“But not mine. Mine crept in with shadow, it was invisible, and had no shape or light. And because I was already motherless, and red-haired, I learned to hide my odd magic. Until the fight with my father. I asked the coven to bind my powers and they did. And everything was fine until… Well, the night the circle opened. And you know what happened.”
“What did happen, Syd?”
“I summoned my father.”
As if it weren’t complicated, ancient magic.
“And I asked him to unbind me. He did.”
Mir loosed a breath. “Someone told me… I don’t think that’s possible.”
She offered him a faint smile. “Before he died, my father taught me every bit of magic he knew. And he knew a considerable amount. Spells no one else in the coven knew. Arcane magic, forgotten by everyone.” Her lips curved faintly. “Except for me.”
Her voice hardened. “I was a damn good student. And I had twelve years of power to draw on.” For a moment, she only stared at Mir. “The Orobus made me for a purpose. Some awful purpose and I don’t know what it is. Something to do with the circle, I suppose. And whatever it is, it’s going to happen very soon. But I’d rather die than follow through as his puppet.”
Mir paled at the implication. If Sydney found out what he suspected, the purpose she was to be used for, that threat froze his blood in his veins. “Let’s get you upstairs to talk to Ava.”
Sydney inclined her head. “I’d say that’s a good place to start.”
Kinship was a strange, wonderful thing. Sydney had felt tenuous threads of it before, with her fellow witches. But with Ava, she felt as if the weft of the universe bound them together.
Except. She was wandering, meandering really, avoiding the questions she’d come here to ask. Specifically to ask, having sent Mir outside moments ago, but was now hedging. The room was deadened, wrapped in some spell of Ava’s own, dark magic, so no sounds came in. And Sydney prayed no sounds went out.
Ava was watching, head tilted, curiosity lurking behind her predatory gaze, as she followed Sydney’s every move without comment. Seemingly content just to watch.
“I came to see what you know,” she finally said, unsure how to proceed when she knew things were about to go to shit.
“And if I tell you?”
“Then I suppose it will help me decide what to do next.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “All you martyrs. So willing to die for the cause. Well, I for one am not so ready to give up on life. I’ll fight against that bastard until the bitter end, no matter the odds, no matter the cost. Remember that, Sydney. Don’t ever give in.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Celine was all ready to sacrifice herself, rather than release the monster from his prison, and it happened anyway. Now you. No sense in dying if you don’t have to.”
Sydney turned and looked at her, and Ava’s lips quirked, knowing for the first time, Syd was really seeing her for what she was.
“Yes, he’s in me too, darkness so deep it swallows me whole sometimes, if I forget to watch out for it.” She gave a careless shrug. “So I never stop watching.”
Sydney stared curiously at the tendrils of darkness trailing ghostly black fingers along her skin. They had a lover’s touch. “It feels as though there’s nothing between me and the world. No flesh, no bones, no nothing. As if I’m so exposed, I’ll melt away when the sun comes out.”
“And if the darkness comes, it will absorb you?”
“Exactly.” Sydney breathed. “That’s it exactly. I need to feel human again. How do I teach myself to feel like that again?”
“I don’t know,” Ava admitted. “There’s a chance we might never feel like that again. But would it be so bad,” she mused, “to be different? The world is changing. Maybe we need to change as well. Mortal creatures might not fare so well in these coming months.”
“I’m still mortal,” Sydney insisted.
“Are you?” Ava asked, a gleam in her midnight blue eyes. Then she continued, “I had a look-see at your little stone circle.”
“It’s not my stone circle.”
“Isn’t it?” Ava queried, the gleam growing brighter. “And it seems to me there’s something quite odd about the stones.” She quickly explained the concept of lodestones, and the way her own darkness had reacted, especially to the largest dolmen.
“Then you’ve answered my question,” Sydney snapped, suddenly more than frustrated with her situation. “I’m not opening up those doors, I won’t be part of unleashing an army on this world and killing countless human beings. I just won’t do it.”
“He might be unstoppable.”
Hadn’t she been thinking the very same thing? Sydney chewed on her lip. “Not if I…”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Okay, for one thing, killing yourself is not going to stop him, only slow him down, so stop thinking along those lines. Come on, Syd, use that brilliant brain of yours. What would stop him? What can you do to stop him?”
“I can’t do anything… I’m not powerful enough, not against everything he is.”
“Not now. But what if you were unbound?”
“I already summoned my father. He unbound me.”
Ava’s eyes drifted over her shoulder, and Sydney felt someone…
Mir stood behind her, and grateful for his presence, Sydney drew his hand into hers, clasping it firmly, the touch of his flesh reassuring, steadying. Mir added, his voice low, “Partially, yes. You were bound to your father. But he was only the mortal component of the taglock. Ava’s talking about breaking the magical chains that are holding you back. The shackles the coven placed on you.”
“I don’t understand,” Sydney said, slowly spinning to face him. “How can you possibly know about any of that?”
“I went to Colville. I talked to Lordes. I know everything about what happened that night.” Her eyes got wide, then narrowed into slits.
“And now the freaking Orobus knows it too,” Sydney snapped.
