In Mage We Trust (Of Mystics and Mayhem Book 1)

by Heidi Vanlandingham

  The skeletal mage tottered forward, stopping in front of me. I didn’t like the gloating look on his face. He was likely pleased with himself for getting me so easily. He lifted his arm and pointed a bony finger at my face. His fingernail lengthened, growing and forming a finely chiseled point. I pushed back into the heated skin, baking my spine through the thin material of my tank top.

  I so did not like this relative, but no doubt the feeling was mutual. The tip of his knife-like nail scratched below my left ear, the skin making a popping noise as he poked through the tender flesh. I clamped down on my tongue as the pain intensified, his nail cutting a thin gash across my cheek and stopping only when he came to the edge of my mouth.

  The muscled arm under my tight grip flexed and jerked backward, as if holding itself from moving toward the talon-tipped hand now cutting into my other cheek to pull me away. Did I have a secret ally? It would explain the good vibes I’d gotten from his metal. I decided to test my theory.

  A fierce burning sensation trailed after the fingernail. I knew my pain would be short-lived, thanks to Niki’s gift of the afterlife and my DNA. I glared at the macabre man standing in front of me. He looked deader than dead. If that was even possible.

  “How do you like knowing your magic’s not good enough for your precious demon king? It must really bug the hell out of you how your own son has three times the power you do.” I let the contempt I felt for this man coat each word.

  He uttered several long words in a foul-sounding language, and a brilliant light exploded in my face, causing frontal pressure as the spell pushed toward me and splintered.

  A horrific visage blinded me, a glimpse of Max’s face as it imploded, leaving only the skull. Sort of. His eyes were huge pools of blackness with a blue-tipped blaze at their centers. His mouth resembled a jack o’ lantern’s. Each yellowed tooth, sharp and long, rested underneath a thin slit for a nose. Deep indentations lay where rounded cheekbones should have been, as if he’d been punched and they’d never popped back out.

  Thankfully, my muscle-bound guard jerked me sideways with amazing speed as we fell to the ground in a tangled heap, and I was pulled from the vision I would file away with my worst nightmares. I didn’t care what or who he was, only that my demon guard had saved me.

  Fine dust filtered through the air, quickly covering everything. I stared at what had been the side of our house and realized how much I owed my unknown savior. The picture window stood like a dark, gaping hole with a spider web of dangling two-by-fours and sheetrock in its center.

  Mr. Muscles’ arms twitched. He groaned and covered his face with his hand. Considering he must have taken most of the force from the blast, I’d say he was doing remarkably well.

  I awkwardly untangled my limbs from his and pushed away part of a beam laying across his upper body. The man had the physique of Hercules—and, oh my, he was gorgeous. I even liked the cute black horns nestled in the ebony hair on either side of his head. His hand went to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Aww, big, bad demon had a headache. Nice to know demons seemed to have the same foibles we humans did.

  I met his yellow gaze and smiled. “Hey, Mr. Muscles. I owe you one.”

  He frowned, blinking several times as if he had blurred vision. “Niki was right. You’re strange.”

  This time my eyebrows drew together in a frown. “How do you know Cheesehead?”

  He let out a bark of laughter. “You call him Cheesehead? And he lets you live?”

  “Have you seen him lately? Besides, he already killed me—before I called him any names,” I retorted, realizing there were clanging and popping sounds going off behind us.

  Mr. Muscles sat up, rubbing his thickly corded neck, and laughed again. “I like you.” He stood. Grabbing me by the arms, he helped me up. “Hey, we’re missing a great party.” He lunged forward into a pack of demons fighting with my dad.

  I cringed, backing away as far as I could before falling through the new hole in my house as the fight escalated around us. My dad and granddad were throwing lightning bolts at each other and anyone or anything else stupid enough to get in their way. We hadn’t used our trump card yet—Mom and Niki still hadn’t appeared.

  The melee rampaged around me. I had no idea how much time had passed when Mr. Muscles joined me again. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t stand here and do nothing.”

