Two seconds later, his head exploded in glittering fragments of black light.
The intruders racing behind him out of the hallway paused at the sight of the wizard’s complete destruction. But only for a moment.
“Stop them!” an orc roared. “Get the coin!”
Then the air filled with even more humming, prickling magical energy as the Laenmúr kept up their chant and Jessica kept their unwanted guests at bay.
Two cruorcian mages lifted their hands side by side and conjured a shimmering wall of energy in front of their party. Summoned by blood and just as red, the wall flickered with coalescing drops of crimson reflecting the same color as the cruorcians’ eyes. The snaking lines of red stretched across the warehouse floor toward the outer circle of chanting Laenmúr members, and Jessica responded in kind.
A burst of black smoke shot from her fingertips toward the blood magic inching across the floor. The brilliant flash of crimson muddied with dark light made the cruorcians hiss in surprise. That was all the time they had before Jessica’s destructive magic ate up the lines of their spell like a spark eating up a line of gunpowder.
The red wall crackled with energetic death and dissipated in an explosion of ashy fragments, tossing the mages backward into the rest of their party streaming from the hallway. Their screams mixed with the rising shout the Laenmúr incantation had become, both mages’ hands gone now where Jessica’s magic had consumed theirs.
Shards of blue light launched from an elf man’s hands directly toward Jessica. Two wayward slivers pierced the shoulder of a Laenmúr witch standing in the outer circle. She screamed and dropped to one knee, clearing the way for Jessica to raise both hands and catch the elf’s shards in her palms.
The pain was both agonizing and overwhelmingly sweet as the attack peppered her hands. Jessica hissed at the burning energy racing up her arms and took in the elf’s magic to convert it. The blue light crackled around her, sputtering, then faded. Before he could cast anything else, she took one step forward and shoved toward him with both hands.
It was the same attack, only flavored with a vestrohím’s special talents. The black shards tore from Jessica’s palms, twice the size they had been and leaving trails of destructive smoke in their wake like jet streams. The elf man was the first to go down with one of the shards piercing him straight through the throat, and his death was silent. The four other attackers around him weren’t so lucky, catching their fellow idiot’s converted magic in the hip, the shoulder, the chest. Their shrieking howls split the air as black smoke erupted from their wounds and the shards disintegrated into their flesh, burning up through them and eating away at what was left.
“Get him in here!” another cruorcian shouted, summoning a handful of blood-red orbs as his crimson eyes flashed with brighter-red light.
The command traveled in sharp barks through their ranks, fading down the dark hallway to relay the message.
“Reggie!”
“Get Reggie in here!”
“Let him through!”
With a snarl, the mage who’d given the command plucked a blood orb from his hand and, one at a time, launched them at the Laenmúr magicals who still somehow managed to hold their circles and keep up the incantation.
Jessica obliterated the first orb heading toward a troll in the outer circle. It burst just behind his head, and he flinched but didn’t break the spell. The second blood orb headed right toward her, and she caught it before crushing it in her palm with another intensified wave of agonizing energy shooting up her arm. The cruorcian’s third attack missed Boris standing in the inner circle—and it was only a miss because a smaller branch shot from the dryad’s shoulder, detached itself, and batted the blood orb aside at the last second. A puff of leaves and shredded wood fluttered to the floor, some of it coating Reynaldo’s shoulder. The gnome gave the debris a quick glance and grinned but didn’t break the incantation.
Heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway toward them as the intruding faction shouted in warning.
“He’s here!”
“Get out of the way!”
Chunks of wall crumbled in the hallway, spilling out into the warehouse before the owner of those footsteps fully emerged. The floor trembled with each massive step.
Jessica’s attention was stolen by the hulking form of the summoned Reggie squeezing through the frame of the hallway. Not a half-giant like the one whose billy-club channeler she’d snapped in half with only half her magic. A full-blooded giant. The kind that didn’t get out much for good reason.
“Continue!” Leandras barked, launching a spear of silver light toward the oncoming giant before returning his attention to the ritual.
They kept getting interrupted.
Jessica felt the undulating waves of intensifying magic from their combined spell rising and dipping again, because these assholes picked the wrong fucking time to attack. They’d never finish the spell like this.
The cruorcian’s next blood orb whizzed past Jessica on the left. She noticed it too late to stop it, and the scream behind her from the outer circle made her turn.
“Mel!” Cedrick dropped to his knees beside the pink-haired witch, who clutched at her shoulder already drenched in blood—hers and the tainted blood of the attack, and that was even worse.
The sight of her friend kneeling there with blood pouring through her fingers made something snap inside Jessica. Something that hadn’t awakened for years. Something she’d forgotten and remembered again, only to have the bank stuff it back down behind a wall in her mind.
And her magic was as fully restored as the last time she’d lost her wits beneath the churning rage like this, fueled by a need to protect those she loved.
With a snarl, she darted through the magicals forming the inner circle, then the outer, and headed straight for the cruorcian. He got off one shot of his last blood orb and struck Jessica in the upper arm before her outstretched hands hit his chest.
