She clawed at me, but it was no use. I squirmed away as we toppled toward the earth. Her screams echoed in my ears as we fell, and I knew that there was no way she’d survive the sudden stop at the bottom. It probably wouldn’t matter in the end, but it’d be something.
Still, stopping Laura wouldn’t be enough. I knew what I needed to do. I needed to stop the ritual. Not for Justin or his family. Not even for the wolves, but for me. If I stood by and let them slaughter the wolves, I’d essentially be accepting Emperor Palpatine’s offer and joining the Dark Side. I was not doing that.
“You’ve killed us both,” Laura cried, power filling her words as she screamed into the wind whipping around us. Even with all the power she could bring to bear, I knew her magic wouldn’t help her survive, and I doubted she’d waste it trying to kill me when the ground would do it for her. No, she was going to try to use it to survive anyway. Only no one could survive a fall like this. Well, almost no one.
“In brightest day, in blackest night,” I said, calling upon my own magic and feeling it rise inside me. “No evil shall escape my sight.” I rubbed my thumb over the ring on my right index finger, pushing energy into it. “Let those who worship evil's might.” Emerald sparks leapt into the air from the stupid dime store ring on my finger. “Beware my power.” That ring transformed into something more. “Green Lantern's light!”
Power exploded across the length of my body, shrouding me from ankle to throat in a skin tight green and black leotard that left little to the imagination. A mask covered my face as the ring on my hand flared like an emerald sun.
A surge of will exploded from me, causing magic to ripple around my body, and just like that, I stopped falling. I hovered in midair as Laura continued to fall. I could feel my magic draining away with each passing second. I’d never managed to get this to work before. It had too many variables, took too much power, but right now, I really wanted to not die.
As Laura fell, I craned my head toward the helicopter and with a surge of will, flew after it. I landed inside the helicopter just as the power wore off, leaving me sweating and my vision blurry from exhaustion. It was like what had happened when I’d turned into the fifty-foot woman, only way worse. I was nearly drained of magic, but at least nearly drained wasn’t the same as sucked dry.
I pulled the mana potion charm off my wrist, sent the last of my power into it, and popped it into my mouth. It tasted like blueberries, fried chicken, and waffles all at once which wasn’t too bad, but it could have tasted like ass and I’d have still been more than happy to consume it.
My magic returned, filling me to the brim as I picked up my fallen phaser and moved behind the pilot who was busy screaming into his radio. I placed the weapon against the back of his neck and pushed with enough force to let him know I was there.
“So how about you return to the hotel before I paint the inside of the windshield with your brains.” I smiled. “And before you think I can’t fly this thing, remember one thing. I know fucking magic.”
15
I was really glad when the pilot just turned the helicopter around and flew us back toward the hotel because I had no fraking idea how to fly a helicopter. Still, as we approached the hotel, I almost wished we’d gone somewhere else.
The roof was swarming with people. I could tell some of them were paramedics based upon their standard EMT garb, but others looked decidedly more shamanistic. Crystals were strewn about the king’s body, and even from here I could see the pulse of their power.
The air felt heavy with magic, and as I opened myself to its currents, I felt them traveling deep into me. There was a lot of the energy on the roof of that hotel. Some of it was inherent to the location, sure, but most of it came from the wolves, the shamans, and the crystals.
Either way, I knew one thing to be certain. This wasn’t good. If they needed that much power for the king, chances were he was about to die.
Another thought immediately followed that one. What if someone attacked us before I could explain? Part of me wished I’d had that thought earlier because as we approached, men dressed in dark, military style uniforms pointed all manner of automatic weapons at us.
“Turn on the radio,” I told the pilot from my perch in the copilot’s seat. I still had the phaser trained on him, but I was hoping he’d just do what I wanted. “I want to talk to them before they shoot us.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He reached out and pressed a button before handing me a headset with a microphone attached. It was like something I’d have used for an Xbox. “Just hold down the button here.” He pointed to a button on the dash. “And speak.”
