Twisted Souls: Twisted Magic Book Three

by Rainy Kaye

  Without further thought, I sucked in a breath and yanked off my mask. I threw it to the ground, staggered forward a step, and dropped to my knees in surrender.

  He halted.

  The painting was so close to finished.

  He lifted his hands, palm out, one after the other. The right glowed green, and the left, purple.

  My death, and my enslavement.

  He would kill me so I could help lead his undead army.

  Red mist billowed up around us.

  He was going to let the plague do its job. I just had to suck in one little breath of his tainted air. Then it would be over. Then I would be his.

  My lungs wanted to breathe, but I forced myself to wait.

  One, one thousand.

  Two, one thousand.

  Jada always won at the breath-holding contests.

  Three, one thousand.

  Paint drops dribbled down the portrait and his painted hand melded together. Red light flared behind him from the painting as the portal lit up.

  He spun around toward it.

  I lunged at him. He swung his arm, unleashing green magic at me. I thrusted out my hand, forming a clear shield that arced with flashes of magic inside. His attack slammed into the shield and coursed straight through me. Pain seared my skin. My shield shattered as I charged forward, ramming into his side. He stumbled, just a step. The portal flashed, sucking him in.

  I fell to the ground, shuddering in burning breaths as my skin bubbled and burned. It felt like it would curl off in strips and fall away. The world blacked and returned and blacked again. Awful sounds filled my head, and I realized it was me. I was screaming, arching my back, my body sticky.

  Yelling punctuated my screams.

  Randall stood above me, darting back and forth. His voice came in and out.

  “I don’t know what to do!” He turned to Sasmita next to him. “Fix her!”

  Sasmita replied but I couldn’t hear her. My face felt like it was melting, like my ears and nose and eyes had turned to lava.

  I willed myself to pass out, willed myself to die. Anything to make this end.

  The burning faded away.

  My eyes fell closed.

  Maybe I’d got my wish. Maybe I was dead now, or dying. I would take it, if those were my choices.

  Silence rested over me like a blanket, tucking me in for my final sleep.

  I let go.

  My mind drifted. All I could see was eight-year-old Jada, directly in front of me underwater, hair floating around her, not the least bit strained because she could hold her breath forever. Unlike me. I’d tried to beat her record, but it was impossible.

  Funny that was my last thought. My final memory.

  Jada and I having a contest in the pool in the backyard. It was the little moments.

  Tingling danced over my skin. I felt like I could open my eyes, if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to see anything. I wouldn’t want to give my friends false hope, that I was going to survive this.

  Except the pain had vanished.

  I left my eyes closed, folding my hands on my chest, and waited. I didn’t have the energy for anything else.

  “Safiya?”

  Randall’s voice stirred me from a deep sleep. It could have been minutes or days later, but when I opened my eyes, blinking against the harsh beam of sun through the gray clouds, I was lying right where I had been at the base of the mountain, feet from the crackling tree.

  My body felt repaired and whole. It seemed strange that I had ever been in so much pain, and I started to doubt, for a moment, what exactly had happened.

  Randall dropped into a crouch next to me.

  “You okay, Saf?” He put his arm out as if to brace me if I wanted to sit up, but his hands hovered over me. “Can I touch you?”

  My brain felt dumb. I stared at him, not quite able to find words. Finally, I managed a short nod.

  He reached down and brushed matted hair out of my face. “Can you sit up?”

  “I…” It seemed easier to try than to talk, so I pressed my hands against the snow and strained to sit.

  Randall reached under my back and eased me upright. My shoulders hung loose, like a ragdoll, and it took surprising effort to lift my head.

  Sasmita, Ever, April, and Paisley stood in a cluster next to me, faces stark.

  No one said anything until Paisley broke the silence.

  “What the actual fuck was that?” she asked, kukri at her side.

  I rolled my gaze up to her, not quite able to formulate an answer to her question. And it was a good question.

