##
Kanda yelled at her brother. “Just what exactly were you going to do?”
“We came here to secure the Stone!” he returned. “Only to have it stolen, right from under our grasps! The Stone is not a toy to be used by little girls!”
“Oh, Brother. You’d better hold your tongue. That girl, just might save our entire world. You just think about that.”
She stormed away, sidling up alongside Arnon, who along with many others, just stared into the empty space where the Stone had sat. Scorch marks were all that remained.
“Arnon,” called out Kanda, her entire being, shaken.
He didn’t answer. Shock had taken away his ability to respond.
“Come,” Kanda said. “Let’s leave this place. We can do no more good here.” She had to drag him away.
“Where did she go?” a stunned Milo asked. He knew his son would be wherever Meghan was. And wherever Meghan was right now, was not somewhere he wanted his son to be.
“I don’t know,” said Kanda, urging him to join them in departure.
The entire meadow buzzed.
Before Kanda made it out of the meadow, Nashua stopped her.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, his temper calming. “My actions were uncalled for.”
She nodded that she understood.
“I’ve never been in a place where I’ve been out stepped at every turn.”
She reached up and touched his shoulder, compassionately. “They are accepting their destiny. Who are we to interfere?”
“And just where does our job stop, and theirs begin?” Nashua asked her. “I realize fully who they are, but they are young. Do we give them full reign to do as they please, simply because of who they are? Can they even understand how to wield such power? Who knows what it will do to them. And the boy, the Projector...” Nashua’s icy stare screamed that he did not agree with letting such power continue.
“They don’t have any choice,” Arnon spoke up in defense of Meghan and Colin. “They’ve never had any choice. And until the day comes that Colin Jacoby shows beyond reasonable doubt that he cannot control his power, I will never permit anyone to touch him.”
Nashua nodded, for the time being, accepting Arnon’s response. He returned to his army, ordering a full retreat back to the banished camp.
There, they would regroup, and start planning for their next battle. To take Juliska Blackwell out of power once and for all.
##
The floor of the barn started to rumble, the walls quaking.
Colin hadn’t moved or spoken since Meghan and Nona had left. He’d remained in a trance-like readiness. But the rumbling shook him out of his stupor. In the back of the barn, he noticed plumes of smoke and fire erupting out of the ground.
He let go of his freezing spell.
The Grosvenor released from their poses.
Colin acted quickly, sending out a magical blast meant to absorb the shockwave created by the black molasses-like orbs. His spell slammed into the shockwave, the magic colliding and shooting straight up into the air, through the roof and into the night sky.
The six Grosvenor scurried to regroup, once again preparing to attack Colin. He did not understand why, they had no weapon to steal his powers. Why didn’t they flee? It’s what they were best at.
Then he realized what it was. It was him. He was keeping them from fleeing. The entire time they’d been fighting, he wouldn’t let them leave. He wanted them dead and he wanted to strike the deathblow.
He was more powerful than the Grosvenor. It didn’t matter how old or knowledgeable they were.
And now, as the Immortality Stone pushed its way up through the smoldering flames, he knew that they would not escape his clutches.
The Stone rose higher, reaching the height of the loft.
The flames fizzled and Meghan and Nona jumped off the Stone, into the loft, working their way back down to the ground.
Colin breathed heavily, his gaze penetrating the Stone.
The Grosvenor took one look and broke apart, trying to flee.
Colin laughed. It didn’t sound human. More primal, guttural.
“You cannot leave,” he told them. “No one leaves unless I say so.”
Ivan and Sebastien backed away, looking at each other and then at Catrina, and her prison; the prison which was impenetrable by Colin’s powers. They suddenly did not feel safe being on the outside of it.
Colin listened to the beating of his heart. If the Stone somehow had a heart, he felt like their rhythms would be in perfect sync. He strode over to the Stone placing his hands on it.
It was as if the blood running through his veins was somehow draining out of his own body and into the Stone, then right back inside him again.
For a minute, the darkness filling his mind ebbed, replaced by satisfying warmth. He felt Meghan trying to get past the block in his mind and opened it up to her.
“Colin, this has nothing to do with being a Projector,” she told him. “The Stone... I feel it too.”
“What is it?” he asked her.
“It’s like... it’s like... home,” she answered, unsure she even knew what she meant. “Like we are it, and it is us.”
He didn’t need to ask what she meant. It made perfect sense to him.
“I’m going to activate it,” Colin warned her.
He had no idea how to do it, or how to use the Stone to suck the immortality out of the Grosvenor.
The Grosvenor...
Colin let go of the Stone.
They were trying to escape again.
“No,” Colin spoke quite evenly.
The darkness returned, filling him again with the desire to end these foul creatures. He raised his right arm, the Grosvenor rising off the floor.
He squeezed his hand shut.
They started gasping and choking, their limbs flailing.
He touched the Stone with his left arm, feeling its power surging through his body.
He allowed it to build up inside of him.
Ivan and Sebastien approached Meghan and pulled her back near Catrina’s cell. It was strange, this effect the Stone had on her, almost like it really did belong to her.
She could feel in Colin’s mind, how it felt to him.
