by Nicole Hall
Before she had a chance to do much more than rev her power, the wolf made his move. The oily covering pulsed, and the wolf jumped at Ryan’s throat. It was clear he wasn’t dodging this one, and Sera’s magic sputtered as she gasped in fear.
Ryan said something low and flung his injured hand out. A spattering of blood shimmered and flew, striking the wolf across the nose before he slammed into Ryan’s chest. They both went down with the force of the leap, but the wolf whined instead of tearing out his throat.
Sera took a step forward, not sure what she planned to do, but the wolf shook himself and jumped away from Ryan. The fur along his back was still stiff, but he wasn’t baring his teeth, only growling low in this throat. Ryan hopped to his feet, and the wolf positioned himself solidly between them with his back to Sera. If she’d had any kind of offensive magic, she’d be able to use it on him with ease, but all her magic wanted to do was protect. Too bad they hadn’t taken a look at that handbook.
To her amazement, sprites began pouring out of the trees by Ryan’s side. He ignored them, but she heard the muttered curse. The oily magic covering the wolf shifted and gathered around his mouth. Sera couldn’t get a good look at what happened because she wasn’t keen on approaching the pointy part of the dangerous demon animal, but solid bits of crimson dropped to the ground as the wolf shook his head again. The magic returned to normal, and he lunged forward and snapped at Ryan.
Sera crept closer to the stand-off to get a better look at the red bits on the ground and realized that it wasn’t blood, it was magic. Ryan had used magic, and it appeared dark red. The wolf had moved Ryan at least another ten yards by the time she looked up again. She watched as he tried to juke the wolf and dart around him, but Ryan wasn’t fast enough. Whatever the reason, the wolf wanted Ryan and Sera separated.
She glanced at the blood drops on the ground then back to Ryan’s arm, which had stopped dripping at some point. He’d done something magical to the wolf to defend himself, but it hadn’t lasted long. Behind her, the trod wound through the woods, leading to the clearing around Torix’s tree. If she left Ryan and ran, would he follow?
Ryan had lied to her. Just like everyone else. He seemed capable of protecting himself, and the sprites were gathering, which would hopefully give him an advantage. She couldn’t trust him, but she didn’t want him to die.
He’d even told her to go, but it went against her morals to leave someone in danger. A small part whispered what if Ryan is part of the danger? At least, he and the wolf seemed to be opposing forces. She could use that.
She opened her mouth to shout a warning to Ryan, but with an overpowering jolt, something knocked all the air out of her. She sank to her knees and dropped her head. It was like the time she’d almost hyperventilated and fallen hard on her back, but this time she was conscious and trying to suck in air. She pressed hard on her abdomen and forced in oxygen. Her shields were still in place and the wolf was dancing Ryan further and further from her. This wasn’t from them; it had come from the bond.
Jake had taken her power, and it had hollowed her out.
12
JAKE
An hour earlier, Jake had parked his truck next to his Corolla in front of Maddie’s place. It had deteriorated since the last time he’d been there, admittedly several years ago. He’d tried to stay away out of respect for Maddie having her own space. Sera hadn’t mentioned how much work the house needed, but he guessed she’d been preoccupied.
He was preoccupied now, but thinking about Sera naked in his bed wasn’t going to make things go any quicker. Halloween night was only hours away, and they desperately needed a better plan than run away and hope for the best. Speaking of Halloween, it wasn’t like Maddie to not decorate. She’d always loved Halloween, but there wasn’t a single skeleton or pumpkin near her house.
What was going on with her? Maybe Mom was right and she needed some time away. It didn’t feel right to reward her for skipping out on work and being generally irresponsible with a European vacation, but nothing he did seemed to be working.
He remembered Sera’s insistence that Maddie’s house was shielded, but he wouldn’t have been able to tell unless it physically knocked him back. The only magic he had was the bond with Sera, and that was more like borrowing her magic. Jake sighed. Time to get the whining over with. The porch shuddered suspiciously when he walked across it, but nothing stopped him from knocking and then opening the door.
