This time, I got to my feet without having to struggle. My body was my own again, and more than that, the world around me was… clearer, somehow. The colors sharper, the smells more intense, my hearing amplified to the point that I couldn’t just hear the crickets chirping in the grass—I knew where they were.
And there, sitting on my shoulder, was Ifrit; the little fire Godling. “That was sloppy,” he said, “He’ll get back up in a couple of minutes.”
“But at least he pissed himself,” I said, a smug smile sweeping across my face. I spat a little blood into the grass and turned up at Delia, who looked like she’d just been hit with a stunning spell herself.
She was standing in front of a car, Axel’s car. The headlights were on, rendering her a human shadow, but I could see a pair of feet sticking out from just behind one of the wheels. Axel was there, unconscious and on the floor.
“So,” Delia said, “The Tempest spits this little bitch up and suddenly she thinks she can beat us.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, “But so far, you haven’t won a single fight.”
“Because you’ve gotten lucky… but your luck won’t hold forever.” Delia, gritting her teeth and groaning, snapped a series of quick-fire spells at me. Three green bolts of light flashed from her fingertips, but I parried them away and sent them streaking into the night. Frowning, Delia started to circle around me. That was one of her signature moves.
“Some people stay lucky forever, you know,” I said.
“Maybe, but you’re not one of those people,” she hissed.
“I know. I’ve been dealt enough shitty hands to know I’m not one of the lucky ones. Instead, I’m one of the people who goes out and does the work, and gets what she wants because she’s earned it, not because she’s been lucky.”
“Would you like me to give you a medal for that?”
“I don’t want you to do anything except leave, before one of you gets hurt.”
Delia stopped moving and stared at me like I’d just told the most ridiculous joke. “Wait, you want me to leave because you don’t want me to get hurt? I don’t think you’re quite understanding the situation, here.”
“No, I understand. I understand there are two crows in front of me who think they’re gonna put me down, but the truth is I don’t think you actually have what it takes to put me down.”
“Oh, so you think because you’ve made it out of the Tempest you’re invincible? Guardians don’t give you super powers.”
“Spoken like a mage without a Guardian,” Ifrit said into my ear.
“Why are you even working for him?” I asked. “Do you like being somebody else’s lapdog?”
“I get compensated very well for my services, thank you.” Delia dug her foot into the earth and fired another bolt of magic at me. With a wave of my hand, I parried the attack and sent the magic slamming into one of the car’s headlights, shattering it and putting it out of commission.
“I’m gonna give you one more chance,” I said, “Get out of here, and I won’t hurt you.”
Delia scowled. “That ship has sailed,” she hissed, and instead of throwing a bolt of magic at me, she threw one into Karkov.
The big guy suddenly sprang to his feet, like he’d just been blasted in the heart with three liters of pure adrenaline. He surged toward me like a bear, his eyes wide open, his mouth slack like he was going to pounce on me and sink his teeth into my face. I turned my hand on him, backed up a step, and fired a bolt of pure lightning into his chest.
The magic struck him hard and fast, the lightning entering his chest from the front and exiting him through the back like a gunshot. There was no blood, only the smell of burned flesh and hair. Karkov’s eyes went a different kind of wide, he staggered, I side-stepped out of his path, and then he fell lifelessly against the hood of the car with a loud thud.
When he rolled off it, I noticed he’d left a dent in the hood in the shape of his head.
Thunder grumbled high above. My fingers were buzzing, my chest vibrating as magic filled every inch of me. Sparks danced in front of my fingertips as I turned my hand on Delia, who couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Karkov lay limp on the ground, a burning hole in his back the size of a baseball. I didn’t dare to look more closely at what I’d done to him, so I kept my eyes on the second crow.
The only one still left alive.
“You… killed him,” she said, backing up toward the cliff edge.
“I warned you,” I said.
“You just killed another mage… you killed him!” she screamed, her voice shooting off into the night like a banshee’s wail.
“In my defense, you were trying to kill me.”
She pointed at me, prompting me to move my hand in a way that would let me defend myself from her attack. Only she wasn’t attacking. She was simply pointing at me, and glaring. “You’re gonna pay for that,” she snarled. She was shaking, her otherwise cool visage completely shattered. “I’m going to tear you apart for that.”
“You’re welcome to try,” I said.
Scowling, Delia let herself fall from the cliff edge. A moment later, a little black bird came sailing up. Cawing loudly, it circled overhead once, twice, three times, before finally fluttering off into the distance, becoming one with the darkness overhead. It wasn’t until after she was gone that I realized, Karkov’s body was still sizzling—still cooking from the inside out.
Covering my nose, I turned away from him and dashed around the side of the car. Axel was there, though he was still unconscious. I tapped his cheeks, trying to wake him up, but it was no use. He was out cold. Sliding my hands under his arms, I picked him up and hauled him into the backseat of the car, panting from the effort after I was done.
“You defended yourself well,” Ifrit said.
I turned my head to look at the fireball sitting on my shoulder. “I… killed a guy,” I said.
“He would’ve killed you, and you know it.”
“Do I?”
