by Lizzy Ford
“Tomorrow, we’ll come here just before sunset. The magic is at its strongest between dusk and midnight. Come, daughter.”
Yully opened her eyes, suddenly aware she was floating two feet of the ground. She panicked, and the magic released her.
“I’ve been waiting for generations for you,” her father said, his eyes glowing. “I groomed hundreds of others like you, and only you can do this.”
Yully didn’t ask about her predecessors. She suspected they were buried with the Guardians. As she stepped away from the magic of the Henge, sorrow for those women who came before her pulled her from the powerful high. Her eyes went from the ancient site glowing in the moonlight to her father’s form as he walked up the hill.
A new emotion was forming in her breast: hatred. She hadn’t expected it to form so fast or so strong. She stepped away from the monument amplifying her magic and followed her father. The intensity of her emotion faded as she crested the hill, but it didn’t completely disappear.
She’d born untold ridicule from everyone she’d ever met and believed her father to be the only one who understood and protected her. The past few days had turned her beliefs on end. With the rise of her anger came another emotion: gratitude for finding Jule, the one man who had accepted her.
Yully touched Jule’s medallion at her neck. She’d make him proud and protect him and the rest of the Guardians from her father, even if destroying her father took her own life. The Guardians deserved this after losing so many of them.
Resolved, she trailed her father down the hill, through the people who couldn’t see them, and to the awaiting car. She couldn’t help thinking her life had been wasted and hoped she still had a chance to make it up to the one person who mattered.
Neither spoke on their return trip to the bed and breakfast, and she went straight to her room. Yully slept fitfully and awoke before dawn, unable to rest with her troubled thoughts. She rose and stretched then left the small house on a hill for a quick walk. The day dawned cloudy and cold with a light rain that chilled her after ten minutes. She continued to walk, needing to feel the cold to remind her she was still alive. She returned and searched for her father.
The house was completely empty. Confused, she paused at the back door and felt the telltale energy patterns of the newly dead. There were twenty of them, far more than the small house could hold. Something had happened last night while she slept. Yully backed away from the door. She steadied her breathing, swearing to herself that these would be the last to die at her father’s hands.
Jule’s magic was stronger this day. It kept her centered and prevented her from running for the hills tearing her hair out. Instead, she prepared for the day as if it were her last. She checked her weapons with scrutiny that would’ve made her father proud and dressed in dark clothing loose enough for her to fight.
Her father returned around noon, his agitation apparent the moment he stepped in the door. Yully looked up from her seat on the couch as he entered. He’d left the front door open, and she saw the car was running, waiting.
“We’re going now,” he said, emerging from his room with a coat.
“Yes, Father.” She rose and trailed him from the house to the car, unable to guess what could agitate him if killing people didn’t.
They drove in silence north again, towards the ancient site. Yully grew more anxious the nearer they got; her father was right about the magic feeling stronger. The air hummed the closer they got. The chauffeur drove them straight to the hill. Her father flung open the door and strode up the incline.
Yully followed more slowly, enjoying the feeling of the power moving through her. She looked around, curious as to why such a popular site was so quiet. Just as fast, she looked away.
Her father hadn’t taken the time to bury these people. They looked as if they’d been torn apart by some monster she couldn’t imagine.
“Come, Yully!”
Yully steadied her breathing and obeyed, taking comfort in the power of the site. She tested it as she walked to see how much effort it would take to control. The energies flowing around her responded eagerly, and she molded and released them.
She reached the top of the hill and gasped. Her father dragged half a body from the center of the site to the edge. She recognized the blond Guardian, and her chest tightened.
“Come, daughter,” her father ordered.
Yully walked to the center of the monument. The power pushed her off balance, and she caught herself before it sent her sprawling into the blood pooled around her.
“Father, why did you do this?” she asked, unable to keep her silence any longer. “Rourk did nothing wrong.”
“No? Following us here, reporting our movements to other Guardians?” her father snapped, approaching her. “I spent the night defending you against them. You think I want all this death?”
“I think you don’t care.”
He slapped her. “Keep quiet, and do as you’re told. You cannot begin to imagine how long I’ve waited for this night and what I’ve done to make sure it happens as it must. No one will stand in my way, including you, my daughter.” He continued past her, up the hill once more.
Yully touched her burning cheek. The site’s power comforted her, and she kissed Jule’s medallion. Her father returned with a bag slung over his shoulder. She dreaded discovering what it was until he ripped it open to display woodchips.
“Help me spread this around,” he directed. “We need each element present.”
She obeyed. He brought three more bags while she spread the woodchips around the monument. She was soon soaked by a light drizzle and stretched to keep her stiffening muscles warm. After the bags, he brought torches covered in plastic bags and placed them by each column of the monument.
She finished spreading her woodchips and watched him, taking refuge against the drizzle in the protection of one column. It hummed with energy that spread through her, warming her. Her father moved to the center of the monument and looked around.
“What next, Father?” she ventured.
“We wait.”
“For what?”
