by Janet Tait
Anton shook his head.
“Station a force here. Make sure Melina’s safe.” She’d wisely sat this out. Her mission was guarding the stone.
Dmitri sauntered up the dock, blue shirt torn, too late to be of any use.
“What took you so long?” Kristof asked. “And what were you doing by Kate’s room?”
“Huh? I was at the west gate, polishing off the Americans.”
Dmitri made no sense. The west gate lay on the other side of the estate from Kate’s room. And when he’d seen Dmitri in the main corridor, a few minutes ago, he was wearing a red jersey, not a blue shirt.
Shit. He took off running, his hand on his phone.
The stone wasn’t the real target. Kate was.
He knew something had bothered him about the summit meeting—now he knew what. The normally calm Dylan arguing with Dmitri, pushing him. For a technician as skilled as Dylan, one touch might be enough to do the type of spell a combat mage like Kristof had only dreamed of when he’d tried to breach the Hamiltons’ security grid a few days ago. To read Dmitri’s aura—his security signature for the Makris grid—well enough to clone it. Transfer that duplication to a talisman someone else could use. Someone who could bring the Hamilton team into the fully-guarded Makris estate undetected.
Someone who could take Kate outside it, as well.
Kate brought the brass figurine down hard on the back of Dmitri’s neck. Right before it hit, he spun around. It landed with a crack on his shoulder instead. He winced, stumbling forward, then turned to her, arm forward to cast. She backed away, holding up the statue.
Then Dmitri’s face twisted in a familiar look of annoyance.
“Damn it, princess, can’t you figure out when you’re being rescued?”
“Victor?” She lowered the little brass idol.
“Who else? Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Hearing Victor’s words out of Dmitri’s mouth sounded…weird. Weirder even than reconciling the idea that Kris was Kristof. She wanted to hug Victor and give him another whack with the figurine at the same time.
He rubbed his shoulder.
“Can you heal—” Kate began.
“No time. We have to leave.”
She lifted up her cuffed hands. “How about getting me out of these?”
“I’ll have to. They’re keyed to keep you on the Makris estate. Dylan gave me something…”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver talisman shaped like a key. He placed it against the green stone on one spellcuff. It glowed for a moment, then the cuff released with a snap. She pulled her hand out with a sigh and threw the silver cuff to the floor.
Footsteps pounded down the hall. “Hurry,” she said. Victor repeated the process with the other cuff, and it released.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Wait. Brian’s journal. Dylan’s talismans. I don’t know where—”
“Journal? What haven’t you told me… Never mind. We’ll have to leave them.” He opened the door a crack and peered outside, then grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the room and around the corner. He pushed her out of sight as a team of Makris enforcers marched down the hall.
“Come on,” he said.
“Where are we going?”
“The east gate. If we’re separated, head there—behind the house, past the apple grove. Grayson’s waiting outside. If anyone stops us, follow my lead.”
He led her down the tiled hall and out a side door that opened on a long staircase. Alarms filled the air, sirens rising and falling. They took the stairs at a run, Victor first, Kate following. The staircase ended at a small courtyard. She barely kept up as Victor tore across it, dodging the blue-tiled fountain set square in the middle and making for the portico at the far end.
They ducked into the covered walkway and ran across the terra-cotta tile floor. As they turned the corner they ran smack into a team of three red-clad Makris enforcers, who pulled up short at the sight of a young man who looked like Dmitri dragging Kate behind him.
The lead enforcer, mouth set in a grim line, said something to Victor. Greek. Not good.
Victor imitated Dmitri’s smirk. Then replied. In Greek. Who would have guessed Victor spoke Greek?
Doubt flashed across the enforcer’s face. Greek spilled from him, and he pointed at Kate. Kate didn’t know the words but she could figure out the meaning. Victor yanked Kate closer, his hand roaming exactly where Dmitri’s would.
Better help Victor sell it.