Maddie was in the kitchenette stirring something on the stove. It smelled like old gym socks, but she was always trying new disgusting foods. “Hey, that was a pathetic excuse for a knock.”
Jake winced, both from the smell and the comment. “You’re right. I’m always getting on your case for doing that to me. I’ll try to remember next time.”
She didn’t answer, and he tried not to get irritated that she’d called him out of bed for an imaginary emergency. How self-centered could she be? He missed his nice little sister, but this selfish one was the version he was dealing with most of the time lately.
“Maddie, I have stuff to do today. What was so important that I had to come over right away?”
She looked up and smiled through the steam. “I need to use your truck.”
He wandered around the living room looking at the items she’d put on the shelves he’d built. “We already covered this. You can’t use my truck. Is there anything else?”
“How about… I’m your favorite sister, and if you let me use the truck, I’ll stop harassing you about Sera.”
“This feels an awful lot like blackmail.” A wooden duck got his attention on the top shelf. He remembered seeing it in Rosie’s, in the kitchen. He searched his memory, but all he could recall was that it had been a gift to Mr. Hogan.
“Eh, I’m not particular about the label.”
Jake glanced up when something in the pot sizzled. The room was starting to smell like bacon, which was a welcome relief. Maddie bent to pick up a towel she’d dropped, and a heavy necklace swung out from inside her shirt. The duck bothered him, but the pendant around Maddie’s neck pissed him off.
It was a family heirloom Evie was saving for Sera. She’d shown him several times. There was no way Evie would have given that to Maddie, no matter how much she liked his sister.
She’d gone back to adding things to her pot. Jake left her collection of potentially stolen things, and joined her in the tiny kitchen. “What are you doing, Maddie?”
“I thought Sera might have gotten to you, so I took a precaution.” She looked up and smiled at him again, but there was something wrong with her eyes. “You know Evie always liked me better.”
The room was getting a little fuzzy, but Jake blinked it away. “Mad, I don’t know crap about crap, but you can’t take stuff from Evie’s house.”
The smile faded and her jaw clenched. “It was rightfully mine. I listened to her talk for hours, days, about Sera’s legacy and the Fae and wasted time. I was right there in front of her, and she went on and on about how sad she was that she’d have to wait to pass on her knowledge.”
Jake was wary about the way Maddie phrased that, but he pressed on. “I’m glad she had you to talk to, but that doesn’t automatically mean you get her stuff. The pendant is a family heirloom. It belongs to Sera.”
“Always Sera, isn’t it, big brother? Well, she’s not here now, is she?” Maddie flung her arms out wide. “But I am. I always am.” She sighed and scraped her hair back from her face with both hands. “Ugh, this glamour is distracting. I hate having to hide myself, especially when I’m hanging out with my favorite brother. You don’t mind if I drop it, do you?”
He was having trouble focusing his thoughts. “A glamour? You look the same.”
“It’s to hide magic, not an ugly haircut. I don’t know why I even bother with you. You’re about as magical as a box of hair. It’s too bad you didn’t bring Ryan, that would have been a fun test. Eh, I’ll keep it up for now.”
He did not like the way she’d
said Ryan’s name. It was likely he’d have to punch his friend later, but it was getting more difficult to follow the conversation. His head felt like it was full of cotton.
The steam wafting gently from the kitchen was slowly filling the top part of the room. That had to be it. It wasn’t affecting Maddie, but he felt like he’d had one too many six packs.
“We have to get out of here. That steam is making me loopy.” He stumbled over to the door, but the handle wouldn’t turn.
“Oh, I locked that. It was one of the first spells Evie taught me.”
Jake’s brain finally caught up to his ears as he slumped to the floor. “Spells? You have magic? Since when?”
She shook her head at him, but there was glee in her eyes. “Since Torix. We had to keep it a secret though, so he taught me the glamour to hide my power.”
