by Linsey Hall
My ice magic had only raced partway up the machine, and even that part wasn’t yet frozen. Above me, Roarke and Aidan grappled with the demons. More flew toward me.
I was going to run out of time!
With no one to watch my back while I did this, I’d never make it.
A beautiful shriek filled the air. My heart leaped as my gaze darted to the door. There was nothing there.
But that had to be Draka’s cry.
The ceiling exploded, debris flying everywhere. Draka, her blue glow brilliant in the dark room, swooped in, followed by her three Phantom dragon brethren. The ones I’d met in the cave.
Instead of attacking the demons, the Phantom dragons landed near me, encircling me in the protective shield of their wings. My world glowed brilliant blue as I forced my ice magic toward the machine.
With the Phantom dragons protecting me, my magic flowed quickly. They may have even lent me some of their power. Through a gap in their wings, I could see ice begin to form on the gleaming brass.
I fed it more magic, having to compensate for the heat caused by the friction of the whirling apparatus. Within moments, it creaked to a halt.
Finally, Roarke was able to get near. He swooped over top of the machine and plucked the stone from the platform.
With the source of its magic gone, the metal grew dim beneath the coating of ice. I called upon my new gift of telekinesis, commanding the roof debris to hurl itself at the machine. Stone and tile hurtled through the air, colliding with the machine like gunfire. The metal was so cold and the blows so powerful that it shattered, raining down upon the ground.
The Shadows shrieked, their rage palpable.
Before I could blink, Draka plucked me from the ground and carried me high into the air.
The scene in the room below made my stomach drop.
Every inch of the floor was covered with demons. Even the space where my friends had set up their battle stations was overrun by the bastards.
I prayed they’d made it out.
I didn’t have time to search as Draka burst through the hole in the roof and out into the sky. The last thing I saw were the three Shadows staring up at me, rage vibrating around them like a living thing.
“Del!” Roarke’s voice carried across the night.
I twisted in Draka’s grip, catching sight of him, Aidan, and Cade, who’d all flown out with us. Relief surged through me, weakening my muscles. If they were here, that meant the others had transported out. They’d never have left them behind, and Pond Flower could transport herself out whenever she pleased. Roarke even had the magical lump of stone trapped in his arms.
The relief was short-lived.
The ground below teemed with demons.
Thousands. They were like ants surging over rotten food.
We’d never be able to return here to fight. And soon, all of these demons would flow through the portal onto earth.
I’d failed.
So badly.
Live to fight another day. Draka’s voice was clear in my head. As if she could read my thoughts and my despair. We must leave. Tell your friends to join my brethren. We must escape this land immediately.
She was right. There was no victory for us here. Not now. Our only hope was the future. And to have that, we had to escape.
“Guys! Ride a dragon. They’ll get us out of here!”
They did as I asked, and quickly. When I heard the wings beating behind us, I turned. More of the winged demons were after us. We really did have to get out of here soon.
Draka shot toward the sky, so fast that the wind blinded me. A second later, the ether sucked me in.
Chapter Fifteen
The Next Day
With Draka at my side, I stood in the underground throne room at my parents’ castle in Wales, forcing my new magic into the portal that the Shadows had used to release demons into this room two weeks ago.
After tending to our battle wounds, we’d caught a few hours sleep, then come here immediately. First, we’d set out feelers for Oriamor, sending messages to every contact we had to try to locate the place. In the meantime, the first thing I needed to do was practice my portal magic.
Fortunately, I had a portal to practice on.
As expected, this portal led into another part of their deserted wasteland of an Underworld. It was a very small one, and the type that could only transport a few demons if they had the right kind of Earthbound supernatural sponsor to help them cross. But I was going to try to get rid of it.
If my horrible new magic could create tears in the ether, surely it could mend them?
With demons currently flowing out of the mysterious Oriamor portal, I needed to learn this skill.
“Keep going.” Draka’s voice sounded distant, though she was right next to me in her human form.
Sweat rolled down my temple as I fed my unfamiliar magic into the ether, envisioning stitching up the tear as if it were a torn sweater. Warmth glowed in my chest as the magic surged.
Finally, the ether began to mend. Hope flared in my chest. If I could master this, then I could close the portal I’d created.
My magic began to wane, growing weaker as I used it up. I pushed harder, giving it everything I had. But the portal remained half open. My head grew woozy as I tried. Mind spinning, I swayed.
Draka’s hand touched my shoulder. “That is enough for now.”
“No,” I rasped.
“Stop.” She squeezed lightly.
About to tip over, I pulled back on my magic, despair filling my chest like black tar. “I failed.”
“No.” Draka’s voice was hard. “You didn’t. You’ve closed half the portal. You can do this. You just need practice.”
“Practice takes time. We don’t have time.”
“We don’t have a plan either,” Draka said. “You wanted to rush here and try this. Now that you’ve proven you can do it, it is time to plan.”
Draka was right. I turned to face my friends, who had all insisted on coming along. Partially because we’d been afraid there might actually be demons here and I’d need the backup, but also because we hadn’t had a chance to discuss the future.
