“Careful,” he said.
“What are you waiting for?” When Velasquez didn’t answer me, I spun to face the captain, breaking the fire elemental’s grip on my arm. “We need to get that . . . that thing off the gargoyle.”
“You need to understand what we’re working against,” Seradon said. “Elsa calls it a ‘purifier.’”
“Elsa?”
Seradon glanced at the dark-haired woman on the ground. She’d stopped rocking and was talking quietly with Kylie. “It’s supposed to separate the elements into their purest forms,” Seradon continued. “It’s her grand plan to manually create the magical enhancement of a gargoyle.”
“That’s impossible.” Gargoyles were unique in their ability to enhance magic in others. With a boost from a gargoyle, a person could more than double the amount of magic they could wield. No artificial source or man-made contraption could replicate it. “Even if it were possible, what’s it doing feeding off this gargoyle?”
“It turns out that to mimic a gargoyle’s enhancement, she needed a gargoyle as a power source.”
Before I could ask why Elsa wasn’t in null bands and on her way to the nearest guard station, Seradon continued.
“If that wasn’t bad enough, her idea of ‘purifying’ the elements is to rip them apart—polarize them into segregated sections—to make each stronger.”
“What do you mean?” No matter the strength, the elements always coexisted.
“Look here. And here.” Velasquez gestured around the gargoyle. “The purifier”—he infused the word with disgust—“isn’t letting the elements touch inside the loops.”
I stared at the end of the wicker loop as it sucked a pulse of magic from the gargoyle, draining its life one surge at a time. My fists clenched. Dragging my gaze from the horrific implant, I squinted at the space between the wicker and feather loops. Now that I knew what to look for beneath the elements in the ward, it didn’t take me long to make out the raw wood energy eddying in complete isolation. I checked the space between the feather and glass loops. A funnel of air whipped through the tight space and buffeted the inside of Marciano and Winnigan’s shield.
The polarized magic, as Seradon had labeled it, shouldn’t have remained confined in between the segregated sections. The looping objects hooked into the gargoyle weren’t solid; they were fragile-looking bands. Yet the magic reacted to them as if they were impenetrable walls. The only logic the two sections of the contraption followed was the most basic one: wood fed air. Every time a fresh surge of magic siphoned from the gargoyle to feed the wood section, the pocket of pure air also grew stronger, proving some interaction occurred between the two sections.
I moved with Velasquez, circling the gargoyle. Oliver paced at my heels, a low rumbling sound close to a growl vibrating in his throat. The pattern repeated all the way around the trapped gargoyle. The polarized elements each fed the next in a constructive cycle: wood strengthening air, air strengthening fire, fire strengthening earth, earth strengthening water, and water strengthening wood. The diabolical design ensured that the magic bled from the gargoyle perpetually strengthened the purifier.
As if having his life stolen in torturous increments wasn’t enough, being bombarded by the divided magic had to be wrecking the gargoyle’s internal systems. No wonder he was unconscious.
“How long has the gargoyle been trapped?” I asked. Judging by the pockmarks along his body, I’d have guessed months, but someone would have noticed the purifier at work long before now if that were the case. If it could do this much damage in a few minutes or hours, we were wasting precious seconds.
With a choked cry, Kylie stumbled back from Elsa and caught herself against a granite column. “She’s got no magic,” she blurted out. “I think Elsa is fried.”
“Probably for life,” Velasquez agreed. No sympathy registered in his tone.
A chill ran down my arms. Being able to see the elements and not touch them, to never again be able to use magic—I’d rather be dead than burned out.
“From what we can tell, she did it to herself when she hammered the last quartz nail into the gargoyle and activated it,” Seradon said, her voice as flat as Velasquez’s. “We were contacted when a concerned citizen saw the magic backlash.”
Crap. This purifier was more dangerous than it looked, and it looked plenty sinister. “What are you waiting for? Free the gargoyle so I can get to work.”
“That’s the problem,” Seradon said. “I can’t remove the purifier without killing the gargoyle. I need you to do it.”
