by Ann Macela
She nodded. “For me, too.”
“We were expending a great amount of energy, much more than previously, so it stands to reason our aura could have expanded. But how did the plant grow without a specific spell to guide it or push it or whatever?”
“I don’t know.” She spread her hands in helplessness and shook her head. “Oh, man, we have to get to some teaching masters or somebody who can help us find out what’s going on. First the merged lightballs, next the ability to learn spells previously outside of our usual talents, after that to merge energy, and now an output of energy that causes results without our intervention.”
“Or maybe it’s your subconscious casting spells you’ve already learned, like the plant growth one,” he offered. “I agree, we need to get to the bottom of it, no matter what. Not right now, though. It’s too late to do that tonight.”
“Then let’s go home.” She switched off the cabana lights. Hand in hand, they walked the dimly lit, winding path to the entry.
“Someone’s coming,” Marcus said, looking out through the glass of the inner and outer doors.
“Who?” She did likewise. A car was coming down the road.
A big white Cadillac pulled up next to Marcus’s car. Under the light above the outer door, Gordon Walcott got out.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
“What’s he doing here?” Marcus whispered as he watched Walcott reach back into the car and come out with an object—a gun, a semiautomatic, from the looks of it. “Oh, shit. John was wrong about him. Come on, we need to get out of here.”
“There’s no back door. When we bring in a tree, we have to remove sections of the wall. That is the only way out, and the glass in the walls is too thick to break easily. The front door is locked, and”—she manipulated the lever on the inner door—”so is this one.”
“That won’t hold him long,” Marcus said, pulling her back into the jungle.
“Wait. Let me turn off the path lights.” She flipped the switch. “Take my hand.”
“What about a phone? Can we call our parents?” he asked as she led him quickly through the darkness.
Walcott began to beat on the outer door and shout, “Forscher! Morgan, you witch! I saw the lights. I know you’re in there. The time for retribution has arrived, traitors.”
“There’s no phone out here,” Gloriana said. “Mine’s in my purse in your car.”
“Great, and mine’s at your house because I didn’t think I’d need it.”
Walcott started banging on the door with something metal, and a crash of breaking glass told them he’d made it through the first door.
“Damn,” Gloriana said. “I hoped the wire reinforcement in the glass would hold longer than that.”
“If we can sneak past him, we can make a run for it, but he’ll probably follow us. I don’t want to lead him to our parents.”
“Me, neither.”
Walcott started beating on the inner door.
“We’ve got to get the drop on him somehow,” Marcus said when they stopped in front of the control room. “Start the rain. That’ll slow him down.”
“Here’s something to use as a weapon,” she said, stepping around the corner and opening a door in the outer side of the room. She pulled out a machete and a crowbar.
He hefted the machete. “Good.”
She went into the control room and started manipulating the pump mechanisms by the glow of the LED displays. “It will take a few minutes to fully charge the system.”
“Get it started. I’ll create a diversion to slow him down. Give me the remote, too.”
She handed it to him. “Be careful, Marcus. I love you.”
“I will, and I love you, too.” Funny, the words got easier to say, and hearing them became more pleasurable every time. He couldn’t stop to think about that at the moment. He had to do something to protect Gloriana. The glass broke on the inner door with another crash. He felt his way into the thick bushes close to Sassy’s lair.
“Where are you, you bastards?” Walcott yelled. “You’re destroying magic and I’m going to stop you if it’s the last thing I do.”
Marcus heard Walcott cursing, but he didn’t seem to be moving. A little blip of green light glowed through the leaves from a location by the door, and the path lights came on.
“Aha, got you now,” Walcott called. He appeared at the opening from the path into Sassy’s clearing. A green lightball bobbed in the air beside his head.
The color of the ball didn’t help to penetrate all the green around it, however, and Marcus sneered silently at the seventh-to-eighth-level son of a bitch. Walcott didn’t even realize what a perfect target the globe made.
If the man would come a little closer … Marcus hit Sassy’s power button. A flash of red light from the python’s eyes showed the snake was working.
Holding the gun out with two hands like they did in cop shows, Walcott advanced slowly into the clearing. “You must come out and face the consequences of your lies,” he said in that calm conversational tone he’d used back at the debate. “You’ll never get away from me.”
Marcus gauged his distances carefully. When Walcott reached the point directly under the python, Marcus started the toy moving. Sassy dropped right on the thin man’s head.
“Yaaaagh!” Flailing his arms and almost hitting himself in the head with the gun, Walcott knocked the snake off his shoulder. When it lay on the ground wiggling, he shot it two times, then once more. His ball of light had disappeared in the excitement, and he recast it after he stared at the toy’s remains for a few seconds.
A loud “CLICK” in the ceiling above the clearing brought his eyes up.
And the rain came down in a deluge like Gloriana had upended a huge bucket.
The woman herself appeared at Marcus’s side and tugged him down to say in his ear over the thunder of the rain, “Are you all right? I heard shots.”
“Yeah. He shot poor Sassy, though. He’s so agitated, he can’t seem to hold his lightball together. If it weren’t for the gun, we could take him down easily.”
