Divinity Circuit (Senyaza Series Book 5)

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  “Basic monster hunting protocol,” Marley said heatedly. This was more than unexpected, this was wrong. “And here I thought Senyaza had no idea where to find him.”

  “Now, we’d be pretty poor hunters if we couldn’t find our prey, wouldn’t you say?” He ran a hand through his hair. “What are you doing here?”

  “Your employer asked me to convince Corbin to come home,” she snapped. “Are the others in there? What’s going on? Is Simon in there?”

  “Negotiations. We left Simon minding the shop.” There was a thundering as a huge flock of black birds lifted screaming into the sky, and then came a slow, rolling boom.

  Smoothly, Finn added, “And that was negotiations just breaking down. You ought to get some place safe.”

  “No! This is stupid. Corbin is your friend. I’m going in.” She started her car again.

  Finn’s eyes clouded over. “I won’t stop you, because I don’t want anybody to be hurt, either, and you do have some skills there.”

  Marley couldn’t help wondering how the slim man would stop her from driving past him, and then corrected herself to slim, ancient nephil man and stopped wondering. The power of the Geometric working tickled her mind as she drove over it: a faint whisper that maybe she wanted to be someplace else? Did she forget something? Coffee? This isn’t the proper turn, either. Dirty place, really… Compared to previous intrusions into her mind, compared to being sick yesterday, it was trivial to notice and ignore.

  She poked her head out the window and called, “Was this what you were planning the day before yesterday? Because if so…”

  Finn shook his head. “Nope. Upstairs ordered this yesterday.” Marley stared hard at him, trying to decide if he was lying, and then sighed and went to see what had caused the big boom.

  The parking lot was nearly empty, save for the three monster hunters who were picking themselves up at the path to Corbin’s cabin. The flock of ravens wheeled above, screaming insults only Corbin would be able to understand.

  Mack stretched, cracking his spine and then his knuckles, while Grendel spat out some blood and grinned wildly in the direction of the cabin. Ice glanced at her as she turned her car off. “Here to help?”

  Marley got out of her car. “What the hell happened?”

  “Corbin refused my polite invitation,” said Ice.

  Mack laughed. “Didn’t like us sneaking in the back way, either. He’s managed to put a circle around the whole building somehow. Triggered a ward.” He turned to look at the building mostly hidden behind trees and then swore. “What the fuck? My charms are gone.”

  “Eh?” said Grendel. “No… yeah, mine too. How’d he do that?”

  Marley snapped, “You just said he had a circle around his cabin and you were sneaking in the back.”

  Grendel blinked down at her. “Yeah, but it takes time, don’t it? And Ice was distracting him the whole time.”

  “I’ve still got mine,” said Ice. “I’ll drain the power from his working and you two can push your way through and bring him down.”

  “Because that’s what you do to friends,” said Marley sarcastically.

  “We’re trying not to hurt him, Marley,” said Ice patiently.

  “Much,” said Grendel, grinning. When Marley didn’t grin back, he muttered, “Aw, you wouldn’t understand.” Then he turned and charged down the path to the cabin.

  Mack made a fist and ambled after him, while Ice spread his fingers and the temperature began dropping. “You’d better help or get out of the way, kid. It’ll probably get worse before it gets better.”

  Marley looked at all three of them with her danger-sight, and nothing suggested they were going to be hurt today. Later…. But not today.

  She slumped back against her car as Ice walked after the other two. They were so enthusiastic about fighting, even fighting somebody who was a friend. She didn’t understand it. But if they hurt Corbin at all, she was going to do her best to make them regret it.

  Grendel roared, so loud the needles on the trees nearby trembled. Marley jumped and then moved toward the path. She had to step over Neath twice, since the cat was intent on entangling her legs. “Do you want me to get your leash, cat?” she demanded.

  Neath sat down right in front of her, looked up and meowed.

  Marley shook her head. “No, you’re too big to carry, you know that.” But she stepped around the cat, off the path, so that she could see what was going on at the cabin without getting too close.

