by Ashley McLeo
The tension and embarrassment in Lily broke. She smiled. “I can’t argue with that. I’m in that stage now. And then just when I think I’ve learned so much there can’t be more, someone like you comes along and tells me about daemons.”
Alfred beamed. “You can ask me anything you like, Lily. I’d love to talk to you more.”
“Are you always so open and out there with girls? It’s a tad disarming,” Lily admitted.
“Never. But you caught me eye and my father always said if someone catches your eye, do your best to catch theirs.”
Lily gaped and Alfred’s smile broadened.
“We’re closing in. Hurry up, you two, and keep the chatting down.” Aoife’s sandpaper voice carried through the trees back to where they stood.
Silently, Lily thanked Aoife for her timely intrusion.
What the hell does someone even say to that? she wondered, shooting Alfred another glance as they trudged onward.
“I did not see this coming. It’s huge. How are we going to get past it?” Lily overheard Brigit asking Jane as the manor house sprang out of the tree line five minutes later.
Lily followed Brigit’s gaze over the massive lawn but saw nothing abnormal.
“Impressive magical engineering. They must have some truly powerful witches or other magical creatures with them to produce a single shield of that size,” Jane exchanged looks with Brigit and Lily sensed they were both thinking of Noro, the elusive fata Nora had mentioned in her letter.
“Much more problematic than the smaller shields we’d been anticipating,” Brigit paused and examined the house again. “I think our best bet will be to break the shield from all angles. Here’s hoping it cracks fast. Do you think dividing into smaller squads to increase spell surface area would help?”
“I don’t think I feel comfortable about anyone entering that monstrosity of a home in a smaller group than we planned for,” Aoife jumped into Jane and Brigit’s conversation. “It makes us too vulnerable.”
Lily squinted and this time she saw what her mother was talking about: the faint fluid-like appearance of the air surrounding the manor. Damn, that is huge, she thought, her eyes searching for a crack or seam that usually gave a shield’s positions away.
Instinctively she knew this shield had many purposes. Why else would they put so much effort into making it massive when smaller shields on the doors would do? Keeping intruders out was a no-brainer, but Lily suspected this shield also functioned as a preliminary alarm system to smaller shields or spells. One attack on the shield would sound an alarm and give away the attackers’ location before they even touched the manor. Its uniformity suggested it was also being used to keep certain types of magic in check inside. Lily had never seen a shield that performed that function but she knew they existed. Otherwise wouldn’t it be easier to simply piece together smaller shields like a patchwork quilt? I bet they wanted to disable Evelyn’s magic and for that the shield would have to be flawless. It’s what I would do if I kidnapped her.
“We must be precise in our positioning,” Gwenn added. “Forget all earlier plans regarding entry points. It makes more sense for the groups to be at the four cardinal directions and attack each side so that monstrosity falls equally. Undoubtedly, alarms will sound and a front guard will come barreling out. Once the shield has fallen, enter wherever you can and get to your assigned floor as quickly as possible.”
The crowd murmured around her, and Lily couldn’t help but agree with their concerns.
“What if it doesn’t fall?” Jo whispered next to Lily.
“What if it falls too slow and the Acolytes bring out an entire army?” Roger yelled.
“What if we never even get the chance to enter and Evelyn stays a captive?” an elf broached.
Lily glanced at Sara as the crowd debated. She wished they were in the same group. Unfortunately, Lily’s niggling feeling they should stick together couldn’t argue with Brigit’s and Jane’s logic.
“You two will be easier to defend if you’re in different groups. Besides rescuing your sister, your safety is my main priority. If we have you together in one squad and your squad is under attack, how will your teammates choose whom to defend? Or worse, if you were in the same squad and it got captured, I’d lose two of you in one go. I’m sorry, Lil, I just can’t handle that,” Brigit had explained when Lily broached the question as they left the safe house.