  I had groveled to the necromancer to buy time, and when the portal had opened, he had unleashed his death magic on me. That explained the nightmare of being burned alive, but from there, it got a bit fuzzy.

  Grimacing at my aching muscles, I turned to Sasmita. “You’re a healer?”

  Her ancestors had been. It only made sense she would be too, though I would have so many questions for her once I found my brain again.

  She shook her head. “Um…no.”

  No? How can that be no?

  Even as I rejected her answer, the truth descended on me. I had defied my own rules of magic multiple times since arriving in Haven Rock. Had I actually countered the necromancer’s spell, too?

  I hadn’t been healed. The shield, the one I had created on impulse, had taken the worst of the attack. It had saved me. To be fair, it had hardly been a seamless response, but somehow, I had escaped death.

  Thoughts flowed across Randall’s face, darkening his expression, but he put them aside.

  “I don’t want to rush you, Saf, but we should probably get the portrait into the van. Here’s your medallion.” He retrieved my little token from New Orleans from the inside pocket of his jacket and passed it to me. “I wasn’t sure if leaving it on the painting would give him a loophole to escape, so I yanked it off as soon as we got down here.”

  I reached up, though I couldn’t lift my arm high, and Randall passed the medallion to me. I fumbled with it, and, leaning to the side, tucked it into my pocket.

  “Ready?” Randall said, and when I nodded, he stooped down and hooked me under my arms from behind. “On three.”

  “Three!”

  He hefted me up, and I fought to get my feet under me, my soles sliding against the ground until my knees finally did their job. I eased away from him, and he hovered right behind, ready to catch me if I toppled over. My brain cleared a little more, and standing became less challenging.

  The red mist around us had disappeared.

  I shuffled around to stare up at the mountain. “The van is back up there. How do we get the portrait up?”

  “There’s a trail,” Ever said, massaging her shoulder with the opposite hand. “It’ll take a while to reach the top, but it’s not a difficult hike. We’ll just drag the painting.”

  “All right.” I had nothing else to add and turned toward the portrait.

  “No, no,” Sasmita said, waving me back. “Randall and I will take it up. You just concentrate on not falling off the path.”

  I smiled weakly at her, but stood in my spot, as if uncertain what to do. My arms felt strange at my side, useless.

  April placed her hand on my shoulder and nudged me to turn toward the trail winding up the mountain. “I’ll walk on the outside and catch you if you lose balance.”

  “I think I’m okay,” I said, as lightheadedness rolled through me. I decided not to correct my answer, but Randall gave me a pointed look before pulling the portrait down onto its side.

  We started up the trail, slow and steady. Even though I had nearly been burned alive by a necromancer’s death magic, my comrades weren’t in particularly better condition. Everyone was ruffled and matted, sporting bruises and gashes. But there was a glow, an inner light that shone, like the pale sun through the clouds. It had taken every skill, every talent, every ounce of sheer luck, and a bit of straight up stupidity, but we had defeated the necromancer. He
was back in his portal, at least for the time being.

  By the time we reached the top of the mountain, there had been no sign of the red mist. Our soles dragged along the ground, our shoulders hunched. Randall and Sasmita barely kept the portrait upright, and Paisley squeezed around them to help prop up the painting.

  “Who was the artist?” Paisley asked, nodding toward the portrait.

  I blinked, but no words came to me.

  “What do you mean?” Randall asked as he strode onward, pulling it along, never wavering though he had slowed down considerably. “We didn’t take them to the Antique Roadshow.”

  She fluttered her eyes at him before continuing. “Do they all look the same? The style, I mean.”

  No one answered, but that didn’t seem to deter her.

  “The thing is, if all these witches and mages are old as you say they are, and these are portraits of their true form, or the form they sentence them in, or whatever it is…the point is, who painted them? If the same person painted them all, they would have had to live for hundreds of years, right?”

  Randall shot me a questioning look, but I shrugged.

