The elves keyed in on Haoxin. Otherwise, they were still as statues. Well, statues that glistened with magic and emitted a low hum of menace.
Though that last part might have just been my imagination.
“I am Haoxin.” Completely contrary to her petite stature, her declaration was carried forward and around us with a heady wash of dragon power. “Guardian of North America.”
The warriors swiveled their heads to look at Mira in unison. The illusionist didn’t appear overly pleased to realize there was a guardian on the dance floor, but she didn’t otherwise respond.
“This is my territory,” Haoxin purred delightedly. “Cross blades with me and die. There will be no respite. No cushy prison. No simple banishment from this dimension.” The guardian’s tone turned icy, punctuating each word. “I will eviscerate each one of you.”
Mira glanced at me. The warriors kept their gazes on the illusionist.
I waited. Silence stretched tautly through the room. If Haoxin wanted to take the lead, she was welcome to it. Though after that declaration of destruction, I didn’t know how much actual negotiation was likely to be accomplished under her leadership.
The petite guardian nodded at me curtly.
I stepped forward, holding the broken piece of elf tech aloft. “A conversation was requested. An offer has yet to be made. Take me to the one who makes the decisions, and no one needs to die here today.”
Mira smiled tightly. Then, without a word of response, her magic folded back to her and she practically melted through the ranks of the warriors. Amid the folding of the illusionist’s magic, the elves funneled backward, following her out through the door. Then, as I tracked the mossy taste of Mira’s magic, I felt the elves quickly exit the building.
I glanced at Haoxin as I tucked the tech back into my satchel. “I’m not quite sure that was a yes.”
She laughed. “They do like to keep their options open.” Then she strode off after the elves.
Warner immediately closed the space between us, reaching up and smoothing a lock of my hair through his forefinger and middle finger without speaking. His attention was already half on the coming confrontation.
“Take care of your neck, please,” I murmured, unable to let him go without at least saying something. Even though he was more than capable and had much more experience fighting elves — alongside Haoxin specifically — than any of us.
“The only one getting near me is you, Jade.”
“Promise.”
“Promise. Multiple times.”
I grinned. And just like that, we weren’t talking about him accidentally getting his neck broken again. “Well, you have been away for a couple of days.”
Warner swept me forward into a fierce kiss flavored with his black-forest-cake magic. Then just as quickly, he was striding after Haoxin. His power shifted around him, triggering his chameleon abilities, and he had disappeared within the black-shrouded room before he even exited.
Shaking off the sense of dread that was threatening my ability to react rationally, I turned to the others.
Rochelle was rubbing her forehead, clearly still disorientated. But when I met her gaze questioningly, her magic had abated to a shimmer around her pale gray eyes. She shook her head, distressed. “Something is happening. But … the mist usually resolves into a clear picture and it hasn’t … yet.”
Okay. So all I could do was execute the first part of the plan — or what I saw as the first part, at least. “Beau, you’ll get Rochelle to Gran’s. Or the bakery if that’s easier. Behind wards.”
Kandy tossed her keys toward Beau, and the werecat caught them without effort. The green of shapeshifter magic was blazing in both their eyes.
“Our place would be better,” Beau said. “Rochelle is all set up to draw there.”
“It’s much farther away.”
“I won’t risk the oracle’s welfare,” Beau said stiffly.
Apparently, I was stepping on all sorts of toes. And the night was still young. I nodded, then added, “Jasmine, you’ll go with them.”
“No.” The golden-haired vampire jutted her chin out indignantly. “I’m not some fledgling —”
“Kett,” I said.
“You will guard the oracle, Jasmine. She is more important than either you or I will ever be.”
“Geez, old man,” I groused. “Being nicer wouldn’t hurt.”
The executioner gave me a cool look. “Being nicer apparently means standing around chatting while the guardian and the sentinel get to have all the fun.”
“Haoxin and Warner are less than twenty feet away,” I said snottily. “Securing the passage for the others.”
Kett raised an eyebrow at me, smirking.
