Gathering Black (Devilborn Book 2)

by Jen Rasmussen

  Thanks to my being so vague about when he should expect us, Lance wouldn’t start worrying about our continued absence for days yet. Maybe then he would call all my friends to take up a search, but among them only Max had true visionary powers, and he wasn’t terribly stable or predictable. It would be difficult for them to find us. Maybe even impossible.

  I watched Cooper’s chest rise and fall until I was convinced that the steadiness of his breathing wasn’t just wishful thinking. He had more bites and cuts over the upper half of his body and, I saw with a wave of nausea, a few on his thighs, too. At least he wasn’t shivering as hard as I was.

  How can I let Talon keep doing this?

  How can I stop him?

  And speaking of Talon… where is he?

  There was no sign of either him or Dahlia, or for that matter, anyone else. The chairs around the card table were empty. I couldn’t see every corner of the barn, but all was quiet.

  Surely they hadn’t left us unguarded? I thought again of my dream, the faces against my skin, the cold breath, the terror. Maybe it was just a nightmare, and they had left us alone all night. But probably they hadn’t.

  “Cooper,” I whispered. “Cooper?” My voice didn’t seem to have any effect on him.

  I strained to move my chair closer to his, but they’d bound my legs too, at some point, and it was slow going, trying to shift the chair solely via wriggling. I was exhausted and—literally—drained, and my body didn’t seem very eager to obey me.

  I stopped moving, panting, and looked around the barn. If ever there was a time for me to work some impressive magic, this was it. Something more than telling stories, more than speaking to trees. Something powerful.

  Maybe Cooper was right, and some magical powers are hereditary.

  The Wicks have telekinesis.

  My father was good with fire.

  Lydia Murdoch had told me that my father once burned her entire house down. No ritual, no incantation. Just a look, and her curtains and one wall burst into flames. That was the kind of magic I needed.

  Well, sort of. Fire was certainly both powerful and impressive. But I couldn’t see as setting the barn on fire while we were tied to chairs inside it was such a good idea.

  No, but it might be handy to set Talon Wick on fire.

  Given my circumstances, I can perhaps be forgiven for how widely I smiled at that thought.

  I was strapped naked to a chair, cold, spent, and sore. Plus I had to pee. It wasn’t going to be a good time to practice magic. The feeders would know how to drain me properly, to not only keep themselves strong, but to keep me weak. I’d be lucky to have enough vitality to manage anything at all, let alone something new.

  Still, I had nothing better to do, while I sat around waiting for Talon to show up and torture us some more. The distraction might even be good for me.

  I looked around again, considering the card table, then finally settling on a bale of hay in the corner. It was a bit closer to nature, which I seemed to have better luck with than manmade objects.

  Smoke, I suggested to it. Don’t go lighting up and start a fire around us or anything. At least not yet. Just… smoke a little.

  I focused on heat, on the idea of the hay warming from its center, gathering energy, igniting.

  Nothing happened, which was hardly surprising.

  I reached out again, this time trying to feel the hay the way I felt Cordelia and the other trees, to sense its… well, self, for lack of a better word. But as you might expect, bales of hay don’t have much sense of self. I closed my eyes and concentrated harder, not worrying about getting it to obey me for the moment. Just trying to feel its presence.

  For a second, I thought I got a glimmer of something. Not the hay, exactly. Maybe the whole barn.

  Not the barn. The whole place. This place.

  I latched instinctively onto that idea, even though I wasn’t yet sure how it would help me. Place-magic was something I was familiar with, something I was good at. I breathed deeply, opening my mind to take in the atmosphere, the feeling of not only the barn, but the field beyond it, the land itself.

  It’s a lonely place. Disrespected. Built on, taken, used.

  And then the barn, abandoned to rot where it stood, a sore on the land left to fester rather than heal.

  This place is angry.

