Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Riley
I see Torin get thrown back as I’m shoved forward by the same blast. I slam down onto my hands and knees, making Kit go flying off my shoulder, and I realize we’re too late when I discover that I’m kneeling next to the hooves of a large stocky white horse.
The mist I’d seen seeping out of the Door wraps around the creature’s legs.
It’s covered in a tattered black sheet embossed in black feathers, and atop its back sits the man who’s been trying to escape the Door.
The horse stops and throws its head, baring its teeth as its red eyes roll.
The man smiles at me like he’s pleased to see me. He lowers his bow toward me, like he’s planning on hooking me with it, but I jerk back.
“You are so very fascinating. He will love to have you as a present,” he says a second before a man comes rushing forward and lifts his hand like he’s going to use some kind of magic to drive the Door crosser back.
Swiftly, the man on the horse lifts his bow and draws it back, releasing an arrow I never even saw him nock.
The arrow tears through the man, but there’s no blood, no hole…
what is ripped out of him is a white orb that drifts toward the horseman as the man staggers and hits the ground on his face without even trying to catch himself.
The horseman holds the white orb, but the moment he touches it, black mist invades it, wrapping around it like it’s smothering it, and when he tosses it to the ground, a wolf made of black mist forms beside him.
I can’t even comprehend what I just saw. Did he kill the man? Is that the man’s soul that he… manipulated with his magic to turn into that creature?
“Go back to where you came from,” Torin growls.
“Ah, a stripped god wants to fight? How cute,” he says as he raises his bow and shoots an arrow right at Torin’s chest.
It happens so fast that all I can do is raise a hand while panic squeezes my stomach, but Torin knocks the arrow back with his scythe with ease like he’s merely batting away a fly. The horseman looks startled by this before he smiles.
“Ah, you are the god who killed my brother. I see… no wonder I disliked you the instant I saw you.”
The horse rears up, striking the air as people begin to flee, though a few stay to fight.
“Don’t let them leave,” the horseman orders before the wolf slams into a woman and another white orb immediately floats toward the horseman while her body drops to the ground.
I lift my hand, sending the undead at the horse, but the man easily slaughters any that get near. I feel like I’m throwing paper puppets at him.
Vinny rushes the wolf. When he holds his hand out, a metal rod flies into it that he flings at the beast, but it goes straight through the mist, dispersing the wolf that simply reappears elsewhere.
The beast turns on its haunches and lunges toward Vinny as I press my finger against my pendant’s third notch, causing ice to crystalize in front of my hand.
I send it shooting at the monster, causing it to jump back, but another has already taken its place.
I still have the power of a necromancer, so I reach down to call up the undead, much as Mickey is doing.
They crowd the beasts that are multiplying by the second, first one and now ten, but when they’re made of mist, there’s nothing our people can do against them when the wolves merely move through them, hunting down the living.
Thankfully, they seem unable to go through Imani’s shield, which she throws out to block an incoming wolf from a woman and her child.
One of the wolves dashes toward the exit, blocking the path out of here as people scream and run back in toward us.
Torin lunges at the horseman who jerks hard on the reins, yanking the horse back, while the white orbs streaming toward him turn from a steady flow to a flood.
I throw magic at the wolves, unsure if it’ll do anything but needing to stop them.
They’re multiplying exponentially. Every person they attack gains the horseman one more soul to twist into an unstoppable beast. Thankfully, Torin is distracting the man as I throw the magic from the third notch in my pendant at one of the beasts.
It does nothing, but this strange magic that invades me every time I get near the Door flares up each time I do.
It makes my hands hurt, and I’m still stuck with absolutely no idea how to use it.
I’m afraid to call upon it when it could decimate everyone around me if I use it incorrectly.
A wolf slams into me, and it feels like I’ve been hit by a truck, but why doesn’t it immediately do what it’s done to everyone else it’s attacked? Imani hurries forward, but the wolf simply turns to mist when she tries to attack it.
“Don’t kill that human. I want to take him back with me,” the horseman says, and I realize he’s referring to me, which is why the wolf must not have hurt me when it hit me.
“Focus on killing the Door crosser,” Imani tells me. “We’ll handle the wolves.”
“You can’t let them touch you.”
“I know,” she says, focusing almost all of her light magic into creating shields to protect those struggling to fight.
Using the undead to crowd around me and hopefully make me a harder target, I dash forward to where Torin swings one of his scythes on a chain before throwing it at the horseman.
It arcs through the air and the horseman reaches up to block it while I use the opportunity of his distraction to throw ice at him.
The elemental attack flies toward him but he throws his shield up with ease, causing my magic to ricochet off it and slam into the ground at the feet of people who are fleeing.
They scream as they’re thrown back when the ice explodes, and I realize that I nearly killed multiple people.
The horse swings around and charges Torin while the horseman readies his bow and shoots off a spray of three arrows that Torin barely manages to cut down.
One still nicks his shoulder when he rushes in just as the horse lunges at Torin, but one of my undead blocks it.
The horse tears into the undead, ripping her arm right off.
I circle around to the horseman’s back, hoping if I hit him from behind with my magic, he’ll he unable to block it.
I press a finger against the third notch as I draw up my magic and throw it forward at the horseman.
He slides his shield around to his back with practiced ease, causing the ice to ricochet off and slam into the ground beside me, spraying me with debris that makes me stagger and nearly fall.
But it must have given Torin the opening he needed because he grabs onto the saddle and swings himself over the horse’s rump, hooking the horseman’s throat with the scythe before he drives him off the horse and onto the ground.
The horseman must have done something to keep it from cutting too deeply because he seems to escape with minor bleeding.
The horse, noticing its lack of rider, spins and charges Torin.
I send my undead to block it from returning to its owner as a fleeing man slams into me.
All of the undead I’d called up to fight for me disappear, dropping back down into the ground while the necromancy power is ripped out of me and a different magic invades me. And I realize the magic is practically useless in a fighting situation.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck. I need a different magic. I need—”
I see a woman create a barrier surrounding her family with earth that wraps around them.
Is it just a shield or is there more to it?
Anything has to be better than the power to charm small animals right now.
I run to her, hoping that Torin can hold his own while I’m gone since Vinny and Imani are neck-deep in keeping the wolves from attacking any more humans.
It looks like Imani is trying to shield people with a barrier while Vinny fights off any wolves targeting them.
I race toward the woman who is pulling her family to safety, so she doesn’t notice me until I’ve grabbed her wrist and her magic invades me.
She looks startled, but I’ve already pulled back and turned just as the horse charges toward Torin.
I set my hand on the ground and the earth rumbles beneath my touch, cracking and breaking as it rushes forward and opens up beneath the horse.
The horse is thrown back and begins to scramble before the ground splits to swallow it.
Pain tears into my hands, causing me to lose my connection to the magic, and I grit my teeth.
I hear the horseman let out an enraged scream, and then suddenly something slams into me, causing me to jerk back in pain.
I turn to see what hit me, but everything is moving so quickly.
The world shudders and the ground violently shakes, causing Kit and me to go flying.
I can see myself through her eyes, but as she rushes to reach me, mist cuts her off before forming into wolves.
She skids to a halt and backs away while she frantically looks for a way to get to me.
Pain from whatever hit me radiates through my chest, but when I touch it, I seem to be fully intact, just disoriented as something I can’t see grabs my heel and begins dragging me.
I try to kick it off, but my foot goes right through what I know must be one of the wolves as I’m dropped into this dark world where I don’t know which direction Kit’s in.