“Sarah,” I called nervously, “I think it’s time for that portal.”
I dared a glance to my side to find her collapsed forward, hands propped on her knees to keep her from toppling over. She was totally spent, both physically and magically, and I had no idea how long it would take her to recover—or if that would even matter.
“Run, Cece.” Aidan’s command barely registered as reality dawned on me. I’d thought we’d won the war, and I’d called back the troops prematurely. I looked at the painting—at the dragons swirling around inside—and shouted for them to come back. But no matter what I said or did, they didn’t budge. They just circled and stared.
“Run, Cece!” Aidan shouted as he scooped me behind him and gave me a shove toward the tree line.
“But—”
“Do what I told you—what you promised.”
Before I could even begin to argue, a wall of magic crashed into us, knocking Aidan back a few feet as he struggled to meet its might. And there I stood behind him, useless once again.
“Take Sarah,” he ground out as he fought to hold his position against the combined power of his family. Had he not been a malum magicae , he would surely have fallen already. I shook the painting and screamed at the dragons to return, but they still just swirled around the castle in teasing circles, ignoring my call. “Cece!”
Aidan’s knees buckled and he crashed to the ground, the combined force of his brothers’ attack wearing him down. If we did not escape soon, we never would.
“Okay,” I muttered to myself as I tried to remember what he’d said about the portal. I scooped Sarah up and looped her arm around my shoulder. Her strength was returning, as were her wits, but she’d be no help to me. I wracked my brain, searching for the word Aidan had told me to speak.
“ Filleadh !” I blurted out when it finally grazed my consciousness. “Home!” With a bright flash near the tree line, the portal came into view. “Aidan! I’ve got it! We have to go!”
He spared a glance over his shoulder, then took a steadying breath. I felt the ground rumble as he made one final push to beat back our attackers—one last volley of power to buy us time to escape. He let it loose as he exhaled a cloud of black that spread as it traveled toward his family like a fast-moving plague. The second it engulfed them, Aidan was sprinting toward us.
Sarah was already well enough to stand on her own, but Aidan tucked her into his side and grabbed my hand as he hurtled toward the portal. Angry cries rang out behind us, and I wondered what that ominous cloud was doing to them; wondered if they were getting the justice befitting a family who’d traded Aidan’s life for power.
I smiled at the thought.
The iridescent blue film wavered near the trees, and Aidan poured on speed, nearly dragging me behind him as we approached. Ten feet…six feet…we were going to make it. He squeezed my hand tighter to make sure that we exited together—that we weren’t separated.
Just as we reached the swirling exit, Sarah’s legs gave out and she crashed to her knees. Aidan bent down to help her, but she waved him off.
“Go!” she shouted at him as she scrambled to her feet.
Two seconds. That was all her little bobble had cost us. All it had taken to halt our escape.
Aidan pulled me closer as he stepped through the portal at my side. I felt the cool night air brush against my face as it broke through the portal. In what felt like slow motion, I turned to look up at him and found a victorious smile on his face. But it quickly fell away as his body was sucked backward into Faerie, as though he’d met the end of a bungee cord. He screamed something at me, but I couldn’t hear it over my own cries.
And then I felt him let go of my hand.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Maddy
I rushed down a creaky spiral staircase behind Rhys, brushing aside spiderwebs eager to cling to my hair.
Above, shouts rang out, followed by bangs.
“What will happen to them?” I whispered.
“They’ll be okay,” he said. “My mom is savvy. Dad will show up and add to the spells he already put in place. And Lucerne has dealt with the Council before.”
“We don’t know if it was the Council. It could’ve been them at the cabin, or they might have sent hired magical guns after us. It could be either.”
“They’ll be all right,” he said again. “I have to believe that, or else I’ll race back up those stairs.”
We reached the ground floor, and he opened another narrow panel. Muted light spilled in, and when we left the secret staircase, I found myself in a five-car garage.
“We’re at the back of the house, on the lower level,” Rhys said. “They built the garage into a daylight basement.”
He waved to a black SUV, one of three cars parked in the garage. “Hop in.”
While I jogged around to the passenger’s side, he grabbed the key and got into the driver’s seat. With a grumble, he pulled the chair leg out from the back of his pants and stared at it before tucking it carefully underneath his thigh.
He inserted and turned the key, and the engine roared. “I helped my dad craft some special spells.”
I cringed in my seat. “What kind of spells?” While they all seemed to think his dad was some super-sorcerer, I had my doubts. To me, he’d come across as scattered, in a pleasant, absent-minded-professor sort of way. What if his ‘special’ spells backfired?
“You’ll see.” He pressed a button beside the rearview mirror, and the door in front of us lifted open.
Headlights gleamed from at least three cars parked about fifty feet ahead of us, blocking the paved drive. Dense woods encroached on the driveway, and I couldn’t see a way through.
“Shit,” I hissed. “Should I jump out and shift? I can blast them with fire.”
“Not yet. You holding on?” Rhys asked, goosing the engine. He eased the shifter into drive and raced from the garage. A glance back showed the door closing, and blue magic shimmered across the surface, hopefully with enough power to keep anyone from slipping inside.
