Dragon's Gift: The Protector 02 Trial by Magic

by Linsey Hall

  They stilled in their tracks, staring at her.

  I kept running, praying it would work. Del could communicate with Pond Flower and she, hopefully, could communicate with the others.

  Since we only had a few non-lethal weapons, it was our only chance to get out of here without bloodshed or being caught.

  “I think it’s working,” Del gasped from beside me.

  I turned my head, craning my neck to get a peek. Pond Flower was holding off the other dogs, her fur blazing with her protective black flame. She only broke that out occasionally, and I hoped she was doing it now to prove that she was the Alpha.

  At least the dogs weren’t chasing us any longer, so I figured it was working.

  We were still forty meters from the building when one of the back doors opened and figures spilled out onto the grass.

  Guards. Demons, from the look of their horns. They couldn’t see us—not as long as this invisibility potion held out—but they had to be wondering what the hell the guard dogs were up to.

  “Go!” I hissed. “To the bushes!”

  My friends sprinted toward cover as I conjured my bow and dropped to my knee, taking aim. The first arrow pierced a demon in the neck, the second went straight through another demon’s eye. Gag.

  I took out the last four in quick succession.

  Ares ran straight for the demons, fast as lightning. He grabbed two by the legs and dragged them into the bushes, returning for the other four. Within moments, the scene had been cleared as if they’d never come outside.

  I sure hoped they were the only ones who’d wondered about the dogs’ activity. I gripped my bow and ran for my friends, joining them in the shadows of the large hedges.

  Pond Flower sat in the yard with the guard dogs, keeping them at bay. They were either her friends or her minions, but it didn’t really matter as long as they left us alone.

  The others turned to face me.

  Cass whispered, “Ready?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Ready,” I whispered.

  I called upon my dragon sense, just like we’d planned. Cass and Del did the same, all of us searching for Claire. She was the priority, then the beaker, then information about the dragon gang.

  “I’ve got something,” Cass said.

  I got a tug too, directing me into the building. “Me too.”

  “Subtly first,” I said. “Don’t let them know we’re here.”

  Though we had enough magical firepower to light this place up, that defied the point of safely rescuing Claire and recovering a delicate artifact.

  Stealth was our best bet, here.

  As a group, we crept toward the double doors that our demon attackers had spilled from. One by one, we slipped into a massive foyer. The floor was marble and the chandelier pure gold. My FireSoul tugged toward it, confirming its nature.

  It looked like it should be in a mansion instead of an old factory—the mob boss had done some decorating, it seemed.

  “Swanky place,” Cass whispered.

  “No kidding. Someone is establishing their status.” At least the foyer was empty. Whoever had been in here had run out to see what the dogs were up to, but apparently hadn’t alerted anyone else. Thank fates for small favors.

  We crept through the foyer and down a wide hallway paneled in gold silk. Crystal chandeliers dotted the hallway, sending sparkling light over the gleaming wood floor.

  Whoever lived here wanted everyone to know that he was doing well. It had to cost a hell of a lot to do up an old factory like this. But then, money wasn’t a problem for this guy, it seemed. And he’d want to maintain a low-profile, so using this old place was ideal.

  We took several turns, winding our way through the labyrinthine structure and passing by several groups of guards in various rooms. Some played poker in a library, others ate pizza in a small kitchen. They all looked like bruisers and most sported visible dragon tattoos.

  This place was like a mobster’s hangout, where they killed time between crimes and whatever other crap mobsters did. Most of the groups perked up when we snuck by. Even though they seemed to sense a change in the energy, they didn’t see us.

  We reached a wide hall that was less glamorously decorated. At the end, two hulking guards stood in front of a door. They were demons, their large horns protruding from their heads. Weapons hung off their vests, gleaming in the light.

  My dragon sense pulled hard toward the door they guarded.

  I pointed, nodding. Cass and Del nodded as well, their dragon senses backing me up.

  “Who’s there?” The guard’s voice was gruff, suspicious.

