Heartache (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 5)

by Annie Bellet

  Alek nodded and lifted it as though were a bag of groceries. He carried it to Max’s grave. I knelt and put one hand on the stone and the other on my talisman. Sleeping in Alek’s arms, or perhaps sleeping on top of a huge active node, had revived my magic. I felt almost normal. Too angry to be tired anymore.

  I channeled magic, going on will and instinct more than practice. The stone shifted and changed under my power, its mass converting to dark blue crystal. I anchored it into the earth, sending crystal roots out to hold it against earthquake, human intervention, or inclement weather. This stone would stay put short of someone digging it out with a backhoe.

  “Thank you,” Harper said to me as I finished.

  I shook my head and turned, walking back to the grove. She had nothing to be thankful for. All I had done was get her brother killed. A stupid gesture at his grave? Meaningless. My magic was useless if I couldn’t protect the people I loved.

  I had to convince them to leave, to go into hiding. Samir had said he was getting tired of this game. Well, good. I was tired of it, too. If they hid and I offered myself up, perhaps he and I could have a final battle.

  One was I fairly sure I’d lose. I needed more power. More of a plan. More knowledge. Instead, all I knew was that Samir liked objects and he liked to get hands on.

  Oh, and he really wanted to fuck up and kill everyone I ever loved. Totally useless knowledge.

  I waited as everyone filed back into the grove.

  “We have to run,” I said, though by “we” I did mean everyone but myself.

  “Fuck that,” Harper said. There were nods all around and grim, determined faces. Great.

  “I’m going to get you all killed. This is a sorcerer problem. I’ve failed, okay? Don’t you see? This is all my fault.” My nails dug into my palms and I blinked back tears. I had to make them understand.

  “Your fault?” Harper said, raising a hand to forestall Levi and Ezee, who had both opened their mouths at the same time. “You killed Steve? You kidnapped and killed my brother?”

  “Because of me,” I said. “If I weren’t here, Samir wouldn’t have come after them. He only wants to hurt all of you because of me.” I paced away from them and turned back. “This is why I should have left a long time ago.”

  I’d chosen to stay and fight, to stop running. To live. It had felt so good to be a part of something again, to have a lover and friends and a place to belong. I’d forgotten the part where it would all be ripped horribly away from me.

  “Fuck. You.” Harper stalked toward me, a growl issuing from her human throat. Her green eyes flared gold for a moment and her lips curled back in a snarl.

  “Let’s play It’s A Wonderful Life the Jade Crow version. So what if you’d left? Mom would be dead by now, starved and drained like a fox battery by that Barnes guy. Hell, so would Ezee. Maybe the rest of us. We weren’t exactly winning that fight before you showed up.”

  “I could have left after that,” I said weakly. “Everything bad that has happened since has been my fault, because of Samir.”

  “And let all the wolves die? Let Eva destroy the packs and become the Stalin version of the Alpha of Alphas? Was that Samir? I don’t think so.”

  “Someone would have stopped her,” I muttered.

  “You stopped her. You threw yourself on a freaking bomb. You got shot for us. You saved my mom and Ezee. You didn’t kill Max, Jade. Your evil fucking ex did. Don’t you dare try to take on the blame for that. He has to pay. He has to suffer and die.”

  “At what cost?” I asked her.

  “Any. Fucking. Cost,” Harper said. She was toe to toe with me, staring into my eyes with a fire I’d never seen in her. “Samir is going to die. And the only way to kill a sorcerer is for another sorcerer to eat their heart. So stop throwing yourself a fucking pity party for shit you didn’t do, and man up. We’re in this together and we need you.”

  I wrapped my arms around her, hugging her fiercely to me.

  “I love you, furball,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I love you, too,” she whispered, gripping me hard enough to bruise my ribs. “Now let’s stop talking about turning tail and figure out how we destroy that motherfucker.”

  We spent the morning brainstorming in the grove. By midday, we were all tired of talking in circles, trying to decide how to get Samir to hold still long enough to really fight him. It seemed we would have to wait for him to come to us. Yosemite had the most strength here in the grove and he would be able to sense anyone approaching, so it seemed like a good spot to make our stand.