“You do, because I know it. I know everything you know, and more. I can tell you what you’re thinking, what you’ve thought about, and what you’ll likely think about next. I can tell you what you’ve seen, what you’ve overlooked, and what you need to find. I can also give you advice, but it’s up to you if you want to take it.”
“Do you have any advice for me now?”
“Run… run away from this place, just in case she decides to return with backup. The stakes have gone up now that you’ve killed one of their people, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“That means, he may hurt Karim in retaliation…”
I nodded. “I know that, too.”
A light amidst the trees stole my attention. I stood upright, watching the light as it broke through the woods. It was a car, approaching slowly. I moved away from Axel and prepared myself for a fight, but when the car pulled to a halt, I saw it was RJ who stepped out of the driver’s seat. He came rushing over, Danvers following him.
“Are you alright?” RJ asked.
“I’m fine,” I said, “Axel’s unconscious, but he’s alive.”
RJ’s nostrils flared, and he covered his nose with his hand. “Jesus, what the hell happened here?” he asked, moving around the car. Then he saw Karkov’s dead body slump against the front bumper, and the head-shaped dent on the hood. “Shit…”
“Shit is right,” I said, “We need to get out of here. You guys get back to your car, I’ll take this one.”
“No,” RJ said, “We need to get rid of this body.”
“We? No way, somebody else can deal with that.”
“Do you have any idea how close we are to the Athenaeum? If anyone comes out here and finds this, the shit’s gonna hit the fan and it’s gonna spray all over us.”
“Nobody knows we did this.”
“Not yet, but they’ll open an investigation and they’ll figure out the truth. Trust me on this. We need to get rid of it.”
He was right, and even i
f I wasn’t sure whether he was right or not, I did trust him. He used to be a Legionnaire, which meant he had a much better idea about how Magistrate investigations worked. If he said we’d get pinned for it, then I had to believe him. Right now, only Delia knew Karkov was dead. News of his death would probably stay in the family, unless someone else found Karkov’s body.
An image of Axel’s car, engulfed in flames and falling off the side of the cliff, forced its way into my thoughts. A beat passed, then I turned my head to look at Ifrit. “Was that you?” I asked.
“You’re gonna have to get used to that,” he said. “I’m not subtle.”
I nodded. “Keep having great ideas like that one, and I won’t complain.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
So, it turned out setting things on fire and pushing them with my mind had gotten a whole lot easier with a Guardian sitting on my shoulder. It was as if my connection to the Tempest had gotten stronger; like my WiFi had just gotten an upgrade.
I’d stayed on the cliff edge to watch the car fly off the side and into the water. As soon as it sank, though, I was gone; speeding away in our backup car, with RJ at the wheel, Danvers in the passenger seat, and Axel’s head on my lap.
I had no idea when he was going to wake up, but I hoped it was soon. I hated that there was nothing I could do for him. Even RJ didn’t dare, just in case the crows had set up some counter-curse that would trigger if someone tried to revive him early.
For all any of us knew, he’d be out for hours, or maybe even days.
Becket wasn’t home yet when we arrived, which made me wonder if anything had happened to him back at the Athenaeum. We had all run out of there in a hurry, but then, Becket wasn’t openly involved with any of us; I doubted if anyone would’ve questioned him about our behavior.
RJ was quick to bring Axel up and into his bedroom. I decided to sit with him in his bed and wait for him to wake up. Even if he wouldn’t wake up for a couple of hours, for all I knew, I didn’t want him to be on his own when he did finally regain consciousness. It wasn’t like we were going to be doing much else, anyway. Not with Becket still away.
Danvers brought up a cup of tea about thirty minutes into my wait, saying it was something Karim would’ve probably done. Or would’ve done if he wasn’t always such an asshole. I appreciated the gesture, but it made me miss his grouchy ass even more. I had no idea what was happening to him, if anything had happened to him since news of Karkov’s death reached Asmodius’ ears.
I could only hope he hadn’t received any form of punishment for what I’d done. What I’d done. When I thought back to the way Karkov’s face had changed the moment I smashed a near-solid bolt of lightning into his chest, I couldn’t believe it had been me that had struck and killed him. Recalling the memory made my entire body shudder and shake. I’d never killed anyone before.
Axel stirred. I set my cup of tea down, shaken out of my trance by his movements, and ran my fingers through his hair. “Axel?” I asked.
He groaned as he moved, wincing from pain the source of which I couldn’t see. I tried to help him relax, placing one hand on his chest and whispering to him, letting him know he was safe, that the crows were gone. Slowly, Axel opened his clear, blue eyes and stared up at me. He blinked hard and fast, like he was having trouble seeing me, then he settled.
“Izzy…” he croaked. “Where am I?”
He clearly hadn’t heard me a moment ago. “You’re alright,” I said, “You’re back at Becket’s place… how do you feel?”
“Like shit…” he tried to sit up, but I stopped him. “The crows,” he yelped.
“They’re gone. Please, you have to relax. I don’t know what they’ve done to you.”
“What they did to me?” Axel asked, resting his head on the pillow. “They… they jumped me. I went looking for you and… they were there, ready to pounce.”
