked up from the warriors my father and I had felled as we came through from the hall. I didn’t know if Mory had enough control to actually use the zombies to fight. But that wall of undead drew more than a few disconcerted glances from their former fellow warriors.