14
Adeline stood at the center of the large room and slashed her hand down to open up a vixra tunnel. The magic at her fingertip sparked the air in a flash of green light then sputtered into nothing.
She tried again and got the same result.
“Qu'est-il arrivé?” Margaux asked. “Is something wrong with your magic?”
“I don’t think so,” Adeline looked about in confusion and tried again. The tunnel wouldn’t open.
“No!” she muttered, dread dripping through her soft voice. “The vixra council cut Margaux and me off.”
“Why?” My father seethed.
She shook her head, trying to think of what might have happened. “They must have seen Margaux go through and got nervous. My gran bought us time by not telling the vixra council what was going on. They don’t know she’s been freed from possession.”
Margaux swept her arm over the candles and scattered them all over the room. The candles smacked into the wood floor and broke apart.
‘Please don’t toss the table around too.’
Adeline ignored Margaux’s temper and turned to me. “There has to be another way.”
There wasn’t much magic in my system. My body was drained. I was weak. Any vixra blood left in my system was long gone.
None of it mattered. I had to try. I didn’t come so close and go through Margaux torturing me just to get stopped yet again.
I tried to force my magic through my right hand. Sputters of red light illuminated at my fingertips.
My father’s large cold hand covered mine, concealing what I was doing and hiding my magic from view. I peered up at him, wondering what could compel him to take my hand into his. He wasn’t the type to soothe me with fatherly affection. He shook his head, telling me no with his eyes. At first, I thought he didn’t want me to even try. It wasn’t until he slashed his hand downward at an angle that I realized he was ready to spare me the effort and open a tunnel by himself. He didn’t want me wasting what was left of my magic.
‘How does he even know what the catacombs look like to get us there?’
I nearly rolled my eyes when I realized the reason. Daniella undoubtedly showed them off when they were together.
Rodrick nudged me in the shoulder, urging me forward.
I locked eyes with him. For the first time, we were on the same page at the exact same time. Rodrick was telling me to go with my father. To make a run for it and try getting my brother back.
Adeline’s eyes widened at the sight of my father ripping open a tunnel with his scarlet red magic piercing through his fingertips. “Kenneth, don’t you dare go in there alone!” She hollered at him. “You can’t handle the two of them by yourself.”
My father met Rodrick’s eyes with a viciousness I had only seen him use a few times. Once when Dirk tried challenging him in an argument and another when I went creeping into the family tomb after surviving the trials.
I drew closer to Adeline with the vixra tunnel blowing my hair back. “Adeline, how long will it take to get approval from the vixra council for us all to go?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll have to send word to my grandmother and she’ll have to explain to the counci-”
I never let her finish her sentence. I reached into her trousers and pulled out the svethulka. By the time I turned around and made a run for it, Rodrick was already between the two of us. He shifted both his hands into lycan claws and shoved Adeline directly into the wall, pinning her in place so she couldn’t stop me. Margaux threw the table right at him and only managed to knock them both over before Adeline’s magic could throw Rodrick aside.
“Like you said,” my father snarled at her. “It’s a family matter.” He went running into the tunnel, making sure I was close behind before he took off. The last thing I saw was Margaux’s cobalt blue magic light up the room to stop him before I ran into the tunnel without looking back and the svethulka held tight in my hand.
‘If you’re allowed to change the plan without telling me, Adeline, so am I!’
The wind smacked at my face as my feet slapped against the pathway through the bright tunnel. I kept my eyes locked on my father’s backside. He cleared the way, making sure the opposite end was wide open for us before I got too close. When he made it to the other side he stopped dead in his tracks before he was out. In what was probably the most remarkable gesture my father had ever done, he extended his arm forth and took my hand in his, bringing me along with him to save my brother and trusting I was up to the task.
Even as he did, my thoughts shot to Rodrick and what he was probably going through. Adeline more than likely gave him a beat down with her magic. Maybe Margaux shoved whatever was left of the wood table at him. None of it mattered. Rodrick made a sacrifice for me in my moment of need that no one else had ever done. He let me choose my brother, he made sure I could get away to save him, and he did so knowing that there would be a punishment for letting me getaway.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind any longer that the curse was a mere technicality. Rodrick Blackbane was a man like no other. He wanted to protect me from harm but he was willing to let me go even if it meant losing me. All so I could save my brother. If I survive to the end of the night, I would make sure he knew that if he wanted my whole heart, I would give it willingly. And it wasn’t because of some stupid curse. It was because he was the best man I knew.
I stepped out of the tunnel into complete darkness of the Parisian catacombs. My father leaped out close behind me, letting go of my hand only after he was sure that I was steady when I exited.
I couldn’t tell what was pushing me forward. Adrenaline, excitement, or even blind rage for those that sought to harm my family. It didn’t matter. I had to keep going.
“You’re more foolhardy than I give you credit for,” my father whispered to me. “I didn’t think you had it in you to defy Adeline.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I whispered back. “Things have changed. I’ve changed.”
“I see that. You’re more like your mother.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment. My father always referred to my mother as rash after she died. But then again, he did terrify her by shifting right before her eyes. If I were a human again and knew nothing of this world I would have run away too.
