The Carver's Magic

by B. L. Brooklyn

  Not trusting her possum stance, I ran at the stupid girl and felt the ground rumble. I stop next to trailer trash and see Richard’s beady glowing red eyes, “You killed your own. That’s unforgivable.”

  I look down. The girl’s hair was half shriveled and her clothes had small burn holes. I swallow. The side of her face had a silver dollar sized hole from the rock I threw. My mind wavered a bit. I had no intentions of killing her. I specifically told my parents I wouldn’t join their crusade because I didn’t kill innocent people. In fact, the first person I ever killed was the vampire, and she had it coming. So killing another person was not technically what I was after. I just wanted my sister. My fire on the other hand, was steady and unremorseful.

  I wasn’t going to excuse myself. I looked at the man who took my sister. “I’m taking my sister now, and if you ever think to take her from me again, we’ll revisit what’s unforgivable.”

  “Before you go Beth,” he said my name like it was a disease, “I want you to know that we took Cory because we felt she was a distraction, Shane needed to find his true partner in life, which, and this surprised me, turns out to be you, the only other fourth generation fire Carver.”

  He was looking for some kind of response. I didn’t give him any. But inside the idea of being with Shane makes me want to vomit.

  “You see, I know your parents well. In fact, we made sure that you and Shane would meet one day. We made a special necklace that would draw you to my son. The odd part is, the necklace,” he held up a small yellow charm. The one my parents gave me as a parting gift that I threw away a long time ago; Cory had fished it out and had been wearing it ever since, “found it’s way onto your sister’s neck, drawing her to him. And when he broke the necklace he broke the spell that drew the two together, collapsing any feelings he had for her. So much so that when I told him I would kill his little trifling crush if he didn’t return to me, he said, ‘Go ahead, might solve my little problem anyways.’”

  That did sound just like the ass-hat and it would solve his bonding problem with Cory. My fire and I didn’t like that. Not at all.

  Richard was waiting patiently for my outburst. He was baiting me like the vampire, and just like the vampire, I was hooked. “You like to punish people who interfere with your goals? That sounds pretty childish to me. Or better yet, cowardly,” I said.

  Several things happened. The earth shook, and then a large piece of the tree closest to me splintered, as a large boulder headed for me.

  I teleported out and straight to Cory, somewhat pleased I got a rise out of the old man. Cory was chained in a stone cellar. She was holding her legs close to her chest. Her head was tucked into her knees. “I said I don’t know where it is,” she mumbled.

  I kneeled down and let my magic run over her. I was right. She was alive but the room was cold, she was shivering and she was naked with odd black marks all over her skin. It looked like decayed skin. I slowly touched my hand to her shoulder and she moved quickly away from me, screaming to stop. I held my hands up, feeling even worse for leaving her in here. “It’s me Cory. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She looked around and I saw her eyes were pale, as if clouded. What the hell? I quickly grabbed her ankle and teleported to our house. I ran a scan of the house making sure no one was inside, and then I said another spell to ensure we were safe.

  Cory was curled up on the rug, in the middle of our living room. I pushed my magic into her, demanding it heal her all the while using my magic to turn the coffee table into a blanket.

  The spots on Cory had turned blood red and were beginning to fade to pink. The blanket floated above her. I grabbed it, laid it down, turning it into her favorite blue pajamas with yellow microscopes. When she no longer had any spots on her I continued to let my fire flow to check if anything else was wrong. There wasn’t, but she had passed out.

  They tortured her. And from the looks of it, it looked like she had been there for months, not an hour.

  Then I remembered. I froze time once. Maybe they could too.

  I stopped pushing in my magic so I could pull herBeth into my arms. I teleported to her room, or at least I tried. I ended up at her door. I reached down carefully to twist the door handle. It was locked. I adjusted my hold and walked her down the stairs to my room at the end of the hall and laid her down.

  From what I could guess she had frostbite all over her body. That’s what those little black marks were. Except they weren’t on her toes or fingers, which meant that someone touched her. All of them needed healing along with the cuts from the cuffs on her wrists. They blinded her, took her clothes, and put her in a freezing-cold room. I was far too lenient on them.

