Bone Magic (Winter Wayne Book 3)

by D. N. Hoxa

  Then, something amazing happened: Galladar stepped back.

  It was a moment worthy of a memory. It was the moment that I began to believe Julian was right.

  That’s until he hit me with his magic on the side of my face, and I spun on air three times before hitting the ground. Blood slipped into my lips. My whole right cheek seemed to be cut right off me. Good thing I didn’t have a mirror. Pushing myself up, I conjured another spell and threw it without even looking at him. How I missed my beads. That asshole was going to pay for them, too.

  He let me stand up and face him again, but my spells no longer seemed to be reaching him. I threw one after the other without stop—my jaw was going to go numb soon from all the chanting, but I didn’t stop. Instead, as I chanted the next spell, I pulled my gun up and fired once, twice, three times, then threw my knife at his face in the same second.

  The bullets stopped before they reached him and dropped to the ground, useless, but my knife pierced through the air fast, and had he not moved his head to the side, it would have hit its mark.

  I’d never been in a completely magical fight before so I didn’t exactly know what else to do but stand and throw two other knives at his head while I chanted. No luck. Since I preferred body-on-body, I decided to run to him and drop him to the ground. I took off at full speed, and just when I thought I could reach him, I fell and hit the ground with my back. If my ribs didn’t break, they at least cracked. Biting my tongue to keep from screaming, I jumped to my feet and threw another spell his way. He stopped it easily.

  Fear turned the tips of my fingers numb. It wasn’t working. My magic, and the magic of the others who should have been spelling him together with me, wasn’t working.

  Through the corner of my eyes, I saw something approaching fast. Someone.

  It was Julian, and with his sword raised, he was running straight to Galladar.

  No! What the hell was he doing? He was going to get himself k—

  He was giving me a shot.

  Right now wasn’t the time to think about getting to Julian. Right now was the time to conjure harder than I ever had before.

  I had to close my eyes because I didn’t want to see Julian when Galladar hit him with his magic. I focused all of my being in my magic and in the words that went through my mind faster than ever before. My magic filled them before it took off after Galladar and didn’t look back. I could only hope that the others could see me and were doing the same thing.

  Something cold hit me on the side of my hip. My leg gave and I fell to my knees, but it didn’t matter. I kept my eyes closed and I chanted and I conjured and I threw my magic at Galladar.

  But I threw all of my magic at him, Bone and fairy. And that wasn’t right. If he could absorb a part of it, what good was the other?

  Separate your magic, Julian said. As his words went through my mind, magic hit me in my chest and paralyzed me completely. My neck turned to stone. I couldn’t move my jaw. I couldn’t chant.

  Involuntarily, my eyes popped open. Julian was running towards Galladar. Was I seeing things on repeat now?

  But, no, because the side of his head was dripping blood. Galladar must have thrown him back, and he was going for it again. Then, a gun fired very close to my ear. Bender and three other witches were on their knees, rifles pointed at Galladar, and they were shooting. Their bullets didn’t make it to him, but they were a distraction.

  Galladar had caught Julian by the throat, and he pulled him up until his feet no longer touched the ground. Everything inside me screamed, but I still couldn’t move. The magic was fading, but it was fading slowly.

  I closed my eyes because I needed to focus. I need to focus on my Bone magic.

  But how?

  The gunshots stopped. Someone slapped me. I fell to the side, and my eyes opened at the sight of Galladar’s golden boots. He then grabbed my braid and pulled me up. My head was on fire. He pulled me until I was on my feet. My skull was going to explode soon.

  “Little witch thought she could defeat me,” he spit against my face, his breath hot against my cold body. “Do you see now?”

  Did I see now?

  Yes, I did. I saw that he was a merciless asshole. I saw that he wasn’t going to stop until he ruined both our worlds.

  Tears washed my eyes, and I closed them before he could see. My magic burned brightly, demanding to be used to defend myself, but I couldn’t chant. It was useless. I was only making him stronger.

