“What happened?”
Sierra whined and Todd growled, “Vampires. They took us by surprise and hit us with Tasers instead of magic. Knocked us down, grabbed and injected Tara with something that knocked her out, and ran out before we could recover. It happened seconds after you left. Where’d you go?”
I frowned at his accusing tone. If he’d been here instead of flirting with Aiya he’d know I where I was.
I said shortly, “To kill a vampire, and piss off a fire sorcerer named Jaben.”
It finally hit me that the magical attacks had stopped, they must have cancelled the spell right after, which meant my only lead to track down Tara was about to disappear. Sierra changed and pulled on her dress and looked angry as hell at failing. Carrie and Gerald showed up right before we were about to leave them behind.
“No time to explain, don’t kill the witch if we run into one, I need her alive.”
I surrounded us all in air power and took us to the backyard of the house with the basement. They all looked pretty surprised, especially since I hadn’t told anyone I knew where it was already. I felt the connection to air diminished inside the house, and bathed the ward in raw fire and air magic, trying to break through the ward, eat through it actually, but not using physical fire and air, so I didn’t damage the physical house.
I grunted when it cracked in short order, I wish I’d known I could do that before now. I smiled as I felt the witch still in the basement, through my fire power at least, she was closing down the circle. I could no longer detect the vampire, which probably meant he was dead. Gerald kicked in the back door and we all piled in.
“Cellar,” I said as I pointed out the door, and rushed down the stairs. Luckily the cellar was only halfway underground in this split level house, and I still had access to air magic from my chest up. It was a really weird sensation being half above and half below ground, but better than being completely cut off from air.
Sierra just grunted, already knowing about my weakness underground, and ran ahead of me, taking out her frustrations with a lightning fast right hook, knocking out the witch before she could get a spell off. It was ironic timing, because she’d just finished taking down the protections for the site allowing Sierra an easy takedown. We trooped back upstairs, Sierra carrying the witch over her shoulder, and I spent the time burning and scouring her personal protections from magic with both fire and air.
Sierra asked, “What now?”
The witch was completely unprotected now, and her life was an open book to me now. Amber, the witch who had lured the vampire, was very attractive, and looked innocent while being unconscious, but she was an evil little thing that cared only about her own power, to the exclusion of any other considerations. Such as the need to murder, sacrifice, or destroy others.
Her death would also weaken the coven, maybe even enough for Tara to fight back.
“I have what we need, Tara’s been brought to a warehouse. They wanted the dark grimoire back for the other spells inside of it, but they already have the knowledge Tara hoped to keep from them by stealing the book, and they are all set to drain Tara’s power.”
I felt a little guilty about it, this wasn’t self-defense in the middle of a fight, this was an execution, and I was naming myself judge. What gave me the right? I could see her whole life, and the kind of person she was, I had no doubt she would go on killing and destroying others to gain power. There was no room for doubt, or simple human error, she was guilty.
In a way I could say it was in defense of Tara, because this young woman would never let it go. If I let her live, she would one day attack again. I formed a blade of air, and made it quick, no need to torture her. She’d even still been unconscious, since that was the only mercy I could afford to show her.
I still felt sick inside about it, but that only meant I was still human in my heart, and not a cold blooded killer, but my regret didn’t mean I was wrong, or anything like the person Amber was.
I sighed, “You ready? We are going to a warehouse.”
Sierra nodded, “Whenever you are, you did the right thing Ben, these people are evil. Killing in defense of yourself and others is not the same as a person that kills for profit or fun, anyone who believes it is the same… is a fool.”
Damned werewolf noses, of course she could scent my regret. What was that saying? Mercy for the guilty is treachery to the innocent victims? Something like that, but the point was there was no supernatural jails, serial killers like this dark witch just needed to be stopped. But that didn’t mean being the one to bring justice didn’t stain my soul. Right or not, it was the way it was and the world I lived in for better or worse.
I just nodded in agreement to her words before I surrounded us with the power of air, remote viewed an unobserved area around the warehouse, and had the magic move us there…
Chapter 10
Friday, June 3rd, 2016, 11:33 AM
We appeared in an abandoned parking lot. The warehouse looked to be about four stories high, the dark brickwork was faded and chipped in places, and I could tell it had been repainted many times over the years. There was a line of windows all the way at the top of the building, dark green and stained. The metal door nearby was banged up and stained, and all the rolling doors at the docks were covered in graffiti, closed up, and padlocked.
Inside I could feel Tara and the coven like a light echo because of the strong wards on the building blocking me from accessing the air inside the building. That would have to come down before we went inside. I attacked the wards with fire and air magic, this time doing something slightly different. I tried to subvert the fire and air woven in their spells for my own use at the same time. The latter was partially successful, but what brought the wards down quickly was the raw blast of air and fire magic consuming the earth and destroying the water.
Information blocks at a distance could withstand my air magic, but up close and personal, within my spheres of fire and air, the ward cracked and dissolved under my power. I could feel the coven better now, Tara was still kind of fuzzy, and I assumed she was in a circle. She was still alive at least, for now.
