by K. F. Breene
Toa straightened up, ignoring the horrible rasp coming out of the demon’s mouth. His gaze hit Stefan’s. “The wielder of this spell is getting close. This spell is polished; sophisticated. I imagine the chants for the various demonic power levels have been mapped out. The confinement is water-tight. The workmanship is just so. Yes, he’s not far now. It won’t be long before he calls a nasty demon. One, maybe two more tries, and he has something that will bend to his will.”
Ten warriors, armed in leather, knives and swords, tattoos glowing and eyes fierce, waited silently for the fluffy, white-haired mage to finish prattling on about his findings. Adrenaline from the battle to come raged through their blood, needing action. Needing release. The scene could be dissected after the demon was dispatched.
“Do you have what you need?” Stefan asked with iron in his voice. He didn’t need to follow the question with a command to move. Toa was already taking himself to the rear of the warring party.
“Do you plan to link?” Toa asked with a rigid back and somewhat raised chin. “Or are you planning to do this all on your own?”
Stefan jerked his head to his Watch. Understanding the silent command, they spread out in a circle surrounding the demon, swords flashing to life.
“This demon is nothing. It’s sport.” Stefan ripped his sword out of the holster, the blade blaring burnished gold with a white frost. “It’s practice for my Watch.”
Stefan could barely hear Toa sniff. “Well, I’ll just wait near the cars then. Since you claim to have this covered.”
The white mage wasn’t used to being a spare tire. Stefan smirked. It was good for him.
Stefan called the elements, filling himself with more air and fire than the other two. He let his magical feelers pick at that spell surrounding the demon, getting an idea of it. Finding the weak points. And then noticing a big, magical “pull here” tab to unravel the whole thing. Organized, logical and effective—if the person responsible turned out to be anyone besides Andris, Stefan would be shocked.
Stefan had spent a few hours interrogating Trek after they’d captured him, who was holed up in the basement of the mansion waiting to go to the council and get his punishment. The caped buffoon had a lot of interesting information to divulge, like their extensive gathering of humans to make Dulcha and for draining blood for power. And Andris’ teaching, alluding to him being the mastermind behind all their dealings thus far—something Stefan had always suspected. Most importantly, their collecting of ancient human texts about calling demons and ruling the world.
The latter made Stefan chuckle. Andris had been telling tall tales to the naïve and greedy white mage—to manipulate him, no doubt. Ruling the world only existed in storybooks, and only lasted for a short time before the “good guys” rolled through and tore the mantle from the villain. Trek was an idiot, but an idiot with golden information.
“Prepare yourselves,” Stefan commanded in a low tone.
Through the link he could feel Sasha, the hum of her daily activities creating nothing more than small mood fluctuations. Safe.
He bent his knees and breathed through his mouth. Here we go.
A magical tug had the containment spell dropping away, the confinement suddenly thrown wide. The demon within stood still for one moment of uncertainty, noticing the disappearance of the cage. The next second, it was action.
With a scream like a dying cat, the creature tore out of the circle, heading right. Silvia whipped across the cement as clawed feet scraped. It dove for a pocket of air between Jameson and Sid, not aiming to fight or kill, just to escape. Strange.
Jameson’s pale gold sword whipped up, slashing across its middle. The creature bellowed, sliding away and running the opposite direction. Flesh flapped, its back flayed away from the rest of its body. A pungent smell of rot wafted by Stefan’s nose as it passed, screeching.
Tace met it this time, his sword slashing a thigh. The bright red blade seared a stringy leg, making the thing stumble and change direction, this time right for Stefan.
Memories flashed. The knock at the door, slow and solemn. The empty dining room table, dinner getting cold. A tear, unabashed, falling out of Jestin’s eyes as he told Stefan the news. Nightmares. Decades and decades of nightmares; going up against a demon like this and failing. Claws ripping into his father. Teeth cutting out his mother’s throat. A baby dying. Stefan curled in a ball while the beast ravaged his family.
