by Jess Haines
She took a hitching breath. Another. Monster made a low sound of protest when her grip on him tightened.
“He’ll kill her, Cormac. He’ll kill her as soon as he realizes I already have a familiar. Oh, god.”
Cormac knelt down beside her, one hand on her shoulder as he bowed his head. “Don’t panic. Give me a moment to think.”
She stared up at the door, tears trickling down her cheeks as she squeezed Monster to her chest.
“Don’t. It’s my mom he took. My life he’s screwing up. I’ll get him for this. I’ll make it right.”
“He’s too strong for you, love. I’ll fix this for you.”
“No,” she said, and he turned a sharp gaze on her for the fierceness of her tone. “I’m not going to hide behind you. He’ll just find a way to come back and do something else to hurt me or my mom if I don’t face him myself. Even if he doesn’t, anyone else who hears about it will think I’m a pushover and take advantage of me. This is my fight. I could really use your help, but you can fight him with me, not instead of me.”
A slight smile twitched at the corner of his lips. “As you wish. Have I told you yet that your bravery is one of the things I admire most about you?”
She rolled her eyes heavenward, then turned her head and swiped at the wet trail on her cheek with her shoulder. Monster made a protesting sound at being jarred. She couldn’t help but cough out a short, tear-choked laugh. “Could you pick a worse time to say things like that? There’s nothing brave about this. I’m scared half to death, but I have to do something.”
He reached for the cat, who growled at him and flattened his ears, then leaned in to kiss her temple. They went into the apartment together, Monster growling the entire time. As soon as they reached the living room, he squirmed his way out of Cormac’s arms and rushed off to hide in the bedroom.
Cormac turned back to face Kimberly, who was pacing back and forth in front of the couch.
“You are braver than you know. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
She shook her head and continued pacing, her shoulders hunched and eyes glued to the carpet. The fingers of her right hand absently rubbed at the cool metal oval stamped with Blackhollow’s symbol, tracing the circular ouroboros. So much for being whole and protected.
“Being brave doesn’t mean I’m being smart. I need to think. I don’t know how much Viper knows about me, if he can see through my illusions, anything. If you have any super secret wyvern handshakes I should know about, now is the time to tell me.”
He snorted, then reached out to snag her arm and pull her against him. She was wound tight as a wire, even in his arms. Placing a kiss on top of her bowed head, he held her close.
“I won’t pretty the situation with lies. Viper is both vicious and cunning. He has reason to want to hurt you after what I did to him. If he sees me with you, there’s no telling how he’ll lash out but he’ll still expect me to be with you.”
What little color was left in her face trickled away. He put a finger under her chin to tilt her head up.
“I am going to tell you some things about how sorcery works. Tricks you can use against him. Things they would never teach you at Blackhollow.”
She swallowed hard a few times before managing to get out a few words. “You, you’re not talking about black enchants, are you?”
“No, of course not. There isn’t going to be much time for you to practice, but there are things you can do that he and I cannot. I know the theory because, like him, I have a limited grasp of sorcery as well as magecraft. If you’re willing, and if you can concentrate enough to focus on what I have to teach you, it’s possible, not likely, but possible, that we can get your mother back without bloodshed.”
She nodded, then whispered in reply. “I will… I’ll try.”
“Good. Don’t give up yet.” He gave her a fierce grin, eyes lit with blue fire. “We’ll do the unexpected. I have a plan…”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The sun was dipping toward the horizon by the time Kimberly arrived at Central Park. It was too warm for a jacket, but she was still wearing one. The same jacket Viper had curled his lip at when she had asked for his help. She clutched the edges of it tight around herself as she trudged along the path that led to Sheep’s Meadow.
At this time of day, there were few people gathered on the open field. A small group of joggers cutting across the grass, a handful of kids playing a late game of Frisbee, and Viper, out of place in his trench coat, standing with his hands pocketed in his jeans as he squinted toward the sun. Kimberly didn’t see her mother anywhere, and a light touch to the ley lines told her nothing; Viper was distorting the flow of energy so badly she couldn’t tell what he’d done. There were traps laid, and not just for her.