“Stay close,” he said.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness with my lycan sight, illuminating everything I needed to see as if I were wearing night-vision goggles. There was a long hall lined with skulls over the walls. They were stacked at least a yard deep. That was when I realized they weren’t walls. They were shelves.
The catacombs held thousands, if not millions of bodies. My mum was always adamant that I never visit them. Now I understood why. I could sense death all around me even without the human remains lining in the dusty ruins beneath the city.
A light laugh echoed through the halls, taunting us from a distance.
My father muttered a curse under his breath.
“Is it her?” I asked.
He didn’t reply. He walked onward, making sure his step was as light as he could possibly make it. “Do you know how to use that thing?” he asked, glancing over at the svethulka in my right hand.
“A little.”
He shook his head. “Best make the most of it. We’ll need it.”
I held the wand upward, trying my best to feel out whatever magic was left inside me. Whatever was driving me onward must have reinvigorated more than just my willpower. There was magic stirring in my veins. Only a little but it was there, ready to fight for me.
The laughing continued. A spark of metallic silvery light flickered in the distance.
My father pushed me to the side, making sure we weren’t too close to the edge when we finally got a peek around the dark corner. He wanted to see it before I did. I stayed a few paces behind him but I was ready with the svethulka if I needed it. I focused all the remaining magic I had just inside the folds of my palm. I
only prayed that my aim was true if Daniella appeared out of nowhere.
My heart was beating so hard that my eardrums were beginning to hurt from the pressure of my pulse. I knew if the grandmaster was close, he would definitely hear it.
We rounded the corner and stopped dead in our tracks. The grandmaster was there right before us. Only he wasn’t standing there victoriously or ready to shoot his magic right at us for discovering him. He still had the locksin wrapped around both his wrists and ankles. And he was chained to the wall with nothing but skulls of long dead lycan surrounding him, scaling the wall from floor to ceiling of the catacombs. He appeared completely unconscious.
‘Did Daniella do this to him?’
I held the svethulka up in my arm at ready as I inched closer. His head reared up, his eyes opened, and his face mirrored a man who wasn’t my brother. The grandmaster looked back at me with more hatred in his eyes than I knew a single person could have for another being. Only when he roared in fury and tried breaking free of his enchanted shackles, his foot touched something that shocked him. A circular whirl of sapphire blue light illuminated around him like a protective globe of energy. There was a magical barrier keeping him confined. The cries echoed back to him in a warped sound that sent a string of icy pricks down my back.
My father stopped just short of being able to reach out and touch him. Something shifted in the air. And it wasn’t just the tension from my nerves being a fiery inferno searing inside my gut. My father was stunned. He came all this way to get his son back. When he was within reach, he didn’t see Dirk looking back at him. It was the face of a man who wanted nothing more than to reach out and take his life the first second he could. If there was a look that could kill people on sight, the grandmaster had perfected it.
“Stay here,” my father ordered me. “I’ll go find Daniella.”
“I don’t think I can open a tunnel on my own,” I said. “I’m strong enough.”
“Just keep him under control until I get back. And try breaking down that barrier.”
He took off in the darkness. I watched until he was out of sight, hoping he knew what he was doing. Not to mention I wasn’t sure I knew what I was doing. I only managed to break the magical barrier around Margaux inside the Prescott manor dungeon because I brought the entire thing down by ripping it through a vixra tunnel.
‘Now is not the time to back down.’
I took a deep breath and raised the svethulka before taking a few generous steps back.
The grandmaster tried hollering something at me. Probably a threat of some kind. I couldn’t hear him through the magical barrier. Nor did I care what he had to say.
I shut my eyes and focused on the remaining magic inside my body. Only I didn’t push it through the svethulka right away. I tightened my hand into a fist and yanked both my arms back, activating the vixra magic inside my bracelets. I might have been weak but the vixra magic in the bracelets was alive and well.
The grandmaster saw the emerald green light braiding between my arms and moving steadily through the svethulka, ready to fire off when I willed it to.
It didn’t matter how much he tried to hide, I could see apprehension buried in his eyes. A place where he tried his hardest to only show the world the coldest part of him. A part I got well-acquainted with when he slashed his long claws down my face. The fear gripping him wasn’t just fear for himself. He saw the possibility of revitalizing his sister slowly dissipating.
His fear told me all I needed to know. The vixra magic and the svethulka were enough to overpower him if I used them right.
The red of my magic braided through the emerald green light, creating a brilliant glow right before it shot right into the magical blue barrier. It fought me. Electricity shot through my body and made my limbs vibrate. The muscles inside my legs tensed, threatening to bring my whole body down if I lost the will to keep going.
I saw what Margaux could do with the wand. She drained others of their magic. So that was what I had to do. I had to drain the barrier of its magic.
I pictured the blue light being absorbed into the svethulka. It pushed and pulled back and forth, trying to pull away from the wand as it slowly absorbed its strength. The barrier shattered. The force of it giving way was enough to bring me down to my knees. It swirled before me like a tornado, whipping my hair in front of my eyes and blinding me.
