Blaze: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Spelldrift: Coven of Fire Book 4)

by Sierra Cross

  As the Splinter was locking my crate door, Daria swooped over to Asher. “You get the last witch. I’ll move this sack of worthless meat.” She hooked her arms under Asher’s shoulders and with effort began dragging him toward his cell. Her head was bent down toward his neck. Was she whispering something to him?

  No sooner had the last of our crates been locked shut than the first tech came whistling into the room.

  Apparently Daria and Callista has succeeded in keeping our escape attempt to themselves.

  One by one, the medical team arrived and began bustling around. Preparing for the harvest procedure that would most likely kill Bethany.

  I barely noticed when Daria wheeled the food cart in for “take two” on breakfast.

  “Here.” Daria flung a four-inch square white plastic pouch in through the bars of my cage. It smacked me in the face, and she laughed. “Serves you right.”

  I tore the sack open. It was a single ring of pineapple. Was this a joke? And then I remembered Asher had said it had been their safe word—for what, I didn’t want to know. So was this a signal? Or was she simply taunting him? Daria moved on to the other side of the room before I could get any inkling from her. Once her cart was empty, she left the lab, throwing me a wicked sneer on the way out.

  The room was quieter than usual. The sense of preparing for something big permeated the air. Every tech, nurse and doctor diving in with laser focus on their preparations.

  The lights flickered. Blinked out and the backup lights flickered on. There was a small gasp from the workers in the dimly lit room.

  A loud blaring alarm sounded, and red lights by the tops of every doorway flashed in a rapid rhythm. A voice came over the speaker system. “This is not a drill. Containment breach detected. All personnel are required to evacuate the south wing. Proceed to evacuation route B1. Repeat, proceed to evacuation route B1.”

  A tech, his syringe poised over Bethany’s IV, looked up in panic.

  Daria bounded across the room with a high-tech clear plexi version of a gas mask fitted over her heart-shaped face. “Are you deaf?” Daria mocked. “Move it, people.”

  “But the donor,” the doctor protested.

  “And the other subjects?” a tech asked timidly.

  “You know the drill, affix masks and exit the facility.” Daria gave her portable monitoring station a shove and turned toward the door. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my DNA scrambled by any of the crap that is in containment in this wing. You’ve seen it in action.”

  “Yeah.” The tech with the IV dropped the needle. “It only takes one person to affix masks. Private, as the lowest ranking tech.” He pointed to a wide-eyed young woman that barely looked twenty. “That’s you. Everyone else proceed to the exit.”

  The private was a slight woman whose lip began to quiver immediately. “But I don’t know where the masks are located?”

  “Figure it out,” the lead demanded as he pushed his way through the broken door into the hallway.

  “Really? You’re pathetic. Get out of here,” Daria said with disdain. “I’ll do it.” The tech didn’t even look at Daria, she just sprinted to the door.

  The backup lights flickered, and even the security lights and screeching alarm stopped. Plunging the room into an eerily silent blackness.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “You’re going to need to fix me up with a new identity.” Daria, fitted with a headlamp, flipped open the locks on my cage and then went to Griffin’s. She checked her watch as she moved. “In a location so far off the grid I can’t even find myself.”

  “I hear Siberia has great…snow,” Matt said.

  “Also bears,” I added helpfully.

  “I’ll take it.” The white light from Daria’s headlamp swung around the lab, casting long shadows, mostly rendering it either too bright or too dark to see anything. The only other light was the LED monitors connected to Bethany, that must be running on their own battery backup. I tumbled out of my cell onto the floor, my muscles were protesting against the request to stand upright. With my cheek pressed against the cold, smooth linoleum, my magic started waking up. Last night’s dance with the magical-deterrent DJ had really done a number on me.

  “Chop, chop people.” Daria unlocked Liv’s cell then Asher’s and Matt’s and checked her watch again. “We have about three minutes to clear this level—or we get used to the view.”

  “It’s nice to know you actually do have a soul,” Asher said in a raspy voice.

