He wanted me to learn magic? All this time he had forbidden me from using any. Frustrated, I yelled at his back, “Why teach me magic when you won’t let me use it?”
Gage stopped and faced me again. “I’m hoping that one day soon you’ll come around. You’ll see that you belong with us. We’re your best bet at survival, Colina. I’m serious when I say I want to work with you. Nothing would make me happier than having you, Luke, and Wendy join our ranks.” His expression turned sullen. “I don’t like to threaten. I don’t like holding your boyfriend prisoner. I know, given enough time, you will come around.” He gave Caleb a cold stare. “I expect to see some progress when I get back.”
Caleb nodded.
“Now play nice,” Gage instructed before leaving the room.
We were alone.
Caleb still held the gun in his hand. “Are you ready to get started?”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked, looking at the gun.
He ignored my sarcastic tone and answered in a serious voice, “This spell is more of a state of mind. It’s not like the other spells you’ve learned.” He started toward me.
I backed away, looking behind me for any possible escape. No way was I going to let Caleb have a free shot at me.
He rushed forward, breaching the distance between us, and roughly grabbed my arm.
Without thinking, I slapped him hard across the face.
Fury sparkled in his eyes. His hand came up and rubbed his cheek. “I’m not going to hurt you. The only way you’re going to learn how to do this is if you let me get close to you.”
“Go to hell.”
His fingers dug into my skin. “The boss will not be happy if you refuse to try. I don’t think you would like to see him angry.”
That stopped me in my tracks. As much as I hated to admit it, Caleb was right. Gage scared even his own people. I’d seen firsthand how he’d killed one of his employees without a second thought.
Caleb gave me a hard, painful squeeze before letting go of my arm. He tucked the gun behind him, into the waistband of his jeans. “I’m going to stand next to you. Please try to restrain from hitting me again.” His voice lowered, full of irritation. “I’m not thrilled to be doing this, either. But what the big man wants, he gets.”
Caleb moved closer. Every nerve in my body was screaming to get away from him. I took a deep breath and forced myself to stand still. I could feel the heat of his body against mine.
“Every person has their own energy swirling around them. Some people call it an aura. Others call it chi,” Caleb said.
“I know about energy. I used to be a healer.” My mouth was dry. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest.
“That’s right, I keep forgetting. Your kind pull on the energy from the ether sea and then push it into people.”
I nodded.
“This is different. You have to become aware of the energy that is swirling around you at all times. Your individual chi. Get a sense for it. Close your eyes.”
I looked over at him skeptically.
“I told you, I won’t hurt you. Look, I’m not thrilled to be doing this, either, but what can we do? The quicker you learn, the faster you can go back to the house and your buddies.” He moved away, then slowly came up behind me until his whole body pressed against mine.
I couldn’t help it—I started to jerk away, but his arm came around my waist and pulled me close to him.
This isn’t happening. But it was. He held me tight. “You can sense when someone is in your space, feel if something breaks across your energy field. Can you feel where your energy starts and where it intersects with mine?”
All I can feel is a blind terror because a monster is holding me.
“Try to focus,” he demanded.
I tried to clear my head, but Caleb’s proximity made it impossible. I want to hurt him so bad. Pay him back for what he did to me. I could hear my screams echoing in my ears from when he burned me. I was trying so hard to keep the emotions at bay that I could feel tears of frustration slide down my cheeks.
“Let’s try something else.” Caleb sounded annoyed.
He backed away from me and I let out a sigh of relief. He moved until he was a few feet in front of me. “Close your eyes.”
Caleb was standing in front of me, and he had a gun.
“I told you—I won’t hurt you,” he growled. “Now close your eyes.”
I forced my eyes closed. That gun is going to go off any second… He’s going to shoot me dead.
“Open your eyes when you feel something close, invading your space.”
I felt nothing—and then I did. A strange tingle ran up my back. I knew with certainty that something was close to me. I opened my eyes. Caleb’s finger was an inch from my nose.
