Outgrow: Spellslingers Academy of Magic (Keeper of the North Book 2)

by Annabel Chase

The hexagon served as some kind of shaft to underground. A wide tunnel stretched at least a half-mile in front of us. Gray and Rudolph were already halfway ahead of us. One by one, the rest of our group landed in the tunnel beside us.

  “What is this place?” Callan asked.

  “I think it’s the reason the brotherhood has been able to keep their activities covert,” I replied. “They’ve been hiding underground.”

  Professor Langley touched the wall of the tunnel. “I imagine they spent years constructing this.”

  “You don’t think it was here when Moldark was alive?” I asked.

  “Maybe a small part of it,” Warden Armitage said. “Knowing him, he had plans ready for an underground city in the event of his death. He wouldn’t have wanted the close company during his lifetime.”

  Gray waved us forward. The witches and wizards retrieved our wands and kept our weapons strapped to our backs. We could encounter a brother any moment now.

  We reached Gray where the tunnel split into two, but Rudolph made the choice easy. He veered right without hesitation.

  “What do you think of an invisibility spell?” I proposed. “Too much magic?”

  “Let’s see how far we can get without it,” Gray said. “Why risk it?”

  “Because by the time we need it, it may be too late,” I replied.

  “Miss Harlow makes an excellent point,” Professor Langley said.

  Everyone glared at the professor, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Should we split up now?” Peter asked. “Maybe that other tunnel leads somewhere important. Otherwise, why build it?”

  “Peter’s right,” Dani said. “We need to cover all the bases.”

  Peter hooked his arm around Dani’s head and planted a firm kiss on her cheek. “Gods love her, she used a baseball expression.”

  “Peter, Callan, and Professor Langley should check out the other tunnel,” I said. The mix of paranormals was a good one.

  “I’ll go with them,” Warden Armitage said.

  “What about Rudolph?” Dani asked.

  “That hellhound will answer to any one of you,” the warden replied. “You’re the ones who rescued him from the underworld, after all.”

  Declan urged me forward. “We should keep moving.”

  Callan gave Cerys a quick kiss before separating. My group started forward with Rudolph at the helm.

  “This place reminds me of the Egyptian tombs,” Declan said.

  “Is there anywhere you haven’t been?” I asked in wonder. Portals, oracles, quadrants, Terrene. Declan was a lucky demigod.

  We continued through the tunnel until we reached a narrower tunnel that splintered off to the left. Rudolph seemed eager to follow the new path.

  “She’s here,” Gray whispered.

  I trusted the vampire’s senses when it came to Bryn. The tunnel emptied into a series of chambers. “Why are there no guards?” I asked, as we followed Rudolph into the first chamber. My question was swiftly answered by the scene below.

  The chamber we entered seemed to be some kind of viewing platform. The setup reminded me of the Gateway to the Gods’ ice skating rink. Another level was below us, teeming with brothers in brown robes. We ducked behind a row of boulders to avoid detection and I ordered Rudolph to sit. One fiery sneeze from him and we were caught.

  “I see the horn,” I said, peering through a gap. On a wooden pedestal rested the ancient drinking horn that had been stolen from the giant. As predicted, it was clearly intended to be part of the ritual.

  “Do you see Bryn?” Gray asked.

  “Not yet.” I scanned the area but there was no sign of her.

  “She has to be nearby,” Dani said. “They’ll need her.”

  “But remember what Robin said,” Cerys said in a hushed tone. “There will be two circles. One for the blood and offerings and the other for the purification process and Moldark himself.”

  “I’m going to take a closer look,” Gray said.

  “You can’t jump down there,” Dani said sharply.

  “I’m a vampire,” Gray shot back. “I’m pretty sure I can.”

  “Go ahead if you want to be attacked by a bunch of Hermes brothers,” Dani said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Declan offered, and I looked at him askance.

  “No way,” I said. “That’s too dangerous.”

  He gave me a wry grin. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m a demigod of war, Mia. Dangerous is my natural habitat.”

