I smiled at the Warlock, Brone. On each side of me, the battle raged. Johnathan had dropped his channeling rod and had the Devil-hound in a wrestler’s grip. Alec faced who I assumed to be Mr. Davis, while Seth warded off an attack by a group of apparent recruits—including the three losers who had attacked me at the party.
Chari and Brendon were helpless, each tied to a chair across the room from each other. Brendon, bruised and bloody, struggled to free himself.
I took this all in in a quick glance before turning my full attention back to Brone. He raised his hands, palms out toward me, and spoke the words of a spell. As he spoke, a blazing white sphere formed between his hands. I took advantage of the length of time his spell was taking and pointed my channeling rod at the forming sphere.
“Explodus,”I yelled. Another one of my made up Latin words.
This time, orange flames burst from my rod, hitting the sphere just as he released it. Instead of exploding as I’d intended, his sphere engulfed my orange-flamed bolt of magical attack—swallowed it like an oyster—and continued toward me. I didn’t have time to think about how to react, much less time to form a defensive ward to block the sphere. I’m dead, I thought. I took one step back on my injured ankle, toward the entrance, and ducked. A form flew from the tunnel and leaped in front of me, taking the full brunt of the dark magic sphere right in the chest.
I dropped to my knees beside Mr. Grewa.
“No! Mr. Grewa, no!” The effect of the sphere wasn’t anything I’d been expecting. It didn’t burn or explode or instantly kill. It seeped into his chest and spread tendrils of charged energy coursing over his body, encapsulating him in a cocoon of sparking cords. He looked into my eyes and struggled to speak. Nothing came out except drool. His eyes bulged and his veins swelled and burst beneath the surface. Purple splotches appeared all over his exposed skin. His eyes popped. Their fluid splattered my face. Frothy blood escaped his open mouth, then his nose and ears.
Then Brone made a big mistake. He laughed. “Grewa was a weakling—a non-talented weakling.”
“You’ll never understand the strength in kindness, Brone,” I said, quiet and deadly.
I left my channeling rod on the floor next to what was left of my beloved teacher and friend. I stood and faced Brone, electricity-like magic coursing through my enraged body, flying from my fingertips, standing my hair on end. I no longer felt pain in my ankle. The smugness on Brone’s face turned to fear—the blood drained from his face as he watched my advance. He reached in his jacket again and produced another glowing orb, this one green like the first. He threw it, not at me as I’d anticipated, but at Chari, still tied helplessly to the chair.
“No!” Brendon yelled.
I had to take my attention off Brone long enough to free-throw a bolt of energy at the flying sphere headed toward Chari’s face. There was a big chance I’d hit both the sphere and Chari, frying them both, without the channeling of the rod. I had to take that chance though because the alternative left her dead for sure.
My bolt struck the orb dead center and a small explosion ensued in front of Chari’s turned head. The left side of her face took the full brunt of the blast. Her skin was reddened and her hair singed, but otherwise, she looked okay.
I continued to advance on Brone, who had started to back toward a smaller version of the contraption the boys had destroyed at the school. I couldn’t let him reach it. I let blasts of energy fly at him with both hands—the biggest beams of energy I’d ever created. With a wave of his arm he diverted the blasts away from him and they flew past him and into the cement wall behind him. I need to learn that trick, I thought.
He crept closer to the device. I let loose with a barrage of power—a continuous flow rather than a short burst. He raised his hand in front of him; a shimmering defense shield blossomed from a bracelet that hung from his wrist. My barrage pushed him backwards, but did him no harm as the blasts ricocheted off his shield.
The smug grin reappeared on his face as he reached his goal. I decided on a different tactic. “Paralyze!” My hope that his shield wouldn’t defend a nervous system attack was correct; it just hit him a nanosecond too late.
He reached out and flipped a switch on the device just before my spell hit him. He fell to the ground like a severed tree branch, unable to move even an eyelid.
