Wizard of Most Wicked Ways (Whimbrel House #4)

Chapter 4

June 14, 1851, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island

Every hair on Owein’s body stood on end. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible . Owein had witnessed the man’s death. Silas Hogwood was a powerful wizard—easily powerful enough to have taken over the run-down house in Marshfield the way Owein had taken over Whimbrel House. But that was a house , not a person. A person was monumentally more.

His mind spun through possibilities, pulling from everything he knew about the man firsthand, secondhand, gleaned from Hulda, Beth, Merritt, and even his occasional chats with Myra Haigh. Silas Hogwood was a necromancer. He had put Owein in his dog’s body. Had he somehow done the same for himself? But ... four years later?

The white hair grew in patches, just like Owein’s had when he shared a body with the dog. That meant the other spirit was still in there. Whoever this man was, he was still in there , with Silas Hogwood .

The man took another forceful step forward. Owein didn’t have time to process.

He played his card.

“Silas.”

The wind almost stole the word from him, but it carried across the closing distance between them, stopping the stranger. Making him flinch. That flinch sent Owein’s stomach free floating, an uneasy weightlessness beneath his ribs. He hadn’t wanted to be right.

The man’s face contorted into a sneer. Venom stirred in his faded green eyes. “Out of my way, little boy.” His low voice cracked, like he wasn’t used to speaking.

Owein held his ground. “You don’t remember me, do you?” Not Owein, nor the body gifted to him. Oliver Whittock was, technically, Silas’s second cousin.

“I said”—Silas stomped forward—“ out of my way .”

Silas’s hand shot up. A great, invisible ball slammed into him, knocking the air from his lungs. Knocked him off his feet and pushed, pushed, pushed . Owein stumbled, the unstopping momentum keeping him upright as it tore him away from Whimbrel House. He managed to dig his heels into the ground, dragging up two long lines of dirt that smoked into the air. The push let up, and Owein fell to his backside not far from the chicken coop.

He gasped, forcing air back into his lungs. Heat built in his bones, simmering his blood as he looked up. Cracked his neck. Glowered. Stood.

Silas advanced, his steps stiffer now, thanks to that kinetic spell.

Owein ground his teeth together. “I played magic long before you were born, little boy .”

And then he released a spell his mother had always forbidden him to use. He pulled deep from that chaotic pit within himself, seizing something that scholar had called random subterfuge in the document he’d made on Merritt’s family line. Owein pulled it out, pushed it out, and for one moment, Owein was the storm.

Magic billowed out of him like a stampede of crazed horses. It tore plants from their roots and threw great chunks of earth into the air. Caught the wind and spiraled it, pushing it the wrong direction. The ground quaked and shattered and hurled itself in the direction of the new Silas Hogwood, and Owein had the satisfaction of seeing the necromancer’s half-dead eyes widen as the magic collided with him. The spell beat on him, knocking him back all the steps he’d dared to advance, and ... and ...

Owein winced as his thoughts spun. Why was the sky so big ? Why was the trail all torn up? Why did his chest hurt? He was confused ... and confusion meant he’d used chaocracy. He swore internally. What was he doing again?

A cacophony of barks drew his attention as three terriers sped past him. His mind unknotted as their names squirmed through the cobwebs stuffing his mind: Fallon, Ash, Aster. They charged a man in black, spittle flying from their lips.

The man in black was Silas Hogwood. It didn’t look like him, but somehow, it was.

Coming to himself, Owein ran after them, whistling to call them back—Silas would kill them! Aster and Ash listened, but Fallon chomped onto Silas’s right arm and jerked him to the side, throwing him off balance. Owein threw out another spell before Silas could hurt her, animating the man’s cloak; he couldn’t tell it how to move, only that it should, and blessedly, it cooperated with him. The cloak ceased billowing in the wind and wrapped around Silas, tying him up. Breaking Fallon’s grip on his forearm.

Focus, focus, focus, Owein told himself, fighting off another wave of confusion.

The cloak tore itself into a dozen pieces that fluttered away on the gale. Silas possessed a breaking spell, also in the family of chaocracy.

Owein shot out another hit of random subterfuge, but the magic went wide, as though it couldn’t detect the target at all.

Luck.

Hulda had given him a full breakdown of what magic Silas innately possessed and what he had stolen shortly after the incident in Marshfield, though Owein couldn’t remember all of it—

Letting out a wild cry, Silas shot his hand toward a nearby tree. Its trunk cracked, sending it toppling toward Owein.

