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

by D. N. Leo

  Orla saw stars as he banged her head to the ground. She struggled to draw a breath. She knew she was dying, but she just had to get her last blow. “It wasn’t a random hunter, was it?” she rasped. “There was only one human kid at that riverbank then who wasn’t scared of were-creatures. Your son was killed by that kid. He died like a common dog.”

  Bricius threw Orla away, and she rolled across the ground. He screamed in excruciating pain as the fire erupted from inside his body. It burned and tore at his flesh and his mind. The fire of fury.

  He stood up, burning like a torch, but he moved toward Orla. She lay on the ground, seeing him coming, but she couldn’t move. She had no breath, no strength, and not much blood left.

  Then she heard a familiar voice. It was Lorcan. He was racing to the scene, followed closely by Roy and Rose. He fired his gun, but just as before, the gun beam didn’t work on Bricius. Lorcan pulled out his knife and stabbed. Bricius staggered backward. Lorcan’s hands burned, but he kept stabbing until Bricius slumped to the ground.

  Thinking him to be dead, Lorcan turned to look at Orla.

  “Watch out!” Roy yelled and hurled a knife through the air at Bricius, who had gotten to his feet and was about to wrap his burning body around Lorcan.

  Bricius roared as he took the knife to his chest. Calling up a spell, he once again conjured the icy hand, pouring the crystal drops over his body to extinguish some of the fire. He ran off into the darkness, saying, “Lorcan, I’ll be back for you! Keep your stone and your key. No Flanagan is going to save you when I return!” Bricius’s voice echoed back to them through the still night air.

  Lorcan kneeled next to Orla. Her body was cold. He gathered her in to his arms to warm her and comfort her. “Hang on for me,” he whispered as he carried her to the doctor’s house. He was calm and tried not make any sudden movements. Lorcan concentrated as he had never before in his life.

  “She’s lost too much blood. We don’t have any extra for transfusions,” the doctor said.

  “Take mine,” Lorcan said. “I don’t know my blood type, and I don’t know hers. But please—just see if her body takes it. Please.” The doctor shook his head.

  “It doesn’t work that way. If your blood doesn’t match, it might kill her.”

  “So what do you suggest we do?”

  “She has to heal herself.”

  “Not happening.” Lorcan ushered the doctor and Rose out of the room. “Please jam the door, Roy,” Lorcan instructed, pulling out his wrist unit to call Ciaran.

  In a moment, a hologram appeared. Ciaran looked annoyed. “Can you handle anything by yourself, Lorcan?”

  “Please, she needs blood.” Lorcan pointed to the bed.

  Ciaran turned toward the bed, moving closer so that he could see Orla with the light of the hologram beam. Ciaran frowned, reached his hand out as if to check her pulse, then remembered he was only hologram. He signaled Lorcan and Roy to step back and extended his hologram light beam into a holocast. The he moved the light circle over, encircled Orla, and checked her pulse. He took a small pin-like device from his unit and took a sample. He inserted the sample into his unit, and a short moment later, Ciaran looked up at Lorcan and Roy. “I need to get my doctor and do this properly. You two, wait outside.”

  Roy opened his mouth to ask something, but Lorcan had pulled him out the door and slammed it closed.

  Chapter 17

  The bright light shone out of the door frame, casting a rectangular shape on the opposite wall. It had been a while, and Lorcan kept staring at the door as if he could see through it. Roy paced back and forth, hands in his pockets, saying nothing. Roy knew the center of Lorcan’s universe was in that room, so he respected that and didn’t ask anything.

  They had done this before when Roy was dying from poison. Ciaran and the doctor he brought from Eudaiz had fixed Roy using the most advanced technology in the cosmos. Lorcan had never been to the faraway universe that Ciaran governed, but he’d heard only good things, and from their dealings with Ciaran, Lorcan knew Eudaiz had the best medical technology in the cosmos, and that Ciaran’s arrival in that universe could only have made it better. Before going to Eudaiz, Ciaran had been managing the most advanced and mysterious pharmaceutical company on Earth.

  “Stop talking to yourself, Lorcan.”

  “Huh?” Lorcan snapped back to reality and saw Roy was staring at him. Lorcan nodded, raking his hands through this hair and pacing the corridor.

