“I can help.” Morgan pulled the iron band off his wrist and ran past the wards. He halted, his gaze turned to the sky. He’s using his psychic abilities.
“Any luck?” said Hazel, moving in behind him with a witch spell gleaming in her hand. “I’m going after the undead.”
Morgan shook his head. “No. I can’t reach those bastards. But I can get the ones on earth.”
Three more undead ran around the corner. Hazel threw the witch spell at the nearest, and its head exploded. Nice one, Agnes. Before they could reach the crowded streets, the other two collapsed, screaming, the wraiths torn from the physical bodies. Morgan must have blasted them with a psychic shock. River moved in to cut their bodies to pieces.
I stood on tip-toe to check the best route to reach the wraiths—and a sudden roaring noise rent the air. “What in hell is that—hellhounds?”
“Shit,” said Ivy. “Attacks on the Ley Line have negative effects on shifters, too. It forces them to transform and lose all reason.”
“You’ve got to be bloody kidding me. We can’t deal with both.”
“We’re too far from them.” River took a step back, necromantic energy lighting his hands. “And there aren’t enough necromancers.”
The meaning was clear. I pulled the book from my pocket. Power hummed to my fingertips almost instantly, and the world turned transparent.
The first wraith descended from the sky, yowling, my spirit sight showing me its miserable trapped form caged in death. I shouted the banishing words, as loudly as possible, but it didn’t slow. Winter magic shot from its hands, aimed at both of us. I lunged in front of River, and its magic bounced off my shield, disappearing into the clouds.
“You’d think they’d have told one another that doesn’t work by now,” I gasped, conjuring another necromantic attack. The air shimmered as my attack joined with River’s, passing straight through the wraith without so much as stirring the air. Worse, the rooftops trembled, not designed to repel magic, and several tiles came loose, swept into the breeze. Horror took hold of me. The last time I’d seen a wraith create a tornado, it’d nearly caused terrible damage on a much smaller scale. “There are people in the streets who might get hurt. Is there a mage with a shielding ability or something?”
“On it,” said Ivy, one-handedly sticking her phone into her pocket while wielding her blade with the other. “Vance is a displacer who can move the air around to make a shield, but he doesn’t usually deal with things that volatile—”
A second current of air smacked into us, damn near sending me pitching sideways. Lord Colton had appeared from thin air.
He can teleport? Holy crap.
“Can you do it?” Ivy asked.
“Possibly,” he said. “But you’ll need to finish them fast.”
“Yeah, slight problem,” I said. “There are less than five people in this city with the ability to banish one wraith, let alone fifteen. Ivy and I are two of them.”
Lord Colton swore under his breath. “Then I’ll give you all the time you need.” He nodded to Ivy, then disappeared again, reappearing on the rooftop directly beneath the swirling mass of roof tiles. My heart dropped as they fell onto him—and rose again, repelled by the air current from his hands. Whoa. The whole storm continued to swirl around, but harmlessly held out of reach. He must have a high control level to be able to do that.
More undead lumbered around the corner, wrists gleaming. Shit. “They’re wearing strength enhancer charms!” I shouted to the others, running in to help. River lunged with inhuman speed, his blade rending the undead to pieces. Hazel ran past, urging terrified onlookers to move to safety. Morgan blasted his spirit sensor into the crowding undead, but there were too many for anything other than a faerie talisman to fight.
Ivy, however, backed away from the battle, her eyes on the wraiths in the sky and the Mage Lord below. Several other mages were ascending the buildings to join him. “Air mages,” Ivy said. “Not great. They have the potential to make it more volatile. We need to get up close. You can banish them, right?”
“Yes, but I can’t kill them. Only the book is powerful enough to banish them all, and if I open it down here, innocent people might get caught.”
“Got it.” Ivy headed down a side road. “We have to get away from the fight if we’re going into the spirit realm. Get up close.”
I spotted Lord Colton and the mages beneath the wraiths, hands splayed, power pushing the torrent of fallen roof tiles into the sky. As I watched, every piece of debris vanished into the air. Lord Colton’s arms dropped to his sides.