  “In a few seconds, we’ll have our own fight. More demons are coming.” Before he finished speaking, a dark, swirling mist materialized in the corner where Max had appeared. This was so not good. Five muscle-bound, terra-cotta-colored demons solidified and stepped into the room.

  “Calvary’s arrived. Too bad it’s not ours,” I grumbled. The tones of metal music clanged around me. My stomach pitched, my headache worsening. The new arrivals added another layer of sound, and boy did it suck. Their evil spread through the room, immense and overwhelming, drowning out what rang clearer.

  With my mind, I scanned the room for my rod, searching for its now-familiar tones. Max’s blast had thrown my weapon through the side of the house and onto the ground outside. I focused on its tone and raised it from where it had impaled the ground. With a sharp tug, it jerked and sailed through the air toward me, almost too fast for me to wrap my hand around it as it flew by.

  I squelched the euphoria bubbling up through me and twisted, just in time to deflect a monstrous sword, the long, lethal blade rushing toward my hip.

  I tried the move I’d practiced with Dad and connected my scepter to the demon blade, calling to the silver alloy. The answering tune sounded like a perfect Middle C. I sent the beautiful sword a suggestion, and in seconds, the demon held a blade bending and flopping like a Gumby toy. The surprised look on his face was priceless. Almost as good as my dad’s when I did it to him the day before. I stepped back in time for Mr. Muscles’ broadsword to fly around me, severing the demon’s head.

  I stared, my brain registering only one thought; the world really did seem to slow down when a person went into shock. My gaze followed the head as it rolled a few times before disappearing, along with the body, in a sizzle of tiny dark green lights. I didn’t have time to ask where the demon chunks had gone because another demon had taken the first one’s place.

  The corners of my mouth slowly rose and I cocked one eyebrow, making the demon stop in his tracks. I let my eyes roam hungrily over the double rows of chains crisscrossing his chest.

  Suh-weeet.

  The chains sounded like a whole choir of bells, ranging two octaves and singing a song worthy of a heavenly choir. They didn’t like the surrounding evil. The chains didn’t belong to the demon.

  I lifted my arms and twisted my wrists several times, and the chains unwound themselves from the meaty chest. One roped around his neck, two curled and tightened around his wrists, and the last one dropped to his feet and bound them together. He fell with a thud, squealing with pain . . . and lost his head.

  I whirled around and glared at Mr. Muscles. “A warning would have been nice!”

  He rested his huge sword against his shoulder. “Why?” He turned and walked over to my dad.

  I hesitated, dread filling me, as I took in the scene before me. Several lacerations marred my father’s arms, and he had an ugly gash across his thigh. However, the blood-soaked side of his shirt scared me the most.

  I recalled something I’d read last week on a biology assignment and didn’t stop to consider if what I was about to try wouldn’t work. Nor would I think about the consequences. The only thought in my head was to save my dad. Our past didn’t matter—I refused to lose him.

  I stilled my body and mind, throwing my new metal voice toward his ravaged body. A few minutes passed before I found what I searched for—the minute traces of iron in his bloodstream. My cheeks puffed out as I expelled my breath, emptying my lung
s. As they refilled, I prayed my dad’s blood wasn’t too different from a human’s since, technically, we didn’t know who or what his mother was. I knew if I could increase the iron enough to trigger a rise in his white blood cells and platelets, his wounds should heal faster.

  I forgot everything—the fight, protecting myself—and focused all my energy on increasing his very low level of iron. Slowly, the bleeding stopped and new, pink skin knitted the smallest of his cuts together. It was working. Sharpening my magic even more, I listened as the metals in his body re-aligned.

  Then I cried out as a fiery burn sliced through the side of my body. My magic whipped back over me as an explosion of pain spread through my skin and muscles, tearing me apart. My vision darkened into a thick, murky cloud and from far away, I heard a high-pitched wail.

