by Ella Summers
Whoever else was down there in the underground hideout, they were too far away for her magic to differentiate between them. Their magical signatures all blended together into a big magical stew.
Alex switched from sensing magic to a spell considerably less passive. She turned her earth elemental magic on the rocks, using it to shift them apart. The ground beneath her feet buzzed and cracked. An opening formed, a long shaft, drilled straight down into the ground.
Alex winked at Logan. “See? No flooding.”
“I’m impressed by your restraint.”
Daemon leaned over and stared down into the opening Alex had just created. “That’s quite a drop. I can’t even see the bottom.” His fingertips drummed against his legs. “I think I should remain here and keep watch, Just in case.”
Alex chuckled. “No, don’t you go wandering off. I’m keeping you in my sights. You’re coming with me.” She grabbed him by the arm. “My dragon will keep watch. Nova, blow up anything or anyone who disturbs us.”
Sounds like fun, Nova said.
Alex felt a quake from within her body, then Nova punched out of her. Her shimmering scales, lit up with magic, pulsed gold and green.
As Nova took to the air to keep watch on the new entrance to Magnus Duke’s hideout, Logan jumped down. Alex jumped next. She gave Daemon’s arm a tug as she did so, pulling him along with her. She quickly stuck her hand over his mouth, plugging his prolonged scream of terror. The last thing she needed was for him to alert every enemy in this hideout to their arrival.
“Don’t ever do that again!” he said in a hissed whisper after they’d reached the ground. He took one wobbly step forward, then tripped over his own feet.
Alex pulled him back up. “Do I need to carry you?” She smirked at him.
“No.” He brushed off his clothes with his hands, his nose lifted in dignified agitation. “I’ve had quite enough of your help, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” She shrugged, then drew her sword. “Let’s move out.”
Logan was way ahead of her—literally. She ran down the tunnel, hurrying to catch up.
It turned out that Alex needn’t have worried about Daemon’s squeal of terror. Because the people here were too busy to notice anyway. Within two minutes of starting down that tunnel, Alex, Logan, and Daemon found themselves in the middle of a battle.
The Convictionites were there, hiding behind an armory of anti-magic weaponry as their magically-modified super soldiers held the front line.
Their opponents were mages. And it took Alex a moment to realize that the Convictionites’ mages and Duke’s mages were not one and the same. No, the two groups were actually fighting each other, not working together.
They hadn’t even noticed Alex, Logan, and Daemon. What had happened to throw the two armies onto the opposing sides of this battle?
“We have to move,” Logan said.
He cut a path through the battling armies, not really caring which people—the Convictionites’ or Duke’s—that he took down. Alex followed, dragging Daemon along with her. They dodged magic and bullets.
“What kind of mage is Magnus Duke?” Alex asked Daemon.
“A summoner.”
“What does he summon?”
If she understood more about his magic, she might be able to hone in on his signal in this messy magical mix. She did not know why the two sides were fighting, and right now she couldn’t worry about that anyhow. She had to get to Magnus Duke. That was the goal. Duke was her best bet of finding Nightstar—and Riley.
“He summons trees,” Daemon said.
Alex blinked in surprise. “Trees?”
“Yes.” Daemon nodded. “Trees.”
“I’ve never heard of a tree summoner before.”
But that did explain the strange feeling of something old and ancient. It felt like a mountain. But, no, it was not a mountain. It was a tree, unmoving, unyielding.
And that feeling of entitlement she’d sensed—ancient entitlement—wasn’t the Magic Council after all. It must have been the Convictionites. Their so-called holy quest had spanned millennia. Their sanctimonious insistence that they were the protectors of humanity—well, if that wasn’t self-entitled, then Alex didn’t know what was. The Convictionites considered themselves the saviors of the good, and the banishers of the evil, the so-called ‘magic demons’.
Or, to borrow a term from the Magic Council, the one they’d used for centuries to refer to the Dragon Born, abominations.
