Phoenix Freed

by Elise Faber

  The Master stopped in front them, and Alex shifted so that Dee was behind her.

  “Loyal too,” he said with a deliberate pause, gaze flicking to Daughtry and back. “Like a dog.”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “I won’t be provoked.”

  He chuckled. “You already were, my dear.”

  Before she could retort, a Dalshie crossed the room to whisper in the Master’s ear. He listened and gave a shrug.

  “The dark magic is more powerful than any type of the elemental bullshit the Rengalla use.” He pointed to the door and nodded. “They won’t get through until I’m ready for them. Now go and make sure the other room is prepared. Our guests were rude enough to arrive early.”

  Alex darted forward, knife raised.

  The black power hit her squarely in the torso. She flew backward and crashed to the ground.

  “Alex!” Dee cried.

  “I’m okay,” she groaned, sitting back up.

  “Restrain them,” he said and watched while the Dalshie, who had whispered in his ear, bound their hands.

  “Kinky, much?” Alex taunted.

  But the Master did nothing more than toss her a glare before sweeping toward the door. His gaze whipped to the side and he seemed to notice the pair of naked Dalshie frozen on the bed for the first time.

  “I didn’t tell you to stop,” he snapped.

  Instantly, the male Dalshie began moving and the female screaming. The Master departed without another backward glance.

  Fifty-Eight

  Daughtry rolled her eyes at the objects on the table. “Knives. So cliché,” she said with false lightness.

  Alex’s grin was just as fake. “You know those Dalshie, no creativity.”

  There was a table of them, of course, but they were too far away, for her to snag one as a possible weapon and with her magic rebounding all over the place, she couldn’t do much.

  It might seriously injure her or Alex.

  Plus, the bond was fuzzy. She could sense Cody, but not speak with him, and frantic was too calm of a word to describe how he was feeling. She did her best to send serene, safe vibes, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew their plan had gone to shit. The clink of her chain echoed through the room as she sidled nearer her sister. “I need to tell you something,” she murmured softly.

  “What?”

  Her sister’s voice was serious, more so than Alex had ever heard before. “I should have told you sooner, but I kept saying it wasn’t as important, and now I can’t shake the feeling that it is—”

  “What is?”

  “It’s in here.” Their hands were cuffed behind their backs, and Daughtry wriggled until the front pocket of her jeans was positioned next to Alex’s hands.

  “This is like some sort of kinky sister-on-sister porn,” Alex muttered, slipping her fingers into the tight denim.

  “What’s with you and kinky today?” Dee said.

  Alex squirmed closer. “Clearly you’ve corrupted my mind because I feel like I should be saying, ‘Is that a banana in your pocket?’ right now.” She huffed out a breath. “Okay, what exactly am I feeling for?” But just as she asked the question, her fingers brushed something.

  Or rather felt a piece of velvety material. With one quick tug, she pulled it out.

  “Here.” Daughtry grabbed it as Alex flipped over to look. The bag was small, barely the size of her palm, and black, with a slender gold drawstring.

  “So what is it?”

  Dee opened the bag, reached inside, and pulled out a small glass globe, holding it between two fingers. Not an easy thing with her hands tied behind her back. The sphere was slightly larger than a marble and crystal clear.

  “It’s the Orb,” her sister said.

  Alex gasped. “Our mother, the Master . . . they both had wanted it so badly”

  Daughtry studied her. “It didn’t have anything to do with you,” she said. “Only four of us knew. Cody, me, Dante, and Francis, who helped me locate it in the first place,” Dee said. “I’ve tried a hundred different things to get the Orb to do something, but nothing works. It just sits there, sometimes glowing but otherwise, no matter how much magic is thrown at it, the Orb is just a lump.” Dee sighed. “When you came along we knew you were so different from anything we’d ever seen, and I wanted to show it to you, but Dante forbade it. Then with the attack and the preparations, I ran out of time . . ”

  Alex didn’t say anything after Dee trailed off.

