Duo (Stone Mage Saga Book 2)

by Raven Whitney

  “Something threw us off the road,” Lexie explained, her eyes darting around wildly.

  The moment she said those words, a shot of fear tore through my veins. Adrenaline coursed through my body and dulled the throbbing ache in my face and the screaming in my bones. I had to get to my feet. I couldn't fight anyone on the ground.

  Using the wreckage of the car, I pulled myself up. Standing, I could see that Liam and Grandma were standing guard, poised to attack on either side of the overturned car, watching the edge of the trees like hawks. I turned in place, getting a three hundred sixty degree view of our surroundings: we were on the side of the road, with forest about fifty feet away from each side. There was nobody else here.

  Before I could ask, Liam said with his back still turned away from me, “Duo likes to attack from distant hiding spots, camouflaged under a glamour while he toys with his victims to death. Look for anything out of the ordinary.”

  Helping Lexie to her feet, I noticed one of her ankles was at an off angle. Wrapping one hand around her waist, I supported her.

  We both examined the forest, scrutinizing every branch until Lexie muttered, “The rock.” She inhaled sharply and pointed across the road, shouting to Liam, “That rock over there! It wasn't there yesterday!”

  Liam's head snapped around to look at the ordinary-looking boulder sticking out of the ground forty feet away. His eyes now glued to that rock, he drew his sword from his forearm. Grandma held up her hand and gave Liam a sideways glance, halting him.

  She reached into her jacket and pulled out a large fireball orb. Palming it, she flung it at the rock. It sailed through the air, perfectly on course to strike it, until a giant hand made of sand emerged from the ground and caught it midair. The sand completely engulfed the orb and crushed it. It detonated within the hand, causing the sand to twitch slightly as flaming, red liquid oozed onto the ground from between the grains.

  “You guard them,” Liam ordered, his voice going dangerously low and his eyes fixated on that boulder. He sank back on the balls of his feet like a cat preparing to launch.

  From a standstill, he leaped into the air, covering the entire distance in a single bound. His sword down-thrust, he tried to stab the rock using the momentum of his body.

  Again, the sand rose up from the ground in a half dome over the rock. Liam's sword didn't penetrate even an inch, the blow backfiring as the hilt slammed into his ribs. Even from where I was ducked behind the car, I could hear the air whoosh from his lungs. At least two of his ribs had to be broken, but he remained stoic.

  In slow motion, I saw tendrils of that sand reach out from the dome to wrap themselves around his sword and one of his ankles. The line around his ankle whipped out, sending him flying over our heads. A mighty crack sounded from behind us as he crashed into the trunk of a thick oak tree. From the way his head lolled, he looked to be unconscious as he lay embedded several inches into the wood. Blood dribbled down the splinters onto the ground below.

  Behind me, I heard a deep, raspy voice, tinged with a faint German accent, lazily drawl, “Is that all you have to give, Nine of Swords? I expected better of a Card.”

  At his words, Grandma took in a breath of awe and glanced back to Liam, who was now beginning to stir. She pulled out another potion orb from her jacket— filled with a pale pink this time— and rolled it across the ground to him.

  Lexie gasped at something behind us. I turned my attentions back to the rock to see it morphing into a man. This must be Duo.

  He wasn't a very large man, not at all what I was expecting from the way Liam spoke of him. He was of average height and a middling musculature from what I could make out under his knee-length, coal-colored trench coat. A weighty gold medallion hung from a leather cord around his neck, carved with more of the same script as was on Liam's back. His hair was the drab color of the sand that fluttered around him and was trimmed short around his face. His features were equally plain: broad cheekbones, a narrow jawline, thin lips, and a long, beak-like nose. It was only his soulless brown eyes that revealed him for what he was.

  Standing with all the stillness of the dead, he drawled with his expressionless face, “I hope you aren't finished already. I am in sore need of amusement.”

  Liam coughed, the sound wet and strained, as he extricated himself from the trunk. Without thinking, I rushed forward to help him. Something cool and gritty immediately shackled my ankle. Looking down, I saw that the sand had ensnared Lexie, Grandma, and me. We were immobilized.

