Magic Possessed

by Jaime Rush

  Jessup wrinkled his nose. “Tryah? I vaguely remember them being the gods who started the war. If it weren’t for them, we could have been living on a tropical island eating coconuts and watching beautiful naked women all day.”

  Ryan punched his arm. “Focus. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  Kade looked at Violet, sleeping so peacefully. “Onyx is still out there. And she wants Violet dead even more than Ferro did.”

  Chapter 21

  Onyx couldn’t find a child to kill. Ever since word got out about the August girl being threatened, the clans had tightened their hold on their children. So she killed a teenage boy instead, an August who was patrolling the property. She let him scream long enough to draw others before dropping Jessup’s shredded clothes.

  It was dawn before she’d finally made the kill, and she was exhausted. Ferro wasn’t answering her texts. She knew he was upset about the jailbreak. Maybe he’d been hurt more than he’d let on. She worried about him, but she knew he’d want her to move forward. The effects of the solar storm would hit sometime that day. Wouldn’t Drakos be pleased if she was the one who brought the most power to him?

  She was already on her way to Violet’s house before the first August arrived.

  When Violet woke, Kade was sitting nearby watching over her. He smiled. “Feel better?”

  She took note of how she felt. Not wretched, no trace of wanting to kill anyone in a mindless frenzy. “Yes, I think so.”

  He helped her sit up. “I hope the hammering didn’t interrupt your rest. Your brothers and I patched up the bedroom wall. A temporary fix, but it’ll keep the weather and animals out anyway.”

  “You and my brothers worked together? And they were nice to you?” She liked that idea.

  “They were civil. Though they did make fun of my hammering technique. I’m much handier with a sword than a hammer.” He showed her his thumb, which bore testament to that with a bruise.

  “Aw, poor baby.” She pulled it to her mouth and planted a soft kiss on it. Which fired up the mist in his eyes. She opened his hand and moved her mouth over his palm, her gaze on his.

  “I have this memory of us making love in the mud. Just bits and pieces, but I do remember it was incredible.”

  “I had to keep you from slipping into your real memories.” She wouldn’t tell him how he’d tried to kill her.

  “You said something about lying to keep me sane.”

  She nodded. “You kept falling into memories of fighting, being in danger. So I kept you in a fantasy world, which included us being married. And since making love in the mud was one of your fantasies…” She shrugged.

  He grinned. “It was a nice fantasy, all of it.”

  What was he saying? That he liked being married to her?

  Before she could delve into that, a series of long whistles pierced the air, like an alarmed bird call. Violet turned to Kade. “There’s trouble. Big trouble.” She ran outside and strained to hear more. There was shouting in the distance, angry calls. “Clan wars,” she said. “They’re here.”

  She ran back inside and called Jessup. “What’s going on?”

  “There’s a lynch mob moving in from the borders of our land. They think we’re the ones behind the murders. I heard Bren say I killed Sam August. Get out of here while you can.”

  Sam. Another teenager. Violet clutched the phone. “Jessup, we can’t just hide while—”

  “You’re still weak, and Kade’s memories are unstable. You’ve both been through hell. Stay out of it. We can beat them, Vee.” She could hear the smile in his voice, his eagerness to fight. “We’ll annihilate them the way we did the Garzas. They’re on our land, and they’re here to kill us. We have every right.”

  “But you know they only think we’ve killed their people.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that they’re here to kill us.”

  Kade leaned close to the phone, his cheek brushing hers. “Where’s Mia?”

  “With Ryan,” Jessup said. “She’s been practicing with her dagger, and she’s not half bad.”

  “But she’s inexperienced when it comes to fighting.”

  “Ryan’s going to keep an eye on her. Smitten son of a bitch.” Jessup’s disgust lanced his words. “Whistle if you need us. Use the speaker system if necessary. Look, I gotta go. Be careful.”

  Kade’s face sharpened in warrior mode. “We can’t let them fight alone.”

  “Well, they’re hardly alone.” She could see that his own hunger to fight was still alive and well.

  Another call came in. She didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

  “Violet?” A woman’s voice.

