I realized it was no cloud.
It looked as if it had been a picture that had been cut up into thousands upon millions of tiny pieces and stuck in a vortex of wind.
It took my mind a long time to reconcile the picture – but my heart took a mere second. For I was still connected to Dimitri – could still feel his presence, could still sense him.
And that cloud? It was him.
Don’t ask me how, but Dimitri had somehow split himself into thousands upon millions of tiny little scraps. And they all flowed around with the power of a hurricane.
And the cloud-like Dimitri was completely uncontrollable, this chaotic, wild force.
Was this the ultimate consequence of his magic?
Once more, he shot straight towards me, and this time, Max didn’t act quickly enough. Though he shoved into my shoulder, the cloud darted close to my side, so close that I could feel it brush against the skin of my arm.
Pain spread through my shoulder, jolting so hard into my body and shaking my jaw with such force it felt as if every bone in my body would shatter.
A choked scream split from my throat, but before I could draw another breath, I felt two strong arms wrap around my middle.
Max. He pulled me backward, bodily jerking me out of the way as the cloud tore around and aimed at me once more.
By now Sarah and Bridgette were at the vanguard, firing their magical crossbows and snapping at the cloud with their whips.
They were no ordinary whips. Every time they flew through the air, they appeared to actually cut through it somehow. These gaping holes of blue crackling force slit right through the air as if it were nothing more than flesh that had been riven from bone.
Though it was an incredible image, I couldn’t concentrate on it. The only thing I could comprehend right now was the pain. I had never felt anything like it. It felt as if a volcano had opened up in my arm, lava spilling out from the gash in my flesh.
And the pain? It was doing something to me. Pulling me backward. It felt like it was tugging me down to the grave. And hey, maybe that was Dimitri’s plan. Why bother taking me all the way back to that plastic-covered floor, why bother transporting me to that factory?
Why not just kill me now, chop my heart out later, and send it off to Fagan with sweet regards?
I could feel my eyes start to droop, feel my cheeks turn so cold, if I’d touched them, my fingers would have frozen off.
“Stay with me, block out the pain,” Max screamed in my ear. Though his voice was loud, though it rattled through his chest as it was pressed up against my back, I felt my lips droop, felt my eyes half close.
He shook me powerfully like I was little more than a flag he was waving in the wind. “No, Chi, stay with me,” he bellowed.
The Dimitri the cloud was doing untold damage. Though he was focusing on me, he was also darting through the witches, slashing through them with every chance he got.
Bridgette was screaming at the top of her lungs, trying to corral the witches, trying to get them to fight as one. They were shrieking, people were falling, there was blood everywhere.
Blood and magic.
Everything began to become hazy in my mind, began to fog, began to feel as if my thoughts had been shattered like the image of Dimitri.
… I was still connected to him. Still connected sufficiently that I could feel his anger, his rage, and more than anything, his total loss of control.
Oh, and his sense of triumph. For, in Dimitri’s mind, he had already won.
I had been stupid. I had come to him. I had sealed my own fate.
Once more the cloud rushed towards Max, and this time, it did so head-on. Though Max was quick, there was nowhere he could go.
Nowhere except backward.
We were standing on the very edge of the grave – 6 feet below sat the dirt-covered coffin, half open, the glimpse of clothes and hair visible beneath.
Max had nowhere to go.
So he took a step back.
Just before the cloud could slam into his chest and do untold damage to his very body, he pulled me backward with him, one arm still pinned around my stomach.
A second later, his back slammed into the coffin lid and broke it.
Fear and revulsion powered through my mind, snapped through my body, felt like they would crush my heart.
I could feel the broken shards of wood around Max, and beneath him, the form of a body.
But my fear couldn’t last. For the cloud? I watched it appear over the top of the grave.
I screamed – that echoing, pitching shriek bellowing through my throat, louder than a strike of lightning.
The cloud swept towards me.
But it did not reach me.
For suddenly, Max let go.
He pulled his arms from around my middle, releasing me. As he did, he turned to his magic in full. Blue flame leaped across his body, blazing around him like a halo.
Before I could scream at the top of my lungs, he shifted forward, somehow moving around me and throwing himself at Dimitri.
The thrill of magic passed through me, shuddering through my body with such speed, it could send me into outer space.
Before the cloud-Dimitri could rush down and kill me, Max reached out with his own power.
I’d never seen anything like it, I’d never felt anything like it, and as the two fairies met, the ground shook with incredible force.
It was the kind of force that could distract me momentarily from where I was lying – from the shards of wood sticking into my back, from the feel of the cold, dead body beneath me.
But I couldn’t be distracted for long. For even though the sight of those two clouds battling was incredible – those split-up, splintered images taking on one another like photos jammed into a blender – suddenly I heard something.
Another creak. This time, it was right behind me, right by my ear. My terrified mind told me it was coming from the corpse. Told me its jaw had just unhinged, told me it was getting ready to jolt forward and swallow me.
But it wasn’t.
I felt something open up behind me, almost as if I were lying not on top of a broken coffin, but on top of a door.
I felt a rush of wind. Then, unbidden from the darkness, something wrapped around my stomach. An arm.