I shook my head. To my side, I could feel Drake forcing himself to stand still. The fledgling guardian was waiting for orders, like a good soldier. “Drake, Mory is under your protection. You’ll get her to Gran’s.”
“Jade …” the necromancer started to protest.
I shook my head at her, just once. And my look was apparently beyond reproach, because Mory shut her mouth and stepped up beside Drake.
“And then?” Drake asked morosely. It was obvious he wanted to join the epic elf brawl possibly about to break out on the streets of Vancouver — and that he already knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“Then, if you haven’t heard from any of us within twenty-four hours, you’ll get my father.”
He nodded, disappointed. But I knew that he understood that keeping Mory safe was far more important. “The healer and the warrior have been called away,” he said.
“They’ll come if needed,” I said grimly. “But we won’t count on it.”
I glanced at each of them in turn, trying to stress how serious the situation was without belaboring the point. Then I looked at Rochelle in particular. “Oracle … shall we proceed?”
Her eyes were still rimmed with her oracle magic, but again she just shook her head. “I’m sorry. Until there is something more to see, I can’t help.”
I nodded curtly, but honestly I liked it better that way, preferring to make my own choices in the moment instead of worrying about each step ahead of time. “Kandy, Kett, and I will get you to the vehicles.”
I turned toward the entrance, expecting them to follow. They did.
With Kandy, Kett, Drake, and me arrayed around our more vulnerable companions, we traversed the hall and the stairs, making it onto the sidewalk without an elf sighting. Even without a blindfold, I still didn’t have a solid idea of where we were in the city. Based on the direction of the parked cars, noses all facing left, we were on a one-way street, surrounded by apartment tower after apartment tower. Some were still under construction. Large cranes strung with Christmas lights, and one decked out with an actual Christmas tree, loomed overhead. The center of the sidewalk was cobblestones — but new, not reclaimed. Putting that all together, my best guess was that we were somewhere on the outskirts of Yaletown, knowing how that section of the city seemed to constantly shift and grow.
It was raining lightly. Dark. Near midnight. But the city was still brightly lit. The streets and sidewalks were thankfully empty on a Sunday night, but I could hear fairly steady traffic nearby, and I knew they wouldn’t remain so indefinitely. We were close to a main thoroughfare through the city, then. One of the bridges, most likely Cambie Street.
“I’ll drive,” Mory hissed, thrusting her hand palm up toward Drake. They were both standing at the driver’s-side door of a white BMW SUV. Kett’s vehicle.
“I have the keys,” Drake said, completely unruffled by the pissy necromancer, who didn’t even come up to his shoulder.
I took two steps and plucked the keys from Drake’s hand, gave them to Mory, and opened the door to the SUV. I shielded the necromancer — who was busy sticking her tongue out at Drake — from view of the street with my body.
Drake snorted, laughing. “I can better defend you while not driving anyway.”
“Yes, you
can.” I shut the door while Mory was still fiddling with adjusting the seat. “Thank you, Drake.”
He nodded, grinning at me easily while he jogged around to climb into the passenger seat. “You owe me a fight, dowser.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that.”
Kandy skulked up beside me, slipping into the back seat of the SUV as a temporary escort. She moved so quietly that Mory didn’t actually see her until she reached up to adjust the rearview mirror. The werewolf earned herself a death glare from the necromancer, but if my BFF noticed, she didn’t react. Then Mory pulled away from the curb, carefully navigating the narrow street as she sped away. Paid parking spots lined both sides of the street, but after 10 p.m. the meter didn’t need to be plugged until morning.
Haoxin appeared beside me. Kett glanced over at her, completely unruffled, but Jasmine flinched. I could feel Warner’s magic in the shadows about halfway up the block.
“The elves?” I asked Haoxin.
“Waiting for us in the alley.” She gestured across the street and to our left.
In the next parallel parking spot over, Rochelle stumbled as she was climbing into the back seat of Kandy’s black SUV. Twisting her ankle at the edge of the curb, she protectively pressed her hands to her belly.
