by SA Magnusson
Something struck me from the other direction.
I turned, looking for where the mage attack came from, but still saw nothing.
How could they be attacking me from the street level without revealing themselves?
What if they weren’t at street level?
I glanced up. One of the dark mages was crouched on one of the nearby buildings, a hood covering his head, and he glared at me. He wasn’t alone. He couldn’t be, not with the type of attack that had hit me. There had been one from the other direction, too.
I spun around, looking for him. The buildings here were all of varying heights. Some were only two stories while others rose five stories, high enough that if there was somebody there, he would be difficult to see easily.
I couldn’t see any of the other mages, but there had to be at least two, and if they knew Aron was with me, I doubted that would be the end of what they sent.
Aron moaned again. Hopefully he was already coming around, his magic restoring him in ways that traditional medicine would not be able to, but even when he came around, I didn’t know if he would be strong enough to help fend off the attack.
I pulled on my magic, trying to add it to the spell, using that to create a protection around us. If I could fortify it, maybe we could reach the car. With the attack coming from above, it should be possible for us to drive away. I might not be quite as crazy a driver as Aron, but I could get us away from here, go searching for my grandparents, and… Then what?
Where were the knights of the council?
With as much dark magic as these guys had been throwing around, they had to have drawn attention to themselves, so where were the knights? Lupita had come during the last attack, and that couldn’t have been a coincidence. She must have detected the attack, which meant that the knights had some way of picking up on the dark mages and getting here quickly.
And she had mentioned that Aron had come because she’d asked.
There was no movement, certainly nothing that would give me hope that any knights would come. Whatever happened would have to be on us.
I could see Aron’s car. As I dragged him, another burst of magic struck from above.
This one forced me to my knees. It was practically directly overhead, and now they were using enough force to crush me. Without my shield, I suspected I’d end up like Aron, though my magic wouldn’t be able to restore me quite as well as he had managed so far.
The attack paused for a moment and I staggered forward again, getting space between me and the dark mage. If I could keep him from crushing me, I could at least continue to make my way along the street.
The car. That was all we needed to reach.
I hurried forward, making it another dozen steps, and stopped.
Standing before me was the karate mage. Darvish.
He raised his hand and a blast of power struck my shielding. It didn’t penetrate, but it did force me back, keeping me from getting any closer to the car.
He smiled at me. “Release the archer.”
I hazarded a glance along the street. There was still no one out. How was that even possible?
“You know I won’t.”
“I know you think you can’t, but he can’t help you. We can.”
“Is that right? You think to instruct me in the ways of your dark magic?”
Darvish smiled at me. In any other situation, he might be handsome. He had that lithe, athletic build, the kind of muscularity that made him so dangerous as a martial artist.
“There is much you could learn from us. Don’t fear what’s inside you.”
“There’s no way that you’re getting inside of me,” I said.
His grin spread wider. “That could come later, if you so desire.”
“Gross.”
Darvish shrugged. “Release the archer. We will finish him off quickly. Mercifully. More so than the council has been with our kind.”
“As I said, I don’t think so.”
“We have you surrounded. You aren’t going to escape, and this time there aren’t any other knights who will come to your defense.”
He said it in a way that suggested they knew there weren’t.
The battle with the council.
Darvish must know about a different attack.
Were Gran and Gramps safe?
I needed to push those thoughts away and escape. The car was tantalizingly close, but with Darvish in front of me, I didn’t think I’d be able to reach it, not without changing the focus of my magic.
“What makes you think I need knights to come to my defense?”
He smiled. “You aren’t prepared for this. But you could be. The council would protect you from what lives within you.”
“There you go again, talking about things that are inside me,” I snapped. There was no point in delaying. Even if I managed to take more time, there wasn’t anything that I could do to get away from him. He was right. I was surrounded, and because I was surrounded, either I had to wait for Aron to come around—and considering how slowly that seemed to be happening this time, I doubted that would make a difference—or I had to come up with some way for us to escape.
Delaying gave me a chance to try to think things through, but answers didn’t come.
“I can see that you are aware of the fact that you have no escape here.”
“Try me.” I continued to pull on my magic, but all that did was feed into the barrier. I would need to shift the way I used my magic, and maybe I could summon enough of a blast to push back Darvish long enough to reach the car.
Movement behind me got my attention and I glanced over my shoulder.
Another dark mage approached.
The blast would have to be in both directions for it to be effective.
I wasn’t sure that I had enough control over my magic to pull that off.
If I failed here, they would kill Aron.
That thought gave me strength and power, and it motivated me to try harder, to reach deeper within myself, to attempt to draw on more of my magic.
It flowed through me, but I couldn’t help but feel as if I would be much more effective with the sword.
The dark mages continued to press their magic upon me. Pressure built, squeezing upon my barrier, constricting it. If I continued to hold it like this, they would overpower me, and then what?
