by Jessica Gunn
Shawn stood, shaking his head at Ben and Nate. “Yeah. A way out of this insanity.”
I waved him over and we headed toward the bar. “This was a good idea.”
Shawn nodded. “It’s definitely provided a better look at the team dynamics.”
“Oh?”
“Well, for starters, I know Ben’s the leader and all, but damn can he not handle competition.”
I snickered. “Nope. He hates that. The night I met them all, I took down a demon by myself that he’d been struggling with. Not the best impression.”
Shawn paused, stopped walking, and turned to me. “Like those dark veins on your arm?”
I looked down. Shit. Were they showing? No. Then… how did he know?
“I saw them the other day when we were sparring,” he said.
Like I’d seen his tattoo. “What about them? I have a medical thing.”
Shawn shook his head and resumed his walk to the bar. I caught up with him as he said, “I didn’t know dark magik was a medical thing.”
“Excuse me?” I snapped, stopping in front of him. Shawn was taller than me, but he didn’t carry the same fire that Ben and Nate did. He was confident without exuding strength, and though I knew it was there, he didn’t intimidate me at all. “What do you mean by that?”
He lifted his hands, shrugging. “Look, I’m not your babysitter. But I’ve seen those kinds of dark veins before on magik-users who’re seduced by dark magik. Demonic power. I only bring it up because despite what you’re probably going to say, it is my business. Right now, you’re the only one of us that’s—”
“Screw the damn prophecy.” I didn’t actually believe those words. Not really. I didn’t want to see Alzan fall, but neither did I want to spend my entire life in a bubble inside Boston, hostage to Jaffrin’s orders.
“You don’t really think that,” Shawn said—not a question.
I stiffened, caught red-handed. “No.” I just wanted this conversation to end before Shawn uncovered the truth.
“Then why would you be seeking power like that from a demon?” he asked, searching my eyes like they’d give him the answers he wanted.
Well, tough luck for him. “It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand since you don’t have magik to begin with.” But it wasn’t complicated. I’d gone to Giyano because he had answers, even if he never wanted to give them in full right away. And I went to Giyano’s magik because it made mine sing, strengthened it. It felt like a drug.
“Maybe not,” Shawn said, still watching my every reaction. “But I’d still never go to a demon for anything. They’re all slippery, untrustworthy bastards.”
I shook my head and pushed past him to the bar, which was currently empty. A bell lay nearby and I pushed it, hoping the bartender would return from the back sometime soon. Preferably this instant.
Shawn didn’t know what he was talking about. He’d never understand what it was like for me to grow up beneath the Fire Circle’s careful watch and still manage to touch the darkness of this world.
I gave him a hard stare. “This world isn’t black and white, Shawn. Clearly, whoever raised you taught you it was. There is more going on here than the war between Darkness’s Empire and the Powers, and this stuff with the prophecy, with you and I and the rest of the Fire Circle, we’re caught in the shades of gray in between.”
Shawn’s jaw set hard, his cheek bending like he was chewing on the inside to keep from speaking. Finally, after a few long moments, he said, “I’m well aware of how gray the world is, Krystin. That wasn’t my point.”
“Then what the hell was?” I asked. “You came with me over here to, what, accuse me of something?”
He shook his head and reached over the bar for the closest bottle of liquor. “No,” he said as he undid the cap. “I wanted to ask why—”
Before he finished his sentence, the ceiling above us caved in, a mighty crack heralding the split. Shawn pushed me out of the way and we rolled to safety. But the second we stood, a portion of the side wall was thrown inward.
When the dust settled, a woman stood in the hole that had been made.
“My, my,” she purred, a chunk of rebar mixed with cement flying in the air beside her. “What Fire Circle Hunters do we have here?”
CHAPTER 13
BEN
SMASH. The sound of breaking glass and ripped metal filled the air as dust and cement flew toward our lane. I jumped in front of Rachel at the last second, catching a chunk of cement to my side. I yelped, stumbling sideways, as pain sliced up my ribs.
