I nodded. “Well, then that improves our odds.”
“Only slightly.”
A bellow sounded from above, like the cracking of thunder, and we all looked up to see a little purple dragon swarmed by so many gargoyles, that she lost altitude and plummeted into the valley. The ground trembled beneath us when she collided with the mountainside, but what hurt the most was seeing at least three dozen gargoyles following behind, trying to rip her to pieces.
But not for long.
Darius raced by us with a snarl that sent a chill through my body, shifting mid-run from human to dragon. His flame surged down the hillside, engulfing the gargoyles in flame as the wounded dragon cried out. I felt that cry in my soul, and I found my legs moving of their own accord, like there was an invisible tether connecting the fallen dragon to me—and I had to help her.
“Kaye.” Zayne’s hand on my shoulder, hard and firm, stopped me. “He’s got it covered.”
Darius slammed into the cluster of animated stone gargoyles, knocking them off the smaller purple dragon with his head, his spiked tail, and his enormous feet. His war cry sounded across the entire valley.
“What’s the plan here, Sis?”
“Protect the castle,” I said absently, watching as the smaller dragon shifted back to her human form, and curled into a ball amid all the chaos around her. A few hard blinks and I looked back to Zayne. “There are a lot of non-warriors in there. Darius’s father thinks it’s key we protect the largest shifter clan, because that’ll be Abramelin’s primary target.”
“Agreed.”
More dragons poured out of the mountain range, as if answering Darius’s summons—dragons who weren’t all part of the Sanctius clan, at that.
“Those are Brisbane fighters,” I said quickly, motioning for a few lingering fairies to join me. “Protect the castle, Zayne.”
“And eliminate the ground forces,” he fired back. “We need the numbers on our side!”
“Got it!”
I zipped down the path, my gait unsteady, with tiny rocks and bits of gravel underfoot.
“Get away from her!” I shouted, hurling a pulse of white magic at the gargoyles closing in on the wounded shifter. My fae back-up did the same, and the sheer force behind the magic sent all the gargoyles, even those grappling with a very pissed off Darius, tumbling down the hill, eventually turning to dust.
The injured shifter stayed curled into a tight ball, blood oozing out of the wounds on her back, her hips, and her shoulders.
“Heal her,” I ordered, “and then take her back to the castle.”
“I can fight,” she insisted weakly. Slowly, she lifted her head, gazing up at me with caramel brown eyes swimming with tears. “I can do this.”
I hesitated, looking to Darius for confirmation, but he was already fixed on the next battle: the colossal skirmish raging within the valley. We had to be there—we both had to move on. So, I looked to Erik, who had recently healed himself from his spider bite, and nodded.
“Once she’s good to go, rejoin the fight and don’t leave her side.”
He crouched at the shifter’s side, slowly running his hands along her trembling body, palms glowing with white magic. “Got it, Kaye.”
Leaving the fallen dragon in Erik’s very capable hands, I ran after Darius, who was already thundering down into the valley. His war cry rallied a few dragons hanging back picking off gargoyles; they answered the call with bellows of their own. A veritable symphony of mighty dragons, their hearts on display for all to hear.
The ground forces locked in battle with Abramelin’s cretins—a mix of demons, witches, ghouls, goblins, gremlins… the works. The area was basically a giant melting pot of bodies and magic and blades. To call it overwhelming to the senses was the biggest fucking understatement of the year. I slowed to a jog, trying to assess where I was most needed, and quickly realized there were dozens of smaller battles that could use my help. Shifter scents, supernatural ethnicities—I felt them all, wave after wave of identifications, tugging me this way and that. Some of the shifters fought hand-to-hand in their human forms, while some shifters appeared in their animal forms; nearby, a pack of white wolves ran down a demon fleeing on all fours, his body contorted and twisted into a backward crab-walk as he tried to outrun them.
Tried and failed. Within seconds the pack closed in, hunting in perfect synchronicity, tearing the demon’s rotting gray flesh from his bones.