My satisfaction at seeing him fall was short-lived. I froze in horror as the runes carved around the bottom of the tank started glowing neon orange. When the glowing reached the single, larger rune carved on the tank, the liquid inside began to aerosolize and spew out of small nozzles around it. The smell hit me like a tornado. An angry and terrorized scream ripped from my throat as I turned away from the mist.
I pulled my shirt up over my nose and mouth, but it was futile. The smell and the need permeated my soul. I turned and saw Johnathan, bloodstained and sweating, standing over a dead and quickly dissolving Devil-hound. Alec and Seth had the thugs tied with duct tape. They worked at untying the cords that held Brendon to a chair. They all pulled their shirts over their mouth and nose when they saw me do it.
I was borderline freaking out and frozen in place, not knowing what to do, the need overcoming me where I stood.
“Sasha! Help me, get me untied,” Chari broke the trance, at least temporarily.
I knelt beside her chair and worked on the knots around her ankles. She’d worked the one on her hand almost loose. I was able to free one leg before the need for the drug took over. I curled into a ball at her feet. I have to fight this. The drug pulled at me—and I fought it. I fought the unbearable desire. I fought the hallucinations that crept in on my consciousness. I fought the ice in my veins and the sick in my stomach.
I felt someone kneel down beside me. “Paige, are you okay? What’s wrong?” Halli. She’d made it to the fight. Her anxious voice helped distance me from the torment of the drug.
“Hal, glad you could make it. It’s the drug … it’s spraying … breathing it,” I choked out.
She stood to her full four feet eight inches and aimed her channeling rod at the offending device. She blew it up so efficiently that all that fluttered down from the blast was ash. Damage had already been done, though.
Chari screamed and started yelling. “Get them off of me … get them off … get them off!!” over and over.
“What the crap …” Brendon shrieked as he scrambled backwards and fell over the chair he’d just been freed from.
I was shocked when my eyes fell on a newcomer to the melee. He was talking in a soothing voice to Alec and Seth, whose eyes were wide with fear. The man’s profile seemed familiar but I didn’t recognize him until he turned to face me. It was Joe, the grocer. I must be hallucinating. Why on earth would Joe be here?
“Halli, we need to get these guys out of here, out into the open where they can breathe some fresh air. Help me gather them together over here.” He sure sounded like Joe the grocer.
Halli finished untying Chari’s foot and hand and led us over to Joe and the boys.
“Okay, we all need to be touching. I’m going to portal us out of here … I hope,” Joe said.
I’m forgetting something. Something important. Something dangerous. Think, Paige, think. A noise came from the other side of the room just then, followed by a grunt of rage and flying debris.
“No! Joseph! It can’t be! You’re all dead. I saw it with my own eyes!” Brone was beyond furious.
“Brone.” Joe narrowed his eyes.
“Now I know who these kids are, why they embody such strong forces. They must die! The Quinae Praesidia must be abolished!” From the amount of spittle flying from his deranged mouth, I think he meant it.
He aimed his hands at us and roared a spell. It produced a vortex of spinning flame that sucked the air out of the room. Brone’s hair whipped around his head; his clothing wound around his body. The sparse furniture in the room moved toward the tornado he created. The vacuum effect pulled us toward the vortex, now infused with crackling light. Al
most as one, Alec, Seth, Johnathan, Halli, and I yelled, “Fiero!” and blasted him and his mini-black hole with an impressive amount of firepower. The entire back half of the lair erupted in a ball of flame that seared our hair and skin.
“Hold on to each other!” Joe yelled over the roar of fire.
We all grabbed the hand of the person next to us.
“Now, lend me your power!” Joe yelled.
I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, so I just did what Halli and I did when we closed circles together. It must have worked. I had enough time to look in the direction of where Brone had stood. He was still alive, moving toward us, engulfed in flames, screaming profanities.
