Warner slipped up out of the darkness beside me.
“It’s odd that the shrine itself has no defenses, isn’t it?” I whispered. “Not that I can taste.”
He grunted. “It does for me, and probably for Drake.”
“Probably Drake what?” the fledgling whispered to my left.
“You can probably still feel the magic of the door,” Warner said.
“All around,” Drake said. “It doesn’t like me very much. But it isn’t painful or anything.”
“More like a warning pulsing in my hindbrain,” Warner whispered.
Ice and wood cracked in the darkness behind us, the noise radiating out as a dozen or more booming echoes.
We slid to a halt. Well, I slid. Warner and Drake just stopped.
Then we waited in the dreadful silence.
Kandy screamed.
Warner dashed to the left. Drake and I followed.
We found the werewolf about a dozen hurried steps away. She was in her half-beast form, kneeling with her head bowed. As we approached, she melted back into her human visage, looking up at us with glowing green eyes. Her clothing was torn and stretched. She was bloody and bruised.
All the trees within ten feet of her had been shattered, their pieces spread across the ground. Drake hunkered down to examine the petrified-looking wood at the edge of the newly cleared area.
Kandy cracked a grin. “They didn’t like that,” she cackled.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. She looked dreadful, but she was still joking.
Kett appeared beside her, not looking much better.
“There’s magic in the trees?” I asked.
“Yup,” Kandy said. “They acted like it was poisonous or something. I think I got three of them.”
Drake hastily withdrew his hand. He’d been about to pick up a piece of the shattered wood. “I’ve taken out two. I think. Sentinel? Jade?”
Warner shook his head. “Three or four maybe. It’s difficult to tell.”
“None for me,” I spat with frustration. “They won’t come near me.”
“That leaves the heretic with what?” Drake asked. “Three or four shadow leeches?”
No one answered him.
“This isn’t working, Jade,” Warner said softly. “The werewolf and the vampire cannot continue.”
“Shailaja is near,” I said. “We’re almost done. And if we can use the trees as weapons, then …”
Warner shook his head, looking pointedly over my shoulder as if trying to force me to see something.
I turned back toward Kandy.
She shifted forward into a starter’s crouch. Her glowing green eyes were fixed on Warner. “Says you, dragon,” she growled, straightening as her shifter magic rolled around her once again.
But before Kandy could take on whatever form she was attempting to manifest, a shadow demon appeared between us, slamming into the green-haired werewolf’s chest.
She screamed, arching forward on her tiptoes as if her heart had exploded.
I lunged, grabbing the leech’s magic and ripping it from Kandy. Kett caught the werewolf before she could hit the icy stone floor. He swayed, almost losing his footing as he cradled her in his arms.
I held the shadow demon fast, seething with all the anger and frustration I was trying so hard to keep at bay.
“I’m done, Shailaja,” I screamed toward the taste of carrot-cake-and-cream-cheese magic that was mocking me in the distance. “I’m done with the games and the manipulations.”
Then I tore the shadow demon writhing in my grip to rags.
I ripped.
I shredded.
I destroyed its magic until it was a pile of nothingness at my feet.
“Jesus, dowser,” Kandy muttered. “There’s murder in your heart.”
I locked eyes with my best friend. She hadn’t protested the vampire’s hold. As I stepped over the tattered demon, she didn’t even lift her head.
“Maybe you should turn back,” she said.
“I love you.” I attempted to smile through the tears filling my eyes and spilling over my cheeks.
“Fuck you, Jade,” Kandy snarled. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you.”
I locked my gaze to Kett’s. His eyes were bleeding. Actual blood, not simply the red of his magic. I looked past the blood and the red welts on his face, peering deeper into his icy core. “I love you.”
Kandy grabbed me harshly, getting a fistful of curls along with my neck. She tugged me closer, pressing a fierce kiss to my forehead. The embrace was hard enough that I knew it would leave me bruised, but I took it gladly.
She released me. “Go,” she said, unyielding and harsh. “I’ll save the vampire.”
I lifted my head, leaning across Kandy and pressing a kiss to Kett’s ice-carved lips. I closed my eyes, breathing in his peppermint magic. I held it in my chest, refusing to exhale.
He brushed his thumb against my neck, checking my pulse. My heart beat once underneath his touch.
Then I opened my eyes.
They were gone.
A single sob ripped its way through my chest and out my throat.
“They will survive.” Warner was standing behind me, but he didn’t try to touch me or pull me away.
“Shailaja won’t let them go,” I whispered through the chokehold of my grief.
“They’re not the endgame,” Warner said. “You are. She wants you alone.”
“Let’s finish this,” Drake said fiercely.
I lifted my arm, pointing in the direction we needed to go. Then I turned my back on my best friends and followed Warner and Drake through the last few rows of skeleton trees between the rabid koala and us.
The best way to distract Shailaja from Kandy and Kett was to stab her in the freaking heart. And I had just the knife for the job.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We found a second ornately carved door situated directly opposite the entrance — according to Drake, anyway. I had absolutely no sense of direction, which meant I would never find my way out of this place on my own. But that was okay. I wasn’t sure that leaving under my own power was even going to be an option. Foiling Shailaja’s plans, then walking away only to get lost would be a nice problem to have.