“Why are you being so helpful?” I asked, donning the headset and trying to figure out what I was going to say. It’d have to be good if it was going to keep them from killing me.
“I’m just a guy.” He shrugged. “I’ve got a wife, kids too. I don’t have a vendetta or anything. I do this for money, not for any particularly noble reason.” He gave me a silly smile that betrayed just how upset he was. “We’ve all got to pay the mortgage, and my kid’s college is no joke.”
“Word,” I replied, glad I wasn’t saddled with a billion dollars in student loans like Badger was. I was lucky though. I had a marketable, albeit magical, skill. Art history? Not so much unless I guess you tracked down stolen art and enjoyed beating up people.
“Are you going to shoot me for real?” he asked, pointing at the assembled werewolves who were all watching us as we hovered just out of firing range.
“Not if you listen, why?” I asked because I really didn’t want to shoot him. I’d done enough by letting Laura take me. Now the king was down when we needed him most. Without him to hold the clans together and keep them from being stupid, I had no idea what would happen.
“Because I’m guessing they won’t be as nice as you.” He swallowed hard. “You can’t let them kill me.”
“No problem,” I said even though I had no idea what they’d do to him. I was guessing none of the werewolves were in a very good place right now, and if I had to guess, monsters fueled by rage probably made pretty bad decisions.
“Thanks,” he replied and looked away from me. “You’re a good liar.”
I ignored him as I hit the button. I wasn’t lying, at least, not at the core of it. I would try to help him. After all, he’d done his part. “Justin, this is Annie. Can you hear me? If you can, know I took care of Laura. We’re coming back. We have to stop what we talked about before it’s too late.”
From this distance, I couldn’t hear anyone respond, so I directed the pilot to move us closer to the helipad. When no one shot at us, I released the breath I’d been holding. As we touched down, I still expected to get riddled with bullets. Was this thing bulletproof? I wasn’t sure, but since we were missing a door, I really didn’t want to find out. Thankfully, I didn’t have to find out.
I’d barely unfastened my seatbelt and gotten to my feet when Justin leapt through the blown out door. He stood there covered in blood with tear streaks on his cheek. His eyes were rimmed with red and there was a snarl on his normally handsome face.
“Where is she?” he asked, glaring around the small space. There was so much anguish in his voice I actually flinched.
“She decided to take a mid-flight jog.” I shrugged. “It went well until she reached the last step. Kind of a doozy.”
His eyes settled on me. They were filled to the brim with amber. “Good.” He shook himself and let a breath out through his teeth. “We need to stop this, Annie. Are you onboard?”
I was amazed at his choice of words. I’d been prepared for an onslaught of guilt, of anger. Hell, I deserved it for freaking out. Instead, I got some cross between cold indifference and understanding. What the frak?
“Yeah,” I said because what else could I say. That’s why I’d come back, after all. I was going to stop the ritual because it was going to kill a lot of fraking people, and at the end of the day, I wasn’t the type of person who could stand by and let th
at happen. Even if the people sort of deserved it. This wasn’t going back in time to shoot baby Hitler. No, this would have been going back in time and dropping mustard gas on a German nursery to kill people who might grow up to be Nazis.
I could not be part of that. Not for a fraking second.
That said, I was somewhat amazed that he was holding himself together so well after what had happened, but as I studied him, I started to realize why. He was the golden boy, nothing bad had ever happened to him, and despite reality looming over him about to crush everything he held dear, he still thought it would work out, and therefore wasn’t worried. He was naive to the core.
“Good to know.” He offered me his hand and waited until I took it. His grip was firm like before, but something about it felt different. I’d like to have said more powerful, but that wasn’t it exactly. No, something about it made my blood tingle in my flesh.
“So, what’s the plan,” I asked, pulling my hand away and wiping it on my sweatshirt as I turned toward the helicopter. “The pilot is a nice guy. I told him you wouldn’t hurt him.”
