Nona bounded back to the fire, Ivan and Sebastien in tow, diving into the flames.
Sparks and embers popped as their bodies disappeared.
Billie approached Maria. “What on earth was that all about?”
Noah, Maura, Nashua, Milo, Kanda and Arnon joined her.
Maria replied, “I honestly have no idea. Nona just appeared in my fireplace screaming for Ivan and Sebastien. I brought her here. And then, well, you saw the rest.”
The group huddled in discussion.
Maria did not join them, her stunned gaze giving way to worry.
Maura grasped Maria’s shoulder, giving her a caring pat.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Maria asked.
Maura knew she spoke only of Ivan. Maria seemed to realize her mistake and rephrased, “I mean all of them, of course.”
“You don’t have to explain to me, honey,” Maura returned. “And yes, from what I’ve heard about Ivan, I’m sure he’ll be just fine. He’s a strong lad. And he’s lucky to have someone like you care about him.”
The words of comfort didn’t help Maria feel any better; what Maura said was true, though. She hadn’t fully realized it until just then, but she did care for Ivan. She didn’t see how he could care for her in return. She was a simple girl with no extraordinary magical gifts or duty to fulfill. She wasn’t exciting. She wasn’t part of any grand scheme. Ivan was neck deep in things she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. What could she offer someone leading such a thrilling life?
Billie shook her head, her eyes staring into the fire pit where Nona, Ivan and Sebastien had just disappeared into. “What are those kids up to?” she asked no one in particular.
“They’re not kids anymore,” said Milo, just a few feet away. He didn’t want to believe his own words, but they were true. They were not kids anymore. He just hoped Sebastien returned before they left for the banished camp. He dreaded the idea of returning home and telling his wife, Kay, that Sebastien had left again.
Arnon finally located his ability to speak, having lost it the moment Nona had explained that Meghan was in trouble, and said the words everyone had wanted to say, but had not dared.
“What if this is the reason Fazendiin’s not here? What if we are the decoy for whatever they are doing, right now?”
Kanda grasped his hand.
Arnon lost his capability of speaking again. Helplessness. It’s all he felt anymore.
##
Nona jumped out of the flame Meghan had left for her in the barn, followed by Ivan and Sebastien. They entered a chaotic scene.
Colin was holding out his palm creating a defensive barrier between himself, Meghan and Catrina, fighting off blast after blast from six robed figures. The spells ricocheted off his barrier, flying into various parts of the barn. Wood splintered. Hay flew through the air. Old tools clanged together.
Meghan had her back to Colin, shooting flames towards Catrina. The flames were not reaching her, seeming to be blocked by some invisible barrier between them.
Ivan and Sebastien assumed this was the bone-dust wall created by Freyne.
Ivan shot off a spell. It hit the Grosvenor closest to him, at Colin’s right. It caught the Grosvenor off guard, knocking him back a few steps, but didn’t do any significant damage.
Colin didn’t take his eyes off the other five, ignoring the arrival of Ivan and Sebastien. They gave a shudder. Something in Colin’s eyes frightened them.
Sebastien saw Meghan and ran to her side. “What happened to Freyne freeing her?”
“Isn’t is obvious,” she shouted back. “Sorry. I’m getting nowhere! I can’t figure out how to break her out of here.”
“We’re here,” Sebastien told her, reminding her she was not alone. “We’ll get her out.”
Ivan sidled up next to Sebastien. “Maybe if we all try, together?”
“We just need to be careful we don’t hit Catrina in the process,” said Meghan. “There’s no place for her to hide if our spells cut through.”
They heard a high-pitched scream and turned to see Nona on top of one of the Grosvenor’s heads. She had torn the hood off a female Grosvenor, and was clawing viciously at her face.
“Go Nona,” said Sebastien. “Remind me never to get on her bad side.”
They turned back to Catrina.
“Let’s try to blast it,” suggested Ivan. “We’ll aim sideways. Catrina, stay to the left corner,” he ordered.