“Did he displace them?” I caught up with Ivy next to the wall at the alley’s end. Here, the wraiths couldn’t see our physical bodies, and with any luck, we’d be able to bring them down before the enemy realised where we’d run to.
“He can’t do that indefinitely,” said Ivy. “Ready to go in?”
“Yeah.” I gripped the book in my hand, and stepped out of my body. All around the sky, wraiths flew around, throwing handfuls of magic at the panicking crowds below. I aimed for the nearest, keeping both eyes on its shimmering magic-infused form. Throughout the spirit realm, other necromancers did battle, too. They must be projecting from within their own spirit boundaries, but even the top-ranked ones would stand no chance against faerie magic.
“All right, Ilsa?” Jas waved at me, ducking a magical attack from one of the wraiths, her hands glowing. I guess I’d been wrong to think necromancers couldn’t face up to faerie magic.
The book gleamed in my hands, but the wraiths remained distant, refusing to get up close and personal. They wanted me to come to them. The magic flying around Death blurred the fog to a darker grey, but the air around Jas’s shimmering spirit form flickered oddly for a moment, and a brief shiver of inexplicable fear traced down my spine. The feeling vanished an instant later as Jas blasted the wrath with kinetic power, and the wraith’s attention turned towards me.
“Get over here!” I yelled. Damn. The closer I drew, the further away the wraiths appeared. They were miles above the city, and we were too close to the Ley Line to open the gate.
“They’re trying to trick me into breaking the veil,” I said aloud into the fog. “Guess I’ll have to take them down the other way.”
I held onto the book’s power and shouted the banishing words at the top of my lungs. My voice echoed in the empty space, with no result. Worse, the wraith which had conjured up the tornado turned to me, flinging debris in its wake. Blue light exploded over the rooftops, smothering the houses in icy rain beneath the fog of the spirit realm. Winter magic. Threads of light connected the wraiths, wreathing the sky like vibrant blue tinsel. By the way they were all glowing, there ought to be a dozen tornadoes up in the air, but there was still only one of them. Huh. Wait a moment.
“Ilsa!” River shouted, seeing me floating above him with the book in my hands.
Another whirling tornado shot past him—at the alley where my body was hidden. Oh hell.
I checked back into my body as the building crumbled on its side. Screaming came from inside. I ducked, arms over my head to shield myself. Ivy shouted a warning, and the tiles slid out of reach, disappearing before they hit us.
“Damn,” she said, on her feet, her fists clenched. “I don’t suppose you have faerie healing powers?”
I clambered to my feet, hoping that the other necromancers had been projecting into the spirit realm from a safe distance. “No. Do you?”
She nodded, moving down the alley away from the half-collapsed building. “Vance saved our necks—but his shield’s down.”
The building the Mage Lord had been standing on had been hit. He must have teleported out of the way, and dropped the shield in the process. Debris flew wildly, breaking windows, growing in strength. A monstrous tornado, ripping into anything it touched.
A whirl of air struck outside the building, and Lord Colton appeared from thin air.
“Thank god,” Ivy breathed.
“There seems t
o be one wraith controlling the others,” said the Mage Lord.
“Because there’s only one wraith,” I said. It was more obvious from the ground, where the tornado’s path remained below the wraith which had attacked me. “The others are an illusion. Its magic must have been able to create illusions when it was still alive. I need to get to the spirit realm again—”
Alarming creaking noises came from the collapsing building next to us. Bricks crumbled inches away, and everything vanished in a whirl of air. The next second, Ivy and I had appeared where the zombies had been. Apparently the Mage Lord could displace other people, too.
River ran in front of me, bits of undead dropping from his sword. “There you are,” he said breathlessly.
“I need to get to the wraiths,” I said. “They’re clones—fakes. There’s only one genuine wraith, and its magic is controlling the others. Kill it and they all die.”
The spirit realm would take me back to the target—but tapping out of the battle would put me at the mercy of the murderous wraiths.