“Me?” I squeaked. The last person who had worked on this contraption had been nullified. Probably for life. What made Seradon think I could succeed where she couldn’t? She was an FPD squad member and an FSPP, strong in earth and the other four elements. I was a gargoyle healer, a midlevel earth elemental at best. “I can heal the gargoyle once he’s free”—I hoped—“but destroy this? I couldn’t.”
Oliver whined and brushed his cool, glass-smooth head against my palm. I swallowed hard.
“Next to Seradon, you’re the person with the best chance,” Velasquez said.
Startled, I met his gaze. I hadn’t expected encouragement, however paltry, from the stoic fire elemental.
“You wouldn’t be dismantling it all on your own, either, only the parts connected to the gargoyle,” Seradon said.
What else was there? Once the purifier wasn’t feeding on the gargoyle, it should collapse. If it were only a matter of removing the quartz from the gargoyle, I wouldn’t hesitate. But I didn’t need to see the weave around the loops to know it was far more complex than anything I’d encountered before.
“If she doesn’t feel like she can do it, she shouldn’t,” the captain said. “One trick doesn’t make her a quartz savant. The last thing this quake-storm needs is a rookie with limited pentacle potential and questionable linking skills.”
“Hey!” Kylie protested. “Mika can do this.” She marched into Grant’s personal space, as if she could convince him through intimidation—as if she could intimidate him at all. “She’s a gargoyle healer. It’s in her blood.”
The captain’s shot at my limited elemental abilities stung my pride. I’d spent a lifetime perfecting my skills with quartz to prove I could compete with FSPPs in my field, and I’d done it. I could manipulate and refine quartz into creations so delicate they looked like spun sugar. I could heal the complex living quartz systems of gargoyles.
But spinning quartz or patching a gargoyle was a long way from practicing combat magic against a powerful weave that had nullified its creator, especially with a gargoyle’s life on the line.
Seradon ignored Kylie’s outburst and spoke to me. “This monstrosity is dangerous and getting more so—”
“Definitely getting more so,” Winnigan said, her voice strained.
“Dormant or not, the gargoyle can’t withstand much more of this,” Seradon continued. “I’ll back you up, but you should lead the magic. You’re the healer.”
“She said no,” Grant said, turning away from Kylie’s glare.
“She’s scared,” Velasquez said.
I broke my stare with the gargoyle’s dead eyes to look at him. He held my gaze while continuing to speak as if I couldn’t hear him. “Give her a second to warm up her courage.”
He winked.
I blinked and looked away. Fear clogged my throat. Nullified. No healer had ever cured nullification. If I tried and failed, my ability to use magic could be permanently amputated.
“Captain, I need to be free to help with the shield,” Seradon said. “If this thing unravels—”
“No. No,” Elsa moaned, rocking faster. Kylie took a step toward her but stopped when Elsa looked up. Tears streaked the inventor’s face, and her eyes darted wildly and unfocused.
“You’re wrong! You’re all wrong.” Elsa burst to her feet and rushed the captain. He thrust Kylie behind him before catching the wild-eyed inventor and holding her at arm’s length.
I touched Kylie’s arm and pulled her farther to safety.
“If I could just . . .” Elsa wiggled her fingers, then clenched them into fists when nothing happened. Contempt twisted her features. “You’re useless. You’re all useless! FSPPs don’t deserve the power they have. They don’t deserve to be the only people gargoyles favor. Power should be distributed by intelligence, not birth and not based on the decision of an animal with a rock for a brain. My purifier was going to fix it all and you’d have nothing to be so goddamned arrogant about.” Elsa included me in her scathing look, lumping me in with the full-spectrum elementals. “Can’t you idiots see? You’re wasting time. You can’t contain it. You have to crush it. Now, before it kills us all. I tried. But I . . . but I . . .” Elsa wiggled her fingers again and a laugh more sob than mirth crumpled her.
The captain released her, his face a study of neutrality. “Someone needs to get her out of here.”
“You can do this, Mika,” Kylie whispered. “This gargoyle needs you.”
Doubt ate at my stomach lining even as I longed to help the stone-still gargoyle. He had to be under enormous strain, and the longer we talked, the worse he faired.