Except I couldn’t taste the rabid koala’s magic anywhere nearby, and the clean-edged holes that had been bored through one side of the door were giving me heart palpitations. Dozens of six-inch-wide stone circles littered the ground at our feet, discarded and useless like champagne corks. The scalloped-edged gaping hole in the door revealed a dark corridor leading deeper into the mountainside.
It had taken just about everything I had to rip enough magic away from the exterior door that I could crack through its stone. These pieces of granite screamed of precise, focused magic.
“You were right,” Drake said, hunching over to span his hand across one of the discarded stone plugs. “The leeches were a distraction.”
“She used her portal magic to bore through stone,” I said. It was a mind-numbing idea. “Through stone. Solid stone. Spelled stone.”
“Slowly,” Warner said, sounding unimpressed. “And I doubt the warding here was as intricate as it was on the entrance to the atrium.”
Drake straightened, stepping through the damaged doorway.
I tried to call him back, but I couldn’t speak the words.
“Jade?” Warner’s voice was distant.
I turned my head to him, scanning the dark night and the stone door as I did … so, so slowly.
I was shutting down.
“Jesus,” I murmured. “I’m having a panic attack.”
“You don’t appear to be panicking,” Warner said.
“Don’t laugh,” I cried, suddenly sobbing and screaming at the same time. “Don’t laugh at me! She can bore through stone! Through stone! That shouldn’t be possible! Right? Not without a tool … or a magical drill … or something. What else could she bore through? And what about Kandy and Kett? What if the leeches —”
No.
First, I had to grab Drake. Then I had to run.
Warner was shouting, but I couldn’t hear his words.
Drake stepped back through the door. His face was etched with worry. I was the one who was supposed to take care of him, not the other way around.
But I couldn’t stop melting down … I couldn’t gain control of my limbs … my brain was overloaded mush.
Then Warner was kissing me. His grip was brutal, punishing. His magic flooded my senses … deep, dark chocolate with a hint of smoke in the finish, followed by sweet, explosive cherry, and topped with smooth, thickly whipped cream.
“You’re not stone, Jade,” he whispered. “You’re not stone.”
I wrapped myself around him, feeling the strength of his limbs and hearing the conviction of his words. Parting my lips, I thrust my tongue into his mouth. Holding him harder and rougher than I ever could have held anyone else I’d ever been intimate with.
Gradually, I became aware that I needed to be standing on my own two feet. I unwrapped my legs from him and stood. I loosened my embrace.
Warner responded in kind as he rubbed his thumbs across my cheeks. He wiped away my tears, placing teasing, light kisses on my lips.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured.
“No,” he said, stopping my apology with another all-encompassing, brain-scrambling kiss.
Then he stepped back from me and looked toward the door.
I followed his gaze.
Drake was standing in the rubble, his head bowed and partially turned away from us. His dark hair had fallen across his forehead. He looked utterly dejected.
A low fire began to burn in my belly. I stepped away from Warner, holding on to his hand until I had to let go. Then I took three deep breaths.
“Meltdown,” I said. “Check.”
Drake lifted his head, grinning at me.
I nodded as I looked back over my shoulder at Warner. “Thank you.”
“Any time.”
I chuckled. Crossing through the stone plugs littering the ground, I followed Drake through the hole bored in the door.
∞
“Well,” I said into the utter darkness stretching out before me. “Here’s the tunnel I was expecting.”
Drake laughed somewhere ahead of me.
I reached to my right, taking two tentative steps before my fingertips brushed against the wall. I waited, expecting the flavor of pear tea. But I couldn’t taste anything. “The leeches have been here.”
“Also as expected,” Warner said behind me.
I spread my dowser senses along the wall, seeking out dormant magic. “Watch your eyes,” I said. Then I pushed at the pinpoint of power I had sensed just above my head.
An amber light flared. I squinted up at it. The glow was emanating from the center of a sun embossed on the stone wall.
Warner grunted, shielding his face.
I reached farther, triggering more lights every few feet along the tunnel and illuminating Drake about a dozen steps ahead of us. Other than the stone light fixtures, the walls of the tunnel were bare, and constructed of smooth charcoal granite. The magical ice stopped at the threshold behind us.
“Installing lights always makes sense,” I said flippantly. “Practically no one can truly see in the dark.”
“Thank you, dowser,” Warner said. “The leeches will have a difficult time sneaking up on us now.” He palmed his knife as he stepped ahead of me.
We traversed the tunnel slowly and diligently, checking for magical traps every step of the way. The eight-foot-high passage curved and narrowed periodically, so that we couldn’t see as far ahead as I would have liked. We spread ourselves single file about six feet apart, following the path cutting deeper and deeper into the heart of Jiuding Shan.
In the stillness — and despite the constant anticipation that the next curve would reveal the chamber that held the final instrument and Shailaja waiting for us — I began to replay all the thoughts that had given rise to my panic attack at the mouth of the cave.
