There was also a weight of expectation. Decisions had to be made, and the primary one was his. He wasn’t really delaying it when he turned to Darius and asked how the former army captain was. “Any side effects to the rune?”
“I’m fine.” Darius flexed his fingers. “I can feel the pool of magic that drained from the temple into me via the rune, but its stable.”
“In mage sight it surrounds him in a purple glow. Pretty.” Austin grinned, obviously trying to annoy.
And succeeding. Darius scrunched up the empty wrapper of his first egg and bacon roll, and threw it at him. The paper bounced off Austin’s forehead. “I need to experiment with it, but it feels as if the rune has integrated with my magic surprisingly well. Donna, can I borrow the white quartz crystals you had Austin buy to reinforce the ward on the ranch?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks. I’ll create a circle of protection and confirm that I can summon and dismiss the temple guardian.” Darius drank some coffee, then put the mug down on the porch floor by his chair. “What we do with the power I control is the question.”
“It’s yours,” Rest said instantly. “You took the risk.”
“Darius, you were the only one of us who could have survived adopting the rune,” Austin added. “When we set off searching for it, we didn’t expect it to be housed in a ruin saturated in death magic. The rune and its power were fairly earned. As Rest said, it’s yours. How you choose to use it…”
He and Darius exchanged a level look, almost as if they continued, or repeated, a discussion they’d had earlier.
The rescue of the girl drowning in the lake had only taken a few minutes, but that was long enough for a serious decision to be reached between two men who knew and trusted each other as those in the team did.
The team…
Rest frowned at Austin, then Darius. “You could re-establish the team without me. With the power Darius has now, you don’t need a courier to be effective.”
“Nor does Donna,” Gabe said. “But you can’t deny her seer talent and your courier talent combined to save a life this morning. Add in Darius and Austin’s magic, and my tracking skills for what they’re worth, and we can do more together than apart. Donna said it, and she was right.”
Rest felt something sticky on his fingers. He’d squashed his roll, and the egg and sauce coated his fingers. He put the roll down and wiped his hands. “Without me, though, no one would come after you. If you’re doing this out of misguided loyalty, trying to protect me—”
“The only idiot trying to protect others is you,” Donna said.
Gabe’s hurriedly raised coffee mug failed to conceal his grin.
“And it has to stop,” Donna continued. “Darius is going to make anyone who attempts to attack us sorry, but even if he hadn’t sucked up the magic of a whole desert.” Perhaps she exaggerated, but perhaps not. “People get to choose what risks they take and whether having you in their life is worth it.” And now she was talking about herself.
She grabbed his hand, still sticky with hot sauce. “If you don’t want to use your talent as part of a team, that’s fair enough. Dad chose to work alone. But do not push us away in some muddled attempt to keep us safe.”
“What she said.” Austin laughed. The note of laughter didn’t hide that he was serious.
“Okay.” Rest should have found the decision to accept the team harder. Maybe the ease of it meant he was selfish. He was so damn tired of being alone. Or perhaps the ease of the decision meant it was the right one.
“So we’re decided?” Darius looked at each of them. “We’re working as a team, again?”
Holding tight to Donna’s hand, Rest nodded.
Gabe said, “Yes.”
Austin said, “Hell, yeah.”
“Donna?” Rest asked.
She looked into his eyes, into his soul. Her own soul was on display, the loyalty and love. “Yes.” It sounded like she said yes to a whole lot more than joining the courier team.
Gabe made a sound of approval.
“Lucky bastard.” Austin’s comment wasn’t meant to be heard, just a murmur under his breath, threaded with envy.
Darius stood and slowly and steadily descended the porch steps. “Bring me the crystals, Austin.” The rigid set of his shoulders was that of a man who fiercely guarded himself. Once, he’d opened up, and his fiancé, the woman who he’d believed would love him forever, had left him.
Maybe, just maybe, the team needed each other as much as Rest needed them.
He’d missed them.
Man up, he told himself. And he put his emotions into words. He had to clear his throat. “I missed you, and I’m glad we’re a team again.”
Gabe thumped his shoulder. “I’ll see to your animals.”
“Crystals.” Austin grabbed the bag from the supplies at the end of the porch, and like Gabe, punched Rest’s shoulder.
At least his team was as bad as him at expressing emotion.
Darius merely waved acknowledgement that he’d heard without turning around.
Alone on the porch, Rest freed his hand from Donna’s, but only to pull her into a hug. She would never betray him, just as he’d die rather than hurt her. He was reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that cutting himself off from his old life two years ago had hurt her. “You were right. I should have told you I was leaving. At a minimum I could have explained what I was doing.”
“And offered me a chance to object?” She smiled at him faintly. “You wouldn’t have listened.”
He pressed his cheek against her forehead. “Probably not. I wasn’t…reasonable back then. The ambush and losing Wayne, nearly losing Darius. It felt like it was my fault because I’d brought them there and hadn’t been able to extract them fast enough to save them.”
“You realize that’s not how they see it?” She wrapped her arms around him.
