by Ciara Graves
A tower of flame shot up into the sky from one of the buildings.
A third blast lit up the forest behind us.
I was torn on which way to go. My instincts told me to run into the woods. Then I realized what was happening.
“The barricade,” I whispered. “Someone’s trying to break through!”
“We need to alert the others.” Brogan tugged me away from the trees as another blast lit up the darkness. “We need to help the ones at the outpost.”
Then we heard the roar.
It was Chas’s bear roaring in fury.
We barely exchanged a glance, then we took off into the trees, both of us running. I willed my feet to move faster.
Guess we weren’t going to have to wait long for our first battle after all.
They’d brought it to us instead, but I’d be damned if I was going to let them kill Chas.
Chapter 15
Brogan
The unexpected explosions made me want to take Rori from the edge of the trees and get to the safety of the buildings. Until we heard Chas’s roar and a different instinct kicked in. We had to reach the other member of our team. She and I raced, ragged breathing competing with the pounding of my heart and adrenaline flooded my veins.
A bright blue flash lit up the darkening woods. Rori got ahead of me, sprinting between trees. I picked up speed to reach her. Eventually, we were going to run into the barricade.
Gunfire erupted, calls for more firepower and shouts.
I cursed, lowered my head, and charged into the chaos. We were trained to fight against other magic-users, but gunfire was not something I expected.
When I burst through a copse of dense trees, I froze, taken back by the violence before me.
Rori yelled. Next to a slumped furry body, frost wind whipping around her.
She directed the wind toward figures clad in black, military-style garb charging through the very large, very visible crack in the barricade.
The barricade sputtered and sparked, but whatever they were doing stopped it from repairing itself as it should. Her frigid winds pushed the intruders back, but wouldn’t hold them for long.
I rushed to Rori’s side, taking a spot next to her to help protect Chas in his bear form. His fur was matted with blood and his breathing ragged. He’d been shot. At least once.
“I can’t get him to shift back,” Rori said in a panicked rush. “He’s hurt too badly!”
I glanced back at the crack and counted at least twenty attackers. “How long can you hold them off?” We couldn’t carry Chas, not like this, but if I could get a healing totem up, it might heal him enough to shift back and then we could drag him to safety.
Rori shrugged. “How long do you need?”
The self-conscious girl I’d met on our first day was gone, replaced by a strong, determined one ready to do whatever she had to for her friend.
“Two minutes max.” I turned to Chas’s body.
More shouted orders came from the attackers. Sirens still wailed behind us. I worried about those at the outpost and what they were facing, but there was nothing I could do to help them yet. We had to get Chas out of here and warn Moran that the enemy had broken through.
“Any chance you can send a message back to the main buildings? Somehow?” I asked as power rose within me and shot out of my arms into the earth.
“I’ll try.” She created another small vortex of icy wind, whispered something into it, then shot it behind us, into the trees. “Hopefully that reaches someone.”
Adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I used the extra energy to draw up the healing totem. It rose from the ground, up through the leaves, glowing green with healing light. It washed over the ground and flowed over Chas like a wave of water.
“Fire!” a man yelled from the barricade.
Rori cursed. “Get down!” she shouted.
A wall of clear ice formed before us. A never-ending storm of bullets struck it in. I glanced at Chas, willing his wound to heal faster as the ice was chipped away.
Rori grunted, forming a second layer of ice, but we were running out of room. She snapped her fingers, and her staff appeared in her hands, glowing fiercely. “Shield your eyes!”
A white burst of frost sparked to life at her fingertips. She swirled it around.
I squinted against the glow.
Using so much strong magic was taking its toll, as I knew it would. When she faltered, I thrust out a hand and called on the natural essence of the ice, strengthening it as much as I could, adding my lightning to it as we both stepped forward and thrust our hands out.
Just as the ice came down, the wall of frost and lightning rolled through the trees, straight for the attackers. They shouted in panic, I smirked, hoping the lightning burned at least a few of them.
A growl came from behind us. Chas was struggling to get up. His body vanished into a swirl of blue and green light. When the light cleared, Chas in his human form replaced the bear. His right side was covered in blood.
“Brogan?” he grunted. “What… Rori?”
“Can you walk?” I hauled him, non-too gently, to his feet with Rori’s help.
He winced, nodding. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Too late for that,” Rori snapped, putting one of his arms over her shoulders. “We have to move, quick.”
It was much slower going with a wounded Chas between us. Bullets ricocheted off the trees around us, and we ducked low, using what we could for cover. The edge of the woods was in sight, and the damned siren was still wailing. Footsteps crunched in the leaves behind us, and I knew we weren’t going to make it. Another explosion blinded me and sent us falling to the ground, hunkering down below a few large boulders.
“We have no cover between here and the line!” Chas growled. “Just leave me here! I’ll do what I can to cover you!”
“Not happening,” I snapped as Rori shook her head. “In this together, remember?”
“You have to get out of here. You don’t understand,” he argued. “They won’t simply kill you if they capture you! Those are the Cleansers. They broke through the barricade. Whatever power they have, I don’t think we can fight it!”
