by Jamie Davis
Quinn dropped her left hand and hooked her thumb on the release, giving her quick access to the knife on her right hip. His eyes tracked to follow her hand as if daring her to pull her weapon. “I’ve been granted sanctuary. I have been served a summons to appear tomorrow before your magistrates. If you plan on violating things before my day in court, I might just have to kill you. Is that what you want?”
The tracker glared down at her. She thought for a second he was going to reach for whatever weapon bulged beneath his arm. A firm hand on his shoulder pulled him back.
“Leave her be,” the second tracker said. “Come sit down. If she leaves, she’s ours.”
The first one glared at her for a few seconds longer, then went back to the table by the exit.
Juni appeared by Quinn’s side. “You really shouldn’t provoke them like that. We don’t need the kind of bloodshed that would erupt if a real fight happened on a crowded night like tonight.”
“I knew they’d back down,” Quinn lied. “They have plans for me tomorrow. I’m sure they have no desire to spoil things for their mistresses.”
She picked up the tray of drinks and winked at Juni. “Let me know if they take the bait when Naomi shows herself outside.”
“I’ll text Taylor if they leave.”
Quinn navigated back through the tables to the storeroom door. Once in the workshop, she set the drinks on the table beside the egg. Quinn picked up one of the two sodas and raised it. Taylor grabbed the other. Naomi and Clark each grabbed a beer.
“To our baby dragon. May she be healthy and well after our work tonight.”
Everyone tapped their glasses together. Naomi drained her beer and laughed. “Time to go all Freaky Friday on those Fae bastards. Wish me luck.”
Quinn wasn’t sure what Friday had to do with anything. It was Wednesday. She nodded anyway. Sometimes Naomi said the weirdest things. Quinn remembered that although they looked close in age, she was twenty-plus years older than her daughter.
Naomi left, and Taylor started handing out the things she’d need for the spell. “Quinn, take this canister. It has the extra dragon scale shavings in case we need more for some reason.”
“You already measured the mixture and covered the egg with it. What’s this for?”
Taylor picked up the egg, now crusted in a hard slate-gray layer from the spell recipe. “The egg is coated and ready for the spell, but we’ll bring along the raw materials we have left in case we need more for some reason.” She picked up a square airtight plastic container and handed it to Clark. “You can carry the leftover dragon crap.”
“Oh, joy,” Clark said. “Just what I’ve always wanted.”
Taylor puttered around the workshop, gathering extra odds and ends and stuffing them in a canvas shoulder bag. Taylor’s phone chirped, and she held it out for Quinn and Clark to read. It was a message from Juni.
“They took the bait,” Quinn said. “Let’s go.”
“Good luck. I’ll be waiting to see how it went,” Miranda said.
Quinn felt bad for Miranda. She couldn’t hold a phone, so there was no way to send her messages with their progress while they were gone. They needed to work on a solution like they had when Quinn entered the VR a few days before. She filed that idea away for later and followed Clark and Taylor out the door, holding the container of shavings.
Clark and Taylor headed for the bar, while Quinn turned left to head into the tunnels. She’d meet them by the hidden exit beneath the overpass.
Clark’s dark sedan pulled up under the highway bridge five minutes later.
Quinn got in the back. “Was anyone still watching the bar when you left?”
Clark pulled away from the curb as soon as she sat down. “I spotted one person, but there might have been more. I think I lost them. We’ll know soon enough if it worked.” He leaned forward and stared through the windshield at the rooftops around them as he drove.
“I think I can help with that,” Taylor said. “Miranda has been working with me on my basic spells. I know a masking spell. It’s more a misdirection of attention than an invisibility conjuration.”
“Give it a shot,” Quinn said. “It can’t hurt.”
Clark nodded, and Taylor rummaged in her canvas bag until she pulled out a small spiral notebook. She opened it and a few seconds later began muttering to herself while one hand wove an intricate pattern in the air.
