Huntress Clan Saga Complete Series Boxed Set: Books 1-6

by Jamie Davis

  “I invited you here. You’re my guest. That gives you certain protections. That’s all. I’ll do what I can to teach you. Then you’ll have to leave.”

  Quinn understood. He was fulfilling a promise to Gil. He owed her nothing. She walked down the hall to a small bathroom across from her bedroom and splashed water on her face, then shut the door so she could use the toilet.

  The table was already set and dinner ready when she arrived in the kitchen. A whole roasted chicken and green beans occupied a platter in the center of the table. Quinn sat down. “Thank you for dinner. I wish I was awake. I could have helped.”

  “I don’t mind cooking. You can clean up.”

  “Fair enough.” Quinn reached out and pulled off the leg and thigh portion closest to her. The chicken had been cooked well, and the meat practically fell off the bone.

  “When do we start the training?” Quinn asked between bites.

  “Tomorrow. Gil said you have promise, but there are some things I want to see for myself. After dinner, I’ll fire up the computer and open a secure connection to message your friends. Then it’s off to bed. I don’t like to leave the lights on too long at night. It draws down the batteries.”

  Quinn smiled and went back to her food. She composed a message in her head to let Clark and the others know what had happened. They’d be worried without more information, but she didn’t want to tell them about Terrence. Better to protect his privacy and involvement with this, especially after what had happened at Gil’s the night before.

  Terrence didn’t say anything else for the rest of the meal, and Quinn respected the silence. He lived alone in a secluded place on purpose, so he probably preferred it. Instead of talking, Quinn tried to imagine what made wild earth magic different from the water magic of the nearby lake. She’d thought when she came here that wild magic was the same thing everywhere. Now she knew differently. She’d proceed with a lot more caution tomorrow than she’d used with Gil a few days before. She knew she had a lot to learn.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Quinn stood on a shelf of rock jutting from the side of the mountain and took in the forested landscape below her. In the distance, she could make out a few open patches where farms dotted the land.

  “You ready?”

  Quinn turned back to Terrence. “What do you mean? You woke me up and brought me up here. Is there something I’m supposed to do?”

  “We’ll see. Gil said you took to the lake like a fish to water. Things aren’t so easy up here in the mountains. The wild magic up here isn’t as forgiving as it is down there in the lake’s cool blue waters.”

  Quinn shuddered, remembering her first run-in with wild magic in the lake. She’d almost drowned, trying to get a handle on how it worked down there. She wasn’t sure if that meant she had to master another skill in her HUD, so she pulled up the display in her mind. The single rounded square icon with the wavy vertical lines was still there at the top.

  “Where’d you go?” Terrence asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You got a faraway look in your eyes, then your focus shifted back to me. It was like you went somewhere.”

  Unsure of how to describe what she could do, she said, “I remembered how I adapted to the wild magic underwater. I wondered if I could use something similar up here.”

  “What did your little trip down memory lane tell you?”

  “That I don’t know what the heck is going on, to be honest.”

  Terrence chuckled. “That is probably the wisest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about wild magic.”

  “That’s a strange reaction from someone who’s an expert on the subject.”

  Terrence shook his head. “Ain’t no such thing. Let’s just say the magic and I have come to an understanding. It’s like if you come face to face with a hungry bear. You stand there facing each other, neither one moving. That’s how I feel when I face wild magic up here. Maybe I can just turn around and walk away, with the bear going off and eating its fill of honey and berries, or maybe this is the day he’s decided he wants a little meat. So far, it’s been berry time, but one of these days, meat will be back on the menu, and then the wild magic will take me.”

  “That’s dark and fatalistic.”

  Terrence shrugged. “I’m ready to die if it comes to that. I miss my Maggie. Seeing her again won’t come too soon.”

  The big man got a misty, glassy look in his eyes, then he blinked a few times and wiped them with the back of his hand. “Okay, Quinn. Gil says you have what it takes to figure this out. Ready to see if he’s right? It’s your funeral.”

