Fusion Magic

by Lucia Ashta

  The volume of the battle around me muted slightly, and I raised my eyebrows in alarm at Liana. “It’s the portal closing,” she yelled to be heard over the raucous sounds of so many creatures fighting. “Focus. I’ll let you know if anything happens.”

  Of course, all sorts of things were happening, almost all of them bad, but I understood what she meant, and I did as she suggested. I whipped my focus back to the bucking vamp beneath me, yanking my head back when she dove at my bloodied neck with her mouth wide.

  Quinn shouted, and the vamp and I snapped our gazes to him for an instant, just in time to see him rip the male vampire’s head from his shoulders with brute force. A snap preceded the squelching tear of flesh; the vampire dropped to his knees before falling straight forward, his open neck bright and fleshy, gaping at me. I had to swallow my revulsion.

  Quinn adjusted his hold on the vamp’s head to carry it by its short brown hair, which had been styled to perfection. Though the sight was terrifying, even to me, I suspected it was Quinn’s eyes that had the vamp beneath me trying to slip out from under me with renewed fight.

  “Let me go,” the vamp beneath me hissed, but I merely closed my eyes, willing her death. While she thrashed and kicked, and Quinn continued his menacing approach, I pictured her dissolving into nothing beneath me. I imagined myself feeling the sudden absence of her bulk beneath me; one moment she’d be there, the next she’d have dissolved into insubstantial remains.

  As if she understood what was about to happen, she kicked and spit and fought with enough zeal to convince me of her earnest desire to live. Well, if she’d wanted to survive the day, she shouldn’t have messed with me and my own.

  “You naked bitch,” she seethed, bucking her shoulders and thrashing her head from side to side. “Get the hell off me!” she screeched, the frequency of her plea making me wince, but I powered on.

  When a familiar popping, cracking filtered through the din of fighting, I struggled to maintain my focus. Whatever it was, it would only get worse if this vamp was still alive.

  “It’s working, Selene! Keep going,” Liana said.

  I clenched my eyes shut, dug my fingers into the vamp’s body as I squeezed my hold on her, and pulsed my magic into the vision of her death. I didn’t care which magic—siren or angel—or whether it was a combination of both, I just needed this vamp dead. Now.

  Dead, dead, dead. Breathing hard through my nose, I willed it to be.

  I dropped to the ground, falling awkwardly on my shoulder and the seam where it met my wing. Though I’d been careful to maintain my wings tightly pressed against my back so they wouldn’t get torn, now the one throbbed as if it possessed its very own heartbeat, making it impossible to ignore the pain.

  Grimacing, I rose to my feet, swaying slightly, steadying. Immediately, Quinn and Liana were on either side of me. I flicked my gaze to the ground, seeing a familiar pile of ash where the vamp with the gorgeous hair had been only moments before. There was nothing left of her than there’d been of Naomi or her familiar Petunia.

  Quinn trailed a quick gaze over my nude body, settling at my neck. “That looks bad,” he said, his jaw set in hard, unforgiving lines. “Do you feel well enough to keep fighting?”

  Keep fighting? I swallowed a groan, reluctantly taking in the rest of the scene, including the severed head Quinn carried.

  Trina still hung limply in the frame of Naomi’s house. Mulunu continued to spar with one mage, a man who I would’ve suspected to be a shifter if not for the orange magic sparking between his palms and the way his lips never ceased moving with the constant chanting of spells. Thick muscles roped across his body, overly evident in the sleeveless t-shirt he wore over athletic shorts. His short brown hair was pointed into spikes all across his head, and his gaze didn’t leave the sea witch, not for a second.

  My heart skipped a beat, creating an unpleasantness in my chest, when I noticed Irving circling with the large grizzly bear. Two wolves lay panting weakly on the ground around them, clearly unable to get up anymore, but so did a polar bear. Brogan’s white pristine fur was marred by large swaths of rusty red. The scarlet red of fresh blood dripped from large, open gashes across his shoulders, hindquarters, and most alarmingly, his mid-section.

  “Brogan,” Liana whispered, noticing him at the same time I did.