“Good. Now take a deep breath and become aware of the same energy that always swirls within you. As a healer, you pull energy in from the earth or sky, but what I want you to do is to push out the energy from within yourself until it’s all around you.”
“Push it out where?”
“Think of it as creating a force field around you. Think of pushing a barrier out just a few inches from your body.”
He turned and walked to the closest table. When he came back, he was holding a thick, black leather-bound book. He opened the book and flipped through the pages until he found what he wanted. “Here it is. This spell is the one you’ll be doing.” He moved to my side and held the book out in front of me.
I looked down at a page full of Latin words. “Mages don’t say all this each time they make themselves bulletproof.” There were too many words. A bullet is shot within seconds. There’s no way they would have time to evoke the spell before the bullet found its mark.
“You’re right, they don’t. You just have to say it once. You go through the ritual and say the spell. When it’s all done, you’ve raised your own personal shield. And it’s up all the time around you.”
“What kind of ritual?” I force myself to ask.
His eyes narrowed. “I would love to say I get to strangle you on my family’s graves. I can’t say I haven’t daydreamed about doing just that. But no, this ritual is more about visualizing the energy all around you. The energy inside you.” He handed me the book, then retrieved a bag from the same table. He opened it and pulled out some black candles and a different dagger, one with an ivory hilt. Caleb twirled the small dagger around in his hand, his eyes gleaming. “A sacrifice must be made during this ritual.”
My mind flashed back to the memory of Gage slaughtering the girl during Wendy’s demonic possession ritual. “Going to kill more chickens? Slit another young girl’s throat?” I forced out through stiff lips.
He laughed. “Nothing so drastic. A drop of your blood will do the trick.”
I looked at the dagger in trepidation. Symbols covered the steel. “I have to cut myself with that thing?”
“I have to cut you.”
The way he was holding the dagger, the look in his eye… I had no doubt he would like to thrust that dagger straight into my heart. I looked around the cavern. We were utterly alone. If he wants to kill me, he can.
I looked around distractedly as Caleb set up objects for the ritual. We stood at the back of the cavern, in front of the stream. Caleb placed a total of twelve candles in a circle and laid a raven feather between each one. I expected him to draw a circle in the dirt, but instead he pulled out a bag of black-colored powder. He carefully sprinkled the powder along the dirt until he’d created the lines of a pentagram.
He motioned for me to stand in the middle of the pentagram. I took a hesitant step, but it wasn’t fast enough for his liking. He shoved me hard from behind. I stumbled forward until I was standing in the center. I took a deep breath and tried to force back my fear. You went through three death dealer rituals, Colina. You can do this.
Caleb bent over and lit each of the candles. Like the other night, an odd odor filled the room as the candles started to burn.
Cale
b grabbed the book, and to my surprise, stepped into the pentagram with me. It was a tight fit inside the powder lines—we stood hip-to-hip.
He opened the book and held it up. “Now repeat the words as I say them.”
The spell was long and involved. I struggled along, trying to repeat each word after Caleb. When the last word left my mouth, I felt a tingling come up from the ground and run through my toes. Electric shocks skimmed across my body.
Caleb tossed the book to the ground. He pulled the dagger from his waist and held it out in front of him with two hands. He closed his eyes and raised the dagger up in the air. As he whispered to himself, he moved the dagger up and down, then left and right, turning to face me when he finished. He was so close I could feel his breath on my cheek.
“Turn around,” he said.
I didn’t want to. He had a knife in his hand. The last thing I should do is turn my back on him.
“Turn around,” he commanded in a cold voice.
He can’t hurt me, not now, not here, not when Gage will be back any minute…
I spun on my toes until my back was to him. I felt him come up behind me. A shiver ran through me as I felt his body against mine. One of his hands came up and circled my waist. “Whatever you do, don’t move,” he whispered in my ear.
I felt the cold blade against my throat. Panic filled me. I started to move away, but he pulled me back, hissing, “Stand still.”
