by K. F. Breene
Vlad and Darius stared at the shifter in silence, and thankfully my phone buzzed again.
I looked down at the screen. “‘I can’t duplicate that reading within the crystal ball,’” I read aloud. “‘I would imagine it means the woods, but keep your eyes peeled in case that isn’t it.’
“I mean…she probably would’ve said woods if she’d meant woods,” I said, reading the text again.
“It’s not an exact science,” Reagan said. “So let’s just keep our eyes peeled.”
“No, it is not,” Vlad murmured, bringing up his own phone. “It is a wonder we are putting so much faith in it.”
“If there is anyone who can make you a believer, it is Penny’s mom.” Emery took my hand. “The window is closing. Let’s go.”
“They’re probably bringing people back from their failed attempts at sabotaging us,” I said, pushing through the trees. If he had a path in mind other than down the slope, I couldn’t tell.
“That, or the Guild has been alerted to us taking off, and they’re preparing for us to show up here.”
Another good point.
“Stop there, Emery. Penny.” Roger held up a fist, holding his phone to his ear with the other hand.
“This will be a wonderful chance to see how they work in animal form.” Vlad unbuttoned his coat jacket as he caught up with us. Apparently he’d be going in our group.
I did not miss Cahal stepping closer to me. He didn’t trust Vlad.
“I’ve always wondered how they communicate with all those teeth.” Vlad gave me a flawless smile, his face speckled with moonlight.
“Like you can talk,” I said, and immediately regretted it when his smile spread. That smile wasn’t rainbows and flowers.
Another set of shivers crawled up my spine.
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear as the night moved. Shapes emerged from the shadows to my right to form a loose horde behind us, vampires all, in their monster forms, with long, sharp claws and gaping, fang-filled mouths. More shapes moved through the new night, slipping out from beneath bushes or around trees, barely making a sound.
The shivers zipping up my spine were starting to get frustrating. Still holding Emery’s hand, because it kept me from jumping around like a lunatic and making a fool of myself, I flipped up the flap of the compartment holding Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky and brushed my fingertips across its surface. It was there, all right, happy to ride along.
Understanding punched me in the face.
This stone had always liked danger. It was happiest getting a ride with the most dangerous person in the group, largely because (I suspected) that person would likely draw the most fire and fury from enemies. It usually let out a pulse of power before a big attack, but once it was actually in battle, it just chugged along, waiting for the user to draw from it.
“It’s started,” I said, heart ricocheting around my ribcage. “It’s already started. The battle has begun.”
Emery turned to me, but shadows draped his face and hid his expression. “I don’t see any magic. The shifters and vampires would smell people if they were close.”
I bit my lip, starting forward. Feeling the rightness of doing so. Feeling the pull to get moving. “It’s just…”
When Emery didn’t move with me, I loosened my hand to let go of him. He immediately followed me, his trust hopefully not misplaced.
Cahal wasn’t far away, shadowing us. A moment later, I heard movement behind us. A backward glance revealed Vlad had changed into a white, swampy monster, his shifted form relaying his age and power. He was leading the rest of the vampires down with us.
The shifters hesitated, looking up the slope, probably for Roger’s sign to go. My phone vibrated in my utility belt.
“It’s a text from Reagan,” I whispered, clicking off the screen. “She’s tired of the slow approach. She’s going to speed things up.”
“You girls are…” Emery shook his head, and I just barely saw his grin. “Pairing you together was either sheer brilliance or the worst idea in history.”
“Judging by how we work together during the bounty hunter gigs, I’d say the latter…”
31
A hundred feet or so down the hill, following animal trails, the shifters finally caught up to us, Roger in animal form and in the lead. No magic had marred our path, not even a tiny tripwire. I was about to comment on it when Cahal took two fast but somehow unhurried steps to my side and put his hand out, stopping me.
“Wh—”
He put his finger to his lips, cutting me off. Vlad crept closer, coming to a stop just behind Emery.
