The East Gate (Dawnbringer, Book 2)

by Elon Vidal

  Damon waved his hand and lifted them with his magic. “Go ahead.”

  Dawn took the suspended daggers. They weren’t as light as they looked, but they weren’t too heavy to carry and swing. She tried it out, grabbing the handles and crossing her arms as she swung, smiling at how right they felt in her hands.

  “The Raphael look suits you,” Elijah said with a smile.

  “Raphael?” Damon asked in confusion.

  “Ninja Turtles reference,” Dawn answered with a laugh. “It’s this cartoon normal kids watch; you wouldn’t get it.”

  “With that mouth, I would expect a more Michelangelo look for you.”

  Dawn was pleasantly surprised by that. Perhaps Damon wasn’t so bad after all. She gave him a mock salute with one dagger, “I’ll give you that one, warlock.”

  He chanted a spell again and waved his hand as he put the shelves back in place, leaving the room empty again.

  “Now that we have that out of the way, perhaps we can go for real training?”

  Dawn grinned with delight. Oh, it was on.

  FIVE

  “So how was it?” Elijah asked excitedly as he prepared some flowerpots.

  She had finished her weapons training with Damon and was now watching her friend prepare for a plant magic class evaluation. The greenhouse they were in connected with the school’s lush botanical garden, close to the First Guard training center. The garden nurtured abundant flora that represented various attempts by students to try out new magic spells. It still remained visually appealing because teachers made sure things didn’t get out of hand.

  “As scary as I expected it to be,” Dawn replied. “Those guys are way too serious.”

  “Did they do any other tests?”

  She shook her head, watching intently as Elijah cast a spell over the flowerpots.

  “You never told me about your dream,” he said.

  “You think if I knew that it was going to become such a big deal, I wouldn’t have? I need you to have my back, not do the whole you should have said something. Whether you are right or not.”

  Elijah raised his hand over a pot, casting some light magic that made a plant begin to germinate much quicker than it naturally would. The plant quickly turned into a small shrub with buds, and the buds opened to reveal flowers. Dawn smiled at that; it was one of her favourite things about magic. Just the simple things. And plant magic had always been her favourite because she loved combining what she loved about plant science and learning a little bit of magic too.

  “That’s not how friendships work,” he chuckled. “But because you are such a drama queen, I will indulge you.”

  “That’s why I keep you around.” Dawn winked, earning a playful glare from her friend.

  “An eclipse happens the same day you get your mysterious power, and now someone is killing people and stealing maps? How do you fit into all of that?”

  “I don’t know. But I hope they are running around trying to fix it because I don’t think I can live like this without losing my mind.”

  “We are just trying to protect you; I know it has to suck having someone shadow you all day.”

  Elijah was right, but it didn’t make it any better. She leaned against the counter and watched him practice his spells some more, each flower becoming bigger than the other.

  “I’m scared, Elijah,” she finally confessed.

  He stopped and looked at her. “I know, but it’s going to be okay.”

  “I feel like no one is telling us what is really going on, and even all these Guards won’t be able to protect me if someone really is after me. If they managed to steal those artifacts under so much warding, then what’s stopping them from attacking me again and succeeding this time?”

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said sincerely.

  She had to smile at that. “Oh yeah? You and what army?”

  He clenched his fists and opened them. Revealing a ball of white energy.

  “What happens when you expend too much power?”

  “I’m not here just because of my good looks and natural talent with magic, you know. I’m a pretty incredible fighter too.”

  They looked at each other for a second before bursting into laughter.

  “That was a good one,” Dawn said. “You having good looks!”

  Elijah threw a small ball of energy in her direction, and it hit her chest lightly. “Behave.”

  “Fine, I will. Now tell me what exactly we hope to accomplish here?”

  He pointed to the first three plants. “I want to learn how to make a flower grow using magic, then remove that magic without killing the flower. Kind of like weaning it off my life force and letting it grow on its own.”

  “That should be easy. Try casting a spell to give the flower everything it needs to grow on its own in the first place, then you use your light like an accelerator, helping it to just grow fast but still using the fundamental raw materials of germination.”

  Elijah looked at her like she had started speaking a foreign language. She gestured for his book, and he handed it to her. Even she could do simple magic like this. She read a spell out carefully and held out her hand, making soil manifest slowly in an empty flowerpot.

  “Now you just make sure that you make this soil like super soil, with everything it needs to sustain the flower naturally. Don’t be the one feeding the flower from your light source,” Dawn instructed. She read out another spell, carefully, and gave the soil some nutrition.

  It reminded her of Fae Magic 101, and it was such a beautiful thing to be a part of. It was one of the things that had attracted her to EOS in the first place; their use of plant-based medicine to develop cures for rare diseases and facilitate better living.

  “Then you plant the seed,” she said next, looking up at Elijah, who was now looking at her funny.

  “Was I speaking Greek again?” she teased, her smile dropping when his didn’t appear. “What’s wrong?”