“Sure,” Justin said, moving next to me in a way that put his chest way too close to my back. I could feel the heat radiating off of him as he leaned down close to my ear. His breath tickled my neck as he spoke so softly I knew no one else could hear him. “I don’t blame you, Annie, but I’m fucking pissed.” He heaved out a breath that caused power to ripple across my skin and the scent of oranges to fill my nose. “But I am not everyone. With my father down for a while, Alabaster will be in charge. We need to leave before he throws a wrench in the plans to stop the ritual.”
“Okay,” I said as Justin started forward, grabbing me roughly by the arm and dragging me toward the stairs. Sigh. Why couldn’t it have been the elevator? I wasn’t in nearly good enough shape to hurry down several flights of stairs. Hell, I could barely make it three minutes on a treadmill.
As Justin pushed the red steel door open with one palm, I heard the ding of an elevator. As the doors whooshed open, Justin pulled me inside and began pulling me down the stairs while he took them two at a time. I could barely keep up and not just because his legs were longer than mine. He noticed after we’d rounded the bend on the first flight of stairs and looked at me.
“We have to hurry. They’ll be down here in a minute.” He swallowed hard.
“Why are you so worried about Alabaster?” I asked, shaking my head. “And not worried about your dad?”
“Because,” he hissed and the sound reminded me of an angry snake. “Alabaster will kill you just because my father would have wanted you alive. He’s been trying to take the throne for years, but he can’t beat my father without magic. My father, well, he’s already recovering. In a few hours, he’ll be up and at ‘em. We just need to make sure you last that long.”
“What’s to stop Alabaster from challenging your father now that he’s weakened? Or is there a rule against that?” I asked as we rounded the corner once again. Jesus, how many steps were there? I was already sweating and breathing hard despite the chill in the air.
Justin stopped mid-step, and turned toward me. Horror filled his face, and for a second, I thought he’d rush back up the stairs. “He will likely do that. It’s dirty, but no one can stand against him, especially with Laura…”
“I think she might have been pregnant,” I blurted out, hoping it hadn’t been true because I didn’t want to be the person who threw a pregnant woman out of a helicopter, even if she was psycho.
Justin’s face blanched. “I doubt it.”
“Okay.” I swallowed hard. “I’m not going to pry,” I added even though part of me wanted to pry. I just really didn’t want him to tell me they’d been together. If they had been, could I have killed the mother of his unborn child?
“I appreciate that,” Justin replied, starting back down the stairs as the door above creaked open. Before I could blink, Justin had grabbed my hand and pulled me through the door into the fourth floor. “Be very quiet.”
With that, he strode across the floor toward the opposite side of the hotel while I followed along in confusion. Still, the hallway was nice. Done up in a shade of seafoam green that matched the room I’d seen with the pillars. It was definitely beach themed, making me think of the way ocean water got lighter as it came toward the beach.
Justin pulled a keycard from his pocket as he reached a door in the corner and slid it over the lock. It beeped once, and the light on the lock flashed green. He pushed the door in and held it open for me.
“Hurry,” he whispered, ushering me into the room and closing the door behind him. The room looked used in the way that hotel rooms did before the cleaning lady showed up to turn them down. The blankets were bunched up and miscellaneous trash littered the marble counter beneath the flat screen television embedded in the wall. It looked chic and stylish and like something I could barely afford to look at, let alone stay in.
“Is this your room?” I asked as he shoved the card into his pocket and strode confidently across the floor.
“No, my card opens all the doors.” He cocked a sly grin at me that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Why, do you want to see my room?”
I blushed even though I tried not to as I moved by the bed. This one was so nice I almost had to physically force myself not to lay on top of it. How much nicer would his bed be? My blush deepened as I reminded myself we couldn’t let Alabaster find us. Sure, killing me might turn him into a puddle, but I was willing to bet he could find a way around it. Contracts only kept nice people on the straight and narrow. Anyone who wanted something done badly enough would find a way.
