by K. F. Breene
A black haze interrupted my vision. Another premonition!
He jerked around, about to deal with a potent spell that had to have come from their natural, as I slammed up shields using Emery’s and my survival magic. Ours was much more powerful, as we’d formed a dual-mage pair, and with the added might of the magic I willingly accepted from the goblin.
“Keep working,” I told him as the spell hit my magical wall and warred with my magic. “We have to get out of here.”
Reagan’s ice magic poked holes in the walls as the mages encircling us took a step forward. They fired off spells so fast that I couldn’t keep enough energy in my magical wall. Cahal moved and flowed like a peaceful stream, batting magic away with his (clearly magical) sword, working so fast that his movements blurred. But he couldn’t get a second to charge. Or to throw a knife.
Darius hissed as he sliced through the center of one mage and threw another into a group of them. Shifters tore through people. One took a spell center mass. Another was hit in the rear.
Heart in my throat, I worked faster. Stinging sweat dripped into my eyes. “We’re losing.”
“We can do it,” Emery said, desperation ringing in his voice. “We can do it. We always have before.”
Through the roars, snarls, hisses, and screams, I heard rattling across the ground. My phone vibrating against the concrete.
The racket seemed to filter away as I glanced at it. Memories crystalized. Something whispered inside of me.
Reap what you sowed.
“The spells,” I breathed, colors zipping around us. A vampire fell with black goo spreading out of her chest. “The spells,” I said louder, looking around wildly. “When we were first here. My mother said to plant seeds, remember?”
Emery looked up at me with dawning understanding sparkling in his eyes. “Yes.”
“Reap what you sowed!” I sank to my knees, putting my hands on the cement. Squeezing my eyes shut, blocking out absolutely everything around me, I opened up my magical senses. The whispers increased in volume, snaking through my blood, wholesome and pure. Nature cried out, begging for release. The magic Emery and I had planted pulsed somewhere deep within the earth, a time bomb.
“Grow,” I said, willing those spells alive with everything I had. Connecting to the creations we’d made what seemed like so long ago, their imprint still heavily drilled down into the bedrock of the compound. I found a slice of myself stored in that once-barren soil. “Grow.”
The ground trembled. Someone screamed. I glanced up to take in the situation. Ice poked more holes in the magical veil, cutting through the layers. The dual-mage pair peeled away the spell’s anchor from the building, weakening it. Steve suffered a magical knife to the gut, pushing him back. Darius took a slash to his arm and dropped it to his side, clearly useless.
“Hurry,” I begged, bleeding my energy into the spells Emery and I had created all those months ago. Sinking lower and drilling down one more time, hoping we’d done enough to crumble this crooked, corrupt establishment. That we would bring in new life. That a new organization would rise to replace the Guild, spread evenly across the country so no one grouping of power was too big for the area. I wanted to share my love of magic, and the pure bliss it was to be able to work it.
I wanted witches and mages to feel that bliss.
I wanted everyone to heal.
“Almost,” Emery said as our survival magic wall dimmed. We didn’t have enough energy to keep it going. Spells kept hitting it, further eroding it. “Almost.” A whisper.
Eyes closed, heart open, I loosened everything up. I let go of my fear. And the magic poured out, a small stream that became a torrent, a gushing deluge.
The spells we’d planted so long ago burst into the compound. I felt them break through the ground, blasting their way out of the concrete. Taking chunks out of buildings. Fresh, natural beauty rushed up into the air. It spread across the ground and smashed into people. It insisted we pay attention.
I felt a tug on my middle, and warmth flooded my chest. A new feeling rose, welling from somewhere deep down, a chasm formerly untouched and unnoticed.
Emery put his hand to his sternum. “What is…”
“The gods are speaking through you,” Cahal said, and his voice seemed to echo across a great chamber. “Let the angels use your voice…and sing.”
The feeling rose, tingling hot. Like when I first stol—ingested the magic, rainbows painted across my vision, across all of the strife going on around me. The bloodshed.