I didn’t like the odds at that time. It was unlikely that I would be able to hold onto my magic well enough to change from my defense to an attack. The longer that they forced me to hold onto this barrier, the harder it was for me to maintain it.
I looked back over at Darvish. He seemed to wait, as if he knew my situation was hopeless.
It was hopeless for me—the dark mages would take me—but if they did, maybe I could figure out what had happened to Derek. Some good could come out of it, and I doubted they knew enough to prevent me from reaching my magic, even if they held me with the paralytic.
The fact that I might be half demon should be helpful.
How was I going to protect Aron?
If I could shift my spell to direct him rather than to create a barrier, maybe I could push him out of the way.
It would be a sacrifice, but it was one I was willing to make for him.
He grabbed my leg and looked up at me with more clarity in his eyes than he had since the attack had begun. “No, Kate.”
“Are you strong enough to help?”
Aron rolled his head to the side, looking over to see Darvish. A faint trace of cold trailed along my spine, nothing nearly as strong as it should be.
Aron shook his head. “No,” he said.
“Then this is the only way. I can’t hold onto this barrier for much longer, and when it fails, they are going to kill you. I don’t… I can’t…”
I didn’t finish. I shifted from holding onto the barrier to blasting outward.
The attack used every bit of strength I had, but I feared that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be strong enough to get Aron to safety. That was all that mattered n
ow.
There was a scream behind me. Maybe my attack had done more than move Aron.
Weakness washed over me, the effect of expending more of my magic than I could handle. I dropped to my knees, looking along the street to see Aron hiding underneath a nearby car.
At least that had been effective. They wouldn’t get to him. Hopefully he had enough strength that he could create some sort of concealment spell around himself, preventing them from realizing he was there.
Darvish approached. The magic that radiated from him was intense and forced itself upon me. I wouldn’t be able to withstand it for much longer, but I watched, hoping he would keep his attention on me rather than looking over to see where Aron had gone.
“Do you really think that will help you?”
“I didn’t need to help me,” I said.
“We’ll find him. And when we do—”
Magic surged again, close. The only way I could tell that it was close was by the strength radiating out from the spell.
Darvish jerked around. “Knights,” he sneered. He raised his hand and I was jerked to my feet, held in place by the paralytic spell and unable to move otherwise. He dragged me along the street in that way, and though magic pulsed behind me, I couldn’t see where it came from or who wielded it. All I knew was that knights had appeared, but they had done so too late for me.
13
When the van stopped moving, leaving me to guess we were at our destination, I still hadn’t managed to break through the effect of the paralytic. It held me, preventing me from moving, and I couldn’t reach into my magic well enough to overcome the effect. There was no pain, just an inability to move.
Darvish pulled the back of the van open and lifted me with his magic, dragging me out. I didn’t know where they’d brought me, but we’d been driving for nearly thirty minutes. In Minneapolis at this time of day, we could travel quite a ways through the city in thirty minutes. If it were later, traffic would be at a near standstill all around the downtown area, but mornings weren’t bad, certainly not like what I’d experienced when I’d visited my grandparents in Chicago.
“You’ve been fighting,” he said, smiling at me.
Could he tell that I’d been trying to reach for my magic—but failing?
The paralytic spell eased up a little, enough for me to be able to move my lips. “Where am I?”
Darvish only smiled wider. “That will become evident in time. For now, you will accompany me through here.”
I could move my head a little, enough to see that we were in a massive warehouse. That didn’t give me any clue about where they had brought me. The ground was hard cement, and his boots thudded along it. I made no sound as he held me in the air, dragging me as if I were a child. Compared to his control over his magic, I supposed that I was.
There didn’t seem to be anyone else here. The warehouse was open and spacious, with pillars interrupting the openness in places. Skylights overhead let in dirty light, not enough for me to see very well. Musty air spoke of disuse.
Darvish reached what looked to be the back of the warehouse and stopped, lowering me to the ground. A sliding door separated this space from something on the other side. A spell built, surging into the doorway, and the door slid off to the side. Without the proper spell, I doubted anyone would be able to gain access to the other side.
Why wouldn’t he have just driven there if that’s where he intended to take me?
Light bloomed from the other side of the door. Computer screens flickered atop rows of tables, and the sound of machinery whirring came from deep within the room. Darvish left me lying on the ground as he entered. Voices sounded from the back of the room, one of them Darvish’s, before he returned to the doorway and raised his hand and, with it, me.
“Where are you taking me?”
“No more questions,” Darvish said. His voice was tight and as he pulled me deeper into the warehouse, the sense of magic intensified. It didn’t come from Darvish, but who was it?
“I thought you were the leader of the Dark Council?”
Darvish glanced over his shoulder. “You should be more careful with what you’re saying.”
“Why? You’ve already attacked me and there’s not much more that you can do to me.”
