Hunting Season (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 4)

by Annie Bellet

  “Fat chance,” I said. “I mean this in the nicest way, but you aren’t strong yet. Worrying about you might get us killed.”

  “I’m stronger than I look,” she said.

  “Says the woman who can’t pull on a sweater without looking like she’s in agony.”

  “I want to help.” She dropped the sweater and glared at me. “Besides,” she added, her expression shifting from anger to worry in a blink, “what if Samir comes for me here while you are all out fighting Clyde?”

  I’d thought about that. I’d been doing a lot of thinking all morning about Samir, about what I knew of him and how he’d acted toward me so far since I’d revealed myself months ago.

  “I don’t think it’ll happen,” I said. “I think he’ll sit back, watch to see what Clyde manages with this Fomoire and Balor’s Eye crap. Samir likes a show.”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded. “He does,” she admitted. “Clyde might be arrogant and young, but he’s dangerous, too.”

  “So am I.” I grinned at her, trying to project more confidence than I felt. Clyde wasn’t the only one who could put on a show.

  “Still feels wrong to stay and convalesce while everyone else fights,” she muttered. She climbed back onto the bed, not quite successfully hiding a pained grimace.

  “Someone will need to protect Rosie, Max, and Junebug,” I said. I’d used the same argument on Max, only saying Tess, Rosie, and Junebug that time. Rosie had forbidden Max to go, much to his anger, but I agreed with her. He was only fifteen. It was hard to remember sometimes, it felt like we’d all been through a lifetime of battles these last few months.

  “True,” Tess said with a sigh.

  I sat on the edge as she arranged herself. The others were almost ready to go, but I had things I wanted to discuss. So many things. There wasn’t time for them all.

  “You’ll be more help later,” I said. “After. I think if Clyde fails here, Samir might come himself. Were you serious about us fighting together? You said you know about magic, that you could help teach me.”

  “I was serious,” Tess said. Her eyes fixed on mine, an almost fanatical light burning in their depths.

  Doubt whispered in my heart, doubt about my plan, about the connections I was sure I’d made, about Samir’s nature and the nature of Clyde’s plan. I pushed them away. I had contingencies for being wrong, thin and weak though the beta plan was. I was running out of time, but there was one thing I desperately wanted to know, and I hoped Tess had an answer for me.

  “Do you know if Samir lied to me about how we can’t be killed unless another sorcerer eats our hearts?” I spat out the question in a rush, thinking about all the times I’d almost died. The times I should have died. Like when I had thrown myself on a freaking bomb only weeks before.

  “I think it is true,” Tess said after a long moment. “He’s lived a very long time, and we don’t seem to age much. I’ve never heard of a sorcerer killed any other way, but we don’t exactly appear very often and we all seem to die only one way most of the time, killed by one man.” She looked away from me, one hand rubbing her crucifix, her jaw tight.

  “But what sets us apart from human magic users? Why don’t we die? Why do we have power at our fingertips for asking when others must earn it?” I wanted to know what we were. I wanted to know how it all worked, how much of what little Samir had told me was the truth. I’d eaten the hearts of two men, men who had had to train and learn and steal their power from other things. I knew they were different from what I was; I felt their humanity, their mortality. But my knowledge was weak, blind, like knowing the difference between the taste of licorice and the taste of mint. Two different things, but I didn’t know why.

  At the heart of it, I wanted to know why I was even more different. Why could I see magic? Why did I heal in hours? Why did I know every damn language?

  Why had I survived when so many others had not? Why was Wolf with me, and how had she scarred Samir?

  I curled my hands into fists, feeling like a small child. All why and no answers.

  “I don’t know,” Tess said. “Why is there magic at all? I give those questions up to God. It is more peaceful to accept His will than to doubt.”

  “Don’t you want to know why we are what we are?”

  “No,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes bright in the sunlight as she stared out the window, not meeting my gaze. “I only want to live, to be free of Samir. To let this cup pass from me.”

