by Linsey Hall
The air shimmered. Dark magic shook the air.
I stumbled, recognizing the signature.
The scent of rot and decay filled my nose just before the Monster appeared, a Tracker demon at his side. My heart froze as I skidded to a halt, my gaze glued to the Monster. His pressed suit looked so out of place in the forest, but his hulking demon sidekick fit right in. The Tracker demon surged toward my friends, but the Monster turned his gaze on the Nullifier, who was still over a dozen yards from me.
I called upon my lightning, building the biggest bolt I’d ever created. It crackled and burned in my chest, ready to fly. But before I could send it, the Monster threw a sonic boom at the Nullifier. The ricochet alone knocked me on my ass. I skidded in the dirt, then scrambled up to see the Monster throw another boom.
This one hit the Nullifier dead on and threw him against the tree behind him. The first must have broken down his no-magic shield, but the second…
He didn’t move.
No!
I threw my bolt of lightning at the Monster, taking advantage of his distraction with the Nullifier. Thunder cracked as it hit him, vibrating my bones. He convulsed and fell; my heart soared. Victory tasted sweet, though it wouldn’t last. He’d rise soon. I wouldn’t stay to watch.
I sprinted for the Nullifier, yelling, “Cover me!”
My friends had polished off the demons and turned their attention to the Monster, who had climbed to his feet. As I ran, Nix lobbed grenades—which were a bitch to dodge even if you were a supernatural—while Aidan threw enormous blasts of flame that exploded against the Monster’s shield. Aidan shifted tactics, calling upon his Elemental Mage power to disrupt the earth beneath the Monster’s feet. It rose as a craggy hill, throwing the Monster to his back.
His gaze caught mine as he fell. Fire blazed in his eyes. He stretched his hand out toward me, but nothing happened. I grinned and sprinted harder. I was only a few yards from the Nullifier now.
Something hard snapped around my waist, a massive arm that jerked me up into the air. I thrashed and kicked my legs, clawing at whatever had grabbed me. Rough bark bit into my fingertips. I looked down. A tree branch had grabbed me, yanking me high into the air and holding me like King Kong had held Whats-her-name.
The Monster could control the forest?
We were screwed.
I pulled my obsidian blade from its sheath and hacked at the branch as I watched Del race toward the Monster, her invincible blue form transparent in the dim light. Fear chilled my skin as she charged. She ran straight through his barrier, her phantom form not stopped by his magic, but when she went corporeal to strike, he was faster. Before her sword blow could land, he’d thrown a sonic boom at her that sent her hurtling backward. She crashed into a tree, then collapsed.
I screamed, hacking at the tree limb, but it did no good. My blade was nothing against the enchanted wood.
Del wasn’t rising.
“Help!” I screamed. I didn’t know who I was calling to—all my backup was here and totally occupied. But Del wasn’t getting up and fear for her made me crazy.
A flash of orange light caught my eye, then blue. I jerked my head left.
The four dragonets fluttered nearby—fire, water, smoke, and stone—and all looked at me, their gazes expectant.
What the hell? Had I called them? Who cared.
I pointed to Del. “Help her!”
The sparkling blue water dragonet zoomed off, heading straight for Del. The fire dragonet flew behind me, its warmth grazing my cheek as it passed. I craned my neck to look. The dragonet wrapped its body around the tree limb, its nose touching its tail. Smoke rose from the limb as the wood burned away.
Wood creaked and groaned, then snapped. I plummeted. Something hard pushed at my butt and fluttered against my sides. I glanced down. The stone dragonet was trying to break my fall, but it was far too small.
It slowed my descent, at least, flying away at the last second so that I wouldn’t crush it. I crashed to the ground, then scrambled to my feet. Del was rising as well, her hair wet from the water dragonet.
She charged the Monster, who was still holding my friends off. Nix was down, but struggling to her feet.
“Help them!” I cried at the dragonets.
They surged into the fray, flame and water, smoke and stone.
I ran to the Nullifier and I fell to my knees at his side. His face was pale, his mouth slack. My skin chilled.