A twig snapped. Bushes rustled. Darkness draped across the wild landscape, creating deep pockets of shadow where anyone could be hiding.
Seek.
Destroy.
A colorful gleam of magic rained down from the sky, glittering as it filtered through the trees and sprinkled the ground. Three small strands of magic illuminated on the ground way down the path, probably tripwires with such little power that the strands were normally invisible to the eye, even for naturals.
Would I have felt those before running through them?
The searching spell dissipated, and the ensuing silence stretched through the thick trees.
“How’d you—”
Cahal slapped his hand across my mouth. He put his other hand, two fingers out, in front of his eyes, before turning it around and pointing just off to the right. He opened and closed his fist, held up a couple more fingers, and stared at me like his charades meant something.
Emery glanced over his shoulder at Vlad. Vlad nodded, not so attractive anymore, before turning and looking at another vampire.
The chain of command was in motion, and off shot the vampire who’d apparently been chosen as our lookout, eerily silent as she darted quickly through the brush and bushes. She disappeared out of sight before Cahal stepped back into the shadows.
Emery tugged me forward.
Everyone in this crew was very good at sneaking around, not to mention working together. I needed to up my game in the magic department so I wasn’t dead weight.
A moment later, the lookout vampire loped back to us, falling in line easily. I hadn’t even heard a scuffle. She handed off a cell phone that she must’ve taken off the Guild sentry. Vlad handed it up and Emery put it into his back pocket.
Closing my eyes, I soaked in our surroundings as Emery led me along, feeling the calm flow of nature and the perfect balance of Emery and me. The magic possibly stolen by accident from the goblin beat within my chest, pure and powerful. Slowly I let in the magic around me, the heady, spicy power of the vampires, the deep earthiness of the shifters, and the slightly acidic yet strangely flowery essence of the druid. I funneled and weaved everything together, storing it in the collection of elements I always amassed above me when in pressurized situations.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a tiny strand of magic ten feet in front of us.
“Thanks,” Emery whispered, the faint words riding his breath. He sent a counter-spell to easily knock out the spell in our path.
“What?”
“Organizing all of those elements for easy use.”
I shrugged. If I’d realized he’d be able to feel it, too, I might have felt too much pressure to mess with it.
The second tripwire down, I felt a strange pulse to our left. Slowing, I closed my eyes again, much better at magical identification when I wasn’t distracted by sight.
The feeling was so small and slight, but I narrowed my focus on it…
Movement behind me. A shifter shot off through the trees, and I recognized the big black wolf, Devon.
It wasn’t a person I’d felt, though. It was…something else. A flare, maybe?
“Do you feel that?” I asked Emery as we moved forward.
“No. What?”
“A mile,” came a raspy voice, barely able to articulate the words. It had come from one of the vampires.
I nodded. It fit the feeling I’d picke
d up. “Yes, it’s a magical mile marker. Huh. Why would they need a mile marker?”
“To coordinate their efforts, probably. Or”—Emery shot magic above us, unraveling a draping spell with the same searching intent that we’d encountered earlier—“to guide the sentries.”
“Spellsh get den-sher now,” Vlad said, his words wet and slurred. Clearly, talking through the distorted mouth and all those fangs got easier with age (or with practice), but it still wasn’t perfect. “Dead-ly.”
He was right. Powerful and more tightly woven spells glittered around us. Nothing surprising or challenging, though. Nothing we couldn’t handle. It was like they were waving us in. Keeping away the non-magical riffraff, but inviting their kind closer.
“Why?” I asked, countering a tattletale spell. Another trap intended to lop off a foot. Still another, this one a badly executed booby trap capable of shooting magical spears.
“What?” Emery whispered, putting his hand out to stop my forward progress. Cahal stopped moving toward me. He didn’t need to look back at Vlad or the shifters this time. One of each took off—one to the right, the other to the left—equally silent.
