I found a parking spot in the back of the lot, grabbed my gear, and started jogging over to the big metal building. Off to the left was a shooting range swarming with officers. A few of them were kneeling next to a person on the ground. I really hoped this ended up being some random accident, not an attack by the demon.
Since I wasn’t sure where I was going, I went over to the guy guarding the door. “Michelle with Oaks Consulting.” I showed him my ID. “Both Paige Queen and Randy Wells asked me to be here.”
He nodded and spoke into his radio.
A couple of minutes later, Queen came up to the door. “Come on.”
I followed her into the building.
Her blond hair was escaping her ponytail, and she had smudges of dirt on her cheeks. “We had two attacks, partly magical, partly physical. Fourteen are dead. We’ve got a few clinging to life, but we can’t get to them. The spell attacks anyone who tries, and I’m not sure how much longer they can hold out.”
“Where are they?” As I asked, I opened myself. There were spells everywhere, some small and others larger, plus large blots of magic that made my magic want to crawl back inside my skin and hide. I didn’t need an energy reader to tell me this area was covered in negative energy. The demon had been here.
Elron’s words came back to me, reminding me that I was not responsible for the demon’s actions. I could not, and would not, blame myself for what had happened. Plus guilt wouldn’t fix anything and it would scatter my attention. The best thing I could do was stay focused, do my job, and then figure out a way to go after the demon.
“This way.” Paige started trotting toward the back of the building, past walls of mock structures the police used when training how to clear a building.
“What can you tell me about the spell?” I was trying to get a feel for what was ahead of me, but the amount of magic made it difficult.
“Nasty stuff. First it gives them chemical-type burns all over their skin. Once they inhale it, well, then they die quick. Bleeding from the eyes, swollen abdomen.” She looked at me with haunted eyes. She stumbled but righted herself and kept jogging. “We lost one right after I got here. The trapped group was going to aid Officer Nolan Brown from Gilmer when they were attacked.”
I took a deep breath. “I’ll do what I can.” Hopefully I could save them. Not only was this a death they didn’t deserve, but it was yet another memory I didn’t need to have.
“One more thing.” She hesitated. “I think you know some of the trapped officers.”
“Who?” The reply was automatic. Inside I was praying to the earth, moon, sun, and even the stars for help. I’d worked with Nolan, who deserved better than this.
“Patrick Westmoreland, Rodriguez, Kent, Lopez, and Hill.”
I swore. “Is Wells here?”
She nodded. “This way.”
We slowed to a walk and turned into one of the mock buildings. Paige scooted around Wells, who was standing locked-legged in the mouth of the halls. As soon as I was past him, I saw the group on the far side of the living room. They were inside a pulsing shield with webs of spells coating the outside. All of them had blisters dotting their uncovered skin. Half of Patrick’s face was a mess of blisters. Rodriguez was sitting with his eyes closed and lines of strain on his face. Patrick was behind him, hands resting on Rodriguez’s shoulders, and in all likelihood feeding Rodriguez magic. The three others had their eyes glued to the shield and hadn’t noticed me. Behind them a sheet was thrown over a body. That had to be Nolan.
I dropped my bag on the floor, widened my stance, and formed three delicate probes. On the way to the shield, my probes encountered two untriggered spells. They were buzzing with magic, but I didn’t have time to investigate.
“No one move.” I kept my voice calm, not wanting to startle anyone. “There are more spells here. I’ll deal with them after I deal with the current problem.”
There were nods of agreement all around the room. With that issue temporarily under control, I directed the probes to move around the untriggered spells. The knot of magic around the officers was nasty, sticky, make-your-skin-crawl stuff. Unfortunately, there was layer upon layer of spells. The chemical-burn spell was the largest. Under that I found a horrible piece of spellwork that enhanced the effects of the chemical spell and caused internal organs to liquefy. Connected to both of those was a targeting spell. That one was a bit tricky—it didn’t have specific targets but searched for a nearby person and locked on. I could feel a trigger for another spell attached to the targeting spell but was afraid to probe it too deeply. The last thing I needed to do was poke at a spell and make this bad situation worse.
Now that I had a reasonable handle on what was attacking the men, I walked forward, moving around the spells. When I was close enough to talk to the men but still outside the effects of the chemical-burn and targeting spells, I knelt down.
“Can you hear me?” When I didn’t get a response, I tried again. “Rodriguez? Westmoreland?”
Rodriguez opened his eyes. “Can’t hold much longer.”
I nodded. “Are you using the simplified shield?”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t feed him energy without pushing it through the mess of spells attacking them, and that risked triggering additional spells. “Hold on. I’ll get you out.”
He gave me a tiny nod and closed his eyes again.
The way I’d been taught to deal with problematic spells was to unmake them. However, that technique took time, time the officers didn’t have. I scanned the spells again, both visually and magically, looking for a way to get the men out. The shield Rodriguez had created wasn’t triggering a reaction, which gave me an idea. I could create a shield around the men, the attacking spells, just everything. Then I could reshape the shield wall until it pushed through the spells to the shield Rodriguez had created. Then it would be a simple matter of attaching my shield and tunneling to his. Once that was done, the officers should be able to exit safely. I could even add the magical equivalent of doorways, spells to repel magic but allow the officers through. That way, even if I triggered a hidden spell, they should be able to get out.