  “Then you need brown robes,” I said. “Let me conjure them.”

  Declan gently pushed my wand aside. “No magic yet. We’re too close. One of the more sensitive brothers is likely to feel it.”

  “We’ll stick to physical force,” Gray said. “Two unconscious brothers means two available robes.”

  “See any tall brothers with big muscles?” Declan said, surveying the brown robes below. “That’s the robe I need to commandeer.”

  Gray pointed to two brothers standing apart from the others. They appeared to be playing a form of magical dice.

  “Good choice,” Declan said.

  Silently, they each dropped to the level below. A guy as big as Declan had no right to be that stealthy. It took them no time at all to take the two slacker brothers by surprise and drag them to an unseen space. They emerged in less than a minute. Gray pulled up his hood to shroud his face in shadow. Declan did the same, trading his brown leather trench coat for the plain brown robe.

  “Sweet Hecate, he makes a paper sack look good,” I said. My gut twisted as I watched him go. I wouldn’t be able to handle it if anything happened to him or Bryn.

  Cerys gave me an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry. Gray will find her.”

  “And Declan will be fine,” Dani added. “You heard Captain Sexy Brown Coat. He’s a demigod of war. He’s totally got this.”

  I knew they were both right. “And what about us?” I asked.

  “That’s easy,” Dani said, her jaw set. “We’re going to ruin Moldark’s comeback tour.”

  Brothers swarmed the room below. “We can start with stealing the horn,” I said. “They can’t purify the blood without it.”

  Cerys pulled a rune from her pocket. “Now might be a good time for magic.”

  I turned toward her. “What do you have in mind?”

  “We don’t need to go down there to get the horn,” she replied. She held open her palm and showed me the stone. The rune for ‘rise’ was carved into the side.

  “That’s such a tiny dose of magic,” Dani said. “I bet they won’t sense it.”

  “That’s the hope,” Cerys replied. She rubbed her fingers over the rune and began to chant in Etruscan. I watched as the horn shook and began to rise from the pedestal. The brothers were too busy milling around the chamber and talking to each other to notice what was happening.

  My friends and I were so fixated on the scene below that we didn’t notice Rudolph’s middle head pushing its way between us. The head knocked Cerys’s hand and the stone tumbled from her grasp to the ground below. The horn dropped back to the pedestal and nearly toppled over the edge. A brother stopped beside the pedestal, and my stomach tightened. Frowning, he repositioned the horn. No one seemed to notice the rune rock that had fallen.

  We slid back behind the boulders. “Now what?” Dani asked.

  “I can do it,” I said.

  “Levitation?” Cerys queried and I nodded.

  “Elemental magic might be enough to trip whatever ward they have in place,” Dani warned.

  “I know, but at least we’ll have the horn,” I said. “If we run, the brothers will pursue us.”

  “And hopefully leave Gray and Declan to rescue Bryn,” Cerys finished for me.

  Dani smiled. “Let’s do it.” The fire witch never met a challenge she didn’t like.

  I called my magic to me. Despite the underground location, there was plenty of air to summon. I focused on the horn and raised my hand, forcing air beneath the artifact. It
rose higher and higher until it was eye level with us. Then I sucked the air away, yanking the horn toward me. The horn smashed against the boulder and I managed to grab it just before it slid back down to the level below.

  “Uh oh,” Cerys whispered. “I think someone noticed.”

  “The horn!” a brother yelled. He whipped around in a circle, looking for the artifact’s whereabouts. He didn’t seem to realize it went up instead of down. He glanced beneath the pedestal and his face paled. Another brother ran over to investigate. When two men emerged without robes, I knew we had a problem.

  “It’s the dice players,” Dani hissed. They’d apparently awakened from their unconscious states.

  “Spell’s bells,” Cerys said. “They haven’t seen us. What should we do?”

  My instinct was to lead them away from Declan and Gray. Anything to give them more time to find Bryn. Rudolph acted before I had a chance. Three giant dog heads appeared over the boulders and blew fire at the brothers below.

  Brothers yelled and began to run around the chamber in confusion.

