Magic and Mayhem: A Collection of 21 Fantasy Novels

by Jasmine Walt

  “We couldn’t have done it without Tess,” I remind them.

  She starts to stand, but William reaches out and gently touches her arm, and she settles back again.

  “We risked a lot to make it this far.” He sweeps his oaky-brown hair away from his eyes. “We can’t just go rushing in.”

  “There’s only four of them,” she says. I count the same—one Cruor, two Strigoi, and one Ankou. They are bantering loudly by the fire.

  “That we can see,” William counters. “Not to mention one of them is Ankou.”

  “So?” she asks, shifting her long dark braid away from her face, over the back of her shoulder. “That’s never been a problem before.”

  William glares. “Stop and think for a minute. An Ankou could have transported her by traveling. But they didn’t.”

  My mind grinds the idea, trying to make sense of what it could mean. “Why didn’t they, then?”

  William rubs his hand over his face, shaking his head. “I don’t know. They must not have been able to travel her. And if they couldn’t, then we might not be able to either. Which means we can’t draw attention to ourselves.”

  Tess snorts. “Kidnap the Maltorim’s most valued possession without drawing attention to ourselves?”

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. William is right, but at the same time, we need to act fast.

  “I can distract them,” I whisper. “It would draw attention to me, but it would also draw attention away from both of you.”

  William presses his hands against his thighs. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Cord.”

  “Would it work?” I ask.

  “Yes, but you can’t—”

  Before he can finish his thought, I dart into the woods, ducking beneath low-hanging limbs, leaping over fallen trees, and hopping between large stones embedded in the forest ground. I have to do this. We don’t have time to spare thinking up the impossible; we need to get this girl and get out of here.

  I curve to the right, sweeping around their campsite close enough to be both seen and heard. As I peek over my shoulder to ensure I’ve captured their attention, the red bands of my hair whip into my face.

  “Hey!” shouts the heavy-set Cruor, stumbling to his feet from a log beside the campfire.

  He pushes the shoulder of one of his comrades and points in my direction. The two pursue me with inhuman speed, a little faster than me but not nearly as agile. The Strigoi falls upon me first, and I pounce upward and twist, grab a tree branch, and swing toward him. My feet knock into his chests, sending him to the ground in a heap, before I pull myself the rest of the way on top of the tree.

  One of the men—a broad-shouldered Cruor—catches up, only slightly slower than his comrade, and rushes at the tree trunk. He hits it with such force that the roots are ripped from the ground, leaning the tree into another larger tree nearby. I hadn’t accounted for the strength of the Cruor, the strongest of the elementals. I leap from one branch to the next, and although this agility and strength is new to me, it feels natural.

  For a fleeting moment, as I am suspended in the air between two branches, I want this life. I want to be here, where I am strong instead of vulnerable. Where I fight back instead of cower away. Where there are bad men, but there are good men, too. Where I don’t have to hate myself.

  But then my body is thumping into another tree, and Anna’s presence in my heart reminds me where this strength came from and what I’m really fighting for. I will return to her, and I will bring this strength with me.

  I flip backward from the tree and land solidly behind the two men. The auburn-haired Strigoi is up now, and he swings around and lands a blow to my face. But the impact only serves to anger me. Motivate me. I duck as he swings again, and in one swift movement, I crouch down, retrieve the stakes I keep tied to my ankles, and plunge the splintered wood into their hearts.

  The result on the Marked One is very different from the Cruor. The Strigoi takes an animal form, lying as a dead mountain lion, where the skin on the Cruor braches out in black veins and ultimately decomposes to a pile of black ash.

  The moment hits me like a cool wind in the midst of a Georgia heat wave, and all of a sudden, I feel like myself again. Like Rose instead of Abigail’s imposter. It’s invigorating! Allowing my Ferrum nature to guide me, I snap my teeth to their razor points. I can do this. I can conquer this world. I just have to stop fighting who I am and what I’m meant to do here.