“For the Gods and Guardians to come.”
“We can’t perform the rite without them?” she asked.
“You’ll need their power to puncture the gateway,” he said. “As strong as I am, mine won’t be enough. Jule will come for you and bring the most powerful of the immortals confined to earth.”
“You promised not to kill him if I cooperated, Father.”
“We’ll see just how strong your bond to him is. The only way for them to stop this is to kill you. Do you think he’ll do it, daughter?”
“No, Father,” she whispered.
“Then you’ve played your part well, daughter. You made the one who can stop you fall in love with you instead,” her father said.
“You knew we belonged together,” she said in a hushed tone.
“Of course.”
“You were setting me up.”
“My dear, what I do, I do for us and our future. I saved your life. I thought you’d be happy I spared him instead of burying him with the others.” He suddenly cocked his head to the side. “Wait here.”
Yully’s eyes went to Rourk’s body. She moved to the center of the monument and opened herself to the magics. She sensed her father and the Guardians he went to meet on the other side of the hill. There weren’t many of them, but they were powerful. One source of energy was darker than a stormy sky while another was as bright as the sun. Puzzled, she concentrated on two more sources of magic. She thought one might be Jule, but the energies faded in and out too quickly to tell.
The sky began to dim, and she played with the magic, adrenaline speeding the power’s flow through her. It acclimated to her and accepted her until it obeyed her thoughts before she thought them.
Her father was right. She would need much more power to counter his, and the Guardians could provide it. She wondered again what he was that he was so strong.
Ident
ifying his magic, she avoided it and began to draw from the others. Something blocked the storm and sun sources she’d felt, but the others flowed to her freely. Yully let the power fill her and mix with the other energies, staving off panic that there was much more than she could ever control.
“Daughter.” Her father’s voice broke her concentration.
Yully opened her eyes and released the magic she’d pulled in. She was floating again, and she dropped to her feet. Dusk had fallen while she tested the magic and her ability to control it. The torches around the circle were lit. She faced her father, not expecting to see the small crowd of people on the other side of the monument. She recognized Damian, Darian, Jonny, the woman who accompanied Jonny, and several others. Her father stood near her in the center.
“Alive or dead, their energy will feed you, daughter,” her father said. He gathered his power, and an orb of light formed in his hands.
“No, Father. Let me face them,” she said.
“If you think to betray me, daughter, Jule dies,” he warned for her ears only.
“Their energies are stronger when they’re alive. You said we needed everything we could get,” she replied. “Please, Papa. You’ve prepared me for this day.”
His eyes lingered on her face for a moment, and then he held out his hand.
“Start with mine. Funnel it upward. Do it, now.”
She took his hand and absorbed what she could of his power. It mingled with the magic of the monument, and she threw it upward, towards the sky. Light rippled through the clouds.
“Again.”
She obeyed, this time keeping some back.
“Now, take theirs and do the same.”
The men had crept closer. Her father fell back, and she took a deep breath before approaching the men. She felt Jule’s presence without seeing him.
“I’ll go,” Darian said, stepping in front of her. He drew a knife and lowered his stance.
Yully pulled what she could of his energy into her body. As if feeling what she did, Darian lunged at her. The magic took hold of her, and she danced away from his strikes as if they were in slow motion. His knife blade grazed her once and turned into a feather that he flung away. He snatched her throat, and she closed her eyes, pulling his magic into her and using it to fling him away.
Her father laughed coldly. The magic made her head spin, but she focused on the two most powerful sources: Damian and Jonny. A large form stepped in front of them suddenly, blocking her. She stared at the towering man with red eyes, not sensing him at all.
Worse, she was losing her grip on the magic within her. It shouldn’t have been flooding her like it was, as if someone there was feeding her while Darian seemed to be sucking it out of her, despite her attempt to restrain it.
“I’m not done yet,” Darian said and rose from the ground. “You got a piece of me, but that’s it.”
He pulsed as strongly as the two blocked men with the power he’d absorbed. Yully faced him, unable to pull his power without touching him or reverse the drain he had on her.
“Again,” she said. She stretched her senses and pulled everything to her. The ground around the monument was rich with the long dead whose souls were trapped.
Amplified by magic, Yully’s fighting skill was inhuman. Jule watched the beautiful woman knock Darian to the ground for a second time. Her hair glowed as if it were on fire, and she floated, her slender form clad in simple leggings and a tunic. Her movements were faster than any Guardian’s. She fought with tenacity born of desperation. His newfound power had broken whatever barrier the Watcher put between them. Their bond was stronger than ever, and Jule’s body bristled with magic that felt both foreign and familiar, like a memory long ago forgotten.
Xander stood before the Black and White Gods, the only thing keeping Yully from stealing their magic. The Other on the other side of the monument watched with a cold smile, his gaze traveling upwards.
Jule looked up. Yully sent lightning into the sky every time she touched Darian and yet was brimming with more magic than he thought possible for her to contain. Her gaze went from Darian to her father, and Jule saw the flash of anger that crossed her face.