As the memories crowded his brain, sweat covered his body. He squeezed the hilt of his blade. Images of blood clouded his vision. Spilled blood. Flying blood. Blood splashed across the cold dirt.
Pressure condensed his chest. A dull roar rang in his ears.
Screaming. His parents screaming.
“No!”
Almost unable to feel it, he slashed. A claw came sailing passed his head. He ducked with plenty of time, faster than this worthless creation of death. He struck downward with his sword, slicing off an arm. His other hand brought up his knife even as his eyes stung. The memories, so fresh, suffocated him.
“Die!” he heard himself say, his dagger piercing the face. He let go of it and stepped back, quick sword work slashing and hacking, cutting chunks out of masticated flesh. Parts dropped away. The thing screeched and howled. Still he worked, vision gone red. Pulsing pressure in his ears. His mother screamed in his dreams.
“Please, no!”
“Boss.”
Panting, lost, he stabbed and stabbed. Over and over. Until it was just a lump of burnt flesh on the ground.
“Boss...”
Dirty and sweaty, Stefan stilled his body. Dragged himself out of a life’s worth of nightmares.
“You got it, Boss?”
As Stefan’s vision cleared, he found himself looking up into the logical brown eyes of his second in charge. Jameson held out a hand, resolute, asking to help Stefan up. Stefan’s gaze swept the ground, the lumps at his feet no longer recognizable. Blood smeared his body, sinking into the grooves of his muscles.
“I didn’t realize these things bled,” he said as he allowed Jameson to help him up.
“It’s the blood sacrifice. They don’t bleed much, but…”
But when you pull them apart, piece by piece, you’re bound to find a little of the substance that created them.
Stefan grunted in acknowledgement as his gaze scanned the rest of the Watch. Grim faces and tight lips, one and all, eyed him with suppressed wariness. He’d reminded them why they called him Boss. He just wished he’d done it with a little more decorum.
“Have someone clean all this up. Don’t mention any of this to Sasha,” Stefan instructed. She wouldn’t understand why Stefan had to keep her away.
“She know what happened?” Jameson asked quietly as they made their way over to Toa.
“Yes. I came clean.”
“It help at all? With the nightmares?”
Jameson had lost a family member, too. Like Stefan, he blamed himself for not being there. They all did. They also blamed the Mata for fleeing like cowards.
Only Stefan lost a mother, though.
“She’s not like…most females.” Stefan cleared his throat. “She’s…got my back.”
Jameson gave a small nod. “Good. Helps to spread the wealth.”
“Wealth, meaning, baggage?”
“Exactly. I plan to take the leadership when you make Regional. Just so you know.”
Stefan bit back a laugh. That change in topic was welcomed. “I have to get through the Regional before I make Regional.”
“Give Sasha a few hard knocks with the council, just to get her riled up, and you two will be unstoppable. She learns quickly, she’s got limitless potential, and she’s…got your back, like you said. It was the last boost you needed to step up.”
“Chess board is set up, huh?” Stefan drolled as they neared a paler-than-usual Toa.
“She’s not the only one that has your back. If that male was any whiter, he’d look like a snowman.” Jameson smirked befor
e peeling away toward the driver’s side.
“Need to check out anything before we go?” Stefan asked Toa.
Toa just shook his head, for once with nothing to say. Stefan wished it would hold through the evening as well. They’d have to sit at the same dinner, after all. The same dinner, hoping no one had to challenge anyone else…
Chapter 9
The women in the clearing sat with bowed heads, eyes closed, and breathing deeply. Focusing.
“Okay, women, call the corners,” the leader said quietly. “Let’s try to cleanse the negative feel of this place.”
Dominicous and Jonas shifted at the same time, tiny movements hinting that their focus just got a lot more…focused.
The air electrified around us. Magic pulsed and beckoned, looming around me. Swirling and dancing, playful and joyous, it begged me to fill myself and become one with the women in the clearing. To suck in as much as I could hold and join hands. To laugh harder and louder than I ever had. A smile curled my face as Charles bent to regard my expression in confusion.
