Traveler placed himself at the center front, directly between me and my target. His face and neck were scored with half-healed claw marks, his armor dented and chipped. Since I hadn’t seen him on the battlefield — and because Kandy would have taken his head — I had the feeling he’d gone up against Kett, or even Jasmine, outside the cells. And he’d fled before he lost that fight.
The warrior manifested two knives now, his green eyes flicking to take in my companions on either side. Then his gaze glued itself to me.
I pointed my sword at him. “You don’t even want to be under her control.”
“I made a deal,” he spat. His English was so heavily accented I had to work to understand him. “Some of us have honor.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Just not all of you.”
I looked across the mass of elves between me and the telepath, meeting Alivia’s steady and inscrutable gaze. “Let’s end this now, Reggie. One on one.”
Reggie sneered. “You can’t best me, alchemist.”
Magic whispered across my right thigh, and my jade knife settled into its built-in sheath. I laughed, quietly delighted. “Kett and the others made it through the exterior wards,” I said for Warner and Kandy’s benefit.
The rows of elves before us began slowly advancing. One step. Two steps.
“What’s the play here, Jade?” Kandy asked.
“Wait for it.” I took a deep breath, then exhaled.
A shout of victory came from behind the barrier.
Mory.
Reggie flicked her gaze over our heads, frowning deeply.
Alivia dropped the ward surrounding the three-foot-high platform.
Sheathing my katana, I raised my foot to step forward, imagining myself stepping up beside the telepath. Magic squeezed me, twisting through my internal organs.
And then … I was standing behind Reggie.
She spun to face me.
Calling my jade knife into my hand, I stabbed her in the chest. Surprise smoothed out the anger etched across the telepath’s face.
Kandy threw her head back, howling in victory. All the hair on the back of my neck rose in response to her undulating cry. Swords and claws clashed as the final wave of elves fell upon her and Warner.
Reggie stumbled, falling against me. Her magic rose up, wailing against me, scrambling for a hold — a raging hurricane thundering against every inch of my body.
Alivia watched, completely dispassionate.
I withdrew my knife, then stabbed Reggie a second time. I clawed the fingers of my left hand around the gemstone on her forehead, realizing for the first time that it wasn’t actually attached to her, wasn’t embedded in her skin. It was just a coronet. A crown she wore. A trinket she could have tossed aside at any moment, just as she’d tossed aside the lives of those under her control.
I tore the coronet off her head, letting her body slide off my knife and drop to the platform at my feet.
I thrust my hand above my head, holding the gemstone section of the crown against the palm of my hand and bellowing, “Stop!”
Elven magic snapped at me, swirling around my hand.
The warriors arrayed between me and the barrier froze, including those who were already fighting Kandy and Warner. The entire field of warriors pivoted, looking at me.
“The necromancer is closing the gateway. Those of you who wish to return to your own dimension may do so. Those who wish to remain and fight will fall to our blades.”
The elves didn’t move, didn’t react.
“Allow me,” Alivia said, suddenly manifesting a long crystal blade — even as she swung it toward me.
I stumbled back, raising my own knife to block the blow. But the ward builder wasn’t aiming for me.
She sliced downward instead, taking Reggie’s head. Then she held out her hand for the coronet.
Speechless, and way too uncertain to question the wisdom of the action, I dropped the elven artifact into her hand. She smeared the gemstone in the thick white blood sluggishly draining from Reggie’s neck. Then she held the coronet before her mouth and whispered an Elvish word.
The gemstone in the center of the magical artifact shattered, crumbling into fine crystal.
Alivia met my startled gaze with a grim smile. “A simple break incantation. But I could never have torn the gem from her head on my own.”
“Ah, okay. Cool.” A breaking spell. I’d have to try that myself someday. Though I seriously hoped it wouldn’t prove necessary to add any other magical implements to my arsenal for a long, long time.
Alivia turned to the assembled elves, all of them seemingly frozen in place. She said something in Elvish, then translated for me.
“I’ve told them to go home.”
The warrior elves looked around, completely confused.
Traveler shouted something. He was standing near Warner, cradling one arm. He shouted a second time.
All the elves spun to look at him.
And for a brief moment, I thought he was egging them on. Encouraging them to continue fighting.
I was going to have to murder them all.
I clenched my fists, angry tears edging my eyes. But I firmed my resolve, not allowing them to fall.
Everyone made choices. Though sometimes the circumstances were thrust upon us.
Traveler shouted a third time. But then he turned and raised one hand, the other hanging useless at his side. And he crossed toward the barrier, toward the gateway.
“To me,” Alivia murmured, translating. “Follow me home.”
The warriors dropped their weapons, forming a long, tidy line behind Traveler. Alivia threw the coronet onto Reggie’s body and stepped off the platform, immediately reaching down to help one of the fallen to their feet.
I met Warner’s gaze over top of the elves’ heads. He smiled at me, then returned his attention to the warriors shuffling past him and climbing over the barrier toward the gateway.
The defeated elves murmured quietly among themselves. The able-bodied were helping the wounded or carrying the nearly dead. But there were too many already-crumbling corpses for the elves to take their fallen with them.