  The light went out, the door of the room slid open, and Ciaran stepped out. He was in his solid form, not a hologram. Lorcan waited for him to speak.

  “It’s done. She’s fine now. But it’s the same deal for her as was for Roy—she will have to change her address to Eudaiz after this is done,” Ciaran said.

  “Of course. Can I go in?” Lorcan asked.

  Ciaran nodded. Lorcan rushed in, slamming the door behind him before Ciaran could follow.

  Ciaran had left a dim light on in the room, and Lorcan could see Orla lying in bed, pale and a bit dazed, but awake. He strode to the bed and sat by her side. Lorcan brushed the hair from Orla’s face and smiled. She opened her mouth to say something, but Lorcan put his fingers over her lips.

  “Don’t do that to me again. Promise?”

  She looked into his blue eyes and nodded. He gathered her into his arms and held her tightly. Every muscle in his body quivered with emotion, and she pushed him back.

  “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,” Orla said.

  Outside the room, Ciaran turned around to see Roy.

  “I’m sorry on Lorcan’s behalf,” Roy said. “He didn’t mean to slam the door in your face.”

  Ciaran smiled and said nothing.

  “Does that smile mean you forgive him? Or that you’re not surprised because you’ve seen him like that before?”

  “The latter. I’ve dealt with Lorcan and Orla before. I know how they are with each other.”

  Roy nodded. “Lorcan said you control a great deal of the multiverse. But then you handle this matter personally. It must be important to you.”

  Ciaran smiled again. “Yes, I do manage a lot of people and creatures. But only a few of them I’d consider friends. Lorcan and Orla are among them, and I don’t take my friends for granted. If they need me here, I’ll be here.” He glanced around quickly. “Where’s Mori?”

  Roy inhaled sharply and informed him, “A clan of werewolves got her—well, that’s speculation. The only proof I’ve got is the blood marks I saw on the walls, and the fact that the wolves threatened me the day before and used Mori to lure me out. So my guess is it was them who took her.”

  “May I take a look at the room they took her from?”

  “It’s not here. This is the doctor’s house. We sent Rose—a local woman—and the doctor to the other house to take care of another wounded person.”

  Ciaran narrowed his eyes. “Your woman was captured, you don’t know who took her or where she is now, and you’re just standing here guarding this door?”

  “I need Lorcan’s and Orla’s help. All the help I can get. I can’t afford to make a wrong move. If anything happens to Mori, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  Ciaran looked at Roy. He knew he would never be able to be that cool-headed if it was Madeline, his wife, who had been captured. He admired the way Roy handled himself. He’d sent them back here for the stone, but the Indigo Stone was not exactly their problem. Ciaran always felt a pang of pain and regret when couples got separated. “And you don’t need my help?”

  “No. I mean yes, of course, but I would just never expect you to help, never expect you to be here, given you’re busy with your own business. But yes, we definitely need your help, especially now. The guns you gave us didn’t work.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “They worked before, but somehow the beams didn’t work on the man we fought yesterday, and he almost killed Orla.”

  “What do you mean they didn’t work?”

  “He seeme
d to have an invisible wall surrounding him. The beams were sucked right into it.”

  “Dimensional shield,” Ciaran mumbled.

  “Sorry?”

  Ciaran shook his head. “How did he hurt Orla?”

  “He used magic. That’s all I could tell. He almost killed Lorcan, too. But it seemed like someone called Flanagan had been protecting Lorcan, so he’s okay.”

  “Who did you say was protecting Lorcan?”

  “I don’t even think Lorcan knows. Before running away, the man said he would come back for Lorcan and no Flanagan was going to save him.”

  A wave of rage washed over Ciaran as soon as he heard the name.

  Chapter 18

  Ciaran paced as he thought, and he didn’t like what he was thinking at all. Magic and Flanagan was a combination that would bring no good to any one. Adding a dimensional shield to the combination might make him impossible to defeat. Ciaran remembered vividly how he had killed Flanagan, and he remembered the carnage that the battle had caused in Eudaiz.

  Maybe he hadn’t kill Flanagan at all. If it was even the same Flanagan Orla had encountered . . . Ciaran shook his head, trying not to ponder things any further until he got more information.