  I herd a chirping sound coming from the kitchen. Cory’s phone. I walked out of my room and shut the door slowly. I popped into the kitchen and saw her phone on the counter, next to a coin with a conquistador on it. I know that Cory would never leave her phone in the kitchen, and that coin was the one Shane gave her. He was in this house, and he knew exactly what his father did.

  I sneer at the phone with Shane’s name in white bold letters. With hatred in my voice, I answered the phone. "Meet me at the devil’s playground," I say through my teeth.

  "What happened?" He asked slowly, enunciating every word.

  I looked down at the phone and ran my thumb over the red button. I dropped it on the counter.

  I left my sister in my room, mentally promising her I was going to fix it. I hope my last spell would keep her safe for a few minutes, while I kill Shane, or at least critically maim him. I teleported to the devil’s playground at Pikes Peak and waited with my fire at the ready.

  An hour later I was seething when I saw him walk down the path. I rushed him. "You fucking bastard!" I punch the ground letting loose my fire. It blew the ground loose, ricocheting a cloud of rocks at him.

  "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He blocks the rocks and a set of fireballs sailing at his head.

  "You knew he had her!" I let the fire out of my mouth, grabbing all the million scales, and flung another fireball at him. He dodged the fire but not the follow up pyroclastic cloud I belched. The plume swarmed with hot ash, sucking the air from him, all the while dragging him several hundred miles over the cliff, down the base of the mountain.

  Shane teleported back, with burned clothes and untouched skin and hair. My fire didn’t even make a dent. I scowled. Shane took in a breath, his eyes glow arctic blue as he screams, "BETH! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

  I felt the rage building in my stomach. He looked around him as if looking for cover. I watch him evaporate and pop up next to me. Shane grabbed my arm and moved quickly to put me in some sort of submission hold, "What the hell is wrong with you, Beth?"

  I snarl, "You knew your father had Cory. And you knew what he would do." I spit at his face, I saw it land on his cheek, but then the skin moved. I saw red and yellow feathers shift and the acid hot spit had cleared. Not giving up trying to hurt him, I lift my knee into his ribs. "And they tortured her! You told them you didn’t care if she died," my voice almost broke.

  His grip tightened around my neck, "I would never say that!" I felt the fire sizzling at my skin. It wanted out. My hands were the first to lose control and I watched as they grew into raptor-sized claws. I swung out, slicing into his skin. Interestingly, I could see the same little fire feathers filling the spots of his exposed insides.

  "Stop it! I don't want to fight you. You are not strong enough to fight me." Shane is starting to shake. His power must be swirling.

  I shake out of his hold, reign in the fire trying to break out, and get my hand back. I reach down and grab a handful of sand. I let out my fire and blew on it, making several pieces into glass. I chuck them with all my force, "I'm a fourth generation Carver, you idiot."

  He growls, hands shaking. I can see the back of his hand covered in little red cuts. But the fire underneath is already fixing the glass cuts. I rushed him again, slamming
into his waist, making his head swing, crashing on the hard ground with a thud. I hear something behind me. I turn to see a tree engulfed in fire headed my way. I jump free and roll away. Shane rolls on his side and stands up slowly, “I’m the only fourth gen Carver.” His eyes are ablaze and I feel the air heating up around me, then a long fire tail grabs me, tosses over the valley of the Devil’s Playground, landing hard on the trail sign.

  My heart is pounding. I look around and find Shane is slowly descending, using his arms that were now fire feathers or something like that.

  Maybe I was wrong . . .

  My fire is flickering inside me and I hate that my anger is decreasing as my amusement is rising. He is my match. The stupid prophecy made sense. I couldn’t hurt him, not with my fire. It makes me feel good to know that he is the only one who would understand me, but he has to be punished. For what happened to Cory.

  I lift my hands up to the sky. I call on my breath and suck in the cold and I hold my lungs to warm it up. I let it out and see the static in the air. The storm rumbled above me waiting for a target.