“Go up,” I shouted to Darius. He too, hadn’t directly entered the skirmish, but instead appeared to be evaluating everything—and fending off a horde of goblins with lazy flicks of his tail. Each hit knocked them down, and a few seconds later they scrambled to their feet, knives in hand, and tried to attack again—only to be knocked down again. I blasted the group with a stunning spell, and unlike the brute impact of Darius’s spiked tail, this time they stayed down. He glanced back, as if I’d shooed away the flies, and huffed out a cloud of black smoke.
I knew that look. Darius wasn’t happy with the idea of being separated.
“We’ll still fight together,” I argued, pointing skyward. “There are a lot of witches up there we need to eliminate. I’ll stay within your shadow.” I dodged a rogue arrow, feeling a soft whoosh as it whizzed by my head.
“Sorry!” a distracted elf called from the edge of the battle. “Someone threw me off balance.”
A demon cackled, only to be impaled mid-laugh by a dwarf’s axe.
How the hell was any of this normal? At this point, it didn’t faze me.
And I couldn’t decide whether that was okay or not.
“Go,” I shouted, feeling the magic crackle within my palms, like the kindling of a freshly lit fire. Darius’s wings snapped out, and I set a hand against one. “Just look for your shadow. I’ll be there.”
He must have taken me at my word, because moments later he was airborne and barbecuing a hovering quartet of witches.
“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Now… Kaye, where do you fit in here?”
I hadn’t taken more than two steps toward a fox shifter and a herd of goblins engaged in hand-to-hand combat, when a blast of magic slammed into my shoulder. A hard breath shot out of me when I hit the ground, little jagged rocks biting into my hands as I steadied myself.
“You just don’t go down easily, do you?” someone sneered. I whipped back, recognizing the voice immediately, but not believing it for a second—not until I laid eyes on the one fae I could have sworn, would be cowering far, far away from war.
“Jasmine?” I shot to my feet, fueling myself with defensive white magic in case she tried to sucker-spell me again. “W-What are you doing here?”
“You know, I thought my gargoyle was better at hunting filthy half-breeds,” she spat, picking at her perfectly manicured nails. She wore her jet-black hair in a braided crown around her head, and while I was still in my sleeping attire—a long black shirt and a pair of faded jeans—she was dressed like the warlocks I’d seen during the first attack on the hive. Leather armor. Dark colors. Pants instead of her usual mini-dresses. A billowing dark gray cape fluttered behind her—too dramatic for some, but just right for a fae like Jasmine. Her delicate features seemed almost hawkish and sharp with the war paint across her cheeks, as if she’d used the ink to contour her face to its best angles.
“You sent the gargoyle?” I demanded, my brain snapping back to reality and accepting that this wasn’t just a bad dream, as I recalled how this all had started for me when the mysterious package had arrived outside my apartment door. It felt like so long ago, yet it had only been a couple of months. “Why?”
“Because my uncle gave me a whole army of them to use as I wished,” she told me, her tone casual, like we were chatting about shoes or television shows. “And I wished to eliminate the half-breed shifter who was sleeping with my disgusting ex-boyfriend.”
The purse of her lips gave her away, and I managed to whip up a shield of white magic when she hurled a hex at me. Bright green magic p
ounded into my shield, fizzling out like a dying firework. Powerful. I hadn’t expected that.
“Your uncle?” I swallowed hard, struggling to reconcile these two realities. In the one I’d always thought to be true, Jasmine was nothing more than a stuck-up, rude little bitch. She dressed well, primped regularly, and was a total buzzkill at parties when she made every conversation about her. This Jasmine was hard to accept, the one standing before me in war paint proclaiming her uncle was—
“Abramelin,” Jasmine remarked with a giggle. “He lets me do whatever I want, and right now, I want to do what my gargoyle didn’t. Say goodbye to your dragon, half-breed.”
She hurled another hex, one right after the other, and stalked toward me. The closeness intensified the magic, and I struggled to hold her back, to keep her vile curses from striking me. In the sunlight, I could see my white magic peel and bubble, like it was freshly applied window tint on a car’s windshield and some asshole decided they wanted to pick at it before it dried.