  “You can keep your praise,” Daria snapped. “I’ll take my reward in sexual favors later. Right now we need to hurry the fuck out of this building and hit the docks. We have a small window to commandeer a boat at shift change.” She checked the monitors connected to Bethany. “Damn. They’ve put her in full donor stasis.”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked. Whatever that was, it did not sound good.

  “Means someone will have to carry her.” She began releasing the straps. As the IV slid from Bethany’s hand, the monitors started going wild. “Shit.”

  “Put the IV back in,” Matt demanded.

  “That’s the last thing she needs.” Daria exhaled and ran her hand over her face. “The drugs in her system are simulating a massive fight or flight reaction.” As she spoke, she walked from Bethany to her cart. She lifted the heavy black fabric draped over the shelves to reveal a trove of weapons and sundry protective items. “It diverts all her body’s resources to funding her magical abilities for protection. It makes it easier to collect the serum. But her organs will eventually shut down.” She tossed a flashlight and what looked like a wardsuit-styled vest at Liv and Asher.

  Liv caught the items, but her eyes flashed in anger. “You did this to her on purpose?”

  “Whoa, not me,” Daria said raising her hands and stepping back. “I just mess with computers.”

  “Good god, at least you didn’t say you were ‘just following orders.’” Asher shook his head. “Points for originality?”

  “Daria, you need to face the fact that you bear some responsibility for—” Liv’s rage was cut off by the heart monitor’s alarm shifting to a steady piercing shriek. The heart flatlining. Bethany was in cardiac arrest.

  “She’s as good as gone,” Daria said, checking her watch. “We need to get out of here, or we’ll be gone too.”

  “Uh, we’re not leaving the kid behind,” I said.

  “We’re down to a minute and a half!” Daria yelled, as if we were the unreasonable ones.

  “Fuck that.” Matt shoved Daria into the console wall so hard the plastic cover cracked. He spread his huge hands over Bethany’s torso, and a shimmering swirl of golden magic left his fingers and pulsed, melding with the young witch’s withering life force.

  Matt scooped up Bethany in his big arms. She coughed, and relief washed over his face, but it was clouded by fatigue. I wondered what saving her had cost his already weakened body? “It’s okay, kid,” he said. “You’re gonna be okay.”

  “Yeah, we’re all okay,” Daria said sarcastically, “if by okay you mean roasted on a spit at the next big demon dinner…”

  “Bitch, we’re the Coven of Fire,” Liv spat the words at Daria. “And we won’t go down without a fight.”

  “We’re down to thirty-nine seconds. The system will be rebooted by the time we make it down the stairwell. Lights. Camera. Action…of the tertiant laser.” Daria leaned back against the console.

  Liv flung a vest at me. Griffin grabbed a Fidei version of a dagger and a gun holster that barely fit over his shoulders. Damn, I needed one of those. I reached in and pulled out a twin to Griffin’s. It hung loosely on me. I yanked the straps, trying to tighten it up.

  Our magic was rallying together. I felt the Splinter at the far edge—she’d be here in a minute. “True…any ideas of what that fight might look like?” I asked my coven. Silence. “I guess we wing it. Ladies and gents, remember to duck.”

  “Wait. A protective web,” Liv said, gears in her head
spinning. “I taught myself how to throw one when I was researching Splinter separation.”

  For a moment there I thought she might be onto something, but Asher shook his head. “It would only keep them off us for as long as we could hold it. And the deterrent would burn it out fast enough.”

  “No, not to keep them out.” Liv’s eyes were bright with excitement. “Alter it to keep them in.”

  “Wait, that could work,” Asher said. “But we’d never be able to get them close enough together without grabbing us to catch them all in it.”

  I thought back to the Protection Spells chapter in my mother’s book, and snapped my fingers. “A mirror spell!”

  “That’s it. Brilliant.” Asher’s energy surged with the possibility.

  “And are you all brilliant enough to do it in twenty-four seconds?” Daria posed. “Because that’s all we got.”

  The sounds of heavy booted feet thumping down the hall punctuated her words.

  There was a groaning sound, and the backup lights flickered on.

  “Shit,” Daria said. “They’ve got the generators online.”

