by SA Magnusson
I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a physician. I always think about my patients.”
Barden stared at me as if he didn’t know quite what to make of me. And right now, I wasn’t sure that I knew what to make of me, either.
“Where is this?”
“It’s a place of peace,” Aron said, speaking up for the first time. “It’s a place where even the Dark Council cannot attack.”
Barden’s eyes narrowed for a moment. “Neutral ground.”
Aron nodded.
“And that’s where you have this creature?” he asked, looking at me.
“For now. I don’t know how long we can hold onto it. I’m going to try to kill it.”
“You?”
I shrugged. There was no point in explaining to Barden why I would be the one, but I’m sure that once he saw the gorgon, and once he realized that it was real, there would be questions. Hopefully Gran and Gramps were able to come up with a believable answer.
“Can we have truce?” I asked.
“For now.”
That would have to be enough.
17
I hadn’t been certain what to expect on the way over, but Aron had been silent, likely irritated or angry at what he viewed as a unilateral decision on my part to try to end the fighting between the Dark Council and the mages, but I didn’t see that there was much choice.
Barden and one of the other Dark Council mages followed us down into the storage room. Neither of them spoke, though there was tension hanging in the air.
The inside of the storage room at the basilica crackled with power.
After knocking on the door, I waited. David pulled the door open, glancing from me to Aron and then his eyes widening when he saw that there were two others with me. “Oh.”
“Is it still controlled?” I asked.
David nodded. “The creature remains contained, but from what I’ve been able to understand, there is concern that it might not remain that way.”
I hurried into the room and Gran and Gramps turned toward me, eyes going wide when they saw Barden. Before they had a chance to say anything, I raised my hand. “He agreed to a truce.”
“Katie, you can’t do this. You don’t act on behalf of the council.”
“I don’t have to act on behalf of the council to know this fighting has not been accomplishing anything. The only reason you’re fighting with the Dark Council is because both sides believe the other attacked. It was the gorgon that was responsible for it. And Barden said Lexy wasn’t with them.”
Barden stared at my grandparents. Power built from him. Was he going to attack here? This was supposedly neutral ground, and I didn’t think he would risk it, but what if he had used me to get to my grandparents? Wasn’t that what he’d been after anyway?
“How do I know that the council isn’t responsible for releasing this creature?”
“The council didn’t release the gorgon.” Gran sounded offended at the idea.
“It seems as if the gorgon, if that’s what this is, attacked only the Dark Council. That seems like it’s something the council would have done.”
“The council doesn’t have access to a gorgon,” Gran said. “And even if we did, there’s no one who is foolish enough to release a creature like this into the world.”
Barden stared at her. “We shall see.”
“I didn’t bring you here to fight with them. I brought you here to prove it wasn’t a spell placed on Rory—or Darvish. It something that’s alive. And it’s attacked others, even if it didn’t mean to. There was a young man I took care of at the hospital before you appeared.”
Barden frowned. “He made the mistake of trying to push his way into the Dark Council. He wasn’t ready.”
“He tried to push his way in?” I asked.
Barden stared at the circle, nodding absently. “He was friends with Rory. Both of them thought they could discover more of their magic by working together.”
I frowned. Could that be the connection? Rory and Tony had been friends?
“Cyn?” Gramps said. His voice was strained and sweat dripped down his brow.
Gran frowned at him. “What is it?”
“I’m not able to hold onto this much longer.”
Barden came closer to the edge of the circle. The gorgon had changed in the time that I had been gone, becoming something more solid and much less translucent. It had an alien shape, strange flowing features, and was elongated, with tentacles that probed at the barrier surrounding the circle.
“What happened?” I asked.
“It’s growing stronger,” Gran said.
“I can see that, but how?”
She shook her head. “It shouldn’t be able to, not with the circle around it, but we haven’t been able to stop it.”
“This is the gorgon?” Barden asked.
“It wasn’t like this when it attacked Rory. It was essentially invisible. It wasn’t until we brought it here that it…”
I looked around. We were connected to the Veil within the basilica. It was neutral ground, but it was also closer to the other side of the Veil.
Was it drawing power from the other side of the Veil, or was it attacking something on the other side?
We needed to take action, and quickly.
“Do you think this will—”
I didn’t have a chance to finish. The circle holding the gorgon suddenly collapsed.
I could feel it when it collapsed.
Gran and Gramps were thrown back.
The creature went straight toward Barden, and the other mage with him threw himself in front of the gorgon, building a spell as if to attack. He never had the chance.
The gorgon wrapped around the other dark mage and rippled, growing darker and more distinct as it did. The cold chill of death started racing up my back.
“Oh my God,” I said. “It’s feeding on him.”
I started forward, but Aron grabbed me, holding me. “You can’t do anything.”
“He’s dying. I can feel it.”
Aron cocked his head to the side, watching me. “You can’t do anything.”
