As I came towards them, Kian suddenly moved to my left and held my arm in a tight grip.
“Hey!” I exclaimed.
He held it balanced at the point before the discomfort became pain. Kian let me go and stepped back.
“We’re going to learn how to defend ourselves,” he announced, smiling.
We had already done some of what he called grappling, which I referred to as my being tossed to the ground over and over again. Towering over me, Garrison had managed to knock me off balance quite a few times.
Kian showed us a few ways to get out of people holding or grabbing you. He taught us four grips and how to break them. When the sun was beginning to set, and every joint in my upper body hurt, he moved towards me again. Hugging me at the waist, Kian lifted me off the ground like some kind of Viking claiming his prize.
“Now how would you get out of this?” he asked.
I wiggled in vain as his grip tightened. Garrison shrugged and I admitted I didn’t know. Kian put me down in a huff.
“You need to learn this stuff!” he exclaimed. “What if you need it? What if someone grabs you and you can’t do anything about it?”
I yell for help, I thought. A well of guilt sprang up in my mind when I realized I had become so used to Kian’s presence that I relied on his help. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be strong enough. Chastising myself for complaining so much, I vowed to learn. After another hour, I tripped Garrison and he landed in the dirt. A surprised look flitted over his face before a wide grin spread.
“Good job!” he said as I held out a hand to help him up. He took it and stood, dusting the gravel off his pants. Even Kian smiled at me.
“It’s a good beginning,” he said. “It may be time for dinner.”
At the thought of food, my mouth watered and I gratefully agreed. Moira had been reading a book and joined Garrison in going to the pub to place our orders. Kian showed me how to get out of another grip in the meantime.
“If I grab your shoulder here,” he showed me by placing his hand in the groove between my left shoulder and neck, “you take your arm from the same side, lift it, and trap my hand.”
I did as he showed me, rolling my arm over his in order to trap it. It worked and his knees buckled.
“Now,” Kian said from his compromised position, “you have the advantage.”
We ate our dinner in relative silence due to exhaustion. When we were nearly done, Garrison and Moira eyed each other conspicuously. I was the first to notice.
“What?” I asked.
Moira made eyes at Garrison, urging him to speak first.
“There’s a trivia night with music down at the pub tonight, and …” Garrison waited for me to get the hint but I didn’t. “We wanted to go,” he finished.
I understood. They wanted to have fun but knew I wouldn’t come. I felt guilty for their worry about leaving me alone.
“Go,” I said. “It’s no problem.”
When we had cleared the food off the beds and into the bin down the hall, Moira grabbed her coat and Garrison left to get his. Kian remained firmly planted on the hotel bed.
“Aren’t you going?” I asked.
Kian shook his head. “And miss watching hotel movies?” he asked. “Unlikely.”
I wanted to kick myself for how excited I was not to be spending the night alone. Spending time in his company had made me soft. I briefly wondered what had happened to the old Gwen who spent every day alone, not caring either way. But then I remembered Kian was waiting for me to choose a movie and I went to do that, letting all thoughts of the previous Gwen escape from my mind.
It wasn’t long before my excitement ran out and I was exhausted from the day’s activity. While we watched a movie about a bank heist, I slowly drifted in and out of consciousness. We were sitting on the ground in front of the television and before I knew it my head had drooped to the side.
I gave in to fatigue and let my eyes close. I opened them again briefly when Kian took me underneath my arms and lifted me so that I could get on the bed. I scooted to find my pillow and was asleep in minutes. I wasn’t sure if he finished the movie, but I awoke again to see Kian settling in beside me, and I didn’t protest when he drooped an arm over me and fell asleep.
Extreme heat touched my skin. I felt my legs moving, and despite the pain I knew I was running towards the flames. The pounding of pressure in my head was like an onslaught against all of my senses, and I realized that for the first time I had to strain to decipher my past self’s emotions. What was I doing?
Pain. Anger. Guilt. Fear. Regret. The emotions pulsed through me like a heartbeat. Tears streamed down my face as I ran. I smelled burning hair, singed skin, and felt as if I breathed fire.
The landscape streamed by me and I did not notice it. Voices called out, some angry and some concerned, but I ignored them. My eyes were set on the fire, a wall of it rising high above me.
My anticipation, my magic, all went towards getting through the fire. I had never encountered such a force. Never seen flames this high. Grief welled in my heart as I approached it, knowing what I would do. It had called to me and reached for me, knowing I would come. Now I was here and it would swallow me. I would not reach the other side.
I awoke gasping. Already, I was searching for the flames on my body and choking on the smoke filling my lungs. I sat up, hacking and sputtering, even as Kian ran to bring me water from the bathroom tap. I took the plastic cup and drank, the cold liquid soothing my raw throat.
When I calmed enough to look around, I realized I had set nothing on fire this time. Either I was gaining more control or it really was just a dream. The only light in the room came from the electric sign outside the pub and the open shutters revealing a full moon. The digital alarm clock showed that it was just past midnight. I could hear the slight sound of music coming from outside.
“Are you alright?” Kian asked. I could tell he was staring at me in the darkness.