  I felt my body falling forward, but my muscles wouldn’t respond as I slid to the floor and my head thudded against its hardness. The pain cleared my vision enough to see my mother appear in a flash of purple light with her arms outstretched and her hands splayed wide. She was magnificent in a deadly quiet sort of way, her face a masterpiece of controlled fury. She took my breath away. At least, I hoped that’s what made my lungs labor. I didn’t like the alternative. Really dying wasn’t on my to-do list today.

  My gaze narrowed as my father pulled himself back against the bookcase behind him. I couldn’t recall ever seeing him scared, but I recognized the look he had now as he stared at Mom. Why would he be scared of her?

  My grandfather’s thin body hunched forward, his sword held high above his right shoulder, a shocked expression on his face. His bony jaw hung slack as he stared at his very much alive daughter-in-law, and I realized my dad was scared for her.

  My vision blurred from the agonizing pain scalding my insides. I furiously blinked, trying to see what happened next, squashing the quick thought my body wasn’t doing its instant healing trick. My heart pounded harder against my ribs, my numb brain trying to figure out what had just happened.

  I refocused on Mom, telling myself everything would be all right. My parents would never let anything bad happen to me. The purple glow turned brilliant white, spreading through the room and erasing every dark shadow. An unnatural silence settled around me. Her brilliant blue eyes flashed in controlled anger and her nostrils flared, her mouth nothing more than a thin slash of pink. Her anger pulsed through me, dimming some of my pain.

  I could only stare, as I realized the truth of everything my father had told me . . .

  The Erinys had finally been unleashed, and she was amazing.

  Wild red hair floated around her head like a halo, and her eyes snapped in fury as her lips parted to speak. “The one who leads an army against the rightful king of the demons will now be judged and sentenced for his injustices against the demon race as well as against an immortal. I, Sabine, daughter of the Earth Mother, Gaia and Ouranos, the Sky Father, so decree.”

  Talk about killing looks, Mom’s is more than impressive.

  Her smile held no quarter as she intoned, “I am the Erinys and you will be judged by me.”

  For the first time since he’d arrived, the cadaverous Max seemed nervous, yet from the defiant glare in his eyes, he still hadn’t fully realized the predicament he’d landed himself in. I let my head fall forward, the minute amount of energy I had left quickly disappearing. Familiar arms pulled me up and back against his warmth, as if I were really sitting in a chair. Mr. Muscles had returned.

  “Remind me to thank you again if I live through this,” I mumbled through numb lips as a spark of energy took hold deep inside my body. The rampant fear coursing through me slowed as I grabbed on to the sliver of hope forming in my gut.

  “I won’t forget. I think you’re too stubborn to die. Besides, Niki's anger is worse than a thousand deaths. While you’re in my care, nothing will happen that can’t be made better after this is finished.”

  “So you say. Your insides aren’t leaking all over the floor,” I grumbled.

  “Ah, sarcasm. You’ll be fine.” He held me upright. “Now shut up and watch. You’re missing everything.”

  I glanced past the fading light surrounding my mother, my eyes widening. My savior was right. Niki had finally shown up and now faced Max. Even with his back to me, I knew without a doubt the fabulous figure in front of me was Niki. Unfortunately, his appearance didn’t seem to affect Max at all. For a bloody skull, my grandfather could still frown scornfully—an impressive feat for someone with no eyebrows.

  Mr. Muscles leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Watch Niki.”

  My gaze roamed over the back of his body, immediately noticing the differences between the giant man standing in the middle of the room and the thin zombie I’d come to care about. His dark brown hair curled against the tops of his shoulders and his waist tapered to a nice butt and sculpted legs. I blinked furiously and refocused on his perfect figure.

  The pale terra-cotta skin on his forearms was a stark contrast from the black of his rolled-up sleeves. I could make out the tips of small, black horns on the top of his head. The blade of his sword flashed between his legs, and he turned his head to my father who had slid to the floor.