  He took her hand and ran his thumb over the mark on her wrist. “Your mark is still there.”

  “What do you mean, of course it’s still there.”

  “You just cast a spell.”

  “It’s just simple magic, I didn’t…” her voice trailed off when she realized what he meant.

  Small spell or not, it was still a spell. It was still magic the caging spell should have prevented. Dawn dropped the book and looked at her hands as if they somehow held the answer.

  “It doesn’t work,” she whispered in disbelief, turning her hands over and over again.

  “It seems so,” Damon said as he walked into the room.

  Dawn looked up, and her eyes widened in panic. This was the worst thing that could happen right now.

  “Dude, were you seriously eavesdropping?” Elijah asked, then moved to stand next to Dawn.

  “Calm down, we wouldn’t want to upset her,” Damon raised a brow at Dawn. “Who knows what might happen.”

  “You can’t tell anyone!” was her first thought. “Please.”

  Who knows what would happen if they knew a caging spell didn’t work on her?

  “That’s not the best idea, and you know it. No one can help if they don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Damon,” she started, but he held his hand up.

  “Magic is a force, Dawn. We draw power from the sun and maintain a certain balance, but we can’t use too much of it, and we can’t ignore it. And when we use too much of it, it drains us and makes us sick, like mother nature reminding us that we are not gods.”

  She knew all this and wondered why he was telling her that.

  “Do you understand what I am trying to say? What you have is not magic, and that is why that mark won’t work. We rely on the sun for our energy, but you? You have your own super battery inside of you, and no one knows what it can do yet. And now a caging spell doesn’t work on you? Please tell me that doesn’t concern you in the least.”

  It did scare her, but so did the thought of being lo
cked up because people were afraid of her.

  “So what do you want to do?” Elijah asked, moving to stand in front of her.

  “Drop the guard dog routine, Elijah, you can’t fight me. I want to protect her too, but we can’t just keep this to ourselves.”

  “If we tell the Council, I’m just going to be controlled even more,” she interjected.

  “Both of you are concerned about blissful ignorance? Really? Not what this could mean?” Damon looked at Elijah in disbelief.

  “Well, it’s not like the Enlightened spell was that effective,” chimed in Elijah. “If you really want to protect her, we should at least figure something more conclusive out, don’t you think?”

  Damon was quiet for a while, and Dawn wondered if they could trust him. He didn’t owe them anything, he wasn’t their friend, and she was sure part of him disliked her a little.

  “Two days,” he finally said. “I’m giving you two days to do your investigating, and then we let the Council know.”

  Two days wasn’t much, but it did buy them time to find a plan.

  “Will you help us?” Elijah asked. “You know this place better than anyone, and if we are to research anything, you’d know where to look.”

  “I can tell you that you won’t find any information in the library,” Damon said.

  “Then where should we look?” Dawn asked, wondering if the warlock would be of any assistance after all.

  Damon looked at her for a few seconds as if trying to decide whether she was worthy of his wisdom or not. She didn’t mind his ever-present air of superiority; she just wanted someone to start giving her answers she could work with. She was tired of hearing that someone was on it, or they would let her know when they discovered something. The sooner she found out what was going on and who was behind it, the sooner the Council could stop them, and she could get on with her life.

  “The Council calls upon the Djinn and other elder members from prominent families. The Enlightened might have the final say, but there are the select few that are consulted from time to time when unprecedented things take place. Do you know who is never invited to the big table?”

  Dawn raised a brow at Damon to show her impatience; this was not a quiz! Too bad her impressionable best friend was all too quick to indulge the older warlock’s stupid questions because he quickly chimed in with an answer.

  “The Wiccans!”

  Damon smiled. “Exactly.”

  “Sorry, am I missing something?” Dawn asked.

  The Wiccans were dark witches who were considered abominations of the magic community. Well, at least that is what the urban legends they knew had to say. Over the centuries, they had taken in other outcast magical creatures as part of their community and had become one giant network of dark magic practitioners. They had no regard for the balance of things or preserving the sacred rules of nature magic, and they had manipulated human civilizations over the centuries to gain wealth and power. Dawn wondered what Wiccans had to do with anything and where Damon was going with this.

  Dawn looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “So, your idea is for us to get information from Wiccans? We don’t exactly have any Wiccan on speed dial, you know, because that would defeat the purpose of us being good guys and all.”

  “You are young, but you will realize, one day, that the lines are not as easy to draw as you seem to think they are.”

  “And this is coming from you? Mister ‘I am the gods’ gift to magic’ perfect warlock?” she asked in genuine surprise.

  “You think he’s the gods’ gift to magic?” Elijah asked with a smirk.

  Dawn glared at him, and he raised his hands in surrender.

  “I’m flattered, Dawn, really,” Damon said, “but I’m trying to help here. It is not my go-to solution either, but I know some Wiccans who might be able to point us in the right direction.”

  “Come again?” she asked.

  Damon shrugged. “Where you go, I go. And someone needs to keep you out of trouble.”

