Rescind

by Shawn Knightley

  ‘Not today.’

  I let my magic rip through the metal blade in my hands, weaving it about the tip and ready to slash down at whatever these damn creatures were the second they attacked. Then I raised my right hand and forced my magic out of my palm so fast that the skin spliced open. I struggled not to grunt or give Margaux the satisfaction of seeing pain cross my face. It spun around my hand until I extended it outward, creating a spherical shield around the four of us.

  ‘Lothar better have a few ideas up his sleeve because I can’t hold this for very long.’

  I used up most of the vixra blood inside me to get us through the vixra tunnel and bust open the shield surrounding the house.

  Margaux thrust her wand forward and evaporated the shield I created around us in a matter of seconds, forcing it to spin at an impossible speed until it shattered, and sending shards of red glass in every direction.

  I managed to get down to the floor in time to dodge the larger shards but not fast enough to stop a smaller piece from lodging deep into my shoulder.

  I roared in pain as heat spread across my skin and into my flesh, setting my insides on fire. I knew the others couldn’t have gotten away from it either. Were they badly hurt?

  I took the long shard of red glass sticking inside my shoulder and yanked it out with a loud grunt. I healed quickly but that didn’t make me any less infuriated.

  The demonic lycan spirits circled us like vultures, waiting for orders and ready to devour us the second Margaux permitted them. She was waiting. She enjoyed seeing us writhe around in pain, ripping glass from our limbs and struggling to get back up to our feet.

  I had one more trick up my sleeve. One I didn’t want to reveal too soon but I couldn’t think of anything else.

  I brought my hand out in front of me and unshifted the silver engraved box in my palm.

  Margaux’s eyes widened at the sight of it. “I do believe that’s mine,” she said, taking a few more steps down the stairs and pointing the svethulka right at my chest. “I’ll be taking it back now.”

  ‘Yours? Finders keepers. I kinda like it.’

  Margaux drew in a deep breath. I knew she was about to give the order to attack. Before I could open the lid to the box I heard the sound of cracking behind me. Lothar leaped through the air high over my head. Only he wasn’t in his human form any longer. He was a glorious lycan.

  A black powder flew the air with a flick of his wrist, sending what looked like gunpowder down to Margaux’s face. Margaux reached for her eyes and ducked away as Lothar’s paw came down to swipe at her face, narrowly missing her and landing just behind her on the steps.

  ‘Telmir! He’s blinded her!’

  If Lothar shifted already, that was as good of a sign as any that now was a good time.

  The others must have thought the same because Alina and Jake shifted behind me.

  I forced the silver box back inside my body and sheathed the sword on my belt. Then I commanded my center to transform. My bones remolded into my lycan form. There was little to no pain and I could do it within seconds. I might have been a novice but I was getting better at this each and every time.

  When I looked back to see Lothar, Margaux was down on her hands and knees, blinded by the telmir and distracted. All sense of fighting honorably evaporated the second I saw Lothar kick Margaux with the strength of his lycan leg, sending her down the enormous staircase and rolling right toward us. The svethulka went flying across the grand hall.

  The last thing I saw before chaos ensued was Margaux crawling up to her knees with balls of blue light radiating from her palms. The svethulka returned to her hand in a flash. She pointed it directly at me. Being blinded by telmir wasn’t going to stop whatever wretched spirit resided in her mind.

  I crunched over, feeling my ribs twist without my permission. Her magic funneled from the wand and struck me right in the chest, forcing me back into my human form. My bones vibrated inside my skin, completely unprepared for what she was doing.

  Lothar roared from the top of the stairs and readied himself to launch into the air once more.

  He never got the chance.

  The lycan spirits were done messing around. One soared through the air and tackled him on the stairs, making them creak from the impact.

  Then all hell broke loose. The spirits began attacking.

  Margaux lifted her wand into the air and me with it, raising my body up several yards with my legs dangling below me and my arms outstretched. She whipped my body around and forced my head down.