I nodded and Gerald ripped the door off its hinges, and they all stripped off their clothes, shorts and a shirt for Gerald and Todd, and in Sierra’s and Cassie’s cases, simple dresses, and they transformed into wolves. For the first time I didn’t give the nudity a second thought. With a concentrated effort, I tried to cover them with their own shields of air, as long as they didn’t get over a hundred and fifty feet away, I should be able to maintain it with only a small portion of my concentration.
We ran in and I sent a blast of fire and air at the witches, both magical and physical, and I was careful not to hit Tara on accident. I almost faltered when I saw her lying there, she was on the ground in the circle, unconscious and naked, she’d been beaten and I could only assume she’d woken up at some point and fought back. She had some kind of nasty device in her arm that was bleeding her out. She was also covered with arcane symbols drawn in blood over her skin. I cursed, they hadn’t wasted any time. I could see the magic currents, and the coven was trying to absorb her power. So far Tara was strong enough to resist it, even unconscious, but I could tell she was weakening.
My initial attack was deflected by the coven’s personal wards, and I held back as that was enough time for the wolves to close the distance, and they jumped for throats with a loud growl.
The oldest one who I recognized as Cyndy, held out a bone and barked a single word. The wolves seemed to run into a solid barrier of some kind. A lot like my fire and air shields instead of a ward against just magic. Cyndy dropped the bone and looked at me with a black hatred that chilled me, as she yelled for a retreat.
I hammered the shield of air magic hard, but it seemed to be interlaced with a touch of all the other elements and was very strong. I wondered how long it had taken for the witch to prepare it, as it wasn’t just a simple ward.
I channeled more magic into it while the wolves
stared back at me as if to tell me to hurry the hell up. I could swear the three of them looked frustrated as hell as the witches made their escape out the side door, and I could even hear their car doors opening and closing as I bore into and slowly burned away the shield.
Diana had told me once that a witch prepared for a fight would be a dangerous opponent, and she was right, I’d underestimated the witches and they were getting away. It was only now that they were gone I thought of erecting a solid wall of air at the door, something I could have done through the shield. Still, it wasn’t like I’d had time to prepare a plan, if we’d taken time to do so, Tara would be dead and the coven long gone.
The shield fell and the wolves flew out the door. I didn’t bother since the coven had long since driven off by now, instead I reached out with my power and brought down the circle.
The circle ward went down easily compared to that shield spell.
I knelt down beside Tara, the device was some kind of vein tap, I supposed it would regulate a blood drain better than slit wrists. It didn’t matter, I unstrapped it and tore out the needle, then used a little air magic to heal the damage. I looked her over, a part of me painfully aware she was naked and even more voluptuous and pleasing to the eyes than I’d imagined, and I had a very good imagination, but most of me ignored that as I tried to save her life.
To be fair, I am a twenty-one-year-old male, and her body was… yeah.
That said, I was more focused on scanning her body and repairing the damage done, also thanks to the blood, my anger at what was done to her, and my concern for her life, my body wasn’t reacting very much to her lack of clothing. I healed her vein first, then started to repair the tissue damage, scrapes, contusions, and bruises on her body from the rough handling and beating she’d endured.
I also found the drug in her system keeping her unconscious, and burned it out with a judicious application of fire magic. Outside of a few gene sequences and part of their brains, witches were pretty much just humans, with magic, so I had no need of pulling Tara’s particular body information. Biology was one of the things I was very sure of nowadays.
I looked up when I was done, and Gerald, Carrie, and Sierra were all back in human form and dressed.
“Will she be okay?” Sierra asked, and actually sounded concerned.
I nodded, “I think so, does anyone see her clothes? Carrie or Sierra, can you dress her?”
Gerald growled, “The witches got away.”
I almost growled back, thank you Mr. Obvious. It’d been a crazy morning so far, and my emotions were obviously raw right now, so I took a deep breath.
I shrugged as if it were unimportant, as they say, crap happens.
“But they failed Gerald, and one of their number is dead, and they’ll be weaker now, perhaps on the run. We can plan chasing them later, right now we need to calm down, think, and plan.”
Gerald seemed to lose some of his anger at my matter of fact calm tone.
Sierra looked around, and said, “I see them, be right back,” obviously referring to the clothes.
Tara moaned as she came around, and I glanced back down and caught her eyes. That’s when it happened, what I saw in the vision. The lust, need, and desire that burned through me was completely overwhelming, and I saw it in eyes as well. She leaned up and reached out, grabbed my shirt, and pulled me on top of her violently into a steamy kiss. Her lips were so soft, yet firm and demanding, and her generous female attributes were warm as they heaved and pushed up against my chest.
I could barely think, I wanted to take her right there on the floor, the blood, Sierra, none of it mattered to me at all in that moment.
A small part of me, very small, realized something was very wrong with this, even as I moaned into her mouth and teased her tongue with mine.
My shield, I dropped my shield when I was healing Tara. Then that little voice in the back of my head screamed, Jaben, I could feel him enter my range of power, which meant he was almost inside the warehouse.
If I hadn’t been practicing so much, and if it hadn’t been second nature by now, I never would have been able to concentrate enough to drop a fire and air shield around the six of us. But I had, and I slammed the shield down hard around us and my mind cleared. I broke the kiss and jumped up.
