Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
My trainers hit the street, and I step over and around sleeping bodies as I anxiously search the crowd near the machine and notice a splash of bright green. Rich is still alive. He’s safe—or as safe as someone supposedly brain-dead can be.
The invaders—the dragons—are still in their warrior forms. The closer I get, the more I want to poke and prod their faces as they don’t seem real. They’re distorted like they’re using quality illusion spells, like movie prosthetic magic. Like a Scooby-Doo villain mask.
Do dragons really look like that? Surely not. My gut tells me it’s magic.
I pull off my hat, my still-damp hair tumbles around my shoulders, and I rub the sweat and blood from my brow.
We were told that there were only a handful of dragons left.
Was that another lie? These creatures can’t be true dragons.
If they were, why haven’t I seen any of them fly?
Why haven’t they shifted into dragon form?
If things don’t make sense, usually they aren’t true.
The wind ruffles my hair as I stand in the middle of the bodies. I turn in a circle, trying to think of a way to restrain the invaders. I could create a feather charm to make them light as feathers and stuff the baddies into the still-revolving gateway.
Add their ashes to the pile.
Now that would be poetic justice.
The thing hums innocently enough like it’s not a giant body-ashing machine. I groan and rub my head. I have this pesky moral compass that screams that it’s a horrible thing to do, and when I really think about it, the idea makes me want to hurl.
Dad wouldn’t want me to do that, and Mum wouldn’t think twice. She’d kill them all.
The invaders are all out cold. It would be murder. I’m not ready to kill people no matter how bad they are. No matter if they deserve it.
A feather charm though… is a good idea.
I check my magic to see if I have enough juice to make a new charm and find my power is no longer a ball in my chest.
What now? I mentally whine. What if the null bands have done some serious damage?
I prod a little more. No, the magic is not contained at all; it’s free-flowing from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I’m flooded with power.
Well, now that is weird.
The magic I used to knock all these creatures out should have put me on my knees and made me sleep for a week. But I feel like I’ve had a full eight hours, and my skin—what I can see on my hands—is glowing.
Shit, what the heck is going on?
Okay, I can freak out about this later. These invaders might wake up any second.
First, I need a feather charm and something to contain the invaders. I flick my fingers when it comes to me: a simple ward will do the trick. Thank fate I’m full of power—making two potent charms, one right after another, is no mean feat.
I send a pulse of magic at the raw ingredients and request help.
A few respond and feel capable, and there’s a bright spark somewhere near my feet.
I drop my gaze to the ground, and there’s a glint of something heeding my call.
A piece of glass, an old bottle shard hidden against the kerb.
Its response to me is bright, clear, and full of confidence.
What the hell? That’s new.
My magic doesn’t work like that. A random piece of rubbish off the street can’t be used as a charm.
The shard disagrees with that hypothesis.
I guess things are changing and changing fast.
My stomach flips. I bury my anxiety, squat down, and extract the glass from something slimy, wrinkling my nose as I stand. “Ew, that’s gross. Why did you have to get wedged down there? You think you’re special and don’t need to make skin contact with me, huh?”
I hold the spiky shard carefully in the centre of my palm, then close my fist and pour magic into it. I might as well go for it; there’s no time to waste.
After thirty seconds, it’s done—it should have taken hours to power this level of charm, but I’m not going to think too hard about that. I carefully peel back my fingers to see the most delicate, arty-looking feather in the centre of my hand.
It’s beautiful.
It still looks like glass, but I can tell it’ll be super strong. I close my eyes, and my anxiety about the baddies waking up falls away. Using the charm, I focus on the fake dragons, send out a pulse of magic, and… lift them with my mind.
I have to peek—and about thirty sleeping bodies are hovering in the air. “Okay.” I blink a few times. “Well, that’s great.”
I pick my way through my sleeping neighbours, and the floating fake dragons follow me like weird balloons.
I search the ground for an empty spot with no pipes or electric lines. Usually that isn’t a problem, but if these invaders are strong magic users, fake dragons or not, I don’t want the risk of them breaking the ward.
I direct the feather to dump them unceremoniously into a baddie pile.
Then using an angry piece of wood that’s been digging into my wrist all night, I turn it into a new umbrella charm. The ward springs up, crackling and spitting with power, neatly locking the invaders inside.
