by D. N. Hoxa
I turned around and waited for Nikola and Emanuel to turn the corner. Logic said it would be them—they’d been together when we separated into those rooms—but I still held my breath until the head of Nikola’s brown wolf appeared from around the corner.
Emanuel was right behind him. Putting my finger in front of my lips to tell them to be quiet, I walked to them slowly.
“Where’s Damian?” Emanuel asked in a whisper.
“We got separated. They’re behind that door, and there’s eight of them.”
“Is he dead?” Emanuel nodded at the body of the wizard.
“He is. We need to get in there. If they manage to escape, we won’t be able to find them again until it’s too late.”
“We should wait for Damian,” Emanuel said, but Nikola growled and walked around me toward the door. He sniffed the air as he went, slowly, then turned to look at us, his yellow eyes glistening. It was like he was asking us what the hell we were waiting for.
“Nikola agrees with me,” I told Emanuel and walked back to the door. As much as I wanted to wait for Damian, too, there was no telling how long he would take. And I was hoping to get this done before Malin ever came close to wherever we were going. Three against eight were a lot better odds, after all.
Emanuel looked at the three corridors for a few more seconds before he came to us with a sigh. He pulled his shirt up and off in one movement, revealing a perfectly ripped torso. I looked away quickly. He was going to shift.
“Whatever happens in there, don’t kill Helen,” Emanuel said.
“I know.” Damian had already told me. But he never said I couldn’t hurt her—that is if she tried to hurt me, first. Which she would, probably.
Even Nikola growled and raised his huge head toward me, in his eyes a silent warning.
“I won’t kill Helen,” I said, rolling my eyes, but he continued watching me. A few seconds later, Emanuel shifted into his wolf. It was painful to hear the skin tearing from his flesh. The whole process didn’t take longer than ten seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
When his wolf stepped closer to us, I finally put my hand on the door handle. It was time to end this thing for good because I had a date I was looking forward to—eagerly.
I opened the door.
What I expected to see on the other side were eight people, possibly a tree, maybe a few of those glowing symbols on the walls.
Instead, the bright yellow light that was coming from ahead nearly blinded me. I put my hand over my eyes until they adjusted to the sudden change, blinking away the dark spots in my vision. There was ink all over the wall in front of us, barely five feet away, but this ink wasn’t blue. It was yellow and it shone just like the sun. It also didn’t move with us, not in horizontal lines that twisted and turned as we went. Instead, it moved in a perfect circle. There were a lot more of them, and they were thinner, and they risked hypnotizing me if I didn’t look away.
I turned to Emanuel, the head of his wolf reaching all the way to my middle. He was trying not to look at the glowing ink, too, but he whined and nodded his muzzle toward it. Yeah, I thought so. Helen and her friends would be somewhere behind that light.
Taking in our surroundings, I was disappointed to see that there was no other way out of there. The room was square, and other than the yellow ink ahead, there was nothing there. We needed to go through it, and we had no idea what was waiting for us on the other side.
Screw it. We’d come this far. I pulled out my daggers from my pocket and took in a deep breath.
“Let’s go, fellas.”
Nikola didn’t hesitate. He leaped in the air and slipped into the wall within a second. I wasn’t as eager to get consumed by that light, but there would be no more stalling. Squeezing my eyes shut, I ran and jumped into the light, too.
I expected pain. I expected dizziness—or, at the very least, nausea.
All I got was a weird, tingling sensation that stretched on my skin and covered it in goose bumps. My feet hit the muddy ground a heartbeat later.
I could finally see the eight people my magic had felt minutes ago.
And they could all see me, too.
At least I’d been right about one thing—there was a tree there. A very strange tree, right in the middle of the round room that didn’t look like a room at all. It looked like a field, a very muddy field, and the sky over it was just pure darkness.
But the tree was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Its trunk was twisted into a perfect spiral, its color ash brown, and its branches had no sharp edges. They spread out in spirals, too, and on them hung the strangest leaves I’d ever seen—even stranger than the ones in Wonderwood. No two leaves were the same shape, but they all had the same light green color. Some of them looked like snowflakes, and others like pyramids—all of them unique.