“They must know our power,” I said, “but they’re not doing too much to keep us out.” Someone grunted to our right, followed by a quick shaking of the bushes. A mage lookout had been taken down.
Emery frowned at Vlad, whose vampire had not taken the enemy down quietly. Vlad stared back, not planning on apologizing.
“We have more power than they could’ve anticipated,” Emery said, still waiting for a moment. He looked up, but no magic rained down, nor did I feel anything. “They have one, maybe two naturals. This is a lot of ground to cover for a natural. The spells in the compound will probably pose a problem.”
“Or else this is a trap,” I said, moving with Emery as he started forward again.
“Yes. Or this is a trap.”
Two markers pulsed ahead, coming up on either side. “Five hundred feet,” I said. “Probably.”
“Yessh,” Vlad said.
The dark shapes of trees loomed in front of us, but we’d come far enough for the end to be in sight. The ground leveled out up ahead, and beyond that, I knew the trees would be cleared leading up to the compound. Then, unless they’d changed it, came the huge ward. After that, we were inside.
If they chose to engage, there was no easy way to get out now. We couldn’t just pull the plug on the whole thing, say just kidding, and head home. Not when we’d have to run two miles up a hill choked with trees and foliage, forced onto small paths.
Correction: I couldn’t easily pull the plug. I couldn’t run like death was chasing me, and hope to get away. But the vampires and the shifters probably could.
I blew out a slow breath. This was the time for absolute trust. If even one member of our team was on the wrong side (coughcough*Vlad*cough), things would get messy very quickly.
“Not to sound like a broken record, but where are all their people?” I flinched as Cahal moved in close to me again, and that felt like his answer. Either the enemy mages were very close, or he was wondering the same thing.
“You have to remember, Penny,” Emery said, his knees bent and eyes constantly moving. The trees had thinned, allowing for moonlight to sprinkle down on him. On all of us. Soon we’d be visible to anyone looking. “The compound is large. They don’t know where we’re going to strike. They need to cover everything until they know for sure where we are. Then they’ll pull their resources.”
My phone vibrated.
Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky pulsed.
“Crap!” I said, no time for fancy swearing. I hopped from foot to foot as adrenaline flooded my body. My Temperamental Third Eye urged me to run to the right, then cut in toward the compound, magic flaring.
The text said, Follow your gut. My mother.
Another came in. Reagan this time. Let’s light up this bitch. Where are you?
Yet another arrived, this one from Callie. Campers! Campers!
I didn’t know what campers meant, but I knew what Reagan would be doing.
Giving us away.
“When in doubt…” And I took off running because I didn’t have anything clever to say.
Surprisingly, it was Emery who caught up with me before anyone else, Cahal lagging behind. Welcome to randomly deciding things and just going with it.
I countered a spell blocking my path and caught a jumping shape out of the corner of my eye, magic suddenly curling from their hand. I pointed and said, “Maauuu,” because that was all I could get out in time.
A shifter jumped in that direction, and I cut right. Again, Emery was with me before anyone else. It didn’t surprise me that he was the best at keeping up with quick, unpredictable pace and directional changes. He’d had experience.
A huge, throbbing spell shot up from somewhere in front of us. A thrum of vampire magic sailed in from behind us.
“Campers—she meant vampires!” I shouted. “It was auto-correct. We’ve got incoming vampires.”
A shape darted out in front of us and an arrow took our would-be attacker down out of nowhere. Cahal reached back for another arrow, and I marveled at the fact that I had never once seen a bow strapped to his person. Or arrows, for that matter.
“I would’ve gotten him,” I said to Cahal through harried breaths, trying to dodge a reaching tree branch and failing. It slapped me in the face.
“I’ve come to realize that participating in this skirmish at opportune moments will give me better odds of protecting you,” Cahal replied.
“In other words”—Emery zipped off a spell at someone running at us from the side before countering a spell draped through the leaves and hanging down at head-height—“he didn’t realize you’re this unpredictable, and figures the skill set he’s most comfortable with might help.”