“Not inside here, he doesn’t,” Ava pointed out. “Or at least, I don’t think he does. Listen to Mir, he’s come up with a good plan. We both think it’ll work. Hear him out.”
“If the entire coven unbinds you, gives you access to your true power, then you can shut down the circle, possibly destroy the portals, or maybe close them permanently. Cut off from his armies, we’ll have a shot at trapping him back in his prison.” Ava and Mir traded a glance between them before Mir wrapped both arms around her. “I need your permission, Syd, to do this. Magical unbinding needs the permission of all parties, because it’s tied to your free will as all magic is. I’ll have to wipe your mind before Ava lowers the shield, but you must agree.” His eyes flickered over her face. “Or not.”
“And if I don’t? Agree?”
He shrugged. “Then we come up with another plan. I swore to keep you safe and I’ll do my damnedest to keep that promise.”
“Magic does strange things to a person. You don’t know what I was like.” She shifted her gaze away from the both of them. “Before.”
“We’ll deal with it,” Mir said firmly, Ava making a small sound of ascension. “How bad can it possibly be?”
Chapter 36
All Mir told her was to trust him. And she did.
They were going home, he said. And when they’d materialized in front of her old house, she had a sneaking suspicion why. Mir’s arm snaked around her, his hand resting on the small of her back as she leaned into him.
Lordes knew they were coming.
Somehow, whether magically or because it was a small town prone to the prying eyes of close-knit neighbors, he was waiting for them on the front stoop of what had been Sydney’s home. He frowned when he saw Mir, but his lips thinned out as soon as he spotted Sydney.
“Knew you’d be back. Didn’t know it would be so soon. Big mistake bringing her with you.”
Sydney stared down at the High Priest, her gaze unflinching. “You’re smaller than I remember.”
> “You’re older.” It wasn’t a compliment.
Mir’s voice was brusque. “Let’s get this over with. You know why we’re here.”
“I want to hear the girl say it.” Lordes seemed to grow exponentially, a muscle flickering in his jaw as he stared down at her. No longer the bent, aged husk of several days before. Now he towered, still aged but far from bent. So that body had been camouflage, disguising what he was. “I want her to ask. What do you want, Allen?”
What did she want? Hesitating, she considered, as power shimmered in the air around them, a dark, malevolent magic. Mir didn’t know Lordes. He thought he did. Mir thought he knew humans and was smarter and cleverer than all of them. But no, he didn’t know Lordes at all.
Not like she did.
“I want what you stole from me.” Sydney’s face shone with determination.
“I took nothing…”
“Mendax. Avaritia Enim Fur Qui nunquam gets satis.”
“Greed is a thief who never gets enough,” Mir translated beneath his breath.
“Did you move next to my parents because you knew they’d have me, and you wanted to keep an eye on a future threat?”
Lordes’s eyes narrowed down to slits.
“I’ll bet you were waiting for something to go wrong, weren’t you? I’ll bet the night I lost control, you had everything in place to steal away my magic and use it for yourself.” As his face paled, she smiled.
“You know exactly what you took from me. And you know why.” Her lips curled. “And as you can see, so do I. It just didn’t matter before.” She hissed at the man. “But now I need it back. So undo the binding spell and restore my power to me.”
“And then what?” Lordes wouldn’t take his dark, measuring gaze off her.
She shrugged. “And then nothing.” She sent him a scornful glance. “Your little kingdom doesn’t concern me. It never did. I want no part of it.” The flicker deep down in her eyes made Lordes straighten. “You’ll be weak, of course, without my power to draw from. Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. Don’t ever give me a reason to come back here.”
Lordes lips thinned out even further. “So. It seems you learned something after all.”
She simply inclined her head.
“Call the coven. All thirteen of them. I’m assuming you still have my hair from that night?” Nothing on his face gave away the truth, but Sydney knew he did. Because she knew him. He’d have kept it. If only to use it against her later.
He’d had the coven at the ready too. They appeared quickly, one after another, until they were a convention strong. As they filed into the house, it didn’t escape Sydney that Mir stayed at her elbow. His eyes on her face, scanning her reactions, her emotions. Good. She needed him close. She would have warned him before they came, but there had been no time. One moment they were in Ava’s chamber at the top of the Tower; the next, they were hand in hand swirling through darkness, and they’d appeared on her old stoop.
Now it was too late.
Ducking under the sagging opening between the living room and family room, Sydney’s heart ached at what had become of her home. Ruined. It was ruined and broken and burned.
But she also sensed Lordes’s sly attention on her, riven with the focus of a laser, so she smoothed down her jacket with an easy smile. “Shall we proceed?”
The ceremony was quicker than she’d imagined. A few words, some murmurs of ascension, a wave of the old man’s hand, and utter and complete silence. The smell of sage and rosemary and something faintly noxious burned her nose.
But the magic was like plunging down into icy water. So cold it stole away her breath, drove needles into her flesh, added a layer of viciousness to her nature. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Mir she was different from the rest of these witches. Not lying at all. A chill rippled down her spine as raw power poured into her, each vertebrae locking into place, the moon tattoo that ran overtop them shuddering on her skin.
