“Gargoyles. Well, that’s a problem,” Raven muttered. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to deal with this.”
CHAPTER 3
GARGOYLES? OF ALL the creatures that Rylee and I had faced, gargoyles were not among them. I looked around the vacant playground to make sure no one had wandered in under the waning twilight. Feeling the enemy close, I turned my attention back to the sky. The monsters’ black, soulless eyes stared at us as they bared their teeth and sped up the beat of their clunky-looking wings.
I didn’t know if I should fight or not. Raven wasn’t my friend, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a part of whatever trouble he had coming for him.
Raven stepped around me and lifted his arms above his head. For just a moment, I thought I saw a shimmer of white dance up to his fingertips. But I was thrown to the ground before I could say for sure. The wind slammed into my back and sent me tumbling across the playground. He was using Air, but so were the Sylphs.
The combined force of two currents of air ramming into one another caused a spectacular spinning effect. I clung to the sword with one hand as I spun on my backside. With a quick jab, I drove the blade into the ground to stop my forward momentum. I clung to the handle as my hair whipped around my face making the scene in front of me hard to discern.
Raven had hidden himself so his face was covered with the heavy hood of a cloak, and his form seemed to be one of shadows and dark, hard to pinpoint even though he stood right in front of me. The two Sylphs shot left and right, zigzagging at a rapid speed which allowed them to stay out of Raven’s range. He tossed balls of fire at them and lit up the night sky with a brilliant glow that washed out the light of the moon overhead.
But again, it wasn’t the Sylphs who drew my eyes but the two gargoyles that slipped around the other side of Raven. They were going to hit him from behind.
Clinging to the sword with one hand, I lifted the other and called up the power of the earth. This had always been my strength, the place I felt most at home in my powers. The ground rumbled and exploded to either side of Raven. The burst of rocks and sod set the gargoyles back a few feet. Of course, it also made them take note that Raven was not alone.
They turned together and stared at me.
Heart racing, I stood against the wind, one hand still on the sword handle as I stared back at the two beasts. I needed Raven’s training still, as much as I hated to admit it, and that meant I would have to help him survive this attack.
The two gargoyles advanced on me, hovering just above the ground. I flicked my fingers upward and the earth exploded over and over again, as though I were setting off landmines right under them. They didn’t slow, hell, they didn’t even blink those bottomless black eyes.
“They’re made of earth; it won’t slow them!” Raven called to me.
I noticed he didn’t tell me how to stop them. Maybe I could use the elements that were already being tossed around. Both the wind from the Sylphs and from Raven was still going fast and hard. A little coaxing and I could turn it into something rather dangerous. I gritted my teeth and wove the power of Air through my fingers, letting it pick up speed like a mini tornado. Faster and faster, I coaxed until it was nothing but a blur over my hand. I set it on the ground and whispered softly, “Bigger.”
The spinning air shot above my head with a screaming roar, catching the other currents and going wild in the space of seconds. My legs were yanked toward it and I gripped the sword handle with all the strength in me, but it wasn’t enough. I’d unleashed the power of a tornado, what had I expected?
I slipped through the air and slammed into the wooden pilings of the playground. I couldn’t breathe, could barely see and yet I clung to the wood. Through squinted eyes, I stared at the tornado as it swept upward and toward the gargoyles. They were caught in its spinning vortex, their bodies slamming into one another with tremendous booms that rent the air even over the roar of the spinning monster I’d created.
I could have slowed the tornado, but to do so would free the gargoyles. At the edges of sensation, I felt someone try to take control of the tornado from me. I clung to it as I clung to the wood. It was mine. I wasn’t letting it go. I pushed my energy into it, urging it onward, urging it to grow and devour, to take out those who would harm me. Faster and faster it went; the trees around me cracked and groaned as they were pulled up by their roots.
The playground let out a pitiful moan, and the swing set ripped from the earth, large cement blocks on the ends of the support legs flying past me. I screamed with the power that roared along my veins because I’d fully lost control now.
The rage inside me would not be contained, it would not be denied this unleashing of power.
My arms began to slip, but I didn’t mind. I was the tornado. I was the air. I would not be harmed. A part of my brain tried to tell me those were lies, but I could not hold onto that. Or the wood under my hands. My fingers lost their grip and I was cast into the wild wind.
I floated between heaven and earth and I thought, I am lost. Gone forever.
A hand wrapped around my wrist and stopped my free fall. I was yanked out of the sky and drawn down to the earth. Arms held me tightly and then the wind was gone, the air around me still, my hair no longer flying about like Medusa’s snakes. Just like that it was over. The world felt as though it pulled apart around me for a moment, but the sensation was quick. There and gone before I could put my finger on the feeling.
I blinked several times as though I could wash away the darkness that filled my vision. Was it night, or had I lost my sight, or was it something worse? What the hell was going on?
I struggled against the hands that held me, and I was let go. I pushed through a swath of cloth, curtains maybe? No, something heavier. The material slid away from me and light bloomed. I sucked in a breath and put my hands on my legs to steady myself.