Sierra had an expression of jealous murderous rage on her face, but that cleared as well to merely a glare. Apparently my good friend Jaben had been playing with all of our emotions, from far enough away I had no idea he was even there. He hadn’t been in my range, but clearly we had been inside of his.
Jaben walked in and laughed, “That was entertaining. How does it feel wolf, knowing he lusts after the witch?”
I scowled, “Lie, with a small grain of truth. Why did you come back Jaben, since you have no reason to be here? Surely a master of the element of fire isn’t ruled by petty emotions such as revenge.”
It was also clear to me that he could track us, it was the only way he could be here as fast as he’d arrived. I also confess to a little disappointment, as I’d been hoping he’d killed himself destroying my travel spell at such a high velocity. I just had no idea how he had tracked us or even had an inkling how he could have done so. I’d been wrong when I suggested he couldn’t to Ceara.
Jaben snorted, “Of course not boy, revenge is petty and I’d never let my emotions rule me. This however, is business. I can’t have it known that I allowed some snot nosed newbie to kill my employer, and then ran away. I’d be a laughingstock, all the other sorcerers and sorceresses would make fun of me at the next Christmas party, and then I’d never get another client again. That was clever of you though, I suppose I was being a bit arrogant. I’m afraid this is the end of the line though.”
I sensed Tara with my air magic, she reached out and grabbed the bone that had fueled the wall, and I heard her start chanting low under her breath. I didn’t know what she was doing, but Jaben hadn’t seemed to notice yet, probably because the bone was room temperature and didn’t really register to the fire magic. I also noticed Carrie come over and grab Tara’s hand. Whatever it was she was doing, I decided to try and stall. Mostly because I didn’t have a clue what to do.
I shrugged, “And what’s stopping me from simply gathering everyone up in air magic and running for it?”
He laughed, “My fire shield of course, I’m afraid it’s too far away for you to sense, but if you try you won’t get farther than three hundred feet. I’m curious though, just what are you? Wielder of two elements, and a little extra? It will almost be a crime to destroy you.”
Huh, if that’s really his range. I supposed it was possible, I knew the volume of a sphere went up more and more the larger the radius. At three hundred feet, his power was ten times what mine was at half his radius. Even worse, since I was on the ground I only had access to a half sphere of air, which made him twenty times more powerful.
I wondered if three hundred feet was the limit, in the beginning when this all started, before I had any grasp on my power, that was how large my sphere was, that night when my core had taken over to save my life. That idea didn’t seem right to me, my core was still a part of me, and I bet it had a lot to learn itself, but it was my initial goal, I wanted to match what I’d done that first time. Either way I was completely outclassed right now.
“That’s impressive, any pointers before you kill us? It really sucks having no one to teach me.”
Jaben laughed, “I like you boy, I felt the same way, get used to it, we all had to learn on our own, or actually, you won’t have to worry about it at all anymore. Shame to kill you and all, but I have a reputation.”
Ugh, the guy was evil, but at the same time, I kind of liked him. I could probably run around inside his shield for a while, but he’d probably just compress it until I was cornered. He’d already countered the two tricks I’d used, and I was having trouble coming up with a third.
My only hope was whatever Tara was up to. I was about to make something else up when Tara finished
the last few words of her spell with a firm loud voice.
Immediately I felt my access to fire drain off, I doubted I could light more than a match at the moment. It felt like I was literally under water, the strength of her water ward was impressive to say the least. Still, he wasn’t a baby like me, and started to form fire around his hands. Still strong enough to kill me. I moved everyone else outside at the same time that I shot to the top of the ceiling, about eighty feet straight up. It wasn’t as good as a hundred and fifty would have been, but it did increase my air access by quite a lot.
I sent the raw magic of air at his weakening fire shield, which still just ate it. That didn’t stop me from pouring it on, his shield was lessening with each second.
He growled, “Enough, I’m done playing games.”
He reached out with his fire magic and tried to pull the very heat from my body, but to both of our surprise, my shield held, while his was still dimming. He was having trouble getting heat and fire from the environment, and beyond the limit of the water ward, he was completely cut off from the rest of his sphere, much like I had been in the house with the werewolves twelve days ago. I realized at that point that meant the shield he’d put up outside was probably down as well, and that I could grab everyone and escape, but I also realized I wouldn’t have a better chance to take him down than I did right now, so I kept it up.
Witches were scary, I’d have to remember that.
He cursed in frustration, and turned and ran for the door. No doubt he was trying to get outside of the ward. He shouldn’t have held back and played games, but perhaps that was a side effect of being a fire sorcerer, when he could master all his emotions, perhaps completely mastering one’s own fear was a mistake. Some fear was good, it kept you alive and wary.
His shield failed under my assault before he could get outside, and I ruthlessly sent my air magic into his mind and seized it. A part of me wondered if trying to take his knowledge, his power, made me anything like Amber. I decided it didn’t. If he hadn’t attacked me I wouldn’t have done it, but he did.
Sorcerer: Witch's Woes: Power of Air (Book 3) Page 7