She could feel the point where they felt the same, like somehow this Stone was theirs. It felt comfortable and welcoming.
But then she could sense where his Projector’s powers took over, grasping onto the Stone’s power, enhancing it, controlling it, energizing it to work to Colin’s liking.
Colin opened his hand and the flailing Grosvenor slumped to the floor. With a flick of his wrist, the hoods dissolved off their robes, leaving behind petrified faces.
Colin wanted to see the life sucked out of their eyes.
Meghan shuddered. She left Colin’s mind. She didn’t want to see or feel anymore. It wasn’t about just ending the reign of the Grosvenor, or freeing Catrina, it was about killing them and watching them die. He wanted to watch them suffer.
Something about this frightened her more so than even Colby’s actions; he wasn’t afraid to kill either, but she had never felt Colby filled with the pure desire for the kill. He wasn’t exactly remorseful. But Colby did it out of obligation to his father. Always to please his father.
Colin thirsted for this kill.
Ivan got to Meghan. “Are you okay?”
She breathed out a long cleansing breath. This far back from the Stone, the draw seemed lessened. Perhaps it had just been the act of touching it. She turned to Ivan and almost didn’t answer. He didn’t look anymore okay than she felt.
“Um, I’m okay,” she stuttered. “Really. I am. Colin... he’s not okay.” She could not help but glance back at Catrina and shake her head, as if to say, sorry. Catrina could do nothing but stand and watch.
Colin felt the power of the Stone awakening inside him. He gave the Magicante a moment to understand the power and allow it to enhance Colin’s own strength. Colin let go of the S
tone. He was now connected with it and no longer needed to touch it.
He faced the Grosvenor, his arms lifted back over his head as if trying to pull something. His arms flung forward, a gush of white light pulling out of the Stone behind him, rushing down his arms and into the bodies of the Grosvenor.
They let out terrifying wails as the light penetrated their bodies, sliding through like worms seeking out the magic that had been used to create their immortality.
When Colin felt the Stone had pulled every drop out of them, he spun around and threw the streams of light back into the Stone. When the last of the stream reentered the Stone, he turned on the spot and stalked over to what remained of the Grosvenor.
“Pitiful,” he spat their shriveled carcasses.
Colin ignored Meghan’s attempts to reach into his mind.
He ignored her when she called out his name, pleading for him to stop.
He heard Catrina shouting, but did not look.
They all seemed distant. Far away.
And he didn’t need them.
This was his fight. He would end this.
Ivan and Sebastien had to hold on to Meghan to keep her from getting in Colin’s way. She wanted him to stop. He didn’t need to kill them, the Grosvenor would die on their own, probably within minutes.
They watched Colin standing over the sickly looking remains of the Grosvenor.
“I can’t let him do this,” cried Meghan. “You can’t feel what’s inside him right now. I can.” She might be right, but they didn’t know how to stop Colin. The look on his face was venomous. Otherworldly. He’d let too much of his magic loose and the power was so quickly taking control.
Colin lifted a finger and swept it across the bodies of the dying Grosvenor, gashes slitting across their throats. Spurting blood muting hideous screams as their life force drained out of them.
A wild laugh grabbed Colin’s attention. His head flitted upwards, staring down the mirrored face of Freyne Rothrock.
“So easy. So easy,” Freyne shrieked in hysterical delight. “As I said before, predictable!”
Colin’s body moved so fast no one saw it until he was suddenly standing directly in front of Freyne’s mirror.
“Predict this!” Colin thrust his arm into the glass.
Not a crack or a break.
He enclosed his hand around Freyne’s neck, wrenching his body out of the glass.
Meghan wanted Freyne dead, too. But not like this. Not at the cost of her brother’s descent into darkness.
Her vision, in which she killed him, was becoming too real. A possibility she might actually have to face.
She didn’t realize she was shaking uncontrollably.
Ivan jumped in front of her, leaving Sebastien to restrain her.
Ivan wracked his brain trying to think of anything that might give Colin pause. To give him a chance to stop.
Meghan couldn’t watch any more. She turned inside Sebastien’s grasp and looked away. He held her tight, no matter what, he wouldn’t let her turn back.
Colin dragged Freyne’s body across the ground. He didn’t look so powerful digging his aged fingernails into the ground in attempt to stop himself. Colin stopped, dropped him, kicked him onto his back and stepped over him so he was able to peer straight down into Freyne’s eyes. He dared raised a palm at Colin, ready to fight back.
Colin sensed the magic starting to emerge. “No.” And nothing happened.
Freyne’s wild gaze widened in the realization that he was about to lose.
“Apparently,” stated Colin, “you didn’t hear me when I told you not to go back on our agreement.”
Colin reached down and gripped Freyne’s neck, bent on killing him the hard way. With no magic. Just pure adrenaline stoked muscle and lots of time to think about his impending demise.
Catrina witnessed all that she was so perilously close to losing as Colin fell into darkness right before her eyes. If he allowed himself to kill out of the pure joy of it, he’d forever be on path to darkness. He’d no longer care about controlling his power. And that would make him dangerous. And she’d never see her beloved Colin surface again.
She did the only thing she could, and pushed out a bloodcurdling scream.