Even Pond Flower had come. Apparently yesterday had been too close for comfort, and she hadn’t left my side since. I could feel her gratitude that I hadn’t gotten myself killed. Though she clearly lacked faith in my ability to protect myself, I appreciated her concern.
I turned, wiping the sweat from my brow.
My friends sat in lawn chairs that Nix had conjured. They were a far cry from my parents’ thrones, but those were just creepy. The room itself gleamed with a spic-and-span shine. Connor’s hearth witch skills extended to magical cleaning, and it brightened my heart to see the place looking decent. He hadn’t done the whole castle while I practiced—it was far too big—but at least this room looked good.
“You know, if I got rid of those thrones, we could put a bowling alley in here,” I said, trying to lighten my mood.
Laughter echoed in the stone room, but it didn’t make me feel much better.
Draka and I joined my friends, each taking a lawn chair.
“Thanks again for all your help, guys.” I smiled at them.
Cass and Aidan held hands, Nix lounged with Pond Flower at her side, and Claire and Connor stopped their bickering to smile at me. Even Cade was here. But it was the pride in Roarke’s grin that really made me frown. Why would he look at me like that? I’d failed. There was nothing to be proud of.
“You handled yourself well at the Shadows’ castle,” he said. “If you hadn’t sent Pond Flower to us, we’d never have awoken.”
“That was a genius plan on the Shadows’ part,” I said. “It’s really the only way to keep you guys contained.”
Nix cracked her knuckles in an exaggerated fashion. “It’s true. We’re very powerful.”
All joking aside, they were powerful. But the Shadows were smart. Smart enough that they’d beaten us to the punch pretty much every time.
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My heart sank at the reminder. “Aethelred’s prediction came true. I did fail.”
Nix nodded. “Yeah. But that was fate.”
“Can’t fight fate,” Cass said.
I believed that. It was the reason that Aethelred’s prophecy had sent me into a tailspin. I didn’t want to be the Demise. I wanted to be the Guardian.
Clearly, I’d have to work for it.
“You didn’t do exactly what the Shadows wanted you to do,” Draka said. “If they’d had their way, the portal would be fully operational right now. Because you resisted their pull, the portal is much slower. Not even fully operational yet.”
That was a small mercy, knowing that I’d mitigated the damage. “But demons are still flowing onto earth. Faster with every moment. And they don’t need an Earthbound sponsor. There’s no limit to how many can come.”
“We’ll handle that,” Roarke said. “We’ll find the portal and shut it down. Then deal with the demons who’ve already escaped.”
“However many there are,” I said. It would be a challenge. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of demons.
“And we’ve already had some luck shutting down another portal,” Nix said. “And that time, we didn’t have you.”
I smiled at the memory of the wayward portal from this summer. “That’s a whole different matter. No demons were flooding the earth in that scenario.”
Getting rid of them was my real concern. How fast were they flowing through now? And where to? It’d only been about six hours since we’d left the Underworld.
“True.” Cass frowned. “But that’s okay. We’ve got this.”
“Especially now that we have that magical lump of lava thing,” I said.
“Yeah, any idea what that is?” Cass asked.
“Not a clue,” I said. “But hopefully it will come in handy. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”
“You’ll have to find the location of the portal’s exit,” Cade said. “You can’t return to the Shadows’ stronghold.”
The memory of the thousands of demons made me grimace. “Yeah, I know. We’ll never win that battle. Not if we came at it from that angle. Problem is, I don’t know which angle is the right one.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Nix said.
“Yeah.” Cass grinned. “We always do.”
I groaned, though I was grateful to have my friends at my back. “Don’t jinx us! Knock on your head.”
Roarke squeezed my hand, then let go and knocked on his head.
I grinned at him. “At least someone has some sense around here.”
And what we occasionally lacked in sense, we made up for in magical power. And loyalty. And hopefully, smarts. I could only hope it would be enough. Because what was coming for us was bigger than anything we’d ever faced before.
Thank you for reading!
Want to find out how Del died? Dragon’s Gift: The Huntress, which stars Cass, is the series to read. Her series starts with a free novella called Hidden Magic. You can get the novella by signing up for my mailing list here. There’s an excerpt of Hidden Magic on the next page.
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Turn the page for an excerpt of Hidden Magic.
Excerpt Of Hidden Magic
Jungle, Southeast Asia
Five years before the events in Demon Magic
“How much are we being paid for this job again?” I asked as I glanced at the inhabitants filling the bar. It was a motley crowd of supernaturals, many of whom looked shifty as hell.
“Not nearly enough.” Del frowned at the man across the bar, who was giving her his best sexy face. There was a lot of eyebrow movement happening. “Is he having a seizure?”
“Looks like it.” Nix grinned. “Though I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this. We’re basically in a tree, for magic’s sake. In the middle of the jungle! Where are all these dudes coming from?”
“According to my info, there’s a mining operation near here. Though I’d say we’re more under a tree than in a tree.”
“I’m with Cass,” Del said. “Under, not in.”
“Fair enough.” Nix’s green eyes traveled around the room.