Quinn didn’t notice anything change as Taylor stopped her chanting.
“Did it work?” Quinn asked.
Taylor shrugged. “I cast the spell. It should be making this car unremarkable. I don’t know if the Fae can counter it, but no one will pay us any notice otherwise.”
Clark swerved, narrowly missing a passing car that had pulled out directly in front of them.
“I’d say it’s working. That guy pulled out like he didn’t even see us.” Clark shook his head. “I’ll have to pay attention to that, or we’ll never make it to cast the spell on the egg.”
The location Clark and Taylor had chosen for the spell was an abandoned drive-in movie theater north of the city. The parking lot was paved, which would limit the spread of the fire from Taylor’s mixture, and trees and a lot of overgrown brush surrounded the property, which would hide what they were doing from prying eyes in the residential neighborhood nearby. It should be perfect for their needs.
Quinn kept checking behind them for signs of someone following. She didn’t see any cars staying with them for long before turning off on another street. Clark took a roundabout route, giving her ample chances to spot anyone trailing them.
Twenty-five minutes later, they arrived at the drive-in. The old movie screen jutted up behind the trees obscuring the view of the grounds. Quinn could make out that it was in disrepair, with a few holes in the white panels. Taylor hopped out and cast a spell to unlock the chain holding the gate closed, then swung it open and waited for Clark to drive through before closing it. She climbed back in the car.
Clark drove down a short lane and into the large open parking lot. The old projection house and snack stand sat in the middle of the lot, with the big screen at the far end. Clark drove around the projection house and parked midway between it and the screen.
“This should be good,” Clark said. “Ready, Taylor?”
“Ready as we’ll ever be.” She grabbed the egg and her small spiral notebook.
“Didn’t you bring Aurora’s journal?” Quinn asked.
“No, I copied the spell instructions to my spellbook in English to make it easier to follow. I don’t need to get hung up on remembering a word’s translation in the middle of casting. Don’t worry, Miranda double-checked my work.”
“So, what do we do?” Clark asked.
“You two stay by the car. I need to do this alone, and I want to know where everyone is so I can protect you from what happens next.”
“What is it that happens?” Quinn asked.
“Not sure. That’s why you need to stay back. Just stay there, and don’t interrupt me once I get started. Don’t worry about me since I’ll be shielded. It’s part of the spell.”
Quinn closed her mouth and let Taylor do her work. The tech witch set the egg down on the asphalt about twenty feet from the car, flipped through her book, and gazed at the page she’d selected for a long time before closing it. She slipped it into the shoulder bag and slid the bag around to rest against her butt.
Raising both hands over the egg, Taylor stood up straight with her legs spaced apart like she was bracing for something heavy to come down on her arms. A low droning chant flowed from her mouth as her hands and arms began moving in an intricate pattern through the air. It reminded Quinn of the hand motions she’d seen Bollywood dancers use.
It only took about ten seconds for something to happen. The egg started spinning like a top on the asphalt, and the gray coating started glowing with a purplish light.
The explosion caught Quinn and Clark by surprise. The spinning egg came to an abrupt halt
as the coating erupted in bright white flames, sending out a shockwave in all directions.
Taylor flew back and landed on the hood of Clark’s car. The force nearly knocked Clark and Quinn off their feet, even though they were well removed from the source.
Quinn wanted to help the egg, now engulfed in flames, but Taylor was closer. She groaned, rolled off the hood of Clark’s car, and fell to the ground next to the driver’s side door.
“T, are you all right? I thought you said you had a shield.”
“Yeah,” Taylor groaned. “I accounted for the heat but not the force of an explosion like that.” She raised up on one elbow and stared at the blazing egg. “That’s quite a little fire I started.”
Quinn nodded. The heat from the magical fire reached them even here, at what they’d considered a safe distance. It looked like the asphalt had melted for about a foot around the egg. Here and there, weeds poking up through the pavement flared up into tiny fires of their own and burned away.