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “I hear you’re having a bit of trouble with the neighbors. A shame. I know your mother always runs to the gator house to secure it at the first sign of danger. Gods forbid something should happen to the family’s livelihood.” She chuckled, while Violet’s blood turned to ice.

  “What do you want?”

  “You, darling. Alone. Leave your brain-addled lover there. Not that he’d be of much use anyway.”

  Violet met Kade’s eyes. Ferro’s accomplice. “Who are you? I obviously know you.”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here. We can catch up on old times. If I see anyone else, your mother will be alligator stew.” She disconnected.

  Violet turned to Kade. “She’s got my mother! In the gator pens.” She had to take deep breaths or she’d be as hysterical as Mia usually was. “She wants me to come alone. If she sees you or anyone, she’ll kill her.”

  Kade shuddered. “With the alligators? Hate those things,” he muttered. “I’m coming with you, but don’t worry. She won’t see me.”

  Yes, the orb that camouflaged. “She thinks you’re brain damaged. She won’t be expecting you to help me. Are you sure you’re ready to fight?”

  He stretched his arm, the dagger shimmering. “It’s what I am. If I can’t fight for the Guard anymore, I’ll fight for you.” Those moss green eyes shimmered with his conviction and devotion.

  Her heart melted, but she tucked the feeling away for later. She dialed Jessup again, hoping he would be able to answer. He was breathless when he did three rings later. “What’s up?”

  “I need you to get those men near the speakers.” She wasn’t going to tell him about their mother. That would set him into a rampage, and Violet needed to play this cool.

  “What, you gonna serenade us with some soothing music?”

  “Just do it, Jessup.” She hung up, driving her fingers through her hair as she headed to the front door. “I can’t lose my ma.” The thought of it pounded through her, raising the old Violet who would also fly into an emotion-driven frenzy. “She’s been through so much. I’m going to tear that Carnelian bitch to shreds when I get my hands on her. I’m going to—”

  Kade took her arms and turned her to face him. “You’re the strongest woman I know, and you’re more than a capable fighter. Hell, you broke me out of the Guard’s prison. If you can do that, you can save her, Vee, but you have to keep your head.”

  His confidence in her meant a lot, coming from a soldier like Kade. She only nodded, unable to say anything as she drew in his strength, his composure.

  He gave her a quick kiss and said, “Let’s get your ma.”

  They plunged into the woods, following the path that led toward the gator house.

  When they saw a building up ahead, he whispered, “Is that it?”

  “No, that’s the barn where you—” She didn’t want to get into those unfortunate hours he’d spent there. “There’s something I want to get.” She detoured to the wall of shame and stopped short. “The cuffs are gone.”

  Kade stared at the weathered boards, and she saw him struggling with his memories. Please don’t go blank on me.

  “The cuffs with the Lucifer’s Gold,” he said. “I think it’s my fault that they’re gone. When I was reporting in as Dune, I had to tell Ferro about the cuffs to
explain why Kade wasn’t using his magick to escape. He must have told the Carnelian.”

  “I was going to use them on the Carnelian. But she’s…damn it, she beat me to it. She’s obviously using them on my ma to keep her from Catalyzing.” Violet slapped her hand to her chest, which felt like it was caving in. “She’s helpless.”

  He took her hand and gave it a squeeze, giving her strength and calm. “We’ll save her. Together we have enough power.” He lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of hers.

  She took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

  The crack of a tree falling broke through the sound of her heavy breathing. The mob was drawing closer. The Carnelian might kill her mother if she heard others approaching, thinking that it was Violet’s clan. She had to get there first.

  In unison, they released their handhold and continued their sprint down the path. Each minute that passed felt like an hour. This trek had never felt so long. So arduous. Her legs ached and her lungs burned. She spotted the gnarled cypress tree that meant they were nearly there and signaled Kade. He pulled the orb around him and disappeared. Violet felt eyes on her as she approached the long gator house. Her heart felt as though it weighed a hundred pounds as it thudded heavily in her chest. After unlocking the back door, she walked through the office. She flipped the switch for the speakers just before stepping into the steamy area where the gators lived.