Jake closed his eyes for a second to stop the room from spinning. He was in trouble. Sera had been right, and he’d dismissed her. Hell, he’d taken her keys. It seemed like there was something significant about that, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it might be right now. He needed to focus, but Maddie? His little sister? Jake just couldn’t bring himself to believe that she was one of the bad guys. For the first time in his life, he sincerely hoped he was hallucinating.
When he opened them again, she had moved the table out of the way to draw a complicated circle on the floor. She was almost finished. How long had his eyes been closed? His limbs felt like spaghetti, but with effort he could flop them around. One of Maddie’s little treasures sat on the bottom shelf next to his hand. A ceramic bird’s nest of all things.
She was humming as she drew intricate symbols around a multi-layered circle on the wood floor. He slid his hand over and was able to close his fingers around the nest. It was light, but he didn’t have many options. There wasn’t much of a plan involved, but he figured he could probably heave it through the window behind him and get some fresh air.
Jake hadn’t done much more than shift around when Maddie flicked her hand at him. He drooped back against the wall and the nest rolled out of his hand. This time he couldn’t move at all.
“Oh no you don’t. Can’t have you mucking around in here causing problems.” She dusted her hands on her pants and stood. “Tim will be here any minute, and I need you still.”
He wanted to ask who Tim was, but he couldn’t get his mouth to move. It was a spell he recognized because Zee had used it on him before. He could still breathe and think, but that was all. Maddie kept talking though.
“Tim is one of the high school jocks. Plays football, big into 4-H. Poor guy lost his prize rabbit recently. Really a shame how irresponsible kids are these days.” She tsked, but her smile widened. “I’ve been tutoring him in English. He’s supposed to come over today for a session, but I have a better idea.”
A dawning sense of horror washed over Jake. She was all the way a bad guy, and he couldn’t do a damn thing to stop her. Maddie crouched in front of him and patted his cheek.
“Don’t worry, he won’t feel anything. I’m not a monster.” She raised a brow. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m not. The way to get Torix through the shields is to replace him with someone else. No one is going to miss a whiny kicker who’s failing English.”
Jake hoped she didn’t mean that. That was some serious dark-side shit, and he wanted to believe his baby sister was acting out instead of evil.
“It’s not like I’m killing him, just trapping his essence in a tree for all eternity. Torix is going to need a body after all, and he swears the kid won’t feel anything. Unlike what those douchey Fae did to him, Tim won’t be conscious for his imprisonment.”
Maddie rolled her eyes and pouted as if Jake had said something, and he desperately wished he could. At least if he could talk, there was a chance he could reason with her. She flounced back to the circle on the floor and gestured at a symbol that looked like gibberish to him.
“See, this is so he’ll sleep.” She pointed to another. “This is so he won’t feel anything.” The third was almost at his feet. “This is to convince the shields that he’s Torix. The tricky part is the timing. They have to pass at the exact same moment.”
She flipped her long hair behind her shoulder. “I’ve been practicing this for years. Evie was the hardest, and I was worried she’d counter it for a second, but it worked in the end. It was tough getting the circle done before she wandered into the clearing, but we need it to prep the body. Humans don’t pass easily through Fae shields.”
It was like she’d never seen a superhero movie. She was honest-to-god monologuing. Jake wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince more that she wasn’t a bad person, him or herself. He clung to the hope that she wasn’t a lost cause.
The fog in his brain was receding, probably because his face was so close to the ground, and if he quieted himself, he could feel the warmth of the bond inside him. When they’d been together yesterday, he and Sera had been able to share emotions, and he’d felt her panic once before that. The bond flared to life when he nudged it with his mind, and he could feel Sera’s power trickling into him, barely more than a whisper. It gave him an idea. He couldn’t stop Maddie on his own, but he hoped he could at least do something to help the kid.
Right on time, what sounded like a truck engine cut out in front of the house. Maddie nudged him to the side so she could look out the crack in the curtains above him. He collapsed to the floor completely, but that was fine with him. The circle was inches from his face, and he needed to be as close as possible in case his crazy plan worked.
