“You don’t enchant an island,” I said coldly. “You ask it to accept you. The land has its own spirit, and if you try, and it finds you worthy, you can speak to it.” I looked around at the trees, up at the sky. “But it is very impressive. The island obviously saw something in Arianne.” I looked at Prower. “I doubt it will see the same in you.”
Prower lowered his voice to a soft whisper that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “Whatever you think you’ll accomplish with your little circle, it won’t work. Your summoning failed, and no matter how much anyone prays, it will continue to fail. I will finish with you, and then I’ll return to dear Iman.” His face darkened. “And this time I will make certain that there is nothing left of her mind to remember my bride to be.”
I clapped my hands quickly, signaling the shifter and pixies.
To either side of me, the werewolves set off their illusions. Fog rolled over the island from my right, and darkness erupted from my left. The two met in the middle to turn the island into a ball of nightmares, swirling with wisps of grey smoke. Ghostly wails and cries burst out all over the island. Fairy lights erupted around us like lightning bugs, as the pixies twirled through the air, bobbing and weaving, letting out little shrieks and moans that echoed through the air.
“How…quaint.”
Prower’s voice slithered through the fog, crawling down my spine to pool in an icy lake in my stomach.
“These illusions are Arianne’s,” he said, his voice softened with awe. “They dance in the Dreamworld and cast their shadows on the physical plane. I see their energy in the astral realm as well. There truly is no end to her skill.”
His voice shifted, as if he’d taken a step closer to me where I’d used the fog to hide my movement toward the opposite side of the circle to Iman. I froze. He couldn’t see me. It wasn’t possible.
“Your clever use of Arianne’s gifts does make it more difficult to see your tricks, I will grant you that,” he said. “But you forget that I have the power to determine the field of battle.”
His hand closed around my arm, and I barely kept from crying out. When he spoke, his mouth was so close to my ear I flinched.
“Come with me,” he whispered.
Traveling to the astral plane isn’t painful. It can be disorienting, even scary, but it’s not painful.
At least, not unless someone rips you out of your physical form like a three-year-old tearing the first tissue out of a tightly packed new box, shredding the delicate Kleenex in the process.
And of course, it’s much more terrifying if you can’t see anything.
Fear brought my magic rushing forth in a sudden wave, and I blurted out the first spell that came to my mind.
“Coruscent!”
I closed my eyes, but it was mostly reflex. I was already blind, the glittering dust of my spell wouldn’t do me any further harm.
But it would even the playing field. A little.
“You little…” Prower sputtered.
His grip on my wrist tightened until I felt his bones grinding into mine, felt pressure so sharp I held my breath, waiting to hear the snap of bone. I reacted without thinking, thrusting my knee up.
And was rewarded with a string of the foulest words I’d heard in a long time.
As soon as he released my wrist, I retreated as quickly as I could. It’s no easy thing to run when you’re blind. Instinct screams at you, warns you to slow down, to stop before you stumble. Every nerve in your body hurts as each body part anticipates crashing into something. You feel the pain even though it hasn’t happened yet. I forced myself to go slow, feeling out in front of me. My fingers touched something soft. A pillow. No, a couch cushion.
“I should have expected such brutality from you,” Prower said.
I congratulated myself for the hoarseness in his voice. He could mock me if he wanted, but that pain would be with him a while.
“I wish you could see where you are, Ms. Renard.” Prower’s voice crawled out of the darkness. “I spent a great deal of time crafting this home here on the astral plane. It’s not easy, you know. Yes, the astral plane lends itself to manipulation, and of course I made certain I was an expert long before my body died. But to craft a home as grand as this one…”
He laughed. The sound chased me around the couch, and I moved as quickly as I could, needing to put something between us
“Are you trying to escape? Are you in that much of a hurry to die?”
I tripped over the edge of a rug and landed hard on my backside. Pain shot up from my tailbone, seizing my spine and drawing a grunt from me. I pushed the pain away, forced myself to get up again, feel my way farther from Prower’s mocking tone.
“If you leave this house, you’ll be killed by the beasts that wait outside for me. It’s why I had to build this place, why I took the time to make it so perfect. The astral plane is not a friendly place, and there are many creatures who prowl around this house waiting for someone to leave the safety of these walls.”
He chuckled again. “In fact, I think they deserve a treat for their patience. Why exert the energy and effort to kill you myself, when I could simply wait for your little spell to wear off and see you torn asunder and consumed by astral predators?”
He was stalling. He and I both knew he was exhausted. If he had the energy to kill me himself, he would. But then it would take him even longer to recuperate, give Liam more time to find Arianne. He’d chase me around his house until his blindness wore off and he could throw me to the astral wolves, so to speak.
Which gave me time for my own plan.
I said a small prayer that I was right, and he’d herd me closer to the door. Even blind he’d know what direction to move. And I need to be by the door if I didn’t want to die here with him.
I groped for the zipper of my waist pouch. “What have you done with Arianne?”
Prower’s voice came from a different angle this time, as if he were pacing around me. I moved away from his voice, as I’m sure he intended. Lead me to the door, you arrogant son of a demon.
“Somewhere your wolves won’t find her,” he promised.