“What the hell?” Nate asked as he stood, brushing off his knees where he’d fallen.
I looked toward the origin of the sound and found the entire front entrance and part of the side wall blown asunder. Krystin and Shawn stood in front of a woman with tanned skin, dark, wild hair, and a floating mass of wall hovering above her open palm. The woman barked a laugh as she threw the mass of cement and twisted rebar at Krystin and Shawn.
“No!” I shouted, bringing lightning to the center of my palm. Nate and Rachel rushed with me toward the woman.
Krystin lifted her hands and pushed against the chunk of cement, but… it didn’t go anywhere. The woman grunted, pressing her hand into the air. Krystin did the same, her eyes growing wide.
“What—What are you?” Krystin ground out through clenched teeth.
Shawn stood behind her, a hand on her bleeding arm. Keeping pressure on the wound as blood seeped out around his fingers.
The woman laughed again, seemingly not breaking a sweat in this magik-off with Krystin. “I think you call me Betrayer.”
My stomach dropped. Kinder. I’d never seen images of her before, never would have known what she looked like until now. I yelled, throwing my palm outward. Lightning arched across the air, crackling as it soared at Kinder’s head. But at the last second, she moved the ball of cement and rebar to act as a shield. The lightning struck and shattered it to pieces.
I protected my eyes as debris flew, the sound of rushing water filling the space around my head. I opened my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Rachel had saved us with a tube of water surrounding—but not drowning—her, Nate, and me, pulled from a broken water fountain currently spurting water. As soon as the debris stopped flying, Rachel twisted her arms in the air, forcing the water from us and into a tidal wave that Kinder would be hard-pressed to block.
Kinder used her ball of cement as a shield. The water arched around it, but Nate was already three steps ahead. He closed his eyes and a block of glowing red ether formed before him. He sent it flying, splitting the ether block in two as Krystin pushed Kinder back against a solid piece of wall. The ether blocks slammed into Kinder. Her body convulsed under the weight of the blocks and blood crept out of the corner of her mouth.
Kinder grinned wickedly. “Teleportante.” Then she blinked out of existence.
“Where’d she go?” Krystin shouted.
Shawn spun around. “No way this is over yet.”
I did the same, waiting for Kinder to reappear. She did a moment later, right behind Nate.
Nate jumped and tried to maneuver away, but Kinder clocked him across the face and then tripped him by kicking up a piece of floor tile with her earth-elemental magik. The tile slammed into Nate’s chest. Kinder rammed her open palm against his back. Her hand glowed white, then red, the same color as Nate’s attack.
“Not cool,” Krystin yelled as she pounced, Fire Circle knife in hand.
Kinder shoved Nate out of reach, then moved her hands in a block-shaped pattern in the air, pushing outward on her last motion. “Zalenk,” she said as a glowing yellow shield formed around her.
Ether. Had she stolen Nate’s powers?
Krystin’s knife collided with the shield, then folded against itself when the shield didn’t give. She cried out as her wrist crumpled against it before she was thrown away, soaring across the bowling alley.
If Krystin or Nate couldn’t land an attack, we were well and truly f
ucked.
Kinder turned on me and formed a block of ether in her hand. She sent it my way with a yell. I threw out a lightning strike to meet her, but instead of dissolving the ether, the attacks collided, exploding in the air between us. It sent me soaring backward, though it left Kinder untouched because of her shield.
Kinder turned on Rachel and grinned again. “Come on, water-elemental. Don’t make me steal your powers, too.”
I looked over at Nate as I struggled to get a solid breath in. He lay crumpled on the floor, his back against the lane. Out cold. But his magik wasn’t gone forever. That couldn’t be how it worked. Right?
Kinder pounced, shooting two more ether attacks our way. A block of ether slammed into me, pushing me backward until the backs of my knees hit the tiny desk where the lane’s computer sat. Rachel hit the closest wall and slid down it, unmoving.
Shit. This was how it’d end. No. It can’t end here.