  “Joseph said that the paintings were commissioned, but he didn’t give any names,” I said. “It’s possible several people painted them, I guess. Or they caught them all at the same time. I never gave that part a lot of thought. We’ve been…kind of busy.”

  Randall and Ever nodded in appreciation, but Paisley wrinkled her brow.

  “I want to look at the two portraits, side by side, and see if I can differentiate any style differences or, if we’re really lucky, maybe I can find a hidden signature,” she said.

  “We can,” I began, “but why?”

  “Well, you said you need to put them in some vault, right? So, if you can figure out who painted them, maybe we can find out if that person—or one of them, if it was several—is still alive. They might know where the vault is, or at least point in the right direction.”

  Perhaps it was because my brain felt like it had been rammed into a brick wall, but her idea seemed to have some merit.

  “Worth a shot,” I said.

  When we reached the van, Fiona was waiting for us, sitting with her legs folded right in front of the vehicle, as if she had known we would return for her. Or perhaps she didn’t care.

  The mist had vanished, and I imagined its absence extended all the way to Haven Rock.

  Randall, Sasmita, and Paisley dragged the painting to the side of the van and propped it up. Then they retrieved the portrait of the mage of New Orleans from the back and fought it into position next to the necromancer.

  Even with the paintings side by side, I couldn’t tell if they had been rendered by the same hand or not. It was impossible for me to guess if the painting itself was enchanted in its making, or if the portals and blue spiders had been added on after the fact.

  Paisley crouched down in front of the paintings and leaned in, searching. My heart stuttered as I envisioned them reaching out and grabbing her.

  But they were locked in by the seal, the one that was enacted when they were returned but wouldn’t hold without the magic of the vault. Hopefully, Paisley would find a clue we had overlooked while fighting monsters in swamps and being the guest of honor in a ritualistic sacrifice.

  She raised up, inspecting each inch of the paintings, back and forth, and as she reached the top, she let out a sigh. Her shoulders slumped as she turned toward us.

  “No markings, no signatures or stamps. If I had to guess, I would say the style is so similar it must be the same person, but I don’t know if that’s true.” She frowned, shuffling away from the paintings, as if she also imagined them trying to pull her into the portal with them. “Sorry, everyone. I thought I would be able to turn up something useful.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, and the world tipped sideways.

  I dropped to the ground before I blacked out and fell over, and April reached for me as if she could catch me. As I folded my legs under me, I winced, and then settled into my spot.

  “Checking the paintings hadn’t even crossed my mind,” I said, “so it was as good as anything. For now, I think we all just need sleep. A shower would be nice too, but definitely sleep.”

  Randall rummaged around the backseat of the van, and when he pulled out, he held a throw that someone must have nicked from Isadora’s house as we evacuated it. Wordlessly, he wrapped it around Fiona and then guided her off the snow, into the van. She sat in her seat, bundled in her blanket, like a small child.

  Randall was not unaffected; he was just trying to keep it together for Fiona. For Sasmita.

  For me.

  April turned to Ever, who stood a few feet away, arms crossed over her chest. “Do you think, since the necromancer is gone now, maybe we can go home and see if the water works? If the electricity is still on. Get a change of clothes and something to eat.”

  She seemed to lose herself in her wish list.

  Ever shuddered visibly. “I’m not sure what we’re going to find there. It might be better to just hit the road and meet up with Noah and Skyla.”

  Her words cascaded down on us like feathers.

  They had to leave, and so did we—and neither group shared a destination. Everyone must have come to the same realization because the mood plummeted.

  April stared at the ground, shuffling iced dirt with the toe of her shoe. Paisley fidgeted with the handle of her kukri. Ever looked between her sisters, as if expecting them to come to their senses, but then she lowered her arms to her side.

  “I wish it was reasonable, or realistic, for us to all stay together. We have to get to what is left of our family, and then once Skyla is safe, we need to figure out what to do. What is left of our lives.” She straightened. “Where are you headed next?”