“Trees,” Alex said. “Ok. I think I can work with that.”
She reached out with her senses, following the trail of that ancient, immovable strand of magic. Magnus’s magic. She filtered out all the other magic in the lair. The hyper telekinetic, the erratic beat of his magic. All of the heavy and hard hitting elementals. The shifters, wild and ferocious.
She honed in on the symphony of sounds, the miasma of magic. She allowed the tree summoner’s strong, steady, calm beat to fill her ears like a pounding drum. Then she started running toward it.
They found Magnus Duke alone at the back of the hideout, making preparations for his escape. Alex broke the teleportation glyph while it was still nothing more than a tiny spark on the ground. Then she approached him.
Magnus sure looked like a tree. His eyes were the color of an evergreen canopy. His shock of bright red hair stuck up straight in the air. His fingers were long and spindly, like many little branches.
He wore a white cotton tunic and loose pants. His feet were bare. Little red bunches of hair sprouted out of the tops of his toes, but his toenails were perfectly pedicured, as though he’d just stepped out of the spa.
A dark, heavy, calm beat pulsed out from him. His magic. It tasted of pine needles, and the sweet decay of foliage permeated the air.
Alex did sense that same feeling of self-entitlement in his magic. It was even stronger in him than in the Convictionites, or the Magic Council. He came from an ancient magic family, and he possessed arrogance in spades. Apparently, some old magic dynasties considered themselves better than the other old magic dynasties.
“Welcome to Sorcerer’s Grotto,” Magnus Duke said, his voice as smooth as freshly-creamed butter.
“Thanks.” Alex cut her hand through the air. That crimson ribbon of magic, that river of bloody rubies, shot out of her fingertips and gobbled up Magnus. “Now we have a few questions for you.” She drilled her mind-breaking spell into him. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“My master will tear you apart for what you’ve done,” Magnus spat through tight lips. “He will feast on your flesh, bathe in your blood, shatter your bones.”
“I’ve heard it all before,” she said, yawning. “Now, where the hell are you people keeping my brother Riley?”
“My master has not seen fit to tell me.”
“If that’s true, if he cares so little for you, what makes you think he will come to save you?” she asked him.
Dreamy disillusion shone in his eyes. “Faith.”
“Good luck with that.”
“You mock the Master,” the mage said angrily. “His greatness. His divine supremacy.”
“Divine supremacy?” Alex choked out. “He is really full of himself. Does he have you call him a god?”
“He is a god.”
Alex snorted. “Nightstar is a man, as mortal as the rest of us. He’s no god.”
“You understand nothing.”
“That’s me, the dumb brute with the smart mouth and the big sword. Who also happens to have a hell of a lot of magic.” She cast a halo of flames around herself. “Magic that will smash through your pretender god Nightstar.”
The mage laughed. “You understand nothing.”
“So you all keep saying. Well, I guess we’ll just have to see who is the bigger badass, won’t we? The Black Plague or Nightstar.”
“I don’t work for Nightstar,” Magnus told her.
“What?”
“Nightstar is just another soldier in this war.”
<
br /> Well, that was unexpected.
“Then who do you work for?” Alex asked the mage.
“A legend.”
“And does this legend have a name?”
The mage held his tongue.
“You’re wasting your time.”
Alex knew that voice. She spun around and spied the Evil Queen as she stepped out of the shadows. That was Alex’s name for Logan’s mother, the leader of the Convictionites, and the title fit. The Evil Queen walked with an even mixture of elegance and arrogance. Her blonde bob was perfectly styled, her blue silk suit so well-fitted, it could only have been custom made.
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” Alex said.
“I would say the same.” The Evil Queen’s aura pulsed with a kind of pure-evil charisma.
“What’s the matter?” Alex blew her a kiss. “Miss me?”
The Evil Queen’s styled brows drew together. “Hardly. You are a nuisance. You ruin everything.”