“How long will it burn?” Clark asked. “Even with the trees around this place, that fire is awfully bright. It’s sure to draw unwanted attention. I don’t want the fire department showing up.”
Taylor shrugged. “I don’t know. It’ll burn until the mixture we made has been consumed. The coating wasn’t too thick, but it had to be enough to burn away whatever the Fae put on it.”
The egg burned with the same intensity for nearly five minutes. Then, as if someone doused it with a bucket of water, the fire went out and darkness returned. The sole illumination came from the car’s headlights, shining on the sparkling green egg sitting on bare earth. The asphalt for about three feet in every direction had been burned away.
The three of them walked up to stare down at the egg.
Taylor crouched and held out a hand over it. “Wow, there’s no residual heat. It looks like the coating is gone, too. It worked, Quinn.”
Quinn barely heard her friend. As soon as she got close to the egg, her HUD had popped up without her summoning it. That was strange. Stranger still was the wild magic icon glowing red at the display’s top. In the back of her mind, she wondered if the Fae knew something she didn’t about the egg’s magic.
“Quinn, did you hear me?” Taylor asked. “I think the spell worked perfectly.”
“Something’s wrong. I think we made a horrible mistake.” Quinn backed up as she said it, her head turning from side to side, scanning for the trouble she knew was coming.
The lights turned on in the projection house, and the screen lit up behind them. It was so bright, they all shielded their eyes from its glare. A screeching howl split the night, and a black crack appeared in the light projected against the screen.
Despite Quinn’s warning, none of them were ready for what came next.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“What the hell was that?” Quinn and Taylor said in unison as the howl faded.
Clark cursed. “Damn, the spell or the egg opened some kind of rift to the netherworld. That’s got to be the howl of a hellhound. We have to close that gap, or a whole pack will come through.”
Another howl sounded, and a two-headed dog the size of a horse jumped through the black crack in the screen. The pulsing icon in Quinn’s HUD grew brighter as the wild magic held back by the Fae coating fueled the opening between dimensions. Quinn was their wild magic adept. She should have been ready for something like this.
The dog’s two heads swiveled, searching the area for prey. They stopped, and both settled their gaze on the trio by the egg.
“Well, it’s seen us now,” Clark said. He drew his short sword. “Nothing will keep it from tracking us until it’s dead.”
Quinn drew her Bowie. “Anything special about killing one of these things?”
“You have to kill both heads, or it will keep going. Oh, and it regenerates over time, so you have to work fast.”
“Good to know. Taylor, you concentrate on finding a way to close that gap. We’ll keep the hellhound busy.”
“I’ll try. If that’s wild magic at work, I can’t touch it.”
“Don’t tell us why you can’t, girl,” Clark shouted as he charged at the demon dog. “Just do it. This is serious.”
Quinn ran after Clark while clicking on the red icon on her display, but nothing happened. She got the feeling she was missing something important. There was no time to worry about it now, though. She’d reached the fight with the two-headed beast and forgot about doing anything but staying alive.
Despite its bulk, the hellhound was beyond fast, and with two heads, it was able to focus its attention on both Quinn and Clark. That made it hard to slip in and strike at its flanks. Quinn had to dive and roll backward after her first attempt failed to reach the hound’s side.
The head closest to her whipped around so fast, it nearly caught her in its snapping maw.
The smell of smoke and brimstone emanated from the thing’s mouth. Given the heat coming off it, Quinn knew the bite would do more than just cut into her.
“We have to distract it,” Clark yelled.
“We need a third person,” Quinn called back as she danced away from a swipe from one of the massive paws.
A black figure dashed in, moving so fast it blurred as they ran in. The newcomer slashed at the hellhound with a shining katana, and a gaping wound opened in the creature’s side.
The newcomer leaped back away when the nearest head swung around to bite them.
“Need a hand?” Naomi asked, dancing back to stand next to Clark.
