My throat started to close up. He would do worse things to Lexie than he did to Selena just to spite me. And Selena was a powerful she-wolf. Lexie's struggles would be nothing to him. It was her or the rooster. Turning back to see the little, gray and white barred chicken, I repeated that over and over in my head, though the justification did nothing to make me feel any less terrible.
With heavy hands, I unlatched the wire crate and reached inside. I scooped him with both hands and tried to set him on the grass in front of me, but he— “it” I told myself— just kept moving around. Hot tears tracked down my cheeks as I had to hold him between my legs to keep him still. That, of course, panicked him and he began to cluck loudly and wiggle with more strength than I expected. Underneath the sound of the chicken, I heard a soft, keening “no, no, no” and realized that it was coming from me.
I picked up the sword from the cool grass and brought it closer, but he just kept wiggling. Deciding that slitting his throat would be the most humane, I tried to grab his head, which sent him into a full-blown, screeching panic. I had to hold his head to expose his neck, but I didn't want to hurt him.
His terror about dying fueled my own fears about killing him. I floundered, trying to grab his head gently but he was too quick and his sharp beak stabbed at my hands. Finally, I picked up the sword with one hand and the back of his neck with the other and drew the blade across as quickly as I could.
He gave a sad scream which faded off into pathetic little warblings of sound as his neck went limp. His hot blood ran down my right hand where it had sprayed. I peered down at my own hand; it seemed almost foreign to me now. I saw the fresh blood, downy feathers— which were no longer gray or white— and the small droplets of clear liquid that mixed in with all the red. They were my own tears.
A stinging sensation brought my attention to my other hand, still holding onto the back of his neck. In my haste, I'd accidentally cut my thumb. That was almost a good thing. For killing an innocent animal, I deserved the pain.
I brought my head up and looked around me. Grandma was watching me, her face carefully void of any emotions. Liam and Lexie were both watching me, too. Lexie looked sad, almost piteous, and Liam's face wore an expression of grim approval. None of their faces held any judgment for killing the nameless bird, but I did. I took an innocent life.
Again.
I wanted to undo what I'd done. I wanted the harmless chicken to be back to normal, but there was no way that I could turn back time. What I could do, however, was raise him as a zombie.
I pictured him as alive and healthy as he was just moments ago. With all my might, I willed for him to be so and reached deep inside myself for the strength to do it. I relaxed and focused solely on finding that inner strength.
There, I felt a trickle of cold, silky water slipping along the inside of my skin. It was a cold and utterly static sensation, but one that was as welcoming as a warm blanket. It was almost eerie in its stillness, yet it held a quiet power, like a snake waiting for a mouse to wander too close.
Pulling it to me, that icy power grew and grew until it was all I could see in my mind's eye. It stretched before me as a vast, black ocean, fathomless in its depth. This was it: my necromantic magic.
I knew it instinctively as a snow goose knows which way is north. Liam had told me that genera magics were stored in a mage's body, so this must be where the necromancy pools in my soul.
Peering into the dark water, I saw another version of myself reflected there. While she had the same face and hair as me, her skin was as white as snow and her lips were a glossy cherry red. What differed the most between the two of us were her eyes: her hazel eyes were ancient in their wisdom and knowledge, yet youthful in their promise of mischief. As though from another side of a mirror, I saw her reach her hands into the water. Those foreign eyes slid shut in ecstasy as the black water rippled around her wrists. Lazily, her eyes slowly opened and she let out a breath. The other-me's gaze focused on my own for a brief moment. A knowing smile spread across her lips as she faded away into the water like a mirage.
Following her lead, I dipped my hands into that power and felt its comforting ice slither through my veins. It ran through me, electrifying me until I was nearly vibrating with power. It permeated my every pore and filled me with a sense of satisfaction so intense that I almost wanted to stay there in the cold darkness. But I couldn't leave my loved ones, not when they needed me now.