  I opened my mouth to tell her that Sasmita had our path planned out.

  Something moved in the corner of my eye. I jerked around as the mage of New Orleans shifted in his portrait, and then settled back into place.

  My heart rammed into my chest, and I scrambled back, muttering incoherent words.

  Randall darted to my side and he stood next to me, staring at the portrait. It didn’t move again.

  “They’re coming,” I whispered. “The seal is becoming weak again.”

  Tears prickled at the back of my nose and eyes, and chills ran up and down the back of my arms and my neck.

  “We have to go,” I said, still barely audible. I glanced up at the Randall, eyes wide. “Where is the vault?”

  He placed his hand on top of my head, stroking my hair.

  “I don’t know. Sasmita, are you sure you don’t have any idea where it is?”

  “No...” she said slowly, but her posture shifted.

  Everyone turned to her.

  “I might have a contact, but…I shouldn’t involve them.” She seemed to be trying to convince herself.

  “Contact?” I narrowed my eyes. “What kind of contact?”

  “The kind who might know where the vault is,” she said, pointedly.

  I stared up at her, my brain drowning in questions as they flooded in and I paddled hard to escape them, to leave them behind. I didn’t have it in me to ask or argue, and she had already been clear that she wasn’t going to tell us the truth.

  Slowly, I rose to my feet, and Randall helped brace me until I found my balance again.

  Ever, April, and Paisley shuffled in closer. We hugged then, as a group, and then one on one, and no one bothered to suppress the tears or sniffling. We had earned our sadness, we had earned our devotion to each other, for however long it had lasted.

  “Keep in touch, okay?” Ever said, pulling back. She patted my shoulder. “You guys are the best monster hunters ever.”

  “We couldn’t have done it without all of you,” I said, and I meant every word. I wished they could continue with us, that we wouldn’t have to take on the next nightmare without their skills and spirit.

  Ever smiled, though tears trick
led down her cheeks. “We’re not the only ones out there. You’ll find more like us, more people who want to save the world, even if it’s only for one battle. Make sure to find us, wherever you wind up, okay?”

  I nodded, not wiping away my tears. I didn’t have the energy.

  Someone took my hand, and I turned as Paisley pressed the handle of a knife into my palm.

  “Better yet,” she said with a twinkle of mischief on her face, “take this.”

  Ever and April followed suit, unloading several of their knives to pass between us.

  “One more thing,” Paisley added, handing me a folded piece of paper.

  I straightened the paper and then laughed at the phone number written across it.

  “When we reach the other side of all this,” she said, gesturing around at the world at large, “call us. I know there’s so much more happening, more than any of us can even imagine right now. Let us know how it all turns out.”

  “I’ll commit the number to memory,” I said. “Do you guys want a ride to your camp, or back into town?”

  Ever shook her head.

  “I want to say goodbye. I know every stone, every trunk, every animal track.” She hesitated, sadness deepening her dark eyes. “I don’t think we’re ever coming back here.”

  Who could blame her? The necromancer had obliterated her town and taken her brother for good measure. She would never be able to wander these woods again without remembering the undead army, the unhinged cult, or the time when her little brother had died twice.

  She had been braver than me by far. I might have all but thrown myself at the necromancer’s feet, but Ever had done the single hardest task in this mess. Had roles been reversed, and I had been confronted with Jada’s reanimated form, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I wouldn’t have been able to deliver the killing blow.

  Everyone hugged again, and then the sisters linked their arms over each other’s shoulders and walked off to take in their last view from the mountains of Haven Rock, Colorado.

  After their silhouettes had disappeared, Randall and Sasmita loaded up both paintings.

  We had to keep going. Fiona needed help, and the answer was not in a hospital. Our only chance rested with learning what the wielders were up to, and why they had involved Fiona. Since they followed in the wake of the witches and mages, we would be right behind.