“Yeah.” He’d felt his team’s acceptance of him. The blame he’d shoveled on himself didn’t come from them. “It helps that we have a target, now. Paul Webb and whoever hired him to turn General Olafur.”
Her arms tightened around him and she nestled in. What she didn’t do was question his need to avenge Wayne.
If revenge was a dish best served cold, it had had two years to chill. Now it would be served up to General Olafur, to Paul Webb, and to the man who’d started it all. Was it this Gerald Svenson that Donna suspected?
“We’ll get answers from Webb,” Rest said.
Instead of answering that, she had her own concerns. “I’m glad you didn’t take on the rune,” she said quietly.
“Darius is a wizard, better suited to controlling the temple guardian.”
She pulled back a fraction. A trace of wariness darkened her brown eyes. “It’s not just the nature of his magic.” She hesitated. “Darius is your friend. He’s survived a lot.”
“But?” What were her reservations concerning his former captain? Darius had, initially, been suspicious and even hostile toward her, but Donna didn’t hold grudges. Or she hadn’t in the past.
“The rune, its guardian, and the magic reservoir he drained lay for hundreds of years in a site that had hosted death magic…human sacrifice. I’ve handled a number of magical artifacts while working for Viola. Some were even legendary. Death magic seeps into things. It taints them. No, wait!” she added urgently when he’d have defended Darius. “I trust Darius. I believe he can host the rune and control its guardian and rid it of the taint of death magic, but it will be a fight each time till it’s done. It’s selfish, but I’m glad it’s not your fight.”
Rest struggled with his reaction. He couldn’t remember anyone ever being selfish on his behalf. His grandfather had been kind enough in his gruff way, but he’d expected Rest to stand alone. It had been a practical and necessary acknowledgement that his grandfather was old and when he died, Rest would be alone and would have to be self-reliant. And it had worked. Rest had survived foster care and his time with the Keats family, training
to hone his courier talent.
His voice emerged huskily. “Darius is alone. If I’d been struggling with the rune, I’d have had you.”
For an instant, she stared at him in wide-eyed wonder, then her hands framed his face and she kissed him enthusiastically.
He gets it! Raw joy exploded in Donna at Rest’s words. He not only knew she cared for him, but he liked it! He valued her and he…oh heaven, he kissed like sweet heaven and passionate hell, burning with unmet desire. She forgot what she was thinking and simply existed in the incredible experience of kissing, and being kissed by, Rest.
He walked her back so that she was trapped between the wall of the house and his hard body.
It felt so good. She tried to arch up into him, and his angles and lean strength matched and complemented her curves. He hitched her up suddenly, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. The kiss got even hotter.
Finally, Rest broke it. “We can’t…now.”
She was gasping for air. As his hands stroked her sides, she shivered. Every part of her was attuned to him, avid for more. She closed her eyes, if she kept looking into Rest’s eyes and seeing his hunger for her, as well as feeling it, she’d be utterly lost to recklessness. “Darius is testing the rune. His control of the guardian.” And he needed back-up.
Austin was with him, but caution was always sensible when unfamiliar magic was involved. She and Rest mightn’t be powerful wizards, but Rest had the black tourmaline pendant she’d given him and she was proficient in creating containment circles. Testing the articles she acquired for Viola’s gallery required it.
Reluctantly, she dropped down onto her feet. She opened her eyes. The intensity in Rest’s expression cut through her. For two years she’d missed him and ached for what might have been. That time couldn’t be forgotten or regained, but knowing that he’d suffered, too, changed the experience. It meant everything for how they’d go forward—after immediate, less personal issues were addressed.
She forced a calm, practical tone. “I need to get something from my bag.” The silver thread she used to create containment circles was disguised as a woven necklace and currently tucked in her travel bag. A simple spell would unravel, and later, reweave, it.
Rest caressed her face. His touch was gentle. “Be careful.”
“It’ll be safe. I’ll set a containment circle, which is something I do frequently for verifying objects at the gallery.” She smiled as he obviously fought his instinct to leave her safely in the house. “I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.” It only took her a minute to retrieve the silver necklace from the zippered inner pocket of her travel bag. Then she walked with Rest around behind the barn.
Gabe leaned against a fencepost, absently patting the camel, while the two donkeys stood at a wary distance watching Darius and Austin’s activities in the yard.
The wizards were setting two circles of protection: first Darius’s, then the fallback of Austin’s. The arrangement was dictated by the fact that Darius would be inside the inner circle with the summoned guardian.
“I’m going to lay a circle of containment around the protection circles,” Donna said. She wasn’t sure how much the others understood of witch magic. Austin had shown some understanding, but Darius hadn’t even known that witch bundles could store magic.
Wizards channeled magic through spells, using their talent for manipulating the magic at their disposal. Witches were different. They had to call magic and shape it in ways attuned to the world. So where a wizard’s circle of protection locked inside whatever was summoned within it, a witch’s circle of containment called to the energies of the earth, air and water to push back against anything attempting to break out of the containment.
“Go ahead.” Darius continued dropping chips of white quartz at regular intervals in the circle he’d sketched in the dirt. “But if the guardian escapes my protection circle, I want Rest to courier all of you out, immediately. Austin’s circle is to give you time to do that. Your containment circle will provide extra protection, but you’re not to rely on it.” He met Rest’s eyes in obvious command.