“Guess I didn’t need your truck after all. Tim brought his own.” Maddie stepped back and surveyed the living room. Jake could barely see her out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t think Tim would see him until he was fully into the room, and by that point it was probably too late.
Thanks to his week of practice with Sera, and a lifetime of listening to Ryan bitch about the Fae, he had a basic idea of how magic worked. There had to be a catalyst for Maddie to trigger the circle. She’d probably do to Tim what she’d done to him. Get him loopy on the steam, walk him where she wanted him, and finish the spell. Except it had taken him a while to get loopy. More likely, the steam was meant for him, and she was going for speed instead of security.
Jake couldn’t tell if she’d put her glamour back on, but she was more confident and bitchy than usual. It felt disloyal to think that, but she’d also used hidden magic to freeze him in place so he didn’t interfere with her evil plot, so he rolled with it. Tim knocked, and Maddie opened the door with a big smile.
“Tim, you’re right on time, as usual. And did you get a new truck? It looks fancy.”
“Yes, ma’am. My parents gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday,” Tim said from the porch. Jake willed him to stay out there, or better yet, turn around and go back to his family, but he wasn’t that lucky. He bet Maddie hated being called ma’am.
“It’s a beaut. Maybe you could take me for a ride later.”
“I’m not supposed to be driving around with girls, but you’d probably be fine.” Jake could hear the kid blushing. It was almost painful to listen to.
“Well c’mon in, that essay won’t fix itself.”
Maddie was all Southern charm, and Jake knew it was almost time. He opened himself to the bond, dropping the shields he’d been shoring up. Sera would feel this, but he hoped she was still relaxing at his house and would be fine. Heavy footsteps vibrated his head on the floor as Tim walked into the room. He visualized tangling his fingers in the heavy rope of the bond. Warmth flowed up his arms, over his shoulders, and into his chest. It was more than Sera’s power; it was their shared emotions and memories and strength, and he needed it to break Maddie’s spell.
Tim stepped into Jake’s line of sight, a frown across his face. He’d said something low, but Jake had missed it. Maddie’s smile had slipped as she motioned him further into the room. She’d put the table on the far side against the wall to make space for the ci
rcle, so Tim would have to walk across it to get to his normal study space.
He stumbled, and Maddie put her hand on his arm to steady him. The steam must have been for both of them after all. Tim was twice her size, but she had no trouble maneuvering him to the edge of the circle. Behind his back, Maddie made a motion with her hand, and with his mind firmly locked in the bond, he could faintly see the circle change. The white chalk glowed blue like a glow stick left out in the daylight. It was time; he hoped his belief that his little sister was still in there somewhere wasn’t misplaced.
Jake pulled hard on the bond, absorbing as much of Sera’s power as he could get, and it was a lot more than he was expecting. Suddenly, he could see the stillness spell on him. The circle blazed with dark blue light, shimmery and sliding over itself like an oil slick. He could see the glow of other magic around the room, different colors and sheens, translucent over the objects on her shelves. It was breathtaking. This must be what Sera saw when she opened her mind, and he had the sudden need to see her like this, ablaze with magic and light.
He hoped he’d get the chance.
With a punch of Sera’s power, the spell dissolved around him and he could move again. He popped up on his feet and raised a hand to Maddie and Tim. He wanted them to stop moving forward, but not be trapped, so he used the shield imagery he and Sera had been working on. The air in front of them became solid, and Tim bounced off of it, knocking Maddie back as well.
Jake could see the golden magic shimmering in the air. He’d done it. He’d made a shield. Holy shit, Sera was going to be so proud. Her power was still filling him up, and he felt a little light-headed from the sheer magnitude of it. Maddie snapped her head to him and raised her hand. Time for part two of the plan.
Jake lunged past the golden shield and into the circle himself. It was like diving into a freezing lake. His body seized up, and he fell to the floor. Through a haze of pain, he thought he was spending a lot of time face down on Maddie’s floor today. He grimaced and tried to move the arm he was laying on, but he was motionless again. This time all his muscles ached.