And for the sickening moment that it took for me to surge forward, I thought something might have been wrong with the baby. But as Beau caught his wife’s elbow and her white oracle magic flooded her eyes, I understood that the gesture was probably instinctual.
“Beau,” I urged quietly. “Now. You need to go.”
“No,” Rochelle gasped. “Jade. Jade. Jade. It’s Jade again. Mist. Endless white mist, trapping her, holding her. But I can’t see! Something is going to happen. But I can’t see it. I can’t see it.”
Jasmine snatched the keys from Beau, stepping forward and climbing into the driver’s seat. Beau gathered Rochelle in his arms, attempting to load her into the SUV even as she struggled against him.
Struggling to reach me?
I closed the space between us.
Rochelle’s fingers brushed my cheek. Her eyes cleared of her oracle magic. And for a moment, she just looked at me, blinking in confusion.
“Tell me what you see, oracle.” It was my name Rochelle kept repeating. And I told myself I could handle anything that might happen to me. Just …
I just couldn’t handle losing anyone else.
Rochelle shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t see you clearly, but … I feel … you feel …” The white of her oracle magic flooded her eyes, and she arched upward in Beau’s arms, breaking contact with me.
“Beau?” I asked, uneasy.
“It’ll come,” the werecat said calmly. “Things will resolve, and then Rochelle will be able to draw.”
But given Rochelle’s confusion, I was fairly certain that I didn’t have time to wait around for the vision, aka my pending future, to resolve into whatever shape it was going to take.
“Beware of the stones, Jade,” Rochelle whispered tensely. “The gemstone.”
Fear coiled in my belly — triggered by the terror laced through the normally placid oracle’s tone.
“I hear you,” I said, keeping calm. “I remember the sketch. Text me if you get anything more.”
“I will,” Beau said, climbing into the SUV with his wife in his arms.
“No!” Rochelle cried. “This isn’t that.”
Kett slipped around and into the front passenger seat of the SUV, shutting the door behind him in the same motion. “Go, Jasmine.”
The vehicle lurched into motion. I stepped back, closing the back passenger door and watching as Jasmine drove off.
In the back seat, Rochelle twisted out of Beau’s grasp and began pounding at the side window. I could see more than hear her screaming my name. As the SUV sped off, the oracle was pressed to the glass, her magic streaming from her eyes, her mouth hanging open in terror.
Kandy appeared at the far corner of the street, jogging back from wherever she’d jumped out of the SUV carrying Mory and Drake. Presumably before they’d crossed the Cambie Street bridge.
The SUV driven by Jasmine turned the corner, taking the oracle from my sight. I stood on the sidewalk, chilled to the bone.
“And if she’s seen something relevant?” Haoxin asked. Her tone was level, nonjudgemental. But I heard it as chastising anyway.
“I won’t risk her, or the others, because Pulou chose to imprison elves here without letting anyone know. And then, when he was compromised, he didn’t even bother to mention there might be ramifications.”
“The ramifications of almost being killed, you mean. By the centipedes that you now hold.”
I turned to Haoxin. She was easily four inches shorter than me and much, much tinier. But she could seriously kick my ass. Still. Even despite the weapons that decorated my neck. But now wasn’t the time for that conversation. “I’m not going to attack you, Haoxin. I’m not going to use the instruments. In fact, I was the one who saved Pulou from that assassination attempt.”
Haoxin regarded me dispassionately. “You are perhaps the only one who could have saved him, dragon slayer. But one day you might decide differently.”
“Yeah? Well, today I’m living in the now. Today I’m protecting those who matter, like in the present. Not in some farfetched future in which you envision me going insane, killing all the guardians, and stealing all their magic.”
“Problem?” Kandy asked in a soft, only slightly threatening growl.
Haoxin’s gaze flicked to the green-haired werewolf standing at my shoulder. Then she glanced down, possibly to the cuffs Kandy wore. “No problem, wolf. The dowser was simply telling me how it is … in her present. While I was simply reminding her that the centuries of knowledge that a guardian carries, along with the choices he or she makes … choices that are the best they can be in the time of their occurrence … cannot be assessed by today’s ramifications.”