We all ducked lower as more bullets slammed into the boulders.
“Damn it!” I tried to peek, but barely caught a glimpse of the figures moving forward until Rori yanked me back before I lost my head. “How did they get here without anyone knowing?”
Chas gritted his teeth. “I doubt this is the only outpost they’re attacking.”
“There were more explosions from the main building,” Rori told him. “We’re not sure how bad it is out there.”
More gunfire rang out, and it sounded like someone yelled the word grenade.
“You’ve got to be shitting me!” I covered Rori the best I could with my body.
It wasn’t an explosion that erupted around us.
There was a bright flash of white light, and then my ears were ringing. I couldn’t see through the blurriness that filled my vision. Somewhere there was more yelling and then rough hands grabbed hold of my arms and threw me to the ground.
A heavy weight landed in the center of my back, and my hands were bound behind me. I called on my lightning, ready to blast the assholes away, but there was barely a spark.
“Get off me!” Rori screamed. “Get off!”
“Rori!” I yelled. “Let her go!”
Chas growled fiercely nearby.
“Get them up! We’re short on time,” a man grunted. “Send the rest forward; we need to make this trip worthwhile.”
I was hauled to my feet and shoved along. I started to charge them and managed to get myself free. I took off running at the soldiers holding Rori and Chas, tackling them to the ground in a heap.
We were just getting to our feet when the intruders suddenly backed away.
I saw a black object hit the ground near us.
Chas started to yell a warning.
A massive electric shock exploded o
ut of the damned object and pain tore through my limbs.
Rori’s scream tore me apart.
Chas growled curses, then bellowed in pain.
When the shock was over, we fell to the ground, too weak to be of any use.
“Carry them if you have to. Let’s move!” a voice ordered.
As my body was picked up and thrown over someone’s shoulder, I winced at the excruciating pain flowing through me. Every jostle had me grinding my teeth and willing my lightning to return. But there was nothing. My connection to nature had been cut off.
“Why don’t we just strip their power now?” someone asked.
I stilled.
“Not yet. They wanted these three alive,” the first man snapped.
Who wanted us alive?
In a matter of a few minutes, we were carried through the barricade that surrounded the campus, and were thrown none too gently to the ground beside a large truck.
“Wait to load them until we get the other prisoners. Guard them.”
Four soldiers took up posts in front of us, and I shook out my head, trying to clear away the fuzziness filling my mind.
“Rori?” I whispered. “Chas?”
“Huh?” Rori replied first. “What did they do to us?”
“That electric shock,” Chas murmured quietly, “it cut off our power. Somehow.”
“We have to get it back,” I hissed under my breath.
Rori pulled on her hands, struggling to get free of the zip ties.
I shifted, so I was partially blocking her from view. Chas did the same. Her eyes flickered blue as she fought to get her power back. Fruitlessly.
“We have to get out of here,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I can use frost.”
I fumbled around again and managed to brush my fingers against hers, hoping to give her power.
As if reading my mind, Chas mirrored my movements.
I felt a jolt of strength shoot through the three of us.
Moran said we had to learn to work together as one. Whatever that electric shock did to us, I doubted it was permanent, since they hadn’t stripped us of our powers. All we had to do was push past the block, overload it until we were back online.
I focused on Rori, on the power that flowed within her, and then shut my eyes. The storm wasn’t hard to see in my mind’s eye, but its power eluded me. My need for it was stronger than what was blocking my connection to nature. It had to be. I was not going to let us be taken captive. Not this early in the game.
When Rori’s hand grew cold in my grasp, I risked opening my eyes and saw the frost forming at her fingertips. A few sparks of lightning came to life and shot to her hands, then returned to me.
Chas’s blue and green vortex flashed to life, and our powers flowed from one to the other, pushing back against the block until it weakened.
“What are you doing?” one of the soldiers asked, raising his rifle. “Stop!”
But we didn’t. Instead, our power grew as our hands closed the circle.
Suddenly, the hold it had on us was gone.
The soldier yelled a warning and fired a shot at me. I flinched.
The bullet hit the ice shield Rori had constructed. She shattered frozen plastic zip ties on her hands.
“Not nice,” she snapped. With a yell, she thrust the ice forward.
The shield expanded and took the four guards to the ground, trapping them beneath its weight. She snapped her fingers, and her staff reappeared in her hands. She freed our hands, and scrambled to get up.
Without a word, the three of us turned to the line of trucks and other heavily armored vehicles parked among the trees.
Rori raised her staff. I lifted my hands to the sky, and Chas lowered his to the ground. Lightning cracked across what had been a clear evening sky.
I thrust the lightning toward the vehicles. It was joined by Rori’s frost wind, and a tidal wave of moss and vines. Everything was crushed in our combined powers path.
Soldiers ran in a panic, yelling and hurrying to get free of the destruction.
Bullets struck around us, prompting Rori to slam her staff to the ground forming an ice wall.