He’s going to slit my throat. I tensed, ready to fight for my life. I felt anger pump through my blood. I could do it—I could raise my magic and kill him now before he hurt me. The collar was off Dean. But if I use my magic…
Dean had no power of his own. If Jacob came at him with a knife, could Dean take him? If Jacob raised magic and used it against Dean, would Dean turn berserker and kill him? Or would he be helpless, unable to fight back?
I wanted so desperately to call upon my powers and watch Caleb suffer for what he did to me. But if I did, there was a chance that Dean would be hurt. He wasn’t in control of his berserker nature, so there was no guarantee he could protect himself. I couldn’t risk it.
Caleb won’t kill me here and now. He’ll wait and do it when no one’s watching. When no one will suspect his involvement.
“Ready?” he asked. I could feel his breath on my neck.
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it,” I muttered.
The cold blade rested against my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut and then—
I felt a prick. A tiny drop of blood trickled down my neck.
Caleb reached up and slid his finger across the cut on my skin. I felt electric shocks where his skin made contact with mine. He raised his finger in front of my face, and I watched a drop of blood slowly fall to the dirt. It hit the floor.
An explosion of orange light ripped through the air and blew me off my feet.
When I opened my eyes, I was laying on the ground. I’d been thrown five or six feet from the pentagram.
What was that?
Caleb was on his knees a few feet away—he was thrown back, too. What happened? He was blinking hard, as if trying to clear his thoughts. He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw fear in those eyes. “What are you?”
I wasn’t hurt, but I was bruised and shaken. “I-I’m…a death dealer.” I wanted to believe that was all I was, but I could do things no other death dealer could do. What am I? That very question haunted me.
Before Caleb could say anything, Gage walked into the room. He surveyed the scene, then rushed to my side and put out his hand as though to help me to my feet. I ignored his offer and pushed myself off the ground to stand on shaking legs.
“What happened?” Gage demanded.
“We did the spell,” Caleb said. “There was an explosion.”
“Really?” Excitement filled Gage’s eyes. “I’m sorry I missed it.” He looked at me. “You really are exceptional.”
“That wasn’t part of the spell?” I whispered, brushing dirt off my jeans.
“No,” Gage answered. “There’s usually just a small burst of light, like the one you saw when I shot at Caleb.” His hands came together, and a thoughtful expression filled his face. “An actual explosion… You are such a fascinating girl. I can’t wait to find out what you’re truly capable of.” Gage reached into his pocket and pulled out a feather. Now, let’s test the spell.” He walked toward me and gave me a smile. “This won’t hurt, I promise.” He placed the feather in his palm, took a deep breath, and blew it out.
The feather floated off his palm toward me. When it was just a few inches from my body, it stopped—as though rebounding against something—and then started to float in the opposite direction.
“Most excellent. The spell is working. It will become more discriminating as it settles in. Of course, it doesn’t stop human touch. Someone could still slug you in the face or throttle that pretty neck of yours.” He picked the feather out of the air. “It’s more for inanimate objects. Feathers aren’t much of a threat. It won’t stop anything really big, like a bazooka or a crosstown bus, but knives and guns should no longer be a threat to you—unless, of course, they are enchanted. An enchanted bullet is hard to come by. They’re very expensive and very few mages know how to make an effective one.” He smashed the feather between his fingers. “Nothing like dropping a pretty penny on a supposedly enchanted bullet only to have it turn out to be a dud.” He dropped the feather and a slow smile spread across his face. “Are you ready for the big finale?” Gage asked. He didn’t wait for my answer, instead walking over to Caleb and holding out his hand.
Caleb reached back and pulled out the gun. He placed it in Gage’s hand. Gage pointed the gun at me. I raised my hands and shouted, “Wait—”
I barely got the word out before Gage pulled the trigger.
The gun went off with a loud explosion. I felt like a horse kicked me in the right shoulder. I lifted off my feet and slammed into the ground, my head bouncing off the dirt so hard that, for a moment, I was dazed. Then a burning, searing pain radiated down my arm.