The area where Cormac and Viper had torn up the green had since been filled in, and fresh sod laid down. It was greener than the rest, easier to tell when she passed it by, sending a shiver rolling up her spine. There were still some white patches on the grass where some plaster had been left behind, probably from police or zoological casts taken of the dragon and wyvern prints. Viper turned when she stopped a few yards from where he waited.
Kimberly suppressed a flinch at the sight of thick scars, still raw and healing, ringing his neck. Consider how badly Cormac had torn him up in the fight, she could only imagine what the rest of him looked like under the trench coat and jeans.
“All alone, ducks? Thought you’d have that bleedin’ killjoy with you again,” he said, eyes glinting with a feral golden light.
“Don’t play games with me. Where’s my mom? What did you do with her?”
“Nothing that can’t be undone. Here’s the rub. You have something I need, and I’m not going away until I get it. If you come along, no fuss, it’ll stay that way.”
Kimberly glared at the wyvern, squaring her shoulders and tilting her chin up. “Here’s the deal, you big snake. You give me back my mom and I’ll let you go. I’m not playing around this time.”
Viper threw his head back and laughed, an unabashed guffaw that had the few other pedestrians wandering nearby looking their way. It took a few moments for him to get his breath back enough to speak again.
“Oh, you are a love,” he said, “but enough taking the piss. You know what happens when you say no, but never let it be said I don’t give you a choice. What’ll it be?”
Kimberly shrugged, then tossed her nearly empty baggie of table salt at his head, closing the circle she’d drawn around him while the illusion of herself that had been keeping him preoccupied disappeared. He whirled with a snarl and slammed his fists against the invisible wall of power that confined him.
“You conniving, lippy little cow! Let me out!”
She shook her head, folding her arms and rocking back on her heels. “Not the way to win the way to a girl’s heart. I didn’t expect you to be this easy to fool, Viper. Are you going to tell me where to find my mom, or am I going to have to dig it out of your skull along with however many other dirty secrets are hiding in there?”
He scoffed and stepped back, throwing a punch that sent shockwaves through the circle and made her jump. “Rieva teaching you her tricks, is she? Never you fear, pet. I’m going to teach you a few of my own as soon as I get out of here.”
Kimberly tapped her foot. “The sooner you tell me where I can find my mom, the sooner you can come out.”
“Oh, no,” he purred, yellow eyes locked intently on her own. “Night’s falling. This place belongs to the werewolves at night. Doubt they’ll be pleased to find a spark on their turf.”
“Funny thing about that,” she replied. “Turns out they like doing business with Cormac, and continuing to do so hinges on them letting me hang around as long as I need to in order to get some answers out of you. We have all night. Then you get to explain to the Moonwalkers why you’re messing around with the ley lines on their turf. Some nasty spells you were cooking up for Cormac there, by the way. You have a permit for
those black enchants?”
He snarled a litany of things that made Kimberly blush. With a growl, he put his hand on the circle wall and shut his eyes.
“Enough of these games,” he said. Kimberly skittered back with a gasp as he shoved his hand through her circle. “I’m going to burn the spark right out of you for that, you little bitch.”
Kimberly scrambled back as Viper clawed his way out of the impromptu salt circle. His glowing eyes never left her as he stalked her, each stride slow and deliberate, moving with serpentine grace around the various hidden magical traps he’d laid for both Kimberly and Cormac.
Reaching into her jacket, she pulled out a handful of the enchanted stone runes her mother had dumped out of her purse and into the kitchen junk drawer. She only slowed down long enough to use her Sight to make sure she wasn’t about to stumble into one of the traps Viper had laid for her. Scattering the runes in her path, everything from walls of flame, to blocks of ice, to thick tendrils of creeping vines writhing in search of limbs to wrap around, erupted all around her. Distant screams from startled pedestrians were drowned out by the roar of flames and crack of ice.
