Duo (Stone Mage Saga Book 2)

by Raven Whitney

  “Can you make that jump with him?” I asked under my breath.

  She shook her head and whispered, “I don't think so, but I don't know for sure. This is all still pretty new.”

  I chewed on my lip, debating silently. How would we get across before the maid found us? The only way was by magic, but how? I managed to blast Lexie up from the cliff yesterday, but that was only one person. Was I strong enough to carry us all over?

  The maid came out of the bathroom and was walking toward us. There was no time to second guess. I would have to be strong enough. The rush of adrenaline fueled me. Thinking of Liam and what he did, I pulled the air around our feet into a rapid torrent and pushed us off the ground in a single, powerful gust.

  My focus broke once we were thrust into the air. The railing of the other balcony rushed closer and all I could do was pray our trajectory would carry us there.

  We crashed hard onto the tile. My ankle snagged on the railing, sending my face onto the slate tiles. Lexie landed hard on her rump with a loud oomph. I had no clue how Liam had fared, but since he was still out, I assumed that he hadn't sustained any more damage.

  I scrambled to my feet and grabbed Lexie to try to pull her to her feet, but a gasp from behind me had me whipping around to face the source of the sound. We were busted.

  On the other balcony, a blonde woman in her forties stood aghast in a khaki uniform. “Oh my God!” she cried out, her hands flying to her mouth.

  Panicking, I threw my arms out, palms facing her. “There's nobody here!”

  For an all-too-long moment, her face was frozen. Then her expression shifted to one of confusion and she squeezed her eyes closed like her head hurt. I felt guilty for any pain I was causing her, but it was unavoidable. We could not get caught.

  I repeated myself, mentally “pushing” at her with all of my will.

  She opened her eyes and examined the area where we were standing, but there was a blankness in her gaze, an absence of recognition.

  “There's nothing interesting over here,” Lexie said as the maid rubbed her temples and shuffled back inside.

  “Mrs. Hobart?” she repeated, the bloody room scaring her all over again.

  “Wow,” Lexie commented, surprised. “I knew you were telepathic, but that was full on Obi-Wan.” She opened the door to what was hopefully Liam's room this time.

  “It's weird is what it is. This magic thing seems to be pretty sporadic about when it wants to work.” While Lexie laid Liam's bloody, unconscious body on the snow white sofa, I went into the bathroom to collect some more towels for his arm and stomach.

  “You can heal people, too, right?” she asked as I set down a pile of crisp, white towels next to them on the coffee table.

  I nodded. “I've done it before and I'm going to try it again on him. I just hope it works. We're alone in this without Liam.” My words brought back to mind that Grandma was gone. My throat began to close up and my eyes stung at the thought that I would never see her again, but I couldn't afford to dwell on that now. Wasting time dawdling on feelings would get us killed.

  I cleared my throat and sat on the coffee table next to him. He looked so peaceful. When he was awake, he always looked just a little weary. It was subtle, like he was good at hiding his true emotions. But it was there, hiding in the weight behind his eyes, the lines around his mouth, the hard set of his square jaw. Unconscious, he looked more youthful and almost happy with the relaxed, near-smile on his pale pink lips.

  Reminding myself of the terrible pain and blood loss he must be suffering from to have passed out, I snapped myself out of it. Last time I healed Liam, it was in the pits when I fixed the same arm of a break. This was more than just a broken bone: his entire left arm below his elbow was hamburger meat. The remaining flesh and skin were pulped and clinging loosely to the white bits of bone that shone through all the red.

  Not to mention the grapefruit-sized hole in the upper right part of his stomach. Lexie had packed it with a white towel that I was hoping was as clean as it had looked, but it was now soppy and solid red. I wasn't sure whether or not to remove it since, even though it was saturated, it might be blocking further bleeding. But I couldn't heal the hole over the towel— if I even could fix it.

  Liam had told me that decapitation was the only way to truly kill most Paxians and that mages naturally healed much more quickly than humans did. So even if I failed, he wouldn't die… unless Duo found us.