The thought of my family and Lexie brought back to mind my original task. I needed to bring a chicken back from the dead. This power I could use to raise the rooster. Somehow, I knew that it wouldn't take much— just touching him with a single drop would be enough to bring him back.
Opening my eyes, I saw him laying in a pool of his own blood. I reached for him with my still-bleeding left hand, imbued with the power in that black water. I touched his soft feathers, the blood oozing from my hand mingling with his, and he jolted upwards as though he'd been kicked.
I watched, stunned, as he jolted to his feet and began to cluck and scurry wildly through the field. He ran around aimlessly, weaving between Grandma, Liam and Lexie— all of whom were just as surprised as me.
My vision started to go dark around the edges and the world seemed to tilt back and forth. As he zipped past me for the third time, I muttered for him to stop. The last thing I saw before the world went black was the little rooster coming to a skidding stop directly in front of me and staring at me with cloudy golden eyes.
10
A firm hand shook my shoulder.
“Wake up,” Liam insisted, a note of fear tinging his voice.
Slowly, I came aware to a throbbing ache in my head. I opened my eyes to see the world as a spinning, colorful blur. Groaning loudly, I closed them again.
One, I could handle, but two was just too much. So I lay there on the cool Earth and felt it spinning as I tried to regain my bearings.
“What happened?” I asked, slurring my speech a little. That was concerning.
Liam answered, “You passed out. As long as it's not permanent, it's all right. It's been known to happen when a mage casts a spell that was a bit too strong.”
I furrowed my brow and opened my eyes again to see that the world was now stable. I looked to Liam. “But I brought back Lexie, so a chicken should be easy, right?”
Liam nodded his head from side to side in a noncommittal gesture. “True, but that was accidental. You did that subconsciously. This was conscious. Speaking of, Lexie and the rooster both blacked out when you did.”
A spike of fear jabbed through my mind and I tried to sit up to see if Lexie had died again. But how would I be able to check? She had no heartbeat and only breathed if she wanted to say something. I only got a few inches off the ground before Liam's hand pressed me back onto the ground.
“Just stay down. Your grandma is coming with some food to help you perk back up.”
“But Lexie—”
“Will be fine. If she's your familiar, the best thing you can do for her is to take care of yourself. You might try to internalize her, though; there are a few crows eying her from the edge of the woods.”
I cringed a little at his blunt words. Lexie may be a zombie, but she wasn't just a hunk of dead meat. Still, the crows couldn't make that differentiation, so I needed to protect her from the carrion-eaters. “Internalize?”
“Yes, mages can— for lack of a better term— 'absorb' their familiars into their bodies to protect them, feed them magic, or keep them out of the way,” Liam explained. “They show up as tattoos on a mage's skin, like an inked weapon. Do you remember the tattoo on my back of the big black dog? He's my familiar, Hati. I keep him internalized when I don't need his help or we're away from home.”
For some reason, it was strange to hear him say the word “home”. I knew he technically had to live somewhere, but hearing him say that word added a new dimension to him in my mind. Until now, Liam had been my friend, ally, teacher, and guardian, but I'd never thought of
who he might be on his own. I didn't know much about him other than that he was a law enforcement officer for the Pax— “venator”, Grandma called him— and now I knew he was a dog person, but that was about it.
“How do I do it?” I asked, bringing my mind back on topic.
“I call him back to me, but you aren't a traditional mage. If you cast through your emotions, I'd think it would take some kind of strong feeling to bring her into you. The first time, Lexie vanished in your arms when you wanted to protect her from a wendigo, so you've done it once before,” he reminded me encouragingly.
The sound of the crows cawing anxiously from their perches dropped an icy stone in my gut. She couldn't be left out any longer. I tried to get up again, but with a single hand, Liam kept me on the ground.
He stood up abruptly and without any warning, scooped me up into his arms. “You shouldn't try to walk, yet,” he explained in a gruff, brusque voice.