  “Regardais,” she said to me. “Watch as your friends die a death worthy of your kind.”

  “Why is Dirk having you do his dirty work for him?” I yelled down at her. “Why didn’t he want the honor?”

  “I didn’t come here for them. I came for you. He knew you would come.”

  My limbs tightened as her magic wrapped around my arms and legs, holding me right where she wanted me and making sure I couldn’t look away.

  ‘She didn’t come to Derbyshire for my father or Alexei. She only wanted me to think so.’

  This was Dirk’s way of getting to me once more. He knew I saw what he did to Margaux. And maybe he even knew the Vontex would come for her. He still wanted me to join his ranks. To possess my mind with the grandmaster’s twin so they could finish their work together and destroy the lycan forever. With everything I knew about Rodrick and the academy, Dirk would have the perfect spy to do his bidding. And there was nothing I could do to stop it once he performed the ritual and took control of my mind.

  I watched in horror as her magic wrapped around Lothar’s hind leg like a lasso and crawled up his body like a serpent, forcing him back into his human form then slamming him into the wall high above us. He smashed into a painting and nearly caused the wall to crumble beneath his weight. The others soon followed. The lycan spirits forced them back into their human forms and lifted them into the air, crushing them into the paintings lining the lavish grand hall, and mauling them as though they were feasting on their naked flesh. Only they weren’t consuming them.

  Alina was the first to scream. The lycan spirit was doing something to her. Something I couldn’t quite make out until it reared its head and drove its sharp teeth into Alina’s chest right over her beating heart. It was eroding on her soul. Ripping it from her body and feasting on it as though it had been served the first meal it had seen in centuries.

  Before long Jake and Lothar were screaming with her.

  I could hear Margaux’s wicked high pitched laugh echo behind me.

  My worst fear was being realized. I might live through the night but the Northern Vontex wouldn’t.

  15

  Margaux’s magic swirled about my arms and legs in circles of bright light, spinning all around me and forcing me to stay in place and watch as the lycan spirits did her bidding.

  ‘Now I know why Dirk chose you. You really are the most powerful luxra witchling in all of France.’

  There was one thing that she couldn’t control. My magic when it was still inside me. Well, at least as far as I knew. I hadn’t tested the theory just yet.

  I let my magic build up underneath my skin, rubbing just at the edge and tickling my senses. All the while keeping it invisible from view just like Rodrick taught me. Then I let the silver engraved box disguised within my body out.

  ‘This is gonna hurt.’

  I braced myself as best I could and blew the lid off the box with the magic stirring inside my skin, pushing it out to the lid and releasing the electrical silver bolts in a whirlwind of chaos.

  They showed little mercy. Several struck out every second, displaying little care for any direct target. When Devon used it he made sure the bolts hit those of us in Lothar’s bedchamber.

  ‘There has to be a way to guide it like I did with the shield.’

  Jake let out a roar from the back of the grand hall. A lycan spirit was digging deeper into his gut. A little ripped open from his side as if the spirit was drainin
g every ounce of life force he had. He was going limp. I knew there wasn’t much time left.

  I pushed my eyes shut and focused on my magic, forcing it to combat Margaux’s as it spun over my body, and aiming the silver lightning bolts right where I wanted them. The more I tried to push them, the more my muscles tensed. The electrical shocks were running through my spine, making my limbs tremble.

  To my shock, it didn’t paralyze me as it did before.

  ‘The liquid silver Rodrick gave me! It must be working!’

  I let my magic rip out of my body, not caring about the consequences or if it tore my skin to shreds. It attacked Margaux’s magic and held me up in the air right where she left me. Only this time, I could move my arms and legs.

  I shot my arms forward with the silver box hovering over my palms. My body was consumed with the electrical bolts. Only they were funneling through my arms. I pointed my them right at the lycan spirits, hoping my aim was true. Electrical bolts struck the paintings on the walls, burning them with every zap of their long strikes. The gold railing fell down to the marble checkered flooring below. They cracked wide open as if an earthquake had shaken the large house in two, sending splinters all over the floor of the grand hall.