  The stakes, now covered in blood, squick as I tug them from the bodies, and my heart pounds in my chest as I watch their spirits lift. I snap my arms in front of me, through them, bringing their spirits to a final puff of black death.

  Three sets of footsteps pound behind me, and I spin around. Tess and William are barreling toward me with a young, raven-haired child in tow.

  “Go!” William shouts.

  But I’m frozen. Staring.

  The spirit elemental is a child?

  I’m shocked all over again, just like I had been with the Oracle, but there’s no time to process the thought. William and Tess and the child are storming closer.

  Behind them, one of the Maltorim soldiers—the other Marked Strigoi—chases us, and I turn hard and run. When William and Tess catch up, I see the bleeding wound in William’s side and the deep gash on Tess’ thigh that peeks through a rip in her dress. I dip back just long enough to hook my arm around the raven-haired girl to help her so that William and Tess can focus on their own escape.

  A waterfall roars up ahead. I keep checking back over my shoulder, my alarm growing as one of the soldiers comes up close on Tess’ right side. She doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Tess!” I scream, but the thunder of the waterfall drowns out my cry.

  She squints at me, and there’s such innocence there, in those long, dark, fine eyelashes. I can’t let her die.

  “Beside you!” I scream louder.

  This time she stoops down mid run and spins, sweeping out her leg to trip the soldier, then she’s up and darting toward me again. But this only momentarily slows the soldier, who is already nearly closing in on us again. He shoots several arrows through the air.

  At first, I think all three shots have missed. But as Tess spins around and raises her sword to the man, the spirit elemental beside me grunts.

  One of the arrows is sticking out of her chest, just left of center, having impaled her though her back. Tess decapitates the man as I crumble to the ground with a dying child in my arms. For the first time, I get a good look at her. Her haunting eyes, shining with fear; her smooth, milky skin; her bright red lips; her large, deep brown eyes. Her tiny nose and thick, dark eyelashes, and her hair a river of black streaming along her cheeks and down to her chest.

  William leans back against a tree, gripping his side, and slumps to the ground. Tess falls beside him, wincing as she reaches into her pack to retrieve some herbs.

  “That was the last one,” she says, and then she stares into the forest.

  Her face and chest is covered in blood. I watch as the Marked Strigoi transforms to a beheaded hawk, wondering what passerby would make of it. What they would make of any of what we leave behind today. William kills the Strigoi’s spirit and turns to us with closed eyes.

  “We need to move,” he says, opening his eyes. “The Ankou that’s helping the Maltorim ran off. If won’t be long now before more soldiers are after us.”

  I shake my head, looking at the girl in my arms. We can’t lose her. Not now. Not after we’ve come all this way, risked so much.

  “We’ll get you help,” I promise her, but even as I say the words I know it’s too late.

  Her hand grasps a locket around her neck. She smiles up at me. “Thank you for saving me.”

  The doubt of that statement must be clear on my face.

  “I know I shan’t live,” she whispers, “but you did save me. You saved me from doing something I didn’t want to do. This death is a kindness.”

  Maybe that would be enough fo
r William or Tess. Enough that we at least stopped the Maltorim from using her to do harm. But it’s not enough for me. I wanted to save her. I needed to save her. But I failed. And if I failed her, I fear I may fail Anna.

  “Stay with me,” I plead with her. “What’s your name? Tell me your name?”

  The girl’s eyes flutter closed. She’s still smiling. She is the peace I wish I felt within myself. Particles of light swirl up from her body, glimmering like gold dust in the moonlight. A cool mist escapes her lips and billows toward me, and I can feel her presence—no longer in my arms, with her body, but instead in the air between us. It presses into my skin with a weightlessness, a tingling energy, and I know it’s her spirit. She’s giving it to me.

  It scares me at first, though it’s nothing at all the way it felt when one of the Morts tried to possess me back in Salem. The Oracle’s words come rushing back.