Maybe I should have fought harder to be in the same group as Sara? With all the uncertainty piling on top of their battle plan, it seemed increasingly important that they remain together.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s the best plan we have considering the change of circumstance,” Jane agreed with Gwenn. “Time is ticking and we have to get Evelyn out. Once the shield falls, rush the building. With any luck we’ll be able to find our ways to the areas we studied online. Those of you without magic to break the shield, support your squad in any way possible. Follow me, I’ll drop each group at a cardinal point.”
The army followed Jane and her compass in a wide circle around the property. It was only when they reached true north where Jane indicated Gamma Squad, Lily’s squad, would be dropped that she knew what to do. She rushed over to Sara and threw her arms around her.
“Find me in there, will you? I have a feeling we need to be together,” Lily whispered, hoping the short locks of Sara’s pixie cut were long enough to hide the movement of her lips.
Sara grabbed Lily’s hand, squeezed it tight, and nodded before breaking loose and following Jane to her own squadron’s station.
“Hope you two aren’t making your own plans there,” Aoife whispered, sidling up next to Lily.
Lily turned to her aunt, trying to hide the shock she felt. She’d been so caught up with Alfred, then thinking about the shield and how to meet up with Sara, that she’d forgotten both she and Sara had received guardians they were to stay close to during the battle. Aoife was assigned to Lily to make up for Lily’s mediocre firepower, and Mary, as a water witch and Sara’s elemental opposite, would stick with Sara. Though Lily knew she should feel grateful to have Aoife, a fire witch of renowned power, in her corner, Lily couldn’t help but think of Aoife as another obstacle to overcome if Lily and Sara were to find each other.
“Just wishing each other luck. We should keep an eye out for the signals,” Lily said, clamping down her mind barriers and turning to avoid the evaluating copper-colored eyes that matched her sister’s.
They had been in position less than five minutes when Lily caught sight of a fireball flying high in the air from the west.
“There’s the first sign. After my shower of fireballs hit their peak, we begin,” Aoife said to the group. “Use the strongest destructive spell or power you can. With any luck our combination of spells and different magics”—she nodded at Eros, the single elf in their group—“will crack the shield quickly. Alfred, you know what to do.” Aoife waited until the fireballs from the south and then the east flew up from the trees before shooting a final shower of golden balls high in the sky.
The rush of magic that followed was stronger than anything Lily had ever experienced. She felt as though she had opened a window during a hurricane and would be blown away at any second.
Lily turned to see six wands raised high in the air, spewing streams of light and fire from their tips. Eros the elf stood with a metal staff at his side, eyes closed and calm as if he were in meditation, while light and wind swirled from the top of his head to collide with the shield. Lily’s eyes sought Alfred’s but like Eros, the daemon had his eyes closed. Her gaze darted across his creamy brown skin, taking in the faint yellow light that radiated from it. Though she still wasn’t exactly sure how daemon magic worked, she assumed Alfred was harnessing every tiny molecule of errant energy from the witches and elf around him, waiting for the perfect time to strike. Sylvia, a witch Lily had met this morning, stood in the center of the squad, watching the rest work. Lily wracked her brain trying to recall what Sylvia’s speciali
ty was before coming up empty and moving on to the final member of the group. Quinn, the only other witch in Gamma Squad besides Lily and Aoife who had no use for a wand shot beams of light from her hands nearly as fast as Aoife.
“Whenever you’re done daydreaming, we could really use your help here, Lil,” Aoife growled, sweat pouring from her face.
Lily turned to see white hot cracks forming in the shield, small portions of which had already fallen to the ground.
“Shit. Sorry, Aoife. Lascarma!” Lily held her palms to the sky and her shredding spell flew through the air.
“Whoa! Dang girl, did I ever feel that one!” Alfred cheered from behind her.
Lily couldn’t help herself. She grinned.
A potent blend of fear and elation rampaged through Lily as her spell hit the shield to mix with the spells of other witches and creatures. Without her meaning to, her body levitated off the ground an inch.
“Stay focused,” Aoife instructed, using one hand to push Lily back to the ground as the other continued to shoot an array of spells at the shield.