  “Show yourself!” demanded the other.

  Connor stepped forward, hurling one of his sleeping potions right at the guard on the left. It exploded against his chest in a splash of blue, and he keeled over.

  The other guard began to shout, but I fired an arrow directly into his neck. He gurgled and fell.

  With the guards out, we ran toward the door. It was a massive wooden affair, with a heavy padlock near the handle. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a normal lock, with a keyhole that I could pick. This one was magical.

  Aidan, our resident magical security expert, reached for it, his fingers outstretched warily. He touched the metal briefly, then withdrew his hand. “Enchanted.”

  Shit.

  He dug into his pocket and pulled out a spell stripper, a rare artifact that my deirfiúr and I had envied as soon as we’d realized he had one. It allowed him to break past almost any enchantment, which would come in handy in our work.

  Aidan ran the little silver orb around the lock, then frowned. “It’s not working.”

  “That’s rare,” Cass said.

  “So are the enchantments protecting the compound,” he said.

  “We’ll have to break the door down,” Ares said.

  “Too loud.” My mind raced. “We’re trapped back here. I don’t want demons catching us.”

  “Any ideas, then?” Del asked.

  “Yeah.” I sucked in a breath and touched my fingertips to the metal lock. The magic within the metal pricked against my skin, stinging like little wasp attacks. I closed my mind against the pain, focusing on my Destroyer magic. Envisioning it as a wind that I forced into the lock.

  Break. Crumble. Disappear.

  It took a moment as my magic swirled inside of me, but eventually the lock began to crumble away.

  “Wicked!” Connor said.

  “New talent,” I murmured.

  The last of the metal fell away. I pushed against the door. It swung open to reveal a dark, windowless room. Claire sat propped against the wall, her head slumped over her shoulder. I rushed in, my friends following.

  Before I reached her, a commotion sounded from behind us. I glanced back, catching sight of demons flooding into the hall down the way. Six of them at least.

  Immediately, two of them hurled blue balls of magic that I’d never seen before. They coalesced in the air to form rocks, one of which glanced right off of Connor’s head. He collapsed against the ground, a rag doll.

  “I’ve got this,” Ares said. He sprinted down the hall toward the demons, dodging their blasts of magic and colliding with the first two like a tornado.

  He was so fast, and so strong, that he’d broken three necks within the first three seconds. Working in such close proximity, boxed in by all the walls, gave him a massive advantage. The enemy had nowhere to run, except back the way they had come, and he took out the demons in record time.

  I turned back to Claire, dropping to my knees beside her.

  Her dark hair fell into her eyes and a nasty bruise bloomed on her cheek. Del and Cass crowded around me.

  Aidan and Roarke were tending to Connor.

  Gently, I shook Claire’s shoulder. “Come on, wake up, pal.”

  Groggily, she shook her head. When her gaze landed on us, her eyes brightened. “Knew you guys would make it.”

  Her words were slightly slurred, and I realized her lips
were fatter than normal. Whatever had happened, Claire had put up a fight. And since she was such a badass, whoever she’d been fighting had been no slouch.

  Anger seethed in my chest, a black tar of rage that threatened to consume me.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Fine.” She struggled to stand. We helped her.

  On the ground, Connor was still out cold.

  “We’ve got to get them out of here,” I said.

  “Aidan and Roarke can fly them out, over the sea,” Cass said. “We’ll go get the beaker. And the bastard who did this.”

  I nodded. It was the best plan. Claire could ride Aidan in his griffon form, and Roarke, who hadn’t transformed from his demon shape, could carry the unconscious Connor.

  I hugged Claire, who returned the gesture, though weakly. “I’m sorry you got nabbed.”

  “Eh, no problem.” She pulled back and smiled. “Now go get those bastards.”

  I grinned—which was really more a baring of my non-existent fangs—and nodded. Aidan helped Claire down the hall while Roarke carried an unconscious Connor. Cass, Del, Ares, and I split off from them, intent on finding the boss and the beaker.