I could only see his eyes glinting. He sat next to me on my bed. The TV was blacked out but still on. I assumed we had both fallen asleep while watching the movie. He got up and turned on the lights. Though the sudden brightness hurt my eyes, it helped alleviate the feeling that I was about to fall into my nightmare again.
“I think it was just a nightmare,” I said.
“What about?”
I thought about how much to tell him. The emotions associated with my dream stayed with me even now that I was awake, and it was challenging to tear myself away from them. I got up hesitantly and hugged Kian where he stood.
As I wrapped my arms around his neck, I felt his hesitance and held my breath, but he returned the hug. I relaxed in his hold and relished the fact that I was not in my past life or in my dream. I was here.
Eventually, Kian offered to make me one of his teas and I rushed to assure him it wasn’t necessary. We began another movie and sleep eluded me. Moira came back and Kian left. Long after she’d turned out the light and fallen asleep, I drifted off, dreading what I would encounter in my sleep.
I awoke refreshed halfway through the morning. Embarrassed, I saw that I had slept nearly into the afternoon. Moira was gone with a note that she and the others were down in the courtyard. I lay for a while, thankful for the lack of nightmares. In a few hours we would go pick up Seth and everything would be back to normal.
Lazily, I drew open the curtains and looked down at the courtyard. The sun kept peeking out from in between the clouds and the scene below me looked dreary. Kian and Garrison were shooting at the garden shed again. I watched them for a while, noting how graceful they both looked. I wondered if I ever looked like that.
Suddenly, I felt a small thread of panic wind itself around my heart. A pull like the one I had felt in the park in New York City was somewhere I couldn’t see. A black hole. A concentration of power. But I couldn’t see anything. The magical blindness was agonizing as I pressed against the window trying to see all around my friends. Couldn’t they feel it?
From the edge of the courtyard where the pub entrance was, Moira emerged carrying a box. It pulsed in my vision. I banged on the window, knowing I couldn’t make it down in time. I watched, helpless, as she handed it to Kian, who recognized it for what it was. He grabbed it and threw it as far as he could and out of my sight.
Time slowed down for me as my heart beat nearly out of my chest and my banging on the window went unheard. After a second or so, a loud bang rang throughout the hotel and caused my room to shake. The window cracked and some debris and dust covered my friends below. Not caring that I was barefoot and still in my pyjamas, I raced from my room.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I felt like I flew as I raced down the staircase nearest to my room and out one of the side doors. With every step, I expected to trip and fall as my feet moved faster than I could think. Surprised at my own agility, I made it down to the courtyard.
The windows facing the yard were blown in and the beams on the new overhang were smashed again. The pub’s door was off of its hinges and the shed that we had been shooting arrows at was flattened. My heart stopped as I saw three scattered and prone forms.
In the settling dust, I rushed towards my friends. The tightness in my chest alleviated slightly when I saw Kian slowly move to push himself up off of the ground. While his back and head were covered in dirt, the front half of his blue shirt was clean. Garrison was covered from head to toe and sat up slowly, pulling on his ears. Moira, a few yards away, was on her side and blinking dazedly. She was also covered in gravel.
I briefly contemplated Kian’s clean side. He had hit the ground first. He had felt it. The concentration of power was evident to me — I had felt the pulse of it when the magicians had tried to suck Seth’s power in New York and when I gathered too much just weeks ago. Desperate, I had sucked the energy from around me and concentrated my magic to get power. My panic increased when I thought of Seth.
I ran over to Kian and began to drag him up while he still struggled to stand.
“Let’s go!” I shouted in his ear. He looked at me confusedly.
“What?” he yelled back.
I began to repeat myself, but when he shook his head, I gave up. I understood his hearing would be shot for the next little while so I took matters into my own hands. Propriety aside, I stuck my hand in his jeans pocket and retrieved the keys to the car.
“Seth!” I yelled into his face, jangling the keys as one would entertain a baby.
Even though Kian still wobbled where he stood, he understood my hint. As he scrambled over to Moira, hotel employees and guests began funnelling out of the pub and main hotel building. I could hear sirens in the distance.
Dread filled me as people approached us. I envisioned a lengthy questioning followed by police interrogation. When I had gathered that much magic to myself, it exploded as soon as I let it go. A theory began to form in my mind as I glanced at Moira. In the confusion, she stood still, swaying slightly. I guessed what the package had been.
I turned to see Kian taking her elbow and pushing past the crowd that had assembled around us. I helped Garrison to his feet, slung his arm over my shoulders, and followed Kian into the parking lot.
I was surrounded by a procession of coughing, stumbling, dirty people. Moira was visibly shaking and Garrison coughed up so much of the dust that he gave himself a nosebleed. By the time I got him into the car, I had enough blood on my shirt to believe I had been involved in the blast.
Kian, luckily, was intact enough to drive. Though I worried for my friends, they were still very much alive. Seth, wired to machines in his hospital room, would be a much easier target.
As Garrison shook his head to each side to clear his hearing, all while leaning back to stop the blood pouring from his nose, he attempted to speak. It first came out as a gurgle, but I could discern words on the second try.
