“No, no. Let me do it.” Erin grinned. “That’s part of the fun.”
She reached down to his pants, looking like she was actually about to give him what he wanted.
Brighten sort of felt bad for the guard in the seconds before it happened.
Her hand flashed out and nailed the man right in the crotch. He doubled over, trying to back away, but Erin’s other hand grabbed his hair, twisting his head up so he had to stare at her.
“Dumb ass. Never, ever think with your dick.”
She whipped his head forward, bashing it into the bars.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The guard collapsed to the floor, out cold with blood trickling from his mouth.
“All right, whipper-snapper. Get your ass up and come help me get these keys.”
Kris was already on her feet when Brighten started moving.
“How did you know that stupid stuff would work?” he asked.
Erin laughed as if she hadn’t just bashed a man’s face into some bar, breaking his jaw. “Oh, honey. Men like him? They’re about four months ahead of a monkey in terms of evolution. They think with one thing, and one thing only. Kris, you’re a smart girl, but don’t ever fall for a guy like that.”
“Like him?” Kris asked as she reached the bars. “I’d sooner kiss Brighten.”
“There ya go. Good girl.”
“Well done.” Lucie was the last one to reach her feet. “I’m too old to tempt anyone these days, so I’m lucky you’re here.”
“Oh, I’m sure you have your ways too.” Erin squatted, pulling the body close. “Kris, reach through there and grab those keys.”
It took Kris a few seconds, but she grabbed the large ring of keys from the guard’s belt loop. She stood up and handed them to Erin.
“How the hell are we going to find the right one? We don’t have much time. His absence is going to be noticed.”
“The power of positive thinking! I keep telling you two.” Erin winked and took the keys over to the cell door.
Brighten watched as she started trying them. Minutes passed and he felt his anxiety rise, but he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to hear anything else about the power of positive thinking, and he also didn’t want to be proven wrong again. Erin just kept turning out to be right, and he was sure she would this time, too.
“There…we…go!” she whispered excitedly as one of the keys turned inside the lock.
The door swung open.
“All right, let’s grab this big idiot and lock him up.” She stepped out of the cage, took the man’s legs, and pulled him inside. She looked at the other three. “What are you waiting for?”
Lucie stepped up and squatted over the man. She started patting him down. “Need to see if there’s something that’ll take this damned necklace off.” She completed her search, finding nothing. “Damn it.”
“Okay, we’ll worry about that later. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“And go where? And do what?” Brighten finally asked. “We need to get out of this place. Get back to Sidnie. Anywhere but here.”
Erin turned around and looked directly at him.
“That’s not what we’re doing.”
“Why not? What are we going to be able to do here? Are you going to fight Rendal?”
“All the stuff you did back in Sidnie, and now you’re scared again.” Erin shook her head sadly.
“Everything we did back there amounted to nothing. Rendal is still alive, and he’s more powerful than ever. Riley… We don’t even know where she is. What are we supposed to do?”
Erin turned to Lucie. “You know Riley better than anyone else here, right?”
“Aye, I’d say I do.”
“Do you think she’ll survive?”
“If anyone in this world can, it’ll be her.”
“And if she survives, will she come here?”
“Aye.” Lucie nodded. “She’ll come here as soon as she can.”
Erin looked at Brighten again. “That’s what we’re going to do. When she comes here, it can’t be like it was in Sidnie. It can’t be five of us versus an entire kingdom. We have to get the people ready for her return. When she battles Rendal, we’re going to fight the military. She was ready to die for you and your kingdom. It’s time for you to be ready to do the same.”
“Unless you’re too chickenshit.” Kris slugged him hard in the arm.
Brighten gritted his teeth, refusing to show that it had hurt. “Fine. Let’s just get out of here before another guard comes down.”
“That’s the Brighten I know and love.” Erin gave him a brilliant smile.
She pulled off the pair of cuffs from the guard’s belt, slapping one side to the man’s wrist and the other through the bars.
“Maybe next time he’ll think with the head atop his neck.”
She laughed as the four trotted out.
Chapter Six
“How many people have taught you magic, or tried to teach you, at least?”
Riley stood next to Linda, the two of them staring out at the ocean. They had come out to the beach, leaving the wrecked city behind them. Riley didn’t like the place, although she kept that to herself. She didn’t know how anyone could make it home and live there for years on end without any human contact.
“Let’s see.” She counted them up quickly in her mind. “Three, if you include Lucie.”
“Lucie?” the old woman asked.
“She knows how to use magic. She was one of Rendal’s students once upon a time.”
“Ah, I see. She didn’t follow him all the way, though?”
Riley shook her head. “She stayed true to New Perth.”
“How many times have you faced Rendal?”
“I’m starting to lose count. Five, maybe?”
“And he’s bested you each time?”
Riley didn’t like the way she put it, her competitive nature rising up. “I wouldn’t call it that. We battled to a standstill last time, and I got Mason back, which was all I wanted. I’m closing the gap on him.”