“I doubt that,” I scoffed, digging my hand into the pouch. “My guess is you’re running a little low on energy. You didn’t have the strength or the time to ward her off. So what did you do? Tie her up with rope? Chains maybe? Sit her in a circle of salt and lock the room behind you?”
His lack of a snappy comeback made me smile. Mundane locks it was. Liam would have no trouble.
Bizbee smacked my hand, and I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t tell him what I needed without giving Prower a heads-up. I made a tsking sound. “With no body, even that must have taken it out of you. You had to use magic just to manipulate the bonds, didn’t you? Liam won’t have that problem.”
“This island is a fortress,” Prower snapped. “There is a labyrinth of tunnels. Even for your sharp-nosed lover, he’ll never find her before I finish with you and her ex-wife.”
I almost pointed out that labyrinths were only challenging if you didn’t have a map. Which we did, thanks to Iman. But I held my tongue. I wanted to upset Prower, but I didn’t want to drive him away yet. Let him think he had time to toy with me.
Bizbee smacked my hand again, harder this time. I shoved my hand deeper, feeling around. Something stabbed me, and I bit down on a cry. It took me a second to realize it was the tip of a pencil. Bizbee shoved the writing implement into my hand. I almost laughed when I realized he was holding a pad of Post-its. Clever grig.
“Speaking of wolves,” I said lightly, grateful the item I needed was just one short word and didn’t require much concentration. “What’s your plan for them? You think you’ll defeat me here, return to the physical plane, destroy Iman’s mind…then what? There are three wolves down there. Even if you find them before they free Arianne, how exactly do you plan to get rid of them without a physical body?”
As I asked the question, I had a moment of fear as I wondered if I’d underestimated h
im. Usually, a magic user needed a body to ground themselves to work most spells. Anything beyond illusions and such. But maybe Prower was stronger than that. Maybe he’d figured out a way. I quickly scribbled on the Post-it.
“I don’t need a body, or magic, to defeat them.” Prower continued to pace around me. “I will pull their human psyches to the astral plane one by one and hold them here. With a little effort on my part, I can drive them feral in a day. Three days, at most.”
Ice slid down my spine at the mental images that came with Prower’s threat. Thoughts of Liam, Blake, and Sonar trapped on the astral plane while their wolves roamed the island. Liam would last the longest. Or possibly Sonar, because she already spent so much time in wolf form. But even they could only last so long. If Prower kept their human half separate from their wolf halves for too long…
“When I’m done with the wolves,” Prower continued, speaking with the musing tone of a professor planning his long-awaited sabbatical, “I’ll rest here. The astral plane is my domain now, as safe for me as the physical realm is for you, thanks to this house. And once I’ve rested, I’ll return to Arianne. And we’ll begin fixing the damage all those years with that woman has done to her.”
“It truly doesn’t bother you at all that she despises you.” I started to retreat, relieved when Bizbee shoved the item I needed into my hand. I took the small radio and turned the volume all the way up. “Not even a little?”
Prower snorted. “Women are often ignorant of what’s best for them. More so when they’re from the less civilized areas of the world.”
I rolled my eyes.
“The problem is, Arianne can’t fully grasp what I’m offering her as a partner. There’s been no one like me for centuries, certainly no one she’s ever met. I don’t blame her for doubting that I can follow through on my offer. But I will show her. And in time she will see.”
“And you think if you can offer her power—which she already has—then she’ll find a purpose—which she already has—and then she’ll love you the way she loves the spouse she already has?”
“You’re a witch,” Prower snapped. “How can you not see how disastrous a homosexual relationship is for a sorceress? For any magic user? It’s not natural.”
“Yes, clearly her power has suffered horribly,” I said dryly.
“You miss the point. If that’s how powerful she is with a wife, imagine how powerful she’ll be with a husband? How powerful our children will be?”
Prower’s voice was getting excited, and it creeped me out more than when he’d been angry. I held my breath, composing the spell I needed I my mind. I knelt down, and put the radio on the floor. Then flipped the switch.
Alice Cooper’s voice boomed from the small but powerful speakers, blasting Prower with the lyrics of “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”
I rolled away from the radio seconds before something crashed into the wall behind me. Something splintered and broken glass sprayed over me. One larger shard cut my cheek and I pressed my lips together to hold in a hiss of pain. I took a deep breath and whispered the spell I needed, letting Alice Cooper’s snarling shock rock voice cover the words.
Summoning a fire elemental was never a particularly smart thing to do. Unlike some of the Otherworlders I’d encountered on the material plane, who merely had fire elemental in their heritage, pure fire elementals were as unpredictable as fire itself. They could be used, could be helpful, but they really only cared about burning things down, and they weren’t picky about what it was. Normally, I’d only summon one in a stone room after making certain there were limited combustibles in the area.
Only, this time, I wanted it to burn the whole house down.
The first hint of smoke curled around my nose. A split second later, Prower hissed.
“What have you done?!”
I tried to keep the uncertainty out of my voice, infusing it with inflated arrogance using Prower’s previous tone as a guideline.
“I’m burning down your safe house. It’ll make a nice signal fire for all those monsters you were just telling me about.”