Kate tried to pull away from him, taking care to conceal her cuffless hands. “Please. Can’t you help me?” she pleaded to the enforcer. All she needed to do was think about Dmitri and his hands on her in the tree house, and the revulsion and dread came back up in her. She imagined it must have shown in her eyes. Method acting.
The man glanced at Victor and grinned. He motioned his team to move on.
Kate drew in a breath, shuddering.
Victor let go, something approaching sympathy in his eyes. “Let’s get you home.”
She nodded. Victor took her hand, gently this time, and they were off again.
They burst through the end of the corridor and out into the deepening twilight. Victor dodged a prone form of a woman in a gray battle suit, her black hair limp across pale skin, her eyes staring open at the sky. Grayson’s other assistant, the one who’d faced off against Dylan the other day.
She stumbled. Shit, oh shit. That girl died, rescuing her. Her. And she didn’t even know the girl’s name.
They ran across the wide swath of lawn to a small gate leading down to a large dock area, screened by a grove of apple trees. They ducked into the cover of the trees. A rabbit darted away from their path. Kate stared at the gate—the east gate? A pair of guards stood, one at each side, under trees infested by a flock of ravens.
Shouts from behind them, toward the house. Kate spun around. Guards, three of them, coming this way. The same three they’d run into before. The lead enforcer spotted them and ran faster.
Looks like Victor’s Greek isn’t exactly native-sounding, after all.
“Victor,” she whispered, then jerked her thumb back to the guards running toward them.
“I see them. Come on.”
Victor ran to the gate, straight up to the guards. They didn’t move or react—nothing. Kate scrutinized the guards with her magesight. A small wavering of their auras gave them away. Illusions.
She ran up to Victor, glancing back at the guards gaining on them. “Grayson’s on the other side?”
Victor gave her an annoyed glance, then pulled Dylan’s key out of his pocket. “Yeah, about a quarter-mile back, out of range of the Makrises’ trap spells. Can you cast a shield?”
She nodded.
“Do it. And stay out of the way.”
She called up the symbol for the spell, tapped it out, and chanted as quietly as she could. A soft blue glow sprang up around her, paler than the one Victor was casting on himself. She glanced at Victor as he put the talisman against the gate’s large lock, its purple stone glowing with swirling light. He looked so much like Dmitri. Exactly like Dmitri.
What if Dmitri’s running an operation on me, getting me to believe he’s Victor? What if he wants to get me someplace alone, to take revenge on me for burning him without anyone getting in the way? Maybe I should take him out now, before he can…
She shook her head to clear it. Paranoia was a bitch, but it was better than killing an innocent animal in order to keep herself safe.
The guards were in the trees now. She glanced back and saw them fanning out, beginning to cast. “Victor…”
He spun around, hand going for the pile of silver chains around his neck. He grabbed one and spoke a command. A flash of fire sprang from his hand and shot to the grove of trees like a flamethrower, spewing over the fragile branches and lighting them up as if they were kindling. Screams rose from the guards as the fire spread from the trees to the men, their casting forgotten.
Victor winced as he lowered his arm. “I’m right-handed. Couldn’t you have whacked my other shoulder, prin—”
White light flashed and a loud crackle tore through the air. A bolt of lightning hit Victor, and he stumbled back into the gate, his shield spell flickering a much paler blue. The smell of ozone rose in the night.
Kate scanned the darkening lawn, squinting with her magesight to see into the shadows lining the concrete wall that framed the gate. Nothing. Wait. A flicker, there, by the curve of the wall. A flicker that moved.
Victor saw it, too. He pulled himself up from the wall and grabbed a chain from around his neck. A word of command and the wall exploded into chunks of stone and metal. Chunks that launched themselves toward the flicker, hitting their assailant’s cloak spell and ripping it away, revealing Kristof, a bit more battered and worn than he’d been what seemed like hours ago in her room.
Kristof, who’d said he’d get her out of here. So much for trust.