“Well, that’s totally clear. Eh, dowser?” Kandy asked mockingly.
“Yeah. As mud.” I tore my gaze from Haoxin’s. There were elves to deal with, after all. “All dragons take their lessons from Chi Wen seriously.”
The petite guardian snorted. But she let the subject drop.
And yeah, maybe she was right, and benching Rochelle had been a mistake. But I would rather die in the now than see the oracle or her child harmed in the near future. And if that was too shortsighted for a guardian, she could deal with the damn elves on her own.
I opened my mouth to say as much. But then I decided my time was better spent texting Gran than bandying words with a dragon who was at least a century older than me. Kandy had presumably updated everyone who needed to be updated, but I wanted to make sure. I tugged my phone out of my pocket.
And only then did I realize that I’d missed a series of text messages while dancing. All from Liam.
>Something is going on at BC Place. Elf magic, maybe dormant? At a series of spots around the perimeter. No sighting of actual elves. And I have no idea what the magic means or does.
>Jade?
>Jade?
Against the noise and the movement in the club, I hadn’t even felt the phone buzz.
Sorry. I’m here. Are you still at BC Place?
“Liam?” Kandy asked.
“Yes.” I shifted the phone forward so she and Haoxin could read the texts at the same time.
The guardian swiped her finger lightly across my screen, reading the thread from the beginning. “BC Place? A stadium, yes?”
“Yep.” Kandy pointed slightly to our right. “At the edge of False Creek, right beside Rogers Arena.”
“Ah, yes. I remember.”
Kett stepped out of the shadows a few feet away. “I escorted the vehicle over the bridge. Jasmine will text when they’re behind wards. Beau is insisting on going all the way into Southlands.”
“Thank you.” My phone buzzed.
All four of us leaned in to read the message from Lia
m.
>I’m still here. What do you want me to do?
“Where the freaking hell are we?” I asked Kandy.
“Abbott. Closer to Hastings than Pender.”
“Abbott …” Seriously, I’d lived in Vancouver my entire life and I still didn’t know exactly where the hell we were. “Gastown?”
“Very edge.”
“How close are we to BC Place?”
She pointed up and slightly to our right again. “About three city blocks, the way the crow flies.”
I nodded, texting.
Stay close, but don’t enter the building. Don’t draw attention. Do you have your gun?
>Of course.
“Gun?” Haoxin asked.
“Sorcerer,” Kandy said, as if that would cover the actually quite complex answer to that question. But Haoxin nodded thoughtfully, so maybe it did.
We’re near. But so are the elves. Possibly dozens of them.
>Okay.
The simple acceptance in Liam’s response chilled me. I didn’t like how everything was lining up … the game playing, the tests, whatever the elves were doing around BC Place, the oracle’s frantic visions. I had done something wrong, taken some wrong step these last few days. Either that or I was about to do something terrible. Terrible enough to make an oracle scream my name.
“Please,” I murmured. “Please God, don’t … let me get anyone killed.”
Kandy pressed against my shoulder, silent but supportive.
I returned my attention to texting Liam. I wanted to tell him to go home, to hide behind the wards on his parents’ house. Except he wasn’t some fledgling that I could force protection on. He was valuable as backup and a player the elves hadn’t engaged yet.
Hole up. Kandy will find you when it’s okay to move. Don’t shoot her.
I angled my phone toward Kandy. She nodded.
>And the elves?
I paused again briefly, desperately trying to piece together all the pieces of the puzzle. But I had no idea of what the big picture was going to turn out to be.
If they come at you, shoot to kill. Through the gemstones on their foreheads.
>Okay.
I tucked my phone in my satchel rather than my pocket. Less chance of it getting broken that way. I glanced up and down the sidewalk. Haoxin had lifted her face to the mist, seeming perfectly content to wait for me to get my shit sorted out. I could feel Warner in the deep shadows across the street, presumably making certain that the elves stayed where the guardian said they were gathered.
Misfits, Gemstones, and Other Shattered Magic Page 20