She didn’t have time to really calculate whether it would be enough.
Her mind calculated those quantities anyway, at least as well as it could in the time she had left… which meant incompletely, softly in the background.
Her mind tracked the countdown of her internal clock as well.
So much time to cast the sight spell.
So much time to look at the dark beings, at the threads to their masters.
So much time to run up the hill.
So much time to spell the swords.
She could feel the spells melting on either side of her.
It was a Hail Mary, right as the buzzer went off.
Feeling the exact instant she had to stop before she’d be in real danger all over again, she lifted both swords, darting to the side of the portal, then whistling for the sight spell.
The orb reappeared immediately.
Its glowing, spherical shape appeared right in front of her, rotating in the dim light of the cave. She positioned herself behind it, staring at her shield over the portal door.
The metallic, silver threads were burning through the energetic form of the shield, breaking it methodically apart. She saw those silver threads seem to cluster together in the middle, twisting together like a massive rope.
She could feel more than the three shadowy forms attached to those threads.
Dozens. They’d sent dozens through the portal already.
She could feel the intent there.
Lightbringer, the voices whispered. We spared you so you could join us. Come to us, Last of the Lightbringers. It is futile to resist. It is futile to pretend you don’t understand. Join us, and all will be rewarded. Join us, and all will be forgotten…
Once she could see them, she didn’t wait.
Raising the swords over her head––
––she sliced through those seething threads, through that thick cord of silver, without so much as taking a breath.
18
Back-Up
She fell to one knee.
Gasping on the cement floor.
Her knee hurt from how hard it went down, but other than grimacing at that initial shock of pain, she didn’t move, but hung over her thigh, fighting to catch her breath.
She’d been sweating before; now she was drenched.
Her clothes stuck to her back, her arms, her legs, her chest.
She continued to hold her swords out in front of her, the remnants of the spell seething around the glowing white blades.
She looked at the ground.
The silver threads had parted.
She looked at the cut ends writhing like snakes from the holes they’d bored into her psychic shield over the portal. They writhed on the cement floor, in the night air, like living things, like worms drawn out of the ground by rain.
Instead of making her more sympathetic to the creatures, it did the opposite; she felt a wave of revulsion and nausea so intense she had to look away.
If she’d had an ounce of energy or strength left, she would have thrown up a shield around herself so she wouldn’t have to feel it, but as it was, she half-crawled away from the silver ends, her back to the cement wall next to what looked like a pile of old rags and some empty beer bottles.
Holding a hand over her mouth, as if trying to protect herself from a bad smell, she looked back at the silver threads, suddenly worried they might reconnect with the halves that had been attached to the shadowy forms.
“They will not,” a voice said.
He sounded faintly wondering.
When she looked up and over, seeing him appear in the opening leading into the back part of the lion’s cage, he was staring around at what she’d done, incredulous.
Behind him stood two other familiar faces: Devin the wolf-shifter, and the red-haired witch who was apparently now his girlfriend.
Giselle? Glenda? Glinda?
Or was she thinking of good witch from The Wizard of Oz?
She was too tired to care all that much.
Even so, she found herself looking at the woman with the freckled face, the bright red hair and shocking green, catlike eyes. She only stood about five-two, which made her and Devin positively ridiculous as a couple.
“Check it,” she said, waving towards the portal. “See if there’s anything you can do to reinforce it. The shield I put there is almost gone.”
Devin looked at her, hesitating.
From his expression, her appearance there, leaning against the cement wall, drenched in sweat, fighting to control her breath and to slow her heart rate, startled him.
It might even have shocked him, seeing her like that.
As for Devin himself, he looked like he’d just gotten out of the shower.
He also looked wide awake, despite how he’d sounded on the phone. He looked clean, wide awake, borderline in hunting mode.
With his broad shoulders, long black hair, and dark brown skin, Devin looked every bit of the fully-transformed alpha shifter he was.
She found herself remembering he’d led his pack in Hollywood for over a decade now.
It was hard to believe it had been that long, but Devin was one of those alphas-from-birth types. He’d more or less been born to lead his own pack.
From what she knew, it was a well-run pack, too.
Devin still got shifters joining him from neighboring areas, and not all of them were discontented alphas kicked out of their original packs by egomaniacal pack leaders.
Those types did constitute some of the new recruits, but not many.
Most just wanted an alpha they could trust.
Alexis had known Devin since forever, it seemed, and he was one of the most trustworthy people she’d ever known. They met at a beach party when she was in like fifth grade, and he was in sixth, from rival middle schools. The two of them ended up breaking up a dumb fight between two of their classmates, involving at least one knife and a lot of stupidity… and when they’d each seen the fighting ability of the other, they ended up friends.
It still stuck her as funny, thinking back on it.
Kids were so simple, when it came to friendship.
It also struck her as strange, as far as coincidences went.