I shrieked. I shrieked with everything I had, as the most violent fear you could ever imagine slammed into my mind.
The corpse, however, did not reach forward, wrap its unhinged jaw around my head, and kill me.
I smelt a familiar whiff of cologne, saw a familiar silver-grey suit.
I heard his voice, right by my ear. “Only five minutes now.”
With that, Fagan pulled me backward through the base of the coffin.
I did not end up transporting through the ground. In a rush of magical sparks, I arrived face-first on a plastic-covered floor.
I was in the factory.
The factory.
And I had five minutes.
Everything started to slow down as true fear crawled over me. It felt like I had drunk an entire ocean full of ice.
Everything was numbing, all the pain, all the fear. My body simply couldn’t process it anymore.
I’d read about that. When the body finally realizes it can’t struggle to survive anymore, it will numb out the pain until the pain finally ends.
I blinked, languidly, slowly, almost as if someone had cut the muscles that connected my eyelids to my face.
I heard Fagan take several steps away from me, stretching his shoulders, cracking his back.
He twisted hard on his foot, his mud-covered shoes coming close to my nose. “It wasn’t meant to happen like this. It was meant to be easier. But you still got here in the end, ha? Your fairy abandoned you, leaving me the only opportunity I needed. And now, now you’re finally here.”
Max abandoned me? That’s what the vision had meant? Max hadn’t abandoned me – he’d sacrificed himself to fight Dimitri.
I didn’t answer. Co
uldn’t. I was dumbstruck by how stupidly wrong I’d been. Clearly, it was a mistake to let scraps of truth about the future guide your actions. But I wouldn’t have time to learn from that important lesson. Because I hadn’t been wrong about everything: Fagan took a threatening step towards me, intentions clear.
In four-and-a-half minutes, I would lose my heart to this asshole.
And whoever he was working for – the Lonely King – would gain my abilities.
Fagan chuckled, stretching once more, patting down his suit, and clearing his throat. “You have a unique skill set, seer. A skillset that is in high demand. I can’t even begin to imagine how many points I will gain with the Lonely King when I bring your heart to him.”
Again, I didn’t answer. Again, I simply lay there and stared at the floor, pale, cold cheeks pressed against the plastic as I waited for those four-and-a-half – no – four minutes – to end.
And yet, somehow, I hadn’t quite given up hope. For, somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered my ability. And I waited. Waited for the sparks to spread across my vision, for the future to spread before me.
I waited for my ability to tell me what to do, to save my life.
It wouldn’t come.
Wouldn’t come.
Fagan chuckled once more as he paced away from me, appearing to walk towards the other side of the factory as he checked something.
As I shifted my head, forced my eyes to open, I realized it was the sword on the upturned milk crate.
He placed it on his arm, turning it around as he appeared to check the quality of the blade.
He clicked his tongue and laughed.
I watched him draw up a hand, pulled his sleeve back, and check his watch.
“Only a couple of minutes now,” he said, still chuckling.
Maybe this was when I was meant to ask some questions – where he was meant to tell me the rest of the plan. But what was the point? It was so damn obvious what the plan was. He would kill me, chop out my heart, and give it to the Lonely King.
Though I was in no condition to ask, apparently Fagan didn’t want to while away the last four minutes in total silence. He chuckled once more. “You made a mistake moving to this city, you know that now, don’t you?”
Again, I didn’t answer.
That didn’t seem to bother him. “Not every day you come across a seer. Powers like yours?” he whistled. “They can make men like me filthy rich. Strong, too. If I’d been you, I would have used my powers to stay the hell away from Bane City.”
I simply listened to him chuckle as my body became so cold, it was a surprise my face didn’t stick to the plastic like a tongue against ice.
“But you can’t access your powers in full, can you? Which makes me lucky, doesn’t it? If you had been a full clairvoyant, I doubt I would have had the foresight to catch you. But you?” He walked all the way up to me and paused above me. “You’re too young to understand what you are. Lucky,” he said through another one of those awful chuckles.
It was the chuckles more than anything that were pushing back the numb feeling spreading through my body. It was the chuckles that finally stiffened my lips, that made me bare my teeth. “Go to hell, asshole,” I managed.
He was like a bully who’d finally gotten a reaction from his victim. He now chuckled so loudly, it sounded like he would lose a lung. “Gladly, but I’m afraid I’ll be taking you there with me.”
It wasn’t exactly what he’d said in my vision, but it was close.
Fagan appeared to wait for me to continue the conversation, and when I didn’t, he reached forward and poked me on the shoulder, almost as if I was a half-dead insect he’d found on the floor.
My shoulder instantly blazed with pain. It was the same arm that the cloud-Dimitri had slammed into.
I had no idea what that power had done to me, but it was excruciating. It also pinned me to the ground, kept me stuck there.
Though I tried to keep my pain hidden, my lips split open, and I groaned out loud.
This elicited another laugh. “Don’t you want to know what you’ll be used for? Aren’t you curious what those future powers of yours will achieve?”
There was no point in staying quite any longer. “What? What heinous things are you going to get up to, asshole?”