  We needed supplies. It was dangerous to leave, but neither the druid nor I could conjure food, weapons, ammo, or blankets. The hut had the bare bones of things, some dried food and a couple blankets, but nothing that could last days and support eight people.

  Alek and I, and the twins, decided to hike out. The twins would go for weapons. Levi had another rifle stashed at his shop, and Ezee said he’d put a call in to the wolf pack, certain they could help hook him up. Freyda hadn’t left town, which worried me. I hoped my message to Sheriff Lee had gotten through.

  The day was grey and dim outside the magical grove. Occasional snow spit from the sky, more ice than flakes. We reached the barn and split up, Alek and I taking his truck, Levi and Ezee taking snowmobiles.

  “Any sign of trouble, you GTFO,” I warned them.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Levi said with a half-assed grin.

  “Do you smell smoke?” Alek asked, turning his face into the wind.

  “I smell the burned building over there,” I said, though my nose was too numb to smell much of anything. I kept my eyes off the wrecked heap of the Henhouse. So many happy hours spent inside those walls. It was just a burned-out shell now, hollow and broken.

  “No,” Ezee said, sniffing also. “I smell smoke. Fresh smoke.” He looked around and then pointed. “There.”

  In the distance, a huge black cloud hung in the air. It looked like storm clouds, but the season was wrong for that kind of storm, and the cloud was too black, too thick. Too low.

  “That’s Wylde,” I said softly, giving voice to what we were all probably thinking. “That’s the direction of town.”

  Alek drove his truck at not quite ludicrous speed. I’d made Levi and Ezee stick to the plan. Alek and I would investigate the smoke; they would go get weapons and stuff.

  Wylde was burning. Smoke billowed down the main street as we drove past the gas station and courthouse.

  My shop was at the heart of the conflagration. Two fire engines were trying to stem the damage, but the water seemed to be making the fire angrier. Every cop car in the county, plus two state patrol vehicles, created a blockade of the main strip. Police in hospital masks and heavy jackets were trying to wave back the mass of onlookers as people desperately jostled for both a view and to stay away from the worst of the radiating heat.

  Alek pulled up a block away, and I was out of the truck before it had fully stopped moving. I ran toward the fire, reaching out with my magic, already sensing Samir’s power somehow involved. The fire reacted to my own power by flaring up, bright orange flames roaring into the sky. My whole building was a raging inferno, but flames were already jumping further along, catching the roofs of the buildings next door.

  Apparently Samir was done with subtle. He was trying to burn down the entire town.

  “Jade!” Rachel Lee ran toward me, waving her arms.

  “What happened?” I yelled over the noise of shouting people, crackling and roaring fire, and the scream of more sirens as another fire engine came up from the other side.

  “It won’t stop burning,” she yelled back. “Went up half an hour ago. Fire chief says he’s never seen the like.”

  “It’s magic,” I said. It wasn’t going to stop. There was something fueling it. I didn’t think Samir would stand at the center of such a blaze, if he were even capable of it.

  He likes objects. Making things, mind-Tess whispered.

  I closed
my eyes and pushed my magic back at the building, forming it like a probe. I ignored the renewed pulse of the fire, the answering song of Samir’s sickly sweet power, and tried to feel for a catalyst. There, in my shop. That was the center, a knot of magic holding the fire in its grasp, fueling it.

  I was too far away to undo the knot, to destroy whatever was anchoring the spell.

  Pulling off my jacket, I looked over at Alek. He shook his head with a warning, an unhappy look on his face.

  “Hold this,” I said. I stripped out of my shirt next, then my jeans, panties, socks, and shoes.

  “Jade,” Alek said softly as he took my clothes from me. The wind and noise stole the sound of my name from his lips, but I made out the word.

  “What are you doing?” Rachel yelled as I started walking, totally naked, straight at the fire.

  “It won’t stop without help,” I yelled back at her. “Tell them to let me through.”

  Rachel, to her credit, didn’t argue, just started shouting at the firemen to let me through.