“Understood.” Rest crossed to where Gabe stood out of the way at the fence. The donkeys immediately ambled up to nudge him.
Donna took a deep breath, gathered her concentration, and planted one end of her silver thread in the dirt. In a clockwise direction, she marked out a circle with the fine metal thread. The chant she used was for her ears only, a reminder and a plea to the energies to monitor and maintain. What existed inside the circle was to remain inside.
She knelt with the loose end of the thread in one hand, ready to close the circle by looping it around the grounded end of the thread.
Austin had finished his protective circle and stood watching her.
“You can step over the silver thread,” she said. “Until I close the circle, you won’t damage anything by doing so.” She watched him step over it and join Rest and Gabe.
Darius stood in the center of his circle of protection, waiting.
Donna focused intention and magic through the silver thread, and knotted it. The magic of the containment circle remained invisible. It didn’t exist till something pushed against it. Hopefully, nothing would. She straightened. “The containment circle lets humans in and out.” An important point. If something went wrong, Darius wouldn’t be trapped with the guardian. “But crossing it weakens it.”
She joined the three men by the fence.
Despite their relaxed poses, each was poised to react to whatever Darius summoned or unwittingly released. None of them liked his order to retreat if things went south, but their military discipline showed in their close proximity. They could grab onto Rest and enter a portal in seconds.
Donna hooked her hand in Rest’s belt. It was too hot to cuddle, but she wanted a sense of connection. Although not yet noon, the sun scorched her skin. She tipped her baseball cap to better shade her eyes.
One of the donkey’s brayed suddenly, and Donna jumped.
Austin swore, so at least she wasn’t the only one to betray her nerves.
Darius ignored it all to begin his summoning of the guardian. In the temple ruins, the guardian had appeared in response to magic. But then it had been masterless. For the rune to be effective, the guardian had to act as a construct totally bound to Darius’s will. If it didn’t…
Donna shivered despite the heat. The rune had literally branded itself onto Darius’s chest. If he couldn’t control the guardian, would it control him? And then, there was the issue of the degree to which the rune was tainted by its centuries of proximity to a site saturated with the taint of death magic.
Darius stripped off his t-shirt. With the tip of his index finger he traced the snarling lion branded over his heart. The original rune that had been etched into the cave wall shimmered in the air.
Or Donna assumed it was the same rune. She recalled a similar hooked line at the lower right corner.
The line slashed through the air and the rune was complete. It tore open and the guardian charged through. It hit Darius, raking at him with transparent claws. The thing was fire and energy, glowing like the heart of a furnace, but with the desert’s distant horizon and sky visible through it.
Both donkey’s brayed, but not as if they were afraid. They sounded outraged. The camel seemed to attempt to hide behind Gabe. But none of the animals ran.
The guardian’s original design had likely intended it to be an obedient servant. This violence would be from the taint of death magic. The guardian had learned to expect suffering and even blood.
“No,” Darius commanded.
The earth trembled and stilled. The guardian spun away from him, rose up on its hind legs and clawed the air. It attempted to tear down the first circle of protection.
“You are mine,” Darius said.
The incorporeal guardian landed with a thud before slowly turning to face him. For all that it had the appearance of a demonic lion, all flying fiery mane and elongated teeth, it wasn’t a crea
ture, but a construct. That it seemed to be thinking and acting was an illusion of the imperatives that created and drove it. The thing existed to siphon magic. It had tried first to reach Darius’s magic, especially the reservoir that he’d taken from the temple ruins. Then, when rebuffed, it attempted to take the magic of the circle of protection. The violent way it raged was a sign of its death magic taint.
The question was, could Darius control it?
It paced in a circle around Darius, biting at the air, but stopping short of his outstretched hands as he kept turning to face it. When a full circle was complete, he changed his halt gesture for one that pushed his hands together and up.
Donna frowned, trying to guess his intention. The whole thing had to be incredibly difficult for him. He was a wizard. They were taught to channel their magic through spells they had already mastered. Here, Darius was trying to master the rune while it ran hot with magic. The guardian embodied that active power, and it fought him.
“I hate this,” Rest muttered. The words barely escaped his clenched teeth. He wrenched the black tourmaline crystal out from beneath his shirt. “The damn thing is too powerful. I should have given him this.”
Donna released her grip on his belt to rub his tightly muscled back. “He has to control it, not disable it. The pendant wouldn’t help.”
He stared at the confrontation inside the circles of protection and containment. “I wouldn’t have survived the rune.”
“It’s powerful,” Austin agreed. “But Darius has got this.”
A wind swirled. It rattled the old ranch house and barn before hitting Donna’s circle of containment and eddying back from it, scattering dust and dry grass around those watching.
“The concentration of magic is calling things.” Austin refocused on Darius’s standoff with the guardian.
The fiery construct slowly lowered itself to the ground. It looked poised to pounce.
Darius didn’t take his eyes off it. “Let’s test it.”
Desert Devil (Old School Book 5) Page 12