The two images didn’t fit together.
Still the feeling kept building, surging down to my limbs, reaching my neck. My heart started to beat faster. Icy fingers of panic wrapped around my chest.
“Give in to it, Penny,” Emery said, crawling to me, his eyes rooted to mine. “Give in to it. Like when you released that spell. Let it flow.”
I swallowed. Fought my fear. And for the second time, held on to him for dear life as magic overcame me and sucked me under.
A shock wave of pure power exploded out from our centers, slicing through the open space. New life was given to the spells we’d seeded so long ago, fighting the decay that had infested the compound.
I could sense that those touched by this new hybrid spell were placed on giant scales, their worthiness weighed and measured. Their deeds were pored over, their hearts analyzed. Those who were found wanting…fell. They breathed one last breath and tumbled to the ground. I couldn’t sense the parameters for the spell. I couldn’t control who was affected.
Like a receding wave, the circle of magic, spanning a hundred yards or more, pulled back, settled down, and sank back down from whence it came, something I was absolutely sure I had no control over.
“What in the fu—” Emery breathed hard, pushing far enough away from me to look down at his torso. His wide eyes came back up to hit mine. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trembling. A current drifted by me. A whisper of sweet-smelling air from the wood.
Reality smacked me, and I spun, looking around.
Callie and Dizzy were still working at the spell, the hole they’d formed almost big enough to fit through. Reagan’s magic had dimmed, her energy clearly sapped from taking on so many huge spells, and her progress on the magical veil was almost nonexistent. Our tattered party was mostly down, lying on the ground with blood seeping out around them. Of the few still standing, Reagan and Darius, one arm tucked against his side, fought back to back, standing in the middle of a cluster of mages rapid-firing spells.
Mage bodies littered the ground, some with wounds, some deceptively healthy looking. But many of them were still on the attack, their natural among them, now concentrating her force on Reagan. More mages waited outside, probably creating heavy losses for our reinforcements.
“But…that should’ve done it,” I said, tears of frustration in my eyes, struggling to rejoin the fight. “That should’ve been it.”
“It helped,” Emery said, back to working on the spell locking us in. “Just a bit longer and we’ll be out.”
The mages, as a group, stepped forward. “We don’t have a bit longer.” I shook my head. My mother had never let me down when it really mattered. Never. What else had she said?
Find your alleys. Reconnect.
Vision shaky, I scanned the area for alleys. Then looked around at the people who were still standing. Was her advice rhetorical? “Reconnect—”
My vision skittered across a face. Stopped. Swung back.
I widened my eyes and my stomach fell down through my feet.
“Mary Bell,” I said, suddenly out of breath.
She smiled in a knowing way and stepped forward, putting out her hands for the others to cease fire. Her robe was purple. “Give in, Penelope.”
“Yes, listen to your friend.” I saw the High Chancellor stick his head out of the building door. He’d been hiding this whole time, the coward. How had he not been affected by the weighing spell?
&nb
sp; I shook my head as Mary Bell pointedly looked to the side. The mages were slowing, easing up on their spells. Backing away a step.
Then I saw another familiar face and nearly threw up. Rage boiled through me. “John.”
He glanced my way before narrowing his eyes at Emery. His robe was purple, too.
“You cannot escape,” Mary Bell said, something moving in her eyes. A glint that I recognized. “You must put your hands behind your back, ask your friends to put down their weapons, and give in.”
Find your allies. Reconnect.
“Fucking autocorrect,” I blurted.
Mary Bell nodded, a tiny smile on her face. “Remember what I said.” She paused, and her eyes implored me. “You are surrounded. You must give in…now.”
That pause. As though she wanted to say for now.
Find your allies. Reconnect.
I remembered what Mary Bell had said in the bar in New Orleans: “The line between good versus evil is horribly blurred. Good people sometimes do horrible things. Bad people occasionally do good. So trust in the person who shows their good intentions. Do not listen to their words. Watch their intentions.”