Raven had been holding me under his cloak—that was the darkness I’d experienced.
Raven had pulled me from the grasp of the tornado.
“Why were those Sylphs trying to kill you?” I blurted the question, angry that I’d been pulled into a fight that wasn’t my own.
He shrugged. “They are . . . upset with me, you could say.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” I glared at him.
“Not all my secrets are for you to know, little witch. There are many of the elementals that would kill me if given the chance.” He rolled his shoulders and smoothed out his cloak.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. He’d just saved my life, though, so I decided to let it go for now. There was something about him that was familiar and as I stared at him I realized what it was. He reminded me of Faris. That mercurial vampire that in one second could be your greatest ally, and the next, hand you off to your enemies for no other reason than he felt like it.
I needed to be even more careful of Raven than I’d first thought.
God, I did not want to cock this up.
We stared at one another, and then I realized we were no longer on the playground. Trees surrounded us, but there was nothing but grass and moss underfoot, no road to the side of us, no school in the distance. A forest, that much was obvious, but just where were we and how the bloody hell did we get here? I did a slow turn, knowing without looking that I’d lost the sword.
“You left this behind.” Raven drove the sword into the ground between us. “Far be it from me to make you think I would take anything not freely given.”
I wanted to grab the sword and stick it back into its sheath, but I paused. “You could have taken it and run. You could have let me die.”
He gave me a short nod. “I could have.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He squinted his eyes. “You’re interesting, Pamela. Far more than any witch I’ve ever met. And I think you actually want to learn. That makes me willing to do what I haven’t done in years, and attempt to teach a witch.”
I didn’t buy it, but for now, I would take his words at face value. “Sure.”
I tightened my hand on the sword, spun the blade up and slid it into the sheath on my back without looking.
Raven watched me, as I watched him.
His lips quirked. “Now a question of my own. Why did you help me if I am so untrustworthy?”
I shrugged. “You said it yourself. I want to learn. Can’t do that if you’re dead.”
“Point.” He nodded.
“And for all I knew they would come at me next just for being with you.”
He barked a laugh. “Well, at least, you’re practical.”
“Where are we?”
He beckoned with one hand. “Somewhere you should know about now that you are old enough.”
I looked around us again at the dark sky, the trees leaning over us. His words were not really a comfort. “Really, and why is that?”
“Because this is the homeland of your birth mother.”
His words could not have stolen the air from my body any more than the tornado I’d just left behind. “My mother?”
“Yes, she was a powerful witch. Though no magic in the world could have saved her from her death.” There was sorrow in his voice. He glanced back at me. “She was killed shortly after giving birth to you, murdered actually.”
My heart clenched. “How do you know all this?”
“Isn’t that why you came with me, at least, in part? Because I knew your father, and your mother. Because I can tell you the history that is missing from your life?”
Our eyes locked and I wanted to see lies in his. I wanted to believe it was all just a story made up to fool me. But I didn’t see lies. I saw sincerity and a desire to actually tell me.
“I can’t manipulate you like I can others, Pamela. I can’t lie to you.” He said the words softly, almost . . . as though he were sad? But that didn’t make sense. He went on. “Funny how that works, but I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised.”
I didn’t find it particularly funny, but I held my tongue. For the moment, he seemed open and willing to talk and I needed to take advantage of it. “I want to bring a friend back from the dead. Is it possible?”
He blinked several times. “Maybe. Depends if there is time or not.”
“What do you mean?” I couldn’t help touching my carry-all. The book Milly had left behind didn’t say anything about it being someone’s time. Or did he mean there was a time limit? My guts clenched. If there was a ticking clock, maybe I was already too late?
Raven beckoned for me to follow and I made myself walk at his side so we could talk. “I mean that sometimes people die when they aren’t supposed to. Those are the only ones you have a hope of bringing back.”
“He died far too young,” I said.
“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t supposed to die,” Raven countered. “Age does not preclude a natural death.”
“He was killed. It wasn’t natural.” I thought of Frank, of how he’d sacrificed himself for me. Rylee had called it survivor’s guilt, the feeling that it should have been me. But the thing was, it really should have been me. But it wasn’t. Frank had died. Did it matter that I’d then gone on to help in the battle of the Veil? Not really, Frank could have done that too.
I swallowed hard. “He died to save me.”
Raven shot a look at me and tipped his head. “Possible then.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, there are several ways. One is to call up their spirit to see if they are at peace or not. If they are, they stay in the Veil no matter what you do. If they are not at peace, you can call them out.” He pushed a branch aside and held it for me.
We stepped into a clearing, and as my foot passed over some invisible barrier, I felt it in my bones.
This place was mine. It called to me in a ripple of sensations that rolled through my skin, muscle, and bone. A memory I didn’t know but felt in my body. Warmth and then a prickling of icy dread.
Love and hate.
Fear and rage.
“This was where you were born,” Raven said. “And it is where your mother died.”