“If we suppress the magic while that invention is embedded in the gargoyle, he’ll die,” Seradon said, shaking her head. “We can’t—”
“You can. You have to.” Elsa clutched the front of Grant’s uniform, her eyes feverish. She might have tried to shake him, but he didn’t budge. “It’s ripping the elements apart—it’ll rip apart the city—and the gargoyle is the problem. I wouldn’t be . . . be . . . I would be whole if the gargoyle wasn’t broken. It’s not moderating its boost. You have to snuff out the gargoyle to break the purifier or we’ll all die.”
Broken. Not sick. Not injured. Broken. Like the gargoyle was a tool, not a living creature.
Fury bubbled through my blood. I didn’t know how Elsa had convinced or trapped the gargoyle into her horrifying machine, but it was clear she saw him only as a means to an end. It was the curse of gargoyles: Their giving nature made them the targets of greedy people who had no qualms about using and abusing them for a nonconsensual magic boost. That Elsa had tortured the gargoyle in her quest to mimic his ability to enhance magic only made it worse. She wanted to steal one of the facets of his very nature, and she thought nothing of killing him in the process.
Grant pried Elsa’s fingers from his shirt and I shoved in between them, pushing Elsa back with my wrath.
“You created this disaster. You drilled your experiment into the flesh of a living creature, and you’re blaming the gargoyle? You deserve to be nullified.”
I spat my final words at the cowering woman and listened to them fade in the ensuing silence.
“They’re gone. They’re all gone,” Elsa moaned. Her tears morphed into full-body sobs and she crumpled to the ground. I turned away.
Oliver reared up on his hind legs, flaring his wings and hissing at Elsa. I patted his head.
“We’re not letting this gargoyle die because she’s afraid.” Or because I am.
Anger helped counter some of my fear. The gargoyles needed someone they could depend on to help them. I’d been passing myself off as a gargoyle healer; I couldn’t turn aside now when things got dangerous. If Seradon thought I had a better chance of saving the marmot’s life than she did, I had to try.
I looked up, expecting censure. Grant, Seradon, and Velasquez watched me approvingly. Kylie had her “I told you so” expression firmly in place when she met Grant’s eyes.
“See? She got her courage all warmed up,” Velasquez said.
3
“Okay. We’ll let Mika give it a try,” Grant said.
“Excellent idea, sir,” Seradon said, earning a flat look from the captain.
I fisted the hem of my shirt in my shaking fingers to hide them. This was the right decision. I might not be the strongest elemental, but I was strong where it mattered. I was a gargoyle healer.
For now. If I get burned out, I won’t be healing anyone, my traitorous subconscious whispered.
“Get up,” the captain said, half lifting Elsa to her feet. He bound her hands behind her back with tight null bands. The spell in the ropes was redundant, but they still functioned as strong restraints. Elsa slumped forward, her long dark hair hanging in curtains on either side of her face. “Kylie Grayson, you will escort Elsa to the ward. I want her in the custody of the city guards.”
“But—”
“And you will stay on the other side of the ward,” Grant said, the full command of an FPD captain in his tone. “I’m not taking the chance of you distracting Mika.”
Kylie’s spine snapped straight, but rather than argue, she looked to me. I read the question in her expression: If I wanted her to, she’d go against Grant’s orders and remain. I shook my head. As wonderful as it’d be to have her supportive presence, she wouldn’t be able to do anything. I’d breathe easier knowing she was safe on the other side of the massive ward.
“Fine. Good luck, Mika.” Kylie gave Oliver a quick pat and whispered something to him, then reached for Elsa.
“You’re letting me go?” Elsa asked, bewildered.
“You’re under arrest, but you can’t stay here.”
“Thank the gods.” She fled. With her arms imprisoned behind her back, Elsa couldn’t balance well, but that didn’t slow her down. Kylie scrambled to catch up.
A fresh wave of icy trepidation slid down my body.
“Don’t even think about spying,” Grant called after Kylie. “No listening weaves are going to penetrate that ward.”