A scream of rage escaped my lips, and I lost all control. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Tingling filled my body.
An eerie howl filled the air, immediately followed by a dozen more. A gray shadow formed out of nowhere, raced by me, and headed straight for Gage.
Gage’s face filled with surprise and he quickly raised his hands to defend himself.
A half-dozen more shadows whizzed by me. The dark clouds morphed for a split second into the shape of wolves before blurring back into mist, into fog, into gray lights that swirled and danced in the air all around Gage. They darted in at him, forming a near-solid shape as they attacked. Gage stood perfectly still, hands raised, seemingly unconcerned about the threat they posed. Most of the attacks seemed to turn away at the last moment, but a few got through whatever invisible defense Gage was mounting. I watched the skin tear open across Gage’s arm, but he didn’t flinch in pain. His expression was one of concentration and determination as he stood against my spirit pack.
My spirit pack. I’m not alone. Pure joy and relief filled my heart. I could feel them with me, around me, protecting me. They’ll keep me safe.
I heard a shout fill the air. I looked over to see Caleb standing with his feet apart, both his hands full of orange flame. At his feet, the still-struggling form of a burning zombie tried to rise even as the flames consumed it. Another zombie rushed into the room, moving toward me at an unsteady trot. When I woke the zombies, I bound their will to me. But I was Gage’s prisoner, so Gage controlled my will. For the first time, I realized, they’ll come when I need help. Two more zombies entered the room. For a moment, wild thoughts of turning all the zombies on Gage and saving my friends overwhelmed me.
Then Caleb burned them away. His fire flared out, burning so hot that the zombie coming toward me stopped as if it hit a brick wall. The meat dripped off its bones in gobs of burning fat and blistering muscle. In seconds, there wasn’t enough tissue left to h
old the bones together. It slumped to the ground. All that remained was a pile of bone, ash, and glowing embers.
I looked at Caleb and a red-hot anger filled me. With the anger came a fire from within my very depths. I felt it rising up, warming my body and mind. There was no more fear. There was only glorious fire. My hands rose up, azure-colored fire hovering in my palms, and I threw it with all my strength at Caleb.
There was real fear in his eyes now. His fire burned brighter in response and his flames extended out to create a wall of reddish orange.
My magic slammed against his, colorful sparks flying in the air at the collision. My blue flames began to wear down the wall of orange. Caleb’s magic wall shimmered and then, all at once, it exploded. A million tiny sparks of red and orange shot through the air.
Blue fire twirled and streamed, unimpeded, straight toward Caleb. My mind was full of darkness, full of rage. I looked on gleefully as my magic washed over him. Time to pay for what you’ve done to me.
Caleb fell to his knees as the fire consumed him. I dropped my hands. The fire faded. I’d done it. I killed Caleb before he could kill me.
And then I watched in shock as Caleb rose back to his feet. He stood there staring at me, completely unharmed. My magic hadn’t done anything to him. I overpowered his magic, but did no damage.
“Honestly, I expected more from you, Colina,” Gage’s voice called out. He sounded disappointed.
I looked over to where he stood. Gage had a gash across his arm, and little drops of black dripped from a tear across the middle of his shirt. Was it blood? Blood wasn’t black. The drops began to smoke, turning to ash and drifting slowly away. The gash on his arm started boiling like molten oil rising from the ground, until a black mist clung to his arm and covered the disturbing sight. In seconds, the mist faded, leaving an ash coating on his arm. Gage absently brushed it away, revealing unmarked skin. He had somehow healed himself. Just what is he capable of?
All at once, the adrenaline that had kept me going wore off. White-hot pain radiated down my right arm, crashing through my body. I felt hot liquid slide down my skin and looked at my shoulder. There was a large hole just below my clavicle where the bullet hit me. Blood gushed out of the wound and ran down my arm. More pain hit me, this time filling my mind until there was nothing—nothing but white-hot agony pounding through me. I let out a scream, crumpling to the floor.
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