by E. G. Foley
Standing boldly by the waypoint, Dani began carefully turning the series of dials embedded on her leather training gauntlet.
“You’re sure that thing really works?” Jake asked while the battle crashed around them.
“Shh! I’m concentrating.” She shot him a quick scowl. “Stand back so you don’t get fried.”
“Claire, let’s go. There’s a break in the action.” Uncle Richard tugged on Aunt Claire’s arm, gesturing toward the woods. “Stay safe, children.”
“All my love!” Though her face was anguished, the viscountess blew them all a kiss, then she and Uncle Richard both headed for the tree line, ready to shoot or stab anything that stepped into their path.
“Two of you, go with them!” Again, Derek gestured at the ring of Guardians surrounding them.
“Yes, sir!” Two more of their security team ran off to assist the diplomats.
Derek apparently felt that they could spare them, since they still had half a dozen men, plus Janos, the shapeshifters, Red, and himself.
Suddenly, Isabelle groaned and hung her head. “Oh—poor Father Yew.” The empath wove on her feet like she might faint; both Jake and Maddox reached out to steady her. “He’s burning…suffering… They’re killing him as the symbol of all we hold dear. They’re so evil. So full of hate.”
“Get Isabelle out of here!” Janos barked. “She can’t be exposed to this much longer!”
Jake did his best to comfort his cousin, though her pretty face was anguished.
Janos was right. She couldn’t take much more. Jake could only imagine what the sensitive soul of an empath must be experiencing in the midst of all this chaos and fury.
“Hurry up, Dani!” Maddox said.
“I’m trying!”
“Give her a second!” Tex shot back, standing by the little redhead. “She’s almost got it. You try recalling bunches of numbers under pressure. Don’t listen to him, honey. Just stay calm.”
Jake exchanged a dark glance with Nixie. The news that the Old Father Yew was being burned alive infuriated him. The angry look on the young witch’s face suggested she was thinking the same thing.
Now that their initial terror had passed, they were torn between following their orders to leave through the portal and the growing urge to join the fight. Of course, Jake knew he was forbidden to do so. Wyvern was here, and the Dark Druids wanted to abduct him.
At that moment, Red let out a full-throated roar that took all of them off guard, even Jake.
Dani jumped, so badly startled that her hand flailed across the Bud of Life. “Blast it, Red, look what you made me do!”
Judging by the string of rookery expletives to come flying out of her mouth, Jake gathered she had hit something she shouldn’t have.
“It’s all right, darlin’, cool yer heels,” Tex said. “It wasn’t your fault. Just be patient.”
“Bigmouth Gryphon!” Dani muttered, sending Red a dirty look.
“Just concentrate on your vectors, and we’ll try again in a minute when the device resets.”
“What’s he yawping about, anyway?” Dani demanded, flustered, as she waited for the Bud to reset.
Jake shook his head. “I’m not sure…”
As Red continued growling, Jake followed the Gryphon’s golden-eyed glare across the battlefield and found himself looking at a horrifying animal. A large, tawny lion with a kingly mane…
And a scorpion’s tail.
The dark, segmented tail with a venomous stinger on the end angled forward above the lion’s back, long enough to strike over its head. The lion prowled in a wide circle around Lord Wyvern, as though protecting him.
Although it stayed clear of its master’s duel with Sir Peter, the creature seemed determined to stop anyone else from interfering.
Jake grimaced with revulsion. “What is that thing?”
Janos grabbed a Noxu by one tusk, punched it in the face, kneed it in the stomach, and sent it reeling backward. Chest heaving, he looked in the direction Jake indicated and growled. “Thanatos.”
“What?”
“Wyvern’s manticore,” Janos said grimly. “That foul beast was guarding Red’s cage inside the Black Fortress when I got there. Blast it, I thought Ravyn and I killed it!” Then he glanced around. “Where is Ravyn, anyway? Has anyone spotted her yet?”
“Aye, I think I saw her over there, by the palace doors, with Master Ebrahim.” Jake pointed.
