Fire screamed, warning me to act, but too late.
As his arms wrapped around me, the wind rushed, darkness swelled, and we were falling.
Chapter Thirty-eight
My stomach lurched.
As quick as it began, our trip ended. The air here burned as cold as hell. My mind registered this fact just as we fell into snow, Mayfair’s body landing on top of mine. Again, I couldn’t breathe. The pain in my body came back to the forefront of my mind.
“Listen to me! You have to take control!” Mayfair shouted. His voice was strained, full of pain and anger. Cold seeped in through my coat, my clothes, chilling me to the bone. I shivered, trying to push him off of me, but he would not yield.
The wind still roared all around us, different from the bamf. Snow fell all around us in thick, heavy flakes.
“Let me go!” I screamed.
“No. Never. If we go, we go together.”
He reached out with his power, the colors of the world swirling into a pattern. He held the snow back just a few inches from us. I choked at the beauty of the pattern of magic and the swirling pattern of the snow dancing on the air above us.
“Focus on the snow! Tell me what you see!”
“Just snow!” I lied. The pattern, so intricate, so beautiful. Fire whispered to me, begged me to listen. Wasn’t it beautiful? More beautiful than anything else?
Far below us, I could sense a long-dormant volcano. Embers flared as my mind reached out.
Jack Mayfair slapped me across the cheek.
“No! Look at the snow! Focus on the pattern! Tell me what you see!”
I could feel the Fire below me, inside of me, all around me, eating away at my core, burning me from the inside out.
Mayfair pushed down on my chest, causing me to scream in pain. “Do you feel that?”
“Yes!” I cried.
“That’s real; that’s you. Focus! Your father gave up his life for you? Is this how he wanted his sacrifice to end? You have to take control, not be controlled. You can do this. I know you can! He knew, too! Concentrate on the rock!”
A stone flew into our shield, guided by his mind. It spun slowly, hovering at the edge of my sight. My chest hurt, my back and legs were freezing, and my nose filled with the scent of old cigarettes and sweat. I didn’t want to focus on snow or rocks; I just wanted to be warm again. The ground agreed, moaning against my back.
“The stone! Focus on the stone!”
I could hear the panic in his voice, the desperation.
Jack Mayfair was scared.
He started saying something else, something quiet, just for me. “Breathe in through the nose, deep breath, then out through the mouth. Try to clear your mind of all distractions. Listen to the sound of your heart beating, become aware of the rhythm. The same rhythm flows all around us, pulsing with each beat. Focus on the beat, on the rhythm, and let it wash over you.”
I could hear it, just there. Not as loud as the Earth’s heartbeat, or even this mountain’s, but still strong, still beating furiously. I focused on the heartbeat, let my mind fall into the rhythm. Not my heartbeat after all—no, it was Jack’s. I tore my mind away from the Fire below us, my ears away from the drumbeat, and focused on the stone still floating in the air above us, an intricate weave of colors swirling around it, holding it there, caressing it. When I listened to his heart, my mind eased. I looked deeper at the stone. I could see how the colors of his weave meshed together, how they danced across the surface of the stone. My breath caught. The surface—I’d never seen anything like it in all my life. The magic, it was changing everything, including how I perceived the world around me. I could truly see the stone, almost feel it, the texture of it, how it was mostly uneven, with jagged edges on one side and smooth as glass on the other.
“Control your power; rein it in. Don’t let it control you. Be the person your father wanted you to be.”
The world is full of magic. The crystal structure of the snowflakes, the surface of the rock, the Fire in the earth. I could see these things I could never see before.
Jack Mayfair smiled at me. I could see him now, too. As if for the first time. His cheeks weren’t hollow; they were lean. His chin strong and firm, eyes piercing and intelligent. There were layers upon layers inside of him, linked together like a chain, stronger than the weave holding the snow back or the stone aloft in the air. This was ancient magic. It shielded him.