  I knitted my eyebrows together, trying to place where I’d heard those words before. More scripture, perhaps.

  “We’ll find a way,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “First I’m going to go pwn that brat of his.”

  “Pwn?” Tess said, finally looking at me again. “Like your shop?”

  “It’s from the Welsh,” I joked.

  “Wouldn’t it be pronounced poon then?” Her expression was skeptical.

  “Damn, foiled again,” I said.

  Alek tapped on the door and stuck his head in. “We are ready,” he said, eyes flicking between Tess and I.

  I stood up. We were out of time.

  Be good, I thought, almost speaking the words aloud.

  “Be safe,” I said instead. “We’ll talk more later.”

  “Godspeed,” Tess said. “Take care, Jade.”

  The ritual had to be performed in a druid’s grove, which was apparently specially cultivated and prepared sacred ground. Yosemite had groves spread across the River of No Return Wilderness, but the nearest to us was a four-hour hike from the nearest trailhead.

  The woods were eerily silent, though the day was spectacular, a rare sunny fall day full of color and the crisp promise of winter without winter’s bite. No birds sang. No deer flicked annoyed tails at us and ran. It was hunting season; the woods and fields should have been thick with rabbit, fox, deer, bear, and many kinds of birds. It was as though the wilderness itself was holding its breath, waiting to see if we could close Balor’s Eye and win the day. As we drew near the grove, I kept an eye on the surroundings, picking out a clearing for later.

  The supernatural quiet ended abruptly as we crossed into the grove. It was easy to see where the sacred space started and the normal woods ended. The trees here were taller than any around, their leaves still green as though it were early summer, not nearly winter. A burbling creek flowed along one side of the wide circle of green, whispering trees. Algae formed a soft green carpet at the bottom of the stream, giving the water an emerald cast, and Spanish moss slung from the trees as though shrouding this place, curtaining it off from the normal world.

  In the trees around us, giant wolves flowed into position. The dying sunlight coming through the leaves cast heavy green shadows over everyone, except the unicorn. Lir, his body almost unmarred now, followed Yosemite into the grassy center of the grove. The unicorn seemed to understand what was needed. I’d explained the ritual to Yosemite and he’d spoken to Lir in the barn before we left. I watched the beautiful creature as he stood, head up, nostrils flared, watching us all with dark eyes that reminded me for a moment of Wolf’s, deep black and full of tiny pinpricks of stars, like a night with no moon.

  Alek, Brie, Ciaran, and I stopped on the edge of the grove. Alek clasped forearms with Aurelio before the wolf alpha shifted and went to join his pack. Harper, Levi, and Ezee came to me, shifting from their animal forms to human as they approached.

  “You aren’t going to change your mind, are you?” Harper said, glaring at me.

  “Harper,” I said, grabbing her into a hug. “Trust me,” I whispered, though with everyone around me having super hearing, there was little point. “Please, furball.”

  “With my life,” she said, hugging me back.

  Which was why she couldn’t come with me. I wanted to tell her the plan, but I knew she’d insist on going where the real action was, insist on helping. I had to keep my friends out of the way if I could. For as long as I could.

  “We get hugs?” L
evi said, his grin forced.

  “Group hug?” I laughed, blinking against the sudden lump in my throat.

  I looked at my friends as they finally let me go.

  “Good luck,” I said. It was totally inadequate, but I felt like I had to say something.

  My merry band of four left the grove behind, backtracking to the clearing I’d picked out earlier. I wanted to be close enough that if I was wrong we could get back to them, but far enough away that if I was right, we’d keep the worst of the danger away. Other than the weird lack of wildlife, there was no sign in this part of the forest of Balor’s Eye damaging anything. Yet. Hopefully not ever.