I shook his frail shoulder. “Wake up!”
His eyelids fluttered, revealing slivers of his eyes.
“Come on! You have to be okay,” I said.
“I’m…not.” He coughed through the words. Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Trauma can…kill me. This is that trauma.”
Tears rolled down my face, tears over the loss of Magic’s Bend and the guilt that I’d dragged this man into this. To his death.
“You must take my power,” he said, then gasped. “Finish the job.”
I stumbled back. Take his power? It would crush my own. Turn me powerless. I’d just started to embrace it. I liked my power. I loved it. And even when I hadn’t been using it, it’d still been part of me. Taking his power would be like cutting out part of my soul. After all I’d lost, I’d lose the rest of my magic too?
It made me feel empty inside just to think of it.
The Nullifier was dying, his power there for the taking, but of course my FireSoul covetousness hadn’t surged. My FireSoul didn’t want anything to do with the Nullifier. He was anti-magic.
If we didn’t kill the Monster here today, which I doubted we had the power to, I would still be hunted by him. Now powerless to protect myself.
“No,” I said. “No, I can’t. You’re going to be okay. I’ll take you to the pool, then Aidan will heal you.”
He shook his head, his gaze sad, but I ignored it.
“Aidan!” I didn’t worry about alerting the Monster to my plans. He knew our goal. “To the pool!”
I tried to ignore the pallor on the Nullifier’s face as I focused on mirroring Aidan’s shifter powers. I couldn’t carry the Nullifier in my current form. Warmth filled my limbs as I envisioned the biggest, strongest griffin I could imagine. Magic sparked as I transformed.
My new, clawed feet were enormous. Twice as big as my old griffin form, though they still looked a bit odd. I turned toward the Nullifier and scooped him up in my claws, gently as I could. As I launched myself into the air, I prayed that my friends could cover me.
I’d only beaten my wings a couple times when the odd sensation hit me. It felt off. Weak.
Death?
I glanced down at the Nullifier. He hung limply in the cradle of my claws, his eyes barely open. My heart thundered, fear tightening my throat. My enhanced griffin senses were picking up the Nullifier’s looming death. The weakness of his breathing, the chill of his skin. His magic leaving him.
Frantically, I flapped my wings and ignored the pain of flying with my injured body, trying to reach the pool as quickly as possible. Aidan waited for us at the edge. I landed as gently as possible, laying the Nullifier on the soft moss.
I transformed back to human, stumbling on shaky legs, and begged, “Heal him!”
Aidan dropped to his knees by the Nullifier. Tears burned my eyes as I watched him gently place his big palms on the Nullifier’s shoulders. The Nullifiers head lolled as he turned to look at me.
The tears spilled over my lids and onto my cheeks.
“I can’t,” Aidan said.
“I’m too far gone,” the Nullifier croaked.
Aidan’s eyes met mine. “I’m sorry, Cass. There’s nothing I can do. The sonic boom created too much internal damage.”
My gaze darted to the Nullifier.
“Do it,” he breathed. “Or Victor Orriordor will win.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Nix was down in the dirt, struggling to get up. Del was holding off the Monster, but barely. He’d ignited a line of blue flame behind her and Nix, tr
apping them against his sonic boom attacks. The dragonets were trying, zooming around the Monster, but they couldn’t do much against him.
My friends couldn’t hold out much longer. Magic’s Bend couldn’t hold out much longer. The whole city would be destroyed, homes demolished, lives lost.
I turned back to the Nullifier, my heart tearing in two. The pain nearly stole my breath.
“Go help them,” I said to Aidan.
“Cass. Don’t.”
My gaze met his, briefly. He knew what this would do to me. I could see it in his eyes.
“Go,” I said, pointing to my friends. “They need you.”
He nodded once, his gaze resigned, but fiercely proud, then left.
Proud of me?
I pushed the thought aside as I fell to my knees at the Nullifier’s side. He looked so frail. A shadow of his former self, which hadn’t been substantial to begin with.