Oh right. It’s that easy. Lily paused in her casting. Besides the obvious distractions of magic flying all around her, the scenario felt off. The diversity of spells and magics being thrown at the shield was beyond anything Lily could imagine, yet it was still standing. She lowered her hands to a section right in front of her and fired off another shredding spell.
Her eyes widened as the shield mended itself in the exact same spot her spell had just landed. “Aoife, it’s fixing itself without any help from a witch or . . . whatever other creature,” Lily gulped and a vague image rose in her mind of Noro reclining on a couch and fixing the shield with ease as they threw all they had at it.
“Keep going. It’s the only chance we’ve got,” Aoife said, her face purple with exertion.
No witch made shield should be able to hold up to this diversity of spells and magics at once. Lily’s stomach sank as piece after piece of the shield repaired itself before her eyes. The storm of power at her back faltered in waves as her squadmates tired. Lily turned to see three witches bent over at their sides, heaving with exertion. Alfred had yet to release any of the bright yellow energy that radiated off him, and Sylvia was still standing uselessly, hands by her side. Only Quinn and Eros kept pace with Aoife, who hadn’t stop casting for a second.
Lily cast again, harder this time and in one continuous stream of magic. She raised her arms high, intuitively seeking the top of the shield where fewer spells were directed. Her hands grew warm with a familiar heat as her magic hit the dome and she grinned. Sara’s fiery essence was landing there too and mixing with Lily’s lukewarm magic.
“Hey! I can feel Sa—what the hell!” Lily exclaimed as the blue light they’d seen from the woods, now bigger and brighter, flew out of the manor upward.
Lily watched, her green eyes bulging as the blue light collided with the shield in exactly the same spot as her magic and shattered it into a million shining pieces.
Lily flew backward onto Alfred, who was now a sunshine yellow hue and looked like he was about to burst.
“Can’t keep your hands off me already, huh?” Alfred teased, though Lily paid little notice.
Rolling onto her side she gasped as all the pieces clicked into place.
“Aoife! The blue light!”
“Aye, it felt like your sister’s magic. I felt it too, the second the light shattered the shield. How she produced such a thing, I have no idea.” Aoife’s wiry frame stiffened as a howl pierced the calm twilight hour. “Here come the weres.”
Across the lawn, a handful of grotesque creatures charged straight at them. Their bodies rippled and shook as they transformed from man to beast. Lily’s hand flew to her mouth as one man, whose lower half already resembled the four legs of a wolf but whose torso was still resolutely human, covered fifty yards in seconds.
Aoife pressed her hands to her temples, and Lily felt a rush of hot air as her aunt flung her arms wide. “We’ll be needing reinforcements with that many. Everyone, get up!”
“Alfred. You’re in the lead. The rest of us need a mo’ to catch our breath. Use whatever wayward energy you collected and let them have it. The vamps will be here soon to help.” Aoife pointed the handsome daemon out into the clearing.
“You’re going to send him out there alone? But there’s so many,” Lily said as Alfred skipped out to meet the weres. Catching sight of an easy mark, the werewolves pushed harder, closing the gap between the pack and Gamma Squad fast.
“Trust me, Lil. Alfred will be fine.”
It took everything Lily had not to run out and join the fight—not that she knew how best to fight off six werewolves or even one, a real problem considering her current predicament.
“Aoife! How do I fight a were? What do I use?”
“What do you mean?” Aoife asked, tearing her eyes from the scene.
“Like how do I hurt them? Vampires are fire, but what injures a werewolf?” She glanced at Alfred and moved close to whisper to her aunt. “And daemons. What about them?”
“Shouldn’t this have come up a few hours ago? I swear this is all the internet’s fault, with its last-minute, instant knowledge,” Aoife huffed, unable to keep the tone of exasperation from her voice. “Anything that can kill or injure a witch can kill or injure a werewolf. Daemons are the same. You may have to fight both species longer, though; their hides and skin are imbued with protective properties.”