Catrina darted into the left corner, cowering and covering her face.
Ivan, Sebastien and Meghan held out their palms and shot off a blasting spell. The three of them together should have been strong enough to blast through just about anything; but again, nothing happened. The spell hit the nearly invisible bone-dust wall and fizzled.
Meghan doubled over, suddenly feeling immense pain. “Nona,” she cried out.
Ivan spun around and saw Nona’s lifeless body strewn on a hay bale.
Sebastien leaned down and helped Meghan back up.
Nona’s body didn’t stay motionless for long. In mere seconds, the breath of life lifted the Catawitch’s belly.
She got up, shook herself off and raced to Meghan, her claws still covered in bloodied skin from the face of the Grosvenor.
“Nona, don’t ever do that again!” ordered Meghan.
“Sorry. I did lots of damage though,” she added in a vicious snarl.
“You might have nine lives,” said Meghan, “but that’s no reason to waste them all today!”
“I’ll be careful,” insisted Nona.
They went back to blasting at Catrina’s prison, hoping to weaken whatever spell had been cast to keep her inside.
Colin groaned under the pressure as he focused on the defensive spell in one part of his mind, allowing a second part of his mind to focus on attacking the Grosvenor. They could not just stay on the defensive. They needed to attack too.
He pictured the three robbed targets nearest him, each one flying backwards in a different direction.
The first flew back slamming into the barn wall, crashing through it. Colin caught a glimpse of the moon rising outside.
The second one fell onto its back, skidding across the hay-covered floor, narrowly missing a collision with a rusty pitchfork.
The third flew up into the air, landing high overhead in a loft.
Colin tried desperately to get the protective cloak to work again, knowing he could just hide them all, giving them a chance to catch their breath and figure out some way to free Catrina.
His brain just would not cooperate with him. Between worrying about Catrina, and everyone trying to free her, defending them all against a foe nearly impossible to hurt, never mind kill... he could not calm himself enough to think straight.
And underneath it all, a dark thought kept foraging its way around his mind... all of this was nothing compared to what he wanted do to Freyne Rothrock.
“We’re getting nowhere,” exclaimed Meghan. “I thought I wasn’t strong enough to break down the wall alone, but nothing we do is even making a mark!”
Colin overheard her. Panic stalled his mind from working and the defensive shield weakened. One of the Grosvenor saw the opportunity and lunged forward, thrusting its body into the magic shield, attempting to penetrate it. Colin pushed back, his mind furiously focusing on reforming the defensive shield.
Nona looked up, seeing something moving overhead.
The Grosvenor which Colin had blasted into the loft was jumping from beam to beam. “Look out,” she warned Colin, once she realized what was about to happen, but it was too late.
The Grosvenor leapt down, landing behind Colin, thrusting his dagger into Colin’s back before anyone could react.
Catrina screamed, rushing forward, only to come to an abrupt stop at the point where the dust-bone wall stopped her.
Meghan froze, feeling like someone might as well as stabbed her too!
Colin fell forward, his magic shield vanishing, leaving them all vulnerable
.
The Grosvenor withdrew the knife, now stained red with Colin’s blood.
Colin rolled over, gasping.
The remaining Grosvenor remade their line and marched as one, ready to plunge their daggers into Colin’s body.
The Grosvenor, which had already stabbed Colin, stared at the bloody dagger. Something wasn’t right. Where was the power surge? He felt nothing.
The five advanced on Colin, leaning in as they did, lifting their arms, ready to stab.
In the next moment, three things happened in quick succession.
Colin’s body rose from the floor, stiff and straight, as if he had a board underneath his body.
Once back on his feet, he raised both of his arms and with a flick of his wrist, the daggers went soaring into the air, landing far away.
At the same time, the Grosvenor’s bodies were tossed into the air, landing on the barn floor with a series of violent thumps.
Meghan looked at Colin’s torn shirt, where he had been stabbed, realizing there was no wound. He had healed himself.
How? How had he been able to do that?