  “Irving,” Quinn growled, already marching to the man who’d raised him, tossing the head without care as he went. After more than two months of capture, Irving was in no shape to take on the powerful grizzly, though I believed his superior shifter healing must have been working on him; if not, he wouldn’t still be standing. He was recovering his strength rapidly, just as Quinn was, but would it be quickly enough?

  I didn’t follow Quinn when he advanced. I’d finally realized what was causing the distracting popping and crackling.

  A new portal was opening off in the distance, far enough away that its signs blended into the din of our skirmish, but not far enough away for us to elude whatever new dangers were poised to emerge.

  “There’s another portal,” I hollered, though only Liana and Quinn snapped their attention in that direction. Mulunu and Irving didn’t remove their focus from those circling them like hungry sharks in bloodied water, with their sights already on their prey.

  Quinn looked between Irving, the grizzly, and the portal a few times before deciding to remain at Irving’s side. Since no one had walked out of the portal yet, I joined him, but held my attention on the portal no more than seventy or so feet away. Liana rushed to my side, bringing her hands to either side of my injured neck in a useless gesture. She wanted to help me, but there was nothing to be done right then. My body would have to heal itself with some of that advanced supernatural healing I was likely to have now that my magic was fully activated. I’d take the good along with the bad.

  The grizzly rose to his two hind legs, opening his mouth to its widest and roaring loudly enough to make me shiver with the innate fear the warning was meant to engender. The bear was beautiful, and I didn’t want to focus on killing such a magnificent creature, but I steeled myself to do precisely that.

  “Where are the other two witches? And the other vampire?” Liana whispered, searching the area.

  “Damn. I forgot all about them.” They were nowhere to be seen, until... “There.” I pointed to the portal. The two witches stood to either side of the portal, all but concealed by the bright, blinding lights of the large circle. The vampire waited with them.

  “I assume that means we’ll soon be enjoying the company of others just as pleasant as this gang,” Liana said.

  Grimacing, I renewed my intention to kill the bear. I might not want to do it, but since I had to anyway, I’d better do it fast. I had to dispatch him before he hurt Irving or Brogan further, or before Quinn attacked a giant grizzly bear while still in human form. Quinn’s face was contorted with ferocity, so I had no doubt he’d give the fight his all. But how much could a human achieve against a bear in hand-to-paw combat? Quinn was bound to get hurt.

  Brogan wouldn’t last long without intense healing. Decided, I leaned closer to Liana so I could sense if she moved away from me, and closed my eyes once more, reaching for that familiar message that went so far against the tune of my heart: death. Killing seemed to go against every bit of who I was and how I wanted to be. But no one had asked me a thing about my preferences since Mulunu had flung me into this hellish war, where Quinn and I had somehow become shiny prizes for the victors.

  I had started envisioning the bear lying unmoving on the ground when a sharp pop like a bubble bursting snapped far too close to my ear. I gasped and jumped, straight into Liana, who was already turning.

  “What the hell?” Liana screeched, wide-eyed and clinging onto my arm.

  A second pop sounded from our other side, and Liana screamed again, squeezing my arm so hard I had to reach down and loosen her grip.

  “Who? What...?” Liana stuttered.

  Instead of answering her, I demande
d answers of my own: “What the hell took you two so long to find me?” It might not have been fair, but my emotions were in such a knot that I couldn’t bring myself to care. “Where have you been?”

  “I was just about to ask you the same question.”

  16

  Fianna looked unreasonably fierce for a fairy the size of a hummingbird, but Nessa appeared scared out of her mind. The slightly smaller blue fairy spun in the air above us, attempting to take in every direction at once, and every danger—a challenging task given how many lethal creatures and situations pressed in on us.

  “We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Fianna hissed, her tiny hands on the hips of her tiny red skirt as she glared at me. “Did you hide yourself from us or something? Every time we seemed about to zone in on your location, you’d disappear from our magical radar.”

  “I don’t think now’s the time,” Nessa squeaked, flying closer to Fianna. “We have to get her out of here before more of the Voice finds her. I have a really bad feeling about what’s about to come out of that portal.”

