No wonder he was so disciplined, so calm. It took an amazing amount of concentration to keep sanity and reality in perspective while dark magic sang its song. Zayvion stopped, lifted his hands, and wove a spell that looked a lot like the net he’d thrown at me, only more solid.
He incanted something, or at least I thought he did. Everyone in the room was chanting or humming or singing. Well, except me.
Blocking spells, Warding spells, defensive spells; magic users moved as far from the burning gate as they could, casting their magic at the walls, the pillars, the inn itself to repair the damage I’d done. They supported the inn and guarded the well of magic that pushed up and up from the earth and rolled beneath the floor.
They, the Authority, worked to contain the magic, to support the room, and not let a lick of magic escape these walls.
Zayvion stood alone before the gate. He twisted at the hip and threw the net. Magic flared in me, wanting to leap to join his spell. I inhaled, cleared my mind, and held tightly to the magic that rushed up to fill me, afraid to let it merge with Zayvion’s.
We might be Soul Complements, but we had not yet cast magic together. Now seemed like a horrible time to find out what would happen if we did.
The net closed over the gate, damping the mercury-gray light that poured through it, but the gate was still growing, still burning.
Then a voice rang out, a man’s voice from the other side of the gate.
“I will not be denied.”
Oh, no. This I did not want to know. There were things, people, on the other side of the gates, in death? Angry people?
Within the gate stood a dark figure of a man. Magic fluctuated across the gate and obscured the huge shadowed figure, but I could make out his hands held to either side, elbows locked, as if he could force the gate to open faster. As if he could walk through that gate and into our world.
No, no, no. That was not good.
A small part of my mind refused to believe what I was seeing. Sure, I’d seen stuff like this before-in horror movies. But this was real. This was now. I could taste the copper-hot burn of magic, could smell the sweat and fear in the room, could hear the people around me swearing, chanting, angry, calm.
This was really happening. And this was really, really bad.
The man yelled and shoved the gate wider. Now I could see behind him, slashes of fangs, bloody red eyes and claws, just like the Hungers we had hunted in St. Johns.
The man tipped his face so that shadows and magic hid his features. Except for his eyes. Blue as a summer sky, his eyes were familiar. I scoured my memory, but could not think of where I had seen those eyes before.
“Life and death are mine to wield. Light and darkness.” The man flicked one hand, and as if to prove his point, dark magic, a solid tentacle of blackness, whipped out and rammed into Zayvion like a wrecking ball.
I yelled as Zayvion flew across the room. Shamus was already running toward Zay and reached him before he hit the ground.
“Sedra,” the voice called out. “You will bow to my will. I will walk between life and death. Immortal.”
The tentacle of darkness that had knocked Zayvion down whipped through the air and plunged into Sedra’s chest.
The ice queen stiffened. She took a jerky step toward the gate. Her jaw was set, the bone there straining against muscle and tendon as she took another involuntary step.
“No,” she mouthed. She lifted one hand, traced a spell, and a shot of light pierced the man’s chest.
Several people around her cast magic, trying to break the rope that held her.
Nothing worked. Dark magic forced her forward, toward the gate, even as the light seemed to force the man to lean against it to keep his feet.
Okay, here’s the deal. I had no fucking idea what was going on. I mean, really. If this was how they always gave tests, it was amazing anyone survived.
But even though I didn’t know what was happening, that didn’t mean I was going to stand around while people were hurt.
First, stop the dude in the gate.
Right. Like I had any idea how to do that. And since I had no idea how to stop him, the next thing I could think to do was to save Sedra from his grip.
Zayvion stood again. I felt his anger, felt the calm Zen that kept his mind clear. He wove an intricate spell in the air with one hand and sang that lullaby waltz. Shamus was beside him, a bright shadow to his dark light, his hands extended in a hell of a Shield spell.
They looked good together. Like they had done this sort of thing before.
Another man joined them, Victor. Tall, lean, fit, dark-haired. Older. He took the place to Zayvion’s right, and fell into rhythm with his chant, sang with him, building a spell that licked with silver light.
While Sedra marched toward the gate.
I felt Zayvion hold his breath. He and Victor threw the spell at the same time. It skittered over Sedra, past her, a wind of silver and gray, a shatter of glass that tore into the gate and burned into it like a maelstrom of silver embers.
The man in the gate looked away from Sedra, as if noticing other people in the room for the first time.
“Victor, and your favored student. Why have you betrayed me?”
“Mikhail,” Victor said. “Let Sedra go. You cannot cheat death. No man is immortal. It violates the true ways of magic.”
“True ways?” Mikhail snarled. “Do you think you follow the truth? You follow the enemy among you. Light cannot be separated from darkness. I was a fool to assume the old ways could withstand the change. This-” He pulled, and the rope tightened on Sedra. She yelled, and stumbled forward again, but still didn’t do so much as raise a hand in her own defense. “-This is what comes of truth. Lies. Deceit. Betrayal.”
He gestured with one hand, tracing an arc from his left to his right. The burning, shattered glass tearing holes in the gate extinguished like a candle in a breeze.
“I will have what is rightfully mine.” Mikhail spread his fingers, as if throwing seed upon the ground.
The Hungers behind him burst through the gate, claws scrabbling upon dark stone. And they ran straight for me.
Chapter Eighteen
Great. Just what I needed. Slathering hell beasts from the other side of death out to kill me. And me without any magical kibble.
I was so freaked out, I was flat calm. I wove a spell for Shield and cast it, while checking in to see if maybe my dad was still in my head and awake, and might want to give me a hint as to what else I could do to save myself.
No luck. Dad was silent as a tomb. Those beasts hit my Shield with the force of a Mack truck.
Plan B would be good right about now. Really great, as a matter of fact.
I concentrated on feeding magic into the glyph, to keep the Shield strong. The beasts tore at it with fangs and claws, sucking at it, draining it.
I had maybe four or five seconds before they broke through.
Zay told me throwing magic at them wouldn’t work. I traced another glyph to shield me, and buy me time to think.
The nightmare in front of me sliced in half.
Zayvion was there, his machete in hand, carving through the creatures. Beyond him, I saw Victor wielding a sword that burned with silver flame. Shamus clapped his gloved hands together, and when he pulled them apart the Hunger in front of him exploded into black fire in midleap. Shamus held his arms wide, his mouth open, and drank the fire down.
Jingo Jingo was more subtle, wading out among a knot of Hungers and grabbing them with his big hands, sucking the magic out of them with his touch alone.
Kevin moved through the room like a tai chi master, each circle of his hands, each flowing movement pouring out a wavering, glossy impact of magic that tore the Hungers in half.