  Grendel and Mack both had their palms up and out as they leaned on apparently empty air. Frost crackled around their feet, coming right up to a Geometric circle on the ground that glowed to the Sight. After Grendel’s roar, the silence in the clearing seemed out of place. Ice said something softly and the other two men shifted their weight.

  “Don’t,” said Corbin, his voice oddly flattened in the silence. He stood in the door of the cabin, a dark silhouette in the brightness of the day.

  No, it wasn’t just the lighting. Darkness swirled around him. One of his eyes was a black pit, while the other one flickered red and green like a burning forest. Blue light glowed around his hands. “Be smart for once and just go away.”

  Marley stared at Corbin in horrified fascination. She’d seen him like this once before, but his eye had glowed blue rather than red and green, and via the Geometry vision he’d been—well, whole. Now he was splitting apart, with that red glow smoldering along his spine and black webbing obscuring his nodes.

  As she stared, the black webbing moved, contracting. Suddenly she could see a shape within Corbin’s form, like his shadow had come to life.

  “We’ve left you alone long enough and look what it’s cost us, junior,” said Mack. “You’ve never won a bout yet; might as well give up now. Nobody here wants to hurt you.”

  “Cost you?” Corbin’s voice strengthened and a raven plummeted from the flock above, pulling up only a few feet overhead. “You have no idea of the cost.”

  He extended his hand and the Geometric circle flashed. The two men pushing on the ward stumbled forward, into the circle. It glowed again, light streaming up. A tangle of black, red and blue power stretched from Corbin’s hand to the monster hunters. It writhed around them, burrowing into their nodes.

  Oblivious, they regained their balance and rushed toward Corbin. He brought up his other hand, dripping with blue light. Charm after charm bloomed in the monster hunters’ open nodes, until Ice realized what was going on and shouted, “Get away from him!”

  Mack scrambled backward, but Grendel roared again and kept going, his shoulder down like he was going for a tackle. Corbin brought his hand around in an arc as Grendel reached him.

  Grendel went low and then stumbled. As he slid into the side of the cabin, a thousand paper cuts opened on his arms and face. In only a few heartbeats his skin was covered with a scarlet sheen. Black specks appeared in the red as he roared a third time and shoved himself to his feet. The air grew heavy and blue sparks ran through Grendel’s hair. When he plucked at them, spinning around, his hair came out in his fists. Horns poked from his skull and his fingers grew talons.

  “Damn it, no,” shouted Ice, and sprinted into the circle to grab Grendel. The air inside the circle crystallized, snowflakes swirling in a spiral. The birds scattered above.

  Ice ignored Corbin, shoving his hand up to Grendel’s mouth. Grendel was taller, furrier. His intrinsic magic was taking over, pushing out everything that was Grendel. It was a risk any time a nephil drew deeply into their inherited power, and Grendel’s magic made him stronger whenever he was hurt or exhausted. “The gift of Strife,” they called it, and Corbin’s workings had pushed it into overdrive. The big man thrashed against Ice’s grip, his frantic motions getting slower and slower as Ice pushed power down his throat, trying to chill and still the transformation taking place.

  Meanwhile, the delicate lines of the glowing circle plucked out Ice’s nodes, one at a time. It was as slow as Ice subduing Grendel, Marley realized. Not
nearly as fast as the black and red and blue rope that had inserted new charms. New, incredibly destructive charms.

  Mack was covered in open sores, curled up on the ground with his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Marley stared at him, paralyzed with horror. He was hurt, maybe badly hurt. If he wasn’t badly hurt now, he would be soon, because those charms—those curses—were still there, working away, drawing on Mack’s own life and magic to power themselves.

  Those curses that Corbin had put on him.

  Those curses that her magic hadn’t seen coming.

  Her breath rasped in her chest as she inhaled sharply and put her shield around Ice. It went up smoothly, which meant Ice wanted her help. He’d told her as much. He kept working with Grendel, until the other monster hunter stumbled and fell against him, dead weight. Marley felt that through her shield, felt the way her magic caught the bulk of Grendel’s weight so he didn’t knock Ice down.