  “Me too,” Liana said, apparently realizing the fairies were our allies. Or maybe it was just that they appeared thousands of times less threatening than our attackers. I knew that appearances could be deceiving, especially when it came to the miniscule fairies, whose diminutive frames packed a punch.

  Fianna pursed her lips and glared at me some more for good measure. “Fine. But this discussion is far from over.” She pointed her finger at me.

  I was all for avoiding another pointless, bloody fight. “We’ll talk for however long you want about it if you’ll just get us out of here.”

  “Agreed, but I’m taking you straight to the tree stump, and then we’ll talk until I say so.”

  “Fine, Fianna. Let’s go.” Nessa’s little blue wings flapped so fast I could hardly make them out while she twisted her hands in front of her. “Grab Selene and let’s leave, right now.”

  The bears swapped ferocious growls. Nessa wrung her hands like they were a wet rag, and Liana jumped, latching onto me like a crab.

  “I hope you’re not suggesting just taking me,” I said, my eyes roving to Quinn, who shadowed Irving, ready to dive between the two bears to protect his putative uncle.

  “Of course I am,” Fianna snapped. “Sir Lancelot ordered us to get you.”

  “That’s right.” Nessa nodded, her gaze alternating between the bears, Mulunu, and the mage, and the ominous crackling of the portal. “Our orders are only to get you, so let’s get you and go.”

  “There’s no way I’m leaving any of my friends behind.” I injected every bit of steel I possessed into my stance. I wasn’t budging on this, and the sooner the fairies figured it out, the sooner we could get out of here.

  “Your rescue is non-negotiable,” Nessa said, but she was distracted, rushed, and high-pitched, even for the tiny fairy.

  “Exactly,” Fianna echoed.

  “Look, I will fight you with everything I’ve got if you try to take me without my friends,” I said. “I know neither one of you wants to fail a direct order from Sir Lancelot, so the sooner you accept my terms, the better.”

  “No.” Fianna zoomed down, getting right in my face. She poked my nose repeatedly with an index finger, making my eyes cross as I tried to focus on her. “I’m taking you, no one else, end of story. Our magic is limited.”

  “Creatures are exiting the portal,” Nessa squeaked while Liana’s hold on me tightened even more. But I didn’t look. I was in a staredown with Fianna; I had to win this argument.

  The little crimson fairy stared while the fight raged on around us, and I stared back, just as adamantly.

  “I’m not changing my mind no matter how much you glare at me,” I said.

  After a fierce scowl, she poked me one more time for good measure, before flinging her hands in the air and zooming around me in a circle. “Fine! Any other person would’ve just been grateful to get rescued from this hellhole, but you? No! Of course not! You can’t make anything easy. You go and get yourself kidnapped from right under our protection, making Egan freak out like some kind of crazed beast, and what do you do when we get here? Demand more of us!”

  “Fi, save it for later,” Nessa implored. “We gotta go.”

  Fianna finally scanned our surroundings again. Her brows rose and her tiny eyes widened before she nodded fervently. “Right you are, Ness, right you are.”

  A frown marring her pretty face so I could not miss her displeasure, she asked, “Who do we need to take? This one?” She pointed to Liana with her chin.

  Having noticed the steady stream of mages, shifters, and vamps running out of the portal, I pointed while rattling rapidly, “This one, the two polar bears, and Quinn behind them. Oh, and the mermaid caught in the doorway there.”

  “That’s too many!” Nessa’s eyes were so big they looked like there was a real chance they might pop out of her head. “That takes too much magic. We can’t—”

  “We’ll manage,” Fianna grumbled. “Though Sir Lancelot will be none too happy with us for bringing a whole tribe of creatures to the academy.”

  “We aren’t even allowed to bring anyone without permission, and we only have permission to bring you,” Nessa added. I felt bad for the fairy, who loved to follow rules. Still, this was no ordinary circumstance.

  “Please,” I implored. “I seriously can’t leave any of them behind. They’re only here and in danger because of me. I’ll take the blame with the owl, I promise. He’ll understand.”