“Thank you for trying,” I said as I pressed my hands to his shoulders. “I’m sorry I brought you to this.”
“It is all right.” His gaze was calm. Accepting. “I am four hundred and seventeen. I have lived a long life. It is time I did something good with it.”
It didn’t make it feel any better. Especially now that I remembered how it felt to have your powers stolen. Like flaming knives digging into your chest.
“Give my best to Aethelred.” He coughed, blood marring his lips.
“Thank you again,” I said, wanting to thank him a thousand times for what he’d done for us.
He nodded. “Do it.”
Bile rose in my throat as I let my FireSoul power rise within me. White flame flickered along my skin, but it didn’t reach out eagerly for the Nullifier as it normally would. I had to force it forward, had to make myself take his power. What I was doing wasn’t natural. No supernatural in her right mind would give up her power like this.
But I had to do it.
The Nullifier gasped as the flame crawled over his chest. Sickness surged through me, turning my stomach, as I forced myself to complete this ugly deed. When his magic flowed into me, heaviness pulled at my limbs. Darkness rolled over my soul as the Nullifier’s magic suppressed my own, an inky tar that I could imagine coating my organs.
The Nullifier’s face turned gray as he gasped his last breath. I tumbled away from him, a horrible emptiness devouring my insides. Loss overwhelmed me, an emptiness that threatened to swallow me alive until I was nothing but a shell curled up on the ground.
It took all I had to stagger to my feet. The battle raged on as I stumbled toward the pool. The scent of the ocean wafted from the water, though it was just a small spring. The pool’s magic must smell of the sea, perhaps even drawing power from that enormous natural force.
I had no idea what to do—how did the Nullifier use his magic?
I followed instinct, stepping into the cool water. Pebbles shifted beneath my boots as I waded deeper. Shivers wracked me, clinking my teeth together, partially from the cold and partially from the horror of what I’d just done.
When the water was up to my chest, I took a deep breath and submerged. The water glittered blue when I opened my eyes. I turned until I saw the faint glow of purple deep below me, then swam toward it, kicking hard.
Magic pulsed as I neared it, vibrating deep in my muscles. Awkwardly, I called upon the Nullifier’s magic—the only magic I had left in my arsenal now that his had destroyed mine—and released it into the pond.
Gray light shined from me, drowning out the glittering blue and purple. The vibrations slowed as the Nullifier’s magic—I couldn’t think of it as my own—destroyed the spell powering the Pool of Enchantment.
My lungs burned as I used up my air, but I didn’t surface. I couldn’t be sure that I’d fully destroyed the portal, and there was no way in hell I was going to fail at this. Besides, I wasn’t sure I even had the strength to swim for the surface. So I floated there, forcing the new power into the water.
When blackness sparkled at the edge of my vision, something hard jerked me from behind. Water flowed around me as I struggled. When I broke the surface, I gasped, my vision still fuzzy.
A slender arm wrapped around my middle and began to tow me to shore. The floral aroma of Nix’s magic mixed with the scent of the portal’s dying magic. What had once smelled like the ocean now had an overwhelming odor of dead fish. When I blinked the water from my eyes, the air around me shimmered grayish purple.
It was working. My magic was destroying the portal. I kicked to help Nix, glancing over my shoulder to see Del and Aidan still holding off the Monster. The dragonets launched their own attack at the monster, crashing against his shields.
Nix and I climbed out of the water and scrambled over the pebbly shore. Helplessness overwhelmed me as I ran for Del, unable to call upon lightning or fire or even my Shifter form. There was nothing but emptiness when I called for my magic.
Nix guarded me as we ran. I tried to produce the protective no-magic barrier, but I was tapped out. Or unskilled. It took all I had to suppress my nullification powers enough not to squash my friends’ power. And I wasn’t sure if I even accomplished that.
Pain exploded in my every bone. A force threw me across the clearing and I crashed to the ground. One of the Monster’s sonic booms must have hit me.
Through bleary eyes, I saw my friends racing for me. All three limped, blood pouring from various wounds. They dived toward me, narrowly avoiding another sonic boom as dirt flew into the air from the force of the missed hit.
