by Karen Ranney
Jeffrey settled back against the seat, relaxing for the drive. He didn’t care about the scenery. One landscape was pretty much like another. He closed his eyes and envisioned what the battle with Derek would entail. In the hour or so until they reached San Antonio he would marshal his forces.
Finally, Samuelson pulled in front of the house. Jeffrey waited until the other man opened the door for him, then gave Samuelson his instructions.
“I anticipate that I shall only be a few minutes. However, it might be best if you wait somewhere else. We don’t want any witnesses.”
Samuelson nodded and entered the car again.
Jeffrey walked up the short flight of stairs to a door that was no doubt designed to be intimidating. He had seen such double doors at castles all over Europe. In fact his own home boasted one, somewhat more impressive.
He didn’t bother using the brass knocker of a lion with the ring in its mouth, or the bell. He simply waved his hand over the lock and the latch opened. He stepped inside the right hand door and closed it gently behind him. It wouldn’t do to announce his presence.
He stopped, suddenly disturbed by the sensation of power in the house. He was annoyed that he couldn’t figure out what it was immediately. Such a thing hadn’t happened often.
Jeffrey put out his hand, palm toward the floor. The air trembled against his skin.
Whatever it was, it originated on the third floor.
He closed his eyes, searching for Derek in his mind. He was on the third floor, the same place the power originated. Could it be that Derek had developed his talents quicker than anticipated?
It didn’t matter. He was more powerful. Derek didn’t stand a chance.
When the deed was known, when the act was done, no suspicions would fall on him. He would mount a worldwide search for Derek’s murderer. He would cause the world of magic to shudder in fear. No one knew he had left London. No one would be able to trace this act back to him. After all, what father kills his own son?
He smiled as he approached the staircase, putting on his leather gloves as he took the first step.
“Derek?”
He turned toward the door. Someone had opened it.
Two women stood there. Intruders.
“Leave me!”
He hadn’t raised his voice but the two words were enough to send a wave of sound toward them, nearly knocking both women to the floor. He hadn’t realized his own strength. Even now he was growing more aware, more cognizant of who he was.
The world looked the same. This room, his special room, was exactly as he’d left it.
The young one was coming closer. Had he known her in the past? He didn’t think so. She would’ve been a child when he was dispatched. How much time had passed? How many years? Did it matter? No, not really. Not if he emerged in this time as strong or even stronger than he had been.
He smiled at the girl, but the expression must have scared her because she took two steps back from him.
“Leave me!” he said again, but this time he moderated the sound somewhat. He didn’t want to hurt the girl. She might be useful to him.
“You aren’t Derek.”
A different voice, one belonging to the older woman. He did know her. What was she doing here? She could ruin everything. She’d once been an Elder, one of those who’d voted to end him in this very room.
He welcomed the rage he felt, anger bathing him, healing his body, rejuvenating and regenerating every cell.
Suddenly, she stretched out her hands, an arc of fire striking him in the chest.
He fell back against the altar, one of the candles falling onto his sleeve. He pressed his other hand atop the burning cloth, and sent her flying into the cabinet with a thought.
She hit with such force that the door cracked. Another instance of an Elder destroying what was his. He flung her to the other side of the room, but this time she didn’t move. She was kept immobile by the girl who speared him with her gaze.
What a delightful surprise. At another time he would have admired the girl’s abilities — and her courage —, but he didn’t have time for that right now. He had to finish the spell and solidify his presence.
At first he thought it was the older woman he felt, but then he realized that someone else had entered the Crow’s Nest, violating his privacy. He didn’t have time to oust an invader at the moment. This was the most delicate part of the incantation and must be completed.
Whoever was here would have to wait.
The scream wrung from him was sharp enough to pierce the walls. He fell to his knees, both hands reaching around to the small of his back where a dagger was embedded. Except there was nothing there, only the agony of an invisible blade.
“Bitches!”
He wanted to kill them both, right at the moment, but doing so would sap his strength and he had to finish the spell.
Derek felt as if he were enclosed in a sack, one permeable and soggy. He pressed his hands against it and felt its dampness, wondering if it was only a creation of his mind.
Everything was black, a bluish black that was soundless except for the beat of his heart and his raspy breathing. He’d never had a panic attack, but he imagined that this was how one started. Nothing was as it should have been and for that he only had himself to blame.
The bubble encased him, kept him trapped. He had the thought that the power that kept him inside was alien to him, but not to the room. Maybe something that had been invited there before, that felt a certain familiarity and comfort in this environment.
Whatever it was —– coated in blue blackness, sweat, and giving off a feeling of malevolence —– had the power to be terrifying. Strangely, however, he wasn’t afraid.
He folded his arm and, using his elbow as a spear, pressed against the barrier again, intuitively knowing that if he didn’t escape this, he would never leave this room alive. Whatever he’d summoned here, it was not a friendly entity.