  “Now, now, ladies,” Duo chided in his gravelly, monotonous voice. “Do not be so impatient. Your turn is coming.”

  His words sent a chill down my spine and I looked back to see his blank eyes staring directly at me. He might not kill me himself, but he would take me to Octavius.

  I reached for Lexie, intending to draw her back into my skin. If kidnapping and torture were on today's itinerary, there was no way I'd let her go through it, too.

  She slapped my hand away. “You do not get to keep me out of this. You are not leaving me behind.”

  I dropped my hand. She was terrified of being left behind, but having your skin flayed off was worse. If things got worse, I'd take her in kicking and screaming, but I would respect her wishes for now.

  Liam landed on the ground below and seized at the pink orb Grandma had sent him. He tilted his head back, held it over his mouth, and crushed the orb in his palm. Drinking it in, he almost instantly began to revive. Rage twisted his normally handsome features. He stood up and without flinching, pulled a large splinter from his lower back.

  Liam charged at Duo, zig-zagging across the gap between them, dodging the tentacle-like projections of sand that lashed at him. He attacked with nothing but his bare hands, punching, kicking, and jabbing. Liam moved sinuously around Duo, nearly dancing around the vicious tendrils of sand that continually stabbed at him. All the while, Duo remained perfectly still, not even turning his head or looking at Liam.

  Neither one could land a blow on the other. Every one of Liam's hits got blocked by the sand. Each lash of Duo's sand missed Liam as he leaped and twisted around more fluidly than a gymnast. Aside from his physical blows, Liam must have been attacking with his magic, as well. Impact craters and claw marks gashed into the sand, but they never reached Duo.

  After a minute of this stand-off, Duo finally declared, “I grow tired of this.”

  The next time Liam struck at Duo, instead of merely rebuffing his attack, the sand began to absorb his arm. Liam tried repeatedly to jerk his arm out, but the sand continued to slowly engulf his left forearm.

  “Break,” Duo said.

  At that, the sand around Liam's arm imploded and he howled in pain. The sand dropped away, revealing an almost unrecognizable mass of bloody, pulped flesh. Liam stumbled back and fumbled with his belt with his right hand. Clumsily, he wrapped the belt around his upper left arm and cinched it tight with his teeth. His growl of pain reached all the way to where we huddled behind the car.

  Duo simply stood there as Liam applied the makeshift tourniquet, watching with an eerie focus. His stillness was broken when he began to vibrate and his entire body shot through with tension. In a slow, jerky motion, he turned his head toward me. His face contorted like he had tetanus, flickering between agony and rage before settling into the latter, though his eyes still twitched.

  He stammered incoherently, struggling to form a word. “H-h-hil-hilf—” His head began to shake violently. “—M-m-mir.…”

  Liam panted as he struggled to recover and struck out again with a roundhouse kick. That drew his attention back to Liam.

  I was in awe of him. Even as massively injured as he was, he still kept fighting to protect us.

  Grandma cursed and turned to Lexie. “Can you reach the duffel bags in the back?”

  Lexie, who was standing behind what was left of the rear of the car, knelt on the ground and tried to reach through the shattered glass of the side rear window. She stretched as far as she could with the s
and holding her back, but the framing of the car was smashed and all she could fit inside the window was her arm.

  “I can't get it. It's on the other side,” she replied, pulling her arm back out and standing again.

  Grandma dug around frantically inside her jacket and made a frustrated noise when she didn't find what she was looking for. She reached in her pockets, ran her fingers over her charm bracelet and finally pulled her shirt up to reveal a belt across the tucked point in her waist. She finally found a small corked vial filled with a grayish white liquid. She popped the cork and poured the thick goo into her hand. She closed her fist and flexed her fingers to roll the liquid around in her palm.

  Kneeling, she cast her open hand at the opening in the back window. A long rope of sticky, white stuff shot out of her palm and into the back of the car like she was Spiderwoman. Reeling in the line, she pulled the heavy bag out through the window.