Then we were sucked away. I don’t know of a better way to explain what happened. We were pulled into another dimension or something, surrounded by impenetrable and palpable darkness. I couldn’t breathe. The suffocation lasted for ten or so very long seconds. The darkness lifted, and my feet were on solid ground again. I opened my eyes and was relieved beyond measure to see the familiar surroundings of the Seattle street outside the entrance to our Underground.
reathe deeply, in and out, in and out,” Joe instructed as he herded us beneath the overhang of a nearby building. “Get that junk out of your systems. Keep breathing.” His voice had a calming influence and I found myself absorbed in his soft-spoken words instead of the horrors of the drug-induced hallucinations that threatened to start.
The terror in Chari’s eyes slowly faded, and a semblance of sanity returned to her face as she turned her gaze to mine.
Alec bent over, hands on knees, breathing too fast.
“Slow down, Alec, you’re going to hyperventilate,” I said.
He raised his head to meet my gaze. He was really pale; his pupils were constricted with fear. He winced, closed his eyes, and appeared to listen to Joe’s voice as his breathing slowed.
Johnathan leaned against the building, seemingly unaffected by the drug. He was worried, but his worry was for the rest of us; his gaze swept from one to the other of us as we battled our own demons.
My mind was clearing quicker than I thought it would. For that, I was thankful.
“Okay, guys. We need to get off the street and out of sight. Are you all able to move now?” Joe asked.
I nodded. Seth started to reply but all that came out of his mouth was a strangled sound followed by an enormous amount of projectile vomit. It splashed on the sidewalk and up onto our feet and jeans. Disgusting—I really didn’t need to see what he’d eaten for breakfast.
“Sorry … I do feel better now, though.” Seth spit a few times then wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
Joe looked at the mess on his shoes—his nose wrinkled in disgust—then up at each of us in turn. “Ready to move?”
Everyone nodded this time.
“Let’s go then, down to the Underground. Johnathan, you lead the way.”
Johnathan pushed himself off the wall and started down the dark stairs.
“Isn’t this place condemned?” Brendon asked, his voice shaky.
“Yep,” Johnathan answered.
Brendon shrugged and entered behind Johnathan, whose channeling rod was now glowing with blue luminosity. Brendon shook his head in disbelief.
All we heard as we progressed to our home were the sounds of our weary footsteps. I had a million questions floating around in my head, as I’m sure we all did … except maybe Joe … he seemed to know what was going on. He’d sure fooled us with the whole I’m-so-scared-of-the-Goblin-attack-that-I-can’t-ever-talk-about-it act. And Halli? He’d come with her, faster than she would have been able to walk by herself, for certain—she’d known about him and hadn’t told us. I was sure.
We reached our warded stairway beneath the crumbling room that had been recently destroyed even further by the giant Ogre. Johnathan paused and looked at me first and then the others.
“We’ve never let anyone else into our home. Do we trust these three with our secret?”
“I already know about your secret, Johnathan,” Joe said in a soothing voice. “And, I don’t think you need to worry about these two kids talking about it. We can always do a mind-sweep before we take them home … if you’re worried.”
Johnathan’s eyes narrowed and flickered yellow a couple of times before he gained control. “If it’s okay with my companions …” he looked at each of us before continuing. “We’ll go down. And, you will answer some questions, Joseph.”
Joe nodded. There was no irritation in his actions, only concern.
“Guys? What do you all say?” Johnathan asked.
“Trust them,” I said.
“Let them go in,” Seth agreed.
“It’s fine,” Alec added.
“We can trust Joe,” Halli chimed in. “I don’t know your friends, but I feel like they can be trusted, too.”
Johnathan turned to the trap door and cleared the rubbish away before removing the wards we’d placed there that morning. We followed him down the stairs and into our home. Brendon and Chari remained shell-shocked and quiet.
Johnathan dropped his channeling rod on the nearest table. “Everyone sit down … please.”
We pulled two tables together since our numbers had grown from five to eight.
I started the conversation by saying, “Brendon and Chari … I’m so sorry you two got dragged into this mess. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay … I think,” Brendon answered. He reached for Chari’s hand resting on the table. “How about you, Char? You okay?”