She hardly felt the blood magic drenching her jacket sleeve and cramping up her arm. But the mage sure as shit felt the force of her power.
Two hand-sized holes punched through the cruorcian’s chest, glittering with red, then black before he dropped, his mouth agape in pure shock.
But running straight into the fray had done exactly what she’d wanted it to do. The entire team of moronic trespassers turned their full attention to the vestrohím now literally upon them.
“Take her down!”
“The vestrohím! Stop her!”
With the combined energy of the Laenmúr magicals raising their voices to keep up the chant, stopping the vestrohím was a short-lived pipedream.
Jessica channeled that magic directly into herself, knowing it was meant for the coin and not giving a shit. The coin, the reckoning, the Gateway—none of it mattered if those who’d come here to help her were picked off one by one.
A barrage of attacks streamed toward her from at least a dozen intruding magicals. Snaking purple bolts. Green fire. Lances of yellow light. Red orbs of blood magic. The muddy brown of a half-changeling’s weak attacks detached from their body. All of it hit Jessica as she ran straight for the giant stomping toward the circles of the chanting Laenmúr.
With so much energy coursing through her as the channel, her ability to take all of it in, make it her own, and heal whatever wounds remained was intensified tenfold.
The giant standing at least ten feet tall wracked the warehouse with his pounding footsteps and noticed Jessica coming at him at the last second. He snarled and drew his arm across his chest to deliver a crushing backhand blow. The impact of his massive arm crashing into her chest knocked the wind out of her, but she managed to wrap both arms around his huge forearm and held on tight.
He paused in surprise, yellow eyes wide above a growling sneer when he apparently realized he’d have to shake her off. It was too late for him to do anything.
Grinning like a lunatic even as she fought for breath, Jessica unleashed the force of the giant’s own
comrades into his gigantic arm. The effect was a hell of a lot worse than she’d expected.
For him.
The giant’s arm shattered into a million fragments, and the slightly delayed shockwave of all that concentrated, fully channeled magic sent him flying backward into the other intruders spreading out in front of the hallway. He howled and crashed into the wall beside the hall a second before the rest of him exploded.
The second wave of his complete destruction sent a ripple of black light and snaking smoke bursting in all directions. A crack formed in the wall where he’d hit it and snaked up toward the ceiling. Dust and bits of plaster rained down on all of them as the other members of the attacking faction were hit by the shockwave. Those closest to the obliterated giant were consumed by the smoke and burst apart into fluttering swarms of black specks like ash. The others were knocked off their feet and scattered along the edges of the room.
Jessica finally drew in a shuddering breath and spread her arms. The smoking remains of her last attack drew back into her in seconds, tearing through her body and filling her up with that intensely burning heat she’d missed so much.
Leandras and the others sure as hell better use the time she’d just given them.
She stalked back and forth in front of the outer circle as the remaining attackers groaned and tried to gather their wits.
The Laenmúr faction kept chanting. The magic in the warehouse strengthened to an overwhelming thickness until the moment finally came.
Jessica felt it. Like a door opening into intense heat and light behind her.
An orc lying against the wall managed to push himself up and conjured a glinting silver blade of humming energy.
“Jessica!” Leandras shouted.
She spun around to see all five reagents on the table glowing with a blinding intensity like tiny stars. Each one of them had risen two inches from the table.
“Now!”
Jessica jerked the coin—glowing hot and incredibly bright—from her jacket pocket and darted between the magicals forming the outer circle.
The orc tossed his dagger with a roar.
She slipped into the inner circle and heard the cry of whoever had taken the blade in her place. Her eyes watered with the strength of magic pouring into her from every inch of both circles, surging through her, bursting up into the damn coin clenched in her hand. With a shout of effort, she slapped the coin down onto the center of the table, and the wood exploded beneath her hand.
Leandras had failed to warn her about what finishing this cursed spell would ignite.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The five reagents and the coin let out a brilliant flash of light. A deep crack like the center of the Earth splitting open filled the warehouse. The agonizing energy lanced up Jessica’s arm, and the next thing she knew, she was flying backward across the warehouse toward the attackers she’d just torn apart.
Her head struck the wall with a crack and a light blazing across her vision that had nothing to do with magic.
Just a massive concussion.
With a gasp, she dropped to the floor and briefly wondered how the hell any of them were going to make it through this mess.
She had nothing to worry about. Because apparently, the vestrohím Guardian had fulfilled her duty here. And with the spell complete, there were two dozen Laenmúr members—most of them uninjured—and a damn powerful fae man ready to take up the fight.
Leandras was the first to turn from the shattered wooden table and the reagents spilled all over the floor. He stormed toward the remaining attackers and lashed out with a wave of silver light. It crippled the orc getting to his feet and knocked him back against the wall.
The Laenmúr magicals shouted in triumph and anger and converged on the survivors. Spells of every color flashed across the warehouse. A smaller group of the intruding faction—who could only have been there to pick up the pieces after the first group finished what they’d assumed would be their victory—hurried down the hall. They found a perfectly healthy and very much still-alive resistance when they emerged, and the rest of the battle played itself out to the end.