Especially since that was before either of them had been told what they really were––in his case by his father and uncle, breaking the bad news about the shifter gene, and in her case by the retired Lightbringer assigned to her, the one who’d been training her since she was four years old––a woman named Lana who Alexis thought was her mother.
She wasn’t her mother, as it turned out.
Well, not biologically.
Alexis still thought of her that way, unfortunately––as the single, working-two-jobs mother who raised her, even if roughly eighty percent of that story had been pure fiction.
Alexis had no idea who her real birth mother was.
She had no idea why she’d been brought to Earth without either of her biological parents. She had no idea why she’d been brought to Earth at all, prior to her training, or why a different Lightbringer had been set up as her fictional mother, instead of her real one.
Some things about being a Lightbringer were still a great big black hole.
Alexis honestly wasn’t entirely sure what species she even was.
When she asked, they told her Lightbringers were their own species, but something about that explanation never sat right with her.
Feeling eyes on her, she glanced at the Traveler.
He gave her a faint, sideways smile, quirking an eyebrow.
Something about the way he did it told her he’d probably heard some or all of what just passed through her mind. Remembering that he’d just admitted outside the cage that he could read minds, she frowned, wondering just how good he was at it.
If he was planning on sticking around for a while, she might need to look into spells for protecting her thoughts.
When the Traveler chuckled, she gave him a harder stare.
Then she
shifted her gaze back to Devin and his girlfriend.
Devin was glaring at the Traveler now, too.
“What is he still doing here?” he growled. He aimed his next words at the Traveler himself. “I thought you were just here to deliver a message, errand boy. Why haven’t you gone home yet? Why are you sniffing around ‘Lex?”
The Traveler gave him a humorless smile.
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” he said.
A faint amusement touched his words.
Somehow, Alexis only heard the coldness underneath.
“It really does bother you,” the Traveler repeated. “You think you don’t want her for yourself. You tell her to date… to get out in the world… even to have sex… but it really bothers you, now that she has. Does it simply bother you I got there first, wolf-boy?”
Devin’s face hardened to stone.
“You piece of shit, ghost-walking, rapist––” he growled.
“You should be bothered, really,” the Traveler cut in, his voice a few shades colder. “The act itself was quite phenomenal. Incredibly satisfying. And yet… it’s left me an itch I’ll definitely want to scratch again, wolf-pup. I’m having a hard time not thinking about it, truthfully, and thinking about when we might next––”
“Cal.” Alexis gave him a warning look. “Shut up.”
Devin turned, glaring at her.
“Is he telling the truth?” he demanded, his dark eyes blazing. “Did you really sleep with this piece of shit, ‘Lex? Seriously? Why?”
“You shut up, too,” she said to her friend, her jaw hard. She was still fighting to control her breathing. “I mean it, Dev. I’m not going to do this now. I’m not.”
He opened his mouth, eyes flashing, but she held up a hand.
Her voice turned to ice.
“Not. Now.” She stared at him.
Slowly, she saw the fight back down in his eyes.
None of the anger left his expression, however.
Ignoring what she saw there, the fury growing in her friend’s face, she looked away. Her eyes returned to the red-haired witch, who didn’t seem to be listening to any of this.
She approached the portal cautiously while Alexis watched, her small, freckled hands held out in front of her.
Alexis watched as the petite redhead stopped a few feet from the lion’s mouth, her full mouth scrunched in a frown. From her expression, Alexis guessed the woman couldn’t see much, which made sense, given that Lightbringer magic was totally different from the Earth magic practiced by most witches.
“You won’t be able to see it,” Alexis said, still bringing her breathing under control. Even her voice sounded tired. “…Well, you probably won’t be able to see it. Most witches can’t. Someone like me… we use a different kind of magic.”
Pausing, still thinking, Alexis added,
“I doubt you can do much to reinforce the shield spell that’s failing, but I wondered if you knew any sealing spells of your own. Can you think of anything that could close off the portal using your type of magic? I could really use the help in keeping this area shielded and protected… even if it’s just temporary. Even if it means all of us working in shifts until I can determine the root of the problem. Ideally, you and your coven could handle this particular doorway on your own… since I have a bunch I’ll need to check.”
Pausing, suddenly doubtful, she added,
“Devin told you about the portals, right? About what I do?”
The witch nodded, without glancing over her shoulder at Alexis.
“He did.”
She still seemed to be trying to see the portal.
After another few seconds, she glanced over her shoulder at Alexis.
“My coven leaders told me more,” she added. “They understand the importance of this.”
“It is important,” Alexis emphasized, her voice hardening. “I really, really need help guarding this… probably for the next few weeks while I figure out a more long-term solution. But it affects all of us. It affects everyone on Earth––”
“I understand that––” the young witch began.
But the Traveler spoke over her, focusing solely on Alexis.