Our SUV roared toward the cars, and I braced myself for impact. “What are you going to do?” I half-shrieked. “Try to shove your way through?” It was a big SUV, one of those oversized models, but still. We were talking about solid hunks of metal. Adrenaline poured through my veins, making my hands shake and my body break out in a cold sweat.
As we barreled toward the cars, magic arced toward us. It bounced off the windshield and hood and rebounded on whoever had sent it. In the shadows beside the cars, I spied people flinging themselves to the side to avoid the ricocheted magic.
“Magic-proof glass and windshield,” Rhys said cheerfully, patting the dash. “Please note that it works, Maddy.”
I smacked his shoulder, but a bit of relief fed a grin. But my smile fled fast, and I winced as we approached the wall of cars.
“Hold on!” Rhys said, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly enough to blanch his fingers.
When we should’ve impacted the barrier, we lifted instead. The SUV soared up and over the vehicles and slammed onto the driveway beyond. My teeth jarred together and my spine jolted.
“Definitely need to finesse the landing,” Rhys said, “but shit, it actually worked.” He slapped his palm on the steering wheel. “It fuckin’ worked!”
He gave the vehicle more gas, and we flew down the drive and out onto the road.
Behind us, lights shifted across the trees.
“They’re coming after us,” I said. “Go faster.”
“On it.” His brow knitted with concentration, and he pushed the vehicle for more speed. The tires squealed, and gravel flung out behind us as we took the switchback road down the mountain with at least three cars on our tail.
A roar behind us was followed by a bump to the back that flung me forward against my seat belt.
“Shit. Faster,” I said, squishing the seat cushion on either side of my thighs.
Rhys spun the wheel, taking us around another sharp co
rner. It was followed by a straightaway I recognized, unfortunately. We’d ‘buried’ Dad here what felt like a lifetime ago.
We sailed past that section, and Rhys braked for the next corner. The car behind us rammed us again, shooting us forward, but Rhys corrected and kept the car on course.
“Any more special magic you can deploy, James Bond?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Watch this.” He flicked his hand over his shoulder, and magic shot from his fingertips. Behind us, tires squealed, followed by a crash. But while he might’ve taken out one carload, there were more of these guys eager to take their place. Headlights gleamed brightly behind us, and another car slammed into the SUV, sending us jolting to the side, grating against the guard rail.
We hit the bottom of the hill, and Rhys swung out onto the main road with two cars hovering behind us.
“What are we going to do?” My dragon was useless in this scenario. Although … “Can you keep the vehicle steady?”
“What are you planning?” He darted me a glance but returned his attention to the road.
I rolled the window down. “I just want to show this group what they’re dealing with.”
“Maddy…”
“I...I need to do this.” I unbuckled, rose onto my knees, and poked my head out the window. I nearly lost it when a bolt of magic sliced along the side of the SUV, aimed at my head. Ducking, I counted to three, my palms sweaty, then tried again, this time calling my dragon to join me.
It rose up inside me seamlessly, like I’d been practicing for a lifetime.
When magic roared toward me again, I shifted my head only, morphing into the dragon I’d come to love. I shot fire at the magic, burning it up.
The first car fishtailed, then dove into the ditch on our side of the road. It impacted a tree with a bang. There was a loud ‘poof’, and flames roared across the metal.
I sent flames at the second vehicle, and the driver swerved to the left, bumped over the median strip, and blasted across the other lane, which was empty of traffic, fortunately. It swung around, riding on two tires, then flopped on the pavement and remained still, smoke curling off the hood.
After shifting back to my witch form, I dropped onto my seat, put the window up, and buckled in while Rhys slowed the vehicle to a normal speed.
“Well,” I said, slumping back into my seat, “that was—”
“That was incredible,” he said. “How did you know to try only partially shifting?”
“When I was able to shift only my fingernails into claws in your parents’ living room, I started wondering if I could stop a full shift. It was worth a try.”
“And it worked.” He peered in the rearview mirror. “They’re not following.”
“I took out their front tires. Neither will be able to follow.” I picked at my lower lip. “For now, we’re safe. After we get something to eat, we’ll need to ditch the SUV, right?”
“I’ll engage another spell.” With a flick of his fingers, dark green magic flowed over the vehicle, changing its color.
“Cool trick,” I said.
“Dad’s fantastic.”
“He’d give Aidan a run for his money, I bet.”
“They’re different, but yeah.”
“What about the plates?” I asked.
“Spelled to reflect something new. We’re now driving an SUV with New York plates. Gramps’s place on the ocean is in Maine. It’s isolated, north of Bar Harbor. We’ll be relatively safe there.”
“Relatively is an odd word to use in this situation, but I’ll take it.” I relaxed my hands on my thighs.
“We can get something to eat in Portsmouth,” Rhys said. He took my hand and squeezed it before returning his to the wheel.
“Sounds good.”
***
We reached Gouldsboro hours later, beat and ready to sleep for days. But we’d eaten, and our clothing had dried on our bodies in stiff folds.