  “Up there!” a brother yelled.

  “No point in hiding anymore,” Dani said. She conjured a fireball and lobbed it over the boulders.

  Cerys frowned in concentration and the ground shook beneath the brothers’ feet. Earth magic was a distinct advantage when you were underground.

  Light streaked toward us. The brothers were firing back. One of the boulders cracked and crumbled into pieces, leaving us more vulnerable.

  “My turn,” I said. I pulled as much air to me as I could gather and then let it go. The pressure resulted in an explosion, knocking brothers to the ground. The pedestal crashed and split in two.

  “Someone get them!” a brother yelled. “They have the horn!”

  Cerys looped the handle of the horn through Rudolph’s collar and secured it. “Go, Rudolph. Run as far away from here as you can.” She gave the hellhound a kiss on the top of each head before sending him out of the chamber.

  “Run, run Rudolph!” Dani called after him. She turned back with a faint smile. “It’s a Terrene song. Peter would be so proud of me.”

  “I think we should run, too,” I said. The brothers’ firepower was increasing. It wouldn’t take long before they found someone who could levitate.

  We bolted from the chamber and returned to the narrower tunnel. Instead of going back to the wider tunnel, we pressed forward. I didn’t want to lead the brothers toward the place where Nick and Professor Mayweather waited either.

  Despite my hurried steps, my pace began to slow. The harder I pushed, the slower I got.

  Magic.

  I turned around and saw two brothers in pursuit of us. One of them had a wand.

  “Dani, fireball,” I said.

  She tossed two fireballs over her shoulder without missing a beat. Cerys made a pulling motion with her hand and rocks fell behind us. One of them must have hit the magic user because I sprinted forward, suddenly free of the heaviness that had slowed me down.

  We darted into another chamber before they could recover from the small avalanche. This area wasn’t a viewing platform. In fact, it wasn’t a chamber at all but another stretch of tunnel with a set of steps at the end.

  “Let’s go,” I urged.

  Cerys pulled a rune from her pocket. “Speed rune,” she said. “Hold my hand.”

  Dani and I each clasped a hand and we shot forward like we’d been catapulted. We glided to the bottom of the steps and kept running, straight into another chamber. I skidded to a halt when I noticed where we were.

  “It’s Bryn,” I said. She was strapped to a wooden stake and her head lolled to the side. The stake was set in the middle of a ritual circle. A large box was on the floor at the base of the stake and I had no doubt the box contained the body parts. Nausea washed over me when I realized that Declan and Gray hadn’t reached her yet. Where were they?

  “They’re going to drain her dry if we don’t get to her,” Dani said.

  I looked for any sign of Gray and Declan but saw only brothers. Even worse, they saw us.

  We didn’t wait for them to act. I pushed a gust of wind toward them and blew them backward. A few fell over but quickly scrambled back to their feet. Their attack was swift and immediate. Spells zoomed toward us and we were forced to defend ourselves instead of launching an offensive. Dani conjured a reflection spell and the brothers’ spells began to rebound. She was careful to aim the mirror away from Bryn so that nothing touched her.

  A couple of brothers stood at the ritual circle and began to chant. I suspected they were performing a spell that would prevent us from reaching Bryn.

  “We have to stop them,” I said.

  “We can’t while the other brothers are still attacking,” Cerys said. She focused her magic on the more active brothers, calling the earth to swallow their feet and hold them in place. They howled in protest.

  There was no cause for celebration, though. More brothers swarmed into the chamber, probably alerted to the intrusion. Dani’s reflection spell dissolved as a brother performed a counterspell. Magic pushed against us.

  Green light zapped Dani in the arm and she cried out in pain. Blood seeped from the wound.

  “Let me look at it,” Cerys said.

  Dani ignored her, continuing to throw fireballs with her uninjured arm. “No, there’s no time!”

  Peter could heal her. Or even Professor Mayweather. Whichever one we were reunited with first. Brothers seemed to appear in the chamber from every crevice and my stomach sank.