  Bad as that was, right now I was far more worried about the thunderous footsteps of the approaching army. We all ducked into a corner to hide while I muttered the words of the mirror spell, as quickly as my vocal chords could push them out. Then I shrank into the shadows, willing every muscle to be inanimate. My coven mates’ clenched breath hissed in my ears and I prayed it wasn’t loud enough for anyone else to hear.

  Black-uniformed Fidei soldiers pounded through the doorway, taking an instant to survey the room. I knew exactly what they were seeing: our coven, standing in front of the console in a tight-knit circle, back to back, ready for battle. Within moments, they had us surrounded.

  Only it wasn’t really us, but the mirror spell’s illusion.

  With the soldiers’ ceramic guns pointed safely in the opposite direction from us, Liv yelled from her crouched position, “Now!”

  Our coven energy swirled and pulsed toward her, and the spell flew from her skilled hands, a golden mesh of energy sailing up and spreading wide. The protection web looked like a gossamer trail of light, but it might as well have been a ton of bricks by the way it knocked the soldiers into a heap.

  I passed my hand across the air in front of Liv, uttering the end of the mirror spell under my breath. The illusion of my coven in front of the console dissipated like smoke.

  “Great, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Daria said.

  Matt picked up Bethany, and we all headed for the exit.

  We moved in precision formation. Griffin and Liv at the front. A barely functioning Asher hobbling next to Matt, who was carrying Bethany with one hand and dagger in the other, in the middle. Daria and me—practically walking up the stairs backward—bringing up the rear. We were loaded down with all the weapons Daria had been able to stash in her cart. Which was good, because after the magic we’d pulled off in the lab after the torture and lodestone drain, we weren’t exactly swimming in power.

  The twilight of backup power lent an eerie half-light to the stairwell. There were so many floors up above us that looking up, it looked like a mirage.

  “You’re sure this will take us to the beach?” I asked Daria.

  She confirmed with an exhausted grunt. We were already running out of energy, and we had so far to go.

  Distant voices and thumps sounded all around us—impossible to tell what direction the noises were coming from. We climbed in silence, desperate to keep our presence hidden.

  The stairs turned as we passed the one floor after the next. Ignoring the burning in my quads, I kept lifting one foot after the other, thinking the Stairmasters at the Millennium Dynamics gym were nothing compared to this place. At last I could see the top level—only three more floors to go. We were going to make it.

  I backed across the flat stretch of a landing that marked the eleventh level we’d ascended when the door blew off its hinges and took a toboggan ride downward. Callista appeared in the doorway…followed by all the young witches, red firebolts glowing on all their fingertips.

  My heart skipped as they flooded into the stairwell, flinging blasts without blinking.

  Callista smiled as my coven sprang into action, dodging and deflecting blasts. “Silly gooses.” She cracked her neck and called her green magic to her hands, her pace unhurried. “You didn’t really think this lame escape attempt would work, did you?”

  Green fire burned on her fingertips, and she moved it back and forth, from one to the other like she was playing with a child’s toy. But the fire was a deeper green, more intense than any power I’d seen her call. She was just biding her time as she continued to increase the blast’s strength.

  Why wouldn’t she? We were outnumbered. She understood the toll their torture had taken on our abilities. Even Daria’s weapons would only dent their numbers, at best. Our coven bond pulsed and the energy surged, but the reserves were empty. This foray, if we survived it, would really sap our strength. As I calculated our odds a bolt winged Asher in the shoulder.

  He groaned in agony as the fire ripped across his flesh.

  The Splinter threw back her head and laughed with glee—but mid-cackle, her expression blanked, and her head began to do that weird sci-fi super-speed shake, her face blurring before my eyes. After a few moments of her shaking, I felt a ping in the coven bond.

  Soft. Weak. Not even as noticeable as a whisper. If I hadn’t just been focused on the connection, I would have missed it entirely. But it told me what I needed to know. Callie was still alive, still suffering. She’d called out to us. Determination fueled me now. We could not leave Callie behind.