“The flood will only last a few minutes. I’ve got an idea. Let’s lure him into the next narrow portion of the path. If we can get him close to the vines there, we might be able to use our combined power to ensnare him.”
Marcus thought about that for all of a second. It was likely the only chance they had. Walcott might decide to start shooting, and who knew what might happen when bullets started flying. At the moment, the man was revolving in a circle in the clearing, holding his free hand like a visor over his eyes to try to see through the rain. The other held the gun in a ready position. The lightball had disappeared again, probably washed away.
What about a frontal attack? No. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to get through the undergrowth quickly enough to tackle him before he could shoot, and throwing the machete wasn’t a sure way to disarm him. Using one of them as a decoy wasn’t acceptable; no way would he expose Gloriana to a madman. Furthermore, sneaking past him to run would only lead him to their parents. It was either her idea or an unacceptable alternative. “Okay, let’s go for it.”
She pulled him out of the bushes, across the path leading from the clearing to the cabana, and into the thickly growing plants on its other side. The path narrowed to less than three feet, but the planted area between its loops was broad and supplied plenty of cover. They squeezed in between a good-sized tree and a big-leaved bush. The tree offered some protection if Walcott tried to shoot, and, while they were effectively hidden, they had a clear view of anyone on the path itself.
Pointing to the overhanging limbs and the vines climbing a tree trunk barely visible across the way, she said, “Those right there.”
He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “Start casting. I’ll try to get him coming in our direction.” He felt the hum begin when their centers aligned.
“Hey, Walcott!” Marcus yelled as loud as he could. “Go to hell!”
; The fanatic shouted something back, although Marcus couldn’t make out the words through the rain. Marcus bellowed epithets once more, calling the asshole every name he could think of.
He shut up when Walcott stuck his head around the corner of the path next to a big elephant-ear leaf. The idiot had lux going again at a yellow fifth level, and its puny light was swallowed up by the dark and the downpour.
As suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped.
Only dripping water, Walcott’s heavy breathing, and the spell hum broke the silence. If he would only come forward a few more feet …
Marcus started sending energy to Gloriana. He could feel their hearts beating in unison, their centers working together, the magical power of her spell reaching out from them to the vines on the other side of the path. She had been correct about their auras; energy flowing between them charged the very air. He only prayed the auras weren’t visible somehow to Walcott.
The dim lights reflecting off the wet leaves and the idiot’s feeble lux spell only marginally improved visibility. Walcott advanced a step at a time, the gun out in front of him. He looked like a bedraggled skinny rat, his thinning hair plastered to his skull, sharp nose almost twitching as if he was trying to smell them.
Marcus saw a couple of vine leaves on the tree trunk wiggle. One tendril, then another, reached out into the open space. Hanging from an overhead tree limb directly over the path, a larger one as thick as his thumb began to sway and grow longer.
Walcott took two more steps, stopped, spun around, and whirled again toward his previous direction. His lightball rushed frantically to follow him, but his movements were too quick, and it almost hit him in the head. Cursing, he shoved it aside.
Marcus held Gloriana tighter, and she, with her arms around his waist, gripped his sodden shirt in her fists. Their magic centers were circulating power like they had when they’d bonded—and the energy flowing between them was growing exponentially by the second. He sank into his power well, drew forth about half of it, and sent it mentally to hers. She threw it immediately into her spell. The hum dropped an octave, intensified.
Walcott shook his head and took a hand from the gun to rub his ears as he stepped forward two more paces—right next to the tree vines and directly under the hanging one. Before he could put his hand back on the gun, a tendril from the tree tapped him on the back of his head.
He jumped and looked around wildly. He must have decided the threat would come from one end of the path or the other because he backed up to the wall of vines. The whites of his eyes showing even through the gloom, he shot glances to his left and his right.
Despite what appeared to be his growing apprehension, Walcott spoke in that earlier oh-so-reasonable tone when he said, “Come out, come out, wherever you are. You can’t escape me.”
Marcus would have laughed in derision if he’d been able, but the spell and swirling energy absorbed all his attention. Glori was gathering more power and flinging it at the vines. He poured more into her well.
As she took his energy, she directed it to one place, and the hanging tendril lashed out at Walcott and knocked the gun away. Before the man could move, Glori changed the direction of her power flow to the green wall behind him. The vines at his back snaked forward to wrap around his arms. Walcott began to struggle and shout, but the plants held him tight and encircled him more densely. His lightball flashed up through green into blue before disappearing altogether.
“You can’t do this to me!” Walcott screamed as he fought. “I have powers. I’ll crush you. I’ll smear your blood from one end of your damned jungle to the other.”
“Cut the energy,” Gloriana whispered. “The vines will hold him.”
She ended the spell, and Marcus was glad they were holding on to each other. The cessation of energy flow made him slightly dizzy, and it took a few seconds to regain his equilibrium. They hadn’t moved, however, when they heard several people yelling their names and the dogs adding their calls to the din. The humans sounded like John, Fergus, and their parents.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
Gleaming blades drawn, the two Swords came around the bend, two bright silver lightballs floating in the air above them and dissipating the darkness. They stopped in their tracks to stare at Walcott, who was still shouting a stream of invectives, although he had ceased struggling against the confining greenery.