Maddox took a step forward, peering in that direction. He had been strangely quiet ever since they arrived—even for him. Jake now realized it was because the lad was worried about his Guardian mother.
Maddox’s dark eyes homed in on the tumult around the palace entrance. “I see her!”
The fight shifted, and Jake saw the warrior woman too. Ravyn was brawling with fists and blades against the half-troll barbarians.
But then one towering brute with exceptionally long tusks came at her. The barbarian must’ve been three times the slim fighter’s weight in pure muscle.
Maddox tensed as the big Noxu grabbed Ravyn by the throat and lifted her high off her feet. She struggled to no avail, legs kicking.
Without warning, the older lad sprinted away from the group, heading straight for his birth mum.
Izzy screamed his name.
“Maddox, what are you doing?” Jake yelled.
“Get back here, St. Trinian!” Derek thundered, turning from his own battle, chest heaving.
But Maddox kept running—flagrantly disobeying the master Guardian’s orders.
“Is he always this much of a problem?” Janos yelled angrily over his shoulder.
“No worse than you!” Derek retorted.
“You want me to go after him?”
“Don’t leave us!” Izzy cried.
Jake, meanwhile, anxiously searched the seething knot of fighters around the palace doors.
He picked Maddox out of the chaos just in time to see his friend pull off an astonishing feat. The Guardian apprentice literally ran up the huge Noxu’s back, punched the brute in the side of the head, then leaped off its shoulder as it staggered from the blow.
The Noxu dropped Ravyn; Maddox spun around, drew his blade, and stabbed it in the stomach, then gave his mother a hand up.
Jumping to her feet, Ravyn looked pleased with her son.
Admittedly, even Jake was impressed.
Derek wasn’t. The master Guardian glowered in the young fighter’s direction. “If he gets himself killed, I’m going to throttle him.”
“Don’t even say that,” Izzy whispered.
While they were all looking toward the palace doors, Jake noticed that, in the courtyard outside the entrance, Wyvern’s battle with Sir Peter continued to intensify.
Wyvern conjured a massive fist out of swirling green smoke and punched the headmaster with it. Sir Peter went crashing back against the stone rim of the fountain, his wand temporarily flung from his hand, his glasses knocked off his face.
He shook his head as though dazed while the Nephilim laughed, but Sir Peter quickly summoned his wand back into his grasp. Then he picked his glasses up off the gravel and put them back on.
“I owed you that!” Wyvern shouted.
Sir Peter struck back, lunging with his wand to release a volley of arrows. Wyvern turned himself into smoke for a moment—just like when he had vanished from the grounds of Griffon Castle, fleeing the unicorn stampede.
The arrows swept right through him and slammed harmlessly into a tall shrubbery behind him. The warlock reappeared with a smirk.
Sir Peter looked enraged and shouted, “If you ever target my wife again—!” He raised his wand upright over his head, bellowed a command, and then swept the tip downward.
An explosion cracked the ground in a seam before him that ran toward Wyvern like an earthquake; the courtyard suddenly split beneath the Nephilim.
The manticore roared as Wyvern plunged straight down into the long, jagged crack in the earth.
Red tensed beside J
ake as the manticore charged Sir Peter; the wizard saw it coming and froze the beast mid-motion, much like Fionnula had done to Henry in wolf form.
Wasting no time while the vicious beast was immobilized, Sir Peter began chanting to force the split ground back together to crush Wyvern inside the artificial crevasse.
But as the earth began to rumble slowly back together, Wyvern came levitating back up out of the ground, his eyes burning nearly orange with rage.
With a flick of his wrist and some magical command, Wyvern turned his wand into a long leather bullwhip that flew out and wrapped around Sir Peter’s neck.
Wyvern yanked the smaller man off his feet and began dragging him toward him, raking Sir Peter across the gravel and slowly choking the air out of him.
“Oh no,” Nixie said, standing, frozen, between Archie and Jake.
Meanwhile, Master Balinor was still putting out fires along the front face of the palace, calling powdery white avalanches of banking soda down upon the roof.