It pained me, but Aron was right. The chill turned into an icy grip, and with it came the waves of nausea that I was all too familiar with, the kind of nausea that came from a magical person dying. It was bad enough when someone non-magical died, but when someone within the magical world died, the sense of nausea became almost more than I could bear.
Worse, power surged within me. I still didn’t understand why that happened.
Both Gran and Gramps managed to recover, and along with Aron and Barden, threw spells at the gorgon. None of them seemed to matter.
I pointed my demon sword at the gorgon, drawing on my magic and trying to send it through the creature, searching for some way of separating the gorgon from the dark mage it attacked. I couldn’t find any ridge, nothing that would allow me to separate it.
And my attempt didn’t matter.
The creature finished feeding on the dark mage and started toward Barden.
I released my magic.
It flooded out of the sword, striking the gorgon, but it couldn’t hold.
I drew as much magic as I could, wrapping it around the creature. It managed to slow the gorgon, but it was much stronger than it had been the last time I had faced it. Pressure built upon my barrier, slamming into it over and over, each time stronger than it had been before. I tried to fight, resisting the attack, but it wouldn’t be long before it overwhelmed me.
“I can’t hold it,” I said.
Other spells began to surround mine, fortifying my magic. Gran and Gramps took positions on opposite sides of the gorgon. Barden took another place, this one in between Gran and Gramps. Aron took a place on the other side of their circle. The four of them pushed against each other, magic building upon magic, spell slamming upon spell.
Would it be enough?
It seemed as if their spells supported my magic and kept it from collapsing, but even with thei
r spells surrounding mine, I wasn’t going to be able to hold it.
“Katie, move to the opposite side of the circle and try to drag it with you.”
I backed up as Gramps instructed, trying to drag the gorgon with me. I held onto my magic, keeping it sealed around the gorgon, but it thrashed, and it wouldn’t be long before my attempt to hold onto this thing failed. Hopefully the others could contain it if my magic couldn’t.
I backed up, taking one step after another, and when I reached the circle, power flowed through me. It felt similar to what I experienced when using the sword to draw magic through, but it was raw, power that I had never known before.
I staggered back and lost control of my spell.
“I don’t have it.”
The power from Gran and Gramps continued to hold it, and Barden stood with his hands stretched out before him, lines of power racing out from him. It was a different magic than I had seen before, dark magic.
It didn’t look dark. It didn’t feel dark. It was just different.
I held out my sword, watching the gorgon. The four mages tried to move it back into the circle, but it had grown stronger after feeding on the dark mage. It was larger, stretching from the floor to the ceiling, and long and thin, strange tendrils protruding outward.
Fear coursed through me. I did not want that creature to get anywhere near me.
But I would have to get near it. If I was going to kill it, I would have to risk myself and approach, getting close enough to the gorgon that I could stab the demon sword through it.
What if it didn’t work?
One of the tendrils began to break free of the spells holding it. The tendril snaked away from the four mages, reaching toward the back of the room.
Toward Derek.
For some reason, the gorgon was drawn to dark mages. It might know that it couldn’t reach Barden, not easily, but if it reached Derek and began to feed on him, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. Certainly not quickly enough.
I ran behind the mages and slashed at the tendril with the demon sword. A painful scream filled the air.
I could hurt it.
And if I could hurt it, that meant I could kill it.
I turned my attention back to the gorgon in time to see another tendril push out through the spell and make its way toward Derek. Like before, I slashed at that tendril, cutting it, but another came out, and then another.
I cut through each of them, and each time I did, the creature screamed again, the sound foreign and painful and awful, a shriek that split my ears.
I couldn’t keep focusing on the tendrils. I had to focus more on the gorgon itself.
But if I did, I would be leaving Derek and David exposed.
“The two of you need to go,” I shouted at Derek.
“We’ll stay.”
“If you stay, that thing might eat you.” There was no question that it was targeting Derek, and each time it did, another tendril slipped out and forced me closer and closer. I pulled on my magic, forcing it from myself, creating a barrier around me that I turned to the gorgon, but doing so also pushed the tendrils back toward the others.
That wasn’t the right answer.
“Go,” I said to Derek. “It’s after dark mages.”
Just then, another tendril slipped out, squeezing toward Barden but missing. It reached the door, anchoring to it and holding it closed. Another tendril shot out and attached itself to the far wall, slipping between Aron and Gran. Another came, grabbing onto the far wall.
“We can’t move it, not like this,” Gran said more calmly than I would have been in the same situation.
I raced toward the nearest tendril and slashed at it. The tendril cut away, separating from the door, but another pushed back outward almost immediately, reaching the door again.
We wouldn’t be able to get Derek and David out.
The gorgon shifted the focus of its attack and began to try to reach Barden along with Derek. If it reached either of them and fed, it would be too powerful for anyone to stop.
“Now would be a good time to see if you can kill it, Katie,” Gramps said.