He carried me across the field to where Lexie was unconscious and sitting leaned against a large oak tree. His hands were warm and firm where they were easily supporting my weight on my ribs and thigh. My head lolled against his chest, my cheek coming to rest against the soft fleece of the same black pullover he'd worn last night. His scent of cedar and old leather filled my lungs, making me want to stay exactly where I was.
All too soon, he set me down on the slightly damp ground, leaning me against the tree next to Lexie. I mourned a little when he pulled his hands back.
As if to remind me, Liam said, “Try to pull her into you before the crows set in on her.”
The image of crows picking the flesh from her body nauseated me and I turned to give him a sour look. He held up his hands in a gesture of light-hearted surrender.
Looking over to Lexie, I saw that her color was even more pale than normal. When she was alive, she had always had a more milky skin tone, but there'd always been a blush of color to her cheeks. Since I brought her back to life, her skin reminded me of a dead body at a wake. She put on some of Grandma's old makeup that she'd left in the apartment to mask her pallor, but she still had an unnaturally wan appearance. Now that she wasn't moving, she looked as dead as she truly was.
I reached for her cold, limp hand and took it in my own. The sounds of the crows fluttering in the trees helped to fuel my fear, spurring my instinctive need to protect her. I imagined her safely hidden beneath my skin, out of sight of the lurking birds. Soon, my hand began to tingle faintly. The pins-and-needles sensation became stronger and concentrated into a single spot, which traveled up my arm, down my side, and coming to a halt on the outside of my right calf.
“Good job,” Liam praised.
The sound of his voice pierced through my focused state and prompted me to open my eyes. Lexie was gone.
“You should be able to see her as a tattoo somewhere on your body. Since I didn't see her on your torso while we were in the pit, I'd wager she's somewhere on your lower half.”
He said that so casually, as though being tossed into a cell and being forced into life-or-death cage fights was so run of the mill.
I pulled up the hem of my jeans on my right side to where that tingling sensation had settled. Sure enough, there was Lexie, grinning from ear-to-ear with her blond bob blowing in the wind and posed like a classic pin-up girl: she wore her favorite red and white polka dot dress and matching red heels as she arched upward like a cat, reaching for my knee with her fingers splayed like little claws, from a kneeling position.
“And there she is,” Liam stated, approval in his tone.
The sound of a car approaching down the gravel road set Liam on edge. He was clearly trying to be subtle about it, but I could see that he moved his left hand to where his sword was inked into his right wrist and his eyes were glued to the opening of the field.
Grandma's rental car appeared through the trees, but Liam remained tense and poised to attack until he saw that it truly was her who stepped out. She carried a large plastic bag in one hand, tented at the bottom like there was a big, flat box in it and a cardboard beverage carrier in the other with three steaming paper mugs. It seemed odd that there were only three mugs between four people, but then I reminded myself that Lexie didn't eat food anymore. It would take a while to get used to that.
“I brought donuts from Ma's Bakery!” she exclaimed cheerfully.
At the mention of my favorite donuts, my stomach gave an embarrassingly loud growl. And just like that, I was suddenly starving even though I'd eaten breakfast only a few hours ago.
Grandma smiled as she sat down with us under the tree. “I didn't think the granola bars and beef jerky I brought from Winnie's would be enough to recover from passing out.”
She patted my knee and passed me a mug of piping hot cocoa. She passed Liam another, and by the scent that was wafting from it, it was black coffee. As the owner of a coffee shop, I'd seen a lot of people and their orders and long ago came to realize that a person's coffee preference frequently correlates with their personality. People who order their coffee black are usually old-school purists, minimalists, very set in their ways, patient for their order, and keep to themselves. I didn't know much about Liam so far, but what I did know matched up with his coffee.
Grandma noticed Lexie on my leg and smiled. She opened the box of donuts and set it in the middle. I reached for a chocolate-and-sprinkle-coated, Bavarian cream and was in instant heaven.