She looked down at their hands. “I think I am. My face is a little burned. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to sleep again … but, I think I’m okay.”
“What are you guys?” Brendon asked.
None of us jumped to answer. After several seconds of silence, Halli looked at Joe.
“We aren’t sure …” she said. “None of us really knows. But, I think Joe knows what we are, don’t you, Joe?”
All eyes turned to him. He cleared his throat and appeared to be weighing his words before he spoke. “I can see that you’re upset”—he looked at Johnathan—“I’m assuming that’s because you feel deceived by me—and I have been a bit deceiving —but only because I had to be.”
“Tell us what we are and then you can pander for our forgiveness,” Johnathan stated.
“You are the Quinae Praesidia—roughly translated, it means Five Protectors. There are only five of you on earth at any given time. Your job while you’re here is to protect Earth—and the humans that inhabit it—from beings that would destroy humankind and have this earthly realm for themselves. Your existence is all that stops them.”
“Wait, so there are only five?” Seth asked. “Mr. Jorgensen said he’d found other kids that had magical abilities. What does that make them?”
“There are some with an inclination toward the magical arts—but they must be taught to use their abilities—and they must rely mostly on Dark Magic to perform. It’s always best, for them and those around them, that they never learn of their abilities.”
“So, what’s different about us?” I questioned. “We’ve had to learn—to teach ourselves—how to use our magic; how do we know we aren’t tapping into Dark Magic?”
“My dear Paige, some very evil devices must be utilized when invoking Dark Magic—things like blood sacrifices, calling upon Demons, pairing with Demons and Dark Fae. You haven’t used these types of practices while teaching yourselves, have you?” His gaze stopped on me for a split second before turning to the others.
Does he know about the Summoning? How could he know? Quit being so paranoid.
“Of course we haven’t, Joe. What kind of people do you think we are?” Johnathan said.
I avoided Halli’s gaze. She knew my secret shame—shame I would endure again in a heartbeat if it meant saving Johnathan.
“Okay, so we’re Quinae Praesidia and we’re here to protect. What does that really mean?” Alec asked.
Halli asked no questions—I had a
feeling she’d already heard most of this.
“Like I said, there are only five of you on Earth at one time—there is one exception to that, though. When only one is left, he or she becomes the trainer of the next Five. So, I guess, officially, there are six here right now, but the trainer’s abilities diminish as the Five grow stronger. That’s a blessing and a curse. A curse because … well … because magic is cool, obviously, but a blessing because when you’re no longer a threat, the monsters stop coming for you, and you can live out the rest of your life in relative peace.”
“What do you mean, when only one of you is left?” Johnathan asked.
Joe sighed. Sadness filled his green eyes. “It’s a dangerous calling, Johnathan. More so now than ever before.”
We sat in silence for several minutes; lost in our own imaginings of losing our friends … of being the last one left.
“Joe, I may be stating the obvious here, but, you’re the last one—the trainer—aren’t you?” I asked.
He nodded. “The last of my quintet died around the time Halli was born.”
“Why did you wait to tell us? You’ve known about us for months,” Johnathan said.
“I waited to make sure—and to watch you. As you may have already figured out, the Goblins in my store were a test. You passed. Since then, I’ve been watching you, waiting for your talents to grow, watching to see how you handled yourselves.”
“It was Joe that was outside the night of the Ogre attack,” Halli offered.
“Yes, I was here. You all handled that situation quite well. Johnathan’s injury was unfortunate, and I apologize for putting you in that kind of danger. I had to know if you were ready.”
“You’re the reason the Ogre came for us? How it knew where to find us? The reason Johnathan almost died?” I stood and placed my shaking hands on the table.
“Yes.”
“That’s all you have to say? ‘Yes’? Johnathan almost died!” I shouted.
Halli touched my arm. “Paige, John’s fine, though. That’s what we need to remember.”
Five: Out of the Dark Page 24