  Not that they listened. To their eyes, a naked Native American woman wearing only a necklace was walking right at a million alarm fire. Men in heavy gear tried to grab me.

  The time for subtlety was past. I used magic to more or less gently shove them aside. The fire brought sweat to my face, whispering of the heat to come as I neared the building. I pulled my magic around me. I’d survived a damned bomb. I could manage a little fire. Fire and me had always seemed to have an understanding.

  I had Haruki’s power inside me, as well. Fire had been a favorite of his. He knew its ways, knew glyphs to summon it, and to quell it. I painted myself with glyphs of pure magic, covering my skin in a second glittering shield as purple fire formed its own marks along my body.

  Then I stepped into the blaze. My eyes watered and I didn’t want to risk breathing, so my lungs felt tight and empty.

  This won’t kill me, I told myself. I didn’t need to breathe. The fire left my skin alone. It felt as though I’d walked into a dry sauna, oppressive but not unbearable. I walked over the remains of my life here, eyes mostly closed against the thick smoke. I moved by instinct and memory, not sight.

  This store had been my home, my sanctuary, for nearly six years. Every miniature I’d painted here, every comic I’d bought and sold, every dragon my friends and I had slain together. All the happiness I’d had in decades was in flames, burning away as though it had never mattered.

  But it had. I used those memories to strengthen my shield. Samir was trying to take everything from me, but I still had my family. Their love. The laughter and tears and hopes that we had all shared.

  I still had everything that this store represented.

  This was still my town, and I wasn’t going to roll over and let it burn. I reached the center of the fire and pressed my magic out, feeling for the thing I’d sensed from outside.

  The catalyst was not a rock. A snake that looked to be formed of lava and hellfire uncoiled from the center of the blaze, its mouth open in a silent hiss. Or perhaps not so silent, but I couldn’t hear anything over the crackle and roar of the flames in my ears.

  I dodged as it struck and my hip slammed into a fallen beam. Part of the upstairs had collapsed down, the subflooring giving way as the fire ate it. Rolling while holding tightly to the glyph shield keeping me safe from the flames, I lashed out with my feet, slamming into a coil of the firesnake.

  It felt like I kicked a block of steel. Pain jarred up my legs and I skidded back, ash and smoke swirling up around me, blocking what little vision I had.

  The snake struck again, this time catching my left arm. Its molten teeth bit through my shield. Pain so hot it became cold again radiated into my arm and the smell of cooked meat filled my nostrils. I rammed a bolt of pure force into the snake’s head from point-blank range with my right hand, knocking it back and away from me.

  My left arm hung useless and numb. I was glad for the numb. That jolt of pain had nearly knocked me out. I renewed my shield as I scrambled back, my smoke-teared eyes hunting for the snake. I missed Wolf more than ever as I tried to regain my feet and get my back up against something more solid than burning wood.

  I couldn’t fight fire with fire. I had to stop just reacting.

  Dragons, I thought. What if this were a red dragon?

  We’d have boned up on ice spells, ice enchantments, and fire-protection gear. That was what a good adventurer would have done.

  Tess had told me my gift, my specialty in sorcery was elemental magic. It was freaking winter outside this raging inferno. There was snow everywhere and freezing air.

  I reached for it, envisioning myself like the center of a black hole, sucking in as much air as I could. The fire flared and grew as I pulled oxygen into it, but I held on, focusing on the cold. Focusing on how it had felt to fly through the air, tears freezing to my cheeks as I raced to try and save Rose and Junebug.

  Then I visualized deeper. Glaciers. Swirling blizzards. Dry ice. Cold so strong that blood would freeze in the veins of living things. I set my will on that cold, pushed my magic into ice around me.

  The snake struck again, twisting and lashing out as I hit it with the strongest cold area of effect spell I could muster. Ice and snow blasted out from my body, the air freezing instantly. Ice formed and encased the snake, catching it in a deadly embrace.

  More of the second floor collapsed under the weight of flame and magic. I’d be buried before I killed the damn snake at this rate. Unless I could slow down time.

