Darktide

by Christine Pope

  “How many?” Boyd asked.

  “Seven,” Levi replied. “So far I haven’t had a chance to see what kind of powers they control, although they’ve already managed to do a lot of damage.”

  “I can see that,” Tricia said, looking at the shattered storefronts, her mouth tight with anger.

  “Where are Connor and Angela?” Hayley asked, looking past the elders as if expecting to see the primus and prima show up at any moment.

  “I don’t know,” Boyd replied. “We stopped by their house on the way down here, as soon as we got word that something was happening, but no one answered.”

  That was not good. While it was certainly within their rights to come and go as they pleased, Levi thought that the clan leaders could not have chosen a worse time to disappear.

  What was also not good was the rapidly closing distance between him and the advancing Ludlow witches and warlocks. Even from yards and yards away, he could see the scowls they wore. Apparently, they didn’t much appreciate being knocked over like a group of ninepins.

  Allegra glanced at the watching civilians, her sparse brows furrowed with worry. “We should not be doing this in front of an audience,” she said.

  Hayley frowned as well, but more out of irritation than worry. “Well, if you have a way to snap your fingers and get rid of all of them, go for it. Otherwise, I think we have more important things to worry about.”

  “Oh, my magic doesn’t work like that — ” Allegra began, but Boyd cut her off.

  “We’ll worry about the consequences later,” he said. “They got past our wards without setting any of them off, which means they’re strong. We’re strong, too, but not the kind of strong that can knock out a group of invading witches and warlocks.”

  “That’s all right,” Levi replied, although inwardly he wasn’t sure whether it would in fact be all right. “The important thing now is to pool all our strength to prevent them from getting any closer.”

  He held out his free hand to Boyd, who took it. Seeming to understand what Levi was planning, Tricia stepped forward and twined her fingers with Boyd’s. Then Allegra came to close the circuit.

  Yes, they were strong. Levi could feel the energy sparking amongst them, amplified by Hayley’s remarkable gift. He took that energy, imagining an invisible wall, a barrier that no enemy witch or warlock could ever penetrate.

  It shot up before them, not quite invisible, but nearly so, a faint shimmer in the air that one could really only see if it was looked at sideways. The wall stretched from one side of the highway to the other, touching the storefronts to either side.

  Just in time, too, because the Ludlows had picked up their pace, despite the steepness of the hill they were climbing. Almost as one, they collided with the barrier and were jolted backward, sparks flying from the contact.

  Once again they were knocked off their feet, falling to the pavement with multiple thuds that made Levi want to wince. They had to be picking up a nice collection of bumps and bruises.

  “You can’t keep us out forever,” one of them said as he stood up, face tight with pain. He was a man who looked to be in his early or middle forties, with sandy brown hair and light eyes. In his khaki pants, plaid button-down shirt, and dock shoes, he looked more like he was dressed for a backyard barbecue or perhaps a boating party than a warlock bent on the destruction of an enemy clan.

  Then again, the whole point was to blend in. Unfortunately, no one was blending in very much at the moment. Levi wasn’t sure what they would do about that. While he could blank a person’s memories of a single unfortunate incident, there had to be at least fifty people looking on right now, with more arriving as word got out that something very strange was happening at the intersection of Main Street and Hull Avenue.

  “Possibly not forever,” Levi replied. “But long enough. There are only seven of you, after all, versus an entire town.”

  “I don’t see that many,” the Ludlow warlock sneered.

  Well, true, but even as they completed this exchange, more McAllister witches came hurrying down, pushing their way through the watching crowd as best they could. Levi saw Angela’s cousin Kirby, and his boyfriend Jordan, and then Rachel and her husband Tobias.

  At the sight of Tobias, Levi couldn’t help letting out a small sigh of relief. Not so much that he thought the other man would be useful in this confrontation, but more because his studio was located down near the old high school, and if he’d been working there, he would have been separated from Rachel, caught behind the Ludlow witches.