  A sharp bark of pain brought my attention back to Liam, whose shattered arm still dangled limply at his side. One of the sand arms had run him through the stomach. He hunched over, clutching at something dark with his one working hand.

  Liam jumped back and began to chant something, repeating a single phrase over and over again. Wind began to whip around him, growing stronger with his every word until he released it. A gale blasted forth from Liam, so powerful that it ripped the grass from the ground, snapped and toppled the trees in front of him, and knocked over the power line. Duo's sand formed another dome around him before the wind struck. As the mighty zephyr bowled over him, the sand began to peel away in grains and chunks.

  It wasn't enough. Liam collapsed onto one knee before it could rip away Duo's shield.

  Grandma started to sing in Welsh over a large mortar with ground up plants in it. As she sang, she daubed the contents of the bowl over the arm of sand around her ankle. It fell away as she flung the rest of the soupy liquid onto Lexie's and my ankles.

  As if he could sense what we were up to, Duo calmly turned his head to us, assessing our actions with his dead eyes.

  “Run!” she commanded. We immediately obeyed, bolting for the forest. It occurred to me from somewhere through my panicked haze that hiding in the woods wasn't going to deter a monster like this, but we had to move no matter how slim the odds. I couldn't help but look over my shoulder. We couldn't just leave them.

  Grandma threw her fireballs at him, but it was pointless. Each one was eaten up by the sand before it ever reached him.

  “Get them out of here!” Grandma yelled to Liam. He gave her a sharp nod and ran for us, circling around behind Grandma, but he was still a long way off and was limping.

  Somewhere just ahead, there was a dead dog on the side of the road. I remembered seeing it on the way in and saying a prayer for it. If ever there was a time for this necromancy thing to be useful, it was now.

  I spotted the dark shape ahead and dove onto it, willing the dog back to life. Almost immediately, the large black hound clamored to its feet and shook its head, sending chunks of flesh and bugs flying.

  Without thinking, I pointed to Duo and shouted “Go! Attack!”

  At my command, the beast hurdled forward like a four-legged missile, snarling as much as it could with its decayed windpipe.

  Before it reached Duo, Liam reached us. He scooped Lexie and me into his good arm and we were all whisked off of the ground, flying on a powerful current of air. We ascended, rapidly reaching the treetops. It wasn't three seconds before I heard the poor dog screaming piteously as the sands ripped it apart.

  “Wait!” I struggled against his firm hold on my arm. “What about Grandma?”

  Liam remained silent, his face burning with intent as he struggled to keep the three of us aloft.

  Comprehension sunk in.

  “No!” I screamed and thrashed, calling out for her. I turned around, desperately trying to get to her. Even if I jumped, I would break both of my legs from this height. All I could do was watch, helpless.

  They grew more and more distant every second, but I could still see her. She continued to throw orb after orb of fire, walking into the road to stand a few feet from where Duo stood on the other side. Nothing did any good. The sand reached up from the ground, wrapping itself around her leg and imploded over her thigh as it did with Liam's arm.

  Her ear-splitting shriek of agony tore through my chest like a knife. She fell to the ground, still trying to support herself with her three other limbs as she looked up at him. A blade of sand formed from the same tendril that took her leg and dropped downward like a guillotine. Grandma's head rolled across the road and blood pooled on the asphalt.

  The bastard hadn't taken a single step until now. He began to walk to her, his motions jerky and hesitant. He reached her and looked down at her head. Even though he hadn't sustained a single scratch, he dropped to his knees as if he couldn't hold himself up anymore. He hunched over her and pulled her head into his lap, cradling it. Throwing his head back, he bellowed a mournful cry and pounded his fist into the pavement.

  His actions were a slap in the face, acid poured in a wound that he himself had caused. He acted as though he was grieving, but what could a soulless assassin know about grief? What right did he have to mourn her? She was my grandmother and he didn't even know her.

  Rage began to boil in my stomach. She shouldn't have died. This was all my fault: for bringing that monstrosity into our lives, for not being strong enough to protect my family. What good was all of this supposed power if I couldn't even figure out how to use it?