  The bolts finally began to find the targets I desired, striking at the lycan spirits and ripping them away from Jake. Then Alina. And finally Lothar. The spirits roared into the air, screeching as if they had been set on fire. They fell to the ground, shaking and writhing from the sea of bright flames erupting all over their bodies from the force of the silver lightning.

  My body didn’t feel much better than theirs. I might have been taking a liquid silver to help my immunity but taking control of the bolts was weakening me.

  Margaux cursed down below me, pointing the svethulka at my body and trying to regain control over my limbs.

  My magic was still propping me up in the air as I directed the lightning bolts, striking again and again at the lycan spirits until they stopped moving and evaporated into nothing. The black and white marble flooring below me seemed to glaze over with the blue light they once held. It dissipated as their light turned into a thick vaporous cloud, disappearing right before my eyes.

  I heard Lothar, Alina, and Jake fall down to the ground. I never got a chance to see if they were moving. Or worse, if they were still alive.

  Margaux must have found some way to get control back because she ripped the box out of my magic weaving over my palms and turned my body around in mid-air, forcing me to face her. She was still blind. That much I could tell as she stood up and backed away from me, trying to regain some composure and pretending as though she still had control. We both knew she didn’t. The only problem was she knew mine was waning. I couldn’t hold myself up forever. The silver from the bolts weakened me. I let so much out without any regard to how it would hurt me.

  My magic finally gave out. I was completely spent. I fell down to the ground beneath me, feeling something crack as I crash-landed. My left leg erupted in a shooting pain that bolted all the way up to my hip. I reared my head up at her. She heard where I landed on the floor. Her wand pointed directly at me.

  A wave of blue light pierced through her wand and struck right in my middle. I screamed bloody murder. I knew now what McKenzie experienced as my crowning magic burned her. My gut boiled like she was cooking away my insides. I grit my teeth, trying with everything I could to fight back tears from pouring uncontrollably out of my eyes as the scorching heat burned away my gut.

  A blinding green light exploded from my wrist.

  The bracelet!

  The spell Adeline cast on it was activating. And with it, I had the little magic I needed.

  Before Margaux could see what was happening I thrust my arm forward and let the vixra magic weave through the air, snatching the svethulka from her hand and bringing it right into mine.

  I didn’t know how to use a wand other than the time I pointed one at Dirk with my magic. But I did know that coming this close and not getting Margaux would be a disaster.

  Red light engulfed my vision, saturating everything in a dizzying hue of scarlet red. Then in a flash, it was gone.

  ‘Dirk?’

  Margaux tortured me. I didn’t know if she had expressed permission from Dirk to hurt me if it meant getting me away from the Vontex and killing them, just as long as she didn’t kill me. But when she did, she activated the link between Dirk and me. He was seeing through my eyes, just like I did through his when he tortured her.

  Green light spun around my body, whirling in a sea of waves. My hair flew back behind my head. My trench coat flared at my knees. Margaux fell back down onto the staircase, desperately trying to release her magic and get the svethulka back into her hands.

  Her magic met mine seeping through my bracelet. When it collided, the walls around us shook from its power. Pieces of the gigantic painting above us cracked and fell down to the floor. I would tear down the entire grand hall if it meant making sure this night wasn’t a failure.

  “I’m not your meek little sister anymore, Dirk,” I said to him, knowing he could hear me even though he was deaf. Whatever magic he had now would make sure he knew everything that was happening. “I won’t fall prey to the Dolch Erbe like you did. I’m going to fight you. And I’m going to take Margaux. Next time, don’t send your minions out to do your dirty work for you!”

  Margaux’s magic pushed against mine, sending wild blue and green sparks everywhere throughout the hall. I took one solid step forward at a time as she rushed back on the stairs, crawling on her hands and knees. If it hadn’t been for the magic in the bracelet, Margaux would have easily overpowered me. Now with my crowning magic returning to me and the help of Adeline’s vixra magic in my bracelet, I stood a fighting chance.