My mind reeled, and suddenly I began building layers of my own, linking colors together, building walls. Harder than I ever thought anything could be, but I did it. Ages passed, suns were born and died, in the time it took me to rein in my power. Or so it felt.
Not until my own heartbeat sounded stronger in my own ears than his did he let me go, roll off of me. The shield vanished, and snow fell down to kiss my face.
I could breathe again. Feel the cold, feel the pain. Mourn.
* * *
We returned to the battle scene. As soon as Jack let me go, I curled up into a ball on the ground and lay there. Crying was easier now. As if all the barriers had been removed. My father couldn’t have known what the Wizard would do when he let him cast the spell on me, on us, how he would twist it to affect me, change me, control me. Tears filled my eyes as I remembered the old man outside my apartment. He threw a switch in my head, and there was nothing I could do except obey him. I spilled my guts on command that night, the night Jack Mayfair couldn’t find me.
Next, he gave me my marching orders. “Focus, you stupid girl. You spend far too much time and energy worrying over things that mean nothing. Concentrate on Mayfair, on learning magic. All the rest distracts you from your goals. Focus.”
Son of a bitch. If he’d told me to jump off a bridge, I would have done it.
Ronan said something to me; I didn’t really hear. My whole body hurt, but my chest didn’t appreciate the sobbing and gasping for air I’d been doing.
Pop was gone. My fault. Jorge gone, also my fault. Had the Wizard done this to me before? Is that why I forgot about Jorge this week? Is it why I forgot my dad?
One day, I will get my hands around that asshole’s neck, and I will snap it. I will use every bit of magic I can call upon to turn him into a greasy smudge!
I needed to tell Jack, tell him all of it. He appeared a moment later, so I sat up.
“You look terrible.”
“I feel terrible,” I admitted.
“How are you doing with the magic?”
“Okay.” Listening, I could still hear the heartbeat of the earth, still feel the pulsing call of Fire trying to seduce me, but both were locked away now. Calling on magic again would be interesting. Sort of like an addict living their life clean, except I wouldn’t be able to go one hundred percent clean.
“I’m a Wizard,” I said.
“I know,” he said with a half-smile. “Listen, I took Nevil to the closest hospital. He’s alive, but just barely.”
“The others?”
“No other humans survived,” Ronan said. He held a broken sword in one hand, a whole one in the other.
“What happened to your sword?” I asked.
Holding up the broken sword, he frowned. “I will tell you someday, but not today.”
“We need to get you to the hospital, Sam. I’m worried about those ribs.”
Nodding, I stood up. The world spun a little. “I have to tell you something first.” Where to start? “Kylie. She hit me from behind and ran off. Said something about how she was never supposed to be here, how he only wanted you.”
“He who?” Jack asked, rubbing his chin. “Vladymir was here, but what was the point of him wanting me to be here? And why would Kylie work for him? Just doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know. We should find her and ask her.”
“Probably, but later. You really don’t look so good.”
My arms and legs hurt, breathing deeply was out of the question, and my eyes were red and swollen from crying. Can you say train wreck? “Also, thank you, Jack.” Befo
re I could change my mind, I crossed the few steps between us and hugged him.
He hugged back.
“You know, I think that’s the first time you’ve ever called me Jack.”
Stepping back, I smiled. “Yeah, well, you deserve it. Thank you.”
* * *
A crack of thunder announced our arrival at the hospital. Dark clouds moved in above us and spread across the Front Range with unnatural speed.
“We caused that, I think,” Jack said. “Gonna be one helluva storm.”
I barely heard him. I could see magic in everything now—feel it, too. Up there in the sky, mixing with the clouds, it was pulling together the storm Jack already sensed coming. All I’d done earlier stayed fresh in my mind, and I was pretty certain I could repeat any of it in a pinch. The patterns were still there in my head. The only thing gone?
The voice.
Eventually, I’d have to discuss it with Jack. Not now, though. Later.
Now, I wanted to climb back into my warm hospital bed with something dripping into my arm to take away the pain and let me sleep.