  Niki’s sculpted profile took my breath away. And I didn’t have much to spare at the moment.

  He looked like Jack Sparrow without the dreadlocks.

  I focused in on the small horns, a kernel of annoyance growing. Damn him. Niki was a demon, not a zombie. I didn’t know whether to be mad at him for letting me think he was a rotting corpse, or thankful he wasn’t a rotting corpse.

  My mother’s voice broke the silence, pulling my attention back to current events. “I sentence you to eternal Hell, forever to dwell in the Pits of Despair.”

  Niki raised his beautiful gem-covered sword but didn’t strike. He pointed the tip of the long, heavy blade at my grandfather’s chest and bowed. Before the hate-filled man could make a sound, a single beam of light shot from the point of the blade and hit his chest. A red circle glowed, growing darker until a hole appeared where his heart should have been.

  I glanced back at Niki in confusion and saw the ugly vein-studded organ pumping in his blood-covered hand.

  Realization dawned, and my grandfather went from pleading silently to screaming, and then back to pleading silently.

  My dad’s weak voice filled the room. “Finish it, Niki.”

  “Ut abyssus EGO expello vos por infinitio.” In my mind Niki shared the translation: To Hell I banish you for eternity.

  His tone held absolute authority, and a dark wave of feeling washed through me. I swear my blood bubbled in response to what he’d just decreed. The clearest metal tone I’d ever heard pierced my skull. I closed my eyes and homed in on it, sensing whatever lay hidden in Max’s front pocket.

  “Come home,” I whispered. My hand tingled and something solidified in my hand. My grip tightened around whatever it was.

  When I opened my eyes, the room lay in total darkness; my grandfather, gone. I glanced down at the object in my hand—

  A small purple book. My grip on the spine tightened.

  “How many times am I going to have to save your ass?” Niki asked, pulling me into his embrace.

  With my ear imbedded against lots of hot skin and magnificently toned pecs, I smiled as his words rumbled through his chest.

  I was surprised at the amount of effort it took for me to turn. Hugging the book against my chest, snuggled deeper in Niki’s embrace, the safety of his arms eased away the last of my fear. “As many times as it takes. Compared to you, I’m young and inexperienced. I’m thinking you’ll need to stay around a while longer. I believe I may need a lot more training.” I would’ve liked to chuckle at his muffled groan but let out a low cry as fiery waves of pain flowed through my body. Teeth clenched, I breathed through the agony.

  “I
have the tendency to get into trouble,” I said in little more than a whisper.

  “No, really?”

  Niki placed his hand over the bloody gash in my side. Deep in the severed muscles and dying tissue, I felt a tingling sensation. The funny feeling lasted only a few minutes and slowly faded. My muscles relaxed as the tension receded. I snuggled deeper in his embrace, loving the feathering of his breath as his lips brushed across my forehead.

  “Close your eyes, imp.”

  I obeyed, expecting him to pick me up. Instead, my lungs seized as the air turned heavy and a burning sensation spread through me. The wounds where Max had sliced my face and neck felt as if a thousand fire ants were crawling and stinging their way across my face. The wound in my side hurt worse, and I stopped breathing, my lungs refusing to budge as my nervous system swamped with agony.

  It was too much—too much pain, too much of everything. Something in my brain clicked off and I didn’t know if I passed out or simply stopped feeling as a coping mechanism. Time seemed to suspend as if I hovered near a precipice.

  Then a slight breeze blew across my exposed arm and disappeared, the weight pressing down on my chest lifting as I gasped for oxygen.

  Opening my eyes, I turned my head in amazement and enjoyed the simple act of breathing. I still sat in Niki’s lap, although somehow, we’d moved from the house in Virginia to the oversized chair in the corner of my new bedroom in Mom’s crypt. The round barrel back curved around us perfectly.

  “How in the hell did we get here?” I winced when the words came out in a high squeak.

  “Language, Johnna. I apparated us here. Lie still. You need to rest so your body can continue to heal.”