  Quinn didn’t like the sound of that, but she nodded and steeled herself for what came next. Instead of doing anything to her, Terrence walked over to the edge of the cliff.

  “Come join me. I want to show you something. This is where I first met the wild magic.”

  Quinn walked over to the edge, stopping with her toes even with the lip of the drop-off. Good thing she wasn’t scared of heights. It had to be several hundred feet down to the rocks on the slope below.

  Iron fingers gripped Quinn’s neck. She tried to twist away.

  “What the hell?”

  She shut up and gulped when the hand pushed. She found herself leaning out at a forty-five-degree angle and kept her body rigid as the fingers dug into her neck. The only thing holding her up was the firm grip on the back of her neck.

  “When the cancer took Maggie, I came up here to this ledge, to the place she loved more than anything. My internet billion didn’t mean anything to her. All she wanted was a place in the mountains. She wanted to live away from all the things we’d accumulated building our business. She got sick just after the house was finished.”

  Terrence pushed Quinn out another inch or so. “You ever lost anyone you loved, Quinn?”

  “I grew up an orphan in foster care, so I guess you could say I’ve never had anyone in my life.”

  Terrence snorted. “You’re better off than most of us. I sold off almost everything I had after she died. None of it could bring her back.”

  “You came up here to die.” Quinn croaked, afraid any movement would loosen his grip.

  “That was the plan.” His voice took on a dark, growling tone. “This bastard of a mountain had another plan for me, though.”

  “The mountain told you to live?”

  “Not exactly. It just won’t let me die. I keep waiting for it to let me go at last so I can see her again. That’s what’s so vile about wild magic, kid. It doesn’t care what you want.”

  She brought up her HUD. The icon at the top was grayed out. She stared down at the ground. Crap, drowning seemed peaceful compared to getting smashed to a pulp on the rocks down there. Quinn wondered what she was supposed to do.

  “Uh, I’m not feeling any magic. Maybe it’s not here right now.”

  “Figure it out. You’re outta time.”

  The fingers let go. Quinn’s arms windmilled, swiping at the air while she tried to dig in with her toes through the soles of her sneakers. All she ended up doing was pushing herself away from the ledge as she began falling.

  She figured she had only a second or two. Staring at the HUD, Quinn willed time to slow so she could think.

  The air rushed past her face, and she screamed.

  Quinn sucked in another breath to scream again, and the blue mana line in her HUD depleted a little bit. Pouring her soul into the next sound to come out of her mouth, Quinn let out another shout at the futility of dying this way.

  This time, the blue line drained almost to zero. The wild magic icon at the top turned from gray to a brilliant blue, like a crystal-clear sky on a crisp winter day.

  Quinn clicked the icon, and everything stopped: the rushing wind, the sound of her screams, everything. Realizing she’d squeezed her eyes shut against the inevitable impact, she opened them. She stared at the ground twenty feet below from her position floating in mid-air.

  Twisting, she rotated in the air until s
he stared back up at the ledge from which she’d come. Not fallen. She’d been pushed.

  Terrence looked down at her and then launched off the ledge. He plummeted almost to the bottom before shifting to eagle form.

  The magnificent wings flapped as he caught the updraft and flew in a wide, lazy circle around Quinn, who was still floating stationary in mid-air.

  A voice sounded in her mind—Terrence’s voice. Figured it out just in time. I thought you were dead for sure.

  She answered him in kind. The way you fell without shifting, I was sure you were going to splatter all over the rocks yourself.

  The eagle banked in her direction, fixing her with its yellow-irised eyes. Every time I do it, I try to resist shifting. I’m tired of this world. The wild magic forces this on me. Because of that, I have no choice but to soar over these mountains and see them in a way my wife never could. It’s not fair, but that’s wild magic in a nutshell.