  I see a gift for you on this journey, she says. It could be the end of your life or the beginning of your future...Trust your heart.

  This must be that gift. And somehow, I know exactly what this gift is. Her spirits speaks to me not with words but with a sense of knowing. I can allow her spirit to become one with mine, or I can allow it to pass through me. Keeping it could give me the power to put an end to this war, but it could also mean never returning to Anna. I can’t risk never making it back to Anna, and I might never make it back to Anna without the power to end this war. My heart tells me I only have one hope, one risky hope.

  I must accept this gift.

  31

  April 1692

  Having taken cover, we rest. William and Tess have assumed that somehow the spirit elemental had no spirit for us to move, and I haven’t told them otherwise. Not yet. Not until I understand what it all means.

  William leans back against the stone of our cavern, sleeping, and I rest with my head against his shoulder. I sense his comfort and know my own, but I tell myself we are just both too tired to move. That’s why we are snuggled close. Not because we simply want to enjoy these forbidden moments that we know can’t last forever.

  Tess pokes at a dish full of herbs. She’s the only one who hasn’t taken any real action to heal her wounds.

  “What happened back there?” I ask.

  She coughs. “Hmm?”

  “It was as though you didn’t see that soldier coming up beside you.”

  “Oh?” she says, raising her eyebrows. “Huh.”

  “Huh?” I pull away from William, tucking up my legs and leaning on my knees. “That’s it? ‘Huh.’ He was practically right beside you.”

  “Yeah...so what?” she says. “You’re upset that I didn’t notice every last detail while trying to run for my life?”

  I press my lips together, assessing her carefully. “There’s something you aren’t telling me.”

  “Fine,” she says, pushing her disk of herbs aside and leveling her gaze at me. “I’m blind in my left eye, okay? It was as though I didn’t see him because I didn’t. And I couldn’t hear him over the waterfall. That’s it. No big deal.”

  Seems like a big deal to me. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  “What difference would it have made?” Her face twists in anger. “Can you change it? Will you be here when everything is said and done? No, Cord. I don’t owe you anything. No explanations, no heartfelt confessions. Nothing.”

  With that, she stands, steps over her pack, and storms out of the cavern.

  While Tess is gone and William is sleeping, I am left with a lot of time to think. It used to be that my thoughts would always go to what few memories I have of Anna. Now, though, my heart is divided, and I feel like the worst mother ever. I’ve left my daughter behind and allowed myself to care about someone other than her—someone that isn’t a part of her world. I know mothers do this all the time, but it’s different for me. Anna is the only one I should care about, because in the end, it’s her world or this one, and I will choose hers, even if it means leaving William and Tess behind. We all know this. And perhaps we all hurt over this.

  I open my pack and pull out the doll William gave me for her. I run my fingers over her ragdoll hair. It makes my heart ache to reunite with Anna, but once I’m with her, seeing this doll will make my heart ache to reunite with William. As I smooth out the skirt of the doll’s dress, a vision rockets across my mind.

  I’m looking down at a baby girl in wooden cradle, but she’s not my own. I reach out and place something beside her. It’s the doll. My hands, resting on the doll as I secure its place beside the infant, are so small. Childish. Nails bitten short and dirt packed underneath. The baby smiles up at me with razor-sharp teeth, and I startle, stepping back, thudding into something behind me. A strong hand comes down on my shoulder.

  “Nothing to fear, my son,” comes the deep voice behind me. “It is a gift. Our family has been blessed.”

  “Is she...is she...all right?” I look back over my shoulder and up to the man above me. He has kind eyes. I trust him. “Does it hurt?”

  The man smiles and rubs his hands roughly on my shoulders. “It doesn’t hurt her,” he says, “and it won’t hurt you. But it will hurt any Mort that comes near our family.”

  I turn back to the baby and gently caress the back of my finger along her cheek. She giggles a squealy, high-pitched giggle, and her whole body twists with excitement. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” I tell her, my little-boy voice maturing a decade’s worth in that sentence alone. “Nothing ever. I promise.”