“I love my homeland and missed it dearly while I was here, but boy, did I miss donuts when I went home to Wales.” Grandma grinned from around a mouthful of Boston Creme. “In all my years, I've never encountered any group of people who took their donuts as seriously as New Englanders.” She shrugged. “But hey, we have our pics in Wales that you can't even find here.”
That made me smile as I sipped my cocoa. The more sugary goodness I ate and drank, the more my body started to come alive again, like a droopy plant given water. By my fourth donut, I was stuffed and back to normal again.
“You can probably let Lexie back out now that you're fed and rested,” Grandma said, pointing to my still-exposed leg. I hadn't felt right pulling the pant leg down for fear that she would be stuck staring at the inside of my jeans. I would have to ask her about what the inside of my leg is like.
I stopped myself from asking how again, since I knew exactly what they would say:
“Well, we do it this way, but since you're an emotional oddball, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.”
I remembered back to the last time I brought Lexie out of my skin, back in that forest in Norway, after I'd escaped from Octavius' castle. I was terrified, in agony, and wished to have my friend back. I couldn't force the former two feelings, but the latter I could do. A focused desire for Lexie's presence brought that stinging sensation back into my leg. Before I knew it, Lexie was sitting next to me again.
She looked around, confused, “What happened?”
Liam explained about how we both passed out at the same time and about familiars being brought into a mage.
When he finished, Lexie turned to me with a somber expression and grabbed my hands. She managed to get as far as, “I was inside you,” before bursting into a fit of giggles. Her laughter was always contagious and roped Grandma and I into it. Liam sat silently and just watched us like we were huffing the wrong paint.
“Not to be a stick in the mud, but we've only got about an hour or so left before we have to head back,” Liam interrupted, “Constance, we need to fit in a quick sparring lesson.” He stood up and held his hand down, offering to help me up.
I placed my hand in his and with one swift, effortless motion, he tugged me to my feet. He pulled a little too hard, making me loose my balance and have to catch myself by placing my hands on his chest. Beneath my fingertips, I could feel his lean, carved muscles flex through his sweater.
Grandma coughed politely. “I'll take you over here, Lexie. You may not have magic, but there are still some things you need to know.” Herding Lexie into the center of
the field, Grandma left Liam and I standing alone under the tree.
I stepped back, finding that my legs were still a little wobbly, but otherwise stable.
“There is no way that I can teach you everything you need to know in an hour about fighting at the Eight's level. I've been a soldier since King Henry the Eighth ascended to the throne—” Liam smiled at the shocked look on my face. Looking at him, I wouldn't have guessed he was over thirty. “—and I still am not on equal footing as them. What I can do to help you for now is to develop your casting abilities in the context of a battle. Right now, those and your virtual indestructibility are all you've got going for you.”
“Harsh.” I shrugged, even though I agreed with him. I may have all of this powerful magic, but I still had very little clue on how to use it.
“But true. You have virtually no skills right now. If you can develop your emotion-based casting, it can be an enormous asset.”
“How so?” I asked. All having a weird method for casting has brought me so far is confusion and spotty results.
“From the time we're tots, all mages go through spelling school. All over the world, every mage child learns spelling and casting through the same, time-tested techniques that are culturally ingrained in us from the time we're born. You grew up completely outside the system, so you exist entirely beyond the box that all mages are raised in. The pro of this is that it can make you very unpredictable in a fight, so your opponent won't be able to block as many of your attacks, since they won't be able to tell what you're doing. The con, however, is a huge one: emotions can be very dangerous in mortal combat. Emotions and stress are a bad combination that leads to irrational decisions, which can be the kiss of death in a fight.”
I nodded. What he said made sense. It would probably be more difficult to learn, since I didn't have anyone like me to teach me. If I could master this by myself, it could be a big advantage— perhaps my only one. “So what do we do now?”
Duo (Stone Mage Saga Book 2) Page 10