  Quinn rotated and stared at the ground as the eagle landed a short distance away. Um, how do I get down?

  “You’ll figure it out,” Terrence said aloud. He’d shifted back to human form. “I’ll meet you back at the cabin. I figure it’s worth splurging and thawing some venison steaks for tonight. I was sure I’d be eating alone. Old Gil knew what he was talking about.”

  The big man started down the slope, leaving Quinn floating twenty feet off the ground behind him. She wanted to scream at him to come get her down, but she knew that wouldn’t do any good. A minute later, he was out of sight, and she was all alone.

  Quinn sighed. She rolled over again and stared at the sky, then back at the ground. Okay, she could move but only in this location. On a whim, she twisted to the side and managed to rotate on her center axis horizontally until her head pointed in the direction her feet had seconds before.

  Taking stock, she had learned she could move in two planes, rotating horizontally and vertically around a single point. She couldn’t tilt her body off the horizontal axis, though. She glanced at her HUD. The icon glowed blue, but did it look a little fainter than before? She looked at the darker blue mana bar. It had drained even more. Quinn wondered what would happen when it reached zero? Nothing good, she guessed.

  A fall from twenty feet up wouldn’t kill her. She’d jumped as far in Huntress mode. But she’d never have enough time to rotate her feet down so she could land on them, and she didn’t relish the idea of slamming down face-first. That wouldn’t just hurt, it could seriously mess her up.

  The mana bar dropped more, and judging by the rate of decline, she had only a few minutes of air time left. She had to think of something. She could click the icon and hope the magic faded slowly. That was wishful thinking, though. Everything she knew about the wild magic told her it wasn’t likely to give her an easy way out.

  Maybe, though, Quinn could click the icon and let it up slowly. Could she do that with her mind, like pressing a button, so it clicked and then releasing the virtual spring beneath gently?

  The bar ticked down again, and Quinn had no more time to think about it. She focused her attention on the icon and pressed, not clicked. She concentrated on holding the icon button down and releasing it in micro-increments.

  Quinn realized she’d shut her eyes again and forced them open. The ground was closer, only about ten feet away now. She sank lower by the second. In less than a minute, she was lying on the rocky slope below her.

  She released the icon and her full body weight returned, pushing a little of the air out of her chest with a woof. Bringing her arms around in front of her, Quinn pushed up and twisted until she sat with her arms resting on her knees. She stared at the mountains for a long time, drinking in the stark beauty of the rocks, the forest, and the mountain air.

  Quinn sat until she noticed it was getting dark and the sun had settled against the peaks to the west. She stood, orienting herself to where she was. Terrence’s home was off to the left. She’d have to walk around the hill and through some woods to get there.

  That was strange.

  She glanced around. How did she know where his house was so precisely? Trying something else, Quinn thought about Gil’s place by the lake. Her mind focused on the house and she knew exactly where it was, as well as the best path to get there from here. There were two routes in her mind. One followed the shore, but the fastest route was to go straight to the lake and shift forms to swim the rest of the way.

  She’d never been so connected to a place. Quinn sensed life all around her. When she focused on any of the tiny points of light representing them in her mind, Quinn could see what each thing was. A fox trotted across a meadow in the next valley over. It was hungry and thought about a rabbit it had hunted earlier that day that had gotten away.

  Quinn shifted her focus until she found Terrence. She tried to see what he was thinking about, but her mind ran into a wall so hard it almost physically hurt.

  Get outta my head, girl. Since you’re alive, dinner will be ready in a half-hour. Hurry up, or it’s going to get cold.

  Quinn backed away until she was in her body again. She hadn’t realized that she’d sort of left it when she searched around her. She angled to the south, jogging across the slope toward the house. Spending all that mana had taken a lot out of her, and hunger pangs twisted her gut. Quinn’s mouth watered at the thought of a hearty steak dinner.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Quinn spent another two days with Terrence on the mountain. Now that she had the connection to it, she didn’t want to leave. He took her with him on his patrol to make sure everything was as it should be in his domain. She walked the mountain paths while he flew above the trees.