The tree stood atop a small hill that rose four feet above ground, dotted with bright red flowers. In front of it was another plant, this one much smaller, and it didn’t look very unusual, save for the dark purple stem and leaves. It was like a bush, about twenty inches tall, with a lot of tiny peppermint-like leaves and even smaller blueberries. The plant was surrounded by a circle composed of a number of things—bones, sticks, dried brown leaves—and inside the circle with it sat the witch—Diane Devlin. I recognized her red hair, even though she had her back turned to us. She sat cross-legged, her black dress completely covered in mud. She didn’t look like she minded. In fact, she didn’t look like she was breathing at all.
But the man sitting across from her was.
He was breathing heavily, eyes closed tightly, his shoulders shaking. Sweat glistened on his face, and he looked paler than a fucking ghost. It was a miracle he hadn’t passed out yet.
The rest were all standing around the circle—one of them I’d never seen before. I recognized the ghouls, two of the wizards, and Helen.
The leather of her clothes hugged her curves, her straight black hair shining in the yellow light. Her eyes were pitch black, too, and they were on mine. She moved her arm up, pointing the tip of her sword right at me. And she smiled.
“Kill her,” she ordered, and all hell broke loose.
I only had a second to see Nikola’s wolf rush to her with a howl before the ghoul came at us. Both his wizard friends had their hands raised, and the new guy I didn’t recognize was right behind him, whispering his spell quickly. The ghoul came at me with his arms raised, but instead, Emanuel’s wolf jumped onto his chest and knocked him down. Blinding blue light came my way, leaving the hands of the new guy, who was apparently a sorcerer. I barely had time to move to the side before it hit the yellow ink behind me and disappeared from the room completely. The other ghoul was coming at me from the other side, too. My attack spell wasn’t Guild issued. It was one of Aunt Marie’s fighting spells, and as soon as it left my hand in a haze of purple smoke and light, it spread wide, pushing the ghoul back and reaching all the way to the sorcerer, too. The sorcerer ducked, but the spell did hit him. The light disappeared when it went close to the wizards, who weren’t attacking me. They were holding up a ward around the ritual.
It was time to up the game.
A cry of agony came from my side as Emanuel bit off the arm of the ghoul on the ground who was screaming. I didn’t have time to see him finish the job completely—or where Nikola was—because my own ghoul’s fists were coming for my face. The sorcerer was chanting his spell again, the left part of his forehead raw red where my spell had hit him. My fingers glowed as I fought the ghoul—who was twice my size. I bet his fists hurt like hell, but he was slow. I was very fast because I was motivated. Ghoul bruises were a bitch to heal from, and like I said, I had a date to look forward to.
When the blue light left the hands of the sorcerer standing behind the ghoul, I moved to the side and jumped with my foot up, hitting him on the shoulder. It didn’t push him back, but the spell missed me. The intensity, the heat that came off it as it passed me by made me think I did not want to be hit by that ma
gic, either. The sorcerer was definitely a Prime.
I moved away from the ghoul’s fists, waiting for the perfect moment to stab him where it would hurt—like his eyes or his heart, but his arms were long and he was keeping a good distance from me. So when he reached out his hand, I let him grab me by the arm and pull me close. I was going to do the stabbing right away, but he grabbed my wrist with his other hand and stopped me. My legs were still free, though. I kneed him right between his legs, and though he didn’t back away, I saw him flinch. Dead or alive, balls always hurt like hell. I hit him again and again; the third time, he fell back, releasing my arm, trying to pull me by the wrist. Chanting my next spell as quickly as I could, I slammed my fist onto his nose. Dark blood exploded from his nostrils and his head fell back for a split second. More than enough time to put my hand over his chest as the magic left my glowing fingers and disappeared under his skin.