Kill a witch, daemon, or werewolf? Lily’s stomach dropped. It went against her very nature as a healer to fight to the death—though she had to admit she had imagined killing vampires, two in particular, and a fata if he was even in there. But killing someone like her, a living humanoid creature with family, was different. I’m not even sure I could do it to Nora, and I have every right to be pissed at her . . . At least all vamps beside Empusa and Amon are already technically dead, and fata are aliens, Lily stopped trying to reason with herself. I’ll just start with injuring people. That’ll have to be good enough for now.
“Watch this, Lil,” Aoife pointed to Alfred, who was vibrating violently.
Ten weres, two hundred feet away mere seconds ago, were now only thirty feet, then twenty, then ten away.
The leader of the pack leapt high in the air above Alfred, who remained stuck in place, seemingly unperturbed by the pack of wolves surrounding him. The leader’s jaws were inches from clamping down on Alfred’s head when suddenly beams of light flew from the daemon in the direction of the werewolves. The pack leader exploded, showering the ground with blood and half-intact organs. Two other wolves yelped and rolled in the snow to extinguish the flames that clung to their fur. Another lay dead fifteen feet from Alfred. The ones that had scurried away in time looked hesitant to advance once more.
“Holy shit,” Lily whispered as Alfred, pulled a dagger from a sheath hidden beneath the bulk of his jacket and slit the necks of the burnt weres as they rolled in the snow.
“And that, wee one, is why we do not worry about daemons,” Aoife said, rising from her crouch, a grim smile on her face. “Move out, troops! Let’s go help our man!”
The Battle of Peacock Manor
By the time Lily made it to where Alfred stood, Celestine and the four other vampires were already there, annihilating the werewolves that had been backing away from Alfred. A trail of other were bodies lined the vampires’ path across the snow. It seemed to Lily that despite all their explicit attack training at Fern Cottage, she was going to get a crash course today, complete with blood and guts and all sorts of creatures.
“Good call rounding up the vamps, Aoife,” Alfred said as the last werewolf fell at Celestine’s hands. “We made fast work of the first wave. Hopefully, whatever else is in that mansion is that easy.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. Don’t let your guard down because of one easy victory. Absorb whatever wayward magic you can from us and stay next to Lily. Use whatever you’ve got to defend her.”
“Wi
th pleasure, sergeant,” Alfred said falling into place beside Lily, who felt a flutter in her chest, despite the blood covering the daemon.
They covered the rest of the lawn with ease and Aoife led Gamma Squad along the side of the building abutting the garden and a huge door. Intended as the groundskeeper’s entrance, the door would open to a small basement chamber supposedly filled with lawn maintenance equipment. If the photos and diagrams online were accurate, they could then access a discreet staircase built to wind its way up past the kitchen on the ground floor, to a separate quarters kept for the groundskeeper on the second floor. After seeing the size of the lawn and garden, even Lily, an earth witch and garden lover, could understand why a groundskeeper could demand such privacy. Few would be up for maintaining a property so large.
“Clostium,” Aoife said, gripping the knob of the oversized door without hesitation and pulling.
The metal knob flashed red-hot and Aoife snatched her hand away. “Well, they’re not as dim as we hoped they’d be. There’s an enchantment to repel an unlocking spell. If there’s one on this entrance, it’s likely the other entrances are under similar spells.” Aoife held her singed hand out to Lily.
Lily gripped her aunt’s hand. “Salus,” she whispered and the burn healed even before it could blister.
“Thanks, Lil,” Aoife turned her concentration back to the door. “Well, seeing as we no longer have the element of surprise, we may as well force our way in. Everyone stand back about three meters and cover your eyes.” Aoife ushered the group back ten feet before holding her hand out before her.
“Preamporto.”
The door shot inward, blowing up a cloud of dust and showering the snow with tiny splinters.
Lily waited, crouched low and hands at the ready for another pack of werewolves to rush out. She sighed with relief when a brisk winter wind blew away the dust to reveal only an empty room filled with riding lawn mowers and a construction crew’s worth of shovels.