We hadn’t seen or felt another hint of the shadow demons since Kett and Kandy disappeared, and my dread grew with each step I took away from my best friends. What if the leeches had followed them? What if we weren’t drawing them away?
Then there was Shailaja’s ability to bore holes through stone.
I stopped walking. The corridor continued before me, its lights luring us ever deeper into the mountain.
Drake continued forward, his golden broadsword glinting as he turned to glance back at me.
“I’ve been here before,” I murmured. “Again and again.”
Warner looked back over his shoulder at me, concerned.
“What if this is it?” I asked him rhetorically. “What if this is life?”
“I don’t understand.” The sentinel glanced toward Drake. The fledgling had paused at the curve of the corridor a dozen feet ahead of us. Then he looked back at me.
I let go of my knife, feeling it slip into its invisible sheath at my right hip. I reached my hand toward him.
A frown creased his brow as he stepped back, taking my hand. I curled my fingers around his, feeling his strength.
When I was lost inside the golden magic of the portal, I’d felt trapped by that magic. Smothered. Now, I was deep within a mass of stone that felt as if it had always surrounded me … physically and metaphorically.
Maybe I was doomed to repeat the same challenges — to learn the same lessons — over and over again. Maybe none of it was within my power to change.
Nothing was within my control … except my own actions.
“I’m having an epiphany,” I said.
“Right now?”
“Ask me again,” I whispered, smiling up at him with my heart ready to burst. “Warner, ask me now.”
He didn’t even blink. He swept me up, twirling me around. Then he set me down, kneeling before me. “Jade Godfrey, I love you with every ounce of my being, with every drop of my magic. I would be yours till the end of my days. At your side. At your back. Whenever and wherever you’d have me. Will you marry me?”
“I will.”
He straightened, rising to sweep me into a kiss.
I reached for him. My fingers brushed the hair just above his ears.
Then I tasted cinnamon. Shailaja.
“Warner!” I cried.
The sentinel shoved me hard enough to crack my ribs. Pain exploded in my chest as I flew backward, smashing into Drake and dragging him another twenty feet along the curve of the corridor.
Then the ceiling collapsed on Warner.
Let me be more specific.
Then the mountain collapsed on Warner.
Within all the destruction and ruin raining down around us, I felt the portal magic dissipate almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Shailaja must have set up some sort of magical delayed charge. Or maybe she had worked to slowly undermine the entire tunnel as we advanced. Instead of shoving the shadow demons through her miniature portals, she’d used them to bore out chunks of stone from the foundations of the passage, compromising its integrity.
I untangled myself from Drake’s long limbs, heedless of everything else. I shoved the fledgling guardian away from me. Dust and rock cascaded off us.
I rolled forward onto all fours. I crawled over the edge of the cave-in, dragging myself to my feet. I could feel my ribs healing, leaving only a dull ache in place of cracked bones.
I ran the last few steps, climbing a mound of debris to press my hands against the pile of granite that now stood between us and the tunnel entrance.
I shoved at it.
Smaller rocks shifted, undermining my footing. But I didn’t so much as dent the wall.
Scrambling for purchase, I slammed my shoulder and hip against the wall of jagged stones. I dislocated my shoulder in my grief-fueled effort. Pain streaked up my ne
ck and into my right temple.
I hit the wall again, shoving my shoulder back into place with another burst of pain.
I wasn’t going to break through with force. I wasn’t strong enough.
I clawed my fingers at the rock, tearing my nails in an attempt to find a grip on any stone, any single piece. If I could move one, maybe it would shift the others.
But the jagged boulders were too large for me to move. Too difficult for me to grip.
My breathing was ragged, my heart a piece of lead in my chest when I finally stopped. I pressed my ear against the wall of rock.
I couldn’t hear anything.
I couldn’t taste a single drop of Warner’s magic.
He had just stood there.
He could have grabbed me and run.
But he’d been so … so stupid. So fucking stupid. Sacrificing himself. For me … and Drake. He’d thrown me in a way that he knew would save both of us.
I stumbled back from the wall of stone. Then I froze, staring at that mountain of shattered rock that separated me from Warner.
I fell to my knees.
I would stay. I would watch. When Warner was ready, he would shift the rock himself. And I’d be there to help dig him out.
“Jade …” Drake whispered from behind me. “We must continue. The oracle said it might come to this … on the beach in Washington … she said I might have to force you to continue.”
I didn’t listen. I wasn’t interested in anything Rochelle had to say or anything she’d seen.
“Jade Godfrey!” Drake bellowed. “You will continue. You will get me close enough to lay my blade at the heretic’s neck.”
I screamed as I shot to my feet.
I screamed as if I were ripping out my heart and flinging it to the ground. I screamed a sharp, shattering shriek, filled with a dreadful magic so strong that it hit the wall of stone before me and cracked it.
The cave-in shifted, slumping to one side. Loosened rock tumbled down to strike my feet, bouncing up and battering my shins. It drove me back a few more steps.
Numbness flooded through my chest and my limbs. I welcomed the sensation.
I turned away.
I left my love behind.
Facing Drake, I held my hand out. “Give me your sword,” I said.
Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic Page 26