  The door of the room slid open, and Lorcan walked out with Orla. Lorcan had wrapped his arm around Orla’s waist to support her. She could walk now, but she was still quite pale and shaky.

  “You look as beautiful as always, Orla. It looks as though you put up a hell of a fight,” Ciaran said.

  “Thank you, Ciaran.” Orla smiled and raised her right arm to display the wrist band Ciaran had snapped on it. “And now you’ve enslaved me to Eudaiz as well.”

  “With pleasure.” Ciaran nodded.

  “I’m sorry I dragged you here again. But this was urgent . . .” Lorcan began.

  “Indeed, and it looks as though it’s best if I stay a bit longer to help you with the problem at hand.”

  “Are you sure? We can handle this. We can . . .” Lorcan trailed off and let his arms flop down to his side. “I’m sorry, I really don’t think we can handle this without further assistance from you. We’re not catching a dragon here. We don’t have any idea who we’re dealing with. But we know they have armies of both humans and creatures. And now, it looks like there’s magic involved and possibly forces from the multiverse as well. Mori used to have an army of firefoxes to help out, but now, there are only four of us. Three now, actually because—”

  “I got it. Roy told me. They took Mori,” Ciaran cut in. “I understand the magnitude of the problem. I’ll stay to help.”

  “Really? That’s great. Thank you,” Lorcan responded. “Oh, and the guns, they . . .”

  “Didn’t work yesterday. I heard. I’ll figure it out. For now, we’ll have to use my all-time favorite—the most consistent and reliable weapon,” Ciaran said, heading out of the house via the long hallway.

  “Knives?” Roy asked.

  “No, brain power. There are four of us now—we should be fine.”

  “I don’t think my feeble little brain is working at the moment,” Orla said.

  “The next time you run into a sorcerer who could possibly wield magic strong enough to dilute laser beams from the most advanced technology in the cosmos, please call for help rather than trying to go it on your own,” Lorcan chastised Orla.

  “I’ll get you better weapons, Lorcan,” Ciaran promised. “But where do we go now?”

  “To Jay’s house. We’re staying there. He’s the leader for a group of humans. They were stranded on this island eleven years ago,” Lorcan said.

  “How so?”

  “Apparently a storm hit, and then the whole island was disconnected from the world. Humans can’t get in or out. Only creatures. I think it’s some kind of a dimensional shift,” Lorcan said.

  Ciaran shook his head. “Perhaps. Can you find this island on a map?”

  “No,” Orla said. “They said it literally disappeared from the planetary map.”

  “An island doesn’t disappear, especially an operational one. I could see it when you called me. That’s how I got here.” They were walking along the main street now. It was lively with people going about their business as if nothing had happened here a few days ago.

  “We got into some crossfire here earlier. Many people died, and we just escaped by the skin of our teeth. Now they’re all going on like it’s business as usual. How weird!” Roy said.

  “Can you tell which are creatures and which are humans?” Ciaran asked.

  “I can only tell if they’re werefoxes or werewolves,” Roy said.

  “I can tell,” Orla said.

  Ciaran smiled. “If only creatures can travel to and from this island, did you tell them exactly who you are? If they know out that we can open a portal to get out of here, they may want to leave, too. And I can’t guarantee anyone else that I’ll be able to transport them off the island.”

  “We haven’t told them yet, but I’m sure they will eventually want to know,” Lorcan contemplated.

  “If they ask me, what should I tell them?” Ciaran asked anyone who could answer.

  Orla stepped in front of Ciaran, looking him up and down. Ciaran was six foot three, slender with the toned muscles of a warrior, and had pale English skin. His long, black hair almost touched his shoulders, framing a face that God had created just to provoke men’s jealousy and accentuating his smoky gray eyes. “Tell them you’re a vampire!” Orla said.

  Ciaran shook his head and chuckled.

  Lorcan laughed. “They’d probably believe you.”

  They arrived at Jay’s house.

  “Creatures,” Orla whispered. They pulled out their guns. Ciaran signaled Lorcan and Orla take one side, while he and Roy took the other side. The house was quiet. They entered easily, finding the house trashed and empty. A blood trail ran along the hallway and pooled on the carpet. They rushed to Jay’s room—no one there. They searched everywhere and met back at the living room.