“You’ll kill us both,” he snapped.
I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me. “Win some, lose some. The point is, you’re about to lose your recharging station, your sanctuary. So I hope you had a nice rest, because it’s all over now.”
The fire elemental I’d summoned was just a small creature, but it didn’t take a big elemental to burn a house down. A few well-placed sparks was all it took. Already the temperature in the house was rising, and I had to stay low to the floor as smoke thickened the air above me. I said a small prayer that one of my two potential rescuers showed up soon.
Prower sacrificed stealth for expedience. He crashed into what sounded like a small end table, and I followed the sound. He’d be heading for the door, and I needed to be right behind him. With any luck, his blindness would last a little longer. I didn’t have a time piece to tell me how long it had been, and the not-knowing wasn’t doing my nerves any favors.
A door slammed. My heart leapt into my throat. I rushed toward the sound, grateful there was nothing to trip me as I fell forward, my hands reaching to find the door knob. I tried to pull it open, but it wouldn’t budge.
Prower was holding it closed from the other side.
My heart skipped a beat, and I forced myself not to panic. I groped for the open flap of my waist pouch. “Bizbee, I need—”
“Take it and zip the pouch before ye let any more smoke in here!” Bizbee shouted. “I’ll never get the smell out!”
I took the respirator, my shoulders slumping with gratitude. The most dangerous thing about a house fire was the smoke, since it would kill you faster than flames. Assuming you could stay away from the flames. I slipped the respirator over my head and returned my hands to the door knob to keep trying the exit.
Prower was still holding the door knob. I pulled and pulled, but he was larger than me, and stronger. I wasn’t going to win a game of tug o’ war. The warmth at my back continued to grow, and my ears filled with the sounds of crackling flames, the snap of burning wood, and the soft whoosh of curtains going up in smoke.
Suddenly, the door gave. I fell back as it swung open, hitting the same spot on my tailbone I’d hit last time. I got up slower than I’d have liked, throbbing pain in my backside hindering the first few steps as I felt my way out of the house. Every nerve ending screamed, waiting for Prower to take advantage of my blindness, to strike at me while I tried to escape death by burning. He wouldn’t even need to expend magic. If he timed a strike right, he could—
My sight returned with world-swaying speed. I blinked as my vision filled with a view of a burning mansion, complete with wrought iron gates and stone gargoyles. Fire licked out of the window in bright orange and red tongues, crawling higher and higher until the entire building was one huge bonfire.
Only, I wasn’t seeing it from my spot on the porch. I was seeing it from farther away. As if I were standing on the front lawn. I turned my head and my vision didn’t change.
There are no words to describe just how disorienting it is to see through someone else’s eyes. You can’t control the view, you can’t orient yourself, and you can’t even see whose eyes you’re seeing through.
“Umbra ancoris!”
I recognized the voice. Prower ran, bolting off the front porch, onto the purple grass under an orange sky. But Arianne’s spell was faster.
A smoky purple spear shot up from the ground. The wickedly sharp tip shot through Prower’s back and exploded out of his chest. There was no blood. It wasn’t a mundane anchor.
There was a time when political leaders had thought it a grand practice to impale their enemies’ corpses on sticks and set them about their property as a warning to others not to try anything rash. I thought of those dark days now as I watched Prower squirm, his mouth opening and closing, his eyes bulging from his face.
Arianne took a step closer, and it changed my view. I realized I was seeing through
her eyes. Iman must have linked our minds together. Which meant Arianne was no longer imprisoned on the island.
Yes, I’m free, Ms. Renard. Now do be quiet.
Arianne’s voice came from inside my head. Despite our current partnership, I couldn’t help the wave of cold fear that washed over me. I didn’t want her in my head. And I didn’t particularly want to be in hers.
“Now,” she said slowly. “Where were we?”
With shaking legs, I left the porch and the burning house to move closer to Arianne. If I could stand beside her, the view from her eyes would be less disorienting. As it was, the voices I heard came from a different area than my eyes told me.
“My love,” Prower rasped. “Think before you act. You know what our union can offer you.”
“Yes,” Arianne said softly. “I do. A life of misery and subjugation, filled with all the frivolities of wealth with none of the responsibilities. An existence of pure capitalism, enjoying everything money can buy without a thought for where it came from, or those less fortunate.”
“We could save your people,” he insisted. “We would have the money to save them.”
“But that’s not what you did with your money last time, is it?” Arianne asked. “No, you used your money to buy people. Body and soul.”
Something growled behind me. I turned to look, then remembered I couldn’t change this particular viewpoint. I pulled my respirator off my face. “Arianne—”
“Ms. Renard, I’m in the middle of something,” Arianne snapped.
She raised her fist, and blue sparks danced around her white-knuckled grip. “I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time.”
A pit opened up beneath Prower’s body. The ground holding the shadow anchor began to sink, taking Prower with it. Flames erupted as a pit opened up, roasting him like a fluffy white marshmallow in the hands of a child with no patience for anything but a charred mound of sugar. He screamed, and the sound twisted my nerve endings into knots.
The hackles on the back of my neck stood up.
Thrall Page 30