Quinn didn’t let her mother’s sudden arrival distract her. She took advantage of having the extra attacker to dart in and stab deep with her blade. She ran back to get out of the reach as one head swung toward her.
“What are you doing here?” Clark yelled. “You’re supposed to be leading the Fae on a merry chase.”
“That only took so long. I got bored with that game, so I lost them. Besides,” Naomi said, laughing as she ran in to slash at the nose of the head on the right, “aren’t you glad I’m here?”
“I am,” Quinn said. “This thing is a lot to handle.”
“If I recall my training,” Naomi said, “the Hunters said it required five to take down a hellhound.”
“Let’s see if we can do it with three,” Quinn said. “We’re running out of time.”
To punctuate Quinn’s worry, a distant howl sounded from within the giant crack in the screen. As she glanced at the white expanse, the pulsing icon tugged at her awareness again. What was it trying to tell her?
Quinn shouted. “Taylor, how’s the work on closing that rift coming?”
“I’m trying to get a handle on it, but I can’t even see it in the normal magical spectrum. It’s like it’s not really there.”
Quinn knew what that meant. Taylor wasn’t going to be able to deal with it. This was Quinn’s problem.
“T, shift into wolf form and come back here and help take out this thing. I have to do this.”
Taylor didn’t answer, but seconds later, a new howl split the night. Taylor bounded into the fray, her two-legged wolf form leaping at the head on the left. She slashed at its face with her claws and pushed off the head to vault over it, then ran down the hellhound’s back and landed behind it.
“Go, Quinn,” Naomi called. “Do what you need to do. We’ve got this thing.”
Quinn pulled her attention away from the desperate fight a few yards away and started toward the rift on the screen.
The closer she got, the brighter the icon became until it glowed as brightly in neon-red as the white light around the gaping crack.
Forcing herself to focus, Quinn tried to remember everything she’d learned from Gil and Terrence about wild magic. She’d tried clicking the icon again, but nothing happened. She remembered with wild magic, you weren’t in control. As alien as it all felt, Quinn had to relax and let it take over.
That was the struggle and why it often killed those who used it. Quinn and other casters didn’t like givin
g up control of anything. She had no idea what the wild magic wanted of her, and without knowing, she subconsciously resisted it.
More than one howl came through the gap in the screen. They were closer now. Soon, they’d have a whole pack of hellhounds on the loose, and they’d never survive that.
Quinn fought the thing deep inside that refused to give up control. This was what had almost killed her both in the lake and when Terrence had shoved her from the ledge. She tried to remember how she’d felt falling toward certain death and recalled relaxing her hold on being in control and surrendering to the wild magic just before reaching the rocks.
As soon as she put herself in that moment, something changed inside her. The icon turned from pulsing red to gleaming silver. Quinn held out her hands and noticed she no longer held her Bowie. She gripped a long silver javelin in her left hand instead. A thin silver line attached to the javelin’s end ran to a coil of silver filament in her right hand.
She stared at her hands, trying to make sense of what they were holding. A fresh chorus of baying howls drew her attention to the jagged tear in the fabric of space.
A rip. In the fabric of space.
Quinn smiled and drew back her left arm, casting the javelin as hard as she could at the top of the rift. She let the coiled line play out from her other hand as she ran to the other side of the jagged gap.
The magical silver javelin pierced the white screen next to the top of the tear and came out in the white screen on the other side.
On the ground below, Quinn ran over just in time to grab the javelin as it fell back toward her. She started to reel in the line through the holes, then stopped for a second.
She tied the end of the silver filament around the hilt of her Bowie and let it drop.
She pulled on the other end of the line, tugging hand over hand until the Bowie lifted into the air. Quinn pulled the silver thread tight as the knife came up against the small hole in the screen where the line passed through.
Grabbing the javelin in her left hand again, Quinn threw. She aimed for a spot a foot below where the line came through on her side of the tear. The javelin flew into the whiteness, emerging a second later from the opposite side.