  What I had to do was separate my magic.

  Separate.

  The letters appeared in my mind much like the words of a spell did. My magic raced to latch onto them, until it saw what it was.

  Galladar said something, but I couldn’t hear him. His fingers wrapped around my throat. My eyes remained closed, but instinct took over and I tried to push him away. How easily he broke my right arm. The pain made me want to drag in air even more.

  I was thrown back. My head hit the ground hard. My ears whistled.

  Through it all, I never lost sight of my magic. It could have been my imagination, but as I thought out the word—separate—something seemed to happen to the bright orange light burning inside of me.

  Gunshots hit my ears again. Galladar kicked me in the stomach. It was okay, though. It was okay because I thought I could see what Julian meant. I could see where my Bone magic began, and where my fairy magic ended.

  It was like a shadow being lifted. In my mind, I changed perspective until I was looking at my magic from another angle. The second I saw it was the second a boot hit me in my nose, and I heard the bone break. It was hard to keep focus, but I managed because the view inside my mind was so beautiful.

  I saw my fairy magic, burning orange.

  I saw my Bone magic, adding the glow and the sparks of the flame.

  I smiled, and I only knew I did because blood filled my mouth and nearly choked me. Grabbing me by my shirt, Galladar pulled me up. My legs were weak, and I couldn’t stand on my own but he held me. He wrapped his fingers around my neck and held me.

  “What’s on your mind now, little witch?” he said, and it occurred to me that every witch on Earth called me filthy fairy, and every fairy in the fairy realm called me witch.

  But I couldn’t tell Galladar what was on my mind. I wouldn’t know how if I tried.

  Instead, I thought of the word to my most powerful attack spell, one that would send him flying back the same way he did to me. Only this time, instead of allowing all of my magic to fill in the words, I focused on the shadow that was my Bone magic, the details that gave beauty to my wild side.

  Fairy magic can become anything you want it to become, anyway. So why not solid?

  Solid was how I pictured it, just as Galladar squeezed his fingers around my neck, and my breath was cut off completely.

  And when my fairy magic because a single orange, unmoving cube in my mind, the Bone magic in my chest went after the spell.

  I unleashed it.

  Galladar’s fingers loosened the tiniest bit.

  When my eyes opened, his face was all I saw. He really was a sight to see. It motivated me to start another spell and hit him with it. Air went through my throat when the smile on his face faltered. I was barely moving my lips while chanting, but the words were there, in my mind, filled up with my Bone magic completely, going after Galladar.

  He saw what was happening. He could feel my spells, though they weren’t strong enough to throw him off me completely. Yet. My last knife was on my hip belt, just waiting to be used. Since the amount of air going to my lungs was minimal, and all my focus was on my spells, it took a long time for me to grab the handle.

  Galladar slapped me again to stop me from chanting. Red in my eyes. My blood must have splattered all over my face, but I didn’t care. I continued the next spell, and he slapped me again. And again. And again…

  The second my magic left me and fell onto his chest, something in my head whispered that it was time. I didn’t second-guess it. I stopped chanting
, and I pulled the knife out of my belt.

  Galladar had swung his arm back, getting ready to slap me again, when he stopped moving.

  He looked down at his torso. I did the same.

  My knife was buried in his gut.

  To tell you the truth, I was just as surprised as he was—if not more—that it had worked. And when he let me go, I was too shocked to remember to land on my feet, so I fell to the ground and struggled to breathe deeply. My throat hurt. My whole face hurt. My body…let’s not even go there.

  Galladar took a step back and took the knife out of his gut.

  I could do nothing but watch, so when his right shoulder fell back as if he’d been hit by something, I had no idea what the hell was happening.

  But then, I heard the chanting. It was coming from behind me. Soon, three people were by my side, all of them looking at Galladar, all of them conjuring spell after spell and hitting him, too.