“I’m sorry. I never should’ve run off like that. I just… I couldn’t—”
“—control it,” Axel said, “I know. But you’re still here… does that mean…?”
I smiled at him, then nodded. “I made it out,” I said, “I have my Guardian.”
Axel smiled, too, but I could tell it had cost him to do so. “I’m proud of you. I knew you could do it.”
“That makes one of us.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
In truth, I didn’t. My Journey into the Tempest was starting to feel more like a dream I’d had a few weeks ago than, well, whatever the hell it had really been. It felt like I’d physically jumped into another realm and then been pushed out of it again, but was that really accurate? An image of the bird skeleton flashed in my mind, but I struggled to remember its name.
“It’s hazy,” I said.
“The memory will return in a day or two. Your brain is still trying to come to terms with what exactly happened to you in there.”
“I don’t really care too much about that. I care more that you’re okay. We had no idea of knowing what the crows had done to you. Danvers wanted to try and revive you, but RJ insisted against it. He thought we’d hurt you by trying to wake you up early.”
“RJ made the right call. The crows are shifty, they could’ve tried something like that, but I doubt if they’d have done anything potentially fatal.”
“How do you know that?”
Axel took a deep breath and stared into the ceiling. “Because my father told me he’d take me back into the family. He doesn’t want me dead. He thinks I’ll realize the error of my ways soon enough and come back with my tail between my legs.”
I paused. Swallowed. “Will you?”
He looked at me, his blue eyes fixing on mine. “No,” he said, his voice firm. “I’ve made my choice.”
Nodding, I smiled at him. “Well, he may have changed his mind after what just happened…”
Axel tried to sit up, and this time I let him. “What happened?”
“Yeah… I may or may not have, but totally did… kinda kill Karkov tonight.”
He blinked at me. “You… killed him?”
I shrugged. “I did. In my defense, he was going to kill me and I kinda thought they’d already killed you, so they could both go and die as far as I was concerned.”
A smile formed on his lips, though I could tell he was visibly struggling to keep himself from smiling. “I’m sorry,” he said, “This is a very serious thing. It is. But they could both go and die is just… it’s such an Izzy thing to say.”
“I should hope so, considering I am Izzy.”
His smile grew, and as it widened, I found myself remembering my own thoughts about him while I was in the Tempest. Maybe my own mind was starting to piece things together again, or maybe my Guardian had conveniently placed the thought into my head—something I was probably never going to get used to in my life—but the memories were there, now, at the forefront of my consciousness.
As I stared at him, I felt another kind of pull tugging at the pit of my stomach. Another urge. Maybe it was the fact that we’d both survived tonight, maybe it was the fact that we were both lying in bed together… again. Maybe it was a combination of both those things? But I found myself falling into his eyes, losing myself in them, and in doing so, realizing… I had feelings for this man.
What kind of feelings, exactly, I couldn’t say. Respect, definitely. I respected the hell out of him. I admired him, too. After all he’d been through, all he’d endured at his father’s own hands, he’d still come out of it with his moral compass intact. He was a good man, despite the world trying its best to force him into something like his father.
Whether those feelings ran any deeper, I couldn’t say. Not right now. But respect and admiration were feelings, and that wasn’t nothing. That was something. The only question was, did he have feelings toward me, too?
A knock at the door startled us both. I stared at it for a long moment. Then, when I felt Axel trying to slide out of bed, I stopped him and went to answer the door myself. On the
other side of it stood Becket, his red eyes fixed on me, his expression tight and stern, his jaw clenched. He looked at me, then over at Axel, then back at me again.
“I’m glad to see you all made it back,” Becket said.
“Me too,” I said, “Are you alright? Did anything happen to you?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Except for your sudden flight from the Athenaeum and an awkward conversation with Asmodius, my night has been relatively uneventful.”
“I wish I could say the same.” I glanced across my shoulder at Axel. “You stay in bed. I’ll bring you up something to eat in a minute.”
Axel nodded and allowed himself to settle. Even if he’d wanted to argue, I didn’t think he had the strength to. Thinking about it, I doubted he could’ve even walked across to the door from the bed if he’d wanted to. He was pale, and he’d clearly been weakened. Those crows had done a number on him, and I wanted to stay with him, but I needed to talk to Becket more.
Stepping out into the hall, I shut the door behind myself and looked up at him. “I made it back,” I said.
“I knew you would,” Becket said.
“Did you also know it would just happen like that?”
Becket nodded. “I couldn’t have you sitting around the house waiting for the Tempest to open itself for you. It needed to happen organically, out of need more than want.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Out of curiosity, how did it happen?”
I sighed. “Asmodius,” I said, “He threatened me, belittled me, made me feel like I was nothing. I guess something inside of me woke up to prove him wrong.”
“And tonight, it did. You did. You should be proud of yourself.”
“I am… I also know we aren’t done yet.”
Becket shook his head. “If you’d like to follow me to my study, I have more questions for you. There’s also the matter of the scroll…”
“And Karim. I haven’t forgotten about him.”
“Nor have I, unfortunately there’s little we can do for him right now.”
“That’s not true. We can go and get him.”
Soul of the Storm (The Wardbreaker Book 2) Page 14