“Battled to a standstill except he basically killed you,” the old woman sniped. “Would have killed you, if not for me. Is that what you Right Hands call a ‘standstill?’”
“Living alone make you this grumpy, or have you always been?”
“When you get to be my age, everything hurts, so you do your best to make sure everyone knows it.” Linda grinned. “Tell me why you think he keeps besting you.”
“He’s older, and he’s been practicing magic a lot longer than I have.”
“Worth’s been practicing a lot longer than you. Can he best you?” Linda asked.
Riley shook her head.
“So that’s not it. What else?”
“One reason is, he’s got all those damned nanocytes running through his bloodstream.”
“That makes him stronger, yes, but Rendal was not the most naturally powerful person. I’ve met many people who had greater magical potential than he did. The nanocytes—if what you say is happening is actually happening—will make him more capable, yet you yourself tell me you’ve gotten closer to defeating him each time. How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” Riley almost shouted. She let a few seconds pass, her emotions cooling some. “I’m getting better, I guess.”
“Getting good enough to defeat those extra nanocytes, from the way it sounds. Or coming closer.” Linda grinned again. “Are you putting nanocytes in your blood? Is that how you’re doing it?”
Riley knew she was being playfully mocked, so she said nothing.
“It’s got nothing to do with any of those things. It isn’t that Rendal is older or has been practicing longer. I saw what you did when I attacked William. You have real strength and great control over your abilities. Sure, I know you can’t practice psychic magic yet, but that ties into the same things I’m asking about with Rendal.”
“I don’t know why I can’t beat him then,” Riley repeated.
&
nbsp; Linda didn’t respond but started walking toward the ocean. Riley remained where she was, just watching the woman.
Linda reached the water but didn’t stop.
Riley’s mouth dropped open.
Instead of walking into the water, she walked on top of it. Her body didn’t sink but just kept going forward, none of her getting wet.
She stopped maybe ten feet out and turned around.
Come on, Linda told Riley, her voice in Riley’s head instead of her ears.
Riley followed, although she stopped once her feet touched the water. She was definitely getting wet.
“I’d like to go inside your head for a moment. Do you mind?” Linda called from atop the water.
“How are you doing that?” Riley asked.
“I’m manipulating the world around me, the same as how we use all magic. Can I dip into your head for a second?”
“Sure,” Riley answered.
She felt the woman move inside her mind, although it was faint. Linda was definitely adept at doing this, more so than anyone Riley had ever met.
“Ah, there,” Linda said, nodding.
Riley felt the woman pull back and leave her mind completely.
Linda turned to her left, staring at the ocean in front of her. She raised her right hand, and as Riley watched, the water rose. Two human figures grew from the sea, both of them holding swords.
Riley could tell that one was female, the other male.
One looked like…well, like Riley. The ocean made it hard to decipher facial features, but she thought the other might have been Eric.
The two figures started to fight with swords, and Riley remembered it perfectly. They had been hiding in the mansion back in Sidnie. The two of them had been practicing their sword work.
“I can tell you recall this.”
The female water figure was backing up, taking the hits from the male with her sword. Tiny bits of water splashed like wet sparks, yet the figures held firm as more water from the ocean replenished them.
Finally, the woman dodged a blow—and in a spectacular move spun around the man and placed her sword’s point in his back.
The figures froze.
“What did you ask that young man then?” Linda said.
“I asked him why I kept beating him.”
“That’s right. And what did he tell you?”
“Basically the same things I just told you. I was too fast. I’d practiced longer.”
The two figures backed away from each other, the male bent over and leaning on his knees. The water that made up his back heaved up and down, simulating him breathing hard.
“But what did you tell him?” Linda asked.
“That me winning had nothing to do with my speed or sword work.”
“It didn’t, did it? As a man, he should have been faster than you, right?”
“Maybe, yeah,” Riley answered.
“Do you know what I’m getting at?”
Riley nodded.
“Then tell me the reason you thought he couldn’t best you, this young man.”
“He didn’t believe he could,” Riley explained, understanding fully now. “He thought I was better than him and he expected to lose, so he did. He needed to believe it was possible to beat me before he could.”
“That is your problem, too. You don’t actually believe you can beat Rendal.” Linda dropped her hand and the water crashed back down, creating a minor splash.
Gentle waves rolled beneath Linda, but she stood atop them as if she belonged.
“I’ve seen inside your mind now, Riley. In a swordfight, you believe you can beat anyone in this world—your friend William, or any other warrior who might show up. Truthfully, with magic, you think you can best most people too. Not me. Not Rendal. But Worth and Alexandra? You believe you’ve grown past them, and so you have.”
Linda looked down at her feet.
“I’m walking on water. Would you like to do it?”
“I can’t,” Riley answered.
Linda grinned, her teeth white in her wrinkled and tanned face. “And so you won’t. Do you see how ridiculous it is? I, a ninety-two-year-old woman, can do something a young lady like yourself can’t? It’s all in your head, Riley. Every bit of it. Why don’t you try to come out here with me?”
