Magic Unchained n-7

by Jessica Andersen

  As she slid her fingers along the spine, all other thoughts fell away, leaving only her awareness of the pyre and the others gathered around her, the sudden tension in the air. Please, gods, she whispered inwardly. Then, steeling herself, she set the spine to the tip of her tongue, then closed her eyes and, with a quick, jerky move, drove the bloodletter deep and yanked it free again.

  Pain flashed and her stomach lurched as blood filled her mouth, making her want to gag at the salty tang. Instead, she let the blood pool in her mouth, then stepped forward and spit out the mouthful of mingled saliva and blood—both sacred to the gods, who had given their blood to create mankind in a land where water was scarce.

  Optimism flared for a nanosecond… and then died. Because when her offering hit the pyre there were none of the red-gold sparkles the Nightkeepers talked about seeing when they dialed into their magic, no buzzing hum in the air. All she got was a throbbing tongue, a gnarly case of muck-mouth, and a solid reminder that none of the prophecies ever even mentioned anyone besides the Nightkeepers fighting in the final battle, never mind using magic to do it.

  Exhaling, she passed the spike to Zane, who took it without comment and made his sacrifice in grim silence. The others did the same, all the way around the circle until the bloodletter returned to Rabbit, who touched it to his lips and then tossed it on the pyre. Overhead, the storm clouds had blotted out the sun, turning the scene dark and gloomy, though the air didn’t really smell of rain.

  Rabbit looked around the circle again, as if he wanted to say something else. But then he shook his head, focused on the funerary bundle, spread his fingers, and called fire in the old tongue with a whisper of “Kaak.”

  Energy crackled and a gout of flames erupted from the base of the pyre. The fire geysered upward in a blaze that rose ten, then twenty feet, and the air went suddenly scorching, burning Cara’s skin. Whoa! She stumbled back, shielding her face with her arm as the churning in her stomach suddenly increased a thousandfold. “Rabbit, dial it down!”

  “I can’t!” His eyes were wide, his face ashen as he tried to beckon the power back into him. “It’s not working! The magic is—”

  Crack! A huge lightning bolt lashed up from the fiery pillar and speared into one of the black storm clouds. Cara screamed, heart clutching as the cloud freaking detonated, fragmenting into dark chunks that plummeted toward the earth, trailing vapor. The missiles hit in a circular spray around them, impacting meteor-fast, shaking the earth beneath her feet and digging huge craters that spewed dirt and broken stone.

  “Form up!” Zane shouted over the roar of the fire and the aerial cannonade. Some of the winikin responded instantly, scrambling into the four fighting teams; others stood and gaped.

  “Get close together,” Rabbit yelled. “I’ll shield!”

  Cara went for her wristband, hit the panic button that would broadcast on every available channel and trigger the alarms back at the main mansion, and shouted, “Mayday! Mayday! The funeral is under attack!”

  “Come on!” Natalie grabbed her arm and dragged her into a stumbling run toward the others as Rabbit started casting his fiery orange shield spell around them.

  Catching sight of movement, Cara missed a step, and the churning in her gut suddenly condensed to a hard, cold pit of terror. “The craters! Look!”

  Shiny black shadows writhed within each pit, and then boiled up and over to become dark creatures, huge animals that had been twisted into hideous monsters. Gods! What were they? How had they gotten inside Skywatch’s shields? She saw jaguars, foxes, eagles, owls, all black and slick, their pelts glued together into slimy spikes by a sticky coating, as if they had just been born, fully formed, from the underworld itself.

  Gods!

  The demons screeched and roared as they materialized, a dozen of them and then more, landing with earth-shuddering thuds and casting around momentarily before they oriented on the winikin and began to move. They were slow at first, uncoordinated, as if learning to use their bodies. But that didn’t last long.

  Rabbit shouted, “Cara, move! Come on!” He waved to the single gap that remained in the fiery shield, left open for her and Natalie.

  Heart pounding, Cara bolted the short distance remaining and shoved Natalie through. “Is everyone—” She turned back and broke off with a gasp as she caught sight of two stumbling figures lagging behind, recognized them. “Zane!”