But when his owl screeched, apparently warning him that his right-hand man was in trouble, the aged head wizard turned around, saw the situation, and frowned.
Still controlling the angry general in the smoky snow globe, Balinor let out a visible sigh, as though he was growing weary of all this.
Then he aimed his wand at the manticore and uttered a low incantation that made a small puff of wind blow across the entire battlefield. It blew Jake’s forelock back from his face…
And unfroze the manticore.
The creature landed on the gravel, finishing its jump.
“Oh, Lord! Is he senile?” Archie exclaimed. “Why would Balinor do that?”
“Just wait,” Nixie said with a gulp, though she sounded unsure.
The manticore shook itself as though it had forgotten what it was doing.
Still staring at the manticore, Master Balinor repeated his incantation, and the creature turned slowly toward its master.
All of a sudden, it lifted its horrible tail and hissed at Lord Wyvern.
The warlock stopped dragging Sir Peter and looked at his pet.
The manticore prowled closer, its tail poised to strike.
“Oh,” Archie murmured. “That’s why…”
“Thanatos! Sit!” Wyvern’s order rumbled across the field.
The beast ignored it.
Wyvern changed his bullwhip back into a wand just in time to defend himself as the manticore leaped on him and threw him to the ground.
Sir Peter rolled away from them and scrambled to his feet, coughing and rubbing his throat. “Thank you!”
“Anytime, dear boy.” Balinor waved. Meanwhile, the manticore kept trying to bite Wyvern and stab him with its tail.
Sir Peter jogged toward the palace, looking exhausted. The Guardians kept the Noxu away and parted ranks to let him slip inside, whether to catch his breath or move on to another task, Jake did not know.
Some of the Guardians jeered to see the haughty Lord Wyvern calling on all his Nephilim strength to hold his own pet at bay. Even a few of the ugly Noxu looked amused.
Balinor simply went back to conjuring cascades of baking soda to squelch the roof fires.
What he didn’t notice, intent on his task, was that, in the next moment, Wyvern broke the spell the manticore was under.
Shoving his confused pet off him, the furious warlock sat up, shot forth a crackling bolt of magic from his wand, and shattered the magical snow globe, releasing Archeron Raige.
The warrior stepped out in a swirl of black smoke. The moment he was free, he hurled a large dagger with glowing green symbols on the blade.
The wizard’s owl screamed as the knife plunged into Balinor’s back.
Everybody with the diplomatic party gasped in horror as the old man fell.
The Guardians defending the palace reacted too late. Although a few ran to surround the head wizard, the scene around the front of Merlin Hall turned to chaos.
The Noxu began cheering. Action halted across the battlefield as everyone started to realize what had happened. Balinor’s owl, meanwhile, went berserk, flapping all around and letting out ear-piercing screeches.
When one of the Noxu moved toward the bird’s fallen master, the owl flew at the brute and tried to gouge its eyes out. The half-troll screamed and fled with bloody scratches on its face.
Meanwhile, the brawny warrior from inside the snow globe lit a cigar, warded off blows from numerous Guardians at once, then started barking orders at the Noxu.
The tusked horde began hurling themselves against the palace doors with newfound zeal.
Dani gave Jake a terrified look, forgetting all about the portal. Her face was white beneath her freckles. They needed no words to confirm that neither could believe what had just happened.
The head of the Order had just been cut down before their very eyes.
Everyone was staring at the cluster of Guardians that had gathered around the fallen chief wizard.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Nixie asked.
“Maybe the healers can get to him in time,” Derek said, but his tone was murderous.
Jake glanced around. You didn’t need to be an empath to feel the sudden plunge in morale across the field. Defeat at the hands of the Dark Druids suddenly seemed very possible. Maybe even imminent.
But Jake felt his anger at the enemy rising like a flood. His hands tingled with the readiness to use his telekinesis somehow to help in this fight.
I have to do something.
Janos seemed to share his sentiments. His eyes had turned black; the tips of his fangs were showing.