  Soon, the familiar numbness of shock settled over me, making me feel empty inside. Lexie hugged me against her cool chest as we flew shakily over the rooftops of Newport. I didn't even know or care whether or not we were visible to the general public. Before I knew it, we touched down on a balcony at Liam's hotel.

  As soon as our feet hit the tile, Liam stumbled and nearly fell face-first into the wall. Lexie released me to catch him. She tucked her arm under the shoulder of his good arm.

  “Get the door,” she gestured to the set of French doors in front of us that would lead us inside. In Liam's current stupor, I could only hope that he brought us to the right room. It would be a very difficult situation if we suddenly appeared on some normal person's balcony covered in blood, dirt, and sweat with a man missing an arm.

  “Are you sure this is the right room?” I asked as I pushed the doors open to the sumptuous suite.

  He nodded, “Red towel.”

  Towel?

  Lexie and Liam trudged inside. The suite was identical to ours and as we didn't leave anything identifying in the common room, it was impossible to tell if it was ours.

  A trail of blood dribbled from Liam's ruined arm. A towel would be a good idea right now to staunch the bleeding, no matter what color it was.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a red towel hanging over a wicker chair on the next balcony over. A feeling of unease churned in my stomach as I raced to Lexie's and my bedroom to confirm my sinking suspicion: our suitcase wasn't there.

  “Liam,” I called out to him, my voice shaking just a little. “We're in the wrong room!”

  13

  Walking into the other bedroom, I saw him passed out on the single king-sized bed, probably from blood loss and exhaustion.

  Lexie turned her head to me, shock and disbelief on her face, “What?”

  “Our suitcase is gone.”

  “Maybe your grandma grabbed it earlier,” she argued, though judging from her tone, she didn't believe it.

  “And there's lipstick on the counter in the bathroom.”

  Her voice rising, she offered, “He could have had a lady friend over at some point and we just didn't notice it earlier?”

  That couldn't be right. Surely we would have noticed a tube of lipstick on our bathroom counter. And Liam wouldn't have had a woman over while we were here. It wasn't just that I didn't like the thought of Liam having a… lady friend. He wasn't the kind of man who had casual sex. He just w
asn't.

  I went back into what would be our room if this was his bedroom and opened drawers, finding them packed with clothes. We never unpacked our suitcase. I went back out and presented her with a pale pink, floral muumuu.

  Holding it up for her to see, I choked, “This isn't Liam's room.”

  Lexie's blue eyes were wide enough that they were framed by the whites. She let out a string of swear words to make a sailor blush and asked the obvious question, “What the hell do we do now?”

  “Move him?” I held up my hands in the universal gesture of cluelessness.

  “How? Lug him through the hall?” she questioned, her fear making her sarcastic.

  A gentle knock sounded at the door and a woman's voice announced, “Housekeeping,” from the other side of the door.

  Lexie gave another flurry of curse words as she jumped up from the bed. “Now what the hell do we do?” she whispered frantically.

  “Bathroom,” I offered.

  “She'll get there eventually,” she retorted, running her hands through her hair as she paced in front of me.

  Forgetting my volume in a eureka moment, I exclaimed, “Balcony!”

  Lexie shushed me impatiently and ran to Liam to pick him up all by herself, tossing him over her shoulder in a fireman's hold. My shock froze me for a moment.

  “So I'm a bit stronger now that I'm dead,” she answered, shrugging the shoulder without two hundred plus pounds of man on it self-consciously. “Now let's go,” she urged, shoving me out the still-open door with her off-foot.

  No sooner had we ducked to the side of the balcony doors and out of sight, did the door click open.

  “Mrs. Hobart?” the maid inquired gently as she entered, the poor woman's voice growing terrified as she saw the blood all over the carpet and bed.

  She walked around the room, likely looking for the occupants. It wouldn't be long before she checked outside. We had to get out of there.

  The balcony next door— which I was assuming was Liam's— was an eight foot jump over a five story fall onto a concrete patio below.