  I turned to Lexie. “I need you to watch the wound in his stomach. If it starts to look like the skin is mending, pull the towel out.”

  She nodded.

  Last time I healed a serious wound like this successfully, I did it by putting my hands over his injuries and focusing on healing him. Copying what I did previously, I breathed slowly and pictured Liam's body whole again. I thought about how much Lexie and I needed him alive.

  My fingertips began to warm and tingle. Soon, the sensation spread over both of my palms and I settled into an almost meditative state. Of their own accord, my hands moved slowly over his body, though I was only distantly aware of it.

  A rough, hacking sound jerked me out of my Zen. Blinking to bring my eyes back into focus, I saw that Liam was sitting up and staring right at me. It was an unusual mix of emotions I saw reflected in those steely gray depths: gratefulness, pity, heat.

  “Thanks,” he croaked as he held himself off the now wet, sticky couch with his newly whole left arm. Aside from still being covered in drying blood, it looked as good as new. The same was true of the hole in his stomach.

  “What's our next move?” Lexie asked quietly.

  Liam ran his hand over his face as an unconscious gesture, leaving more streaks of blood. He exhaled heavily before saying, “The first thing we need to do is call for a cleanup. Then, we get the hell out of here.”

  “Cleanup?” Lexie inquired. It was a term he'd mentioned before, but had never explained. The room was a mess, but now was not the time for maids.

  “This room will need to be cleaned of blood. And the battleground will have to be… cleaned up, as well.” He stood up and crossed into his bedroom to the dresser. He grabbed a cheap-looking disposable cell phone out of one of the drawers and dialed it. Lexie chimed in that the room next door needed to be cleaned up, too.

  Cleaned up.

  That stretch of road was certainly a messier place than it was when we drove through there yesterday. Several trees were felled in the battle and one got a huge crater in it from Liam's body. I'm sure there were people who were wondering why their power went out. The road was buckled in a few places from where Duo had tossed the car. Unless he took her with him, Grandma's body would still be there. Her blood was probably still wet on the pavement. Yes, that area would need to cleaned up if we didn't want the police interfering.

  Liam responded to something the man said, bringing me out of my head, but couldn't make out what he was saying. A moment later, he said something else, louder this time. He was speaking in Latin, so I had no idea what they were discussing. Their conversation carried on for about two minutes. Though I couldn't parse their words, it sounded cold and professional.

  He hung up and put his phone down on the dresser. Turning to face us, he said, “The plan is that tomorrow morning before dawn, you two are being evacuated. By order of the Pax, you've been placed in my custody until we arrive at the base in Istanbul.”

  “Custody?” I repeated, my voice rising just a little. “Istanbul? We don't even have our passports! We had to be smuggled back into the country from our last international excursion. If the Baxters didn't keep such questionable business associates, we'd still be stuck in the middle of nowhere Norway!”

  “You can relax; you aren't being arrested. You've been placed in protective custody. It's my job to guard you two until we can get you to headquarters.” Liam put his blood-smeared hands up and spoke in a calming tone, like I was about to flip my lid or something, which just ticked me off.

  “And we don't get a say in
this? We're just going to get whisked away from the only home we've ever known—”

  “For your own protection,” Liam interrupted, his tone brusque and harsh. “You're being moved away from here for the safety of yourselves and your families. Until now, Duo has been toying with you, trying to scare you to get you out of hiding. If that stops working, he's going to take your loved ones as hostages and start killing them off until you surrender. Then you go back to Octavius.”

  That took the wind out of my sails.

  “Now heal yourself and Lexie. You two look like death warmed over,” he grumbled as he turned to walk into his bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Moments later, the water started running in the marble shower.

  “Asshole.” Lexie shot the back of the door a dirty look. She put her hand on my shoulder. “He has a point, though. We can't run around with all of these broken bones. Are you up to fixing us?”

  Wordlessly, I turned around on the coffee table to face the other sofa where Lexie sat and leaned down to put my hands on her ankle, which was still at an odd angle.