Alex spotted a pair of wounded Convictionites in the Evil Queen’s shadow. “I didn’t do that. Unfortunately.”
“No, you did not,” she said sharply. “They did.” She turned her glower on Magnus Drake.
“Well, you did a pretty shit job of choosing allies,” Alex told her. “Here’s a hint: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
The Evil Queen turned her superior stare on her son. “Don’t allow her to speak to me like that.”
“Alex is her own person. I don’t control her. Nor do you control me,” Logan replied coolly.
The Evil Queen’s lips drew together into a hard line.
“Nightstar has turned against you,” Logan said.
“He was never with us,” the Evil Queen hissed. “He only used us. He stole most of our knights.”
“Your brainwashed supernaturals? They left you?” Alex asked.
Even the Evil Queen’s frown was stately. “That is correct.”
Alex didn’t feel a shred of sympathy for her, not after everything the Convictionites had done, all the people they’d killed and all the lives they’d ruined. But she did realize how dangerous Nightstar’s boss was with all the Convictionites’ supernaturals added to his own army.
“What are Nightstar and this unknown evil maniac planning to do?” Alex asked her.
“I don’t know.” The Evil Queen shook her head, and her hair didn’t even move; it must have all been superglued to her head. “But it has something to do with all the strife.”
Logan looked at her. “We know they’re causing the current strife in the supernatural community.”
“Not just there,” his mother replied. “Yes, they are causing the strife amongst supernaturals. But also amongst humans. And between us.”
“You did a pretty good job cooking up strife yourself,” Alex pointed out.
“I was played,” the Evil Queen growled. “We were all played.”
Alex ignored her. “You’ve been cooking up this disaster for the last several centuries. Because that’s how long your little magic-hating party has been going on. And now you’re here, saying you didn’t really mean it.” She rolled her eyes.
“I meant every second of it,” the Evil Queen countered. “Magic is sin, and you’re all evil incarnate. Our cause is just and true. But nonetheless, we were manipulated down this path.” Her voice simmered with malice. “And I don’t like being manipulated.”
“No, you like being the one behind all the hating and all the killing,” Alex said.
The Evil Queen gave her a derisive look. “You bore me, Dragon Born. Are you going to take care of this or not?”
Alex exchanged loaded looks with Logan. “We will, though not for your sake. We don’t owe you a thing. First, though, before we do anything, we need to know what we’re up against. If not Nightstar, then who is really running this show?”
“The one who has employed Nightstar, used him as he’s used us all. The real threat.” The Evil Queen paused for dramatic effect. “Damarion.”
Alex knew the name. Long ago, the powerful warrior Damarion had torn the supernatural world apart. He was the master of strife, of conflict. All those centuries ago, he’d been the one to turn everyone against the Dragon Born. He was the reason Alex’s kind had been branded abominations. The reason they’d been hunted down and killed.
24
Nightmare
“But Damarion is dead,” Alex said to Logan as the Evil Queen fled with what little remained of her broken Convictionite army. “He’s supposed to be dead.”
Magnus Drake laughed so hard that he nearly choked. “I told you that you knew nothing.”
“Where is Damarion hiding?” Alex demanded angrily.
“The great god Damarion does not hide. He conquers. Those who join him will gain great power. Those who do not…” Magnus sneered at her. “They will be destroyed.”
“Shut up,” she told him and zipped the entrapment spell over his mouth.
“Damarion,” Logan said as Magnus pounded his fists against his crimson prison. “That explains the ancient, evil magic the mages have been using.”
“But what does Damarion want with my brother?” Alex wondered.
Logan’s gaze flickered to their prisoner. “He might know.”
Alex turned to Magnus and unloaded a mind-breaking spell into him. He jerked. She caught a few quick flashes of Riley with Nightstar. Nightstar was plugging him into the game, just as he’d done to the fairies who’d powered Mortal Coil. Daemon was right. They did want Riley’s shadow mage to power a simulation. But to what end? What were Nightstar and Damarion planning to do?