  ”If I’m being totally honest, a part of me didn’t want to share it. The Orb was my thing, and if I couldn’t make it work, I didn’t want anyone else to be able to either.”

  “I understand,” Alex said.

  “Well, I don’t,” Dee said, her tone exasperated, and she scooted up so that she was sitting. “You’re my sister, and I was happy to have found you again, to have the last part of my memories back. I don’t understand why I didn’t tell you, even though my foresight was pushing me to do so.”

  “But you brought the Orb along today,” Alex said, pushing herself into a seated position as well. “Plus, you told me now. Maybe your foresight knew it wasn’t critical to tell me until this moment.”

  They both looked at the table of weapons.

  “I hope you’re right,” Dee said. She ignored the blip of fear the sight of those shiny rows of blades invoked and focused.

  “Okay,” Alex said, opening her hand. “Lay that thing on me. Let’s figure out what it does.”

  Daughtry set it in her palm.

  For now, they had to survive.

  Fifty-Nine

  Daughtry deposited the small glass ball into Alex’s hand.

  Her sister’s reaction was instantaneous. She stiffened and gasped.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think—” Alex shook her head. “I think this thing wants my magic.”

  Dee bit her lip. “But is it bad?”

  “Only one way to tell,” Alex said and directed the narrowest, thinnest, silkiest thread Daughtry had ever seen into the Orb.

  The wall behind them exploded.

  Sheetrock disintegrated into powder and paper, wood into slivers. Even the bindings on her wrists disappeared. Daughtry mouth dropped open, and she couldn’t form words. The Orb certainly hadn’t reacted that way when she’d used it.

  Apparently, the Orb magnified Alex’s powers.

  Like a lot.

  “It didn’t do that with you?” Alex asked.

  Dee’s jaw closed with an audible click. “Yeah, no.”

  Shouts echoed down the hall, and she turned to shove the Orb at Dee. “They’re coming. Take it. It won’t be safe with me.”

  Daughtry shook her head, tried to force it back into Alex’s hands. “No. They’ll search me. You know they will.”

  “They—”

  Daughtry waved her off. She scrambled rather ungracefully to her feet, ran to the table, and snagged a roll of duct tape.

  “I have an idea.”

  She had barely finished with said idea when two Dalshie rushed through the door.

  “What the fuck did you do?” the shorter male snarled.

  Alex and Dee glanced at each other, their backs propped against one of the intact walls, and shrugged.

  “Well, the wall exploded,” Alex said.

  Daughtry stifled a chuckle. Now was certainly not the time for laughter, but the droll way Alex said that, as if walls blowing to smithereens happened rather frequently around them was amusing.

  Crimson eyes nearly bugged out of the Dalshie’s head. “The wall exploded? Really?” He shot a bolt of black magic at them.

  Daughtry gasped and ducked, but it wasn’t aimed at her. Alex held perfectly still, not reacting out when it sliced across her cheek. Blood gushed down her face, but still Alex didn’t move.

  “Are you okay?”

  Alex nodded, teeth gritted, forehead dripping with sweat. She nodded, eyes darting around the room, as though considering and dismissing a hundred different plans.

&nb
sp; “It’s okay,” Daughtry told her. “Trust yourself.”

  Shock on her sister’s face. Then resolution.

  “Fuck it all,” Alex murmured. “Here goes.”

  Every inch of Daughtry’s skin prickled as Alex let her power flow. It shot out of her hands, spread up her arms, bathing Alex in pale blue and black. One of the Dalshie stepped forward, as though to stop her, and Alex barely moved. Just the slightest shift and her magic hit him squarely in the chest.

  He disintegrated into ash.

  She glared at the other Dalshie, the short one with the Napoleon complex. “Get your Master. Now.”

  He scampered from the room as Daughtry grabbed up some knives and handed one to Alex. Alex took it woodenly, but Dee didn’t think she’d need it, not with her magic, not with the Orb pressed against her skin.