He’d tried to summon Breanna, but she wasn’t here. Only this darkness, this stench of something foul.
It had been three decades since he’d felt so gullible or vulnerable. He was no longer a child, but a man experienced in the ways of the world. Not this world, however. Not this insanity.
The air was changing from a bluish black to dark green, the color of fetid ponds and disease.
He charged headlong into the skin of the bubble, hitting something hard on the other side. He felt the table and the shape of the candlesticks. He was still in the room, then, still physically in the same place.
Would sound carry through the bubble? He began to shout. His voice rose, assaulting his ears. It sounded twice as loud in this small, enclosed space.
He had a mental vision, one that sent chills racing down his spine, of a giant insect digesting its prey. He was the prey and no matter how loudly he shouted or how violently he struggled he was doomed to be eaten.
He was damned if that was going to happen.
As Jeffrey entered the room, several spears of yellowish light shot out of a massive ball. Where it touched was left darkened, the surface of the wall eaten away.
Two women on the other side of the room were staring at the ball in horror.
He understood their caution because he could feel the naked power of it. He held up both hands, a yard apart, sending a thought to control what Derek had created. To his surprise, nothing happened.
One of the women turned and looked at him. He recognized her as Grace Colson.
“He’s more powerful than I imagined."
"Nonsense," Jeffrey said. "He's a neophyte."
She shook her head but when she would've spoken again, the ball seemed to grow, coming toward all three of them. The women stepped to the side, together, as if drawing strength from each other.
He didn't need them. He had never needed anyone.
He had not been born a wizard, but he’d proven himself well enough over the years sufficiently to fool everyone. Everyone, perhaps, but the woman standing onl
y five feet away from him.
It was a meeting he’d carefully avoided until now. She was the only one who could have outed him and from the look in her eyes he knew he’d been wise to fear her intelligence.
She might not know who he was, but she was very aware that he wasn't Jeffrey North.
Not a development he’d anticipated.
34
Something had to be done about the power Derek was generating. He needed to be eliminated, but Jeffrey never thought to do so in front of two witnesses.
"It isn't Derek, you fool."
Disdain was an emotion he rarely heard. He’d anticipated Grace's antipathy to him, but never her disgust.
"It isn't Derek," she said again, as if she had the power to read minds. And perhaps she did. His research into her was less intense than it should have been. He hadn't wanted to let anyone know that he was curious about Jeffrey's one time mistress. Doing so would look suspicious since he was supposed to have known everything there was to know about Grace.
He dismissed that problem for the moment in favor of a more pressing issue.
"What do you mean, it isn’t Derek?"
“It’s not him. Something has him trapped.”
What was powerful enough to have encapsulated a wizard, even a nascent one?
"I'm afraid it's Breanna."
He knew that Breanna was Derek's wife, dead these past weeks. What the hell had the idiot been trying to accomplish? Raising the dead?
“Yes," Grace said, proving that he was right. Somehow, she had the ability to burrow into his mind and hear what he was thinking. Too bad she could never be an ally of his. Had Jeffrey used her in such a capacity?
One of the yellow tendrils was coming too close to his shoes. He took a step back, toward the door. The tendrils had stopped shooting out of the ball and had started acting tentatively, almost as if they were fueled by curiosity, not aggressiveness.
This had gone on long enough.
He didn’t know what Derek had summoned, but its powers were no match for his. He had spent decades teaching himself, learning everything there was to know about magic. He was as perfect in it as anyone he knew.
He spread out his hands, palms toward the ball, then raised them slowly. As he had planned, the ball rose with the movement of his hands until it was flat against the ceiling. Grace and the girl watched wordlessly as he pushed the ball to the far corner.
A rush of heat from the sphere startled him. So, too, the red flames that licked out from the ball, as if hungry for a taste of him.
It wasn’t simply energy they were facing. Something else was in there. An entity, a creature, a life force that was struggling to break free.
He held one hand up and with the other reached into his pocket, grabbing a round brass ornament, two inches in diameter. As his badge of office it had been blessed by the magic of a dozen powerful witches who’d willingly given up their strength in payment for his protection. They looked to him for wisdom and continuity. In exchange he’d given them the ability to govern a thousand strong-willed, adept, and talented practitioners of magic.
Their power was his and he directed it toward the growing circle of greenish blue light.
He’d anticipated a swift end to this battle. It was anything but. Twice the sphere lunged at him. He held it back by his will and anger. Grace and the girl just watched. He wouldn’t have accepted their help if they’d offered it. He was supposed to be Jeffrey North, the wizard of the European Meriduar, one of the most powerful wizards in the world.
He would prove that he was the equal of Jeffrey today.
Their battle was a constant ebb and flow of energy and tenacity. The sphere launched itself in his direction, forestalled only by his power. He had never sensed anything as strong.
He wasn’t winning, a realization he faced as he was knocked to his knees. Was this how his downfall was to be? The witches would have their heyday in discussing the events of this afternoon. His legacy would be excoriated. He would be a laughingstock.