  “That’s my job,” her best friend said, earning another glare from her.

  “I have two daggers, one for each of you,” she warned. “And are we just going to ignore the fact that you have Wiccan contacts?”

  From the moment that she had met Damon, he had acted like the perfect warrior and a stickler for rules. It seemed rather odd that he was now showing this side of himself. There were people who mingled with Wiccans, of course, even though no one spoke of it out loud. But a warrior of the First Guard? Now that was really strange. Especially one who had been itching to turn her in to the council just a minute ago!

  “When you finish training some assignments will take you far from home, and you realize that some things are not as they appear to be,” he replied in a cryptic manner. “Let’s just say I’ve met some people from the other side, and they are not all bad.”

  “And you trust these people?”

  “Trust is a big word. Let’s just find out what we can, and we can take it from there, if you want to, of course.”

  Dawn thought about it for a second, wondering what the best course of action would be. On one hand, her mother would murder her if she found out that she had gone to a Wiccan. But on the other, someone out there might actually murder her if she didn’t stop them. And she would be with an experienced warlock, so what could go wrong?

  “What do you think?” she turned to Elijah.

  Trust was indeed a big word as Damon had said, and she knew without a single doubt that she had it in spades for her best friend. His words had weight in a lot of things she did, and she trusted that he would always have her best interests at heart. If he was on board with this, then she would feel more certain about her decision.

  “I think we should try. It’s better to be on the offensive than defensive, right?” Elijah asked, repeating what their weapons teacher had always said during training.

  “Our parents will kill us if they find out, though.”

  “Then they can join the queue.”

  Dawn playfully punched him, and he laughed.

  “Too soon?”

  She shrugged. “Better to laugh about it than cry, I suppose.”

  “If you have finished hugging it out, maybe we can actually form a plan?” Damon interrupted their banter.

  Dawn couldn’t be too sure, but he looked annoyed all of a sudden, but she couldn’t think of anything that they had said that might get on his ever-sensitive nerves.

  “You are the boss,” she said, “tell us what we need to do.”

  She took a deep breath as Damon laid out the plan, not quite believing that they were actually doing this. It was scary but exciting at the same time, and she was more than ready to put everything she had learned in spy movies to the test.

  SIX

  “Perhaps coming out here in the evening isn’t exactly the best idea,” Elijah said as Damon parked his car in a dark alley.

  Dawn bumped shoulders with him and gave him a smile. “Scared?”

  “If anything happens, I can’t exactly rely on my magic when it’s dark.”

  “Good thing I never have any magic to rely on, so I’m always ready.” Dawn winked and showed Elijah the knives in her boots.

  He rolled his eyes and mumbled something about her and knives.

  “Relax, nothing is going to happen,” Damon said. “We are just going in and out, and then back home before anyone starts wondering where we are. Don’t touch anything, and don’t say anything offensive.”

  Elijah tapped Dawn’s nose. “I think that last part was directed at you.”

  “Both of you,” Damon’s voice held a stern warning. “Let’s go.”

  They walked around to the front of the building, faint lights lighting the front of several shops. If it wasn’t so creepy, it would have been cool, Dawn thought. She’d never thought she would have anything to do with a Wiccan, let alone be seeking one out. She would probably tell a story about this one day. Damon opened a door and went in first, holding
it for them while they walked in.

  “Wow,” Dawn couldn’t help whispering.

  Dawn looked around as they entered the shop, marveling at all the potion vials that were displayed everywhere. They were all arranged creatively, forming a rainbow of colors. She wondered if she could get a love potion here, it seemed like the sort of thing Wiccans could perfect.

  "We do have what you are looking for," a voice said just before a woman appeared.

  She was short and slim, with long white hair and even, pale skin. A pixie, Dawn deduced, even though her eyes were no longer the trademark light green, but now an eerie black.

  "Although I wonder who it is for? The handsome warrior?" she said as she batted her lashes at Damon before turning to Elijah. "Or the young warlock?"

  Elijah frowned, just as Dawn did the same, wondering what the woman was talking about. Had Damon brought them to a madwoman? Her mother had always told her of the danger of using dark magic, and she wondered if losing your mind was one of them.

  "The love potion you seek," the Pixie clarified, making both the guys look at Dawn in confusion.

  She blushed and shook her head quickly. "It's not for either of you!"

  "So, you do want a love potion?" Damon asked in surprise.

  "Not for myself...wait," she stopped and looked at the Pixie, who was giggling. "I never said anything! How did you know that?"

  The woman laughed and batted her lashes at Damon again. "I would go for this one if I were you; he thinks you look adorable when you blush."

  Now it was Dawn looking at Damon in shock. He looked annoyed as usual, waving his hand in dismissal as he glared at the Pixie. "Will you stop that? We are not here for games."

  "Pray tell, what are you here for?"

  “Drew sent me here,” Damon said simply, and Dawn wondered if this Drew was another warlock who dealt with Wiccans.

  “Oh, Drew, he is one of my favorite customers!”