Even Derek lost patience. “Hang it, Tex, is she going to get that portal open anytime soon?”
“I’m sorry, Guardian Stone! I’m doing my best!” Dani cried.
“It’s all right, honey.” Tex turned and sent the Guardian a frown. “She had a little trouble, is all. Almost there. The Bud just needs a few more seconds to reset.”
“Fine. Then, when it does, do it for her!” Derek said.
“And how’s that supposed to teach ’er anything?” Tex replied.
“This is no time for a lesson, Munroe!”
“Yeah, well, reckon she might need to do it again real soon on the other end without us. Ya never know. So hold yer horses, muchacho. Give the kid another minute.”
Derek glared at the Lightrider but did not argue further.
Jake realized the cowboy was probably right. Wherever Dani was taking them, they might arrive only to find they weren’t safe there, either. If she needed to transport them again quickly somewhere else, she’d have to be able to do it herself, without adult supervision.
Meanwhile, over by the front of the palace, the manticore had fully recovered from Balinor’s spell. It now began attacking the crowd. Fangs bared, tail whipping about, it didn’t seem to care whether it struck friend or foe.
It bit one Guardian and stabbed another with its tail. Teeth gnashing, the monstrous beast did not withdraw until none other than Maddox St. Trinian snatched up one of the fallen Noxu’s spears and sent it hurtling through the air, nailing the creature in the side.
The manticore roared and ran off into an untouched opening of the maze, the spear still dragging from its side.
Wyvern swore, glancing after his pet. He’d been busy casting curses and spells that had turned several Guardians to ashes—until some keen-eyed wood elf in an upper window of the palace peppered the warlock with six arrows in quick succession.
The Nephilim bellowed, but the arrows did not kill him. They only slowed him down. He retreated from the fight, limping off into the maze after his wounded pet.
“Look!” Isabelle suddenly pointed. “There’s Aunt Ramona!”
Finnderool had told them that the Elder witch was battling Fionnula somewhere in the fray, but seeing their clash firsthand was something else altogether. The two great witches chased, knocked, and blasted each other into view at last, emerging from the quadrangle.
Fionnula was in f
ull diva form, from her frilly, low-cut gown to her red high-heeled shoes. But, clearly, the sea-witch meant business.
Wand in hand, she flung her arm forward, hurling crackling blue orbs of magic at Aunt Ramona. The Elder witch cast each volley of Fionnula’s attack into the ground; the spheres landed like grenades, blowing up chunks of turf.
When Aunt Ramona struck back, bright purple lightning tinged with silver and gold blasted from her wand. The rocketing force of it threw the sea-witch to the ground and sent her rolling several feet across the grass.
Fionnula recovered with a vicious snarl, jumping to her feet, her pale cheek bloodied, her long sable tresses smoking. Visibly furious, she hammered back at the Elder witch, to no avail.
Her gray hair blowing, her skirts whipping in the witches’ wind, Aunt Ramona stood planted like an iron rod in a storm.
Jake stared at her in awe—yet uneasiness filled him. If Balinor could be felled, so could she.
Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a Noxu spear hurtling straight toward their group. He reacted instantly, knocking it away with his telekinesis like he was swatting a fly.
The spear plunged into the ground nearby, where it stuck upright.
Dani blanched at the near-miss, but, for Jake, that was the last straw.
The Order’s forces were wavering after seeing Balinor cut down. He had a notion for how to turn the tide.
Derek wasn’t going to like it, but Jake had been a very good boy for quite long enough.
“C’mon, Red. Fly.” Jake jumped on the Gryphon’s back and seized hold of his collar. “Take me up to that airship.”
CHAPTER 58
A Leap of Faith
Jake leaned forward over the Gryphon’s feathery mane as Red galloped free of the Guardians’ ring around them and launched into the air. Jake refused to look back, but winced to hear his party’s reaction behind him.
Determined to stay focused on his task, he fixed his stare on the dirigible above and did his best to ignore Dani shrieking his name.
“I’ll be right back,” he mumbled with a frown. “Doesn’t she know that?”