The ones that really scared her were the ones with no such visible reaction to the re-enchanted runes she’d keyed to trigger any spells designed to seek her out. Thanks to Cormac’s help, she’d figured out how to adapt a runic enchantment to match her aura so that any spells Viper had designed to seek hers in particular would zero in on the stones, tricked into thinking it was her.
Viper had laid an impressive number of traps. If she wasn’t running for her life, she might have been flattered he thought he needed to lay such a labyrinth of pitfalls for her.
Then she didn’t have time to think of anything, except for how much it hurt to have your ankle yanked out from under you mid-step.
She threw out her hands to catch herself. A yelp of pain escaped her as the thorny vine cut into her skin and dragged her along a sheet of ice, bringing her to a skidding stop inches from Viper’s feet.
He set a thick-soled, steel-toed combat boot on her stomach, pinning her in place, and gave her a razor smile. “Well, that was a lovely bit of distraction. Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
She opened her mouth, but his boot dug in, driving the air out of her lungs. He knelt down, putting his weight into her until her ribs squeaked and she gave a breathy cry of pain.
“If only,” he said, voice a low purr, “you weren’t such a handful. The last one wasn’t like you. Grateful, she was, to be safe. To have purpose.”
He leaned in, his fingers curling around her throat, choking off what little breath she was able to gasp in around the pressure on her ribs. His eyes glinted in the light of the setting sun with avaricious intent as blood trickled from the pricks left in her skin by his talon-like fingernails, unmoved by her thrashing as she struggled for air.
“When I’m done with you,” he whispered, “you’ll wonder why you ever fought. You’ll hurt first, of course. No getting around that. But I’ll see what makes you tick this time.”
As her flailing weakened, her eyes glazing with impending unconsciousness, his grip on her throat lessened and he eased his weight back to his knee instead of leaning on her stomach. His fingertips brushed over the blood, smearing crimson lines over her windpipe as she panted, chest heaving and fingers twitching as her arms fell limp at her sides.
“No escaping it, I promise that.”
After sucking in a few lungfuls of air, she mouthed something inaudible. Viper placed a bloody finger on her cheek, turning her head to face him so he could look into her eyes.
“Speak up, ducks. Let’s hear it. Begging for mercy, is it? It won’t save you, but I don’t mind hearing it. Go on.”
Kimberly tried again, her voice little more than a throaty whisper. “You talk too much.”
He grinned, humorless, showing his teeth all the way to the gums. “What can I say? I like the sound of my own voice. We’ll have more time for that later. Breathe deep, lovely. Don’t want you passing out on me mid-flight.”
Kimberly glared up at him, both hands wrapping around his leg—to keep him from pulling away. “We’re not going anywhere. My turn, asshole.”
She took the darkest, most painful memories she had been able to pluck from him in the short time he’d been stuck in her circle and shoved them to the forefront of his mind. There were some things hidden by mental “walls” he’d erected. She didn’t know how to get around those. But there were enough recent memories near the surface for her to work with. Moments of terror, such as his first, awkward, painful flight, when he was forced into the air by dragon hunters before his wings had fully developed. Moments of agony, like Cormac’s talons rending his wings into tatters. Muscles burning, skin pierced, scales ripped from his skin—any memory of fear or pain she could find she made him relive, over and over again, holding him tight so he couldn’t writhe out of her grasp.
He did get in a few good kicks that knocked the air out of her again though.
When he fell back, the vines wrapped around her ankles withering with his failing concentration, she let him go, crab-walking back a few paces to get some distance between them. He lay where he’d fallen, gasping for air and clutching at his chest.
“You will never touch me or my family again, or I will make what I just did feel like a holiday. You understand me?”
Viper didn’t respond, still gasping like a landed fish. Kimberly slowly rose to her feet. She folded her arms, both in an attempt to add weight to her scolding look, and to hide how badly her hands were shaking.