Taking a deep breath, I raised my wand and hoped this worked. “Sowil haglaz.” The shield sprang into existence, capturing the bad spells between it and the barrier Rodriguez was holding up.
There was a big space off to my right that was free of any additional trigger, and I set up another shield in that area. “Sowil esaz a perzae.”
Both of those looked good, so I created a tunnel jutting out from the safe area. “Sowil esaz a perzae.” I stopped it in contact with the shield containing the nasty spells.
When I was satisfied that would keep everything but the men out, I was left with finding a way to get the men from their current position to the new area. Closing my eyes, I let the magic glow brightly in my mind. Then I focused on the tunnel and fed additional energy to it, slowly pushing it out from its current position and into the network of bad spells.
I held my breath as it made contact with the knot of spells. They sizzled but didn’t do anything more interesting, and the tunnel slowly pushed its way through the spells until it was within a hair’s breadth of the interior shield. Then I halted it.
The tunnel was starting to cloud over. I fed more energy in the spell, trying to get it to last long enough for the men to get to safety.
“Get ready,” I shouted.
My tunnel hit Rodriguez’s shield in a shower of sparks. I felt his shield go down, the nest of spells caving in on top of them.
“No!” I screamed, reaching out, trying to find a way to shield them. An officer to my right lurched forward, hitting one of the hidden triggers. A black cloud swarmed over him, and in a fraction of a second there was nothing left but cloth, bones, and a smear of blood.
I jerked my eyes back to the group of officers. Four. There were four in the escape zone, and the tunnel was empty. Rodriguez was there, as were Kent, Lopez, and Hill. Where was Patrick?
<
br /> My eyes snapped back to the mass of spells rolling around. Patrick was under there. I had to get him.
“Sowil!” I cast a shield around myself, reached out, and pressed my hand against the wall of magic holding back all those horrible spells. Someone grabbed at me, but their hand slid off the shield. If I did this just right, I should be able to walk into there without letting anything leak into the main room.
“Michelle.”
I ignored the call. I had to get to Patrick.
“Stop!” Two arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me away from the shield.
“No,” I screamed. “I can save him. I can go in there.”
“Michelle, look at me.” Wells jerked me around to face him. “He’s dead. I’ve seen it too many times today. You can’t save him. He’s gone.”
“I can. I can get him.” I could hear myself yelling, but it was like I wasn’t fully connected to my body. Deep inside me was a voice telling me to calm down, focus, and help the people who were still alive.
Wells shook his head.
I took a ragged breath. Not sweet Patrick. He’d been so young, and he tried so hard. With a little more time, he would’ve been a great hedge-practitioner.
Wells let go of me and stepped back. Energy ripped by his shoulder.
Shoving him to the side, I split open the bottom of the shield around me, inverted it, and forced it up into the air. It closed around the mass of spells like a clam. With nothing to act upon, the spells hung there, roiling through the air inside the shield.
One deep breath and then another. I was still alive. Wells was still alive. I hadn’t lost anyone else. Closing my eyes, I carefully felt for any more traps around us. The closest trap was a few feet away, so I eased away from Wells.
I had to get ahold of myself. I was here to do a job, not get emotional. Patrick mattered, his health mattered, but this wasn’t the time to grieve. The best thing I could do to honor his memory and redeem myself was to save as many people as I could. No more panicking, no more feeling when something went wrong, not until I was finished with this job.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Wells gave a shaky sigh. “Thanks for that.”
“Wouldn’t have happened if I’d controlled myself better.”
“It happens to all of us at some point.” Paige gave me a sympathetic smile.
“I’ll do better.” I glanced over at Rodriguez’s group. “How are you doing?”
Rodriguez, Kent, Lopez, and Hill looked exhausted, but aside from the chemical burns and a little wheezing, they were mostly uninjured. Lopez was cradling his arm, and Rodriguez was pale and looked ready to pass out. “We’ll stay here until you clear the room, but we’ve got some injuries.”
I nodded and let my power flood the room. There were eight of those traps just in this room, and I could feel more in the rest of the structure. There was no good way for me to get rid of them, so I started doing the next best thing.
Pointing my wand at a nearby spell, I said, “Sowil haglaz.” A red containment sphere appeared around it. While that didn’t get rid of the problem, it did prevent people from casually walking into it.
I worked my way through the rest of the triggers in the room, each spell draining my power a little bit more. I needed to be careful with how much magic I used moving forward because I didn’t want to run out and then have someone need my abilities.
“All right. This room is clear, but I’d like to clear the rest of the house and recheck the area outside before we call for the medics.” I looked at everyone, seeing nods of agreement all around the room.
I moved carefully up a hallway. There were three more triggers in there, each of which I captured. Dodging around them, I found a bedroom. There were two dead officers in there and one more trigger. I shielded that too. After checking another bedroom and a bathroom, the house was as safe as it was going to be until all the spells were removed.