  But that wasn’t possible, surely. Maybe I was projecting my own fraught emotions, or maybe I wanted so desperately to sense something, anything, that I was feeling what wasn’t there. A place might be protective or dangerous, welcoming or unwelcoming. It might tend to ward people off, or even keep them in. But I’d never known a place to have such a specific human feeling as anger, not unless a ghost residing there felt that way.

  Or had I? Number Twelve Fenwick Street had been watchful. Expectant. Those were human emotions, weren’t they? Yet it had felt no more haunted than this place did.

  Maybe I was on to something. Or maybe not. I was no longer sure what I’d felt at Number Twelve—or even whether I’d really felt anything at all.

  But I’d been studying this rare, imprecise branch of magic for a long time. It was possible I was simply getting better at it, starting to tap into nuances of energy that I hadn’t been able to before.

  And what if I am? How can that possibly help me now?

  I didn’t know. But even the attempt to commune with this place was calming me, somehow, and surely that had to be a good thing. I closed my eyes again, and tried to connect with my surroundings, to understand them.

  And kept trying, right up until the barn door creaked open.

  Balls, what am I going to do?

  But it wasn’t Talon. Instead, it was the last person I expected to see: Arabella Blackwood, dressed not in leather but jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt this time. And carrying a shotgun.

  I stared at her, part of me wondering if I was hallucinating. And another part wondering if she’d been in league with the Wicks all along, and was there to kill us. “What are you doing here? How did you find us?”

  Arabella gave me an exasperated smile. “Well, how’s that for a thank heavens you’re here?”

  “Thank heavens you’re here,” I said, although I still wasn’t sure if I meant it.

  She hurried over to Cooper and checked his pulse, then came to crouch beside me. “You first, then you can help me with him,” she said as she started to untie my legs. “He’s okay. Not great, obviously, but I think he’ll be okay. I’ll try to feed him enough vitality to get him on his feet.”

  It was a minute before I could stand steadily, during which I was subjected to the sight of Arabella embracing my still-naked boyfriend. But since she was trying to breathe some life into him, I could hardly object.

  Cooper managed a feeble groan, and once he was untied, raised one hand before it flopped back down at his side again.

  “He’s too weak,” Arabella said. “We can’t wait. They’ll be back any second.”

  “Where did they go?” I helped her pull Cooper to his feet. We balanced him between us, slinging one of his arms over each of our shoulders. He felt so heavy, and my limbs were achy and numb.

  “Talon left in the middle of the night. There were two people here guarding you. A woman—”

  “That would be my new friend Dahlia,” I interjected. We made our way toward the barn door, but it was slow going.

  “—and a man,” Arabella went on. “I created a diversion out in the field. When the man came to check it out, I stabbed him. Not bad enough to kill him. Eventually the woman came looking for him, and what with him being wounded so badly, she had no choice but to take him to get help.”

  “Clever,” I puffed.

  “Yes, it was,” she agreed. “But she made a phone call before she left, as you might expect. I doubt we have long.”

  We hadn’t reached the door yet when it swung open again. Talon walked in, with Dahlia in tow.

  “I doubt you have any time at all,” Talon said.

  Arabella mo
ved fast. She sidestepped out from under Cooper—I lost my balance and nearly fell as his whole weight fell on me—and raised her shotgun.

  But Talon moved even faster. The gun was out of her hands so quickly that Arabella was still making a firing motion when it sailed away, landing harmlessly in a pile of straw.

  I knew what was coming. Talon, sadistic in the best of moods, would not appreciate this intrusion. He and Dahlia had been feeding. Cooper was still no good to us, and Arabella, though probably a skilled fighter, had no magic.

  Which left only me.

  Me, and a field that had given me the impression it was angry.

  There was no time to hesitate, no time to think it through. Talon, who had been watching the gun fall, turned back to Arabella with his pointy, gleaming smile. Dahlia took a step toward me.

  I ignored them both, closed my eyes, and in that split second, sent out a plea with every ounce of my ragged will.