“Back to the barricade.” She took off at a run.
We were barely back inside the barricade’s schism when more bullets exploded around us. We dove to the side, behind another boulder.
Not quickly enough.
Rori shrieked.
I hustled toward her.
She held her side, blood soaking her shirt. “Damn,” she gasped.
I pressed my hands to the wound, hunkering down lower after hearing the order for more grenades. “We have to keep moving.”
She nodded and with a grimace, sat up. I helped her move to where Chas was motioning for us, staying low and behind the trees.
An electric shock went off nearby, but just missed us. We pushed on further. A bright flash blinded me momentarily. Something hot slammed into my left shoulder, taking me to the ground.
Chas yelled my name, and then he growled in pain, collapsing beside me.
“Get them!” a soldier ordered. “And this time, knock them out!”
“No,” Rori whispered fiercely, scrambling to get back up.
“Rori, what are you doing?”
Her staff pulsed between bright blue and violet.
The soldiers were moving in, but just as they were about to reach us, Rori’s eyes turned violet, and the frost at her fingertips took on a shadowed appearance. The cold coming off her suddenly felt heavier, darker. Her white hair blew back from her face, and her power erupted from within.
This was not the magic of a frost mage. Hell no. This was something different. Something much deadlier.
“She’s a damned hybrid,” I whispered surprised.
Chas nodded once. “Her hand. Shit. Look at her hand.”
There on the back of her left hand was a scythe with a skull. Necromancer. Rori was a frost mage mixed with a necromancer. The way her ice had exploded that day in training, it all made sense now.
As I looked at her face, into her eyes, the Rori I knew didn’t appear to be present. Instead, this fierce woman bared her teeth and shot her hand to the ground. The soldiers formed a circle around us.
Rori smirked.
“Surrender yourselves now,” the soldier in front ordered. “Do it, or we open fire!”
Rori still said nothing. The ground beneath us rumbled and groaned, breaking apart.
The soldiers murmured.
Skeletal remains of animals that died in the woods rose from the ground. They shook out their ratty, boney bodies, and with a flick of Rori’s finger, attacked our enemies.
The soldiers yelled in panic, shooting at the dead things to no avail. Their bullets did nothing.
Rori faltered, fighting to keep the power going, but it was clear it wasn’t going to last long. She was losing blood and using this much power was taking its toll.
Chas placed his hands down on the ground, next to Rori. I raised mine up to the night sky. The storm I dreamt of for so many nights, I imagined again now, felt myself get wrapped up in its chaos and danger, calling on it to let me use it now. More dark clouds moved in overhead as thunder rumbled in the distance. Lightning flashed, shooting toward my hands. It crackled over me in waves. Rori was back to using her frost magic and had combined it with Chas’s nature, bursting to life in a tumultuous wave of moss and thorny vines. I didn’t stop to think about what we were doing, or how it would turn out. But somehow, I knew it would work. That this was why we had come to this outpost. I nodded at them and slammed my hands onto the sheet of moss-covered ice, lightning shot through it, joining their magic. It rose up like a tidal wave. Grenades exploded against it, but they barely stopped it as it built up in momentum and swarmed through the trees. Screams of pain met my ears, then the soldiers and the dead animals brought back to life were swept away by the storm the three of us created.
With the soldiers dead or on the run, Rori sank to her knees, holding her sid
e and gasping for breath. My shoulder was in agony.
Chas, gritting his teeth, urged, “Come on.” He tugged on Rori, getting her to her feet. “We have to go.”
We moved as fast as we could through the trees, tripping over roots and waiting for the next attack.
None came.
As we broke through the trees, smoke rose from the outpost and soldiers were rushing toward us, with Moran and Agnes in the lead.
“Chas!” Moran yelled. “Help them, get them to safety!” he ordered the soldiers.
Rori collapsed suddenly, her eyes rolling back in her head.
Agnes quickly fell to her side, resting her hand on her forehead. “What happened out there?”
“Necromancer,” I explained, clutching a hand to my shoulder. “She’s a necromancer.”
Agnes and Moran exchanged a look.
Then Agnes said, “Just like her father.”
“What?” Chas and I snapped at the same time.
Moran held up his hands. “Get yourselves taken care of now. I will come to you later. How many are out there?”
“Twenty, maybe more,” Chas reported. “We took out most of their vehicles and hopefully a good number of those bastards too. It’s not magic they’re using.”
“No? You’re sure?”
“Yeah, damned sure. Electric shocks and flash bombs. It stuns our power somehow, cuts us off.”
Moran clenched his jaw, he nodded once, and then led the way into the trees, the rest of the soldiers trailing behind him.
“Agnes, the outpost,” Chas asked. “Who’s hurt?”
“Don’t worry yourself over it.”
When he started to argue, she reached up and touched his forehead. He passed out and then she turned to me with a calming smile.
I welcomed being sent to sleep, ready to embrace a bit of serenity as my mind processed what the hell we just went through.
Chapter 16
Chas
I jolted upright, looking around as the infirmary came into focus.