He let out a shallow breath and his eyes crossed for a second, but the fucker didn’t fall down. I jerked my wrist from his grip and stabbed him right through the heart while my magic still held him in place. It should have thrown him back, but he was a huge fucker. It was fine. A dagger to the heart did the job. Not only that, but the sorcerer couldn’t attack me, because the ghoul’s body was in his way.
And when he stepped to the side to aim his hand at me, I did what any sensible person would do—I used the frozen ghoul’s body as my shield. The words of the spell left my lips as I pulled the ghoul by the handle of my dagger, still buried in his chest. His eyes were wide as he looked at me, his arms by his side, coming for me very slowly. Two seconds, and my magic was ready to be unleashed. I pulled the dagger off the ghoul’s chest and spun on the ground to the side, only half-aiming my hand at the sorcerer. It was enough. Aunt Marie’s spells weren’t exactly precise. They weren’t made to be used safely in a crowd. They spread much farther than any Guild spells and they caused pain. A lot of pain.
The sorcerer tried to move away but the purple light caught him on his thigh—I’d aimed lower than I’d have liked. He stumbled to the side and hit the ground on his back as I jumped to my feet.
I’d have had more than enough time to run to him and cut his head off, but the ghoul was moving again, and he was coming for me. I leaned down to avoid his fists and came back up with my dagger raised, cutting a clean line from his stomach up to his neck. Cold, dark blood slipped from his skin, so thick it looked like jam. Ugh. I was not going to eat jam for a while, that’s for sure.
He tried to reach out for me for one last time, but he was too slow. I slammed onto him so hard, I knocked him on the ground, and made myself dizzy, too. But once he was down, I grabbed my dagger with both hands and I stabbed him in the chest. I lost count after the first five times, but by the time the spell hit me from my side, the ghoul looked like he wasn’t coming back to the land of the living anymore.
The spell that hit me on the shoulder hurt like hell. It knocked me off the ghoul’s body and slammed me to the floor. I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming as pain spread over me like wildfire, consuming every inch of me. I held onto my dagger tightly to make sure it wouldn’t slip from my fingers and forced my mouth to chant the words of a ward. That sorcerer was a Prime, no doubt about it. His magic was still in me, and the pain had yet to start fading—but I didn’t think he knew how to fight. Otherwise he’d have come closer to me earlier. So I was switching tactics. A ward was going to shield me from his spells, but no ward of his was going to shield him from my dagger.
I watched the fire light in his palms as his next spell came for me. His dark eyes were bloodshot as he chanted, no longer whispering but shouting out the words.
For a second, I feared I wouldn’t be able to complete the ward in time. If he hit me again with that same spell, there was no telling how much I’d need to get up again.
But the ward closed around me before the blue light of his magic reached me. It shook me when it touched the surface of the ward, but it didn’t break it. It didn’t even crack it. The pain had begun to fade away, too, and when I tried to stand up, I didn’t lose balance.
I smiled at the sorcerer, who was already sending another spell after me, but just as the light gathered in his palms, Emanuel’s wolf jumped on him.
The wolf slammed the sorcerer on the ground before it let out a heart-shattering howl and fell to the side, trying but failing to keep his balance. I ran forward, ignoring the pain that remained from the magic and the complaint of my muscles that already felt overspent. I had my ward locked tightly around me, and it was going to last until I let it go, so when the sorcerer spoke his spell, it didn’t bother me. He was sitting up when I reached him, and I slammed my fist on his face a couple of times before he fell back down. Raising my dagger, I aimed it right at his heart, but I never got the chance.
Once again, magic hit me from the side and sent me to the ground. Damn it, it shattered my ward because I hadn’t been focused on it. It was a different kind of magic, but it still had the potential to hurt like a bitch. Luckily, the ward had held off most of it before it broke. The wall was right behind me this time, so I held onto it to get up. Ahead, Emanuel was on his feet again, baring his teeth at the sorcerer who had one hand aimed at him and the other at me. His friend, one of the wizards, had stepped out of the ward to join the fight. The more the merrier, right?