Whatever was fighting him would triumph, but he couldn’t say that the world would be made a better place because of it. Simply put, he didn’t know his adversary.
Grace startled him by coming to stand in front of him as he made it to his feet.
“I don’t need a witch to protect me,” he said.
“No, you need a witch to save you.”
She reached out and grabbed his hand and held onto it with an iron grip. He knew what she wanted to do, couple their powers together, fight this thing, whatever it was with her abilities and his.
He wanted to ask her — and he might have had it been a different time and place — why she could help the man who had destroyed someone she loved. Or perhaps she hadn’t put it together yet. A glance at her face told him he was wrong. She knew that he’d vanquished Jeffrey. She might even know how long it had been.
She would attempt to punish him for that. She’d already had the guts to threaten him for his attempts on Derek’s life.
But for now, in this odd house at the top of a hill in the middle of Texas, she would add her powers to his in order to defeat this thing that threatened all of them.
She was trembling and at first he thought it was fear. In the next moment he realized it was rage engulfing her, but didn’t know if it was directed toward him or the entity rolling toward them.
He suspected it was a combination of both. Her quick glance at him verified that he was correct.
He did wish, however, that she would get out of his head.
She reached out her other hand and the girl grabbed it. He could feel a current of energy from both of them, fueling him. He’d never thought to use the two of them, but what they faced wasn’t natural, normal, or familiar.
Grace began a chant, one he knew well. It was a summons of power, something that dated back to the time of the Bible, halfway to a prayer. He began to speak with her, as did the girl.
In response, the ball of light began to shoot out yellow spears toward them. The girl startled him by holding up her hand and grabbing each one as if they were a quiver of slow-motion arrows.
He needed to acquaint himself better with the NASACA. This convocation of American magic seemed to be a great deal stronger than he’d originally thought.
The chant grew, their voices louder. The floor trembled. The air was charged with electricity.
The ball began to emit sounds. He could hear a cry. A scream from within. Perhaps Grace had been right and Derek was trapped.
Why should Jeffrey release him when he’d come to Texas to ensure his destruction? Let the ball kill him. Let it eat him as energy.
He might have continued with that thought but for the agony that dropped him to his knees.
He released Grace’s hand, grabbed his midsection, and swore softly to himself. The searing pain was slicing him in two.
“You will help us save him. Do you understand?”
He looked up at Grace, wondering if she knew that he’d never been felled by a woman. He hated her in that instant, more than he hated Jeffrey or all the other individuals who had once lorded it over him.
For forty years he’d been their leader. He’d been fawned over, respected, solicited for his opinion or his judgment. People had groveled to him and offered him a fortune not to render their lives a living hell. No one had ever had the temerity to do to him what Grace had just done.
“Stop whatever you’re doing,” he said. His voice did not sound as commanding as he wished. Instead, it trembled, which angered him even more.
“Only if you will agree to help us save him. Give your word.”
“Will you accept my word, Grace? Does it mean something to you?”
“No,” she said, her expression leaving no doubt as to her opinion of him. “But I will tell the world who you are if you don’t. I will destroy you just as you destroyed Jeffrey.”
He wanted to put his hands around her neck and squeeze the life out of her. He wanted to end her at this moment,
but he could barely move for the pain she was causing him. She had knifed him with her mind and that took a great deal of power and skill. He’d only attempted it a few times in his career and doing so had exhausted him. The woman in front of him, however, did not look as if it had taken an ounce of her energy.
“You have my word. Now stop what you are doing.”
She flicked her fingers toward him and the pain stopped. He bit his lip to keep from saying the words that immediately came to mind. Instead, he shakily got to his feet, took a moment to breathe a few times and then stretched out his hand for her’s.
“Let’s get this done. I’ve lost my patience.”
He was angrier now then he’d been crossing the Atlantic. Angrier then discovering that Jeffrey had a son. Angrier then he’d been at the thought of Derek eventually challenging him.
This was decades-old anger pressed together into a brick of rage.
Emotion fueled a spell. Everyone knew that. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the spell. Love was a deep and abiding emotion, but it didn’t carry as much energy as rage. Nothing did.
The two of them, he and Grace, could have set an entire city alight in the next few minutes. The girl added her skills, but they were puny next to the power of the witch and the man who had been known as a wizard for the past few decades.
At first he thought that they wouldn’t win against the ball of light. But, then, the shouts became louder as the dark blue/green color of the sphere began to change and lighten. The sharp yellow spears faded and dulled.
Grace began to chant again and he joined his voice with hers.
The explosion caught him unawares. He flew back against the wall, hitting the door frame so hard that it felt as if his back had been severed in two. Grace was luckier, sliding into the doorway and out into the hall. The girl slammed against the wall on the other side of the door and lay there whimpering.
It took Grace a minute to realize that the ball was gone and in its place, Derek was lying face down on the floor.