  “Rose and the doctor aren’t here,” Lorcan said.

  “Where’s the room Mori was taken from?” Ciaran asked again.

  “End of the corridor,” Roy said and pointed. Ciaran went into the room and examined the blood spray on the walls. Then he asked, “You’re saying they’re werewolves, Roy?”

  “That’s my prediction.”

  “They wanted the key, and they claimed they have the stone, but Roy thinks they were bluffing,” Lorcan added.

  “Do you remember the eyes of Nick, the cowboy from Xiilok?” Ciaran asked.

  “Yes, he looked like he had worms swimming inside his eyes,” Orla said. “Are you thinking the wolves could have come from Xiilok?”

  “Xiilok is a universe where multiversal outlaws stay. It’s independent from all other universes, and thus the creatures living there could potentially bypass some standard physical laws of time and space,” Lorcan explained to Roy. “Do you think the creatures on this island are from Xiilok, Ciaran?”

  “Maybe. I have a theory, but I need more data to confirm it.”

  “The kid!” Orla yelled and ran to the window. She jumped through the window so quickly it looked like she was flying. They saw the kid standing at a distance from the house, smiling at Orla. Then he turned and ran away.

  Chapter 19

  Following Orla, Lorcan and Roy chased after the kid.

  “Don’t chase him, goddamn it. It might be a trap!” Ciaran yelled at them, but they couldn’t hear him, so he followed.

  This island must have many dimensional traps. Orla, Roy, and Lorcan ran straight to a narrow path with tall sand cliffs flanking either side, perfect way to be ambushed. He pulled his gun and gave chase to nothing. “Stop! I said stop!” Ciaran yelled again in a firm an authoritative voice. That stopped them just before the sand cliffs. “What are you doing?”

  “That kid was in the house before and shot at Roy. I think he was looking for the stone,” Orla said.

  “What kid?” Ciaran glanced at the sand cl
iffs. He approached the cliffs and aimed his gun down the narrow path. “Nothing in there but a possible trap.”

  “Watch out! Shoot, Ciaran!” Lorcan shouted and pointed at the cliff. Ciaran turned around—and saw nothing—but pointed the gun in that general direction.

  “You’re aiming right at it! Shoot!” Orla yelled.

  “I’m not shooting at a kid.”

  “Shoot, shoot now!” Roy roared.

  Ciaran didn’t see a kid—he didn’t see anything at all. He wasn’t about to shoot if there was a chance of hitting a kid. He felt some air movement, and his instinct made him step to the side. He felt a stab of metal in his shoulder and turned sideways. Looking at his left shoulder, he saw a long arrow protruding. Blood streamed from the deep wound.

  Roy and Lorcan immediately shifted into two magnificent foxes and ran toward the cliffs. Orla approached Ciaran and helped him up.

  “I’m fine. Go help them,” he directed her.

  “They don’t my need help with these amateur shapeshifters,” Orla smiled.

  Ciaran narrowed his eyes. “Are there professional shapeshifters?” he asked incredulously.

  Orla shrugged. “Of course.”

  “Did you see the whole thing?”

  “Yes. You didn’t?”

  Ciaran grabbed his shoulder and winced.

  “This is all pretty strange for you, huh?”

  “Nothing really weirds me out. I just don’t care for being at a disadvantage. I’ll have to use all my resources.”

  “But if you can’t see them, how can you fight them?”

  Ciaran smiled. “I have my ways.” He pulled the arrow out, setting free a spurt of blood. “This isn’t good.” Ciaran tried to stem the bleeding with his hand. “It might have hit an artery. Stupid,” he mumbled.

  “Let’s go back to inside to see if we can find something to patch you up with,” Orla said.

  Orla found a small medical box and was able to stop the bleeding from Ciaran’s shoulder. Ciaran checked the house, searching for all communication devices and anything that resembled an electronic device. Once certain that there wasn’t a spying bot in the vicinity, he pulled out his wrist unit and coded something in. A warm glow of light appeared in the air, and a holocast encircled the floor. A hologram of Madeline stood in the middle of the light. She smiled at Ciaran, and then narrowed her eyes at the wound on his shoulder, but she said nothing.