  But the rope of energy kept engulfing Ice’s nodes. It was hurting him and she could see it but she couldn’t feel it the same way she felt Grendel’s weight. Frantically, she pulled the shield down and put it up again, as if a reboot would help somehow. Then she leaned on it with all her magical strength.

  It didn’t matter. It was if the shield wasn’t there. She couldn’t stop Corbin’s power from damaging Ice. “Please!” she shouted, a desperate cry to anyone who was listening.

  The rope of energy stopped. Everything stopped: the Geometric working, the shouting of the ravens in the trees, Ice’s manhandling of Grendel.

  “Marley?” Corbin asked, his voice barely audible.

  Ice shook himself and finished pulling Grendel from the circle. The ravens lifted into the air again, this time in eerie silence.

  Marley stumbled forward. “Corbin, why are you doing this? What’s going on?”

  Corbin came down the steps to the edge of his circle and then pulled himself back with a jerk. He stood at the edge like a prisoner behind bars, watching her. His eyes were human again.

  Then he turned, looking away from her. The shadow webbing his nodes moved and they spoke together. “A cruel trick from old friends.”

  Ice said, “You think we have tricks like that? Without you?” He shook his head and kicked Grendel hard.

  Grendel roared and surged to his feet. His intrinsic magic burned bright in response to the violence, temporarily overtaking the damage being done by the curses. It was a temporary solution; there were only a few moments before he and Ice would be engaging in the same dance to balance his magic against his survival. He looked around wildly, until Ice said something Marley didn’t understand to him. Then he turned and charged from the parking lot, to where Finn was probably still waiting.

  Ice pulled Mack up by his arm and tossed Corbin a little salute. “A good lesson, kid. We learned a lot.” Then, as cuts started appearing on his own pale, muscled shoulders, he propelled Mack ahead of him and they too vanished into the parking lot. A handful of ravens swooped after them.

  Corbin started to turn back to his house and then looked over his shoulder at Marley. “I hope you’re real. I don’t always know anymore. Maybe Branwyn lied to me, but how would she know?”

  “Corbin!” Marley repeated, and ran to the edge of the magic circle. She stopped just short of the glimmering boundary as he turned again to face her. His eyes met hers. She lifted her hand to the boundary and started talking fast.

  “I was sick, but I’m better. Branwyn told me you were worried. You know Branwyn, she’s always trying to manipulate things, she could have told you herself but she said she was scared, well… not exactly that, but… your friends—” She stopped, searching his face.

  Corbin ran a hand through his hair. He looked like he’d been doing that a lot. He hadn’t shaved since the last time she saw him, although he’d managed to change his clothes. His hand clenched into a fist, his dark eyes glittering. He muttered something and the magical glow of the circle vanished.

  Marley took a small step forward, reaching for him and then stilling herself lest she scare him off. But he lifted his hand and touched her face. His thumb ran across her lips and her breath caught in her chest. His pulse fluttered in his throat and his jaw clenched.

  His hand threaded through her hair. When his other hand curved around her waist, she could feel how taut his muscles were. But even so he held her at a distance, as if trying to maintain some vestige of self-control. “Corbin,” she whispered, putting her hand on his chest.

  His control shattered and his mouth came down on hers.

  The horrific fight she’d just watched, the way her magic had failed, the virus, none of it mattered. Her yearning wiped her mind clean. She turned to liquid fire in his arms.

  His lips parted against hers and his tongue touched her gently, almost tentatively: a question. His shoulders were taut under her fingers, his hands warm on her hips and neck. She pressed herself against him and kissed him back hard, desperately.

  She’d missed him so much.

  For one perfect moment, she wasn’t worried about everything. She had Corbin, she was kissing Corbin, and everything was right.

  Then he broke away and she stumbled against his chest, dazed by her feet coming back to earth. She wasn’t ready for kissing Corbin to be done. She wanted more.

  He pulled her back up the path and into his cabin. “I said I didn’t want you anymore.”

  She stared at him in confusion as he pushed the door closed behind them.

