Seacursed: The Mage Circle Trilogy: 1

by L. A. McGinnis

  The book—he had to get the book. It was the only thing that mattered.

  “You don’t understand.” Twisting against her grip, he snarled, “Kieran and I have searched for that book for eons. Eons. Now it’s right up there, within arm’s reach, and I am not leaving not without Devlin’s goddamned book. I need it.”

  Something turned brittle inside him as her face paled and her eyes widened in shock.

  Softening his voice, he added, “Look, we’ll take both of them. The Book of Worlds and the Tracker records. It won’t matter if our hands are full. We can both use magic to clear a path.”

  “That won’t work, Luc. We decided to work together. If neither of us can use our hands, getting out of here alive will be nearly impossible.”

  “But not impossible, right?” he said, clearing Devlin’s desk with a sweep of his hand, papers scattering everywhere.

  She slipped her hand from his arm when he braced his hands against the edge of the enormous desk, shoving it across the uneven floor, the thing squealing, until the edge hit the bottom of the bookcase. His boots met the top of the desk with a thud as he jumped up, then reached out and plucked the book from the shelf, the ancient spine giving slightly in his haste. “Which one, Victoria? Which of these is the one you need?”

  “That one to your right…the one that says Trackers on the spine.” Her tone was sarcastic, and Luc figured he deserved it. “No. Down more… Yes, there, the binder with the dark brown cover.” Her voice sounded faint. “Please, Luc. Reconsider. Let’s leave Devlin’s book behind. Otherwise, he’ll never stop coming after us. And Kieran.”

  For the space of a moment, he almost did it. Put the book back and listened to reason.

  Instead, he took Victoria’s hand and hauled her toward the doorway. Pausing at the line between the office and the hallway, he looked her in the eyes. “Let’s hope this isn’t as bad as your father said it would be.” Devlin was already stirring, his arms flopping on the stone floor, feet twitching. “Don’t let go of my hand,” Lucas warned her. Cradled in his arms, the book shuddered—fighting—as if the thing knew it was being taken from its owner.

  As he stepped across the invisible line, the book tugged at Lucas, dragging him back through the door of the office, even as he tried to steady himself against the wall. With Victoria clinging to him, Lucas dug his boots against the stone floor. “I swear to Christ, this damn thing is coming with me.”

  It took all his strength to clear the doorway then take several halting steps around Devlin. Together, Lucas and Victoria staggered down the hall and climbed the sunken stone steps, reaching the lower levels of the dungeons, where the empty faces of prisoners watched them pass. Victoria pulled at him, urging him on, but didn’t look at him, not once. Not even when they reached the small, arched opening leading to the floor where screaming, sobbing prisoners clawed at the bars, their way blocked by a group of stone-faced guards.

  Lucas knew. Knew what Victoria would do the second before she did it, and yet he was so busy wresting with the damn book that he couldn’t stop her.

  “Don’t move,” Victoria said, her voice a rasp of sound against the wet, dripping stone. She shoved the brown binder into his arms and—faster than he could track—slid around the corner, straight into the center of the waiting guards.

  29

  Victoria swam through the air as if it were water. Indeed, the humid dungeon almost was, droplets of moisture clinging to her skin and beading off, as she plunged faster and faster through the space toward the line of unsuspecting guards.

  Hunting with Tate had been enlightening, to say the least. A shiver of anticipation went through her as the scent of the guards changed, turning into something more…edible. Fear charged the air around them as they realized something was in their midst, the scent pungent and delicious. Just the smell of their blood pounding beneath their skin made her mouth water.

  She swung her gaze back to the darkened archway where Lucas waited.

  Lucas.

  Anger sparked within her, but she shoved it back down. Not now. She was angry, but she’d deal with the change of plans later. Luc had his reasons; she just hoped the risk they were taking was worth the reward. She looked back to the dungeon, the desperate prisoners. the knot of wary guards, their guns drawn now. But while she was sorely tempted, bloody, messy deaths would not do her or Lucas any good right now.

  Chaos, however, would.