  My dragon sense pulled me back the way we came, so we snuck back by several of the rooms full of gangsters. We were lucky that they hadn’t heard the commotion, but tension tightened my skin anyway as we crept past the open doors full of criminals.

  I imagined that any one of them could have beaten up Claire, and though I wanted to go in there and crack some heads, we really needed to find the boss.

  We’d just crept by the last open door when my skin pricked coldly.

  Shit.

  “Invisibility charm is wearing off,” I whispered. We’d used up our whole hour.

  But we were close to our destination. I could feel it. Just up one floor. When we reached a massive foyer with a grand staircase, it was clear which way we should go. As a group, we hovered in the doorway, checking out the foyer and stairs for any threats.

  “Clear,” Ares whispered. “I hear nothing.”

  His hearing was better than ours, so I’d take him at his word. We hurried across the gleaming marble floor and up the thick dark carpet covering the stairs. I followed my dragon sense left, heading down a wide hall that was a good fifty feet long.

  This place was enormous.

  We were about halfway down the hall and almost to our destination by the time the horde of demons appeared. Ten, total. There were some mages too, from the look of them, and all looked shocked, then pissed as hell to see us.

  Two mages raised their hands, a surefire signal that they were about to throw some kind of magic at us.

  Shit.

  My heart thundered. Quickly, I conjured a barrier of sandbags, which were surprisingly good at blocking magic and fireballs. As a unit, Cass, Del, and I dropped to our knees behind the barrier.

  Ares, marching to the beat of his own drummer, leapt over the thing right as a demon threw a fireball at us. The vampire dodged it, racing toward the attackers.

  “Keep to the left!” I called as I fired an arrow down the right side of the hall. It pierced a demon right through the neck and he tumbled backward.

  Cass and Del threw fireballs and icicles, keeping their attack to the right side of the hall so they wouldn’t hit Ares. But the precaution was unnecessary. He was so fast that he took out three demons, all while avoiding our blasts. It was like he could keep track of the demons and our weapons simultaneously, delivering death blows while dodging Cass’s fireballs, Del’s icicles, and my arrows.

  All the while, our attackers hurled fireballs and great blasts of wind at our sandbag barrier. One of the wind blasts hit me in the face, throwing me backward. I crashed against the ground, pain flaring in my back.

  I blinked, clearing my vision, then scrambled upward as Cass was blasted backward by another shot of wind. Fortunately, Del nailed the elemental mage right in the chest. Her icicle plunged gruesomely into muscle and flesh, sending the mage hurtling backward.

  Ares broke the neck of the last demon, and the hall grew quiet.

  “Come on!” I leapt over the sandbag barrier. The commotion we’d caused had definitely alerted anyone else in the building.

  We raced down the hall toward the door at the end. It was closed, but my dragon sense was dead certain it was our destination.

  And stealth was no longer an option.

  “Break down the door,” I said to Ares, knowing he could take it out in a flash.

  Ares sprinted ahead, crashing through the wooden door like a freaking cannon. We followed, racing into the room.

  The scene was so cliched I almost laughed. I would have, if the cold, dark magic floating in the room hadn’t made me want to wet my pants.

  It vibrated from the man sitting at the wide, wooden desk.

  The Master, as Aleric had called him.

  No question about it.

  Time slowed in my head as I took in the surroundings. It wasn’t just my fright or the stress. No—this man was part of my fate. This was my fate, a snowball that was about to roll down a mountain, gaining size and momentum with every inch until it exploded against a tree or some other immoveable force.

  This was the moment the snowball went over the edge of the mountain.

  The man at the desk was pale with dark hair, wearing a fancy suit and half a dozen golden rings on his frighteningly elegant fingers. His eyes were black pits, like there was no soul within. Just a direct access portal to hell. The magic that rolled off him smelled like rotting garbage and felt like a kick to the gut.

  Two beakers sat in front of him, identical clay vases.

  My beakers.

  Around him, massive men in suits shoved papers and objects into heavy black briefcases.