I glanced over at Alivia. But I was remembering the unknown elf who had moaned, pained, when Mira had fallen. When Reggie had killed the pretty elf in order to enslave me. How many of the warriors had actually wanted to be there? How many had been compelled through the gateway?
“Alivia,” I called, stepping down off the platform.
She half-turned to me, almost absentmindedly. Her attention was on a wounded elf at her feet, trying to fix his dislocated shoulder.
“Can you speak for your people?” I asked.
She smiled stiffly. “I can communicate to those who can.”
“Okay. I think it might be time for a conversation.”
“With you, Jade Godfrey? Do you speak for the Adept?”
I laughed. “Not me. But I might be able to set up a conversation with the guardians.”
“As you promised my niece, Mira. Your friend. A promise she confided in someone she shouldn’t have, though he regretted his unintentional betrayal and sought me out after I crossed through the gateway. And here we are.” The ward builder’s tone was darkly tinted, but she offered me a tight smile.
“Yes. As I promised.”
“I’ll hold you to your word.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
Alivia snorted as she dismissed me in order to help the wounded elf to his feet. Then she moved on to helping the next fallen warrior, and I turned away.
11
Haoxin was standing on her own two feet now — and appeared to be interrogating Mory. The necromancer was still working to untangle the final strands of magic connecting the guardian to the gateway. By my count, about half of the remaining elves had already crossed back through the dimensional portal.
I just watched, in a bit of a daze.
Apparently, my job was done.
Warner was talking to me, but I only half-hea
rd him. He had carried an unconscious Gabby out to the witches and the sorcerers, bringing back the news that Kett and Jasmine had helped tip the balance in a secondary battle I hadn’t even known about. The elves had been fighting the witches, the sorcerers, and the necromancers, which was why the witches hadn’t managed to open the promised egress. Even though everyone was banged up, they’d survived the secondary assault.
As far as anyone knew, Benjamin was still hanging on. But Kett and Jasmine had already disappeared with him. It was only a couple of hours away from dawn. Much more time had passed than I thought.
And it was all going to be okay.
I moved through the wounded with Alivia and Kandy, helping those we could to get to their feet. Those who couldn’t walk, we ferried over the barrier so they could have a chance to cross through the gateway home. Once the immediate area was clear, all three of us started working our way up the barrier. I’d paused at the crest, crouching to check the elves sprawled there for signs of life. All of them were already decomposing, though.
Still riding the adrenaline high that was insulating me from the destruction I’d wrought — that we had wrought — I closed my eyes. Then I hoped to God that it wasn’t ever on me to thwart an interdimensional invasion again.
The crash from this fight was going to be a bitch.
I was already certain I wasn’t the same person as the Jade who’d danced at her own bachelorette party, just two weeks ago. Hell, I wasn’t even the same Jade who’d torn the gemstone from her forehead, the same Jade who’d chosen to stand between Mory and hundreds of elves. The Jade who’d trusted an oracle.
I opened my eyes, seeking and finding Warner standing with Mory by the gateway. He held himself slightly between the necromancer and the almost freed guardian, but his gaze was on me.
I smiled.
An answering grin softened all the hard edges of his face.
We’d won.
Assuming that everything around us was what winning looked like.
My father stepped up beside me, brushing his fingers against my shoulder. “I should sweep the rest of the building for stragglers. Should I ask the elf to come with me? To mitigate any reactions should I find any of her people?” He nodded toward Alivia, who was still moving among the fallen elves on the far side of the barrier. They were decomposing steadily now, but I really couldn’t blame her for checking again. Too few were crossing back through the gateway.
“Alivia. And yeah, that might be a good idea,” I murmured.
He touched my head lightly, then stepped away to speak with the ward builder.
Kandy slumped down next to me, still in her half-beast form. The taste of bittersweet chocolate with a rich red-berry finish flooded my mouth as her magic whirled around her and she transformed into her human visage. Her torn and stretched T-shirt was hanging off her, and she had to cinch her belt tightly to keep what remained of her shredded jeans in place. She was rail thin, having lost way too much muscle mass while in the elves’ not-so-tender care.
Perhaps that was why Mory was being so careful, so particular. Why she hadn’t wanted me to slice through the gateway magic she’d held, even when our lives might have depended on it after the metal beast came through the gate. Was she hoping that carefully releasing the life force that fueled the gateway might somehow return it to those it had been forcefully siphoned from? I was fairly certain that the gateway would have burned through all that stolen life. That was why Reggie had systematically switched out the prisoners, aka her dimensional fuel cells.
“I wanted to come for you myself,” I said quietly.
Kandy snorted. “Of course you did. Because you think you’re responsible.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Rochelle pretty much told me I was going to cause an apocalyptic event if I didn’t follow her plan.”
Kandy glanced to her wrist as if checking a nonexistent watch. “There’s still time.”
“Hilarious.”
My werewolf BFF rested her head on my shoulder. “Your ass looks fucking fantastic in those pants.”
“Priorities. Right.”
“Right.” She cleared her throat. “I knew … I knew you’d make it through, Jade.”
“I missed you desperately. There is no one else I would want with me, no one else I would want to face anything like this with. You, Warner, and Kett.”