“Fallon, move!” Owein shouted, then slung out a discordant-movement spell, which seized the trunk and made it dance away.

Roaring like a madman, Silas charged him and raised both hands. Confusion made Owein’s reaction time too slow; the kinetic spell rammed into him like a train. This time it lifted him off the ground, sending him back and up , flying feet over head through gray sky. He had to think, he had to move —

He landed on an invisible shield twenty feet above the ground. Mind his own again, he looked through the unseen barrier to Merritt, standing just off the porch, skin pale, shoulders tight.

“It’s Silas!” Owein shouted.

Merritt’s body seemed to go limp around his skeleton.

Silas jerked his head to the right, then the left, muttering something to himself. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shot out another kinetic spell, this time toward Merritt, who ducked back on the porch as the spell ripped off its railing. Heart thudding too fast, Owein felt for the edges of the shield, but he was too high to jump. He tested his animation spell and let out a stiff breath of relief when it took hold of the shield and moved it downward.

A gunshot cleaved the building storm. It missed, but it drew both Owein’s and Silas’s attention to the second-story window where Hulda had a rifle to her shoulder. Silas stiffly lifted a hand to strike back, but not before a second bullet—this time from Merritt’s revolver—sang out from the porch and struck him in the shoulder.

Silas staggered backward as Merritt stepped out and fired again, the bullet grazing Silas’s arm. Not enough. Silas shoved Merritt back with a weak kinetic spell, then balled his hand into a fist. The revolver in Merritt’s hands condensed into a twisted metal knot.

Then, with a touch of his hand, Silas healed himself, his head again ticcing to the side, as though something had burrowed into his ear.

Owein cursed and ran forward, ready to tackle the man and beat him with his fists, when Silas’s eyes shifted to the right. He grinned. “Children, have we?”

Owein stopped cold and turned. No.

Mabol stood there, outside the house. Peeking out from behind the chicken coop.

“I’ll”—Silas choked on his words, expression wild—“rip them apart, too.”

Merritt charged toward the wizard, howling, while Owein changed course and dashed for Mabol.

Silas shot out a kinetic spell, which Merritt blocked with wardship. Unnatural thunder boomed as the spells collided. Owein ran around the chicken coop and snatched Mabol into his arms. Dropped to the ground when a loud splintering like shattering glass roared across the island.

He looked back; Silas had broken the wardship spell. Advancing on wooden legs, Silas sent out another kinetic blast. Merritt threw up a second wardship spell, then a third. Owein lifted his hand to help but paused. No. He’d forget what he was doing if he helped now. He had to protect Mabol first.

Cursing the fickleness of magic, he jumped up and heaved a now-sobbing Mabol from the ground. A gunshot cracked the air; Hulda was still firing. She didn’t know Mabol had gotten out.

Owein slammed his shoulder into the back door. Set the child down in the open doorway and grabbed her shoulders. “Look at me. Mabol!”

Her teary blue eyes shot up.

“I’ll come back for you, okay? I promise. But you need to hide.” A small spell opened up the kitchen floorboards, revealing the unfinished cellar Owein had once trapped Merritt in when he still occupied Whimbrel House. When his magic had been limitless and without consequence. “It’s going to be dark, but I’ll come back for you. Be quiet. Can you be quiet?”

Pinching her lips together, she nodded.

“Hattie and Ellis—”

“W-With Ma,” she mewed.

“Tell me to fight after I seal you up, okay? I’m going to get stupid again.” He grabbed a baking sheet and animated it; his magic was chaos, not kinesis, but he was so practiced with it he could shuffle through a spell multiple times until it did as he bid, albeit with more side effects. It took a few tries before the pan shifted downward into the hole. He quickly put Mabol onto it and watched her descend into the shadows. “I’ll come right back,” he promised, and sealed the boards over her with a restore-order spell, hiding the cellar.

He paused. Why was he in the kitchen? Thunder rumbled outside. “What—”

“ Fight! ” Mabol screeched beneath him.

His wits crashed into him. Fight. Silas. Merritt!

Owein darted into the house, knocking over a chair in the breakfast room as he zipped through it, then the dining room and into the reception hall. The front door beat against the wall behind it with the wind. He burst into the yard just as Silas shattered another of Merritt’s wardship spells, but this time the kinetic blast carried Merritt backward just as it had Owein. Merritt crashed into the house under Hulda’s window.