“Not me, the Lonely King. You probably haven’t heard of him – too young and innocent, ha? He is the true kingpin of Bane City. A wonder. An ancient wonder,” he added, voice rattling on the word ancient.
I swore a chill wind raced through the room as he said that word. It brought with it a sense of something – a sense of something old and terrifying, somewhat like a mummy rearing its head out of some recently disturbed tomb.
“Runs this city, he does – most of the state. No one messes with him. Not even me,” Fagan added as his voice dropped low. “I would have kept your heart to myself, but the Lonely King would find out sooner rather than later. And though I imagine your powers as a seer – though undeveloped – are powerful, nobody’s powerful enough to fight the Lonely King.”
Though my mind told me that in approximately three minutes I’d be dead, suddenly I was being pulled in by what he’d said.
The Lonely King….
“Not even your grandmother could go against him,” Fagan added.
That – that got my attention. It pushed back the last of the numbing sensation that had frozen my body to the floor. Now all I had to contend with was the pain. I fought against it as I shifted my head to the side, as I ticked my eyes up and stared at him.
“That’s right,” he nodded as if his head were attached with loose string, “your grandmother. Pity she had to die. It would have been a heck of a lot better if I’d managed to get her heart. Then again,” he shook his head, “she was a true seer.”
The implication was clear. I, despite my nascent powers, was not a true seer. Which was completely true.
I was a sad joke who was about to die.
And yet, I could not completely fall to that thought – for he’d spoken of my grandmother.
I controlled myself. “Who’s the Lonely King? Why couldn’t grandmother go against him?”
A grin spread across Fagan’s face as I reacted to him. “Like I said, Lonely King’s the kingpin of this city and more. An old sorcerer king, I hear.”
“A sorcerer king?”
“We don’t get them anymore. But way back in the past, there were practitioners of magic so strong, they could shape history. They were almost impossible to kill, too. Usually, it took a seer, for only they would be able to figure out the consequence of the sorcerer king’s magic and exploit it against them.”
My stomach bottomed out.
“But, like I said, despite the fact your grandmother was a powerful seer – she wasn’t that powerful. She couldn’t take on the Lonely King. And though it wasn’t the Lonely King who got her in the end, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had something to do with her demise. Poor woman,” he said, his condolences completely lacking sincerity.
My heartbeat now thrummed hard in my throat, rattling in my ears. It wasn’t just the prospect that the pale can could have inadvertently led to my grandmother’s death. It was the mention of sorcerer kings.
For some reason, those two words had an effect on me – more than they should. I had never heard of sorcerer kings before Fagan had mentioned them, and I could only vaguely imagine what one was.
But my body seemed to understand, and from the exact racing, tearing sensations pulling their way through my torso and rattling in my chest, it was clear that the very concept of a sorcerer king terrified me.
I heard Fagan click his tongue as he brought up his arm and checked his watch once more. “Two minutes. Two whole minutes. We’ve talked about the Lonely King, talked about your grandmother – what else? I should have brought my phone,” he admonished himself. “Good time to play a game.”
I ignored his words and concentrated on the sense that tore through me at the concept of a sorcerer
king. A man so powerful he could shape history. A man so powerful that only the strongest of seers could bring him down.
I didn’t have the best of memories. Biographical facts weren’t usually that important to me. Remembered fortunes, passwords, and random facts from TV shows tended to fill my mind instead. So why did it now suddenly feel as if I remembered something about sorcerer kings? As if somehow I’d learned of one before, even met one?
Which was crazy, because before I’d inherited my grandmother’s house, I hadn’t heard a word about magic.
But….
Fagan clicked his tongue once more. “Only 90 seconds now,” he said as he clapped his hands together and rung them tightly.
It didn’t matter, did it? Who cared what a sorcerer king was? I had 90 seconds.
Fagan started to fidget, pushing to his feet, and heading towards the milk crate. He plucked up the sword as a certain kind of grim smile spread across his face.
Though reality told me to give up – to stop thinking of sorcerer kings – my mind couldn’t quite do it.
And the more I focused on that thought, the more something started to happen.
The more a certain kind of sense welled in my stomach. Though it was an odd way to describe it – the sense felt like it was far away. Like I was somehow connecting with some long distant, long past experience.
“Only a minute now,” Fagan said, and I heard the noise of him tapping his fingers on the sword.
I was only vaguely aware of it. For my mind… my mind was focusing on the sorcerer king. And the more it did, the more it pulled me away.
Suddenly, everything slipped away. Everything. From the warehouse, to the plastic, to Fagan in the distance. It all just fell apart, as if none of that mattered anymore, as if nothing mattered anymore. Abruptly, without any warning, I found myself lying in pastureland, staring up at a vibrant, sunny sky.
It was the vision from Max’s magic, but it was unlike anything I had experienced before. It was complete. Less like a vision, more like reality. I brought up a hand, waved it in front of my face, tracking my fingers as they cut across the view of the sky above. “What, what the hell?” I managed, pushing up, controlling my body as I turned my head and searched the pastureland around me. I had absolutely no idea what I was looking for, no idea what lay beyond those rolling green hills. Suddenly? Suddenly I heard horse hooves.
A Lying Witch Book Two Page 13