Rhys bumped the SUV down a pothole-filled dirt road, and I put down the window. A briny-salty breeze drifted in, and I closed my eyes and sucked it into my lungs. My tension had gone by the time we’d hit the Maine-New Hampshire border, but now it ratcheted up again. What could I expect from Rhys’s grandfather?
“Your grandfather is a sorcerer like your dad?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Do you ever drink blood from a wine glass like your mom?” At least I suspected it had been blood.
“You know I don’t.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and kept his gaze focused forward. “I mean, I can drink it if I want, and it will enhance my power, but being half sorcerer allows me to take energy from other sources.”
“I guess that’s good for me.”
“You don’t want me tapping your veins?” he said with a grin. “You might find it fun. Most do.”
“You’re the one who said I should never give anyone blood.”
“True. I was teasing. I wasn’t trying to suggest you give me blood. As for my uncle...he can be a jerk sometimes. He’s all about solidifying his power now that he’s no longer with the Council.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“We’re not bonding you to him.”
“Damn right we’re not.”
We emerged from the wooded road and approached a decent-sized cape-style house perched on the edge of a rocky cliff. Evergreens spiked to the sky, their needles the deepest green, and maple leaves whispered a scratchy tune, their lush green turning orange. Dawn peeked over the horizon, spilling a reddish glow across the morning sky.
Rhys parked the car behind an older Ford truck and shut the engine off. But when I reached for the door handle to get out, he remained seated. He pulled the chair leg from beneath his thigh and held it tightly with both hands.
“I don’t know what we’ll discover here,” he said, “but I think it’ll be useful.”
“We won’t find out unless we go inside.” I leaned over and lay my head on his shoulder. “Whatever it is, we can handle it. We’re in this together, remember?”
His arm went around my shoulders. “You’re right. I don’t know why I’m nervous. Gramps loves me. He always has. That won’t have changed. He’ll tell me what I need to know.”
Before we could get out of the car, the front door opened, and a gray-haired guy dressed in what looked like a military uniform stepped outside.
He leveled a shotgun at us and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Maddy
I ducked, but the shattering of glass I expected didn’t happen. Silence ruled, other than the subtle crash of waves echoing in the distance.
Rhys stayed put and sighed. “Gramps is…don’t worry about him. He wouldn’t really hurt anyone.”
“He tried to shoot us.” I sat up and watched as a middle-aged guy took the gun from Rhys’s grandfather and tugged him back into the house. The man turned and gestured for us to come inside. He entered himself, leaving the door ajar.
“The gun wasn’t loaded. I’m sure he felt threatened. We’re in Dad’s SUV. Gramps and Dad haven’t spoken for years.”
“Is that why your grandfather might be the only one who really knows what happened between your family and the Council? Why your family lost your ability to work with sentinels?”
“Yeah. They argued when I was little, and they never found a way to work through it. Mom sent me to spend summers with Gramps because family is important, but as far as I know, Gramps and Dad haven’t spoken since. Dad stays in his lab crafting spells, and Gramps...hides.”
In their own ways, they were both hiding. “From what?”
Rhys turned to me, and the pain etched into the lines on his face made me catch my breath. “I think from whatever has been going on at Wadsworth.”
“You’re suggesting that everything’s all tied together, which I guess must be the case. Kimbra suggested as much.”
He shrugged. “Look at it rationally. The Council took away my family’s ability to work with sentinels
at the same time we lost Wadsworth.”
“And you think your grandfather—a man with Alzheimer’s—will remember why and can give us the information we need to rescue Wolfy?”
“We just have to find a way to trigger the memories. Once we know what we’re dealing with, we’ll know how to handle it.”
“We don’t have much time.” We might have escaped the guys who’d come after us, but they’d track us down and follow. We couldn’t stay here long, or we’d endanger Rhys’s grandfather, too. I fiddled with the ring, spinning it around and around on my finger. Light hit the stone, shooting blue arcs at the dash. “Do you think he knows what we discovered at Wadsworth?”
“No.” Complete confidence came through in his voice. “He would’ve done something if he’d known. He would not have left kids there to die.”
I loved that Rhys believed in his family, but as an outsider, I couldn’t extend the same courtesy. Families did hateful things to each other all the time. My father had taught me that lesson well.
“His Alzheimer’s has taken most of the present from him. I’m hoping we can sort through whatever’s left and find enough clues from the past to help us face this.”
“I’m so worried about Wolfy.”
“We’ll get him out of there.”
The middle-aged man appeared at the door and stared pointedly toward the vehicle.
“Okay,” I said, thrusting open my door. Might as well get this started.
We left the vehicle and walked up the crushed stone path side-by-side. Beyond the house, the sea waited, a churning mass of deep blues and cresting whites. A storm was coming. I could practically taste it in the air.
The chair leg bumped against Rhys’s thigh, and I tapped it with my finger. “We need to figure out why you haven’t ditched this thing.”
Rogue Reformatory: Breakout (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 3) Page 13