Jessica couldn’t watch all of it. The blazes of magical light darting across the room seared her eyes and nurtured a debilitating migraine.
What she did see was enough to know this would be over soon.
Steve raced past her, swinging his arm in the air before summoning an energy whip of crackling green light. He sent it cracking down across the chest of another cruorcian mage.
Boris roared, his bark-like throat rippling under the sound as he bashed the branches of his arms against anyone who got too close.
A halo of yellow light pinged against the shield Cedrick had made of his arm as he ran forward. In an instant, the changeling’s arm shifted again into an elongated blade, which he plunged into the chest of the warlock charging toward him before kicking the guy away.
An older witch Jessica hadn’t met wove a net of intricately connected yellow lines before tossing it over the head of a troll racing toward Jessica. The net stopped him in his tracks, and the troll bucked and jerked beneath the magic torching through him. The scent of burning flesh filled the air, then the troll fell forward onto his face, and the net disappeared.
Jessica looked up at the witch and for a moment thought she was seeing Tabitha.
That was impossible.
The witch blew a strand of thick gray curls out of her eyes, nodded at Jessica, then turned to head back into the fight.
Everything in Jessica’s vision doubled, then tripled, and she let herself sag back against the wall before closing her eyes.
She’d heard somewhere that the worst thing she could do after a hit to the head like this was to fall asleep. Sleep seemed impossible with all the noise around her—the zap and buzz of magic flying across the room, the slam of bodies hitting the walls and the ground, the crash of abandoned crates falling and exploding. The screams.
But at this point, sleep seemed like the only way to combat the pounding in her head.
Her magic would heal her. It always did.
“Jessica.” That was Leandras.
Oh, good. He’d come back one more time to get between her and what she actually wanted.
He dropped to his knees in front of her. “Look at me.”
She lifted her hand and let it drop back into her lap again. The pain was definitely fading now. Her head would be just fine.
“Jessica, open your eyes.” His cool hands cupped her cheeks. “Do you hear me?”
His hands on her face… Weird, but it felt nice after she’d spent the last however long it was burning with her own magic and everyone else’s.
“I’m…fine,” she muttered.
“Do not go to sleep. Jessica.” He gave her a small shake, which brought the pain in the back of her head up a notch.
She hissed and batted one of his hands away from her face. “I just need—”
“You need to open your eyes!”
She was used to him shouting, but she did not expect the fae to bring his hand down across her face with a smack.
It wasn’t a hard slap. Not given in anger or fear. Not hard enough to actually hurt. And while she knew beneath it all that he’d done it to keep her awake, she reacted accordingly.
Jessica’s eyes flew open, and she socked Leandras in the jaw with as much momentum as she could get while sitting against the wall.
He rocked sideways on his knees and slapped a hand against the wall beside her head to keep himself from going down.
Steve barked out a laugh and pointed at Leandras. “Yeah, I could’ve told you that was a bad idea.”
Jessica eyed the fae warily as he rubbed his jaw and righted himself again.
“That was…”
“You hit me first,” she muttered, now fully awake. “Don’t expect me not to hit back.”
Leandras chuckled wryly as he wiggled his lower jaw from side to side. “No need to apologize.”
Her fully retu
rned magic did its work faster than she remembered, though for how many times she’d been injured since she’d cast the Shattering, it made sense she was surprised. Already, the pain in her head had subsided to a dull throb. She flexed her hand, and the knuckles popped on their own.
He smirked at her, then his gaze fell on the wall where she’d just been resting her head. “Jessica…”
“Leandras.”
The fae reached toward the back of her head, brushing her hair aside to prod at the tender spot there.
She hissed and pulled away. “I’m fine.”
“Yes, you said that. But this says otherwise.” He showed her his fingers coated in her blood—again—and frowned. “That’s not something I recommend taking lightly.”
“I don’t.” She pushed herself to her feet and only swayed a little before finding her full balance. Leandras rose with her, reaching out in preparation to catch her if she buckled. She didn’t and prodded gingerly at the same spot at the back of her head, which wasn’t nearly as tender anymore. “But I didn’t pass out, I didn’t die, and whatever split opened up to bleed…that much is gone now.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“That there isn’t any lasting damage?” Jessica playfully rolled her eyes. “Trust me. I know what lasting damage looks like, and this isn’t it.”
Only then did she realize the warehouse had fallen silent. Mostly.
She stared at the destruction around her—buckled walls, bodies littered across the floor, pools of blood. And in the midst of it all, the Laenmúr members strolled through the mess, checking for surviving enemies, of which there were apparently none, before checking in on each other.
“Where’s Mel?”
Raising an eyebrow, Leandras turned to point across the warehouse.
Mel knelt on the floor in front of the elf woman who’d taken the final silver dagger meant for Jessica. The pink-haired witch finished the healing spell on the elf’s upper back, the golden light fading quickly from beneath her palms. The women exchanged a few brief words, then Mel smiled and got to her feet.
The Secret Coin (Accessory to Magic Book 3) Page 26