None of which was in the cards.
My family needed me now more than ever.
“You should go,” Jack said.
I still held onto his hand long after my feet had hit solid ground. Letting go didn’t come easily. I did it anyway.
“I know,” I said.
“You don’t have to tell them,” he said. “He made his choice long ago and lived with it. You were just a kid and didn’t have a say in any of it.”
“You want me to lie to them?” I asked.
Jack moved to stand in front of me. “It wouldn’t be lying, not really. Think of it as protecting them the way you always have. The way he did.”
“Feels wrong,” I said. “Not telling them.”
He took a breath. “There’s a reason he could never tell you, Sam—why he never told them. In your heart, you know. Right now, all you have to do is go in there and be with them. Be Sam, the Sam they’ve always known. That’s what they need, what they want. Just be Sam.”
“Hear, hear,” Ronan said softly.
I’d forgotten the elf had come through with us.
I sniffled.
“Come on,” Mayfair said. “I’ll walk you up.”
“I shall stay here,” Ronan said. “I have come to realize throughout the millennia that healers do not take kindly to people carrying swords around their patients.”
Jack took me by the hand to get me started, dragging me forward inch by inch.
“I’d like to know more about your father,” I said while we walked.
He laughed. “I was just thinking the same thing about yours. Maybe we can swap stories.”
“That could be fun,” I replied. I let the sentence trail off. Ahead of us, a figure in a familiar hoodie appeared to be hiding in the bushes. Smoking.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked. “Your hand just went tense.”
“My little brother,” I pointed. “I knew he was smoking, I just thought it was pot.”
“Smoking isn’t the end of the world,” Mayfair said.
“End of the world jokes?” I asked. “Seriously?”
“Too soon?” he asked.
“Just a smidge,” I replied. “I’ll have to talk with him.”
“Go easy,” Jack said. “He’s been through a lot too, you know?”
“Right,” I said. Noting the far eastern horizon barely showing the first glowing embers of sunshine, I added, “The sun’ll be up soon.”
“Dawn,” he said. “Half in day, half in night.”
The hairs on the back of my neck went stiff.
“What did you just say?” I asked, the fragment of a memory flittering across my consciousness.
Before he could answer, something hit me from behind, breaking my grip on Jack’s hand. I tumbled forward, slid across the ground, and rolled into a parked car.
“Ah, Detective,” Vladymir purred. “You have a decision to make.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
Vladymir’s body stretched out like Plastic Man from the old Saturday morning cartoon show. His face was wide, his right hand securely holding Jack’s chin so his face pointed up at the sky. Somehow, he’d made the fingers of his left hand sharp as knives, driving them into Jack’s back and out the front of his chest. No blood dripped from the wounds.
Jack struggled, telling me he still lived.
The Vampire gave me a bloody smile.
My chest constricted.
“So predictable,” he said. “I knew you would come here. I needed only wait. Your family is inside, yes? You took my family from me this night. Do you remember her?”
I flashed on the image of Bitchy exploding into little bursts of red haze.
“My first child,” Vladymir moaned. “With her murder, you have destroyed dozens of my grandchildren and great grandchildren.”
“Not like she gave me much choice,” I said, mind racing to find a way out of this. “It was kill or be killed.”
“You ruined everything,” he hissed. Those jet-black fingers in Jack’s chest flexed.
Jack’s back arched and he tried to scream, but Vladymir’s other hand stretched to cover his mouth.
“I’m going to take your family from you,” Vladymir hissed. “Make you feel my pain.”
“Simon,” I said, spinning around.
Four Werewolves closed in on where Simon hid in the bushes. Given he hadn’t started running or screaming, he didn’t even know they were there, let alone coming for him.
Behind me, Jack Mayfair gurgled, and I turned back to the Vampire.
“You son of a bitch,” I said.
“Ah, ah, ah,” said the Vampire. “Name calling, Detective?”
“Let him go,” I said. “Let them both go. Simon is just a kid!”