  She blocked me, saying, “Do yourself first. The entire right side of your face looks like a gorilla went all Gallagher on it.”

  I glanced in the mirror on the wall over the desk to see that Lexie was right: everything below my right eye was severely swollen and displayed almost every color of the rainbow. Unable to help myself, I raised my fingertips to touch it. Only when I put my hand on it did it start to ache and throb as badly as it looked. Hissing, I pulled my hand away.

  “Shock,” Lexie murmured sympathetically as she rubbed her hand on my arm in a supportive gesture.

  I nodded, certain that she was correct. I hardly felt what was certainly a broken bone in my cheek and all of the small, deep cuts covering my body from the broken glass until just now— not to mention the lack of grief and pain of losing my Grandma.

  Even though I knew shock was a legitimate medical condition after experiencing something traumatic, I found myself feeling guilty that I wasn't grieving for her like I should be, almost like I was a bad granddaughter. I couldn't even look myself in the eyes through the mirror, not because of how scary half of my face looked, but because I was numb.

  Exhaling a shaky breath, I focused the healing magic into my hands and held them over my cheek. The warmth of hot bath water, prickles that felt as though they were stinging and tingling at the same time, and the indescribable feeling of liquid rushing through my tissue told me that it was working.

  Still not wanting to look at myself, I asked Lexie, “All better?”

  “Yeah,” she nodded. “Though it was more impressive to watch Liam's entire arm grow back.”

  “I live to please,” I griped. Dropping the sarcasm from my voice, I reached for her ankle. “Now it's your turn.”

  She pulled her leg away.

  “You aren't finished,” she protested.

  “I am for now.”

  “Finish up with yourself first. I'm not in much pain. Things just don't hurt like they did when I was alive.”

  “I got my big one done; all I have left are some little cuts and bruises that don't even hurt. You, on the other hand, have a broken ankle, your voice sounds like there's something wet in it, and who knows what else. Besides, what if I run out of healing magic before I can get to you? You're next,” I asserted, not giving an inch.

  She gave me a sour look, knowing that she wasn't going to win this one, and put her leg back within my reach.

  Pulling it into my lap, I called the healing magic back into my palms and held them over her ankle. After a while, I noticed that while I could feel that the magic was there in my hands, they weren't tingling like they normally did. I opened my eyes to see that her ankle was still not normal.

  “Huh,” Lexie remarked. “Are you out of magic?”

  I shook my head. “No, I could feel it in my hands, but it didn't do anything.”

  Lexie was quiet for a few seconds as she thought about it. “Maybe it's because I'm dead.”

  “That makes sense. But what do we do, then, if I can't heal you? It's not safe for you to be injured right now.”

  “You could try your necromancy.”

  I exhaled a breath and ran my fingers through my hair. Something snagged in my scalp like I'd pulled a scab and I felt more hot blood begin to dribble down my head. I said, “I'll try, but no guarantees. It hasn't been the most reliable power so far.”

  Hovering my hands over her ankle again, I tried to reignite that cool sensation of necromancy. I focused as hard as I could, remembering everything I felt when I raised the rooster. Soon, that cold energy began to trickle through my body. I tried to pour it into Lexie, but it stalled in my palms. Several minutes must have passed before a persistent tickling in my face brought me back to reality.

  A drop of blood dripped down my face and landed on Lexie's ankle. It slowly twisted back to a natural angle, making sick crackling noises at it moved.

  “Did my…?” I couldn't even finish the question it sounded so silly.

  “Try some more.”

  I wiped some of the blood from my scalp and smeared it onto her ribs where they were obviously broken. The loose skin over those ribs tightened, like it was getting support from underneath.

  In a surprised, but now perfectly clear voice, Lexie responded, “Nothing happened until you got blood on me.”

  I looked up at her to see that all of her cuts were gone. Pointing at her, I told her to look in the mirror.

  “Wow,” she breathed in awe. “Everything is fixed.”