  These people are not welcome here.

  Show them they are not welcome.

  And take what you want.

  There was a crash from above. I opened my eyes just as Arabella shoved me and Cooper out of the way of a beam that came slamming down to the floor. We all fell, but Arabella was on her feet quickly.

  Talon and Dahlia managed to get out of the way, too. But more beams would follow.

  As Arabella yanked me up, I gathered my will again, and tried to connect to the simmering resentment around me—and encourage it.

  Return this land to what it once was.

  Take back what is yours.

  Take this barn down.

  I had no idea what or who I was even talking to. What the history of this place was, what long-ago battles and losses and unfulfilled longings I was drawing on.

  But I could feel the place, and I could acknowledge it, and I could lend it my will.

  That turned out to be enough. It worked.

  And it was chaos. Beams fell, walls groaned, hay and straw flew everywhere. The ceiling was collapsing.

  Talon and Dahlia went into defensive mode, using their vitality to deflect the heavy debris that was coming at them from every direction. For the moment, at least, they had no time for us.

  Nor did we have time for them. There was no sense in trying to focus the destruction around me to hurt my enemies, even if I could have. That destruction didn’t care that I was the one who had called it down; it would take us all indiscriminately. There was nothing to be done but run.

  So we did, still half-carrying, half-dragging Cooper between us. I did my best, but physically I was struggling, nearly at the point of collapse.

  But I had to hand it to Arabella Blackwood: she was no less than magnificent. She dodged and jumped, letting go of Cooper when she had to, heaving him when she could. She threw herself in front of more than one piece of wreckage that would surely have killed either Cooper or me, taking the brunt of the hits to keep us sheltered. I heard her bones crack, saw her skin open. Vitals could heal, yes, but they still felt pain. Yet Arabella never so much as cried out, not once.

  I couldn’t say the same for Dahlia, who (quite understandably) shrieked as a block of stone nearly her own size slammed into her, then pinned her against a wall. Through the dust and flying rubble, I saw Talon turn toward her, buying us one more precious second to get out.

  There was an SUV outside. I wasn’t sure whether it was Arabella’s or Talon’s, but it didn’t much matter, as long as the keys were in it. Arabella opened the door and shouted something I couldn’t catch through the cacophony of crashing and banging. We managed to push Cooper into the back, then I threw myself in with him while Arabella rushed around to the front.

  I looked back at the barn as Arabella threw the gearshift over to drive. Talon was coming out. He raised his hand. Even as the SUV started to move, I braced myself for it to flip.

  Please.

  It was the only word my battered will could manage.

  A falling plank of wood banged into the back of Talon’s head, and he tripped forward. I knew it wouldn’t stop him for long. But it stopped him for long enough.

  Thank you.

  Another of Dahlia’s screams rang out of the collapsing building, chasing us down the driveway as Arabella raced away.

  “Do you feel up to driving?” Arabella asked. “Because I think you’re going to need me to do that.”

  I was stretched out in the back beside Cooper, feebly trying to share vitality with him. But I couldn’t rouse him.

  “I can do it,” I said. “I’ve done it before.”

  “Yeah? Have you done it after being fed on? How about after knocking down a whole building with your mind powers?”

  “I didn’t knock it down,” I muttered. But she had a point. I had very little vitality left to share. Maybe none at all.

  “This is no time to get territorial,” Arabella added.

  “I can drive,” I said.

  But pulling over to make the switch wasn’t a simple thing, when we had no idea how far behind us our pursuit might be. Arabella was driving Blackwood style, circuitously and along backroads.

  “Just give me a minute,” she said.

  “Sure.” I spotted a towel on the floor, and picked it up to spread over Cooper.

  “He doesn’t need that, if you’d rather use it yourself,” Arabella said. “It won’t help him heal any faster. And vitals run hot.”

  That was true; Cooper was always kicking the covers off at night, inadvertently taking them off me, too. It drove me nuts. I found myself blinking back tears, suddenly.