  It was surreal. Almost too good to be true to see that beautiful face terrified when he realized what was happening. Julian had been right. If I went past his strongest defenses, I could defeat him. I couldn’t see who the witches beside me were, but they kept on chanting without even stopping to take a breath.

  All I had to do now was blast Galladar with my magic. With both fairy and Bone. Then, it would all be over.

  Just that thought alone enabled me to stand up. My legs shook, but my strength was coming back to me. I was hurt, but nothing healing spells couldn’t fix.

  Inside me, my magic was wild again, burning with flames that shone as brightly as the sun. I’d done this before. I’d unleashed my magic without control or without words to guide it. Doing it again wasn’t going to be hard, especially since Galladar was now barely holding himself upright as the witches kept spelling him. His white shirt sewn with golden strings was now red where I’d stabbed him. That’s where I was going to focus my magic.

  Closing my eyes, I tapped into my magic and called it forward with the strength of a tornado. It was going to devour everything in its way, if my imagination had a say in it—and it did.

  When I was ready, it felt like my feet were no longer touching the ground. I was floating on air, more confident then ever.

  I wanted to see the look on Galladar’s face when my magic claimed him and delivered him to Death.

  But when I opened my eyes, the fairy dressed in gold was gone.

  Thirty

  Galladar was gone.

  I looked at the witches beside me. Theodora Sullivan from the Greens, and Simon Reed together with Meredith Cole from the Bloodies. They were looking at me, too, and they were no longer chanting.

  The field in front of us was empty. Really empty.

  “Where is he?” I heard myself ask. He couldn’t have run, could he? The woods. He could have gone into the woods.

  “He went into a hole,” one of the witches said. “A black hole.”

  My heart sank. “You saw him?”

  “Yes, he’s…he’s gone.”

  The ground shook again, but this time, only for me. “I have to go back,” I whispered to myself. Galladar was wounded. He was going to need to heal. He would heal faster in the fairy realm, so he’d gone back.

  And I had to do the same.

  Forgetting about the pain in my body, I searched for Julian’s face. Instead, I found him lying on the ground on his back ten feet away from me.

  In a blink of an eye, I found myself kneeling beside him. My whole body shook as I grabbed his face in my hands. He’s okay, I said to myself. He was perfectly fine.

  “Julian,” I breathed against his lips. “Wake up, Julian.”

  The wish. We had to do the wish. Birthday wishes have to come true. Hadn’t he said that himself?

  But Julian didn’t respond. Tears in my eyes. I let go of his face and placed my hands on his chest. My right arm was a swollen mess after Galladar had broken it, but that didn’t matter when I pushed the magic of my healing spell into Julian.

  The world stood to attention and not a single thing moved for a long while. It could have been, seconds or hours from what I could tell you, but when I felt his heart beating against my palm, time didn’t matter.

  The shock was too much. It paralyzed me. I couldn’t even move when someone put their hands around me and called my name. All I could see was Julian’s face.

  His eyes fluttered open. I was so relieved, my heart broke. It was the first time since the death of my mother that I wanted to just sit down and cry for hours.

  Unfortunately, now was not the time for that, either.

  “Winter, are you okay?” I recognized Bender’s voice now that I could make all the noise out. Amelia was on my other side, telling me to drink something, and I opened my mouth for her sake, but I didn’t even feel if I drank or not.

  Julian sat up and looked around, as confused as everybody else.

  “Where is he?” he whispered, the same question I’d asked.

  “He’s gone,” I said reluctantly, my voice that of a stranger’s.

  When his eyes met mine, we no longer needed the words. We both thought the same thing. We had to go find him, end him for good.

  “Julius,” someone said and fell on their knees next to Julian. It was Marva.

  I blinked a few times, then looked at Julian. Could he see her, too?

  He could.

  Her and all the other fairies standing behind him, looking at us through their hooded mantles, swords and bows in their hands.

  “What the…” hell had happened?