  Assuming we’re reunited at all.

  I began to choke and my hands flew instinctively to my neck. One of the brothers was using a strangulation spell and blocking my airway. I called to my magic in an effort to fill my lungs with air, but my head was too fuzzy to follow through. Although I could hear my friends’ voices, I couldn’t respond. My fingers continued to claw at my neck and I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness.

  I’m going to die here.

  My life was only beginning. I’d just started to become the witch I wanted to be—the woman I wanted to be—and now I would never fully reach my potential.

  I would never see Declan again.

  I couldn’t bear the thought. Then a worse idea crept into my mind—what if he was already dead?

  My thoughts became a jumble of images and fears. I couldn’t resist any longer. I stopped fighting the pain and let it take me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A sharp intake of air took me by surprise. The strangulation spell was broken. Someone must’ve injured or killed the conjuring brother.

  “Hecate above! Are those Furies?” Cerys said in awe.

  I watched in amazement as the Furies swooped through the chamber, exacting their brand of vengeance on the brothers. I never expected them to show up.

  “I…I asked them to come.” My voice sounded hoarse even to my own ears.

  “Look at you, building a coalition,” Dani said. “Chancellor Tilkin would be proud.”

  Chaos broke out in the underground complex as Moldark’s followers realized they were under attack from multiple sources. Where was Declan? I glanced at the circle where the stake was and my body froze.

  “Where’s Bryn?” My voice rang out, the hoarseness gone.

  “The ritual!” a brother yelled. “We must complete the ritual!” Brown robes ran amok, attempting to protect their sacred circle. I didn’t see the point without Bryn. We had to find her.

  A group of brothers fought back the Furies, but the sisters had magic of their own—psychological torture that made the brothers fall to their knees and scream in agony.

  The Furies were driving them mad.

  Her black wings spread wide to keep her airborne, Tisiphone spotted me across the chamber. Good luck, daughter of Hecate. The words echoed in my head.

  The box in the sacred circle was now aflame and brothers were throwing their robes on top of it to stop the destruction of the body parts.

  “
Oh well,” Dani said. “There goes his heart, not that he needed one anyway.”

  My strength returned to me and I was ready to rejoin the fray. “We need to get out of here and find where they took Bryn.” The Furies could handle the brothers in here.

  I raced from our spot and my friends followed. We darted past the circle and I was pleased to see that the box was now a pile of ash. We zipped down a narrow passage and I listened for sounds of a skirmish. I paused in front of an entryway and peeked inside. Bryn’s dark hair caught my eye.

  “In here!” I yelled.

  The chamber was bigger than the previous one but with fewer objects and no circle. Bryn was now pinned to a stone wall and two brothers appeared to be preparing her for bloodletting. There had to be another offering of power and strength aside from the body parts. The realization didn’t surprise me. Moldark was all about backup plans.

  “There’s Gray,” Dani said.

  Cerys gasped at the sight of the vampire. His body was contorted in a strange position and he seemed to be suspended in air just above the ground. Someone held him in place with a spell.

  I scanned the chamber for Declan. He was hard to miss, captured in a golden net that must’ve stifled his powers. No strength or speed. No agility. At least he was conscious. His gaze met mine and I saw the disappointment reflected there. He’d failed and he hated himself for it.

  “It’s okay,” I called.

  Declan’s fingers curled around the net. “Mia, watch out!”

  My skin sliced open on my shoulder blade and pain radiated down my arm. I craned my neck and spotted a brother with a blade. I summoned my magic and blew him back with a powerful burst of air. Blood streamed down my back and side and I winced as I tried to retrieve my wand. I had to free Declan so that we could help Bryn and Gray.

  Before I could move, Dani burst forward with Revival in her hand. The blade sliced through the golden net and released Declan. He plunged straight back into battle. I turned just as Gray dropped to his feet, whatever spell that held him now broken.

  “To Bryn,” I shouted. It wouldn’t be easy. Brothers blocked our path, forming a wall between Bryn and us. Green light streaked toward me and I twisted out of its path.