“You know, this is kind of scary,” Velasquez said to me. He peered at the divided magic inside the shield. “She was right. If the purifier gets loose, it’ll rearrange the very laws of magic itself.”
I glanced at his expression. His tone was matter-of-fact, without a hint of the terror his words evoked in me. Like the others in the squad, he looked focused, as if this level of danger was an everyday challenge. Maybe for them it was.
“You’ll need to link with us—to get through our shield and for your safety,” Seradon said.
Velasquez shifted to my left and Grant took a position to Seradon’s right. Marciano and Winnigan moved so the squad was evenly spaced around the shield and gargoyle. Oliver launched into the air, flapping heavily to the rock pillar behind Grant where he could oversee everything. I glanced back the way Kylie had departed. She and Elsa were out of sight. In the enormous park, it was just the full-five squad, one half-grown gargoyle, a trapped gargoyle, and a very out-of-place midlevel earth elemental.
“Have you ever linked before?” Seradon asked.
“No.” I’d worked in tandem with other people, sometimes close enough to feel like we were linked, but large projects that required linking always went to someone stronger than me.
“It’s pretty simple.” Seradon squared off in front of me and I had to look up to meet her brown eyes. She smiled encouragingly, but I didn’t try to smile back—fear had frozen my features. “Open yourself to equal parts of every element, then feed it to me. I’ll adjust mine to harmonize with yours; then I’ll pull you into the link.”
“Okay.” It sounded simple. I gathered earth, air, fire, wood, and water in equal amounts. My ability to manipulate air and water was limited, not even midlevel, which meant I barely held any wood, earth, and fire when I matched up their levels. I eased this thimble of power into Seradon, fidgeting with embarrassment. She was used to linking with other full spectrums. She probably didn’t have much practice in thinning down her power to my meager levels.
I held my magic softly, the same way I would when testing a sick gargoyle, and Seradon’s stream of elemental energy merged into mine, linking us with a subtle hook.
“Good. Smooth,” Seradon murmured.
The world dropped open inside me as magic flooded into me. I’d expected linking to be like accepting a gargoyle’s enhancement. Their natural boost increased my own elemental strengths, giving me access
to more magic, but with gargoyles, I remained the sole person in control. I hadn’t anticipated how crowded the link would feel.
Five magical signatures pressed against the periphery of my awareness, but I couldn’t pinpoint an individual. The link also had shape and intent. Layers of elements wrapped and wove through each other to create the shield, and I could see every strand and how it had been assembled. The purifier beat against the underside of the shield, and in paying attention to the tension in the shield, I became aware of the strain in the link. Holding the shield taxed the squad—or some of them. I couldn’t tell if it was only Winnigan and Marciano becoming fatigued or all of them.
Magic blossomed anew inside me, and I recognized it this time. Oliver had joined us, enhancing the magic in our link. Awed by the amount of power available to me, it wasn’t until Seradon gripped my elbow that I remembered I had a body. Oliver trilled, and I rediscovered my hearing. The young gargoyle’s carnelian eyes glowed like small suns, and with his wings flared and his posture flexed with his intent focus, he looked majestic. Through the link, he cycled more magic than he’d access if he spent a week atop the library. If he hadn’t been balanced earlier, he would be after this.
“It’s disorienting the first time,” Seradon said. I pivoted to look at her, and the park blurred in my vision. Inside the link, someone poured water into the cracks in the shield, shoring up weak points. Magic moved through me—pulled through me—without me using it, and the sensation spiraled my focus inward.
“I’d like to give you more time to get adjusted, but we need to work fast.”
I nodded to show I understood, then closed my eyes when the horizon moved with my head.
“I’m going to pull you through the shield,” the earth elemental continued. She’d taken my hand at some point, and her fingers tightened on mine. I squeezed back.
Somehow, Seradon collected me from the linked energy. With a feeling like she tugged the elements through me, she gathered my contribution and dipped it through the shield.
“I’ll use the purifier’s pathway to get us to the gargoyle,” Seradon said. “Then it’s up to you once we reach the quartz.”
Curse of the Gargoyles (Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles Book 2) Page 3