A ball of green energy crashed against her shield, sending her staggering. The pale-blue glow of her shield flickered, then blinked out completely. The energy of the spell’s attack shot through her body, sending her arms, her legs, her stomach into searing torment. She screamed and dropped to her knees. A crushing grip clasped her wrist as she was yanked to her feet.
Dmitri. Blue shirt half in, half out of white jeans, face twisted in a sneer that Victor couldn’t begin to duplicate. “Where did you think you were going, little kôta?”
She had no idea what a kôta was, but nothing coming out of Dmitri’s mouth would be a compliment.
Kristof and Victor traded spells, Victor’s shield glowing paler and paler with each hit Kristof scored. Each time Victor tried to cast, his wounded arm interfered; Kristof scored two hits for every one of Victor’s.
Dmitri pulled the cuffs they’d taken off her in her room from his back pocket. She tried to squirm away. He tightened his grasp.
“Stay still. The cuffs won’t hurt. That will come later.”
No, it wouldn’t. The symbol for fire, so elusive the last time she faced him, came to mind at her call. She started the chant, tracing the symbol with her free hand.
He reached down, fast as a striking snake, and crushed her fingers together before she could finish.
She gasped. It felt like the bones in her fingers would crack from the pressure of his grip.
He slammed a cuff on her hand and chanted a quick command. The silver wrapped itself around her wrist, her hand, then her fingers.
Kristof had Victor trapped against the iron gate—down on one knee, arms raised to cast, his shield only the palest wisp of blue. Kristof tapped out a spell, and a branch cracked free of the tree above. It shot toward Victor and hit him like a spear falling from heaven. The impact slammed Victor against the gate, his shield shattering into nothingness. He blinked and tried to stumble to his feet.
Dmitri reached in his pocket and drew out the other cuff. No, no, no. She couldn’t let him take her captive, even if she couldn’t cast the normal way. She had to do something to help Victor.
She sank her consciousness inside her mind, into that place so deep and dark she had no idea where it lived within. She ran down the steps and opened the cast-iron door again, her hand hesitating just for a moment on the cold lever. Time seemed to stretch out, and everything around her slowed down. Dmitri moved so slowly as he inched the cuff toward her hand that it felt like she had all the time in the world to deal with primal magic.
There it lay—the endless black sea of power, stretching for an eternity uninterrupted. She needed to control the magic this time—teach it who was boss. If they didn’t escape now, they might never get free.
She touched the writhing darkness. A jolt of fear shot through her, and she snatched her hand back.
No. Forget what Melina says. Forget my fear. I have to master it.
She reached for the magic and let the fear wash over her as the dark liquid played upon her skin. Would it let her go this time? Or would it drag her down again into its black depths until she drowned in its oily embrace, without Melina here to save her?
She wouldn’t let it. She pushed her fear down and commanded the power to punch. She willed the spell at Dmitri. No hesitation. No fear.
The primal magic responded, flexing out to send a rippling wave of force straight at the brute holding her so cruelly in his grip. The kinetic punch slammed into Dmitri and he tumbled across the grass, his head hitting hard against the ground. He let go of her as he fell, the remaining spellcuff dropping from his hand.
Yes. He so deserved that. Now all she had to do was—
She felt the icy intelligence lurking beneath the waves reach out. Oh no. No. She tried to make it choose the rabbit she’d seen in the grove, the flock of ravens in the trees above her. The rabbit should be about right…
The magic saw her feeble attempt at control. Instead of obeying her, it turned its regard to the casters fighting behind her. Victor and Kristof. And chose a sacrifice. A ball of black energy rose from Kate and rushed straight to Victor.
“No!”
The power wasn’t supposed to act like this. The spell hadn’t been powerful enough to demand a sacrifice that big. Not from what she’d seen in Melina’s Sanctum.
She dove back into the darkness, determined to wrestle it into submission. She’d give it herself if need be. Just don’t let it take Victor. Please, God, no.
The white light, Melina’s white light—how did she do it? She had only seconds before…
The darkness swirled like tentacles around her, crawling up her legs, her torso, her arms. It dragged her step-by-step into its all-encompassing depths.