  He was coming toward them half carrying, half dragging Lora, who had been a decorated cop in the outside world, but now was limp and sobbing.

  Cara’s breath froze as a shadow rose up behind them: a huge eagle with a minivan wingspan and a talon spread the size of a human head, coordinated now and flying with fiendish intent, its coal red eyes locked on its prey. It was maybe a thousand feet from Zane. Eight hundred. Seven.

  He wasn’t going to make it.

  Her heart went thudda-thudda, but she didn’t let her voice shake as she said to Rabbit, “Give me your gun.”

  His eyes blazed. “No fucking way. I’ll go.”

  “You need to protect the others.” The demons were homing in on the winikin huddled within his glowing shield.

  “I— Shit. Here.” He tossed the MAC-10. “Go!”

  She caught it, fumbled it, then got it in a two-handed grip. The machine pistol still felt strange in her hands even after all the training she’d had, as if her body knew on the DNA level that she wasn’t made for fighting. But she hung on to the weapon, fingers slipping with the cold sweat that suddenly bathed her as she wheeled and bolted toward the stragglers.

  The demon eagle was very close to Zane. A few hundred feet, if that. Do it, she told herself. Just do it! Heart thundering in her ears, she fired over his head, wasting the first burst and then sending a wobbly line of bullets stitching across the creature’s torso and left wing. The beast screeched and its wing beats faltered, but it stayed in the air, locking onto her with blazing crimson eyes. The fury in them—the pure evil—froze her momentarily in place. This was the enemy they were going to be fighting during the war, she realized with sudden sharp horror. Not the xombis or any other sort of possessed human, but the demons themselves. And these were the smallest of them.

  Oh, gods. She couldn’t do this. They couldn’t do it. There was no way a dozen magi and fifty-some winikin could fight an army of these things and win.

  “Cara, no!” Zane waved her off with his free hand, his expression going wild. “Get back!”

  Snapping from her paralysis, she bolted toward him, toward the demon, her legs moving while her brain screeched, Wrong way! But she skidded and got to Lora’s other side. Imagining the demon’s hot breath on her neck, she screamed, “Move!”

  They ran for the shield, legs pumping, but Lora was deadweight, dragging them down. Rabbit extended a tendril of the shield, trying to meet them halfway, but it wasn’t enough.

  Hearing the snap of feathers, Cara twisted around and muffled a cry of terror at seeing the creature nearly on top of them. She fired off a burst of jade-tipped bullets into its gaping mouth, but this time the bullets just seemed to piss it off more. It screamed and reached for her, claws spreading into a ring of wickedly curved blades.

  “Down!” Rabbit bellowed.

  Zane yanked Lora to the ground and Cara hit the deck a nanosecond behind them as the mage unleashed a huge fireball. A crackling roar seared over them and then the fiery missile slammed into the raptor, driving it back and away. The eagle was instantly ablaze. It screamed and flailed its flaming wings, then fell with a sickening thud that jarred the ground beneath them.

  Cara and Zane lunged to their feet and dragged Lora up, but from within the shield, Natalie screamed, “Look out!”

  Whipping around, Cara let out an, “Oh, shit,” at the sight of a huge, rangy, doglike creature bearing down on them. Its fur was mottled black and stuck up in spikes fouled by the ropy saliva that slicked its jaws and chest, coming from a mouth that showed huge fangs and barbed ivory teeth.

  Throat closing
with bitter panic, she yanked away and shoved Lora and Zane toward the shield. “Move!”

  “No, damn it.” Zane spun back, eyes fierce. “Let me—”

  “Go. That’s an order.” She got between them and the oncoming beast, heart thundering in her ears as she told herself, You’ve just got to slow it down long enough for Rabbit’s magic to recharge. They had trained on scenarios like this. Now it was time to put that training to use. Aware that Zane had followed orders—whatever he might feel for her, he was a soldier at heart—she aimed for the dog-creature’s legs and fired.

  She got two shots off and then heard a sour clunk as the machine pistol freaking jammed.