Kandy laughed quietly. “Lucky for you I ain’t the marrying kind. So I plan to stick around. But …” Kandy knocked me with her shoulder playfully, holding her arms out, then lifting her bare legs one at a time. She was covered in a thick layer of crusty elven blood. “I think I might be over the green thing.”
I chuckled. “Some things do change. How about purple hair? Ooh, no. Pink.”
“Screw you, dowser.”
“Aw, just think how cute you’d look when you were in the bakery. Pink hair, cupcakes —”
“Speaking of which, have you got any chocolate?”
That perked me up. “No. But Mory does.”
Kandy sprang to her feet, dashing down the broken concrete and somehow managing to not skewer herself on jutting rebar. “Finders keepers, loser!”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Crouched among dozens upon dozens of the dead — a goodly portion felled by my own hand — I threw my head back and laughed at my werewolf BFF.
Over by the gateway, Haoxin keyed in on me. “You!” the guardian of North America bellowed. Her magic somehow rode her rage, crumpling the jagged concrete between her and me.
Kandy darted to the side, narrowly avoiding being taken off her feet.
Haoxin’s ire rumbled the makeshift barrier under my feet. “Jade Godfrey! Wielder of the instruments of assassination!”
The guardian lurched forward.
“Wait, wait!” Mory cried, seated at Haoxin’s feet, still holding her knitting needles before her. “I’m almost finished!”
“Haoxin waits for no one.” The petite guardian’s magic lashed around her as she stepped over the necromancer. And suddenly, she wasn’t so petite anymore.
Haoxin was … growing … stretching … expanding …
I stood stock still, completely unsure of what to say, of how to calm the irate guardian. I’d be pissed too if I’d been taken down by the centipedes — especially when wielded by a supposed friend. An ally. Me.
“Haoxin,” Warner said, stepping in front of her, “the wielder was —”
The guardian — now standing about six inches taller than the sentinel and still growing — backhanded him.
Warner flew across the stadium, slamming into and through at least three sections of the elves’ white-walled maze.
Instantly incensed, I reached for my necklace, brushing my fingers across the chain. Magic welled under my touch. Then I hesitated.
Haoxin and the instruments shared a destiny. Namely, her death by strangulation. And I wasn’t going to be … I couldn’t be the wielder who brought that destiny to fruition. I dropped my hand from the necklace, allowing the anticipatory trill of the instruments to fade.
“Stand forth for your reckoning, dragon slayer!” The guardian was easily eight feet tall now, but her arms and legs were longer and thicker than the rest of her body. She was still expanding, stretching.
My father abruptly appeared, dancing in front of the irate guardian, hands held up and forward. “Settle, my friend. All will be well. Let the necromancer finish —”
Haoxin slammed her fist down, attempting to smush my father with a hand that was now the size of a tiny car.
Yazi rolled away.
The blow created a massive crater in the floor, throwing anyone still on their feet to the ground. Including me.
I tumbled down the other side of the barrier. The rebar wasn’t kind to me. I smashed my head at least once. Then I just lay where I’d fallen, twisted around jutting concrete.
I’d been fighting for hours. I was drained. I wasn’t certain I had the strength for another fight.
Mory screamed. “Stop! St
op!”
I made it to my feet. Jesus Christ. I could see Haoxin even over the freaking barrier. She was reaching for the roof, and tall enough to almost touch it now.
Mory screamed a second time.
Her terror flooded through me, leaving an aching fear in its wake. I closed my eyes and tried to focus. “Toasted marshmallow. Toasted marshmallow. Toasted —”
Magic flowed out from my necklace, wrapping around me, pinching, squeezing, wrenching my guts.
I teleported to right beside Mory. She’d been dragged a few feet away from the gateway. Thick tendrils of magic still connected her and her knitting needles to the raging guardian and the elves’ gate.
About twelve feet away, Haoxin raised a foot the size of a freaking minivan and tried to stomp my father.
The gateway slipped.
Tilted.
Haoxin was pulling on it by way of the magic still connected to her. Following my father, she took another step, yanking Mory with her.
The necromancer was sobbing, but she was trying to hang on, trying to loosen the last of the magical ties connected to Haoxin.
A large hunk of concrete shifted a few feet away from us as Kandy freed herself from the debris Haoxin had stirred up. She rolled to her feet, shaking her head. She was bleeding from a head wound. Badly.
I reached for Mory.
She strained away from me. “No, Jade. No, Jade. No!”
Warner appeared beside us.
“Kandy,” I cried. “Get Kandy clear, please.”
He cast a grim gaze around us. The last dozen or so elves were frantically dragging their wounded toward the unstable gateway, desperate to pass through before it collapsed. Literally.
Jesus.
No.
The gateway couldn’t collapse.
That would mean it had all been for nothing. Everything Rochelle had seen would come to pass.
Haoxin took another step, distracted by my father attempting to talk her down. He was shouting in Mandarin now.
Mory was yanked forward with the guardian’s movement. She screamed in frustration and pain.
I palmed my knife, darting forward between the necromancer and the rampaging giant guardian.
Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9) Page 26