  “He’ll be okay, you know.” Arabella met my eyes in the rear view mirror. “He mostly just needs rest.”

  “I know. I’ve seen him heal through worse. But I still hate to see him like this.”

  Arabella sighed. “Yeah, I hear you.”

  The towel was thin, and didn’t cover nearly enough of me, but just then it was as lovely as being wrapped in one of my hotel’s down comforters. “Thank you. I was freezing.”

  “Don’t thank me, it’s Talon’s. Probably keeps it around to mop up blood.”

  I was too spent even to be disgusted at having something of his against my skin. “This isn’t your car?”

  “Like I’d just leave my car parked out in the open when I was trying to sneak in and rescue you?”

  “I guess it’s lucky for us Talon left his keys in it, then.”

  “He didn’t,” Arabella said. “Spare in the sunglasses holder.”

  “Quick thinking of you to find it.”

  “I have my uses.”

  “Thank you,” I said again, thinking of just how much I owed her. “You took a few nasty hits yourself. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Look, here’s a good spot.” She pulled into the lot of an out-of-business gas station—long out-of-business, judging by the boarded-up windows and the tall weeds growing around the defunct pumps—and I quickly took her place behind the wheel, while she took mine in the back seat. Thankfully, nobody drove by to see a towel flapping around my bare butt for the three seconds I was out of the car.

  “Take this, so passing cars don’t see you in a towel.” Arabella took off her t-shirt and tossed it to me.

  I put it on, then wrapped the towel around my waist. I was much more comfortable with the extra coverage, until I checked the mirror and took in the sight of Arabella in her lacy red bra, draped over Cooper and running her hands over his bare chest. I reminded myself—quite forcefully, so as to be sure I had my full attention—that this wasn’t a sexual thing.

  Ten minutes later, Cooper was gasping for air, then coughing, then sitting up. Arabella climbed into the front seat to give him some space. She sat perfectly straight; apparently her concern for the delicate sensibilities of passing drivers didn’t extend to her own skin showing.

  “Welcome back, Coop,” she said.

  “Bella… What happened?” Cooper shifted forward until his head was between the front seats. “You okay?” he asked me.

  I n
odded, and he leaned in farther still to kiss my cheek. His lips were warm and alive.

  He squeezed Arabella’s shoulder as he sat back again. “Thanks for the vitality. And the rescue.”

  I love how you immediately assume it was her who did all the rescuing.

  I bit the words back before I could say them, sensing this was not a good time to be a petty nag. And anyway, there was no arguing with the truth. If it hadn’t been for Arabella, we would be back in that barn, no better off than we’d been an hour ago, and maybe a lot worse off.

  “No problem,” Arabella said, then flashed me a smile. “But you should thank your girlfriend. She brought that whole barn down.”

  Cooper raised his eyebrows at me, and I gave him what I hoped was a modest little shrug.

  “Can’t wait to hear the whole story,” he said. “As soon as we get somewhere safe.”

  “Which is where?” I asked. “There’s only the one road up to Bristol. How do we make sure Asher doesn’t have it blocked again?”

  “Talon’s alive, by the way,” Arabella added. “He’ll have started the chase.”

  Cooper waved his hand. “Of course he’s alive. That fucker always gets back up.”

  “The mountain road will be watched,” I said. “They’re probably in position already. All Asher has to do is make the call when we’re spotted, and we’re right back where we were yesterday.”

  “But they won’t really expect us to go that way,” said Arabella. “They’ll expect us to run first. Weave around. It’s what Blackwoods do.”

  “You’re right,” Cooper said. “The way I see it, we have two choices. One, we switch cars immediately, make sure only one driver is visible from the windows, and then make straight for Bristol, right now, as fast as we can.”

  “Or two?” I asked.

  “Two, we do that weaving thing, but not just for a week or two. More like a month. Anything in between is what the Wicks will be looking for us to do.”