I sag. The relief is instant. Of course I’ve no idea if any more are hiding or a team of gargoyles will come out of the woodwork and capture me.
This is the age-old thing of being careful what you wish for.
I always wanted to be popular. I roll my eyes.
Dragons and gargoyles, oh my, aren’t I popular.
Fuck my life.
I move towards the spinning machine and, without touching it, gingerly place a few of the gargoyle’s red spells around its base. I could make a charm, but why deplete my power when I can use this ready-made magic? I set the charges and shuffle away.
I can’t help imagining the spells going wrong and the machine being launched from where it’s being held up, and suddenly in my mind, it’s doing an Indiana Jones roll of doom and sucking up everybody it passes.
Ah, shit.
Just to be safe, I throw up a ward to protect against flying debris. It’s just in time, and I cover my ears as the gate blows. The explosion is contained. The worst of it is a puff of smoke and pieces of metal hitting the ward, then dropping harmlessly to the ground.
I shuffle forward to check, and I’m confident it can’t be resurrected. I drop the ward, and it rebounds and settles back into the umbrella charm.
It’s done. I rub my arms, feeling cold and lost. Now that I’m still, the silence gives me the creeps. I drift over to Rich’s side and kneel down. His chest gently rises and falls. “Why did you remove the headphones, Rich?”
Perhaps a kill team found him—at least he doesn’t look hurt. None of them look seriously hurt. I turn my head, and a shudder ripples through me as I take in the thousands of bodies surrounding us.
I can’t make myself look at their faces. If I start to truly recognise people, recognise friends, I’m going to be rocking in a corner, having a meltdown.
People are half-dressed; even with no awareness, they must be freezing.
I’m cold with a coat on. In my pocket, the sock charm sings, wanting to help.
Like me, the bridge, the pillow, and the obsidian-stone sock are all brimming with power.
It doesn’t make sense. The bridge charm should be dead for several more days, but whatever I did before has made us stronger.
“Can I do it again?” I swallow my unease and let the sock directly access my power. One second, the people around me are in various stages of undress; the next, they’re dressed in the same black outfit, jogging bottoms and a jumper, that I clothed the gargoyle in.
“That’s so much better,” I mumble, patting my pocket. “Thank you, little sock.”
My brain can’t even contemplate the scale of magic—thousands of people dressed within seconds.
And it might be all for nothing. What if they don’t wake up?
Surely there must be someone coming to clear this mess up.
What if they die, and I’m the only one alive when the cavalry arrives?
Will the Creature Council blame me if these people die covered in my magical signature from the sleep spell, the sock charm?
Of course they will.
The gargoyles already think this is my fault.
These people need medical attention and specialist help. Would a healing charm be strong enough?
Healing is entirely different and way more complicated than stuffing clothes on. Do I have enough magic to heal and wake everyone up? Can I fix the damage done by the Pied Piper spell?
Whop, whop, whop… At the sound, I tilt my head. Is that…? Is that an incoming helicopter? I frown in the direction I think it’s coming from.
The sound resonates off the surrounding buildings, so it’s hard to tell, but I’m sure it’s coming from where the ward should be—and that’s not possible unless the ward has fallen. The bridge charm lets out a smug ping, and I stare at my pocket in horror.
No. My eyes flit about. Oh nooo.
What the hell is going on with my magic? Fear flips my stomach; what else have I inadvertently done?
The whop, whop, whop of helicopter blades is getting closer, and all I can think about is the out-of-contact gargoyles. An entire group of them might be on that helicopter, coming to chop my head off. Or it could be more invaders.
I can’t do anything if I get caught.
I go with my gut and bolt for the nearest building, automatically darting for the library, a good choice. Not only do I know the layout but also the staff-only areas like the back of my hand, thanks to my nan working there for years.
I run, dodging the spelled people on the ground. Their sleeping forms make me feel guilty. What’ll happen to them nags at me. They need help now, but there’s no time. If I had another few hours…
Come on, Kricket. Who else is going to help them? “The government?” I scoff. The world has already decided that dragon bloods aren’t worth protecting—no, they shove us behind a ward and pretend we don’t exist.