  “No!” She yanked at the receiver arm that had come loose, locking the bolt, but it didn’t budge. The huge dog—wolf?—seemed to understand what had happened. Its gleaming red eyes lit and it accelerated, jaws gaping.

  “Run!” Natalie screamed.

  Cara spun and bolted. The shield was farther away than she thought, the demon closing fast. Panic spurted, along with a thought of, Oh, gods, this is it. And then the world did a weird slow-motion thing around her.

  She saw Zane shove Lora into the shield and turn back for her, but the beast was too close, too fast. She could hear it right behind her, could feel the jarring thud of its feet through the worn soles of her boots and smell its rotting stench. Her body tensed for pain, for fear, and incredulity flared at the knowledge that she wasn’t going to make it. She was going to be the second winikin to die in battle, wasn’t ever going to get the chance to live the life she wanted after the war. Her breath sobbed. Please, no.

  She glanced back just in time to see the huge creature rock onto its haunches, preparing to spring, and—

  “Cara, get down!” The words came from the other side of her, in a deep voice that jolted her like lightning and sped the world back up to normal once more.

  Before she could react, a gray-and-buff blur raced past with a bloodcurdling howl of rage, and the hard, heavy weight of a man’s body slammed into her, knocking her out of the demon’s path and taking her to the ground. Her rescuer wrapped his arms around her and rolled them as they hit, so he took the brunt and cushioned her fall.

  There was sudden warmth, solid muscle, and the yielding, unfamiliar press of a man’s body. And not just any man: She caught rapid-fire impressions of sun-bleached hair against deeply tanned skin, stormy blue eyes, and an air of wildness that defied the high-tech armband and warrior’s garb. Their legs tangled, and when they stopped rolling, he was on top of her with his hips planted firmly between her thighs. Instead of untangling himself, he reared up over her on one arm and lifted the other to summon first a shield and then a huge fireball, and although her brain was struggling to catch up, her soul already knew exactly what was going on.

  “Sven,” she whispered, frozen with the shock of seeing her foster nonbrother again after so long, though her body reacted to the way his magic spit and sparked, prickling awareness across her skin.

  He looked grimmer and more tired than he had a few months earlier, when he’d taken off for the south. There were new stress lines cut alongside his aristocratic nose and wide, slashing cheekbones, and his old trademark surfer’s ponytail was a grown-out military brush cut now, gone shaggy and adding to the sense of some wild creature contained within human form. He wore close-fitting armor and the Kevlar-impregnated black-on-black of a Nightkeeper, and he was all warrior as his eyes went to where an enormous gray-and-buff coyote—his bonded familiar, Mac—was fighting with the huge black demon.

  “Leave it!” he ordered. Mac quickly tore away and leaped back, and Sven unleashed his deadly fireball with a heave that rippled through his body and into Cara’s.

  Hiss-boom! Instantly engulfed in flames, the demon-dog reared back with a horrible, unearthly howl. A terrible stench filled the air as it struggled in its death throes. The other animals too were dead and dying, making Cara suddenly aware that the rest of the magi had arrived and were tightening around the winikin in a protective ring as the creatures melted to stinking black puddles. After a moment, even those faded and disappeared, leaving silence behind.

  Dead. Silence.

  As her pulse pounded in her ears, she thought crazily that it was the kind of utter quiet that came in the aftermath of a disaster that didn’t cause any actual casualties but had come damn close, to the point where everyone sort of sat there for a second, thinking, What the fuck just happened? Because that was what had to be going through the minds of the other winikin. It was undoubtedly what the magi were thinking as they watched the last of the creatures puff to greasy smoke. And it was what she ought to be thinking too. Because although the Nightkeepers’ former nemesis, the Xibalban mage Iago, had tricked his way into Skywatch twice, no demon had entered the compound in nearly thirty years. Not since the Solstice Massacre.

  But although those were the questions she knew ought to be going through her head, her mind had blanked. All she could do was stare at Sven as he levered himself off her and rose to his feet with a loose-limbed grace that sharply defined the muscles under his tight black clothing, making her entirely aware of his body, and the imprint it had left on her own.