“What-was-that?” he rasped. Then, “Seth?”
I turned to him, ready to voice my fear, but my eyes must have given it away. His jaw dropped slightly and he leaned back against the seat, looking ready to faint. Moira was in front with Kian, who still hadn’t said anything. I pressed myself through the middle space between the two front seats and stared at Kian, urging him to start talking.
“It was a trap,” was all he said. His knuckles held the wheel in a death grip. “Like the trap in the park.” I saw his eyes glance up to the rear view mirror and at Moira, who gazed blankly out the window.
“Moira, are you okay?” I asked. She sat next to Garrison, who still had his head back in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
She nodded at me faintly, but her face didn’t even register hearing my words. Worried, I turned back to Kian.
“Explain,” I said. My head kept swivelling between him and Moira. She looked paler and held herself as if she was about to wilt.
“It was magic attached to an item,” Kian said grimly. “The kind of magic that stole your powers in the park. Moira was meant to be drawn into it, but …”
“She gave it to you first,” I finished for him. My theory was proving correct. “It’s like when I drew all that power to me and then let it go. If she held it she would have just fed it until there was nothing left.”
Kian nodded but his eyes glanced up again and I realized how insensitive I’d been. I turned to reassure her but she still gazed out the window in shock.
“Why all the games?” I whispered. Suddenly, I was exhausted. The danger was too real.
“If they had wanted you dead, you would be dead,” Kian replied. “If they’ve not killed you, then they will enslave you.”
A fire rose in my throat. The anger sizzled in my blood and smoke began to emerge from under where my hands still held the two front seats. I felt like a farm animal, lulled into security by repeated close calls until I was needed for the slaughterhouse. The thought of being used against my will repulsed me.
We all sat in silence, staring at Kian. Any confidence that I had felt for my small progresses and memories evaporated and was replaced by a sense of failure.
Within five minutes we were at the hospital. Wordlessly, we shuffled out and proceeded to the fourth floor. Stares followed us as Moira and Garrison left streaks of dirt in the clean hall. I was cold in my pyjamas, which consisted of a long-sleeved shirt and shorts. I was barefoot.
My heart accelerated as we exited the elevator. It was dumb to leave Seth alone. The regret pulsed through me.
When we reached his door and found the bed empty, I nearly flew at the nurse who stood a few feet away. Before I could react, she called to us.
“He’s changing into the set of clothes you brought,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
Embarrassed that my panic was evident, I turned to the nurse to thank her. When she caught site of me, her jaw dropped.
“Do you need help?” she asked, rushing over and making straight for Garrison’s blood on my shirt.
“No, I’m fine,” I replied. “It’s someone else’s.”
“Whose?” the nurse nearly wailed. The idea that someone might be covered in someone else’s blood plainly seemed like a horror movie to her.
“Mine,” Garrison said from behind me. His voice was still nasally due to him pinching his nose shut.
As the nurse began to fuss over Garrison and lead him away to be examined by doctors, I turned to Moira. She was still shaking.
“Who gave you that parcel?” I asked her quietly.
“Some man,” she replied as a single tear rolled down her cheek.
“Do you remember anything about him?”
She shook her head. It was strange trying to comfort her since I had to look up just to meet her eyes. I noticed her hands were clasped behind her back and that she had put herself into a corner. The positioning seemed strange to me. Before I could ask, she spoke.
“What was that thing?” Her voice trembled almost as much as her body. While much taller and sturdier than me, Moira shook like an autumn leaf in the wind. “I didn’t feel any
thing strange. Did I do something wrong?”
Kian ran a nervous hand through his hair. While we waited for Seth, the anxious energy between us grew. “It was a concentration of power,” he replied. “Like the kind Gwen used to free herself from the magical attack of her memories. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
A shiver ran up my spine as I remembered the cold rings on the strong hands that had wrapped themselves around my throat.
“It’s how the magicians move the earth and work their magic. They steal power from things around them. They are magical parasites, feeding off life strength and throwing power at the things they wish to destroy.”
“When I …” My sentence was lost as I considered what I had done.
“When you pulled the energy to yourself like that,” Kian finished for me, “had you held on any longer, you would have ignited along with everything else around you.”
I remembered the pressure as I lay on the ground, dying.
“Wiser and stronger magicians know how to bundle that power and put it into objects. They can control it. But that brings about another complication,” he said.
“What?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. I had had enough control to push the magic away from me before the energy burst. Even with more control, that amount of bundled energy can’t get far.
“They’re near,” Kian said, confirming my suspicions.
Sudden paranoia pricked at my back and again I felt like I was a swivel-head doll, craning my neck by trying to turn in too many directions at once. While the hospital hallway was empty, I felt like someone was watching me from around every corner.
My attention fell back to Moira, who was trying to fit herself further into the corner. Kian followed my gaze.
“What …” He had initially assessed her for injuries when she lay on the ground in shock. She had been covered in dirt then.
Kian placed both his hands carefully on Moira’s shoulders and she cringed, shying away from him. Her position left her nowhere to retreat to as he moved his hands down and forced her clasped hands out from behind her back.
Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy) Page 22