  “Is it secure?” Dee whispered.

  In true Die Hard, John McClane fashion, Daughtry had taped the Orb to Alex’s back. Alex’s sports bra was so tight that it was probably fine, even without the duct tape, but Daughtry hadn’t exactly wanted to risk it falling out and landing at the Master’s feet.

  Duct tape had to be the world’s best invention.

  “Okay,” Alex said and straightened her shoulders. “So we’re blasting our way out of here?”

  Dee smiled. “About time we girls get to save the day, am I right?”

  This wasn’t anything like they planned, but then again, the plan had gone to hell. There would be no luring the Master away from the compound, no surrounding and distracting him so that Daughtry could unleash her magic and alter his death for a quick end. And, truthfully, blowing shit up wasn’t any more unsafe than trying to corner an enemy as dangerous as the Master.

  Alex flashed her a grin. “Yippee-kay-yay—”

  The Master walked into the room.

  He took one look at the hole in the wall and tsked. “Girls, you’ve been keeping secrets.” Another step and he’d cleared the doorway, more Dalshie trailing him, fanning out to fill the space opposite them.

  “Fuck,” Alex muttered.

  “What is it?” Dee whispered.

  “The Dalshie we took out were drones.” The slightest incline of her head. “The soldiers . . . they’re all are here.”

  Daughtry’s heart sank. They’d picked those targets to go after the warriors, so their odds would be better now, in this moment. But if they were here, all of them—

  Well—Dee gripped her knife forcefully—she’d faced long odds before.

  “Give it to me,” the Master ordered.

  “Give what?” Dee countered.

  He released his magic, black flames flying straight toward her.

  But Alex had the Orb. Daughtry could feel it magnifying her sister’s power, could feel that magic roiling under the surface. And in the blink of an eyes, before the black magic even came close to making contact with her, blue flames popped up in front of her.

  The darkness collided with it and disappeared.

  In a heartbeat, it simply ceased to exist.

  Not deflected, not blocked.

  It was then that she finally understood.

  The Orb could be the ultimate weapon against the Dalshie. The person wielding it could eliminate every last bit of black magic, and since the Dalshie were darkness personified—

  She glanced over at Alex, saw her sister was smiling. She nodded at Dee then turned and surveyed the Dalshie. It had taken mere milliseconds for her to eliminate the magical threat, but a lifetime might as well have passed. Daughtry followed her gaze, saw that the Dalshie were shifting uncomfortably on their feet. Even the Master look scared, fear in his red eyes.

  “It’s not supposed to be like this . . .” He took a step back. “You’re nothing, hardly better than the dirt on my shoes. The Orb is only supposed to work for me.”

  Dee stepped close to Alex. “She’s everything you’re not.”

  “Elisabeth said—”

  Alex snorted. “You’re an idiot. Of all the times to believe our mother.” She shook her head. “Don’t you get it? Don’t any of you get it?” Her magic shot forward, curled over her fingertips. “We won’t let the darkness win.”

  “Exactly,” Dee murmured, but Alex’s attention was on the Master.

  He was visibly shaking. “No. This isn’t right. She”—he pointed at Daughtry—“she’s the one I need. You’re worthless.”

  “She’s not—” Daughtry began because she wasn’t going to let anyone disparage Alex. One corner of her sister’s mouth turned up and she bumped Dee’s shoulder with her own.

  “Shh,” she whispered, and Dee stopped the flow of words. “It’s okay.”

  It wasn’t okay, but she understood this wasn’t the time, and so she nodded, returned her attention to the Dalshie.

  Alex lifted her knife. “Unfortunately for you I’m not worthless.”

  The Master screamed as black magic gathered around his fists. “Kill them both!”

  Daughtry called on her magic. Or tried to, anyway. But it was out of reach, something blocking it as effectively as a steel wall. With one hand, Alex threw up a wall of blue magic, a shield to protect luckily from the volley of blackness flying at them.