“Answer me, or I’ll do it again until it sinks in. Do. You. Understand?”
“Yes,” he choked out, so pitifully that she almost apologized then and there. It was only knowing what he had done to her mom and her cat that kept her from offering him a hand up.
With that in mind, she backed up another couple of paces in case he got it into his head to shift and exact immediate, fiery revenge.
The wyvern slowly rolled to his stomach, pushing himself up to his hands and knees. He didn’t look at her right away.
“You’re going to clean up the mess you made here,” she ordered. “Right now. You’re not leaving this park until every trace of magic mischief you planted is gone.”
He gave a short nod, then got to his feet. When he looked at her, there was murder gleaming in the depths of those yellow pits of fire in his irises.
“One more thing,” she said, pointing directly above their heads. “I don’t think you’ve had the pleasure of meeting my familiar. He would have joined us, but he was a bit busy picking up my mom.”
On cue, Cormac let out a deep, reverberating roar that shook the trees surrounding the meadow. Viper flinched and crouched down, his gaze turning to the circling serpent in the sky as distant screams and sirens followed Cormac’s arrival.
Kimberly suppressed a sigh of relief when she saw the figure dangling from the dragon’s claws.
The one part of Cormac’s plan she hadn’t been certain about was whether he could find and save her mother while also being able to teleport to the park in time if Viper got his hands on her. Originally she was supposed to lure the wyvern away from the traps he’d laid for them both so Cormac could have a clear path to fly to the rescue if she wasn’t able to stop Viper with what she’d learned.
Kimberly lowered her voice, going deadly serious in an instant. “You caught me unprepared the first time. I will never make that mistake around you again. I promise you, what Cormac did was a love tap compared to what I’ll do if you ever try to mess with me or my family again.”
Viper nodded and hissed a few words. “I heard you the first time. Gods willing, this will be the last time our paths will cross.”
“Good. I’ll be watching.”
He took a few unsteady steps back and began the process of shifting into his true form. Tendons creaked and popped, muscles expanding, bones twisting into new shapes. In the light of the setting sun, the wyvern’s g
olden scales shone like bright sepia toned mirrors. As he stretched his wings, while mostly healed, they still looked tattered and oddly ridged in places where the scar tissue grew thick.
With a string of rumbled Words, the few spells he’d laid that had not been triggered by her runic stones were disarmed. A sharp gesture with a ribbed wing dispelled the evidence of the ones she’d triggered.
He spared her one last look with a slitted, reptilian eye, gleaming amber in the light of dusk. It didn’t require words to know that he was thinking something murderous. She returned his look in kind, making her best effort not to quake under his fierce stare.
A rumbling growl and a flick of his barbed tail later, and he was aloft, drifting into the clouds. The rattling clack of Cormac’s teeth snapping together followed the wyvern’s retreat.
Followed by the panicked shriek of Kimberly’s mom.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
By Wednesday night, Kimberly was fairly certain she was going to lose her mind. After Cormac had saved her mother, Heather was convinced there was a monster waiting around every corner. It took a great deal of coaxing and hand-holding to get her to meet with Rieva.
That meeting was the only thing that went well. Cormac’s lessons made it harder than ever for her to pretend like what she had learned over the last four years applied to her the way it did to the other students. While she was capable of mimicking a number of spells and some aspects of their arts, it had never been so clear to her that she had her own path to walk, which made focusing on the remainder of her finals a herculean task.
It was only a word from Professor Reed in the hallway on Wednesday afternoon that reminded her she needed to attend some meeting in the dean’s office that night.
She was tempted to blow it off, but she needed to stick around to use the summoning hall to remove the bond she had with Eddie and replace it with a bond to Cormac. Tricking Viper into thinking Cormac was her familiar was likely the only thing that had bought her time in the Other community to prevent the wyvern or another like him from attempting to mess with her. The only reason she hadn’t done it sooner was because she needed to take the time to redraw a full binding circle and figure out how to sneak Cormac in without sending a panic through the school.