  And there was Lucinda as well, trailing along behind Rachel. Levi knew she wouldn’t have stayed away, but he hoped she would know enough to keep out of the fight. Her gifts weren’t strong enough to make any kind of a difference here.

  One of the Ludlow witches stepped forward to stand next to the warlock in the plaid shirt. She seemed to be around the same age as the warlock, and also wouldn’t have attracted notice at the local grocery store, in her jeans and loose knit top and flat shoes. He bent and murmured something to her, and she moved forward again, this time going right up to the barrier Levi had erected. Slowly, she raised one hand, palm facing outward, as if she intended to press it against that nearly invisible wall.

  But she didn’t touch it. No, she stopped less than half an inch away, so close that Levi could see small sparks come and go within the barrier, longing to reach out and give her a good zap.

  “Well?” said the warlock as the other members of the Ludlow contingent looked on.

  The witch smiled in a manner that Levi didn’t much like. “It won’t be a problem,” she replied.

  Then she laid her hand flat against the magical wall. Sparks shot out from beneath her palm, but she merely gritted her teeth and continued to press against it. As Levi and the rest of the McAllister witches and warlocks looked on in horror, small gleaming cracks began to appear in the barrier, spreading outward faster and faster, until the whole thing shattered and disappeared into nothingness.

  “Get back!” Levi cried out. His gaze caught that of Tobias, who was a big, burly man, someone who would be very useful in herding the crowd of civilians out of harm’s way. “Tobias, get them out of here!”

  The tall warlock nodded and began pushing people back, driving them up the hill and away from the Ludlow group, including the two people involved in the fender-bender, who’d been so wrapped up in their argument over whose fault the accident was that they didn’t even seem to have noticed what was going on. Some of the other McAllisters, including Rachel, got the idea — probably realizing that their gifts with growing plants or brewing potions wouldn’t be of much use here — and also helped to drive the civilians out of the combat zone.

  Their absence provided a little more breathing space. Not that Levi was given the chance to catch his breath, because one of the other Ludlow witches approached and flung a fireball at him and the elders.

  “Down!” Levi, still holding on to Hayley’s wrist, dragged her down to the sidewalk with him. She looked at him with terrified blue eyes, but she did as she was instructed.

  So did Tricia and Allegra…but not Boyd.

  He stood straight and tall, eyes filled with rage. Faster than Levi would have thought possible, given the elder warlock’s age, Boyd pulled the hammer from its loop on his overalls and flung it at the Ludlow witch.

  The hammer flew through the air and connected with the side of her head with a sickening crunch. She crumpled to the ground, fair hair spilling around her as she lay limp on the pavement.

  “You son of a bitch!” the lead warlock snarled. He raised a hand, then twisted it to one side in a strangely sinister movement.

  Boyd let out a gasp. His eyes opened in shock, and he clawed at his throat, as though no air was getting through to his lungs. Then he, too, slumped and fell onto the hard surface of the street, and didn’t move.

  Levi felt him go, felt his spirit leave his body. Why, he wasn’t sure. Was it because they had been linked together only a fe
w moments earlier? Even as a wave of sorrow washed over him, he knew he couldn’t pause to ponder what precisely had happened, because another of the warlocks came forward, lightning spiking out of his fingertips.

  It didn’t reach the little group that lay huddled on the ground, however. From out of the clear blue sky, raindrops began to descend, falling on the warlock who’d summoned the lightning. The water pooled around his feet, and, before he could react or step away, the bolts shot from his fingers into that water, then charged back into him. He let out a shriek and fell, writhing as smoke billowed from his clothing.

  Startled, Levi looked back over his shoulder to see Lucinda crouching behind him. She shrugged and said, “It’s a minor gift, but sometimes it can be useful.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  No time for further words after that exchange, because the remaining Ludlow witches and warlocks were advancing again, their faces contorted with rage. So much for avoiding bloodshed. Yes, everything the McAllisters had done was purely in self-defense, but Levi doubted that Joaquin Escobar — or the Ludlow prima and her consort — would care much for that minor detail.