She dove deeper into Magnus’s mind, but there was nothing more. No memories. No information. Nothing.
“Alex,” Logan said gently.
She looked at him—then at Magnus. That’s when she saw it. The tree summoner was dead. She’d pushed him too far. She’d killed him.
Alex froze in shock. “I didn’t mean…”
Logan wrapped his arm around her. “It’s not your fault.”
“I killed him. I killed him. I killed him.” She couldn’t stop saying those three words. Why couldn’t she stop?
“Magnus Drake was the enemy,” Logan said. “He has killed many and would have killed many more. And you didn’t mean to kill him.”
“Sera was right.” Alex’s shoulders shook. “I can’t control my magic. It’s so angry. And too wild.”
“You’re under stress. You’re worried about Riley.”
Daemon spoke up, “If you want to know what I think—”
“We don’t,” Logan told him.
And Daemon shut his mouth.
Sera and Kai ran into the room. Marek was with them.
“What are you doing here?” Alex asked them. Her own voice sounded so distant.
“The guards at the Paradise Resort planted a bug in Daemon’s room,” Sera said. “When they went to check on Daemon and he wasn’t there, they called us. We listened to your conversation.”
“There were no bugs in that room,” Logan stated.
“None that you could find,” Kai told him.
Logan frowned.
“These bugs are the new ones being developed by Drachenburg Industries. Completely stealth, silent and invisible—even to people with supernatural senses.” Kai glanced at Alex. “Or magic-sensing powers. Even Tony can’t see them.”
Logan didn’t look like that made him feel better.
“We saw the dead Convictionites.” Sera took a slow, cautious step toward Alex. “And Nightstar’s dead soldiers.”
“Their alliance was short-lived,” Alex told her.
“I suppose that’s good…”
Sera stopped when she saw the dead mage wrapped up in Alex’s spell. “Alex…”
Alex met her sister’s sad eyes. “It was an accident.”
Sera looked at Kai and sighed.
“You’d better come with us,” Kai told Alex.
Well, she knew what that meant. “What are you goi
ng to do, lock me up? So you’re doing nothing to find Riley, nothing to question the renegade mages, but you’d turn on your own sister, Sera?”
“You’re confused.” Sera took another step toward her. “We can help you.”
Alex jumped back. “Confused?! No, you’re the one confused if you think I’m going to let you lock me up. Logan and I are the only ones who are trying to save Riley. While you play at politics, we are actually trying to free him.”
“We want to help you, Alex. I’d never hurt you. You’re my sister.”
But Alex could hear people circling around behind her. The commandos. And two of Kai’s guards. She, Logan, and Daemon were surrounded. Tony held a pair of handcuffs.
Cornered. Trapped. Betrayed. That’s how Alex felt. And angry. Yes, angry. Magic erupted on her hands. Logan drew two throwing knives.
“Alex, please,” Sera said. “I don’t want to fight you.”
“Oh, really?” Alex snapped back. “Because it doesn’t look like that to me.”
Magic flashed. Alex threw up a wall of flames just in time. Her fire swallowed the enemy magic. Enemy? How had Sera, Kai, and the commandos become her enemy?
They continued to shoot magic at Alex’s fire wall, trying to bring it down.
Nova, need some backup, Alex told her.
On my way.
A dragon roared. A few moments later, magic light pulsed down the tunnel toward the room. And a few moments after that, Nova herself was here. She opened her mouth, and a blast of magic shot out, knocking Sera and the others away.
The commandos jumped up. Logan darted away to deal with them.
Alex ran toward Kai’s two guards, who had some auspicious-looking guns in their hands. Undoubtedly, more experimental toys from Drachenburg Industries.
Daemon caught her hand. “Don’t just leave me here.”
Alex pointed at the uniformed guards with the guns. “I’ve got to take care of them.”
“What about me? You have to take care of me!” Daemon squealed.
“Can’t you do anything to defend yourself?”