Emanuel slowly moved toward me, and I risked a glance at the others. Helen was still standing, watching, and Nikola’s wolf was right next to her feet. He wasn’t dead—I could see him breathing, but he was definitely unconscious. The witch was still in the ward, the purple plant in front of her bigger by a couple of inches, and the guy sitting across from her was completely white. Now that I could see his side, I could also see the tubes in both his wrists, and the blood inside them. The tubes were inserted into the mud—right next to the purple plant.
Holy shit, he was feeding it with his blood.
Suddenly, the words of the ghoul from the night before made sense. He said, it has to be given willingly. He’d meant blood.
There was no time to dwell on that fun revelation because the sorcerer and his friend were coming for us. I no longer bothered with a ward. Instead, I turned to one of my spells. I’d only ever used it once before, when the Spring fae Faron had attacked us in the Bronx at Chris Conti’s house. Back then, I’d guided my magic into the ground first, but now there was no time for that—and no space. Emanuel must have heard me whispering the words because he shot forward and straight for them, even though they were chanting, too. He slammed onto the wizard, but the sorcerer managed to finish his spell. I moved to the side just as mine was complete, too. He didn’t hit me, but I hit him. And his friend.
And Emanuel, unfortunately.
Purple fog almost blocked my view completely as it spread forward, hitting everyone in its way. It exploded when it hit its target, sending them flying back. As soon as it did that, the fog cleared, and I saw that Emanuel had managed to get back to my side this time. The wizard and the sorcerer were both on the floor.
I turned to Helen. That man was almost dead. He would be if I didn’t reach them in time. My knees were already shaking, and so were my fingers. If I wanted to break that ward, I needed to do it now, before all my energy left me.
“Can you handle them by yourself?” I asked Emanuel, but even before I finished speaking, he was already on them. I stepped closer to the ward and tried to get a feel of how much magic it had. It wasn’t bad, but there was another, smaller ward around the witch, the man, and the plant. I had the feeling that was going to be the tricky one.
Putting my dagger in my pocket, I raised both my hands forward. Helen smiled.
“You started the party without me?” Carter’s voice came from behind me.
I smiled, too.
Then, I chanted my spell. It wasn’t the strong one I’d used before. I didn’t think I’d need it for the wizard’s ward. He apparently agreed with me. Before I’d reached the middle of my spell, he dropped t
he ward and came for me, running. I jumped back, reaching for my dagger, and he had a sword of his own. He grabbed it behind his back and brought it down on me with all his strength. I didn’t think I could hold it with my dagger so I spun around and stabbed him in the arm while it was still outstretched. He didn’t even flinch. He wasn’t as big as the dead ghouls, but he was faster. He turned and hit me with his elbow on the side of my face. I didn’t expect it so it took me off guard. The mud beneath my feet wasn’t helping. My jeans were already covered in it, and it was slippery as hell. I barely managed to duck from his sword before coming up and stabbing him in the gut, but the blade didn’t go as deep as I’d have liked. He was still coming for me.
My muscles ached, but I tried my best to ignore the pain. I focused on the wizard, moving away for a few seconds to try and understand the way he moved. Then, I attacked.
He had tried to cut off my head with his sword and his arm was still raised. I ducked down and grabbed him by the wrist with my left hand, and stabbed him in the elbow with my dagger. This one he felt. A snake-like hiss left his lips and he tried to swing his sword at me again, but I ducked and came up before he’d taken his arm back. I had him blocked but only for a second. He was a guy, heavier than me, but he took a split second too long to try to head-butt me. His forehead connected with mine, and my dagger slid under his chin smoothly.
Fuck, it hurt. Stars in my vision. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pulled my dagger from him and stepped back, giving myself a second to clear my head.
Come on, Sin, I said to myself. It was almost over. Just one more ward and it was done.
I didn’t take into account Helen or the redheaded witch at all, like they would magically disappear when I broke that ward, but it didn’t matter. The thought got me through, and when I opened my eyes again, I could see.
Carter was by my side, his white shirt stained red, and he leaned down to grab the sword from the dead wizard’s hand by my feet.