  As William tumbles out of his sleep, I’m jarred from the vision. I gasp, sucking in air as though I’d been drowning in those memories that aren’t my own.

  William goes from sleepy-eyed to panicked and alert in mere moments. He grabs my shoulders. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  I stare into his eyes with searching gravity. “You had a...sister?”

  The last word comes out in a whisper, and William’s Adam’s apple bobs. I can’t read his expression. Hurt? Anger?

  “Who told you that?” he asks coldly, jaw tensing.

  I look down at the doll in my hands and flop her back. I stare into the doll’s eyes and struggle to get out the words. “She did.”

  Silence hangs like a thick fog in the room: heavy, pressuring, suffocating.

  I return my attention to William, but his face is still twisted in that same heartbreaking expression. “Say something. Please.”

  He shakes his head and stands. “Why would you lie to me, Cord? Why? About this of all things?”

  I clamber to my feet as well, letting the doll drop to the floor between us. He crouches down slowly and lifts the doll, eyes never leaving it.

  I reach out to touch his arm, but he yanks away.

  “Please, William. I’m not lying. I saw it through your eyes, as a child, looking down on her. I just did. I’m not making this up!”

  He steps closer to me. Threateningly close. And though I feel his anger radiating off of him, I’m not afraid. He’s the one person I just know I never have to fear, no matter how angry he might get. I stare up at him boldly.

  “I’m not lying,” I repeat.

  His gaze is boring into mine with such intensity—such determination to make me crumble and confess who really told me about his sister. But I have no other answer to offer. He has to see that. He has to.

  “Just take it,” he says, shoving the doll back into my arms. “And don’t ever lie to me again, or I swear I’ll...I’ll...”

  I raise my eyebrow, but he’s stuck stammering. I tilt my head. “What, William? What will you do?”

  He steps back. “Nothing,” he mumbles. “I’ll do nothing.”

  I sense what he means by that. He won’t help me anymore. I would be on my own getting back to Anna.

  Why is he so upset about me knowing about his sister? Why didn’t he just tell me about her himself? She was Ferrum, like me—he could have been helping me all this time. It’s not like I don’t already know what happened to his fa
mily. What could be so much worse?

  He moves to where Tess had rested earlier, his eyes shooting daggers at me from across the room. His anger makes me feel small. Alone. I slink back to the floor and tuck my knees to my chest.

  I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t know what he thinks, but right now, I need his help, not his disapproval. I touch the tree pendant on the necklace he gave me and think of all the moments before this one. It was leading somewhere. Not to this, never to this. I wish I could say it would make leaving easier, but it won’t. My finger slips over the tree engraving on the wood chip, and my mind buzzes and tunnels and another vision starts with William’s father looking down at me, hand outstretched, dropping the tree medallion on a leather string into my awaiting palm.

  “This talisman...”

  I’m shaking and William is in front of me.

  “Stop! Cord, let it go, please.”

  I shake my head, the vision clearing away, and I drop the talisman.

  “Right,” I mumble, “you probably want this back.”

  I remove the necklace from over my head and hand it to him.

  He looks down at it and shakes his head. “No, that’s not it.” His eyes shift back to mine. “I’m sorry, Cord. I hadn’t even considered...has this...happened before?”

  “The visions?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “The one about your...sister...that was the first.”

  He grips the talisman tighter in his hand. “You’re reading memories from objects,” he says. “Psychometry. But you had to get that from somewhere. Do you have an idea where? What happened when you were in jail? No, never mind. It had to be after that.”

  He’s not looking right at me, brow furrowed.

  I gently touch his arm. “Could it be the girl we tried to save?”

  “The spirit elemental? Do you have reason to think it has something to do with her? Is there something you didn’t tell us?”

  I shrug. “I felt something happen when she died.” My heart clenches as my memories relive the scene, focus me on my failure. “It reminded me of what the Oracle said, about someone giving me a gift.”