CHAPTER 4
I MOVED AS IF pulled forward by strings I could not see, tugged toward the center of the clearing where there was nothing but a solid piece of flat rock on the ground. Half buried under the grass and moss, I went to my knees and pressed my hands to the stone, moving on autopilot.
Flashes of scenes, bursting images, overpowering smells, and the sounds of screaming and battle assaulted me in a crashing tumble over my senses. Like an avalanche, I could barely see through it; I could feel myself suffocating. A blonde woman stood in front of me as she laughed to the sky—she could have been me except for the hard cruelty in her eyes. Anger radiated off her, and I knew in that moment where my rage came from, where the uncalled-for fury that was so rooted in me stemmed.
Then there were the cries of a baby, the sobs of a woman who was my mother on the ground as she bled from a mortal wound, the plea for mercy, at least for her child . . . I closed my eyes but I could not shut out the sights in front of me. The person who killed my mother was no one I knew. Another witch with dark hair and green eyes, her belly heavy with child. “I do this for the world, and for my own daughter. May the goddess have mercy on all our souls” was what she said before taking my mother’s head.
As the blade bit through, there was a swirl of her long dark hair around her, her slender, if rather pregnant, body like a willow tree bent over my mother’s still body.
In the trees of the vision, there was a flash of lightning and before the witch could scoop up the bundle of baby that was my young body, another took me away. A figure in a dark cloak with a flash of blue eyes that seemed to cut through me.
The vision ended, but I kept still, my hands on the earth as I breathed slowly in an attempt to slow my racing heart.
After a few moments, I opened my eyes and turned to Raven. “You stole me from that woman who killed my mother? You couldn’t have been much older than I am now.”
“Even then I knew you would be stronger than any other witch. It was in your blood from both sides of your heritage. You were destined for greatness, Pamela. And elementals don’t age like the rest of the world. I am much older than I appear.” He wasn’t looking at me, but at something not there, his eyes distant as if maybe he saw the memory too. He finally looked at me. “You see I am telling you the truth now.”
“About this,” I countered as I stood. My whole body shook from the things I’d seen. Of all the images left to me, those were what my mother had chosen—and I knew she had left them. Her imprint was all over the scene, a final memory to be opened if her daughter ever set foot here. Her last vision for me was not a moment of love, not a moment of cherishing her baby girl, but of her death. And the one who’d done it to her. “She wanted me to avenge her death, didn’t she?”
He tipped his head in acknowledgement. “She was . . . driven, to say the least. It was one of her better qualities.”
“And you took me away when that other witch would have killed me.” I repeated the question/statement because he hadn’t answered me the first time.
“I hid you, that much is true. It was the only way to keep you safe. The witches here are not particularly . . . nice.”
“No shit,” I muttered as I walked away from him, pulling my thoughts together with each step. This was lovely and all, but I had to move on. That’s what I told myself.
“So, here we are. We still haven’t come to terms with what, exactly, we are going to help each other with. You want the sword. I want to learn. You won’t get the sword until I’m satisfied I’ve learned everything I can.”
He looked at me, his eyes wide. It almost looked like he wanted to say something, maybe about my mother, but the moment passed and he got back to business.
“And of course, that will culminate with you retrieving your lost love?” There was laughter in his words, laughter at me. Because how could I, a fifteen-year-old girl, possibly understand real love? I understood clearly that he was mocking me and I ignored
it. Because he didn’t know me or the depths of my heart.
I gave a sharp nod. “Exactly.”
“First, we call him forward. As I mentioned. It is a him, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
Raven stepped forward to the flat rock and held his hand over it. A fire sprang up on the rock, not attached to anything, just pure fire. “This is a simple summoning, usually reserved for demons, but it works on any soul.”
A part of my brain bucked at that. Demons did not have souls.
Did they?
Raven breathed out words that sounded Latin, but here and there was a harsh guttural pronunciation that was demonic. I knew because I’d heard it chattered in the battle of the Veil.
“His name?”
“Frank.”
“Just Frank?”
I struggled, not wanting to say I’d never asked his last name. Of course, he was Agent Valley’s nephew. I took a chance. “Valley.”
“Frank Valley, dead too soon, I summon your soul.” Raven stepped back as the flames burned and there was a flicker of a face.
Frank’s face, twisted in pain.
I closed my eyes. “That is enough, send him back.”
The sound of the flames disappeared. Raven grunted. “Seems like he is not at peace.”
I clenched my hands and slowly opened my eyes. “So you’ll help me bring him back?”
Raven scratched at his jaw. “First, I need to know you are up to the task.” He held up his hand as my mouth dropped open. “Not only a matter of strength, but fortitude. You are young, Pamela. You have to be willing to work for this. I won’t just hand it to you. And bringing someone back from the dead is probably one of the most powerful spells you will ever learn. Well, that and transfiguring someone into an animal, but that isn’t on the list for today.”
Damn it, that sounded like something Rylee would have said. “Fair enough.”
Pamela (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 3) Page 3