She thought what she’d gotten from her father had been all of it. But it had only been a drop. A drop in a vast ocean. A black, endless ocean that she was so very ready to tap into.
“My father never trusted you, Lordes, and I didn’t either. But binding my magic probably saved your life.” Without another word, she swiped the long lock of red hair from his meaty hand and strode away.
Chapter 37
“I want to see the circle.”
No, it was more than that. There was a part of her that demanded to see the circle. To touch it, run her hands over it, brush her fingertips across it.
“We’re going back to the Tower and regrouping. That’s what we do. We’re a team, Sydney, we don’t go off like a bunch of vigilantes, that’s what gets people killed.”
Frustrated, magic buzzing in her ears, she gave a lazy flick of her hand and set the bushes on fire. The smell of ozone, something preceding a storm, hung all around them.
“I take it this is the other side of you?”
She sighed, the smirk on her face faltering, her fingers folding back into her palm. A nod from Mir and the bushes extinguished, their charred skeletons smoking.
Mir gave her sleeve a patient tug. “Back to the Tower. You have no business going to the stones, not like this. Not until I have some assurances you can control yourself.”
Sydney countered, “Once we get back, he could be waiting. Have you considered that?” When Mir went to take her hand to ghost them away, she drew back. “Another thing. With me getting my power returned…” She waved to the blackened bushes. “What’s to say I’m not even more of a target?” Her voice was growing dangerously high.
“Exactly what I tried to explain earlier.” Behind them, Lordes’s voice took on an oily sheen. The old wizard was truly hunched over now, the skin on his face a flaky gray, as if he’d aged a hundred years. “It’s no coincidence, what’s happening in Chicago. Now get out of my town and take…her…with you. Before she burns this place to the ground.”
A wildness rose in Sydney, even as Mir clamped a warning hand on her arm. “Oh, we’ll be going, Priest… Or should I say Declan.” The man’s face sheeted white as Mir continued, his voice soft and dangerous. “And you can go on running your little pretend kingdom hidden up here in the mountains. For however many years you have left. But you are right about one thing.
“We are going back to Chicago. And she’s going to save the world.”
Chapter 38
The shift back to Chicago hurt.
To her very bones it hurt, as if Mir’s magic somehow worked against her own. Rubbing her arms, she hovered quietly in the hallway outside the kitchen and listened to him argue with Tyr about something, her mind only half here. Half was firmly back in Colville, in her family house. Her eyes still riveted to the enormous blackened gash cutting through the downstairs. And that chlorine smell, the smell of lightening, still reeked in her nose.
Magic, she reeked of magic.
Actually, now that she was unbound, everything here reeked of it. Mir, the other gods, this whole place. The Tower was saturated to the heart with raw, undiluted magic.
Something drew her eye. A movement, a whisper of shadow.
Something.
Mir’s voice faded as she drifted down the hall, following whatever it was that called to her.
“Do you want to see the stones?” Ava asked her flatly when she reached the end of the hall, found the brunette lounging against the wall, waiting in the shadows.
“Yes,” Sydney told her, not sure she had any choice in the matter, so strongly did the urge nip at her. She glanced back to the door, to the dim sounds of a growing argument. “But shouldn’t we tell…?”
“Trust me, they’ll only be a few minutes behind us. I want to see them alone first. Just you and me.” Her eyes sparked dark and dangerous. “I think it’s important.”
Sydney was quiet as she and Ava kept pace down the street. Time was running out, as if she had a countdown clock inside her head. Despite the horrors along
the way, they were given a wide berth.
“People have a way of knowing who’s prey and who’s predator, I suppose,” Ava whispered in her ear as they crossed over Michigan Ave to the front of the art museum, tattered banners dancing in the wind like colorful plastic ghosts.
Survival depended on certain factors. Intelligence and caution. Strength and stealth. Sydney knew none of these were in play as she strode in broad daylight toward the circle.
She was being tugged along by some sort of compulsion. One she couldn’t deny. And if her suspicions were correct, Ava was too. Neither of them were smart or wary or stealthy. Even though she was completely clearheaded, they were both stupid, and they probably deserved to die.
In the light of day, the true scope of destruction took her breath away. Chunks as large as buildings lay strewn across the museum campus, even the Adler Planetarium hadn’t escaped the chaos, a huge chunk had hit the dome. It looked as if a bite had been taken out of the apple. The rest of the area lay desolate as they picked their way down to the shallow pit where the circle rose up from, the old basement now lined with gravel and rock.
“At least it’s warmer today.” Ava shrugged out of her coat and tied it around her waist. “Nearly froze my ass off out here the other day.”
As they slip-slided their way to the base of the incline, Ava’s darkness preceded their descent, a river of oily black pooling at the bottom that waited…waited for her to arrive, as if it were a sentient being. Sydney didn’t know what to make of it, but then again, she was past second-guessing anything these days.
The stones sang to her. As if each of them had a voice, a choir of harmony and the music they made… “Can you hear it?” she turned to Ava, questioning.
Ava nodded and sent her tendrils searching, flowing through the circle, transparent shadows over stone. Searching for what, Sydney didn’t know, but she had her own mystery to deal with.
The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 72