  If that was how they wanted it, then fine.

  A wall of flame roared into being, blocking the Ludlows from coming any closer. Levi got to his feet, pulling Hayley with him. Tricia and Allegra rose as well, clinging to one another and staring at Boyd’s lifeless form as if they weren’t quite sure what to do next.

  Levi could understand their shock. Yes, they were clan elders, and possessed of extraordinary gifts, but all the same, their lives had been fairly sheltered. Even the death of Tricia’s niece had happened off stage, so to speak. The McAllister elder hadn’t been there to witness the brutality of Roslyn’s death. Now, though…now there was no escaping from the destruction the Ludlows had brought to their clan.

  The wall of fire seemed to have halted them, but only temporarily. He took advantage of that brief respite to pull his phone from the pocket of his jeans and hurriedly connect a call to Angela’s cell phone. She must be very far away, or else she and Connor would certainly have arrived by now to see what was going on. Not that distance mattered much anymore, not with the way she and her husband had managed to learn how to teleport.

  Her voice came from the speaker. “Levi?”

  “Where are you? All hell is breaking loose over here.” That, he thought, wasn’t too much of an exaggeration.

  Only three words, but they reassured him more than any others could have. “On our way.”

  Hayley’s hand gripped his arm. “Levi.”

  The wall of flame disappeared, doused by a downpour that made Lucinda’s little rain shower seem like nothing. Worse, once the fire was gone, Levi could see that the five remaining Ludlow witches and warlocks had been joined by another group of seven.

  But even as their lead warlock began to smile and advance, a group of four people materialized in front of him, blocking his progress. Two of them were Connor and Angela, far more dressed up than Levi usually saw them. The other two were a witch and a warlock he’d never seen before, the man perhaps in his late thirties, the witch probably close to the same age, both of them dark-haired and dark-eyed, clearly of Spanish extraction.

  Angela and Connor grasped hands and faced the intruders. The prima’s chin was up, her eyes nearly spitting green fire.

  “I’ll thank you to get the hell out of our town.”

  23

  Angela

  Even though Levi had said all hell was breaking loose, I hadn’t exactly expected to reappear in the middle of a war zone. One glance revealed broken windows, a couple of cars locked together in what must have been a hell of a fender bender.

  And…oh, shit. Shit.

  There was Boyd, lying face down in the middle of the street in front of the Flatiron. Boyd would never allow himself to be seen in such an undignified position. Unless….

  Unless he was dead.

  I had to push that horrible realization aside for now, because I saw that at least a dozen Ludlow witches and warlocks stood in the street before us. Although I’d been holding Rosella’s hand as we traveled, she let go immediately and stood straight and tall to my right, just as Alberto did the same on the other side of Connor.

  Without thinking, I reached out to him, twined my husband’s fingers in mine. A rage unlike any I’d ever experienced before filled me then. How dare they? How dare they come here to my town and bring their evil with them? This was my home, the home of my family. My cousin — one of the clan’s elders — lay dead in the street because of these bastards.

  “I’ll thank you to get the hell out of our town,” I said, my tone carrying across the space between us, clear and cold.

  Connor’s fingers tightened on mine, but he remained silent, letting me take the lead for now. If this scene had been playing out somewhere in Flagstaff, we would have reversed roles, since that was his town.

  But Jerome was mine.

  “Easy enough,” said the lead Ludlow warlock, who looked like someone’s dad on his way to a parent-teacher conference, not a minion of one of the blackest warlocks the world had ever seen. “Mr. Escobar is willing to talk terms.”

  Oh, I’d bet he was, since the bastard was currently holding my children captive, along with Margot and Lucas’ daughter. He thought he had all the power in the world.

  “And what are those terms?” I asked, forcing the words out past my clenched jaw.

  “Your clan becomes part of his clan. All your Arizona clans will merge with his, and he will lead everyone from the Pacific coast to the New Mexico border.”

  I let out a derisive chuckle. “Oh, is that all?”