  She walked in, breathing shallowly. A long boardwalk split the building in half, with pens on either side filled with gators of varying sizes. It wasn’t their regular feeding time, so they weren’t as active. But if someone fell in, they’d react instantly.

  Her heart stopped at the sight of the woman holding her ma with her arm across her throat. A cuff circled one of Ma’s hands, but she was calm and very still, her mouth in a tight line. Stoic as always, but her eyes gave away her terror…especially at seeing Violet. She gave a subtle shake of her head. Go.

  Violet shook her head, too. I’m not leaving you, Ma.

  She shifted her focus to the woman who was holding her, eager to figure out who this hateful adversary was. But she didn’t look familiar. Violet remained close to the wall and the switch that would turn on the intercom. Several stations were put in place as a way to alert others if someone was injured or fell into the pens. It was a rule that the speaker system always got turned on when someone was in the gator house. Violet’s finger touched the smooth metal lever and tried to push it up. It wasn’t budging.

  “Remember me now, Violet?” the woman said. She had a smug smile, beautiful as she was, with dark hair and glittering eyes.

  Violet pushed harder, and the lever finally moved with a rusty sound. “No, I don’t.”

  The smile vanished. “Pilar Garza. Oh, you probably thought I’d died when your family massacred mine. I was gone that day. Lucky me.” Her smile returned, brittle this time.

  Violet’s gaze kept shifting to her mother as she took one step at a time, drawing closer. She thought she saw the outline of Kade’s bubble behind Pilar and her mother. She couldn’t afford to look too hard and draw Pilar’s attention to him. “You seem to forget that someone in your family killed my father. We did not attack you unprovoked. But this isn’t about our families, is it?”

  “Of course it is. And how much I hate you. Have always hated you.”

  “Because I was better at wrestling than you were when we were, what, fourteen? Because when you tried to distract me I didn’t get my arm torn off? Because you were shunned and banned due to your bad behavior?”

  “Your father killed mine!”

  “That was your doing. You pouted and sulked so much that your father challenged mine to the Conference Room. Your father wasn’t supposed to die in there.” Mostly the Conference Room was about brute force, releasing aggression, not duels to the death. “Your father tried to kill mine. He had to protect himself.”

  Pilar gave her a cruel smile. “Do you want to know why your father was on our property? I saw him at the edge, calling for one of your pigs. I pretended to be hurt, and he came over to help me. I stabbed him. And while he bled out, I remembered seeing you two at the store laughing together. He put his arm around your shoulders, and you leaned into him. And I thought about how I didn’t have my father anymore, and now you wouldn’t either.”

  Her father had been tricked. He’d been trying to help her and was killed for it. Violet saw the shock register on her ma’s face, too. She focused on Pilar. “You caused the deaths of your whole family,” Violet said. “You started a war.”

  Pilar pointed, jerking Violet’s ma off-balance. “You started it!”

  Violet knew there was no point in reasoning with a woman who could only rationalize her own actions. She buried her shock and anger. “Let my mother go. You said we were making a deal. Me for her.”

  “Vee, no, damn it!” her ma said. “I’ve lived a long life. You are not giving yours for mine.”

  But Violet didn’t intend to give her life. “I’m a big girl, Ma. I make my own decisions. And I already made the deal. You and Daddy taught me to live up to my word, after all.” She focused on Pilar again. “Since you’ve been so forthcoming, I have a revelation for you as well. Ferro’s dead.”

  Pilar stumbled, which shoved Violet’s mother into the railing along the boardwalk. “You didn’t kill Ferro. He’s in Miami.”

  “He’s lying in the woods. He came to kill me. Seems the two of you don’t like me much. I’ll try not to take it to heart. Someone I care about very much recently gave me that advice, not to take things too personally.”

  Pilar lifted her chin. “You couldn’t kill Ferro. He’s much more powerful than you will ever be.”

  “I got lucky.” Violet wasn’t going to mention Kade’s part. Let her continue thinking he was insane. She approached Pilar slowly, her hands out at her sides. “He took you in, didn’t he? That’s how you came together with this plan of yours to save Drakos.”