  Liv threw a shield, as did Callista—protecting her young witches as they readied for more battle. Firebolts whizzed back and forth. Shouts rang out echoing off the cement walls of the stairwell. And for me, time slowed down. I could hear Matt screaming my name as he struggled to call his magic and hold Bethany.

  Panic, pain, and fury coursed through our coven connection. And a thought was at the edge of my mind. I needed to remember something. Something Pillar had said to me…I needed to pull her out so Matt could heal her. My Dominion Gene.

  I focused on the whisper I’d just felt in our connection, that was my way in. Chaos reigned around, but all I could feel was our bond. I dove deep into it, feeling every nuance. Every magical signature was all wrapped up together. Matt, Liv, Asher. I felt their pain and fatigue. And Callie was there too. Hers was the slimmest of threads. Carefully as I could, I pulled on that thread, teased it apart from the others, followed where it led.

  “Stop it, you big dummy, stop!” Callista’s eyes were wide with full-on crazy now. Could she feel what I was doing? Her arm dropped back and, she started flinging green firebolts at our shield. By the third hit, I felt Liv stumble. We couldn’t take much more of this. I pulled harder. And felt the pure essence of Callie’s soul, swimming in a black tar sea of evil.

  “Alix, you stupid witch!” Callista’s voice was a high-pitched screech. “I’ll make you pay for this.”

  But I’d found my hook—Callie was there waiting for me, drawing me in deeper. The Splinter stomped her feet and redoubled her efforts. It was the ultimate game of tug of war. And it burned as Callie and I pulled, and the Splinter pulled back.

  Callista slammed her hands to the sides of her head as if she could squeeze me out. Her green magic encircled her head. She opened her mouth and roared. The sound reverberated off the walls. It was working, my hold was slipping.

  I dropped to my knees. Matt was yelling my name. No time to reassure him I was okay. I was losing too much ground.

  Then I felt it: Callie’s soul stirred inside her body, jostling the Splinter. The Splinter was still there, but for the moment at least her demonic essence was no longer perfectly centered in Callie’s body. It was the metaphysical version of a corkscrew punch to the jaw. The green fire vanished. And in my mind’s landscape I heard a cry ring out, Callie’s war
cry. Her energy was helping me as much as mine was helping her, tying knots in the “rope” for me to grab onto. It was what I needed for traction, and I yanked with all my might.

  With a final yank, the resistance on the rope disintegrated. Once again with my help, Callie’s pure soul crashed into the Splinter’s hollow one, dislocating her a tiny bit more. Out of energy, Callie stopped and their shared body fell forward. Bouncing down Liv’s shield, skin burning as she tumbled to the ground, unconscious.

  “Callie!” Liv screamed. No doubt they could all feel her presence now, weak as it still was.

  I heard squeals from the young witches. As Callie had fallen, so did Callista’s shield. Golden firebolts began to hit their marks, singing and burning the witches’ flesh. Reducing them to panic. Girls scrambled over each other to back out of the stairwell.

  “Time to regroup, girls!” Tenebris’s voice boomed over the speaker system, startling the hell out of me, but not slowing their retreat by one iota. “Tanney, throw a veil. Iris, cover Tanney.”

  “Forget about Evil Daddy, come with us!” Asher yelled at the retreating witches. “We can break his hold over you!”

  “Hold your ground, vessels!” Tenebris countered. “Get back in here and take down your quarry like good girls.”

  But he was wasting his breath. The witches were gone. Given that they normally faced tied-up, pre-weakened foes, it was no surprise they’d bailed at the first sign of danger.

  No one had to say run. Griffin scooped up the passed-out Callie like she was a bride he was carrying over the threshold, and we pounded up the last three flights.

  Daria blew the door to smithereens.

  Daylight burned my eyes and, my lungs expanded to take in the first breath of fresh air I’d had in days.

  We didn’t slow our pace as we sprinted across the ten-foot-wide ring of landscape and submerged ourselves into the dense jungle. Palm fronds slashed my face and hands like razor wire. But my feet pounded forward, jumping roots, dodging branches. How far was it to the beach? And what the hell were we running toward?