  “That should be enough…to start, anyway.”

  No doubt. I had no intention of giving in to Escobar’s demands, but even if I’d paused to entertain the notion, I would have realized soon enough that, once we’d surrendered, he would have found more and more ways to encroach on our freedoms, our lives. He certainly couldn’t be trusted to hold up his end of a bargain.

  I wondered if the Ludlows had stopped to consider that particular downside to working with such an evil man, or whether they thought he wouldn’t turn on him. If that was the case, then they were fools.

  Planting my hands on my hips, I said, “I think we’ll take a pass.”

  The warlock shook his head, his expression falsely pitying. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “Oh, no,” I replied. “I know exactly who I’m dealing with. That’s why you can tell Joaquin Escobar to take his shitty terms and shove them up his ass.”

  A scowl passed over the man’s unremarkable features. He began to lift a hand, but whatever he’d intended to do, it didn’t have quite the effect he’d been expecting. At once both Alberto and Rosella spat out a series of syllables in Spanish. I didn’t understand the words, but I saw their effect right away. The pavement beneath the warlock’s feet — and beneath the feet of the rest of the Ludlow crew — began to ripple and undulate, as if the asphalt of the road had come alive. The lead warlock lost his balance and fell to his knees, as did the majority of his followers. Even those who’d managed to stay on their feet were stumbling around, arms flailing as they tried to remain upright, looking like people trying to cross a rope suspension bridge and not succeeding very well.

  That was the only opening we needed. Casting a wall of flame, as I knew Levi was able to do, might cause too much damage. The same with flinging lightning bolts at our opponents. We needed to get rid of them, render them powerless.

  I glanced at Connor. “Give them the Matías treatment?”

  He grinned, a ferocious baring of his teeth that again made him look a little too uncomfortably like his older brother. “Well, they don’t seem to have a problem following someone who can take their powers away whenever they’re around him. Let’s see how they like it when the condition is permanent.”

  As the ground continued to rumble — and as Levi bent to gather up Boyd’s lifeless body and remov
e him from any further harm — Connor and I stepped forward a pace, stopping before we got to the part of the street that Rosella and Alberto had made dance. We raised our hands, facing the Ludlow witches and warlocks.

  “If you can’t use your powers for good,” I said, “then you don’t deserve to have them at all.”

  The prima gift surged up through me, connecting with Connor’s, shooting forth in a blaze of energy that felt a hundred times stronger than the power we’d summoned to burn the magic out of Matías Escobar and the Aguirre cousins. I didn’t know why it was so much stronger now. Maybe it was simply that Connor and I had been working together so often lately, had been flexing our magical muscles so much that our gifts had grown correspondingly more powerful. The power flowed outward, connecting with the Ludlow witches and warlocks one by one.

  They felt it, too. I watched as their expressions turned to ones of dismay, of utter horror. The lead warlock stared me, his face so white, I didn’t know whether he was about to faint.

  “You — you took it away,” he gasped, even as Rosella and Alberto lowered their hands and the pavement settled down, albeit with hundreds more cracks, both large and small, than it had had a few minutes earlier. “How can you do that?”

  “You mean Escobar didn’t warn you?” I asked. “We did the same thing to his son, after all. He might have at least let you know the risk you were taking.”

  One of the witches came to stand next to the warlock. She was pretty, with long red hair that reminded me of my cousin Caitlin. Her eyes were haunted, her hand shaking as she laid it on the warlock’s arm. “Is it — is it permanent?”

  She was probably thinking of how Joaquin Escobar’s null power had a limited range, and once you were outside it, you were fine. “I’m not sure,” I said, even though I knew damn well it was permanent…unless we tried reversing the spell. I supposed such a thing was possible, since the demons summoned by Matías’ half-sister had brought his gifts back. Still, I didn’t see any reason to give this witch any hope by mentioning that particular fact. The rage burned within me, reminding me that these people’s leader had kidnapped my children. “For now, I think you’d better get back to where you came from.”