The Monster’s roar of rage echoed through the woods as Del transported us out of the clearing. The Nullifier’s body was the last thing I saw. Left behind.
Guilt streaked through me, gnawing at my insides.
We appeared at the portal in the desert a second later. It was far smaller than it had been, the glowing purple now faded lavender. My friends dragged me through it. I fell to my knees on the other side, the marble floor of the museum room biting into my bones.
But if we were here, in the museum, it meant it had worked, right?
The guards and the investigator who’d previously been frozen were sitting up from the floor, their eyes dazed. The dragonets were nowhere to be seen, no doubt disappearing the same way they’d appeared.
“Can you get us out of here?” I said between gasps to Del, who struggled to her knees beside me.
She nodded. “Out of the room, at least.”
“Leave me. I’ll deal with them,” Aidan said.
“Thanks.” I didn’t want to be near the investigators right now. I needed to get myself together. And my deirfiúr were still FireSouls. They shouldn’t be around them at all.
Del grabbed my hand and Nix’s and squeezed tight.
“Take us to Aidan’s,” I said. I had no idea if I could control my nullifying powers enough not to quash our concealment charms, so Aidan’s place was safest.
“On it,” Del said.
We only made it as far as the parking lot across the street from the museum. The museum was no longer purple and the building looked almost normal. No more missing wings. On the lawn, Mordaca staggered to her feet, Aerdeca helping her.
“Tapped out,” Del said. “We’re lucky we all made it this far.”
“Because we didn’t have to take the Nullifier.” I shivered with guilt.
Del had said she probably wouldn’t have been able to get us all out of there. She hadn’t even had to try.
15
Staying glued to the news coverage of families returning to Magic’s Bend was the only way I kept from crying. I’d been holed up in Aidan’s mansion since my deirfiúr and I had come here from the museum. As soon as I’d arrived yesterday morning, I’d commandeered the guest bedroom and I hadn’t left.
We’d all slept for a solid twelve hours after receiving some medical care. Nix had had several broken bones and Del had had internal bleeding and a concussion from her collision with the tree, but they were largely better now. Aidan had escaped without major inj
ury, primarily because his body was unusually tough, being the Origin and all.
My laundry list of injuries had healed with some magical help. Now, I was just moping. Nix and Del had kept me fueled with cheeseburgers and ice cream, but I could tell they were starting to lose patience.
But I didn’t know how to function with half of myself gone. I almost wished my memory had been wiped like it had when the Monster had destroyed my root power. Or had he stolen it?
I really couldn’t tell, and I hated that. If I couldn’t remember what I’d lost, maybe I wouldn’t be so damned depressed.
A loud knock sounded at the door.
“Open up!” Del shouted.
“Or we’re breaking it down!” Nix yelled.
I flopped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. “It’s open.”
The door swung in and Del and Nix entered, each carrying a six-pack of PBR. The silver cans gleamed in the low light of the bedside lamp. I had the blinds drawn so that slivers of golden light striped across the floor.
I eyed the cans with a fraction of my usual interest. “Isn’t it only eleven in the morning?”
Del shrugged. “It tastes like shit at any time of day, so why not drink it now?”
I tried to scowl at the insult to my beloved PBR, but couldn’t manage much more than a grimace.
Nix flopped on the bed next to me and handed me a beer. I dragged myself upright until I leaned against the headboard and stared at her stonily.
“Drink it,” she said. “If I have to, you have to.”
“Why are you drinking it? You hate it.”
“It’s a show of solidarity, dumbass.” She cracked the can open and took a sip, her forehead wrinkling. “We’re going to drink one of these things you love so much and talk about all the good things we’ve got going on.”
“Yeah. Can’t be bummed when you’re busy being grateful,” Nix said.
“Good things? My chest feels like someone tore my heart out. I’m immortal, for magic’s sake. That’s awful. Who wants to hang around forever after all their friends are dead?”
Nix grimaced, her eyes softening. “I know. I’m sorry. What you did was amazing.”