  Daughtry strained, trying to reach her powers. “My magic,” she said, after a few more seconds. “I just can’t grab on to it.”

  “I know. I can feel what’s blocking it,” Alex said, teeth gritted as more Dalshie began to fire. The soldiers were moving, encircling them. “Hang on.”

  Daughtry waited.

  If the Dalshie managed to surround them, it wouldn’t matter how much the Orb magnified Alex’s magic. Eventually, her sister would run out of juice.

  “Which way to outside?” Alex asked.

  Daughtry was taken off guard by the question and she scrambled for a moment, before flicking her gaze around the room, orienting herself, and then pointed to the wall diagonal from them. “There. That’s the closest to the outside. But we’re almost in the middle of the basement, Alex—”

  “We need to move,” she murmured. “I can’t hold this forever.” She took a deep breath and said, “Hit the deck in three. Two. One.”

  Dee dropped to the floor.

  Alex grunted.

  She watched in amazement as Alex’s shield flew backward into the first row of Dalshie, knocking them to the ground. At the same time, she shot a concentrated burst of magic in the direction that Daughtry had indicated.

  It exploded through the basement, a canon’s shot to the outside world.

  “Tell the boys,” she said, words slow, as though it was a fight to just get out. “To be careful.”

  Daughtry grabbed her sister’s arm when she wavered, tried to slow her fall when Alex’s knees collided with the concrete of the basement floor.

  Sixty

  Daughtry’s magic surged to life just as Alex collapsed on the ground.

  Her sister didn’t pass out, she was too strong for that, but by the time she’d made it back to her feet, she was wavering.

  At that point, Dee didn’t think, just reacted.

  She jumped in front of Alex and let her magic fly. Her shots weren’t the most accurate, but she made up for it by releasing a shit ton of them.

  Because she didn’t need to hold out for long.

  They weren’t alone. The rest of the LexTals were coming.

  “Cody!” she shouted when she felt his mind come into sharp focus. “Could use a little help here.”

  “So demanding,” he thought, but it was barely a joke. He and the others were shoving their way through the debris as quickly as possible.

  “Down!” Alex shoved her out of the way as a bolt of black magic somehow made its way through the gauntlet of violet and emerald strands in front of them. “Behind—” Her sister grunted in pain as Daughtry scrambled up to her feet, a scorched hole in the concrete where she’d been standing just a second before. “They’re behind us, too.”

  “Got it.” She threw up a wall of magic like she’d seen A
lex do, shocked at how much concentration it took to keep it in place. It was nothing like the easy trickle of magic it took to sustain the Colony’s shield. “Will that hold?”

  “Good enough,” Alex said. “Give me your knives.”

  Dee all but tossed them over.

  “Cover me.”

  “Cover?” But her sister was gone, disappearing from the naked eye and reappearing in front of a group of Dalshie.

  Dee dropped part of the shield she’d erected and hurled magic as quickly as she could, trying to distract the other Dalshie.

  It must have been enough because soon there was only ash, and Alex was back, sweating and gray-faced.

  “Only got five.”

  “Stay here,” Dee ordered, snapping the shield surrounding them closed again. Her eyes flashed over at her sister then back forward when the Master let loose a particularly hard shot. “Don’t be a hero. Help is coming.”

  “I have to fight.”

  “Then be smart. Wait for your magic to regenerate and use the fucking weapon taped to your back.”

  Alex’s jaw dropped open, and she snapped it shut. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Shush. I feel—” Dee strained her mental ears. “Cody?”

  “Coming in hot. You and Alex need to be on the ground, bodies shielded in ten seconds.”

  Dee glanced down, saw that her sister had gotten the same memo from John.

  “Now!” Cody yelled.

  Unthinking, she dropped, gathering the shield around her and Alex.

  There was a hail of gunfire and colored magic before she felt Cody’s hands on her shoulder. “Drop the magic, cowgirl. John’s frantic to get through.”