This was a huge leap of faith, but I wasn’t sure I had much of a choice. The dual-mages weren’t ready for us. Reagan’s magic was so very dim. Her legs shook, and she was all out of snarky comments. Darius bowed just a bit, something he never did. He had to be tired. And that beautiful golden lion lay on the ground, panting shallowly, his tangled mane coated with blood.
“Okay.” I dropped my hands and put them behind my back. “You win.”
“Penny,” Emery said urgently.
“You win,” I said louder. “Let my friends go, though. Like Reagan said, Darius is worth money, and I bet you’d be rewarded for releasing Steve the lion, too. The druid has no real part in this. Let them all go. You can have me. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“No,” Emery said, fierce possessiveness ringing through his voice. His magic welled up, sexy and wild, like the smell of rain in the air before a monsoon. He wrapped his arm around my upper body, capturing me to his side. “She will not go with you. You can have me. I have more experience anyway. The same power. She can’t even function with normal mage training. She’s useless. Take me.”
“Now, now, Mr. Rogue Natural…” The High Chancellor stepped out of cover, which had to be the only reason he’d survived the weighing and measuring. “She is new to all this, isn’t she? Exceptional, and still new. She can, of course, be trained. And you can be brought to heel. But we aren’t barbaric. I ask only that we have some time to sit down and chat. About your futures.”
Cold washed through me. Mary Bell glanced over at John, her eyes bright, and my doubt started to grow.
“I know how to work with her,” Mary Bell said. John shifted, and something moved from his palm to his fingers. A casing.
“Yes, you were saying.” The High Chancellor stepped farther forward and motioned at a burly guy. “Bind them.”
John shifted and pinched. The spell slammed into their natural mage. She gasped in surprise. Magic rose within her hands to combat the spell.
Before she could, a throwing knife hilt blossomed red in the center of her chest. Reagan had finally gotten her shot off.
Mary Bell turned, pinched her own casing, shot the High Chancellor, and swiveled, spraying those near her. The spell took hold, sending a clawing blackness across their bodies that then shrank down, cracking bones.
The High Chancellor wailed before sound cut off. He fell, hitting the ground as their natural sank to her knees.
Surprisingly, unlike him, it wasn’t pain etched across her face. It was relief. She was happy this life was failing.
A chill washed over me, but I didn’t have time to lament on the life she must’ve lived. On what Emery and my parents had certainly saved me from.
The mages hadn’t even realized a traitor was in their midst before Mary Bell had another casing out, then another, hurrying forward and attacking the circle of mages surrounding us. On the other side, miraculously, John was doing the same thing, shooting the surviving mages, tearing them down with vile spells the left no room for error.
“Hurry, help them,” I said, pulling everything I had left to join the barrage against the mages who’d now recovered enough from their shock to reach for their spells.
“We got them. You get that damned magical wall down,” Reagan said, resuming her fight with her sword.
Thank God she didn’t need magic to take down an enemy. I yanked Emery toward the tear in the spell.
“What has taken you so long?” Callie demanded through the small hole she’d already created.
“Autocorrect.” I worked as fast as my shaking hands would allow, Emery by my side. “Mary Bell is in there. And John—”
“Filthy ingrates,” Dizzy said.
“No! They’re turning traitor on the Guild. They’re helping us!” I mingled our spell with that of the Bankses, enlarging it.
“I did always like John,” Dizzy said, changing on a dime. “A good head for strategy, didn’t I always say that? Very courageous.”
I fanned their spell’s power level as Emery added embellishments, our spell work clumsy with our fatigue. The edge peeled back farther, and the rest sizzled. Seams already weakened by Reagan’s magic tore. Holes enlarged. Finally, a pop, and the whole thing dissipated into the air.
Dizzying relief washed through me. Tears prickled my eyes.