Riley looked down at her feet. Water rolled over them, waves crashing onto the shore and then receding back into the ocean.
“If I could do it, I’d be doing it right now.”
She tried. She focused on coalescing the water under her feet. She knew she could leap out there, and perhaps hold herself in the air for a time, but that wasn’t the same.
“And that’s why your city will fall. Because you don’t believe. Because you think he is stronger than you. Because you think yourself not his equal. When I was in your mind, I saw that Rendal told you he would destroy everything you love. He will. Perhaps he even is right now, and you won’t stop him unless you learn to believe in yourself.”
Chapter Seven
It’d been a bitch to get that damn necklace off. Lucie thought she’d hated Rendal before, but taking that damned thing off her neck had intensified her feelings by a factor of ten at the minimum.
Finally, Lucie had laid her head on a fucking chopping block, and Erin had grabbed a hand axe.
“What if it like explodes or something?” Brighten asked.
“Boy, shut your mouth right now if you know what’s good for you,” Lucie snapped.
She didn’t want to hear anything like that, although such thoughts were going through her mind.
“I hope your aim is as good here as it was when you punched that guard in the nuts,” she told Erin, and she meant it. If Erin missed, Lucie would open her eyes and be staring at the Father and the Mother.
“The power of positive thinking, Lucie,” Erin answered. “You’re going to be fine. We’ll take yours off, and then Brighten’s next.”
Brighten simply swallowed, the click in his throat loud enough for Lucie to hear.
The hand axe had come down, and Lucie felt the board beneath her shake as it slammed into it. She’d kept her eyes closed, refusing to open them.
“Am I alive?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Erin said.
She’d turned to Brighten then. “Your turn.”
“No, no. I’m okay. I don’t need to use magic. I like the necklace. I think it looks good on me. I want to keep it.”
Lucie had opened her eyes, chuckling at Brighten.
There was nothing to chuckle about now, though.
A few days had passed since the escape, the four of them laying low ever since. Lucie had innumerable connections in the kingdom, so hiding wasn’t a problem. They couldn’t hide forever, however. Lucie agreed with Erin. When Riley returned, she would need help to turn this madness around.
It’d taken a few days to understand where the Honor Guard was being held; the kingdom had multiple prisons, and the Honor Guard was being kept in a private location.
Lucie and Erin needed them first, before anyone else. With Verith gone, Eisen—the head guard in the Honor Guard—was their best bet. Hell, the entire Honor Guard was what they really needed.
They had to break the group free.
Now, a trail of men lay behind Lucie, all of them unconscious. Perhaps she’d killed a few; she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t really care either. These men were monsters in the guise of humans.
Lucie was winded, and her mind was growing tired as well. She’d thought about sending Erin to do this job, but in the end, the woman didn’t know the kingdom well enough, and she couldn’t cast magic. If something went wrong, Lucie would have a better chance of escaping without being captured.
The Honor Guard was being kept in a below-ground dungeon, and Lucie had nearly reached their prison.
About one hundred yards in front of her, she saw three guards standing outside the door. Lucie could sense another six inside it.
Nine in total.
“I’m
too old for this,” Lucie whispered.
She was leaning against a wall, trying to catch her breath and let her mind rest some.
There wasn’t tons of time. The bodies behind her, dead or alive, would be found soon.
“Okay, here we go,” she told herself. “Nine more and you’re free.”
Lucie stood up from the wall and took a short left into the next hallway.
The three soldiers sat at the end.
“Who the hell’s that?” one of them called.
Lucie’s eyes turned red.
“Ya can’t be down here, ya old bitch!” one of them screamed. “Now get on before we break yer skull!”
“I got a hard head, ya louts. Let’s see ya try.”
Lucie started down the hallway, her footfalls echoing off the brick tunnel around her.
The three guards stood. One of them banged on the metal door behind them. “Hey, we got trouble out here!”
“Sonofabitch,” Lucie whispered. She’d hoped she could finish these three off before the six inside knew what was happening.
The door opened, and a man stepped out. “Trouble?”
“Down there,” the man said.
Lucie was fifty yards away.
“That old broad? You bang on the door because of her?” the man from inside asked.
“Hey, I’m just letting you know what’s going on, jackass,” the man who had knocked answered. “We’ll handle it.”
Another one of the guards stepped forward. “Stop right there. I’m not playing with your ass.”
“Play with this, then,” Lucie called back.
She stuck her hand into her pocket and pulled out the last of the pebbles. She’d used far too many earlier and would be all out after this handful. She wanted to kick herself for not picking the rest up.
Lucie launched them underhand into the air, although gravity didn’t take over like it should have. The rocks flew forward, blitzing through the air like bullets. The man who’d just screamed at her stopped and stared, his mouth wide open.
The pebbles whacked him in the face.
He fell to the ground, screaming, blood pouring from his skin.
The other two turned and stared at him, not seeing the rocks.
Lucie kept walking forward. She brought up her other hand and made a dividing motion in the air with both.
Hand of Justice Boxed Set Page 61