I didn’t relent. I kept the svethulka up in my hands and pointed directly at Dirk until the tornado of light seeped into the wand and evaporated as though it never existed. Which would have been a good thing if the grandmaster’s locksin hadn’t broken free from the wall. I inadvertently sucked away the locksin’s magic that was keeping him shackled. I fought the urge to fall over in a heap of exhaustion from using so much magic as he stood up from where he was and towered over me. He let my brother’s Blackatter magic spin over his fingers and form balls of bright light. He wasn’t above harming me to get what he wanted. He could fix the wounds later.
The magic inside the svethulka pulsated like a beating heart in my hands. The magic force from the barrier was still stored up inside it, ready for me to use it any way I pleased.
I didn’t hold back. I let every single shred of magic I could handle fire off through the svethulka. The remaining magic bundled up inside from the barrier locked away within the wand shot right at Dirk and sent him flying into the wall of lycan skull bones. His arms and legs extended out like he was being nailed to the wall. He let out a roar that made my already suffering eardrums rattle.
The sapphire blue radiated sparks everywhere, hitting the stone ground and spreading so much smoke that I could barely breathe.
Without warning the magic inside the svethulka dwindled into nothing. There wasn’t anything left for it to fire off and nothing more inside my body to use against the grandmaster. His body fell to the ground and didn’t move.
‘Please don’t let him be dead!’
The very thought rolling through my mind made me wince. I wanted the grandmaster dead. Just not along with my brother’s body.
I wobbled my way to my feet and edged closer to him. He lay motionless on the cold dirt-ridden stones.
The dampness of the catacombs with the smoke from the fiery magic slowly drifted away.
I gazed down at the grandmaster with the svethulka still pointed at his chest. I could hear his heart beating. That was a good sign. But he was so still that anyone who couldn’t pick up on that like my lycan senses allowed wouldn’t know it. He was barely breathing. Not even a finger twitched. I managed to completely paralyze him with the magic inside the barrier.
I stared down at the svethulka, admiring its power. It’s strength. The sheer force it contained by stripping others of their magic only to store it away inside to be used against them. It was by far the most lethal weapon I had ever held. More so than the daggers at my side, the guns Lothar permitted me to borrow, or the sword I held when murdering a lycan on the streets of London.
“A thing of beauty, is it not?” An angelic voice said from down the hall where I saw my father walk away.
I raised the svethulka as fast as I could, staring down Daniella with more might than I knew I possessed.
She lit up the catacombs with a fiery ball of blue light inside her wand. I didn’t need Adeline’s spell to look like a train wreck anymore. I was one. The ground felt like quicksand, the walls were wobbly, and I could swear that Daniella had cloned herself because I could see two of her edging closer as the seconds passed by.
I was fading. Only she had no idea what state I was in. Or so I hoped. I couldn’t hide it much longer.
“Don’t make me give you another scar to match the one you already have,” I warned her. My arm was a limp noodle but I forced it up anyway. Daniella didn’t seem the least bit worried as I aimed the svethulka right at her face. Or one of them. I couldn’t tell anymore. I was seeing everything in double.
‘The bracelets. I have to rely on the bracelets.’
Daniella lo
oked down at the grandmaster frozen on the ground. “He thought he could betray me,” she said. “That I would just hand over the Sorlin-Vontaine without a fight. I put him down here so he could think through his mistakes.”
“I’m not an idiot,” I growled. “You brought him here to lure me in. He needs me to complete the ritual to bring his sister back. And you need to get your hands on Margaux to kill her.”
She laughed the same light laugh that taunted me when my father and I first walked in.
I squeezed harder on the ivory handle of the svethulka, doing everything I could not to grab ahold of the wall and show her just how weak I was.
If my father was right, this was the woman who forced Alina to murder my mother. She even forced Alina to bite my brother to turn him into a lycan. All so she could dethrone Margaux and become the coven mistress of the Sorlin-Vontaine. And most of all, she would get revenge on my father after he refused to help her.
I was face to face with the woman who caused me and people I cared about more pain than most could endure. And it was right then and there that my body chose to fail me.
I leaned into the stone wall, doing everything I could to keep my arm up.
Daniella cocked her head curiously before a sly smile crossed her face. “Little lycan, have I exhausted you?”
I tried forming one hand into a fist to activate the bracelets. Nothing came out. I only realized that I had dropped the svethulka from my hand once I heard it crash onto the stone floor.
Daniella cast out her hand. I watched with squinted eyes as her cobalt blue magic swirled through the air and latched onto the svethulka. It floated right into her slender fingers.
My knees caved out from under me. The leather of my trench coat bunched up along my back as I slid down the stone wall and crumbled onto the cold ground with Daniella staring down at me, unable to believe her luck. She didn’t need to defeat me. I couldn’t defend myself.
A sharp pain returned in my back. It was a cruel reminder at the most inconvenient of moments that even lycan can’t heal quickly from everything. Adeline was right. I pushed my body too far. I refused to listen to her. Now I was going to pay the price.
Resummon: (Lycan Academy of Shapeshifting: Operation Shift, Book 6) Page 15