  “Lynn,” Bender said. “She went back and got them here.”

  Lynn went back and got Julian’s friends to help. “Are all the fairy soldiers dead?” I asked because there were too many people around and I couldn’t see.

  “All of them,” Bender said with a smile.

  I wondered, how many more fairies did Galladar have waiting in the fairy realm? I was going to ask Julian, but he was looking at Marva, listening to what she was telling him with tears in her eyes.

  “Drink, honey,” Amelia said and offered me her metal flask again. Now that I was more focused, I recognized the awful taste of her healing potion. I drank it all in one gulp.

  “Winter, we have to go now.”

  Julian was on his feet, covered in dirt and blood, offering his hand for me to take. I took it, and he pulled me up.

  “I’m ready,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure that was the truth. But I knew very well that this was the best shot we had. Galladar was wounded. If we got to him in time, I could kill him. And if he managed to heal…well, we’d be screwed, because now, I didn’t think he’d make the mistake of underestimating us again.

  With his arm around my neck, Julian pulled me to him. “You did it,” he whispered against my ear. I breathed in the scent of his neck deeply.

  “Let’s go.”

  Amelia did not like the idea of me going after Galladar alone. Not one bit, and she said so.

  When Julian told her that I wouldn’t be alone, I thought he was talking about himself and his friends.

  But then, Bender stepped forward. “I’m going, too.”

  It was laughworthy, right until Simon Reed said: “Count me in.”

  And Meredith Cole and Richard Bailey. And Joseph Davis and Catrina Reigns. Peterson, Austin Marshall—even Coleman, they all claimed they were coming with.

  “But it’s the fairy realm,” I tried to reason.

  “It’s where that asshole is,” Joseph Davis spit.

  Julian smiled, his eyes sparkling as he looked at me. “This is going to be fun.”

  Against my will, my lips stretched into a smile. If I could make the decision, I’d go to the fairy realm alone, but having others there who could do magic Galladar could not absorb would definitely make it a whole lot easier for me to kill the asshole. And since nobody was really asking for my permission… “Then what the fuck are we waiting for?”

  The portal, of course. And Lynn brought us the black ravenstone shaped in
to a tear, much like the ones dripping down her cheeks. Her mother stood behind her, and when she met my eyes, I could have sworn that she was going to tell me she was coming with. That was not going to happen under any circumstances, so when Caroline pulled her away, I was relieved I didn’t have to tell her that.

  “Everybody, grab the arms of the person closest to you,” Julian said. Marva laced her arm in his. I tried to not let it get to me, but my stomach rolled in anger anyway. Until Julian put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me to him.

  About sixty of his friends who had come back to Earth with Lynn formed a straight line behind Marva, one that almost reached the ruined farmhouse. And Bender grabbed my hand, and the rest of the witches who were coming with us grabbed each other’s hands, too.

  “Close your eyes,” Julian whispered to me, and when I did, the ground beneath us disappeared.

  Thirty one

  Something fell on my cheek. Something wet. A raindrop.

  Taking in a deep breath to chase away the nausea, I opened my eyes. We were in the fairy realm, but not in any part I’d been before. For one, it was dark. The sky looked like it was so angry, it was going to start spitting up bolts of lighting at us any second. And it was raining. I opened my palm and a drop fell in the middle of it. No idea what I expected, but it was normal. Just a raindrop.

  As if my body knew where it was before my mind did, I felt the fresh wave of energy entering through my pores from the fairy realm. I hadn’t dared to even touch my face where Galladar had hit me harder than anywhere else, but now, it didn’t feel so bad. My cheek still hurt, but the pain didn’t consume my whole attention.

  Dead land below us. The dirt was quickly turning to mud as the rain continued to pour.

  “Are you okay?” Julian asked, calling my thoughts to the now.

  I nodded. “Where is he?”

  Galladar was wounded. If the fairy realm was already healing me, it would heal him faster. We couldn’t afford that.