“Marcus! Gloriana!” John shouted as Alaric joined the two men.
“We’re here,” Marcus said, not really surprised when his voice came out in a croak.
Keeping a grip on each other, he and Gloriana emerged from the bushes. He still wasn’t sure either of them could stand alone. Walcott subsided when he saw them and sagged against his restraints.
“What happened? Are you all right?” Fergus asked.
“We’re fine. Wet, and a little tired,” Gloriana answered in a weak tone.
“This wild man wanted to kill us. His gun’s around here somewhere,” Marcus said.
“Here it is.” Alaric picked up the gun on the edge of the path.
“Hold on to that,” John said while he studied the ensnared Walcott. “It certainly looks like you handled him. We tried calling you once we found out where he was headed, but all we got was voice mail.”
“We don’t have our phones with us,” Gloriana said.
“I switched ours to the answering machine so we wouldn’t be interrupted at dinner,” Alaric put in.
“No matter,” Fergus said. “Alaric, why don’t you tell Stefan and the ladies that Marcus and Gloriana are all right. We must settle something here with Walcott before we do anything else, and we need to ask our newest soul mates some questions.”
“Will do,” Alaric answered. “The ambulance has arrived, and we’ve managed to get the dogs in our car before they cut themselves on the glass.”
“Please tell the medics to stand by and ask Hal to come in.”
Alaric nodded and left.
“Ambulance?” Marcus asked, noting that, despite the calm, the Swords had not sheathed their weapons. “What’s going on?”
“Did Walcott throw a spell on you?” John asked. “Get close enough to touch you?”
“No,” Marcus said, and Gloriana shook her head.
“Good. We don’t have to worry about decontamination,” John said. He spread his hands apart, and his sword dissipated. “You see, Kemble told us that Walcott has some kind of crystal or stone he uses to focus. He’s had it only three weeks, and when he pulls it out, she gets a queasy feeling. It’s time we saw that item. You two stay where you are. Ready, Fergus?”
The big Sword nodded, and his blade glowed brighter as he raised it. “Ready.”
John approached Walcott, who began to struggle again, but feebly. Baldwin held up his hands in front of the thin man’s chest for a few seconds, nodded, and removed Walcott’s tie and unbuttoned his shirt. When John spread the shirt open, he said, “Looks like we were correct.”
Marcus watched as John lifted a chain over Walcott’s head. At the end of the loop dangled a dime-sized, yellowish crystal with streaks of green—a half-sharp-edged, half-semi-melted crystal—in a silver wire cage. It looked like a distorted lump of vomit to Marcus, and it gave off a foul odor and an even more fetid wave of magic power. He kept his arms tight around Gloriana, and she held herself more closely to him.
“What you see here is a genuine evil magic item,” Fergus said. “Feels like only a level two or three from here. We surmised that something besides magical fervor or a true disagreement with the sides in the debate was driving Walcott, especially once he started using threats and then violence. He’d never behaved like that previously. We haven’t learned how he obtained it yet, but we will.”
A stocky white-haired man came around the corner carrying a big, pentagon-shaped suitcase. Baldwin introduced him as Hal Thomas, a member of his Defender team. Hal said hello, set the case down, and opened it.
“What do you think, Fergus? Destroy it h
ere?” John asked. When Fergus nodded, John turned to Gloriana. “What’s below the building? Particularly this path? Concrete? Dirt?”
“Dirt and rocks,” Gloriana said. “Some plumbing pipes. The pipes are mostly along the walls, and there are none under the path.”
“Good. With your permission, we’re going to destroy the item. That’s our procedure when we find one small and weak enough for the two of us to handle. Doing so should not harm you, your greenhouse, or the plants. Is that all right with you?”
She looked up at Marcus and smiled. “As long as we can stay to watch.”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “I want to see destroyed what’s given us such grief.”
“Okay. We usually don’t allow ‘civilians’ to watch. I see no problem, however with making an exception here, seeing what he and it put you through. Stand over there”—John pointed to a spot several feet away—”and once we start, don’t move, no matter what happens. Understood?”
“Understood,” Marcus and Gloriana said together.
“How do you feel?” Marcus asked when they reached their designated spot.
“Exhausted, but, hot damn! It worked. The merging of power and spell actually worked. I know our auras expanded. How about you?”
“I feel like I’ve run two marathons to the top of Mount Everest and back.”
“I’m sure I’ve lost weight, and my legs feel like rubber. We’ll get something to eat soon. That should help.”
They fell silent as they watched the Swords and Defender set themselves up. Hal spread out a black cloth blanket on the path and placed the suitcase on it. From the case he took a platter and a shallow bowl, both of clear crystal. He closed the luggage and placed the platter on it and the bowl on top of the platter. After making sure everything was aligned precisely, he left in the direction of the door.
John held the pendant directly over the bowl and cast a spell. The wire cage bent and opened, and the crystal fell into the bowl.