A maniacal laugh echoed throughout the barn.
Everyone looked to see Freyne Rothrock’s face in the mirror.
“Fools! All of you fools!” he spit out. “You think I’d give you real daggers?” he laughed again.
The Grosvenor looked between each other and then to Colin.
They had been duped. Promised power by Freyne and then put into a game of life and death with a Projector. A pissed off Projector whose girlfriend was still held prisoner.
Catrina whimpered, backing away, relieved that Colin was not injured.
Meghan found her strength again, rejoining Ivan and Sebastien.
This time, they formed their own line of defense in front of Catrina’s prison, with Colin in the middle. Meghan stood to his right, with Nona at her heels, and Sebastien by her right, and Ivan at Colin’s left side.
So many spells left palms the barn lit up in streams of gold, silver and white, as spell met spell in a furious battle for life and death.
Colin willed his spells into existence, his arms remaining by his sides. This battle could last for hours. Days even, until one side or another surrendered.
The Grosvenor were fast considering the age of their bodies; they moved with agile precision.
Colin did as much damage on his own as the line assisting him. He could feel them tiring, whereas he did not. Regrets over his choice to free Aloyna could easily have overwhelmed him, but he didn’t allow it. As Catrina had first said, he should have found some other way to free her and never agreed to work with Freyne.
Freyne.
Just thinking the name sent his imagination into overdrive. He swung his arm out. The head of one of the Grosvenor snapped to one side, breaking. The crack of the bones was jarring.
Meghan watched the Grosvenor force his head back in place at the top of his body, where she guessed his immortal body healed itself.
Colin’s focus was getting beyond this battle. He wouldn’t be satisfied now until Freyne was dead. Freyne was using him to kill off his competition. This thought shot down his gut, tearing through him. There had to be a way to get ahead. To take out the Grosvenor. End them! He was officially sick of playing other people’s games!
Streams of flame erupted out of Meghan’s body flooding towards a Grosvenor advancing on her. The flames set its robes ablaze.
With an annoyed grunt, the Grosvenor underneath doused the flame and continued his charge.
Sebastien took off into the air, transforming into his bird form mid- jump, flying high overhead; he landed on a square wooden beam. He changed back into human form and cast a spell, knocking the Grosvenor advancing on Meghan sideways, its body crashing through the side of the barn wall.
From his higher vantage point, he could see much more clearly. He grabbed hold of a second wooden beam and pointed his palm towards Ivan.
Ivan, physically, held a strong pose, shooting off spell after spell at the two Grosvenor attacking him. But the spells were getting weaker and he wouldn’t be able to head them off for long.
Ivan didn’t see the third Grosvenor advancing from behind. It had located one of the daggers and was preparing to plunge it into Ivan’s back.
Ivan heard something crash behind him and spun around.
A dagger slid across the floor, out of sight. The Grosvenor that had been holding it crumpled on the floor.
“Gotcha,” mumbled Sebastien, looking for his next target.
Ivan returned to the dual with the two Grosvenor still advancing at his front. He had expanded all of his magical energy. He couldn’t calm himself enough to reach out and get more. In his haste to join the battle with the banished encampment, he had not secured any extra potions. Something he regretted now. He wasn’t going to be of any use in a minute. He’d just be someone else needing protection.
Colin saw the Ivan’s magic was getting weaker. He needed every able bodied person at top performance. Without a questioning thought as to whether he could, Colin willed Ivan’s magic restored.
It happened in such a rush that Ivan staggered for a moment. He didn’t understand what was happening, but accepted whatever help he had just gotten, renewing his attack at full power once again.
Colin then restored Sebastien’s magical strength as well. Meghan on the other hand showed no signs of tiring.
Nona stayed with Catrina, marching back and forth in front of her prison. Catrina was stuck inside, helpless to do anything but watch.
The attack was getting more ferocious.
Neither side was making any progress.
Colin needed everything to slow down.
He needed time to figure out how to win this battle.
Just a few chaotic free minutes to think.