“It will,” I said, feeling Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky pulse again and I put on the brakes. Vlad slammed into my back, making me stagger forward, but Emery caught me and stopped my forward trajectory.
The vampire magic hit me like a wave. Emery spun as I did, and together we wove a spell that dropped unreal heat in a wall, far enough out not to get any of our people. Red flared in the night sky and the air was packed with inhuman squeals. The enemies trying to sneak up behind us were getting a bad surprise.
But some had made it through.
Fierce growls erupted, and our vampires rushed back to meet the attack. Soon I doubted I’d be able to tell who was who.
“Go,” Vlad said, motioning Emery and I onward. “Take…down…warrrrrd.”
My phone vibrated, barely felt, given how Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky had taken up a drumbeat of power in my utility belt. Maybe I’d been wrong before. Maybe it had simply been asleep. But now there was no denying that we were in the thick of it, and we didn’t have much time to get that ward down before the whole place would be swarming, trapping us.
I yanked my phone out as we smashed through the trees and brush. Someone popped up and slung a spell at us. I zapped him in the chest with my bug zapper and ignored the magic. It would shoot in a straight line behind us. Another popped up, her spell much nastier.
I curled some vampire magic into an ordinary slashing spell and sent it off, tearing down her spell—and her. Reagan had been right all those months ago. These mages were all cut from the same cloth. They were experienced, sure, and some of their spells packed a lot of power, but they were basic and easy to counter. It took hardly any brainpower. I never would’ve been the best had I gone the normal mage route, not considering how late I’d started. My power was in my unpredictability, my unique approach.
Stumbling into Emery’s path, and then Reagan’s, had been my lucky break.
My phone vibrated again, now jiggling in my vision as I ran.
The first said, Stop thinking behind. Think in front.
Already on it. Vlad had good instincts. Or lots of experience.
Second text: Use the pyramid of power or all die an taken.
&n
bsp; Clearly my mother was working hard, because her grammar was slipping. If I got out of this mess, I’d tattle to Veronica.
“When, Penny,” I said with clenched teeth, jumping to the side when another mage popped up along the path. She leaned forward to blow a spell at us. Cahal kicked her in the head. “When we get out of here.” I ripped my gaze away from the druid and pumped my fists harder, my phone trapped in my palm.
“I feel that rock,” Emery said as he pushed me left through thick bushes. Cahal rolled in after us and a thick stream of magic flew past. He rolled back, lifted to his knee, shot an arrow, jumped up, and followed us—all in one incredibly graceful motion.
“My god…Reagan’s not even…that good,” I said, my heart in my throat. “Pyramid.” I was panting. “Pyramid of power. Need a…pyramid of power.”
32
The trees stopped just ahead, and three people waited beyond them, shifting from left to right and holding handfuls of ingredients. Magic wisps curled into the sky. Sounds of the shifter-vampire battle came from behind.
I wove a spell together as Emery shot one off. His spell hit an invisible wall, rebounding off it. A ward, fairly weak in power.
I altered my spell, and he enhanced it. I shoved it forward before sprinting after it.
Cahal’s arm came into view, but he lowered it as the spell shattered the ward and continued its path of destruction, slapping against the mages. The remaining power wasn’t enough to take them down. I jammed the heel of my palm into the nose of the one on the right before stepping back and kicking. Emery slammed into another, and Cahal gracefully went in for what looked like a hug before cracking the last one’s neck.
“Wow. So pleasing to watch, but so incredibly ruthless.” I turned and braced myself, knowing what I would see.
Sure enough, a line of mages, spaced out, looked back at us. Slow to start, but fast once they got going, they ran toward us with spells curling in their hands. Something compelled me to glance the other way, and I’d never been more relieved to see a fireball. It blew through the air, swallowing a few mages, and then a swat of air squished them to the ground for good measure. Reagan had made it down and, without all the prying eyes, was using her full power in quick economy.