“How?” I couldn’t even get close to the gorgon, not close enough to do anything to it. Each time I tried, tendrils continued to push me away. I could slice at them, but eventually it would become too much for even that to work.
I had to do something different.
I had to have more strength, more power, but how?
The circle.
When it stepped in it, I had felt a surge of power. I might not know what it meant, but I certainly recognized how much stronger I was when I was there. There was a raw sort of energy, and I could use it. Could that mean I drew power from the other side of the Veil?
I ducked under the nearest tendril, sliding my sword through it as I went, and raced toward the circle. Gramps watched me, frowning. “What are you doing?”
“I have idea.”
I looked over at Derek. He and David crouched in the corner, neither of them moving. Tendrils came close to them, streaking away from the gorgon, and it wouldn’t be long before one of them reached Derek. Barden had enough strength that he could push off and against the tendrils, but there would come a time when he would fail, too.
As I neared the circle, another tendril shot toward me.
I reacted instinctively and formed a barrier. Safely behind it, I pushed out against the tendril and dove for the circle.
My barrier suddenly surged with power. I stayed frozen in place, power coursing through me in a way that I’d never felt, and I pointed the sword at the gorgon. That power exploded, slamming into the gorgon. It surrounded the creature, slicing through the tendrils and holding it in place.
Gran looked over to me. “What did you do?”
“I…”
Their spells had collapsed. It was only me holding onto the gorgon.
“We need to push it into the circle,” Gran said.
“No!”
She frowned at me. “Why not?”
“I’m stronger here. This is the only way I’m able to hold it.”
Barden shot me a strange look that I ignored.
Gran frowned. “What do you want us to do?”
What could they do?
I needed the gorgon close enough that I could stab the sword into it.
“Push it toward me, but not into the circle.”
“You want us to get it closer to you?”
I held the sword up. Even though power was flowing through me, there were limits to how long I would be able to hold it. It was overwhelming, and it seemed as if it were sapping my strength much faster than it normally would. When my strength failed, the gorgon would be freed unless the mages managed to hold onto it again. I had the sense that even they were beginning to grow tired.
“Be ready,” Gran said.
I gripped the sword, terror rolling through me. If this failed, I would be the first one the gorgon attacked.
What was I thinking? This wasn’t my fight. This wasn’t any sort of medical problem. My training prepared me for so many different things, but magical attacks from a strange demonic parasite was not one of them.
The gorgon moved.
The mages pushed it, sending it toward me, and I continued to hold onto the barrier around it, wrapping it around the creature. It writhed within the shell I held it with and pushed, somehow stronger than even the magic I was drawing.
This was a mistake.
What choice did I have but to go through with it?
Gran and Gramps pushed, and suddenly the gorgon seemed to turn its attention toward me. It slammed against my barrier.
I staggered back, out of the circle.
My barrier collapsed.
The gorgon slithered forward. It happened so fast that I could only react, martial arts training practically the only thing that saved me.
I dropped out of the way of an oncoming tentacle and swung my arms around, gripping the sword in both hands as I sliced through
the gorgon. It regrouped, coming back together despite the demon sword cutting through it.
“It’s not working.”
“Get to the circle again. See if that will help,” Gran said.
“Cyn—”
The circle. Would that be enough? If I could just get to it, maybe I could draw enough power to hold onto the gorgon again and regroup. If I couldn’t, I was throwing myself at it, placing myself at its mercy.
Another two tendrils came at me and I dove over one, cutting through the other. I was near the edge of the circle. The silver band beckoned me, but as I took a step toward it, the gorgon slithered toward me, cutting me off. I jabbed out with the sword, barely managing to avoid it wrapping itself around me. I was forced back.
The creature anticipated that and began to send out tendrils that would wrap around me. If that happened, it would feed on me.
It would be more than the end of my magic. It would be the end of me.
I cried out and carved down in a massive swipe with the sword, magic pouring out of me. The gorgon retreated and I darted forward, using that moment to slip into the space where the gorgon had been. I stepped over the edge of the circle.
Raw power poured into me again.
I stabbed at the gorgon, and when I did, that power poured out of the sword, pouring out of me, like a pipeline of magic that filled the gorgon.
It seemed as if the gorgon grew stronger and stronger.
It was a mistake. I was feeding it rather than killing it.
I started to draw my sword back, but Aron was there, holding my arms in place. “No, Kate.”
“We’re making it stronger. I’m making it stronger.”
“And there’s only so much power any creature can hold. Feed it.”
The gorgon grew larger, swelling with power, but I understood what Aron intended. It would be like a balloon filling with air. You can only hold so much before you burst.
I squeezed the hilt of the sword, letting that strange power flow through me and the sword and into the gorgon. The creature consumed it, getting more and more powerful. As it did, it continued to fight, straining against the barrier.
And then with an explosion that sent me staggering to the edge of the circle but no farther, it disappeared.