  A tip of her head had the guardsmen turning toward her; a mere thought froze them in their tracks. So much easier than Devlin, these weak minds. So malleable. “Unlock the cells. All of them.” The screaming stopped and a deadly, anticipatory silence grew. One after the other, the cell doors swung open, and emaciated prisoners stepped out. Empty eyes turned voracious. Claw-like hands clenched.

  “Take their weapons and let us pass,” Victoria told the freed inmates, motioning Lucas out of the shadows.

  By the time they reached the passage above the dungeons, lawlessness reigned below. But a sharp-edged anger grew inside her every time she looked at that scaled black book clutched beneath Luc’s arm. Every time she remembered his voice, telling her what he needed. And each time she pushed the feeling down, it fought back a little bit harder.

  It took some effort to take the hand he offered, and Lucas shoved the brown binder into her arms once they were tucked into a small alcove. Across the wide hall was the entrance that led to the open foyer. “There’s the final set of doors,” she murmured. “Once we’re through, we’ll be sitting ducks. There will be nowhere to hide, and we can’t afford to slow down. We have to keep moving.” Victoria looked to the book in Luc’s arms. “No matter what. There will be guards, and they have lots of firepower. After that is the alley, and then the arch.” Her breath was coming fast. She knew what lay ahead. “Once we’re in New York, will Rhiannon’s wards hide us?”

  Lucas nodded, his face drawn. “They will. Devlin won’t find us.” His voice sounded shaky, and her heart sank when he mumbled, “The book is draining my power. I’d planned to use my fire to get us across the foyer to the exit, but if I can’t…”

  “I understand. We can fight our way through. We’ll have to fight through.”

  At the sound of approaching boots, Luc pushed her flat against the wall, the two of them nose to nose, breath mingling, in the small niche as the pounding drew nearer. Guards, shoulder to shoulder, hurtled for the lower levels. Mutterings of rebellion, revolt…uprising, as they raced by. The moment they were past, Lucas kissed her, hard and fast.

  “I’m sorry,” Luc said. “If this goes wrong, I want you to get yourself out.”

  Those were his last words just before he pushed in front of her and burst through the double doors, the light illuminating him like a spotlight.

  Victoria’s breath caught at the sight beyond his silhouette. She didn’t know the Circle even had this many guards. A wall of them, two to three deep, stood between her and Luke and the doors. The Circle would have more waiting outside. A patrol guarding the arch. Sharpshooters in between.

  The air up here was dry; there were no beads of moisture to speed her along—no water in which to swim, a shark among minnows. But she was still a Tracker. A predator. She was born to kill, while these men had only been taught to handle weapons.

  Victoria tucked the binder beneath her arm and grinned.

  A flare of Luc’s flame sent them scattering, bullets going wild, peppering the wall above their heads, debris showering down as she went right and he went left. Devlin’s damn book was slowing Luc down, his movements jerky and unsure. But her newfound power turned her into a sleek killing machine. As a trio of soldiers converged on her, Victoria flipped the binder into the air and gutted the first guard, then spun and tore out another’s throat. She snatched the still-spinning binder from the air and flung herself through a break in the ranks, sliding along the slick marble floor through a forest of legs, slicing and tearing as she went. Above her, flames shot through the guards, sending them screaming, r
unning for any shelter they could find.

  Seconds—they had seconds to reach that door. Before reinforcements arrived.

  Before Devlin awakened.

  A long, roaring blast of fire over her head had her turning as Lucas stumbled through the breaking ranks, his face grey, eyes rolling. With a curse she caught him by the arm, half dragging him toward the door. Somewhere below them, Devlin was rousing, perhaps making his way up. “Come on Lucas, please. We have to get to the doors.” This lobby had never seemed so unending as it did right now, her feet slipping on the tiles.

  She curled her arm around Lucas, as he sagged in exhaustion. “Move your feet,” she ordered him. She would not leave him. Not here. Not in this place. Not with Devlin on their heels. “Hand me the goddamned book,” she snarled, and Lucas thrust it at her with both hands, a sign of how horrible it must be.

  The second the thing was dumped into her arms?