  Alek walked beside me, retaining his human form for the moment. I slid my hand into his. He’d argued with me this morning about my plan, but I was firm. I couldn’t worry about protecting him and doing what I had to do if I didn’t have his promise to stay out of fights that weren’t his. He was unhappy, I could tell from the way his shoulders hunched and the grip he kept on my fingers, but he would keep his word. Alek was nothing if not honorable, almost to a fault. I loved him for it, needed it from him. He was a reminder that we could and would do what we had to, but that we could still retain some level of goodness, too, a kind of honor in itself.

  We stopped at the clearing and I took my supplies out of my backpack, setting up while Brie and Ciaran looked on. They didn’t know the whole plan; they still thought I was doing a ritual. Which I was, of a sort.

  Unsure if it was safe to talk out here, though it felt like we were alone in this too-quiet wood, I reiterated my instructions.

  “Keep anything that shows up off me, but leave the sorcerer to me. If I fall, run to the others.”

  “I don’t much care for that part.” Ciaran shook his head, his silver and copper curls bouncing.

  “Makes two of us,” Alek said with a growl. Yep, he was still mad at me. Awesomesauce.

  “I’m fine with it, if anyone is asking,” Brie said. She grinned at me, rolling her shoulders before dropping into a hamstring stretch. “Let the sorcerers duel their own.”

  “I used to like you,” Alek told her, transferring his glare.

  “So did I,” Ciaran said, though he smiled at her which took much of the sting from his words.

  “Jade understands,” Brie said.

  I wasn’t sure I did, but I nodded anyway, my mind already going to what was next. It was a shitty place to be, stuck here with doubts and fears. I wanted to be wrong, but I wanted to be right, too, because it would mean keeping more people safe.

  I shook it all off. The sun was setting. Twilight neared. I had to act now, to put on a show for my enemy.

  “Places,” I said, stepping into mine and gripping my talisman as I summoned my magic.

  Alek, Ciaran, and Brie melted into the trees. How half-denuded trees could hide a tall woman with flame-colored hair, a leprechaun in a deep red coat, and a giant white tiger, I don’t know. They hid, however. Magic. Fun times.

  I started the chant, pitching my voice low and soft, channeling two spells at once. The light dimmed as the sun dropped behind the trees. A breeze picked up, rustled leaves, and then seemed to think better of it. My heartbeat was loud in my ears, pounding in time to my chant. The moments stretched out with no sign of trouble and for a brief second, I felt something like real hope. Wolf materialized beside me, her lips drawn back in a silent snarl.

  Then Tess stabbed me in the back.

  Or what she thought was me. Her knife sank into the chunk of wood I’d laid out in the middle of the circle I’d drawn in the clearing. The illusion I’d woven with my magic and a little help from Haruki’s memories flared purple and dissipated, the glyph burning away beneath her blade.

  I stepped out from the trees where I’d hidden, my steps heavy. It was one thing to suspect, another to see without a doubt that I had been right all along. Instead of vindicated or satisfied, I just felt tired and a deep sense of loss over what might have been.

  “I believe my line is ‘Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal,’” I said, pulling my power into an invisible shield around me.

  Tess yanked the knife from the wood and crouched into a fighting stance, her thin face a picture of surprise.

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “What, you want me to monologue and give away all my secrets?” I circled to my right, wanting to draw her gaze and attention away from where my companions were hiding. Tess knew they were there—she’d heard the fake plan this morning, just as I’d intended.

  “Humor me,” she said.

  “Humor me,” I said, my voice sounding bitter to my own ears. “How much of what you said was lies?”

  An expression almost like grief flickered over her face and she straightened up, though she kept the knife in front of herself and stayed light on her feet.

  “Not much,” she said. “I want Samir dead. I will do anything to accomplish that. I’m sorry.”

  I believed her, damn her. It was what had made it so difficult to convince myself even when all the pieces started to fall into place.

  “Clyde gave it away, or at least set the first real doubt,” I said. “When he told me you would betray me.”

  “You believed him?”

  “Yes, and no. I didn’t, of course, not after you got half dead saving Levi. But what he said was too on point, too perfect. I wasn’t supposed to believe him, was I? He was a common enemy, something to put pressure on us with, someone to confirm through denial that you were genuine.”