  Don’t think about it, she told herself, but the familiar refrain barely registered.

  There was a low whine and the scuff of paws on dirt as Mac trotted over to stand beside him, then looked at her with his pale green, human-seeming eyes gleaming, his ears pricked and his plumed tail wagging in wide sweeps. Sven and the coyote made a formidable pair, and the sight tightened her throat. It had been a long six months since they had gone down to Mexico to head up the Nightkeepers’ efforts to contain the spread of the xombi virus—an infection that was part magic, part disease, and thoroughly vile. She had worried about them, especially when the reports back from the southern front had grown increasingly grim. But her relief that they were home safe caromed off resentment that she hadn’t gotten any word beyond the official reports, nothing personal, nothing that acknowledged her and Sven’s connection or the fact that he’d been the one to bring her back to Skywatch to take on a job she hadn’t wanted. He’d promised to help her with the winikin… and then he’d taken off without a word. Which was just Sven, and shouldn’t have surprised her.

  It had, though, and that was why, as irritation won out over relief, she summoned a flip smile she knew would piss him off, and said, “Hey, welcome back. Did you miss me?”

  That was a laugh, of course, because he’d always made it his business never to miss anyone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sven had braced himself to see Cara, thinking through what he wanted to say to her… but as he stared down at her now, caught between the desire to haul her into his arms and the nearly overwhelming urge to shake her until her damn fool teeth rattled, he was floundering because they were way the fuck off his script.

  He had planned on getting her in private and talking to her—really talking to her, for the first time in years. He sure as shit hadn’t been prepared to show up just as the alarms went nuts, and to get out to the ball court just in time to see her trying to outrun some godsdamned hellbeast—a demon inside Skywatch, for fuck’s sake!—armed with a jammed MAC-10 and more guts than common sense. He hadn’t been braced to find himself planted on top of her as he’d pulled the magic necessary to take the creature down. And he sure as shit wasn’t ready to be this close to her while his pulse thudded off rhythm with those urges, along with knowledge that he’d just come damn close to losing her.

  He rolled off of her, stood, and hauled her to her feet, though the distance didn’t do nearly enough to cool him off. His rehearsed scene had started something along the lines of, I know this is a couple of decades too late, but I owe you an apology.… Instead, he found himself leaning down to roar, “What in the hell were you thinking? You nearly got yourself killed!”

  Mac moved to his side, ruff bristling, but then subsided and settled to his haunches with his eyes fixed on Cara. Friend, he sent in the th
ought-glyphs that were his main way of communicating. Missed friend. But that wasn’t enough to cool the fury riding high in Sven’s blood. Mac existed in the moment—the demon was gone now; he was happy to see Cara now; he was hungry now. Humans, though, had to deal with the past-present-future stuff. That meant that when Sven looked at her, he didn’t see a petite woman with a striking white forelock and exotic deep brown eyes, wearing curve-hugging black pants, an edgy black jacket, and an air of, You and what army? Well, yeah, he saw that. But he also saw the girl she’d been.

  He saw her at ten, galloping bareback on her fat spotted pony, with her hair streaming out behind her like a white-striped black banner.

  He saw her at fifteen, returning to the ranch battered and bloody, cradling a broken wrist and defending the chestnut filly who had tossed her, seeming unaware that his heart had stopped at the sight of her injuries.

  He saw her at seventeen, propositioning him in the back barn with the sweetly inexpert kiss he’d never forgotten, saw her eyes fill when he turned her down and rode away, not knowing it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

  He saw her at twenty-one, when she tracked him down in a crappy one-room apartment to drag him to Skywatch, overriding his protests with three words: “You owe me.” And he sure as shit had owed her. He’d broken her heart that day in the barn, and he hadn’t done it gently, because he’d been feeling none too gentle himself.

  He saw her a few months later, when he told her to leave Skywatch, claiming that she didn’t fit in and he didn’t need her, trying to make the break a clean one for both their sakes, because those not-so-gentle feelings had come back like gangbusters, only to come up against roles, rituals, and the end of the damned world.