  He took a deep breath. “I lied.” Then he put her against the door and kissed her again.

  It went on longer this time. His mouth roved from her lips to her neck to her ear. He kissed beside her eye and pressed his face into her hair and then came back to her mouth. Marley pushed her hands under his shirt to feel the burning of his skin, and he groaned her name. She pushed his shirt higher and he tugged at her top and—

  A delicate tracing of claws down Marley’s calf reminded her all of the sudden that there was a third party observing them. The third party apparently had opinions, too. Neath meowed loudly, going into detail about her objections. Her stupid objections.

  Corbin moved his hands from her waist to her shoulders. Then he pushed himself away as Marley reached for him again. Neath insinuated herself between the two of them and sprawled out, then rolled on her back.

  He muttered thickly, “Good cat,” and brought his hands across his face. “God, Marley. You’re like a drug. Just one more hit.” He took another step backward.

  Marley dragged in a deep breath and stared balefully at Neath until where she was and what she was doing reemerged from the flash flood of passion. Even remembering what she’d just seen couldn’t make her regret the kissing, though. She’d wanted that for almost a year.

  Corbin started moving around the room, stuffing things into an oversized backpack. “I have to go. I have to move to a new location. They’ll be back and they won’t play nice next time.”

  Marley ran her fingers through her tousled hair. “What you did to them looked awful. You’re sure they’ll be able to recover just like that?”

  He glanced at her, his eyes hooded. “They’ve still got Finn with them? Then they’ll be fine. A few scars, maybe.”

  Marley tried to tell herself that was why her magic hadn’t seen the harm in store for them. But with the possible exception of Penny, that wasn’t how her foresight worked. She could see a sprained ankle or a broken heart as easily as complete devastation. Anything but the immediate future was extremely volatile, but one could hardly get more immediate than what she’d failed to see.

  She should have seen Corbin’s attack coming.

  She should have been able to stop it.

  All her fear and worry came boiling back. “Corbin, I… I tried to protect Ice from you. It was so horrifying. But my protection didn’t work. Do you know why that is?”

  He gave her another look, longer this time. “That’s interesting. I suppose it’s a side effect of something else I did, months ago.” />
  Marley stepped toward him and then stopped again, hugging herself. “What did you do?”

  He resumed packing, putting away a laptop computer and its accessories. “You know exactly what I did.”

  “Then how did you do it?” she asked urgently. He didn’t answer, until she said, “Corbin, you have to tell me.”

  Shortly, he said, “I used magic, Marley. Are you that upset that I turned off your ability to see my future?”

  “No,” she said sharply. “I’m upset anybody found a way to make my magic ignore them. My job is protecting two little kids, Corbin! With the magic you’ve learned how to nullify!”

  He stopped packing and stared at her silently, his face unreadable, and she added, “If you’ve learned how to do, maybe anybody can.”

  “Off the carpet,” was all he said. She stepped onto the wooden floor, and Corbin rolled up the carpet, dumping Neath off. He pulled a clear sheet of something out from underneath. It was large, almost six feet square, and had a Geometric circle engraved into it. He rolled it up.

  “I don’t understand why you did it, either. I don’t understand most things you’re doing right now.”

  He leaned the rolled circle against the couch and then crossed the room with two long strides, stepping over Neath. His long fingers closed around Marley’s jaw as he leaned down and kissed her again, this time slow and aching and sweet. Hope and desire flared once again and she clung to him. But after only a moment—too short a time—he pulled away and stepped out of her reach.

  “You wouldn’t have kissed me like you did if you’d known what was coming for me, Marley. You’d be too busy trying to protect me, or trying to stop me. I’ve wanted you since I first met you, but not as my babysitter.” The look he gave her made her heart accelerate again. She was silent, hands pressed against the wall behind her, unable to formulate an argument, torn between hunger and self-knowledge.

  “I have to move,” he repeated, swinging his backpack over his shoulder and picking up the rolled circle. “I’m going by magic. It’s local. You can stay here, or you can come with me.” The look he gave her pierced through her heart.