“Jasmine,” I choked out, my arms wavering under the tremendous pressure of maintaining my shield, “I know we haven’t seen eye-to-eye in the past—” She scoffed and rolled her eyes, to which I had to agree. “Okay, well. Ever. But can’t you see that this is insanity? I don’t want to fight you—”
“Oh, blah, blah, blah,” she half-shouted, scratching at my wall of white magic with her perfectly manicured nails before hitting me with a double-whammy curse and hex, a blend of purple and green light twining together and slamming into my shield. “So boring. Save your sanctimonious bullshit for your band of feeble-minded followers.”
“You’re one to talk about feeble-minded followers,” I grumbled. Knowing I couldn’t hold my protective barrier much longer, I decided to let go—and act.
My inner voice applauded.
Taking the opportunity to strike between her spellcasting, I dropped my shield and pummeled her with a disorienting hex, paired with a pulse of magic. The combination sent her flying—like a big magical fist that knocked her on her ass and made her head spin.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I insisted. While I knew that she knew I’d always disliked her, I hoped Jasmine could see the olive branch I was trying to extend. “Jasmine, please, we can talk like civilized—”
“Don’t you dare mention the word civilized in my presence,” the fae spat as she clambered to her feet, aggressively swiping aside hair loosened from her crown. “Your mother bred with some disgusting animal and didn’t have the decency to end you before your miserable life began. You are far from civilized.”
Well then. That’s how it was going to be, huh?
I blocked a hex, the ball of deathly orange light bouncing off my white-magic-surrounded fist and disappearing. It was clear where Jasmine stood; no amount of reasoning was going to change that. So, I resigned myself to just survive. If she ended up dead in the process, I’d try to keep my widow’s wail to a minimum.
Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that Jasmine was better at magic than I was—and really, how could she not be, given that her uncle was the fucking Archmage responsible for this mess. With every spell, or curse, or hex that I managed to block, usually in the nick of time, she had another one raring to go. Most of my offensive magic was deflected with more skill, more strength. It seemed my moment of victory with the curse combo was doomed to be short-lived.
I cried out when a blast of red light hit me, catching me just as I tried to throw up another shield. It sent me flying backward and landing hard on my side, hip and shoulder screaming in pain. I winced at the feel of hundreds of tiny cuts, like an army of paper cuts, appeared across every bit of exposed skin.
A cruel curse, but from Jasmine, I expected no less. She giggled, her hands raised as if to finish me, and I threw up a weak shield, hoping that would do—then stared in amazement as about ten ravens dive-bombed her in unison.
Shifters. I could sense them. They ripped at her hair, her skin, her clothes. A few brave ones went for her eyes. I used the distraction to bolster my defenses, and when she finally managed to cast them away, her eyes held that special storm of crazy that should have sent me running.
Only they didn’t—and Jasmine quickly realized why.
I had something Jasmine would never have.
Friends who would always have my back.
I sensed them coming before I saw them: a whole cluster of my militia, storming up from the valley, metaphorically rolling up their sleeves, ready to get their hands dirty. Overhead, Darius’s roar rang out, and I squinted up as his shadow passed by. Bleeding and exhausted, I let my shield drop when he landed, the ground thundering beneath him.
“Easy there, Kaye,” Erik ordered, jogging to my side and quickly healing my injuries. Behind him, the female dragon I’d rescued earlier scowled at Jasmine, her eyes darkened and black smoke coiled from her nostrils. I sensed she was about two seconds away from shifting, and bit back a smile when that beautiful purple dragon emerged, her cry forcing Jasmine to clamp her hands down over her ears. Erik helped me to my feet, and after thanking him, I hurried over to Darius. The moment I touched his wing, he shifted back.
“You okay?” he muttered as I hurried to his side. I nodded, letting him kiss my cheek quickly, feeling the flow of magic simmering behind me as my back-up readied the best weapon at their disposal.
“Ugh,” Jasmine groaned. She then looked very pointedly at Darius’s nude figure. “You shifters are such vile creatures.”
“Jasmine,” Darius said curtly, face pinched in anger. “Stop this! So many innocents are being destroyed, and for what?”
“Innocents? Are you for real?” she snarled, hands pulsing with a bright orange magic whose vibrations made my stomach turn. “Do you not recall what your filthy kind did to my family?”