The darkness was around her neck now, then over her mouth. She choked on its foulness, tried to spit it out. She needed to fight it, to protect Victor from the black ball of destruction rushing across the grass to take him.
The spell, the white light, what was the spell, dammit…
The darkness swirled into her nostrils and leaked into her eyes, blinding her. Everything went away. Victor sending a burst of fire at Kristof. Dmitri lying prone on the ground. The ravens rising from the trees. Everything around her faded from her sight. She raised her hands, tried to claw the darkness from her eyes, but her hands fell back, no strength left in them. She sank to the ground as the darkness crept into her lungs and stopped her breath.
Was this how Brian felt when the stone killed him?
She fought for breath as the magic froze the blood in her veins, leeched the life from her cells, and reached for her heart.
Light flared around her, erasing the dark from her eyes. Thank God. Thank God, she could breath again, see again.
Victor stood above her, silhouetted by the rising moon. He chanted, his fingers tracing a circular pattern on his thigh, and the chant sounded so familiar. The light streamed from his hands and flowed over her, chasing the darkness from them both like the tide washing blood from a kill off a beach.
The spell. She knew the spell. Victor used the same words that Brian had chanted in the Sanctum, the same symbol he’d traced out. Now that she knew, maybe she could…
The magic fled, but not far. From the grove she heard a scream, then a thud. Primal magic taking its price.
“What the hell did you do?” Victor reached down a hand to lift her up, his face grim.
A shadow loomed over him. “Behind you—”
Kristof’s hands twisted the chains tight around Victor’s neck. Victor’s eyes bulged, and his hands reached up and back, grasped for his assailant. Kate stumbled toward them, so weak one step felt like a marathon. Victor struggled, jabbing his elbow back into his opponent’s midsection. Kristof grunted but held on. Victor’s eyes flickered closed, and he slumped forward.
Kristof let him drop. He bent down and picked up the spellcuff from the ground. He grabbed Kate’s arm and jammed it on her hand, giving the one-word command to activate it. She felt the cotton-wool feel settle in her mind again.
; She glared up at Kristof. “You said you would—”
He put a finger to his lips. “Not now. Your family blew the plan.”
They blew the plan. Seemed to her like she might have had a chance before he and Dmitri showed up. Unless his plan involved a lot more than setting her free.
Weakness kept her slumped on the ground, propped on her elbows. Whatever the dark power had done to her, its assault had taken a toll.
Kristof took out his cell phone. “I’ve got them. The east gate.” He glanced out at the grove, where the guards dragged out the lifeless form of one of their teammates. “One casualty.”
Damn. All she’d accomplished was killing a Makris guard. Primal magic’s price for her walloping Dmitri with a kinetic punch. Nausea rose from deep inside her gut. Not an accomplishment.
Dmitri stirred and groaned. Kristof prodded him with his foot. “Get up. We need to make sure they don’t have any more surprises.”
“I can search her.”
“You do that. Touching her uninvited worked out so well for you last time.” Kristof pulled the talisman chains off Victor’s neck, then patted him down and found the lockpick talisman in his pocket. Kate watched the slight rise and fall of Victor’s chest and let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
A group of guards trotted up. One of them slapped a pair of spellcuffs on Victor.
Kristof addressed Dmitri. “Finish searching Victor, then take him to the plaza. I’ll meet you there with Kate.”
“Sure you don’t need help?” Dmitri wiped the blood from his mouth, then gave Kate a look that promised he wasn’t finished with her. Not by half.
“Just go.”
Dmitri gave Kristof a smirk and turned the still-unconscious Victor onto his front. He rummaged through Victor’s clothes.
Kristof bent down over Kate. He held out a hand. “Come on.”
When he touched her the same electricity sparked between them, the same warmth as when they kissed not long ago in her room leaped from her to him. Or was it the other way around? His gaze shot to hers, and she saw the surprise in them—and the momentary wonder—then the mask shuttered down over his eyes again. Back to playing the operative.