Spectrum of Magic Complete Series - Spell Breaker - Fate Shifter - Cursed Stone - Magic Unborn - Libra

by D. N. Leo

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “What will you tell the cops?” Orla asked. “Tell them that a woman is driving to Fossey Way, which tourists do all the time, and that the woman might be in danger because your girlfriend told you so?”

  “You’re more than just a girlfriend,” Mya snarled.

  “Who are you to say?” Orla squealed, threatening to charge at Mya again.

  “And why do you think I’ll be killed? Why should I believe you?” Lorcan asked Mya.

  “You don’t have to believe me. Ask her. She knows.” Mya pointed at Orla.

  “How am I supposed to know if the gypsy was right?” Orla snarled.

  Lorcan stared at Orla while Mya smirked. Lorcan approached Orla and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked straight into her eyes. “Orla, how do you know Mrs. Hanson is a gypsy? We haven’t even seen the woman.”

  “I . . .”

  “You can’t tell me?” Lorcan released her, letting his hands flop to his sides. “I’m not sure if what Mrs. Hanson said is true or not. I can’t call the cops because I don’t know exactly what to tell them. So I’m going to do what any normal person would. I’m going to Fossey Way to tell Madeline to go back to London. I’ll tell her I’ll help her find what she needs to save her friend.” Lorcan turned on his heel and walked away.

  “No!” Orla and Mya chorused again.

  Lorcan turned around and arched an eyebrow.

  Orla huffed. “Okay. I’m telepathic. Somehow I connected to Mrs. Hanson and heard her thoughts. She had some pretty scary thoughts about what she had laid out at Fossey Way. So I don’t want you to go there.”

  “They’re just thoughts. But if it’s true, we can’t just let Madeline go there without warning. Anyone with half a conscience would try to stop her,” Lorcan said.

  “I’m a thief. I don’t have the moral grounds that you do. I’m telling you not to go to Fossey Way—for your own safety . . . and for me.”

  Lorcan stared at Orla, then he turned around and walked away.

  “Lorcan!” Orla called out. “I’ll drop everything. I’ll go back to Ireland with you right now.”

  Lorcan kept walking.

  “Okay, okay. I’m a deity,” Mya said. “I know you’re destined to die if you go to Fossey Way, Lorcan.”

  Lorcan slowly turned around. “Say again?”

  “You heard me. If you have a wholehearted desire to die, then go. I can’t stop you.”

  Lorcan laughed. “A gypsy, a telepathic, and now a deity. Any more surprises?”

  Orla stared at Mya. Mya raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Unlike thieves, good deities have high moral grounds. I revealed my identity. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t care if you’re a god. Don’t challenge me,” Orla snarled.

  “Actually, I’m a goddess.”

  “I’m going. You’re staying. She’s going to protect you,” Orla pointed her finger at Lorcan and then Mya as she talked, then walked away.

  “Hey, no, you’re not going anywhere. And I don’t need protection.” Lorcan grabbed Orla’s arm. She shrugged him off.

  He spoke to Mya. “Let’s say I believe that you’re a deity, and for reasons that only God knows, you can see my future and feel obliged to protect me, how am I going to die?”

  “A stab wound to the heart,” Mya said bluntly.

  Orla thought she heard something about stabbing and death. Her limbs went numb. There were buzzing noises reverberating in her head. She forced herself to remain upright and swallowed her tears.

  Lorcan shrugged. “Wait here.” He strode toward the car, opened the car trunk, took something out, then came back to the yard. He lifted his jacket to reveal a gun.

  “You arranged that?” Orla gasped.

  “You said we might need it.” Lorcan smiled. “Mya, between a knife and a gun, my money’s on the gun. I’ll see how the Roman soldiers handle it, but I think we have a slight advantage. We’re going after Madeline.”

  “You’re an idiot, Lorcan. You’re both idiots.” Mya turned on her heel and left.

  Chapter 16

  Later, sitting in the car, Orla mumbled, “It’s not working.” She slapped the screen of the portable tracking device without mercy.

  “Gentle, baby. Not everyone would make love to you after you slapped him across the face.” Lorcan chuckled.

  “It’s an object, not a person. I don’t make love to an object, and I can hit an object as much as I want.” She slapped at the device again.