“Do you really believe that?” With the question, pain surged through me. It was almost as if it were added to the paralytic, that whatever he was doing to me burned deep beneath the surface of my skin. I tried to cry out, but he’d shifted the effect of the paralytic, making it so that I couldn’t even do that.
The pain prevented me from seeing anything. My eyes watered with it, blurring them, and I couldn’t even blink to try and clear them. With the pain, I couldn’t think about attempting to reach for my magic.
That was a mistake. Wasn’t that part of the lesson Master David wanted me to learn? If I could maintain focus when everything was falling apart around me, I would be more formidable. Most failed to do so, and because of that, they failed entirely.
I wouldn’t fail. I couldn’t.
Ignoring the pain, I tried to focus on my magic. It was there, even if I had just used almost too much of it. The time spent driving wherever they had brought me would have given me the rest I needed to recover my stores of magic, if only a little. If I could use that, maybe I could pry myself away from the paralytic, and then I could fight.
For how long?
Even if I managed to get myself free from the spell they used, it wouldn’t matter. They held me and there was at least one other person with magical power here. From what I had felt of the magic they drew, it was considerable. If I escaped from Darvish, I would be left with someone else to deal with.
But if I escaped from Darvish, I might be able to get away long enough to figure out where they had brought me. Then I could call for help.
What about Derek?
Darvish and the rest of the Dark Council had to be responsible for what had happened to him. I was certain of it.
Darvish dragged me to a part of the room where the light didn’t quite reach. There were no computer monitors here, and no tables. It was simply a darkened section of the warehouse. He dropped me on the ground, his magic no longer lifting me, and I stared up at the ceiling. I couldn’t move my head, not well enough to be able to figure out where he’d brought me, and I saw nothing other than the ceiling until he loomed closer to me.
“You will know pain before you agree to work with us,” he said.
I wanted to shout, to cry out that I had no intention of ever working with him or whoever it was that he served, but with the paralytic holding me, there was no way to do so.
He left me there and I waited, losing track of how long it was. Minutes stretched into hours—at least, it seemed that way. Nothing else changed around me. There came the continual sound of machinery, but it wasn’t the sound of computers. This was something else, something that I couldn’t fully determine.
Why did they have this setup here? It seemed a strange place to have computers stretched around, and if he was working with the Dark Council, why did they use this place?
As I lay there, I continued to focus on my magic. If I could reach it, maybe I would find a way of pulling free of what they had done to me, but it was almost as if my attachment to magic was not nearly strong enough.
With nothing else to do, I focused.
Magic was there, buried deep within me. I had always known about my magic, at least ever since I was young. My grandparents had never made any attempt to hide the fact that we were connected to magic. It was a part of me, and though mine was different than theirs, and though I had grown up thinking that I was a dark mage, I had always known I had magic. As it always was, it remained buried within me.
If pressed, I would’ve described a knot, my entire being tying it off and burying it deep within myself. What other choice did I have, especially since that magic was dangerous? Or so I had always believed. And it was dangerous, especially if that magic was half demon.
/> I teased at the knot, trying to loosen it. What had I done when they’d attacked my home? I’d managed to escape that time, but couldn’t find the necessary connection this time. Somehow, I would free myself from the paralytic. I hated the feeling of helplessness I had when it slammed into me, and feeling it made me angry.
Most of the time, I managed to keep my temper in check. Attacked like this, I didn’t think I could.
Strangely, the connection to that anger helped me reach for that magic more effectively. It was almost as if allowing myself to lose control, to let go of the regimented practice that years of medical training had instilled upon me let me access it.
And maybe that medical training had suppressed my connection to my magic. That had been the goal, even if unintentionally. Masking my magic, concealing it even from myself, was always the goal.
As I reached for the knot, it began to loosen.
It reminded me of what I’d felt when facing the demon king. With him, there had been fear. I had released my magic in order to survive, and while I wasn’t certain what the Dark Council would do to me, I didn’t think they would keep me, though I wasn’t entirely certain. They had wanted to kill Aron, but they viewed Aron as a threat because he was an archer. Either they didn’t view me as a threat or they needed me for something else.
And if they believed that I was part demon, I knew what they would want to use me for. Tearing down the Veil.
Slowly, my magic began to return.
It crept through my body, washing over me, but it did nothing to release the effect of the paralytic. There was power, and I felt connected to it in ways that I wasn’t normally, and it seemed almost as if I could reach that power, and that I could use it, but as I tried, a face appeared before me.
“You’re the one,” the man said.
He had a long face and a sharp nose. Brown eyes glared at me. I couldn’t see anything else about him. Magic surged from him, crawling along my spine.
The paralytic eased enough for me to speak.
It was nothing that I did, I was certain of it, which made it even worse. The fact that I could reach my magic but could do nothing to free myself from the effect of what they were doing to me left me feeling helpless in ways that my capture had not.