  “Making a run for it?” I asked.

  My friends didn’t wait for the answer. They immediately began to hurl fireballs and icicles at the man behind the desk. He raised a hand, creating a forcefield that deflected the weapons.

  “You’ve compromised our location.” His voice was so cold that I shivered.

  His shield began to crack a moment later, a white line streaking down through the invisible forcefield. He looked at the men to his right, gaze calm. “Attack.”

  I drew my bow, firing an arrow at the man nearest Del. It pierced him in the neck. Ares moved like lighting, his shadow sword drawn and his face a deadly mask. He took down the boss’s minions left and right, but more flowed into the room.

  Cass’s next fireball put a huge shatter mark on the boss’s invisible shield. His brow furrowed.

  He reached for the beaker. Del shot an icicle. It crashed against the shield, plowing through it and slicing across the boss’s arm. Blood spurted.

  He cursed and grabbed the briefcase nearest him, then reached below the desk for a moment. He didn’t pull anything out, but turned and ran, straight for a door behind his desk.

  He left the beakers, which apparently weren’t worth that much to him.

  I sprinted after him. “I’ve got him!”

  “We’re coming!” Cass yelled. One of her fireballs exploded against the wall to my right.

  She, Del, and Ares were still busy fighting off the boss’s goons as I chased him through the doorway and up a narrow set of stairs. They curved around and I lost sight of him, but I could hear his pounding footsteps.

  We climbed at least two stories up, but he was always just out of sight. Above, a door slammed open and a loud roar filled the stairwell. I sprinted harder, pushing myself as my lungs burned and my heart thundered.

  I couldn’t lose him.

  I spilled out onto the rooftop. A helicopter was waiting for the man. The rotors spun, blasting wind that tore at my hair and made my eyes water.

  The boss was sprinting toward the open chopper door, his stride sure and quick. He wore a suit but ran like a warrior.

  I raised my bow and fired, right for his back. The shot was true, the arrow flying straight.

&n
bsp; The chopper pilot flung out his hand, sending a streak of lighting right for my arrow. It collided with the slender shaft, incinerating it in an instant.

  A moment later, he threw another bolt at me. I dived to the side, crashing against the cement roof and barely avoiding the lighting.

  I scrambled up just as the boss jumped into the helicopter. It took off immediately, flying high into the sky. I stood, rage and panic fighting within me. My mind raced, searching for a way—any way—to stop them.

  Wind from the sea whipped over the roof as my comms charm vibrated with magic.

  “Get off the roof!” Cass screamed. “Bomb! Six seconds!”

  Holy shit!

  My skin chilled as instinct took over. Instantly, I realized what he’d done when he’d reached under the desk. He’d pressed the button for a bomb, destroying all evidence that this place might contain. Just like his men ate the cyanide tablets so that we couldn’t learn from their bodies.

  I dropped my bow and sprinted for the side of the roof, mind suddenly cold and calculating. Five seconds left. I was four stories up. Too far to jump, too short a time to rappel down.

  That left only one option.

  Flight.

  In a huge surge, I pushed all my magic toward my conjuring gift, creating a small hang glider. It took all of my magic to conjure it the way it needed to be—with the harness already around my waist. Four seconds left.

  My hands gripped the bars and the harness wrapped around my waist as I sprinted full tilt for the edge of the roof. Three seconds left.

  I leapt off the edge, praying as the hang glider caught the strong sea wind and carried me away from the building. Two stories below me, a huge glass window shattered, the glass flying outward. A griffon charged out into the night sky, Del clinging to her back. Ares leapt from the window, landing on the lawn with a feral grace. He sprinted away as the griffon flew high into the sky.

  The blast rocked my world, deafening me. The force of the blow tore the fabric from my hang glider. Heat warmed me, fiery hot. I tumbled, end over end, as the explosion pushed me away from the building.

  I was still two stories above the ground, going way too fast and way too out of control. Beneath me, Ares sprinted as if to catch me.