Everything slowed. Not frozen, still moving forward, but slow enough that Colin was suddenly able to see everything going on around him in clear detail.
He saw Meghan falling backwards, a Grosvenor lunging for her.
He saw one of the two Grosvenor attacking Ivan vault into the air, flying over Ivan’s head and land behind him. Ivan spun sideways, shooting off spells in both directions. Each deflected, the Grosvenor gaining on him.
He saw Sebastien diving towards Meghan’s lunging foe, transforming mid-flight to shoot off his spell. It hit the target, but to Sebastien’s horror, only sent it surging faster right at Meghan.
Sebastien called out her name, leaving himself no time to transfer back into bird form before slamming into the ground. He rolled over, the wind knocked out of him, just in time to see the blood thirsty eyes of a hooded figure looking down at him.
Another of the Grosvenor pushed against Colin’s defensive shield, pushing its way into it. Colin didn’t know what he expected to accomplish by doing this. He found it annoying and looked away.
Colin saw a hood falling back, exposing the face of one of the female Grosvenor. Her features hardly resembled a woman’s anymore. Her worn skin toughened, showing its many long years, her eyes sunken in, spewing nothing but hatred.
A heartless grin spread across her face.
She stood behind everyone, her arms outstretched in front of her, her palms facing upwards. Two black orbs formed in her hands, pulsating in thick molasses-like motions.
She looked straight into Colin’s eyes, took her arms and slammed the two orbs together.
The impact was instant.
A magical shockwave, just a second from blowing the entire place, including the people he loved, into smithereens.
“Stop!” ordered Colin, out of sheer untainted desire for everything to just stop.
Suddenly, the only thing Colin heard was his own heavy breathing.
He stood in the middle of a frozen scene, his chest heaving.
Meghan was on her back, her arms pushed up in front of her, flames erupting out of her hands as she tried to fend off the Grosvenor just a few feet above her, frozen mid-lunge.
Sebastien had a bony hand about to enclose around his neck.
Colin’s head flicked to the left where he saw Nona’s tiny body frozen mid-air; she’d been hurled by someone, but her claws grasped at a beam, trying to stop her body’s momentum.
Ivan had a spell mid-cast, about to hit the Grosvenor on one side of him, while a spell from the opposite side’s attacker threatened to hit Ivan square in the head.
The Grosvenor trying to penetrate Colin’s shield was now bent at an unnatural angle, the shockwave having started to slam into him before Colin had stopped everything. He looked as though someone was kicking him in the back, pushing him deeper into the shield.
Colin’s eyes landed on Catrina. His magic had not affected her. She was still moving, tears streaming down her face.
“Colin,” she whimpered.
His breathing calmed at the mere sight of her.
All of this was for her. To free her.
He let go of his magical shield, leaving it frozen in place, where it was.
Cautiously, he stepped through the barn, coming as close to her as he dared. “I’m so sorry,” he said to her. “This has gotten so far out of hand. I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to kill the Grosvenor. I can only keep doing this. I don’t know how to get you out of here,” he admitted. It pained him to say it.
“Colin,” she stammered. “It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
“How? How is this okay? What good is my power if I can’t use it to destroy this evil? If I can’t even free you from this prison?”
“Maybe you can, Colin,” she encouraged. She wiped her face and surveyed the terrible scene that would unfold if Colin didn’t stop it. “Can you free them?” she asked. “Leave the Grosvenor, free everyone else?”
Could he? If he could slow things down and freeze them, then why not unfreeze just certain people. He closed his eyes, feeling the Magicante strumming evenly.
“I want my friends freed,” his said.
When he opened his eyes, Meghan, Ivan, Sebastien and Nona stood in a line between him and Catrina, looking dazed, disheveled and exhausted.
“Wh-what’s going on,” stuttered Meghan. She had to capture the flames escaping her hands towards a foe no longer about to pounce on top of her.
Control (Book Seven) (Fated Saga Fantasy Series) Page 21