“A long-term solution? Which would be what?” A dark eyebrow of his lifted, his mouth firming. “What is the long-term solution, Lightbringer? Does it involve the primary portal?”
She turned her head, looking up at him.
Realizing she didn’t want to get into all of that, especially not in front of a witch she could barely call an acquaintance, she only looked away.
Her thoughts on protecting the network of portals weren’t fully formed yet, anyway. They did involve going to the primary gate, seeing what she could do from there… but she didn’t really want to tell the Traveler that for some reason.
She wasn’t entirely sure why she didn’t want to tell him that.
She fully intended to ask him to come with her.
Maybe it was more about Glinda the good witch being there.
Maybe it was about not wanting Devin to know she planned on bringing the Traveler with her, given how irrationally the two of them behaved around one another, and how furious Devin seemed to be that she’d brought Cal into their little group.
Even as she thought it, her eyes found Devin.
“Can you and your pack help me track whatever got out?”
He glared at the Traveler, his jaw hard.
Then, turning to her, he nodded, once.
“I’ve already got the pack working on it,” he said, gruff. “And just so you know, Gabriela told her coven you’d need help protecting the portal for a while, and they were all on board. I told them there was no way you’d ask unless something had gone really wrong… so I figured you’d need them to cover the portal end of things while you fixed whatever it was.”
Gabriela, Alexis thought to herself. Check.
Clearing his throat, Devin tilted his bearded face sideways.
Once more, he glared at the Traveler before going on.
“I figured you’d be busy. I don’t know how these things work, but I know you have a bunch of these portals… that this isn’t the only one.”
To Devin, she only nodded.
“You’re right,” she said simply. “You told them the right thing.”
Her eyes returned to the red-haired witch.
“How many are in your coven?” she asked the woman. “Do you think it will be enough? I can possibly get some others in to help you, if not.”
“Our leader seems to think it will be enough,” Gabriela said, looking over her shoulder at Alexis. She smiled, and her face lit up. “But any help would be great, honestly.”
“You’re not the leader?” Alexis said, frowning, glancing at Devin. “Of your coven?”
“No.” She smiled, shaking her head. “We’re kind of an unusual coven in that we don’t really do all the high priestess and high priest stuff. We’re sort of non-denominational in that way. But we have our senior members, and after I talked to Devin, I filled them in on all of this. They were already aware of you… more than I was, to be honest. Since I know Devin, and I have decent sight, they asked me to come up here and do my best to scout the place out, figure out what I could.”
Pausing, she added, just as cheerfully,
“They’re already at the coven meeting place. Our highest-ranked witch is consulting with the oracles… trying to determine the source of the breach and what magicks of ours would work best to keep them out. The others are helping me hold a temporary field up here. They’ll come up later this morning and we’ll construct something a bit more long-lasting. Something stronger, too.”
Looking faintly embarrassed, she gave Alexis another of those brilliant smiles.
“I have to say, now that I do know who you are, it’s a real honor to meet you, Alexis Poole. We’re all really blown away you would come to us for help with this. I admit, I don’t know much about Lightbringers––”
“No one does,” the Traveler
muttered.
The witch glanced at him.
For some reason, Alexis got the impression he meant those words for her, though, not the witch… maybe in response to part of what he’d felt her thinking about before.
“––but our senior coven members know a little,” Gabriela added, smiling faintly as she gave Cal a once-over, obviously noticing his looks that time. “They definitely understood how important it was that the portal remain protected.”
Alexis nodded.
She fought a reflexive tensing of her muscles, telling herself it was just from having a gushing stranger standing in front of her portal.
In no way was it because that gushing stranger clearly found Caliginous, her Traveler King “friend,” or whatever the hell he was, hot as fuck.
When she glanced at Cal that time, he grinned.
Looking away from him, and away from his now light-green eyes––a color she tried not to read anything into, given it exactly matched the eye-color of Devin’s witch––Alexis faced Gabriela and Devin, managing to summon up at least the bare minimum of gratitude.
“Thanks,” she said. “I mean it. Thanks a lot.”
She started to use the wall to pull herself to her feet.
The Traveler stepped forward when she did, and after the barest hesitation, she clasped his outstretched hand when he offered it. His fingers wound around hers, strong and warm, and when she was back on her feet, he smiled, gripping her tighter.
Her hand tingled when he released her, a bare second later.
She found herself looking at him, measuring him with her eyes.
He looked back at her, a faint question in his.
In the end, she realized she really had no choice.
Apparently, she’d gone from doing all of this alone to…
…well, this.
Whatever this was.
But the Traveler was still waiting.
In the end, she sighed.
“How do you feel about you and I going on a little trip?” she said.
Lightbringer: An Enemies to Lovers Urban Fantasy with Demons, Portals, Witches, Renegade Gods, & Other Assorted Beasties (Light & Shadow Book 1) Page 14