Back in the living room, I unmade the shield protecting Rodriguez, Kent, Lopez, and Hill. I absorbed the energy remaining in the spell, which gave me a nice boost to my reserves.
“Do you need help?” Queen asked.
“It would be nice.” I paused by Rodriguez. “I’m glad you made it.”
“You got here just in time.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded and headed for the door. On my way out, I picked up my bag. An officer hurried over to help Rodriguez, Kent, Lopez, and Hill. Queen followed me outside. Now that I had a little separation from the big spell and all the little ones, it was easier to distinguish between what was in that “house” and the rest of the building. There were definitely traps, which I would encase in containment fields, but Queen could help me create a safe passage for people going through the building.
“There’s so many spells. At a distance it’s hard to tell exactly where they are.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I’ll walk a clear path to the door. Can you lay down some type of markers?”
“Yup. Just tell me where.”
“Do you think a six-foot-wide path will be enough?”
Queen nodded.
With a thought, an aura of light shone on the ground around me, ending three feet on either side of me. “I’ll make sure there’s at least three clear feet on each side.”
“Lead the way.” She motioned for me to get moving.
I started forward slowly, being very sure to check for anything unusual within three feet of me on each side in case an officer forgot to keep all their body parts inside the safe zone. Behind me, Queen laid down two red ribbons of magic. As we moved through the building, I found that most of the traps were inside the training structures. “Do we know if any of the structures are occupied?”
“If they are, we haven’t heard.” She sighed. “With all the traps, we’ve been afraid to move around. They didn’t start going off until we’d been here a couple of hours. Then all of a sudden they were everywhere. Since I don’t know of anyone in those structures, I need you outside when we’re done in here.”
“I’ll work till I drop, but I’m starting to feel the energy output.”
“Just…” She sighed. “Just do everything you can. It won’t be long before other agencies and their witches are here.”
“Got it. Hold things together until the reinforcements arrive.” I sidestepped to ensure we had enough clear space between the path and a trap. “It’s clear to the door. Do you mind if I go ahead and get a feel for what’s outside?”
“Please do.”
I hurried outside and gratefully breathed clean air. The sun on my skin would’ve been nice, but it reminded me Patrick would never get to feel anything again. With that depressing thought, I dug through my bag until I found a small bottle of energy-boosting tea. The next place we were headed was a sizable grassy area that led to the outdoor gun range. I gulped down half the tea.
Most of the officers I could see were near the fence, which I suspected was the primary gathering area when they were doing group training and needed to talk to everyone at once. It was a healthy distance from the shooting line. I didn’t see anyone over there, which would mean anyone evacuating wouldn’t have to travel as far and I wouldn’t have to check as much ground. By the time I swallowed the last of the tea, Queen had finished inside.
“Ready to check the rest of the area?” she asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Focusing on the field, I sent out five probes. Each of them found a spell within seconds. I directed them around the spells, only to have them almost immediately discover another one. The field was covered in invisible spells. “There’s a bunch. Get them to stop moving.”
The words had just left my lips when I felt one of the spells spark to life. I half threw myself over the fence and darted around two officers so I could see it and cast effectively. A writhing mass of snakelike spells dived for three men. I willed a disk of magic to form between the officers and the spells. The spells darted down, trying to get to someone. I stretched the disk into a protect
ive dome, but that wouldn’t stop the spell from changing direction and attacking someone else. Frantically trying to stay ahead of the other spells, I curled up the edges of the dome. It started to stretch too thin, so I poured energy into the shield until it had enough substance to capture the spells. The resulting shield was in the shape of an upside-down bowl.
“Don’t move,” Queen bellowed.
A dozen officers who’d been sprinting to rescue their friends slid to a halt. All around the field people stopped and focused on Queen.
“There are traps across the area,” Queen continued. “Stay where you are while we mark them.”
It felt like I’d saved the officers, but there was a chance they’d been injured. As much as I wanted to run over, I knew we had to do this in an orderly fashion. “Can you repeat what we did in the building?”
“Was already planning on it. Come on, the gate is over here.” She pointed down the fence line.
“Thanks.” After taking a few calming breaths, I focused on my magic and felt for those horrible spells. “The parking area is clear.”
“I’ll start the markers inside the gate.”
Nodding, I walked into the field and started moving forward. There were two traps on my right. I encased each of them in a shield before capturing another trap on my left. The poor guy who was only a foot from it flinched. I didn’t blame him. After that I took a moment to breathe. I had to watch how much magic I was putting into these shields because I doubted I would have enough energy for everything that could use my attention.
Because of the number of traps, it took us ten minutes to get over to the officer huddled under the bowl of horrible spells. These spells were different. Oh, they would still kill someone, but it was more akin to dying after being eaten alive one small bite at a time while you were paralyzed. I couldn’t feel a secondary trigger or any way in which these spells were likely to react badly to manipulation. With that in mind, I forced the dome to reshape until one side formed in arch. One by one, the officers crawled out. Miraculously, none of them were injured. They hurried through the safe-passage zones and over to waiting paramedics.
A Witch’s Demons (Witch's Path Series: Book 6) Page 11