I tried to stand, but my knees gave out and I landed on the floor, watching as Kinder flicked Shawn aside with another block of ether. With no one in her path, Kinder stalked up to Krystin, who now had a ring of glowing red ether around her throat. Krystin reached up and tried pulling off the noose.
My head buzzed, my pulse throbbing in my ears too loudly to hear what was being said. Why was she so interested in Krystin?
I forced myself from my knees to my feet, using the mini desk to support me as I wound up to throw a pitch and instead threw a massive ball of lightning. It screeched through the air, standing the hairs on my arms on end. Kinder turned at the last moment and, hand on Krystin’s chest, she pushed the lightning ball right out of the air and out through the now-missing wall.
Kinder had Krystin’s telekinesis now. But that also meant no more ether-shaping, according to what Krystin had said about the Power. I looked down. Nate was still unconscious, though his chest rose and fell. He was alive at least.
“Krystin!” I screamed.
Kinder turned on me, eyes narrowed to tiny, rage-filled slits. “Stop interrupting me, lightning-wielder. Just because they don’t know what you’re capable of doesn’t mean I don’t.” She lifted her hand, drawing up a rebar pipe along with it, and flicked her fingers.
The pipe soared my way at top speed. With my head so foggy, the best I could do was jump out of the way and pray I had time. Pain sliced through my arm, a fire burning to the bone. But the loud clang of metal on linoleum didn’t settle my nerves. I looked down. Had the pipe only grazed me or gone straight through?
Blood poured from my shoulder, evidence of a combination of the two possibilities. Which had really happened, though, I couldn’t tell through the blinding pain and spattering blood.
“Enough!” someone roared, a deep voice that sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before. Not from my team, anyway. The voice seemed to reverberate through the room on nothing but the air itself, reaching into my mind and holding me still.
I opened my eyes, searching for the source and—Holy shit.
Shawn stood before Krystin, guarding her, with a chunk of cement in one hand, the tip of it bloody as hell. He’d torn up his shirt and had a slash down the side of his abdomen where—god, it looked like he’d cut a tattoo in half. What the hell?
His eyes glowed orange, softly at first, then turning into a raging orange storm that reached down his body with glowing veins, down into his hands, where an ethereal fire roared.
Kinder backed up a pace, glaring at him. “What’s this?” Her eyes widened and if I wasn’t seeing things, her hands actually shook. “What are you?”
“You must know,” said Shawn in that creepy voice again. “An Ember witch. The Son of Alzan.”
Kinder snarled, tilting her head like a wild animal. She sniffed the air, otherwise unmoving.
Shawn folded his hands together, twisting them in some pattern I couldn’t follow. Krystin knelt on the floor behind him, one hand holding her head and the other over her mouth in the same shock that must be reflected on my face.
Kinder backed up another step, then two. “You win, witch. I want no part of your tainted magik. And if Alzan knows what’s good for it, that city won’t either.” She spat on the floor and glared once more before disappearing in a teleportante.
I collapsed as soon as she was gone, folding over myself and listening as the wailing of sirens started.
“Oh, no,” Rachel said. “Oh, shit.” That was louder. More panicked.
I looked up, watching Rachel cross the room to the front desk that’d been victim to Kinder’s abrupt entrance. Both of the only two staff members on tonight were behind it, impaled by chunks of cement. Dead. More dead innocents in Kinder’s path.
“We need… to get out of here…” I said, though I doubted it was loud enough to hear.
“Ben!” Krystin shouted. She hurried over to my side with Shawn right behind her. He had replaced his hand on her arm again and the blood from her wound had seemed to stop flowing. The injury itself seemed to be shrinking, closing up. Like he was healing her. As soon as Krystin noticed his touch, she tore his arm from her grasp. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
“I can heal you,” Shawn protested. “Thanks to the prophecy. Let me.”
Krystin spun on him, her hand between them. “Back. The fuck. Off. You’re a liar and an Ember witch and I’m too pissed at you right now to give a damn about how you feel about that.” She turned to me, kneeling. “Ben, you’re bleeding.”
My head felt light, my vision spinning. “Yup. Think so.”