It reverberated throughout the barn, shaking what remained of the walls, rattling anything still hanging. And penetrated through the invisible force that Colin was stuck in.
He sucked in. Released his grip on Freyne. Stood up. And stared into Catrina’s prison cell. His chest heaved. The venom in his gaze lightened.
Sebastien lost his grip on Meghan, she twisted around, needing to see what was happening.
Catrina stared back into Colin’s eyes, searching for any sign that he was still present. “You have to want to be good,” she reminded him. Her entire being pleaded for him to remember what Jasper had taught him.
He looked down at his hands and then down at Freyne, who was trying to crawl his way out of the barn.
Colin stumbled backwards.
“What... what have I done?” He fell to his knees as if suddenly deflated, with nothing left to give. His brain a series of misfires as the Magicante attempted to regain some measure on control.
He saw the pile of bodies that had once been the Grosvenor.
He didn’t feel sorry they were dead. They deserved it.
But why did they deserve it? Because he decided so?
No, he told himself. They were evil. Not on the side of good.
“What side am I on?” he mumbled. Am I still good?
He climbed to his feet taking a few disoriented steps towards Catrina.
A spell whizzed by his ear, buzzing as it zinged by, hitting the nearly invisible wall still imprisoning Catrina, with a smack. It crackled against the dust-bone wall, spreading like electricity across it, down to the ground and up to the ceiling.
Colin heard a laugh, which he knew at that very moment, would be Freyne Rothrock’s last.
“I’ll teach you to mess with,” Freyne didn’t finish his sentence.
Colin spun around and thrust out his arm, the action flinging Freyne’s body through the air, slamming him against the Immortality Stone.
Good. Bad. Those things didn’t matter. All that did was saving Catrina, and ending Freyne so he never did something like this again.
Colin reactivated the Stone.
Streams of light reached out of the Stone like tendrils, ripping into Freyne’s body. He bellowed hideously, kicking and flailing his leathered arms and legs as the light stole away his immortality.
But it wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t kill him.
Colin let the light rip him apart, tearing into Freyne’s very soul, piece by piece until there was nothing left. The moment his life ended, the dust-bone wall surrounding Catrina quivered. It was breaking up. The magic must have been tied to Freyne’s life. It wouldn’t break until his death.
“If it explodes and hits Colin,” said Meghan, stopping as she suddenly could not vocalize what she was thinking. She had to ask herself what she wanted to let happen.
Let the bones hit Colin, and maybe, just maybe, they’d take away Colin’s Projectorism? She didn’t think it could actually kill him. Colin was immortal, a true immortal, unlike Jasper Thorndike.
Or was she just kidding herself, thinking these bones could do the job she could not bring herself to accept she might have to do.
No. Colin would always be her brother, no matter what. She had made him that promise. She wouldn’t see him harmed. She refused to accept that her vision might ever come true. Or that he couldn’t control his power. He’d come close. So very close. But he’d stopped.
She raised her palm and cast a defensive spell, putting up a shield around the prison. Ivan and Sebastien followed her lead. How would they allow the spell to break, keep Catrina safe, and not let the bone dust hurt Colin in the process?
“Catrina!” shouted Colin behind them.
With all the power he had at his disposal, he was utterly powerless ag
ainst this one stupid thing. These bones.
Meghan dropped her spell, allowing Ivan and Sebastien to hold theirs.
“I want to try something,” she told them all.
“Meghan,” called out Colin, his tone, pleading.
She just threw him a look that said, trust me.
Meghan stood in front of the nearly invisible wall and placed her hands up to it. She felt a light zap when her hands sank into it.
“What are you doing?” asked Ivan.
“I’m going to burn the bones,” she replied.
A fire spread out from her hands, expanding, almost as if eating the bone as it licked its hot tendrils against the dust-bone wall. Meghan concentrated hard, making sure the fire spread only where she wanted it to.
The fire circled back around to her, the wall completely eaten away. She let go with an exhausted groan.
It had worked. The bones were gone. The prison was no more.
Catrina came rushing out, the prison walls broken.
Colin came rushing forward.
They wrapped themselves around each other.
“I will never, ever, ever let you out of my sight again,” Colin swore to her.
She just whimpered softly, relieved to be back in his arms and out of her cage. Relieved that she had not lost him.
The Grosvenor were dead, except for Fazendiin.
Colin had not completely crossed a line he could not come back from. But the power he’d experienced, and the darkness he’d fallen into, were prevalent in his mind, even now. It both exhilarated him, and frightened him. Which he guessed was probably not a good thing. He really needed help. But he didn’t have anyone to help him. Jasper was gone.
But they were all alive. They’d survived.
They were not exactly okay. They were injured, exhausted, battered, and in some ways, broken. But they were alive and it was over.
Someone clapped behind them all.
They turned to see Jurekai Fazendiin sitting on top of the Immortality Stone. “I must say, nicely done.”
They heard what sounded like a growl escape Colin’s lips, followed by Catrina whispering something inaudible in his ear.
Control (The Blood Vision, The Immortality Stone, and The Woman in Glass) (A Fated Fantasy Quest Adventure Book 7) Page 23