  A gruff wrecking ball hits me from the behind and wraps around me.

  Dar.

  Stop this Beth! STOP THIS NOW! Dar orders. He is in my head and I can start to feel the foreign pressure on my blood. I scream and fight the pain that I know is going to happen. I have to obey. I can't breathe well. He is still holding me down, "You are so childish!" He says in my ear, and my whole body wants to press against him and his warmth, with him being so close. I fight the desire; I hate him.

  No you don't. Dar says.

  I let the storm go. Dar looses his hold. I drop, trying to push him away, "Get off."

  Dar smirks, "I could . . . but," I can tell by the spark in his eyes he took my words to the gutter. Dar leans in so only I can hear him and whispers, "It wouldn't be worth it."

  I wish I didn’t feel a huge burning in my chest. I wish my insides weren’t burning to touch him. Being numb would be a welcomed feeling instead of the shame. Dar has my heart and he doesn't want it and he doesn’t hide his disgust for me.

  "Get up," Dar says as he lets me go.

  Looking around, we have an audience. Several wolves pace the perimeter. Then I lock eyes on Cory. Cory is shivering. She locked eyes with Shane as if she’s bloody worried for him. And just like that my fire was back and I want to rip Shane to shreds. One feather at a time if necessary.

  Dar grabs my arm and shakes me once, "Knock it off!" He must have felt my desire to go after Shane.

  I did. He confirms.

  "Privacy is not overrated," I say under my breath.

  It's a privilege that you don't deserve.

  "Get out of my head," I hiss.

  Cory holds up a vile so that Shane can see it. I know what it does before I can even think of the words. The look on her face said it all. She was totally lost, as in, broken hearted and ready to give up. She opens the vile and I can see Shane standing a few feet in front of me, frozen like I am. She brings it to her lips and downs the drink. She looks at me and I know she is begging for me to understand something, and then she falls like a sack of rocks.

  "CORY!" I hear Shane scream hysterically beside me. I turn to see him disappear from where he was sitting, then reappears next to Cory, ripping her from the arms of the werewolf that had tried to catch her fall.

  I take a step and teleport to her, pushing at the stupid wolf who was getting between my sister and me. I pushed and pulled to grab my sister from the black-hearted asshole who pushed her to this. She always found a way, it was as if she couldn’t fail a promise. Shane grabbed her from me so hard I thought he might have pulled her arm out of the socket and pissing me the fuck off.

  He looks at me with glowing eyes, "What did she do?"

  I can't even answer him because I don't know what the potion was, but I know that some potions are irreversible. A binding potion would be one of the harder ones to undo.

  Several people are gathering around now and terror is gripping me. I reach down and try to push my magic into her but it won’t go. It’s as if there is something stopping my magic from entering her. Shane puts his hands on her and I can see his eyes squeeze. He opens his eye and he is figuring out the same thing as I did. She’s blocked us. She’s too smart for her own good. If she died, I was going to become the first Carver necromancer. I wasn’t losing my sister today. Or ever.

  I try shaking her. Cory has been out for too long, she’s not breathing and she has no heart beat. I feel completely defeated, still trying to push my healing magic in her.

  “I can’t feel her,” I say to myself.

  “Me neither,” he mumbles.

  She did it. She broke the bonds she had with Shane and, incidentally, me as well. Shane is still pouring in his magic and speaking under his breath. Then he hits Cory on the chest and screams, "Wake up dammit! I didn’t mean this…"

  The people around me begin to fade from me. I can feel nothing and hear nothing. It's like a dark hole just swallowed me. Shane pulls her further into his lap and I see him grab her hand and kiss her open palm. "Prenez mon Coeur de Cory (Take my heart Cory)." He just gave his heart to my sister. She couldn’t die now. I should feel relieved but instead I feel weak. I fall to my hands. I feel the very last drop of magic leave my body and I still push my magic into her.

  My hands are bright red and burning. Without reason I begin to rock as tears are coming out of my eyes and I don't want anyone to see this. Shane is crouched over Cory and has wrapped them in a ball of fire. It would have burned me in the shoulder but I’m made of fire so he can’t hurt me, either.