  Oh God. The awful, dragging weight of the thing almost sent her to her knees. Worse yet, it quaked against her chest, as if it had an actual heartbeat, the sensation as the rhythmic thumping passed through her twisted and ancient, horrible and endless. Holding the book was like cradling evil.

  How had Lucas made it all this way holding this…thing? When she stumbled, he caught her by the waist.

  His hand on the enormous lever of the front doors, he warned her, “Through this door, more will be waiting. I’m going to clear the way. I want you to close your eyes, Vic. Close them tight.”

  Eyes shut, in the dark, the book thumped against her chest. Heat seared her face, an endless blast of it, while Luc held her upright, braced within the doorframe, and the smell of burning flesh reached her nose.

  “Now run,” he urged her, tugging her along, her eyes still closed. “Faster, Vic. We have to go faster.”

  Stumbling, she was completely blind, the awful weight clutched in her arms. But she did her best, moving forward until she felt damp London air against her face and knew they’d reached the main street.

  “Okay. Tell me where we are.”

  Only then did she open her eyes. Dim. The light was so dim that it must be evening. Or it could be morning. She’d lost track. Lucas grasped her arm and hurried her across the street. “We need to cross there.” She pointed toward the edge of St. James Park. “And we don’t have a lot of time, since the place will soon be covered in Circle guards. Tate’s waiting at the arch. Once we reach him, then we’re home free.” She tried to run, but the book was like hauling a stack of lead.

  Lucas took the damn thing from her, but then he too began to flag. “It’s like the further away it gets from Devlin, the heavier it becomes,” he said through gritted teeth. Victoria shoved against his shoulders, but his feet were rooted to the ground. She looked around helplessly. They had blocks to go before they reached the arch. At this rate, they’d never even make the edge of the park.

  The sound of boots on pavement had her yanking his arm so hard that he grunted in pain, but it got him moving, and they covered a few precious feet while she gritted her teeth, pulling and pulling that damn thing along. Inch by miserable inch.

  “Please, Luc. Leave it. This isn’t worth it. Nothing inside that book can possibly be worth this.”

  He must have agreed, opening his arms to dump the damn thing in the street, when the guards rounded the corner, their handguns and rifles raised, aimed straight at them. Luc lifted his hand, a feeble, half-lit flame rising between them, less of a shield than an attempt to slow them down. “Run, Vic. You’re fast enough to make it through the park. Tate’s waiting. He’ll get you to New York.” When she went to claw the book out of his arms, he pushed her off. “Fucking go. Both of us won’t make it, not now.” Indeed, black-uniformed men closed in, emerging from the mouths of every street, from behind the high thicket of bushes lining the park. “I’ll hold them off long enough for you to get away.”

  A thin ribbon of flames angled toward the guards, showering sparks. “Straight through there.” Lucas nodded at the narrow corridor between his thin wall of shivering blue flame and the line of parked cars. She could do it. “Go, Vic,” he said gently, his gaze dropping to the book clutched in her shaking hands. “Get out of here. And save them all.”

  Without a backward glance, he strode straight toward the oncoming forces, the barest flicker of fire at his fingertips.

  30

  The impact shuddered through her a second before the pain did, Lucas’s order still ringing in her ears.

  “Save them all.”

  The precious binder—the one with the names of the people she was going to save—flew from her numbed hand, her blood coating the pages in a mist of crimson red. Her blood.

  It took Victoria a moment to realize she’d been shot, her shoulder screaming in agony, her body thrown to the ground by the force of the bullet. Devlin stalked toward her, the gun dangling from his hand. “Both of you working together. How interesting. You see, this is why we have controls on you people. To prevent these sorts of things from happening.”

  Victoria watched Devlin’s feet come into view. More feet, heavy and black-booted, circled in behind him.

  Lucas—where was he? Did he get away?

  “The bullet lodged inside you is my creation,” Devlin said, crouching down. “Your father once had something similar to it, a coin, a token. His could give life, or death. Mine give only death. A few moments, perhaps, is all you have.” He reached out a finger, his nail sharp as it rasped along her cheek. “Shame, really. So beautiful. Such a waste.”

  She drew in a shuddering breath and agony whipped through her, as if fire was pouring through her veins.