  It was nearly nightfall when they found themselves down near the base of the mountain. Quinn quested out with her mind to search the land around her. Two blank areas stopped her sweep. They were located at the extreme edge of her search, just outside Terrence’s property line.

  “Terrence?” Quinn asked aloud. “Can you see those blank areas?”

  He snorted, and a look of disgust crossed his face. “Those are likely a pair of Fae trackers from the group that was looking for you. My guess is they know you’re hiding somewhere nearby and have left a few of their tracker teams to find you when you surface again. The Fae have their own way with the wild magic. They’ve created masking energy to let it pass over them.”

  “But I can see them anyway.”

  “Only because you’re connected to this place the way you are. The wild magic of the mountain doesn’t like them very much, probably because they’re after you, so it highlights the absence there. That makes their attempt to hide look foolish.”

  “Will I be able to use this to evade them if I leave the mountain? I’ve got to go back eventually.”

  “Actually, Quinn, you have to go back now. I’ve taught you everything I know to show you. I think whatever the wild magic wants you to do has to be done back at your home.”

  “But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!”

  Terrence laughed. “Did you know what you were supposed to do when I let go of you on the mountain?”

  “No, I made it up as I fell.”

  “There you go. Wild magic doesn’t have a plan. It just is. It’s the ultimate in spontaneity. Remember that, and I think you’ll be fine. I get the feeling that sort of thing suits you. Maybe you’ll be the first wild magic adept, at least among humans.”

  “Where do I go from here? My phone is fried, despite your attempts to resurrect it. I don’t have a way back to the city.”

  Terrence pointed south. “There’s a convenience store off the highway about two miles through the woods in that direction. Send your friends a message to meet you there. It should only take them a few hours to come get you. Here’s Maggie’s old phone. I charged it and refreshed the software package for you. You’ll have to evade the trackers and traps the Fae have left in your path, but that shouldn’t be a problem. The mountain likes you, I think. Hold onto your link to it as long as you can. It’ll hel
p you get out. Oh, and here’s your bag.” He pulled it out from under his coat.

  “I hope I can come back out here and spend more time with you. It’s peaceful in a way I’ve never known.”

  Terrence shrugged. “Maybe. I might be here, and I might not.”

  Quinn placed her hand on Terrence’s shoulder. “Maggie will wait for you. There’s no rush. I think there’s more good for you to do here and now.”

  He turned his sad eyes to hers. “Possibly, but I don’t know that I have the strength to keep waiting.”

  “Let the mountain give you its strength,” Quinn suggested. “It’s the most patient thing around here. It’s seen a lot in its million years of life. Lean on it. I think you’ll be surprised at what you find.”

  “How’d you get so wise all of a sudden?”

  Quinn smiled. “Near-death experiences, I guess. Kind of gives you perspective, right?”

  Terrence smiled and nodded. “Goodbye, Quinn.”

  “Bye, Terrence.”

  Quinn started off to the south, heading for the edge of the mountain property. She glanced back once, but the guardian of the mountain had disappeared. She hoped he found peace at some point, even if it meant he would die. He deserved it.

  Pulling out the phone, Quinn decided it was time to risk a phone call to Clark. He needed to get on the road so she wouldn’t have to sit still and wait for too long. She had to keep moving to evade the trackers.

  The phone rang only once before Clark picked up. “Where are you? We got your cryptic message, but then we couldn’t get you again. I drove out and found Gil’s cabin burned to the ground.”

  “Worried about me, Clark? I’m touched.”

  “Yeah, well, between what’s been going on here and finding no sign of you or Gil at the cabin, I’m allowed.”

  “A Fae hit squad came out to get me. Gil helped me escape.” Something else Clark said clicked. “Wait, what’s happening back there? More wild magic outbreaks?”