  I raised the svethulka in the air pushing her magic away, taking control and slamming it into the staircase behind her until it was nothing but dust evaporating into nothing.

  Margaux stood up on the steps, prepared to launch herself at me in one final attempt to overpower my magic. I wasn’t about to leave anything to chance.

  Balls of radiant blue light illuminated in her right palm, spinning about in a circle and curling over her fingers. She threw her arms behind her head, ready to destroy the entire hall if it meant getting the svethulka back.

  I reached for the sword tied to my waist belt and held it tight in my hand. Then I shifted so fast that I heard my bones break and re-align in one single motion as I leaped through the air and landed before her with the sword held up in one paw with my claws gripping the handle and the svethulka in the other. I thrust my magic down toward her through the sword, firing its force through the wand and obliterating her magic right out of her. Then I threw the blade down as hard as I could. It sliced away her right arm at the shoulder. Her flesh tumbled down the stairs with the last shred of her magic in her palm sparking at her fingertips until it disappeared entirely.

  Margaux howled below me. Her mouth flew open as the agony tore through her body and forced her to yield.

  Electricity fired in a jagged line from behind me, shooting rays of light that wrapped around Margaux’s arms then swooped down to tie up her legs.

  Lothar was standing behind me at the bottom of the stairs with his gun in hand. He shot the locksin from the gun repeatedly until the sound echoed throughout the hall so many times that I didn’t know when he had run out of bullets. By the time he was done, Margaux was restrained from her neck to her toes.

  Whatever those demonic lycan spirits did to Lothar, Alina, and Jake must have worn off. Or their lycan healing abilities took hold.

  Alina ran up the stairs and grabbed Margaux by the head. She rose it up to her knees and smashed it into the carpeting of the stairs so hard that I thought her skull might crack. It was just enough to knock her completely unconscious.

  “How long will that last?” Jake asked.

  “Before she bleeds out or before she’s conscious again to feel it?” Lothar responded.
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br />   I let the vixra magic still spinning about my wrist flow down to Margaux’s shoulder where I sliced clean through the bone, making sure the skin healed over enough so she wouldn’t bleed to death. Or at least before the luxra magic inside her managed to help her recover. I unshifted with the sword in one hand and the svethulka still in the other. The box disappeared into my body once more. My hidden treasure of a weapon that I once despised had become my new favorite. Especially now that I knew I could manipulate the lightning bolts and withstand most of the silver infused inside.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in deep, knowing that Dirk was still watching and listening.

  I opened them just as Jake took Margaux by her torso and threw her over his shoulder the same way he did to me the night we met. Only he made sure none of the locksin touched his skin as it continued to zap and twist around her body like an array of electrical shocks.

  I climbed to the top of the stairs and looked down over the grand hall. Or at least it used to be. The paintings were burned away in dozens of spots from the electricity in the silver engraved box. The sparks from Margaux’s magic and mine doing battle scorched the carpeting on the stairs. The marble flooring looked as if the entire hall had been forcibly split in two. Sculptures lay on the floor, shattered into thousands of pieces. The windows exploded into sharp shards scattered everywhere. And the gold lining the rails melted down to the floor below.

  We wrecked the place all in pursuit of getting Margaux.

  I held the svethulka in my hand, examining the intricate detail carved into its ivory base. I could feel the power it held inside. The ancient material pulsated with magic inside its core. I instinctively knew right away what it had done and who it had killed. The lycan spirits Margaux controlled were murdered with the wand in my hand. They suffered by the magic it wielded over their weakened bodies until they begged for death by the hands of their darkest enemy.

  Part of me was tempted to break it in half. To end the long line of wreckage it had caused. I stopped myself. If a wand such as this could be used for great evil, I was going to make sure it did a little good before I destroyed it. It already helped me defeat Margaux. I would make sure it did more long before I watched it burn in the raging embers of my magical fire.