  “Give it to me.” Lorcan reached for the device.

  “No, you’re driving. I don’t want you to turn us into corpses.”

  “Want an IT solution to the problem?”

  “What?”

  “Turn it off and on.”

  Orla rolled her eyes and turned the device off. Then she turned it on. It made a ‘bing’, sound and a blue dot appeared on the screen.

  Lorcan laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

  Orla slapped his shoulder. “It’s your device, and it’s stupid.”

  Lorcan shook his head and smiled. “That’s debatable. Where’s Madeline?”

  “Heading toward Roman Road.”

  “All right. We’d better get to her before it gets dark.” Lorcan accelerated.

  The road was bumpy, and clouds were creeping across the blue sky. A storm was brewing. “Great,” Lorcan muttered.

  “Anyone with common sense would have come back to the highway by now,” Orla said. “And for your information, your stupid device is dead again. And I’ve turned it off and on three times already.”

  Lightning slashed through the distant horizon, and thunder rumbled somewhere in the sky. The road in in front of them blurred into the rain and darkness. Strange chanting sounds hovered in the air behind their necks. Water fell from the sky, streamed from the creek nearby, and trickled from the long stone walls tracing along the narrow country roads, almost as if the stone itself was weeping.

  “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Lorcan mumbled.

  “If we turned around now, what about Madeline?”

  Lorcan eyes darkened. “You’re right. We’ve got to find her. If we’re uneasy about the strange weather and this strange place, how will Madeline handle it on her own?”

  A lightning bolt slashed through the sky, and thunder exploded in the distance. Something hit the car hard, making it veer to the side and scraped along the stone wall. Lorcan’s lips formed a thin line, and his jaw clenched as he tried to control the car. “What the fuck was that?”

  After a short distance, they could see Madeline’s car outlined by the flash of the lightning bolts.

  “She’s veering off the wall,” Orla gushed.

  “Her car’s rolled.” Lorcan hit the accelerator.

  There was a loud bump on the side of their car and a few more bumps on the road that almost lifted the car. “What the fuck?” Lorcan clenched his teeth again and hung on tightly to the steering wheel.

  A lightning bolt struck a tree right next to the car, nearly exploding their eardrums.

  There was another bump. The car almost jumped into the air.

  Lorcan drove faster. Something hit the car again from the side and pushed it off the road. The car landed on a slope and rolled. It hit a large rock and stopped, motionless and upside down. Orla and Lorcan dangled by their seatbelts. After regaining his bearings, Lorcan reached over to Orla.

  “Are you okay, Orla?”

  “Yes,” she muttered.

  They freed themselves from the seatbelts and landed with a thud on the ceiling of the car. The crawled out, stood up, slid in the mud, and rolled down a little hill. In the dark, two large shadows charged at them. Lorcan knocked down his man quickly and snatched at the man on top of Orla. Lorcan pounded on him. Another man charged at Orla, she squealed and fought.

  A male voice came out from the dark. “Not that woman, you idiot,” said a tall man darting out from the bush.

  The fighting men sto
pped. “What?” one of the two men asked. “Ugh.” As he was distracted, he earned a knuckle punch from Orla. He roared and charged at her again.

  “Not that woman, I said, you dumb ass,” the tall man commanded. “Over there. She’s out of the car already, you useless idiots.” He pointed in Madeline’s direction.

  The rain kept coming down. More lightning and thunder, and then loud, confusing noises echoing through the darkness around them. Orla continued to hear the strange chanting sound.

  The two men who had been attacking Lorcan and Orla turned and ran toward Madeline. “You’re attacking a defenseless woman!” Lorcan growled at them as there was nothing else he could do to stop them.

  A few more men had arrived. The tall man suddenly turned back, looking at Orla and Lorcan. “They’ve seen us. Kill them,” he commanded the new men.

  Two men brandished knives and charged at Lorcan and Orla. Lorcan pushed Orla behind him, but when two other men approached, they were pulled apart.

  Orla fought one man. She didn’t have a weapon, but she was quick. The other three were on Lorcan quickly. She lost track of him in the stormy night. She gave her attacker a few good hits and dodged around his knife swings. She suffered some minor cuts to her arms, but he couldn’t get close to her.