They can access their magic!
I felt the flame within each of them. The leader burned a bright orange, filled with a mass of raw, blasting power. The mousy one simmered with only green, but it twisted and churned in such a strange and intricate way. The twins each sported red, their faces screwed up in intense concentration.
“I thought you said humans couldn’t access their magic.” The words tumbled out of my gaping mouth quietly. They were like me! I could feel it. I could sense the rightness of it, the sameness, in a way I couldn’t feel the clan’s at all.
“What did you say?” Dominicous stepped close to me, bending to catch my words. “They have magic, did you say?”
“These old broads?” Charles whispered incredulously.
I opened up to the elements, feeling that rush as sweet magic filled my body. Without even thinking, I joined that throbbing elixir in the clearing. I entwined my magic within theirs, feeling the community of it in a way I’d never felt in my whole life. Feeling at one with it. I wasn’t linked, because we weren’t sharing power, but more…hanging around each other. Nodding to each other, magically.
“What is…” The leader’s brow furrowed.
Almost immediately, that wrongness from the spell left behind sullied the magic. The jagged fragments corroded the natural world around it. A failed spell, maybe, but a nasty one.
The women were trying to wash away the magical stink. All they were succeeding at, however, was playing with the elements. They could suck in magic, but they weren’t really doing anything with it. They lacked training and focus.
I didn’t.
Without meaning to, I swept them all up into my focus, like holding hands from a distance; reveling in the unity, feeling the embrace of like-using magical people. Toa and I hadn’t been able to do this—when my spell touched his magic, the power leaped to him, forcing a link. With these women, with similar magic, we just kind of kumbaya’ed around the clearing, beating our magical drums in harmony.
No, it wasn’t strictly useful, magically speaking, but it was bolstering my spirits with each passing moment. I wasn’t alone!
I analyzed the spell left behind. It hovered like a burned frame of a house, decrepit. Concentrating, trying not to laugh in glee, I smothered what was there while also knocking down the foundations. I wiped away solid traces of the spell, collapsing the rest of the framework with it.
“What’s happening?” Charles asked. His hand squeezed my shoulder. “What are you doing with the magic?
I focused with all my being on one sticky part. Like an intricate knot in the hands of someone who bit their nails, I couldn’t quite get it. I couldn’t disentangle it. I could probably blow it up, which would greatly help my frustration, but it wouldn’t help much else.
Just as I was about to throw up my hands and let it go, I felt a deft magical touch, as though soft, light hands covered mine and took over. With a complexity that would piss Toa off, the small details of the spell were finally unraveled. The rest of the magic disintegrated like snow falling, settling back into the world around it.
“What just happened?” Dominicous asked in a low hum. His gaze hit mine. “Did you unravel that spell?”
“What was that?” the leader asked, her eyes blinking open in confusion.
“Did you feel it?” the mousy woman asked, eyeing the leader.
I nodded at Dominicous dumbly, holding on to the feeling of this new magical community. Sisterhood. I wanted to hug somebody.
“Oh really? Now you want to get up on me? Woman, you’re taken. Get off.” Charles peeled my hands away with a grin.
“It worked!” one of the twins exclaimed in shock. “We did it.” She paused, staring at the candles. “How did we do it? That was weird.”
“But awesome,” the other twin joined in.
They bobbed their heads in excitement and shared a high-five.
The leader and the mousy lady were staring, wide-eyed, at Dominicous. The leader’s mouth dropped open.
And then things went pear-shaped.
“I’ll get him!” the mousy lady squeaked.
She bounced up with a quickness that made Charles chuckle, although he did not react. Pepper spray held high, Taser coming up to join, she yelled, “Don’t you come near us! Get out of here! We’re not defenseless.”
“There’s another one over—” the leader’s voice cut off in a moan.
“Don’t you make them all lovey!” I screamed at Jonas while putting my hands up in surrender. “Don’t you touch them, Jonas! You touch them and I will give you a seriously bad day.”