  The last rays of the sun lit the trees on fire and behind Tess I saw movement, something grey and long sliding quietly through the forest. To my left I caught a flash of white in the trees, heading toward whatever lurked there. Tess took the moment of my distraction to attack, her magic flaring cold, warning me.

  I poured power into my shield and tried to follow her magic, not her body. She was too fast, warping time around herself so that everything seemed to speed up and then slow down in nauseating waves around me. Her knife bounced off my shield and she retreated as I threw an arc of fire at her, trying to keep it invisible now that I knew she couldn’t see my magic.

  I’d always envisioned my fire as purple, and when I summoned visible power, it was always purple, too. Mostly because I really liked the color purple. Turning off a thing I’d been doing my whole life was difficult and the streak of flame still had a violet hue to it. She dodged and backed away. We circled each other as something crashed in the trees. This time, I didn’t look, but she did, a quick glance and a small smile telling me that she’d been expecting help to arrive for her.

  So had I.

  “Then there was the book,” I said. “And the plan with the Fomoire. From what you’d said about Clyde, from how you didn’t know about the unicorns, I knew that you hadn’t come up with that part of the plan. So it was either Clyde or Samir or both. Samir has another copy of the druid’s book, in his library. I remember seeing it years ago. He wouldn’t care about this forest, about the Eye, but he would enjoy something that drew me out, hurt people around me, and distracted me.”

  “Wouldn’t that support me being innocent?” she asked.

  “Yes, and no. You were too conveniently timed. Plus I guessed that Clyde was going off the plan, doing showy shit like you said he liked to do. And that Samir didn’t tell you the whole of things.”

  “No,” she agreed. “It isn’t his way.”

  “The final piece was how thin you’ve gotten. You’ve been healing yourself by speeding up time around you, right? But you can’t eat enough to make up for that time, to keep the same appearance.”

  Her eyes widened and her full mouth curved in a rueful smile. “You learn quickly,” she said.

  Green light flickered in the woods and the trees behind Tess started to shake and crash into each other. I needed to stop her, end this, before Clyde arrived. I knew my friends would buy me some time, but it was dangerous for them to bait the sorcerer and the stone guardians I was laying a bet on that
he’d brought with him.

  “No,” she said, almost to herself. “He can’t have you. I need your power.”

  Talk time was over. Tess disappeared in a blink, but her magic trailed around her, visible as fine pale blue waves, radiating a frosty chill.

  Her knife hit my shield from behind and I threw my weight back as my magic turned away the blade. Alek had loaned me a big Bowie knife, since I’d given up Samir’s, but judging from how Tess moved, she was accomplished with this hand-to-hand shit in ways I never would be. I couldn’t fight her blade to blade.

  I leapt to the side, using my magic to carrying me feet further than my legs would have and threw a wave of fire out from my hands as I twisted. She was too quick for me to aim for, her control of the speed of things around her too good for me to land a blow, so I went for the spray-and-pray method. It was draining and I couldn’t tell in the growing gloom if I’d hit. From the singed scent of the air but lack of flaming sorceress, I guessed I’d come close, but had no cigar.

  A pale blue wave of power zipped in on my right side and I walled it off with fire. She was too close, and I found myself grinning as I poured magic into the flames, extending the wave as far to each side as I could.

  She ran through the flame, bursting into view directly in front of me, her momentum too much for me to stop, too quick to dodge. Her hair caught fire but her knife found my stomach.

  Pain seared through me and I lost my grip on my power as I screamed and grabbed at her. I tried to go for my knife, but she clung to me, twisting the blade in my belly. Red spots did a tango across my eyes and my world filled with the scent and sight of Tess on fire, her hair smoldering, her eyes filled with darkness.

  I couldn’t get away from her, so I clung instead, pushing myself further onto her blade. Her power swirled around us and the fire in her hair went out in a puff of acrid smoke.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her face so close to mine that I felt her breath hot on my cheek.