  She stumbled on a piece of rock and fell. It was raining heavily now. She couldn’t see Lorcan. She knew it was the end of her when she saw the man leap at her with the knife.

  Then she heard a loud bang. The man’s head exploded in front of her, and his body dropped down on her like a two-ton sack of potatoes. His dead weight squashed her into the ground. There were a few more loud bangs, and in the haze of pain, blood, and confusion, she saw something hovering in the sky like a big bird. She heard people shouting. And then it went quiet. She passed out.

  Chapter 17

  Moments passed. Orla opened her eyes to find Mya shaking her shoulders.

  “Can you get up?”

  “Where’s Lorcan? Big bird. They had knives. You were right.” Orla’s voice slurred with the effects of a concussion.

  “Only the last part of what you said counts. Snap back and get up, or you’ll lose your man.”

  Orla’s eyes flung wide open. Lorcan. Loud bangs. They were gun shots. She pushed herself up, forced away the dizziness, and looked to the side of her. Lorcan’s body was sprawled on the wet ground, lifeless.

  “Oh no. No . . .” she cried and bulldozed over the dead body lying next to her to get to Lorcan. “Oh no.” It had stopped raining, but his body was soaking wet and as cold as steel.

  “He’s not dead. Yet,” Mya said. “Will you help me get him to the car?”

  Orla nodded. She was still dazed, but she moved as quickly as she could. They put Lorcan in the back seat of the car. Orla jumped in and cradled him in her arms.

  “Guess that means I have to drive,” Mya muttered and got into the driver’s seat.

  Orla was fully awake. “Oh God.” She moaned and checked the blood stains on Lorcan’s shirt. His pulse was extremely weak. Mya glanced at her in the rear view mirror.

  “He killed for you. He gunned down four men and copped two bullets himself. And he’s not dead. Not bad for a man with a desk job.”

  “He doesn’t have a desk job,” Orla snarled. “You said he’d be killed by a stab wound. These are gunshot wounds. That means he won’t die, right?”

  “The information was relevant at the time we spoke. With interferences from other forces, things often change.”

  Orla didn’t realize that tears were rolled down her face. “Can you drive faster?”

  “It’s a car, not a helicopter. The LeBlancs rescued Madeline using the chopper you called a big bird. But my resources don’t stretch that far.”

  “They rescued Madeline? So she’s fine now?”

  “Yes. It was a full-on search and rescue. The LeBlancs don’t do anything on a small scale. They didn’t know about you, lying there in the mud.”

  “If you saw them, why didn’t you call them and ask them to help us?”

  “I can only interact directly with my subject—Lorcan, in this case.”

  “You’re a deity. Can’t you heal him or beam us to a hospital rather than crawling along in this car?”

  “You watch too much TV, Orla. I thought you knew better than that.”

  “So what do deities do exactly? You said your job is to protect Lorcan, but how can you do that?”

  Lorcan groaned and shifted.

  “Oh darling, open your eyes for me, please.” Orla shook him slightly.

  Lorcan opened his eyes and saw her teary face. He smiled weakly. “Are you okay?” he asked. Then his head lolled back, and he passed out again.

  “Oh no, no,” Orla cried. His body was too cold. His pulse was too weak. She didn’t need to be a doctor to know this wasn’t going to end well. “Stop the car,” Orla snapped.

  Mya stopped. Orla lay Lorcan down. She jumped out of the car and yanked the driver’s door open, suggesting Mya to get out of the car.

  “Don’t boss me around.” Mya grimaced.

  “Please,” Orla said.

  Mya slid out of the driver’s seat.

  “How exactly is it that you’re going to protect Lorcan?”

  “I have to switch back to my deity form, which basically just gives me a vision of what will happen within the very near future and whether the subject can be saved. But I have to save the subject as a human. So apart from warning him against idiotic actions and driving him to a hospital, I can’t heal him. I have no such magic.”

  “So you can do less than what a witch can.”

  “It’s not what I can do. It’s what I will do for people.”

  “So do it. Switch on your vision and tell me if he can be saved.” Orla shifted. “Please.”