“We’ve got it,” Callie yelled. “We’re in!”
A large gray wolf, splattered with blood, one ear half gone, coat covered in blood, shocked me with his powerful dual-colored gaze before running past me to the dying fight within. Vampires, some limping, many splattered or burned, ran in after him, then more shifters.
“Okay, now we’re talking,” Dizzy said, hurrying in to join the fray.
Limbs trembling and barely able to stand, I still turned back to the fight, intent on giving it everything I had.
That was when the tears started to fall.
The chaotic movement had slowed, and this time, the few who were still standing were on our side. We’d done it. We’d taken on the largest magical organization in the Brink, and we’d won.
Sobs of relief washed through me as Mary Bell and John were backed to the wall, their hands up, cornered by two very large vampires.
“Wait—” I started.
Mary Bell’s voice, confident and smooth, rose above the din. “You’ll want the vampire behind all of this.”
More people slowed, haggard and battle-beaten, and turned toward her. Mary Bell pointed at an open and empty door at the far end of the collection of buildings.
“The High Chancellor never outright mentioned him,” Mary Bell said, her eyes gleaming again. And this time I recognized that gleam for what it was—the joy of reliving her youth. Of being in the thick of the action. “But some of the special powers he had, and the little tricks… I’ve been around a long time. I know a bonded mage when I see one.”
Darius and Vlad zoomed forward at the same time, reaching the door at the exact instant another swampy white monster tried to surge out. They pinned him against the wall, their fangs dripping drool, the exhaustion momentarily sapped from their bodies.
The trapped vampire stilled, then relaxed. His skin fuzzed and changed, his body contorting, until a man form stood in its place. Darius and Vlad changed a moment later, still holding the other vampire captive.
“Isn’t this a surprise,” Vlad said with his light, musical tone. I stepped forward to get a better look, but my legs wobbled and gave out. I spilled onto the ground, my energy at rock bottom and my stomach growling with hunger.
“At least I made it to the end,” I muttered, seeing Emery’s hand reach down for me.
“We should get you home,” he said.
“No, I’m good. I just need a minute—”
Two thick black boots spattered with all kinds of unsavory things hit the ground in front of me. No ha
nd reached down. No command to get up issued forth. But expectation oozed from him.
Cahal stared down at me with a face full of storm clouds. “You made it impossible for me to do my job, Penelope Bristol.”
Reagan, sagging against the wall to the right of me, started laughing.
“Why?” I took Emery’s hand and let him pull me up. “I’m alive. You’re alive. We’re good. You fulfilled your duty.”
Sparks flared in Cahal’s eyes. “We’re leaving. Now. I do not want to chance that anything else should arise from this situation.”
Without another word, he grabbed me like a sack of potatoes and threw me over his shoulder.
37
Near dawn, the front door burst open and vampires in their human form, wearing rumpled clothing not all the way buttoned or zipped, rushed into the house and out of the failing night. They didn’t glance my way or even nod, just turned for the hall without a word, getting to their safe haven.
“Hey,” I said, pushing myself to my feet and groaning from the ache in my body.
Cahal stood by the window with his arms crossed, staring at me. His face was stony again, but his eyes told me he wasn’t impressed with how the night had gone. The man didn’t say much, but that didn’t stop a person from knowing exactly what was on his mind.
A few more vampires ran in, these half-dressed, and turned toward the hall.
“What’s the news?” I called after them.
Reagan staggered in next, circles under her eyes, her hair disheveled, and tears and burns marring her clothes. She took off her fanny pack and dropped it on the floor before walking past me like a zombie and falling onto the couch.
“I need a whiskey,” she said.
Emery and Reagan hadn’t done a thing to stop Cahal from dragging me out of the compound. I hadn’t had enough energy to kick and scream, let alone zap him, but I had done an awful lot of threatening. When that failed to work, I’d resorted to purposefully annoying him, all the way back to the house in the car he’d chosen at random.