  “Maybe my blood is the key to this whole necromancy thing. If you think about it, every time I raised a zombie or did anything else, I was bleeding: when I raised you, that dog, the chicken, the pit skulls, even when I raised Thumper, my finger was bleeding.”

  “Magic is spelled and casted by faith, right? So maybe blood and necromancy just got connected in your brain and stuck. It'll suck having to bleed every time you need to use it. You should try to change that, if you can.”

  I shrugged. “I'm just happy to have figured out how it works.”

  “How what works?” Liam asked as his bathroom door opened in his bedroom behind me. A rush of warm, humid air carrying the scent of soap and Liam wafted through the room, reaching me before I turned around to see him dripping wet. The towel he had wrapped around his hips left his chiseled chest on full display. As if the water dripping down those muscles wasn't enough, his little gecko was just barely visible, peeking out from under the towel as it crawled up his hipbone.

  My mouth filled with cotton and I couldn't speak.

  Thankfully, Lexie knew exactly how to read me and knew to answer for me. “Her necromancy. We figured out that it's connected to her blood. The formula is blood plus willpower equals zombie.”

  “That's excellent,” he said as went back into his room and rifled through his drawers, but his heart wasn't in his words as though his mind was somewhere else. He vanished back into his bathroom for a minute before reemerging fully dressed in black jeans and a matching jacket. “You girls need to get cleaned up,” he ordered. “We've only got a few hours before our contact gets here.”

  “Which contact? Your cleanup guy or whoever is taking us to Istanbul?” Lexie asked.

  “By now, the cleanup team have finished their work and all traces of our… altercation have been erased. And we were unable to arrange for direct transport to take you to Istanbul, so you'll be traveling by boat from Narragansett Bay to the satellite base on the Canary Islands. There, you'll get new identities and will fly to Istanbul. You'll probably remain there with new tutors until everything blows over.”

  “Can't we leave now?” I asked. “You said if there was an emergency, we could teleport. I think this counts!”

  “What I told you earlier was a line of bull. We can't teleport you two, period.”

  “But you moved an entire army in twenty minutes.” I looked at him in disbelief.

  “There are only a tiny handful
of vampires capable of mass teleportation like that and they were all waiting on call for weeks before we could send the signal out,” he explained. “We can't teleport you two because no teleporter on the Pax payroll has a high enough security clearance to know about your existence, so we have to do this under the table.”

  “We're that big of a secret?”

  “Yes, you are. Octavius cannot get a hold of that bracelet. So for now, you need to shower and get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be an early morning.”

  “You go first, Lexie, I've got to finish healing.” I motioned to the bathroom for her to go ahead.

  Quiet, she scooted off the couch and went into our bathroom to shower, leaving the bedroom door behind her cracked.

  Unable to look him in the eye, I focused on fixing all of the scrapes and cuts that covered my body. These smaller wounds stung to heal since the growing tissue had to push each shard of glass out. They made a clattering sound as they fell onto the coffee table I was sitting on.

  “Very good,” Liam said quietly.

  “I think I'm starting to get the hang of this magic stuff,” I responded, just a little bit awkwardly. Changing the subject away from me, I asked, “So what's the plan to get us out of here?”

  Speaking loudly enough for Lexie to hear, he answered, “Tomorrow morning at dawn, we leave by car to an isolated beach in a national park near here. From there, we take a take a small boat out into the bay and meet up with my contact who will take us across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands.”

  “Why are we traveling by boat when it's faster to fly?” I asked.

  In a normal voice now, he responded, “Because it's easier to smuggle people without paperwork.”

  I couldn't argue with that since we were the ones without papers.

  Lexie came out a moment later dressed in pajama pants, a t-shirt, and no bra. As she plopped down next onto the sofa in front of me, she pointed to the bathroom to remind me that it was my turn.

  Points for Liam that he didn't appear to notice Lexie's liberated boobs.

  I stopped before going into the bedroom. “What are we going to do about my parents? We can't just leave them.”