  Mya nodded. She closed her eyes, clasped her hands in front of her chest as if she were praying, and concentrated. Shortly, she returned as Mya, except her eyes were darkened and shone with tears.

  “Oh no.” Orla saw the look on Mya’s face and gasped. “You promised to save him,” she snarled.

  “I warned him, and I warned you. It’s out of my control now. People die. That’s just how it is.”

  “No. Not him. Not like this,” Orla growled.

  A jasmine smell thickened the air. Not only could Orla smell it, she could feel it brushing against her skin. Mya smelled it too.

  “Orla, I know what you are capable of. But it’s too late now. Let him go.”

  “No, not in a million years. Not after what we’ve been through,” Orla’s voice croaked.

  “No, Orla. You will regret this, and it can’t be undone.”

  A car zoomed out from the dark and braked just behind them. From the car charged Riley and Noah. Noah made a beeline to the car.

  “Uncle Lorcan.” He shook Lorcan’s bloody shoulders.

  “Let me see.” Riley put his medical kit down on the floor of the car and gently nudged Noah aside. From a distance, Mya frowned at Noah.

  “Can he make it to the hospital?” Orla asked Riley. The doctor looked at Orla, then shook his head.

  “Oh God. Oh no,” Orla cried. Noah held his father and cried. The sob dissolved into thin air like a plea to God for help. Mya looked up to the sky.

  “You’re a deity . . . now you tell me, is God going to help me this time?” Orla asked. Silence. Orla nodded. “All right, I’ll have to call for help elsewhere,” Orla muttered.

  “Don’t do it, Orla,” Mya said.

  Orla returned to the car and asked Riley to take Noah away. Riley didn’t know Orla’s intention, but he picked Noah up and walked toward where Mya stood. It had stopped raining, but the strange chanting sound echoed out from the brush nearby.

  Chapter 18

  Orla waved everyone away. The jasmine smell was thickening by the second. Noah cried and tried to run to Lorcan, who was lying in the car, blood seeping out of his wounds along with his strength, his life force. It took both Mya and Riley to keep Noah
away.

  Next to the car, Orla had traced a triangle in the mud. She remembered the ritual as if it had just been yesterday when she learned it. Regardless of how painful the memory was, regardless of what happened next, Orla had to do this. She couldn’t lose Lorcan.

  She mumbled the sorcery curse and then used the knife she had taken from the dead body of the attacker to cut off a bit of her hair. Then she chanted the curse a few more times. The wind started to blow. The scent of jasmine wafted into the wind and whirled about like a small tornado. Orla cut her arm with the knife, dripping her blood into the triangle. The triangle attracted a lightning bolt, and Orla was blown a few feet away.

  From a distance away, Mya shook her head. Noah screamed for Orla to stop. Orla got to her feet and went back to the triangle. She chanted the curse again, the black curse her ancestor had created. The smell of jasmine engulfed the entire area and a swirl of black mist seeped up from the ground, forming a funnel.

  Mya moved toward the car, but a lightning bolt suddenly struck directly in front of her, sending her skidding backward and flopping into the mud.

  “Get out of my way,” a deep demonic male voice hovered in the air.

  Orla’s eyes were darkened and empty. She stood still, her black hair blowing in the wind. A smile spread across her face. More lightning bolts struck the ground, and the air sparked liked fireworks. Mya felt as if she was in the middle of an explosion.

  The form of an eight-foot-tall ancient man appeared out of the mist. He snaked a hand out of his black robe and reached toward Orla’s heart while she stood still and waited. Noah broke out of Riley’s hold, pushing Riley to the ground. Riley looked at his son and saw that Noah’s eye were blank and white. Noah charged at the ancient man, hitting him from behind.

  “He’s possessed,” Mya said.

  “He’s telepathic. For God’s sake, do something about it!” Riley yelled.

  The ancient man fell forward when Noah hit him. He released Orla and turned toward Noah, furious. Noah staggered backward. His eyes had gone back to normal, and at the moment, he looked like no more than a scared kid. The ancient man reached out his arm to grab Noah, but Riley jumped in front of him and held his arm to prevent him from approaching his son. The ancient man pulled back, staggered, and looked at Riley. He reached for him, but as soon as he did, he shrieked as if in pain and exploded into nothingness.