Hulda’s scream pierced Owein’s ears as Merritt fell doll-like into a crumpled heap.

Owein stopped breathing. Wardship weakened the body, the bones. And Merritt had been using a lot of wardship spells.

“Fallon!” Owein screamed, but she was already bolting across the fray toward Merritt.

Leaping off the porch, Owein seized Silas with an alteration spell, clawing his hands to demand Silas’s clothes shrink , shrink , shrink . Owein’s set jaw radiated pain at its joints. His back twisted in response to the magic, but he didn’t care. This was his home. This was his family .

Shrink. Suffocate him.

Silas stumbled, stiff hands grabbing at his collar as it coiled around his neck, cutting off air, cutting off blood. He summoned a breaking spell and shredded the clothes just as he had his cloak, completely uncaring that it left him stark naked, minus his shoes. He looked sickly and gaunt, each rib straining against the flesh pressing hard against it, his stomach sunken, the skin of his torso too loose. It gave Owein only a half second’s pause. He’s mad. He’s absolutely mad.

Owein strode forward and imbued Silas’s shoes with discordant movement. He couldn’t tell them where to go—this was chaos magic, after all. But they split and danced, and Silas appraised Owein anew, fear mixing with the madness in his bugging eyes.

See if your luck holds. Owein shot out another deep blast of chaocracy. Sod rippled and rolled up from the earth in four great sheets, knocking Silas over, tumbling him away, farther and farther from the house. Owein pinched himself as the magic took. Focus, focus, focus.

Wait, where were his paws?

Earth rolled and sped and broke apart, sending dust and rock and grit spraying in all directions. Silas. He refocused, readied another spell—

But the spray didn’t relent. Dirt swept up, ground broke, stone hurled until it created a great torrent. Owein turned away and crouched as loose soil stung his eyes. Mud and muck and leaves spun around him, sent flying from ... a breaking spell? Kinetics? Both?

It died after a moment, leaving only the gusts of the true storm. Rain started to fall, turning the earth clinging to Owein’s skin, clothes, and hair into sludge. He stood, body tensing at the quietness.

He saw Silas’s still form out on the water, sailing away with kinetic speed.

“No!” he shouted, and ran after him, to the edge of the island, into the water. He couldn’t let Silas get away. He’d hurt them again if he got away. “No!”

He shot chaos into the water, warping it and spinning it, but not far enough to reach the retreating wizard. He hesitated, disoriented. Shook his throbbing head. The confusion ebbed like cold honey. Docks. He had a boat. He’d run to the docks, and—

Barking.

Owein turned back toward the house. That was Fallon’s bark. Merritt.

Cursing, Owein ran back for the house, mud sliding under his shirt as he did. Hulda was outside when he got there, without the children, and Fallon hurried up to his hip, whining. Merritt’s collarbone had snapped; his shoulder and arm twisted askew. But he was alive. Hissing through his teeth and wincing, but alive.

Gingerly, Owein touched the broken bone and whispered order into it, hoping to mend it, but the spell didn’t take. He cursed aloud, recognizing the direness of the situation when Hulda didn’t reprimand him for it. Owein’s magic didn’t work on people. If it did, he’d be a necromancer.

Do you have nothing to help me, Oliver? he asked. But if Oliver Whittock had inherited any of the necromantic spells in his bloodline, he kept them locked up somewhere Owein couldn’t reach. Or maybe they’d died with his soul.

“Fallon, can you carry your dress?” He started unbuttoning his shirt in case she couldn’t, in case it was too far. A woman in town in only a man’s shirt would be scandalous, but Merritt —

“Fallon?” Hulda asked.

But the dog nodded. Fallon was the fastest alert system they had, even faster than the boat. She bolted across the island, into the willows, then came bounding back with the linen dress in her mouth, half dragging it across the upturned earth. Owein grabbed it and quickly rolled it into as tight a bundle as his shaking hands could manage.

Hulda gasped as the dog shifted, shrinking, dark fur becoming light feathers, paws turning into talons and wings. Fallon, the hawk, shook back and forth, trying to alleviate whatever growth or malformation the alteration spell had given her—Owein couldn’t see what.

When she stilled, Owein held out his hand so she could perch atop it; hawks were gliders, and she’d fly better with the boost. Flinging out his arm, he launched Fallon into the air, then tossed up the dress, which she snatched in her strong toes. Wavering only a moment, Fallon took off for the mainland.