  She’s taken. Mated to a Carver. A jackass Carver who pushed her to her limits. She won’t be able to fix that. My little sister is now a slave to Shane, the offspring of the man who tortured her. How could I let this happen? How could I have been so wrong? Now she’s in the same boat. She’s connected to someone who doesn’t love her. I failed her.

  I feel someone pulling me up and putting their arms under my back and legs. "Dar?" I hear a man say his name, as if it's a question.

  "She's my mate. I am taking her home," his words are cold. If I had any energy, I would say something wildly insulting.

  "They will find out," the man warns.

  "Take those two back to the healer’s house and get them help," Dar says with calm confidence. "Duretta. Let the council know that we have them."

  "Dar," a young woman's voice says, "she's a Carver not a wolf. How can she be your mate?"

  "How indeed," is all I hear him say. Then I feel the wind over my skin and I know Dar is running.

  * * *

  I wake up smelling way too much of Dar. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that I dreamt all of it. I couldn’t have heard Dar call me his mate with disdain, and see my sister take a potion that might have killed her. Nope. That’s not my reality, I decide. I am not going to open my eyes until my world is back to normal.

  "I know you're awake," Dar says.

  I want to roll my eyes. Considering he knows everything I am thinking and feeling, I guess the thought is good enough. It's stupid to hold in my feelings around him.

  "Yea it's stupid to try and hide it," he says, in the same irritated tone he always uses with me.

  "Where’s my sister?" I ask while I roll out of a bed that’s way too high off the ground. It has a hand carved backboard with several swirls that looked like wolf paws. The footboard is also hand carved but it looks more like claw marks. The windows are dark. I look for a clock of some kind to tell me what time it is.

  "Four in the morning. Your sister is in our pack healer’s house." He is holding a blue mug, sitting in a thick, dark brown leather chair with his feet on the nightstand. It looks so comfortable you could live in it.

  Dar smirked.

  I quickly turn around, causing my vision to blur. My head was filling up with fuzzies. I felt dizzy. Fighting the haze, I need to get as far away from Dar as I can.


  "I can hear you!" He grumbles behind me as I stumble out of the bedroom I pray isn’t his.

  "I know. But I can't help it," I relent. My vision returns and the fuzziness fades.

  "Try."

  I look around the hallway and spot the bathroom. I can feel the film on my teeth. I feel gross. I haven't taken a shower since Saturday morning. It's been almost twenty-four hours.

  "Actually it has been close to two days," he says as he opens a cabinet in the hallway and pulls out two towels.

  I close my palm over my mouth. Eeeeww. I don't want to be around anyone with two-day-old breath.

  Dar laughs quietly. "I had to open the windows," he snickers.

  Oh gross. I walk past Dar to the bathroom grabbing the towels as I pass. I take in a deep breath and make sure I can feel my magic. It's there and ready.

  Good.

  "Don't you dare," I hear Dar say behind me.

  "You don't run me, Dar. I need to get Cory and go home and find somewhere safe for us." My confidence is undeniable. He can't keep me here.

  "You’re not leaving," he orders in his tone.

  I roll my eyes. But at the same time I can feel my fire flickering. I wait for the pain to ensure I follow his order. Dar inhales slowly. "You shouldn't leave," he amends, trying not to sound like an overbearing brute.

  I am not a brute!

  I chuff, "Overbearing brute." I step in the bathroom and try to close the door in his face. He stops the door with one hand. Dar shakes his head, "You can't leave. The Council has been here for a day to discuss the situation with the Carvers."

  I don't answer to the Magic Council. The words wanted to come out but I didn’t want to discuss it with him. Not with two-day-old breath.

  Dar grimaces slightly then recovers. "Yep. Just like a Carver. You care only for yourself. After your tantrum the other day, all the Carvers will know you’re here, or at least, they will know you were here. Which leaves the citizens and magical creatures in this area in danger. But of course, you don't care."