“So why are we here then?” I asked as Justin moved to the sliding glass doors and shoved them open. His muscles shifted beneath his flesh, making me want to touch his arm just so I could feel them for myself. Man, I should not have been having these kinds of thoughts, but if I focused on what the hell was going on right now, I might freak out.
“There’s a fire exit along the corner room.” He moved out and pointed to the back end of the balcony, where sure enough, a ladder was set into the side of the building. It was so well hidden by the room, I wouldn’t have known it was there if he hadn’t told me about it. As I looked at it, I reminded myself to check balconies better in the future. It’d be way too easy to climb up this way and kill the shit out of someone who didn’t know you were there.
He pushed on the balcony fence in the corner, causing it to swing free with a faint clink. Then he moved out onto the ladder, which had no cage or anything and began to move down like he was part chimpanzee.
“You expect me to climb down that?” I asked as he moved with an ease I couldn’t hope to match. It was one thing to say you were going to climb a ladder down four floors, but it was quite another to, well, actually do it.
“Yes,” he said, head disappearing from view as he moved.
I let out a long, angry breath and moved to the ladder as the door to the room opened. I wasn’t sure if it was werewolves, guards, or just the guests returning, but either way, it was time to go. I gritted my teeth and got my happy ass onto the ladder. Then I began climbing as quickly as I could. At first it wasn’t so bad. Then I made a mistake and looked down. The ground loomed up at me in a way that made me dizzy.
Normally, I wasn’t scared of heights, but normally, I wasn’t climbing down a ladder set into the side of a building four stories over the fraking street either.
Justin was already a floor below me, moving so smoothly I wondered how many second-story girl’s bedrooms he’d climbed into in the dead of night. The thought made me cringe angrily even though I didn’t know why. I shouldn’t have been jealous over something I’d just made up, but I was. It was crazy, but thinking about that got me down the next floor.
By the time I reached the first floor, Justin was on the ground waiting for me. My heart pounded in my chest and my muscles ached. The distant sound of sirens filled my ears, but for the most part, they seemed concentrated on the other
side of the hotel, which was good. The last thing I needed was for the cops to see me scaling the side of a hotel.
Still, I had a problem.
The ladder ended at the first floor. I suspected it was because anyone who was supposed to go up would have their own ladder to bridge the gap, but I didn’t.
“Jump,” Justin called, standing beneath me. “I’ll catch you.”
“Are you out of your fraking mind?” I cried, clutching the rungs of the ladder for dear life. He was over ten feet below me, and while I was sure he was strong enough to catch me, it still scared the crap out of me.
“It will be fine. Just pretend you’re Lois Lane and I’m Superman.” He smiled. “Then you can be tough as nails but still get rescued.”
“Unless you pull a Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy.” I replied, even though this was a totally different situation since the Green Goblin hadn’t thrown me off of a bridge, and he wasn’t going to end the Silver Age of comics by breaking my fragile human neck.
Justin put his hands under his armpits and began clucking at me while kicking at the ground with one foot and bobbing his head.
“Are you serious?” I cried incredulous.
“Buccah?” he responded, looking at me. Humor filled his blue eyes, and as I stared into them, I let go of the ladder.
Hopefully, I wouldn’t regret it.
16
It probably goes without saying, but I didn’t die. Not only did Justin catch me, but as I lay there cradled in his strong, manly arms, the only thing I wanted to do was snuggle against him and hide in his warmth. I couldn’t do that though because there was no way that’d end well. Even if he felt the same way, I just couldn’t go down this or any road with him. I’d made my decision to try and save the wolves, and to do that, I needed to focus. Besides, there was that whole he was a werewolf and I was a mage thing. It sounded stupid, but it was the truth.
Throne to the Wolves: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Spell Slinger Chronicles Book 1) Page 10