“Night,” Charles helped, a grin taking up his face as he watched the pepper spray draw near.
“What’s happening?” one of the twins said, glancing around. “Oh whoa, those guys are huge. Look like a football team. How long have they been here?”
“I am strangely aroused,” the leader said in a booming voice, her eyebrows in a flat line over her eyes. “I haven’t been turned on in ten years. What kind of strange voodoo have we wandered into? Who are you? What do you want?”
“Get out of here!” Mousy growled at us, arsenal held up in thin, shaking arms. Her teeth bared in a human snarl.
“She’s quite courageous,” Dominicous noted. “I wonder how they are able to see through our magic cloak now when they couldn’t a moment before.”
“What are you staring at, young man?” The leader struggled to her feet, grass and mud clinging to her ample rear. She punched her fists to her hips in disappointment as she faced off to Jonas. “I’m not afraid of you, so you can quit that unbecoming scowl!”
This was getting out of control.
“I just worked magic with them somehow, I think. Or around them, anyway,” I rattled off quickly to Dominicous as I stepped out, arms still raised to show I wasn’t dangerous.
Seeing me, Mousy’s expression waffled, confusion filtering in.
“Did you say you linked with them?” Dominicous asked in alarm, stepping forward with me, ready to shield my body from danger.
The finger on the pepper spray turned white. The arm started shaking violently. Not good.
“We are here for the same reasons you are,” I said to Mousy in a calm, although slightly harried, voice. “We unraveled that spell together. I have the same magic you do. I can help you. You can help me. Maybe. Hopefully. At the minimum, we can just hang out and magically hold hands. I’d be into that.”
“What’s that?” The leader waved her hand in front of her face. It looked like she was trying to clear a bad smell. Her gaze shifted away from Jonas and over to us. “Good heavens—what are you doing out here at this hour? And with these men? This is no place for you, young lady.”
“Well, we’re here…” one of the twins mentioned.
“Can we all just sit down a minute and have a chat?” I asked slowly. “We’ll just clear the air. I think that would be best.”
The leader walked directly
across the circle. My heart started thumping. She knew it had been “cleansed.” That the nasty spell was dissolved away. She felt it.
My gaze slid to Dominicous. He winked. He’d noticed it, too.
“I’m Birdie.” The larger woman gave a head bob. Apparently that was her version of shaking hands. Her notice flicked toward the mousy woman. “This is—would you put those down, Delilah?! Have you noticed the size of the men standing here? The Taser would probably tickle them.”
“Nope,” Charles muttered behind me.
“As I said, this is Delilah,” Birdie went on. “She and I founded this circle about ten years ago. Three years ago, Jen and Liz joined up.”
“The circle?” Dominicous asked pleasantly. “Can you talk about that, please?”
“Oh sure, but maybe we can move this chat away from here,” Birdie said, looking around the area. Her gaze hit Jonas. A scowl creased her face. “The seclusion of this place attracts filth—keep frowning and your face will stay like that, you know.”
“It’s already locked on tight,” I said, trying to hide my smile from Jonas. And failing.
Ann snickered somewhere behind us.
“Let’s return to our vehicles, shall we?” Dominicous held his hand out to steer the group like any eighteenth-century gentleman would. “I am eager to return to the mansion. I think something pressing will need my attention.”
With a shock of fear that Dominicous knew something I didn’t, I focused on my link with Stefan. An undercurrent of sadness radiated. Sadness, and tinges of desperation. He was thinking of his parents—he only felt like this when the past reared its head and threatened to tear him down. Since the demon surfaced, he’d been struggling with this constantly. Something had triggered his memories, but overlaying that was determination and triumph. He was fighting through.
“I think you miss Toa more than he misses you,” I joked with Dominicous as he escorted me out of the trees. “He was never all jumpy to get back to you when we were on the Mata property.”
“I never get in over my head.”
“What’s Toa doing that he’s in over his head? I’d love to witness that.”