  I reached for Tess’s magic then, slowing time around the snake and I. Holding three spells at once made my head spin and my stomach turn to cheese. My knees gave out and I fell forward, but I clung to the magic, pouring everything I had into the ice.

  The snake’s body hardened and drew dark. Embers flared and died in the pits of its eyes.

  Then the fire died, as though it had never been. I let go of all of my spells and knelt, hands and knees on the floor, gasping in cold, smoky air. The floor was freezing, rimed with frost and no more flames licked at the building.

  Voices roused me from my exhausted slump. Shouting from outside.

  I made myself stand and walk toward the street. The entry was mostly crushed, the building half collapsed, but I clambered over fallen beams and charred wall. Firemen stood around, some pointing, many talking at once, as I strode out of the building toward Alek.

  “Jade.” Rachel rushed at me, grabbing a blanket from a surprised fireman and throwing it around me.

  I winced as the cloth hit my injured arm. The numbness was wearing off and it felt like my flesh was still on fire.

  Alek reached us a moment later, his glare driving back the two men trying to approach. People were yelling a lot of things, but compared to the roar of the fire, it was almost eerily quiet.

  I looked back at my building. The blaze was completely out. Smoke still hung above the building, but nothing seemed to burn or smolder within. Score one for me, I guess.

  I wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep for a thousand years, but I pulled the blanket around myself and tried on a smile for Alek’s sake.

  “I’m okay,” I lied. My shop was gone. The picture that Ji-hoon had drawn for me, the last remnant of the people I’d lost, was gone as well. It was the only thing I’d truly prized, the one possession I’d carried through the decades. I’d just performed a crazy amount of magic, further weakening myself. And I’d done it in front of a hundred people, some of whom were definitely normals. Added to my aching arm, it all summed up to very not okay.

  “Let’s get you to the truck before anyone starts asking what happened,” Alek said. He pushed my clothes into Rachel’s arms and swept me up like a child.

  I was almost used to him carrying me at this point. It was sort of our thing. I perform big magic, Alek sweeps me off my feet when I’m too tired to stay on them. I was supposed to protest, but I was too fucking tired.

  Nobody tried to stop us. Awe and disbelief painted the fac
es around us as Alek strode back to the truck.

  Detective Hattie Wise and Agent Salazar waited by the truck, unhappy looks on their faces.

  “You are causing a lot of trouble,” Hattie said.

  “I didn’t start the damn fire,” I said as Alek growled at her to get out of his way.

  “This is getting national media attention,” Salazar said. His lips were pressed into a tight line and his forehead creased with worry marks. They both looked like they’d aged a decade since I’d seen them.

  “That’s your problem,” I said. “Remember? You can’t stop a sorcerer. So get out of my way. Unless you want to arrest me for putting out a fire.”

  Hattie nodded slowly. Salazar looked like he wanted to protest, but she laid a hand on his arm and pulled him back.

  Alek set me down on the bench seat. Rachel laid my clothes in my lap.

  “Get the wolves out,” I told her. “Get away from here. This might get worse.” I could only hope that Samir would come for us in the woods and stop fucking up my town. My shop was gone. There was nothing left for him here.

  “Good luck, Jade,” she said, her dark eyes solemn. “And thank you.”

  I didn’t know what she was thanking me for. Maybe putting out the fire. It was hard to tell and I was too tired to care. I clutched the blanket around myself and passed out even as Alek started the engine.

  The bird hits the glazed windowpane with a sickening thud. Tess runs out the door, ignoring the call of her grandmother to stop, to leave it be.

  The bird is dead. Its neck is twisted and Tess cries. Something strange and cold unfurls within her, swirling through her mind. She begs God to let the bird live again, to turn it away from the window.

  The world swirls around her. The cabin looks as though it is no thicker than her paper dolls, an image she could push over with the shove of one of her tiny hands.

  “NO!” Gran’s voice cuts through the chill and the world stops its slow spin.

  “Heal him,” Tess says, pushing out her lower lip. “I wanted to fix it. To stop the bird from hitting the window.”