“No,” Vladymir said, mouth shifting to a predatory smile. “You will know the pain of losing your family the way I have.”
“I already lost family tonight,” I said through gritted teeth. I didn’t want to tell him about Pop. “Believe me, I’m suffering.”
Vladymir reared up like a snake, Jack shifting with him. “No! I will be the one to make you suffer. The elf, Jack, and your brother. You can’t save them all. Choose now who lives and who dies.” Again he flexed his fingers, and Jack screamed.
Jack’s eyes locked onto mine. Everything I needed to know came in that one look. So much like Jorge’s last moments. As much as I’d already been through, as many hits as I’d already taken, Jack would never make me choose between him and my family.
Vladymir shouted in a loud, booming voice, “Kill the boy!”
I spun around on my heel, the colors of magic swirling all around me. The weaves popped into my head one after the other. Not like before, no creepy voice telling me what to do.
Air and Water lashing out, closing the distance between me and the Werewolves in the span of a thought. I caught them one by one in nets, then wrenched my hands before me and made a tossing motion. All at once, they flew up into the sky and shot towards the mountains in a blur of fur.
Turning back to Jack, all the heat left my body.
Vladymir cradled Jack like a baby, elongated body supporting his weight. The stretched-out head and mouth of the Vampire oozed in the space between Jack’s head and shoulder, suckling at his neck, pulsing with the beat of Jack’s heart. No blood dripped. No other sound reached my ears. Jack’s eyes rolled up in his head, his skin gone grey.
“No,” I shouted. My hands extended before me. I have no idea what I did. A spinning bar of blue, white, and red formed a foot from my fingers and shot towards the Vampire. Where it struck him in the shoulder, he melted away.
With a bellow of rage and pain, Vladymir recoiled, dropping Jack to the ground. The Vampire shifted his form, face swirling as if he couldn’t bring it back to normal, left eye drooping below the right, nose protruding over his open mouth like a giant icicle.
Another bar of light struck h
im, melting a portion away, and he pulled back as if something yanked him from behind. In an instant, he vanished back into the shadows.
* * *
Jack Mayfair lay bleeding on the ground.
I gathered him up in weaves of Air and knelt down, putting his head in my lap. I stroked his hair.
“Sam?”
“Not now, Simon,” I said, unsure when my little brother had come up.
The blood coming from the wound in Jack’s neck trickled out slowly. I could hear the thump-thump of his heart fading, losing its bass.
“We need a doctor,” I said, pressing my hands against the wound. Blood dribbled through my fingers. “Go get a doctor.”
“What the hell?” my little brother said. “How did you do that?”
“Not now, Simon,” I said. Then I screamed, “Ronan? Ronan, I need you!”
Jack stirred, tried to grab my hand and push it away.
“Don’t move,” I ordered. “I’m gonna get help. You’re gonna be fine. It’s just a scratch.”
“By the maker,” Ronan hissed. “What happened?”
Ronan fell to his knees in front of us. He had new bloodstains covering his clothes.
“Vladymir,” I said, choking on the name. “You have to help me stop the bleeding. Get him inside. The doctors can do a transfusion or something.”
When Ronan didn’t move, I spared him a glance. The horror and sadness on his face made my insides turn cold.
“Sam,” Ronan whispered. “You can’t … He’s been bitten.”
“Didn’t … want … to … do … it … like … this,” Jack wheezed.
“Didn’t want to do what?” I asked.
Rain fell on his face, and only his face.
A part of my brain knew there were no clouds in the sky anymore, that I’d somehow pulled all the magic from above us to make the bar of light I’d used on Vladymir.
Jack’s eyes opened. Sad eyes. Full of pain.
“We can get help,” I said. “Just need to get you inside.”
“Too … late,” he wheezed. “Have … to … burn … the … body,” Jack said. “Promise me.”
“I can heal you,” I said, putting my hands on his chest.
I closed my eyes and thought about the magic I’d been able to do. There had to be a way.
Into the Fire Page 28