  “No, he won’t,” Nessa said. “Not when it involves a breach in the school’s security.”

  But Fianna was already shaking her head. “We have no choice, Nessa. He wouldn’t forgive us if we didn’t bring Selene, and if the stupid, stubborn girl won’t listen to reason, what choice do we have?”

  She could call me whatever she wanted as long as she got us out of here. “Great, Fi, great.”

  “What about the sea witch?” she asked.

  “You don’t have to take her,” I said right away. “I don’t want to burden your magic more than necessary.”

  “She’ll lose the fight if we don’t bring her with us.”

  I turned toward Mulunu. She and the mage were exchanging beams of magic at an amazing speed, but she was injured and depleted, and a dozen more creatures were a dozen feet away.

  “Fine. Take her. We need to go,” I said, realizing how foolish I’d been to allow any delay at all. Surely there was something I could have done to streamline the fairies’ decision.

  Finally without comment or protest, Fianna zoomed toward me again while Nessa rapidly began chanting a spell, building blue magic between her hands.

  “Take the others first,” I urged a second before Fianna touched me. She growled menacingly, but didn’t pause, flying straight for the bears.

  “I’ll stay with you,” Liana said, but before I could tell her to go on without me, the panicked Nessa grabbed onto Liana’s hair with her hand, which crackled with blue light, and with a loud pop they both disappeared.

  The desperation pressing in on my chest eased a fraction, and I turned to follow Fianna’s movements, but the fairy had already vanished, as had Brogan.

  “Quinn, watch out!” I yelled as the first of the new influx of our enemies reached Mulunu and then continued on to Quinn and Irving. Quinn spun around and prepared to face off with a mage and two vampires, whose fangs were already brandished against their lower lips. Mulunu ran backwards so the two new mages couldn’t corner her while the wizard she’d been fighting continued to hurl a series of orange balls of magic at her. The sea witch’s staff dragging along the ground told me that her magic was at such levels of depletion that she didn’t dare break contact between her staff and the earth.

  After a quick few seconds of deliberation, I ran toward Quinn, sidestepping vampire remains and the injured werewolves as I went. A pop punctuated the frenzied growls and blasts, while I turned my back to Quinn so no one could blindside us.
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  Fianna hovered until she spotted me, then flew straight at me. When she reached a hand toward me, I was already shaking my head. “The others first.”

  The little fairy growled as viciously as the bears behind me. “The bear and sea witch can fend them off for a minute. You’re coming now.”

  While I opened my mouth to protest again, Fianna grabbed hold of my nose, and our surroundings, along with Quinn, began to blur. For a few moments, the pitch black of nothingness surrounded us, in stark contrast to the bright day we’d left behind, before I fell to the ground with a thud.

  “Quinn,” I gasped.

  For once, Fianna was silent and all business. With a pert nod, she disappeared once more.

  Blinking rapidly to adjust to the bright sunshine, I spotted Liana leaning over Brogan. When she saw me, she blinked back tears. “He’s in bad shape,” she said as a pop interrupted.

  Quinn dropped heavily to the ground before Nessa panted for a few rapid breaths and started mumbling another spell, focusing on the blue magic building between her outstretched palms—more slowly this time. Fianna didn’t have to chant spells to perform magic, making her much faster at the process. Besides, I suspected that Fianna’s magic was stronger than her cousin’s, a conclusion that Fianna had suggested several times, whenever she wanted to pester Nessa, which was often.

  Rising to my hands and knees, I was in the middle of crawling to Quinn’s side when Nessa finally completed her spell and vanished once more. The pop announcing her departure wasn’t as loud as usual, and I hoped like crazy that the fairy still possessed enough energy to save the others.

  “Selene,” Quinn called, blinking as I’d been, his voice betraying his desperation.

  “I’m here, I’m here.” Reaching him, I lifted my arm toward his chest and winced as the motion pulled at the injury at my wing.

  “Are you okay?” he asked urgently.

  “Fine, totally fine. Are you?”

  He nodded, then dragged his head across the ground, scanning our new location. Sitting up, he pressed my hand against his chest. “Where’s Irving?”