“I’ll check,” River said. His body stilled, and I swore, moving in front of him. “River, don’t—”
The wraith turned on me. I both saw it in the sky and felt it in the spirit world. Icy power gathered in its hands, forming spear-sharp icy blades.
I threw myself over River’s body, and the magic hit my shield with the force of a car collision. A current of air flung me off River, throwing us apart, smashing the glass in the nearby windows. I climbed to my knees. My teeth rattled with power, and I called on everything the book had. My body left the ground as an uncontrollable rush of energy alighted the book in my hands. The wraith flew back, roaring in anger. I didn’t know I’d drifted into the spirit realm until its magical blast shoved me back, into my body. I half lay across the cobbled pavement. And River…
He lay on his back, hands shielding his face. Blood soaked his side, and between strips of torn clothing, a deep wound lacerated his ribs.
“River. River.”
Healing abilities didn’t work on death, and near-fatal injuries needed more time to heal. Time we didn’t have.
The debris rose again, crashing on us like thunder.
18
I closed my eyes and called the book’s power to my hands. Cold light burned my palms, striking the debris with the sound like rippling thunder. Before the tornado could sweep it up again, Lord Colton appeared, hands spread wide, pushing back against the wraith’s tornado-like assault. Holy crap.
River’s eyes opened. He groaned. “The wraith… it’s the central one. The only one using magic…” He coughed, blood wetting his mouth.
“Shit.” I looked desperately at the Mage Lord, but all his attention was on keeping the tornado from hitting us.
“River!” Lady Montgomery ran to us. “The mages’ headquarters is shielded—get him off the battlefield.”
River’s eyes half-opened and he managed to climb to his feet, but pain glazed his eyes, and blood dripped onto the cobblestones.
“Watch my back!” I shouted to Lady Montgomery, letting River lean on me. The blood alarmed me, but he was six feet of solid muscle and there was no way either of us could single-handedly carry him while fighting off the dead. When an undead got too close, Lady Montgomery made liberal use of her curved knife, which she’d soaked in salt. Hazel, Ivy and Morgan had disappeared. Worry twisted in my gut. River… I couldn’t let him die.
Once behind the safety of the wards, Lady Montgomery crouched down beside her son, hands gentle as they examined the wound. Her face was pale, her mouth pinched. “This wound will take several minutes to heal even with his powers. Can you watch him until then?”
“I know which is the real wraith—I have to go into Death to kill it,” I said.
“Then use everything you have,” she said.
I nodded, blinking back tears, and scanned the sky for the wraith. River was right—it appeared more solid than the others, and if I looked closer in the spirit realm, threads of blue Winter magic extended to connect the wraith with the others. One wraith was behind all the magic—and it could only use it in one place at a time. Right now all its attention was on the whirling tornado pushing against the Mage Lord.
I slipped out of my body and rose into the sky, higher, higher. Magic bounced off my shield. Two of the false wraiths closed in and I raised the book, calling on a little of its power, but not too much. Cold light pulsed from my hands, pushing the wraiths back. I focused on my target, and slammed it with all the power I had.
One of the clones disappeared. I kept up the assault, second by second. Every sound below was muted, every emotion locked out, and nothing existed but me and the magic, and the talisman. We didn’t fight one another. There was no struggle. I needed its power and it would bend to my will.
Two more wraith clones disappeared.
My hands trembled on the book. My whole body ached as though I’d pulled more than my spirit here into death. But I wouldn’t break. The book wouldn’t break, and if I wanted to access its full power, I’d be its equal.
One by one, all the clones vanished as the wraith’s magic was pulled back into its body. Readied to attack. I gritted my teeth and braced myself for the impact.
The wraith kept on pulling power, its body glowing blue, the colour of Winter magic and blood. Now, deep in the realm of death, the wraith had solid form. Like a person. No… a Sidhe. My heart climbed into my throat. In his hands appeared the likeness of a blade. A talisman.