  Her eyes widened. “How…”

  “Because Drakos came to Ferro as we fought. And funny, I thought he’d save Ferro as he lay dying and begging for help. Instead he chastised him for not waiting. He was going to finish him, Breathe him. That’s the only way he can take the power you’ve been accumulating. So do you really want to throw everything away for a god who’s betrayed you?”

  “You’re lying! Drakos is going to make me immortal.”

  Violet thought about that girl Pilar had intended to kill. “You hate us all in the Fringe so much that you’d set us up to kill each other? Leave more children without parents when you know how painful that is?” She hoped Jessup had pushed aside his bloodlust and gotten the others to listen. “You were going to kill Kaitlyn. A child! That’s against the rules. My clan never killed any Garza children.”

  “Only because there were none at the time. Saving a god is more important than any child’s life. Certainly more important than any of you Fringers. All they’ll be good for is the power I Breathe from those who survive the clan wars. They will be the most powerful and worthy of my time and effort.”

  Violet hoped they heard that. She now stood directly in front of Pilar. She had to fight not to look when she saw Kade appear as the orb evaporated.

  “Let her go.” Violet held out her hand. “And put the other cuff on me.”

  Pilar pushed her mother away and reached the open cuff toward Violet’s wrist. As the metal touched her skin, Pilar gasped and looked down at the tip of Kade’s blade protruding from her chest. Blue shards of magick came off the bloody blade and pulsed through her body. She snapped the cuff closed and Catalyzed. With all of her power, she’d heal fast in Dragon form. She flicked her tail at Kade, who didn’t move quite fast enough because his focus was on that cuff around Violet’s wrist. He was thrown to the edge of the walkway, the railing stopping him from falling over the edge. Pilar inhaled, ready to incinerate him.

  Violet unlatched one of the gates and pushed Pilar through the opening and into the gator pit. She landed with
a splash, and then Violet heard several other splashes as the gators moved toward her. Pilar sent a torrent of flames at the creatures to keep them at bay. She turned and smashed into the walkway that led through the center of the building, sending Violet stumbling down the slanted boards and into the water.

  Oh, crap. The sight of her usually signaled the arrival of food to the gators. If she didn’t have gator chow to offer them, they’d take her instead. She couldn’t Catalyze with the damned cuff on. Vigorous pushing at it couldn’t nudge it past her wrist bone. Some of the gators swished through the water toward her, their mouths partially open.

  Kade Changed into the largest gator she’d ever seen and threw himself into the muddy melee of tails and teeth and fangs and fire. He charged toward her, stepping on other gators and pushing them beneath the water.

  Pilar, blood still gushing from the wound in her chest, tried to climb up the broken walkway. Gators pulled at her tail. She was too big for any one gator to tussle with, but the beasts didn’t care. Several of them were fighting over her. She kept them at bay with her periodic bursts of flame, but one managed to take a chunk out of her tail. She howled in pain, screaming obscenities.

  Violet tried to climb out of the water, barely clinging to one of the boards. Her feet kept slipping on the wet wood.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Pilar reached out and knocked her off, sending Violet face-first into the water. One gator clamped its mouth around her arm, its teeth puncturing her skin. It would do the death roll with her, spinning her around and pinning her to the bottom of the pen. Her scream was drowned out by the water in her mouth. Suddenly the gator released her, and then another one took her into its massive jaws. With teeth as soft as pillows.

  Kade.

  He set her on the intact portion of the walkway and then turned to Pilar, precariously balanced on the broken boards. She kicked at the encroaching gators, which were even more fueled by the blood in the water. Kade lunged at her from one of the narrow catwalks that ran perpendicular to the main walkway. Pilar sent a blast of Obsidian Dragon magick at him. A black oily cloud smothered the huge gator. Kade dropped the illusion, becoming man and slipping out of the cloud’s grasp. Pilar shot a plume of fiery spikes at him. He dropped to a crouch as they flew over his head and singed his hair. He staggered back upright, fatigue clear in his expression.