Darian got up again, distracting her. Jule looked at the clouds, able to feel the gateway cracking with his newfound powers. Darian’s own power seemed to grow every time she knocked him down, and Jule looked at the Grey God curiously.
“Jule,” Damian called. “Fix this, or I will.”
Jule stepped forward and motioned for Xander to follow.
“Darian, move!” he shouted.
The Grey God grunted as he hit a column and rose. Jule waved him away. Darian’s head was spinning, his mind reverberating with the power of the site. Instead of draining his power, the woman was shoving power into him. He staggered away from the monument and lightning connecting the woman with the clouds and dropped to his knees on the other side of the hill.
The strange sensations within him remained. She’d taken power from the Other, from the dead, from the Guardians, and even from the Original Beings, who fed her power in hopes of short-circuiting her. She’d blasted him with it. Instead of destroying him, it made him stronger.
It became his. Panting, he rolled onto his back, unable to regain his balance while his body twitched from magic. The gateway yawned open over the monument. He’d cracked the gateway when Jonny became the Black God, and now, the immortal realm peeked from the clouds into the mortal world.
Darian didn’t remember it any more than he remembered much of the thousands of years he spend enslaved by Jonny’s predecessor. He recalled agony, and the darkness of his thoughts amplified the pain of the new magic in his blood.
“Darian.” The Watcher’s voice pierced his confusion. “You don’t have much time.”
“I can’t kill her,” he said.
“It’s too late for that. The Original Beings will handle her. It’s time for you to act.”
The Grey God pushed himself to his knees. His body seemed too weak to contain his newfound power.
“The seal will never be whole again,” the Watcher said in a hushed tone, his green eyes on the sky. “So be it. You will have to balance the realms in a way we didn’t desire.”
Gatekeeper. The Original Vamp and Sofi had called him the same thing. Darian wobbled to his feet.
“I’m ready, I think,” he said. “What do I do?”
“Whatever you must. The Others cannot be allowed into your world.” The Watcher winked out of existence, and Darian looked up.
The power within him stabilized and filled him until he felt ready to explode.
“Sofi?” he whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”
The Oracle was silent. Darian drew a deep breath.
… balance the realms …
Gatekeeper.
Xander approached the woman from one side and Jule from the other. He met her gaze and saw the confusion that crossed her features. Xander took the first shot. She blocked, her gasp audible as the Original Being’s energy flew through her. The vamp’s blow and magic threw her to the ground. He stepped back, and Yully rolled away before climbing to her feet.
The Other no longer smiled and took a step forward, unwilling to move closer to his daughter with the Original Vamp standing between them. Yully was floating again. Instead of preparing to face off the vamp, she floated upwards. Jule could see the energy flying to her. Lightning no longer left her for the clouds. She was holding it within her.
“Yully!” he shouted. “Yully, stop!”
The vamp snatched her out of the air and flung her to Jule. Jule caught her. He almost missed her first punch and caught the second, pulling her against him. Her eyes were glazed, her body too hot.
“Jule,” she whispered. “I need your magic.”
“Sweetheart, you have to let it go before it kills you.”
“No. I have to destroy him, or he’ll destroy you. I can do this, Jule.”
Something melted within him at her words. Her bo
dy shook with her effort to contain the magic. Jule looked up at Xander, who stood near the Other, waiting. Their plan was risky, but the alternative was killing the woman he loved.
“You still with me?” he asked as she started to sag.
“Yes.”
“On the count of three. You can end this, Yully.” Jule released his newfound power into her. Yully’s body bucked in his arms, and she opened her mouth in a silent scream. “Three, two, one. Now, Yully.”
The woman didn’t respond immediately. Jule held her tightly, struggling to balance the power flowing between them.
“You can do it,” he whispered.
The woman pushed away from him and staggered. She dropped to her knees. Her gaze settled on the Other, and she forced herself up. The vamp moved out of her path. Jule trailed as closely as he dared.
Yully closed her eyes and reached out towards her father. Power flowed from Xander and Jule, through her toward the Other, pinning him against the pillar behind him. A loud crack, as if lightning were striking, sent a shockwave of power that made the monument tremble.
And then there was silence. Jule caught the woman as she fell. He heard a gurgled scream and looked up. The Original Vamp was tearing out the Other’s throat. Xander raised the Other over his head and snapped his back over one knee.
“Yully,” Jule called, cradling the woman in his arms. Her heartbeat was faint and slow. “C’mon, sweetheart. Stay with me.” The bond between them was fading.
“Take her to Bianca,” Damian said, approaching. “Unless healing is one of your newfound powers.”
Jule looked up at him. The White God’s fiery gaze was pinned to the Original Vamp, who lingered over the Other’s body. Jule glanced at the vamp, who shrugged in response to his silent question about healing.
“Xander, what are you?” Jonny asked, drawing abreast of Damian. “And what was that?” He indicated the body of the Other at Xander’s feet.