“Jasmine…” For a fleeting moment, I felt sorry for her. It was the slight quiver in her voice that got me. “The actions of the few don’t reflect the thoughts of the many. I’m sorry—”
All my compassion flew out the window when she hurled two blasts of orange magic our way, the curses searing the white magic shield I barely threw up in time. My gaze narrowed as I watched her twist in rage, her chest heaving. The whites of her eyes appeared somewhat reddened—as though on the verge of tears. I couldn’t blame her, not entirely. I’d always envisioned Jasmine as a heartless fae and nothing more. It was hard to imagine her having genuine feelings, real emotions, for someone other than herself.
“I don’t need your pity, you animal,” Jasmine sneered. “I don’t need it from either of you. All I need is for you, all of you, to pay your blood debts for the lives you took!”
She fired off another hex; this time one aimed squarely at Darius. I pushed him out of the way, managing to deflect it just in time, hackles up at the thought of her targeting him with magic. The beam of coppery light bounced straight back at her, but she absorbed her revolting magic with a shudder.
“So, you’d sacrifice the lives of thousands to make up for the actions of a few?” Darius snapped, shouldering his way to my side again, his expression a blend of fury and disbelief. “Jasmine, I know you don’t agree with what your uncle is doing. You know this is wrong.”
“The lives of six supernatural beings are equivalent to the thousands of shifters we plan to eliminate,” she said icily. My jaw dropped, but before she could hurl another hex our way, my militia back-up had apparently had enough: they pummeled her with magic, relentlessly. The first few spells she deflected, but eventually, they pushed her back—and I saw the panic in her eyes.
She thought they were going to kill her.
And I saw no reason to stop them.
Shrieking in fear, perhaps some fury too, Jasmine threw her gray cape around her body. The fabric swirled like a mini-tornado, growing tighter and tighter around her—until Jasmine and her cape disappeared into thin air.
I shook my head in disbelief. “I… I have no words.”
“Where the hell did she go?” Darius asked.
“Can you do that? Disappear into thin air?”
“She teleported to God-knows-where. And no, I haven’t learned that yet.”
“Good. I have a hard enough time keeping track of you as it is,” Darius grumbled under his breath, and I chuckled. We exchanged short-lived, weary grins before I urged the others to rejoin the battle, and thanked them for having my back.
“Anytime, Kaye,” Hazel, a witch with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, remarked. She then hurled an impressive lightning-bolt shaped hex into the air and knocked down two witches circling us. They slammed into the gravelly terrain like dead weight.
Right. Back to business then.
“How’s everything going up there?” I asked, knowing Darius would have to return to the skies immediately. He shook his head, his eyes dark.
“I don’t know where Abramelin found all these gargoyles, but they just keep coming.”
“He probably created them himself,” I noted. “Or, at the very least, his warlocks did. These all can’t be stolen from church rooftops and such.”
He shrugged. “You never know.”
“They’re not.”
“Maybe—”
I screamed when a shockwave blasted across the valley, the sheer magnitude of the explosion sending Darius and I flying in opposite directions. It radiated across the battlefield, knocking down all those in its path.
“Jesus fuck,” Darius growled noisily, flopping onto his back and groaning. Fearing the worst, I scrambled to my feet and raced toward him—only to find him clutching his manhood and cringing in pain. Right. This wasn’t exactly a forgiving landscape for exposed genitals to slam into.
“Can I, er…” I hesitated, not exactly sure what to do for him, but he waved me off gruffly, cheeks red.
“It’s fine,” he managed. “What the hell was that?”
“It came from the castle,” I told him, offering a hand and helping him up. When he was steady, I dusted myself off and turned toward the Brisbane stronghold. “I’ve never felt anything so powerful before.”
Sparks and twisted coils of magic shot out from the destroyed passageway that had led to our campsite; in its place was a gaping hole, bits of mountain scattered around the magical bomb that had created such carnage. Two figures battled in what was once the very throughway Zayne and I had reunited. The crackle and sizzle of competing magic like the boom of thunder, even all the way down the hill. I enhanced my senses, honing in on the figures with my second sight, then cried out when I realized who it was: my careless, half-brother fighting an Archmage.
Magic Burn: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Shifting Magic Book 2) Page 12