We were deep in Southeast Asia, in a bar that had long ago been reclaimed by the jungle. A massive fig tree had grown over and around the ancient building, its huge roots encapsulating the stone walls. It was straight out of a fairy tale. Monks had once lived here, but a few supernaturals of indeterminate species had gotten ahold of it and turned it into a watering hole for the local supernaturals. We were meeting our local contact here, but he was late.
“Hey, pretty lady.” A smarmy voice sounded from my left. “What are you?”
I turned to face the guy who was giving me the up and down, his gaze roving from my tank top to my shorts. He wasn’t Clarence, our local contact. And if he meant “what kind of supernatural are you?” I sure as hell wouldn’t be answering.
“Not interested is what I am,” I said.
“Aww, that’s no way to treat a guy.” He grasped my hip, rubbing his thumb up and down.
I gagged, then smacked his hand away, tempted to throat-punch him. It was a favorite move of mine, but I didn’t want to start a fight before Clarence got here. Didn’t want to piss off the boss and all. He liked it when jobs went smoothly.
The man raised his hands. “Hey, hey. No need to get feisty. You three sisters?”
I glanced doubtfully at Nix and Del, with their dark hair that was so different from my red. We might call ourselves sisters—deirfiúr in our native Irish—but this idiot didn’t know that. We were all about twenty years old, but we looked nothing alike.
“Go away,” I said. I had no patience for dudes who touched me within a second of saying hello. “Run along and flirt with your hand, because that’s all the action you’ll be getting tonight.”
His face turned a mottled red, and he raised a fist. His magic welled, the scent of rotten fruit overwhelming.
He thought he was going to smack me? Or use his magic against me?
I lashed out, punching him in the throat as I’d wanted to earlier. His eyes bulged and he gagged. I kneed him in the crotch, grinning when he keeled over.
“Hey!” A burly man with a beard lunged for us, his buddy beside him following. “That’s no way—”
“To treat a guy?” I finished for him as I kicked out at him. My tall, heavy boots collided with his chest, sending him flying backward. I might not use my magic, but I sure as hell could fight.
His friend raised his hand and sent a blast of wind at us. It threw me backward, sending me skidding across the floor.
By the time I’d scrambled to my feet, a brawl had broken out in the bar. Fists flew left and right, with a bit of magic thrown in. Nothing bad enough to ruin the bar, like jets of flame, because no one wanted to destroy the only watering hole for a hundred miles, but enough that it lit up the air with varying magical signatures.
Nix conjured a baseball bat and swung it at a guy who charged her, while Del teleported behind a man and smashed a chair over his head. I’d always been jealous of Del’s ability to sneak up on people like that.
All in all, it was turning into a good evening. Watching a fight between supernaturals was fun.
“Enough!” the bartender bellowed, right before I could throw myself back into the fray. “Or no more beer!”
The bar settled down immediately. I glared at the jerk who’d started it. There was no way I’d take the blame, even though I’d thrown the first punch. He should have known better.
The bartender gave me a look and I shrugged, hiking a thumb at the jerk who’d touched me. “He shoulda kept his hands to himself.”
“Fair enough,” the bartender said.
I nodded and turned to find Nix and Del. They’d grabbed our beers and were putting them on a table in the corner. I went
to join them.
We were a team. Sisters by choice, ever since we’d woken in a field at fifteen with no memories other than those that said we were FireSouls on the run from someone who had hurt us. Who was hunting us.
Our biggest goal, even bigger than getting out from under our current boss’s thumb, was to save enough money to buy concealment charms that would hide us from the monster who hunted us. He was just a shadowy memory, but it was enough to keep us running.
“Where is Clarence, anyway?” I pulled my damp tank top away from my sweaty skin. The jungle was damned hot. We couldn’t break into the temple until Clarence gave us the information we needed to get past the guard at the front. And we didn’t need to spend too much longer in this bar.
Del glanced at her watch, her blue eyes flashing with annoyance. “He’s twenty minutes late. Old Man Bastard said he should be here at eight.”
Old Man Bastard—OMB for short—was our boss. His name said it all. Del, Nix, and I were FireSouls, the most despised species of supernatural because we could steal other magical being’s powers if we killed them. We’d never done that, of course, but OMB didn’t care. He’d figured out our secret when we were too young to hide it effectively and had been blackmailing us to work for him ever since.
It’d been four years of finding and stealing treasure on his behalf. Treasure hunting was our other talent, a gift from the dragon with whom legend said we shared a soul. No one had seen a dragon in centuries, so I wasn’t sure if the legend was even true, but dragons were covetous, so it made sense they had a knack for finding treasure.
“What are we after again?” Nix asked.
“A pair of obsidian daggers,” Del said. “Nice ones.”
“And how much is this job worth?” Nix repeated my earlier question. Money was always on our minds. It was our only chance at buying our freedom, but OMB didn’t pay us enough for it to be feasible anytime soon. We kept meticulous track of our earnings and saved like misers anyway.
“A thousand each.”
“Damn, that’s pathetic.” I slouched back in my chair and stared up at the ceiling, too bummed about our crappy pay to even be impressed by the stonework and vines above my head.