No. It can’t have survived beyond death. It had so much magic that it’d managed to manufacture a weapon, while I had nothing but the book.
The wraith moved in a blur, and the blade went through my ghostly form. Magic pulsed from its edges, and I laughed, more in relief than anything. “You can’t hit me with magic even now, wraith. We’re at a stalemate.”
“No, we aren’t,” shouted Ivy. She ran—or floated—wielding her own sword, and stabbed the wraith through the chest. The edges of her blade lit up blue, drawing on power from somewhere close by. The wraith writhed and screamed, its body pulsing with magic, and aimed at Ivy.
Not before I got in the way. I took the hit side-on, the magic dissipating into the air. Ivy’s eyes widened, and the wraith struck again. She stabbed it through the chest, her own blade vibrating with power. Even in the spirit realm, it clearly cost her a great effort to hold onto it. I gathered necromantic power, took careful aim, and struck the creature from behind.
“It’s too solid,” Ivy shouted, her blade wedged in its chest. “And not enough. It’s—stuck.”
“Not for long.” I raised the book, and shouted the banishing words. Pinned by Ivy’s blade, the wraith couldn’t flee.
A wrenching scream tore from its throat. A last explosion of blue magic struck my shield, dissipating as the wraith’s body crumbled to ashes.
Ivy lowered her blade. “You’re immune to faerie magic?”
“I swear I told you that,” I said breathlessly. “Thanks. I have to go. River… he got seriously hurt.”
“I’m sorry.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “One creature did so much damage…”
“I know. Who in hell summoned it? I’d almost say it was a diversion, but they didn’t hit any of the main supernatural hubs.”
Ivy turned around on the spot. The spirit realm was too blurred to see the world beneath—and the air shimmered, showing a familiar path. The Vale.
“The Ley Line’s unstable,” she said. “Really unstable.”
“The summoner!” I said. “Someone did the summoning… it came from above the rooftops.”
“I saw it,” Ivy said. “In the real world, anyway. It was on the building behind where the Mage Lord was. But we’re in the dead part of Faerie.”
I stared at my feet. A transparent silvery line lay beneath, the only light in the grey haze.
“What—the Death Kingdom?” I’d read about the part of Winter territory where the goddess of death resided, but it didn’t sound the same a
s the void I’d pushed the wraith into.
“Not here,” Ivy said. “This is the path of the dead. It used to lead from the Death Kingdom to the Sidhe’s source of immortality, but now there’s nothing here. It’s close to the place the Vale used to be, before the Sidhe ripped it away.”
I stared along the silvery line. “Seriously? Is this where the gods…?” Had my book come from here? Worry for River beat in my chest, but the silver line shone with a familiar alluring light.
“The gods never walked here,” Ivy said. “Or hell, maybe they did. Do you know how a faerie talisman is usually created?”
“Forged from the heart of a tree and infused with magic,” I said. “Faerie magic, or… gods’ magic. How?”
“The Sidhe ripped the gods’ power out when they were still alive,” Ivy said, a distasteful expression on her face. “Using a ritual and an Invocation. However that book got into your family, no human could have done it.”
“But it’s not the faeries’. It can’t be.”
No Sidhe had wielded this book. I knew it as surely as though the book itself had told me.
“Maybe there is someone with answers,” she said. “Does the book have a name?”
“A name? What, like a summoning?” A suspicion took root inside me. “You met one of the gods? I thought they died.”
“What’s left of it,” she said. “They’re not alive. They died. The talismans are all that’s left of their power, and while it’s kind of conscious, it’s not the same as the real thing, trust me. It can be controlled. I found the one whose magic is in my sword by speaking its name.”
I took the book carefully out. “Can you read this?”
“The symbol?” She frowned at the cover. A syllable left her lips, cold and sharp.
Silence answered. Silence, and a chill breeze.
“Worth a try,” said Ivy. “Don’t say the name in the Courts. The Sidhe have this weird superstition about speaking the names aloud.”
The Gatekeeper's Curse- The Complete Trilogy Page 60