  “The magic ingrained within the metal is a fire magic. It will burn away your insides, until there is nothing left.”

  Devlin rose. “Pick her up. I don’t want her dying on the streets. Wouldn’t look proper. Get those damn Tracker records, too.” But part of her relaxed, even rejoiced at his next words: “And find that Greycloak bastard. He stole something from me. I don’t care what you have to do—fucking find him.”

  Rough hands picked her up, half dropped her, then firmed their grip, her entire body screaming in pain. Fire. She might be made of water, but she was going to burn to death. For a second, an image of Worton, engulfed in roiling flames, writhing and screeching, was all she could see. That was exactly how she would die. Horribly. Painfully.

  And then she remembered Devlin’s taunt. The coin in her pocket.

  Twisting in agony, she slipped her hand in and drew out the token. She almost dropped it before wrapping her shaking fingers around it, tucking it into her palm, a cold talisman of hope. It was harder this time, through the pain and the fear, to focus.

  Victoria searched through the pain for her magic, then followed the trail straight into the core of her power. It was dwindling, seared by Devlin’s awful magic. Gripping the coin tighter, she willed her magic to track the poisonous spell destroying her body, back to the metal slug lodged in her shoulder. She bound her magic to the cursed bullet, fully encasing the small pellet, her own blood serving as a shield against the fiery intrusion. As the pain faded and her magic slowly returned, she methodically worked through her body, cleansing Devlin’s beastly magic from every single cell and atom of her being, like she was fumigating a building for cockroaches. Once she was pristine again, the pain ebbed. The token still clutched in her hand, Victoria sagged limply in the grip of the guards as they hauled her back to Obsidian Hall, her body healed, her mind already planning the men’s slaughter.

  Lucas dumped the blasted book behind a parked car and spun around, raising his right hand, intent on burning each and every one of the bastards until they were nothing but ash.

  Instead, he turned just in time to watch Victoria sail across the street, blood splattering everywhere, the binder flying from her hand. He took one step and saw Devlin, mocking arrogance written all over his face, stalking straight toward her.

  The line of guardsmen swooping in to back Devlin up cut L
ucas off as he lunged to reach her, searching for a break in their ranks. His guttering magic was beginning to recover, but he was far from managing more than a weak flame. Rage and helplessness coalesced as Devlin squatted before Victoria, a literally smoking gun hanging loosely from his hand. The bastard leaned in, then rose, motioned for the guards to pick her up and strode away, scanning the street, the cars, the thick line of bushes behind which Lucas crouched.

  There was so much blood pouring from her, and it was bright crimson against her pale skin, leaving behind an uneven, dark stain where it soaked into the grey concrete. Lucas wanted to scream to the heavens. He had nothing left to save her with. Whether from the book draining him dry, or from the fight to escape, who knew? He had enough, perhaps, to reach Victoria, to hold them off for a matter of moments. To hold her in his arms. But when he pushed, his magic balked, only a flicker escaping, containing the barest glow of heat.

  “Goddamn it,” Lucas said as the hair on the back of his neck lifted, everything inside him going instantly taut. There’d been no rustle of sound, no footsteps, but there was something behind him. And it was big.

  Whirling, with the intent to use his one final blast of power, Lucas stared straight into the green eyes of the timber wolf, fresh blood still dripping from its maw.

  Victoria sagged, her body dead weight, forcing them to regrip her arms and legs every few feet, making the process of getting her back into the tight alleyway tediously slow. Devlin led the way—she glimpsed him every so often—and it did her heart good to see his robes dirty, his hair sticking up as he sauntered ahead, his steps long and assured. A king and his plunder returning to his castle. Soon-to-be-dead plunder, as far as he knew. Victoria allowed herself to twist slightly, one of the guards losing his grip on her bloodied shoulder. She slipped loose and was pulled several feet across the concrete, the rough surface abrading her forearm. “For fuck’s sake, pick her up. There’s four of you. And humans in the streets watching,” Devlin muttered, his eyes on the alleyway they’d almost reached. “Once we’re inside, I don’t care what happens to her. But the damn mortals all have cameras. I don’t want this getting messy.”