“Nate,” said Rachel, though from where, I wasn’t sure. “He’s still out cold.”
The sirens sounded louder now. Closer.
“You,” Krystin spat—at Shawn, I presumed. “Destroy the security tapes. Break down the office door if you have to. You have thirty seconds.” A pause. “Don’t give me that look. If you scared her off, you can break down a damn door.”
Cold fingers touched my face, sobering me some. Krystin’s eyes swam into view. “Stay with me, Ben. We just need to get you to Headquarters, where a healer can take a look at your arm. She must have nicked an artery or something. Hang in there.”
I swallowed hard, though my mouth felt like cotton. “Trying.”
Moments passed, long ones, where no one spoke or I couldn’t hear them. Unconsciousness swam around me like molasses and I—oh, god. No. No, no, no, no. Darkness closed in, the same darkness that’d once held me captive for three months in a coma.
“No!” I screamed as the dark waters flowed around me. I flailed, desperately trying to find something to hold on to. Anything that’d keep me above water. Safe.
But nothing came. Even Krystin’s touch on my face gave away, leaving me to fall like a feather through air, down into the very bottom of the abyss.
CHAPTER 14
KRYSTIN
Blood and sirens, that was all that registered as Rachel used teleportante to bring us all to Fire Circle Headquarters for what was the latest of too many times in the last few days. I held on to Ben’s arm the entire time, refusing to let pressure off of his wound despite my own head spinning with confusion and concussion.
Shawn had lied. Shawn had fucking lied. And Jaffrin might have, too.
That damn tattoo. I’d known something fishy had been going on there. I should have trusted my gut. But it was because of Shawn that we were still living. He’d scared Kinder off for some reason. Although that reason had become pretty clear once it was just us in the lobby of Headquarters, waiting for Jaffrin and some healers to arrive.
Shawn’s magikal aura shone bright like a supernova, waving in flames like a bonfire in the wind. An Ember witch aura, one of the strongest I’d ever seen. And definitely the most out of control.
He was staring at me now, waiting for me to say something. Too bad I had both too many things and nothing at all to say in response to that stare.
“What happened?” Jaffrin asked as he jogged down the hallway with two healers in tow.
“Kinder,” Rachel informed
him. “We were at a bowling alley—the staff are both dead. We barely got out alive. She stole use of Krystin’s and Nate’s powers, though I don’t think it’s permanent.”
“She would have known about the power of the Daughter of Alzan,” Shawn said. “And she backed off of me as soon as I told her I’m the Son.”
“No,” I snapped from the floor. “She backed off because you’re a fucking Ember witch.” A good witch, emissary of the Powers, but with tainted, demonic magik because one of his ancestors had the great idea of trying to take Aloysius down. Idiots, all of them.
Jaffrin’s eyes widened with shock, his mouth dropping open. “Excuse me?”
“Yes, I hid it,” Shawn said as he pointed to his shirt. “My parents tattooed a binding spell onto me when I was a kid. I haven’t known about the Ember magik for long and decided to keep the tattoo because I didn’t think I could control it.”
“You can’t.” If only he could see his aura right now. If only he could watch stars burn before him like I was being forced to witness. “Your power oozes from you like a waterfall. Untamed.” I had to look away, from his liar face and from his magik.
Jaffrin turned to his healers, shaking his head as though he couldn’t wrap his mind around what was happening. “Nate should be fine, according to what little we know about the Power. You too, Krystin.”
“It’s Ben,” Rachel said. “He’s bleeding out.”
The healers rushed to his side, pushing me away. I stared after them. That small strip of metal had punctured straight through his shoulder. Good thing he wasn’t after a football career anymore—I doubted he’d be throwing well after this. He’d be pissed when he realized that.
The healers went to work while the rest of us, minus Nate, who was still unconscious, waited with bated breath. Shawn and Jaffrin had some conversation I vaguely heard, but as I didn’t trust either of them right then, I ignored it and instead watched Ben be healed. Slowly, his shoulder wound closed up, the blood drying and dissolving away. But still he slept, eyes shut and unmoving.