Mud (Chromatic Mages #1)

Chapter 10

Rosabel La Rouge

Present day

Sweat dripped down my brows, even though it was May, the day pretty cool. The forest we were in was dense, too. I wore no helmet, only my leather jacket, my weapons, and my gloves to protect my anchor.

It was a ring with a thick golden band and a colorful obsidian in the middle. The band was way too big for me, so I kept it around my thumb and put biker gloves on to keep it in place because I refused to use any other anchor. This ring had belonged to my father, one of the few things of his that I had left. I would not part with it no matter what, especially since the more emotionally connected a Redfire mage was to an anchor, the better the flow of magic from her body, and into the world.

I was good at magic, always had been. That’s why when they tested me, fresh out of high school and having completed my first “undercover mission” successfully, they immediately deemed me ready for the IDD. Never-mind that my physical skills were lacking, that I couldn’t fight without tripping and falling on my face, had no aim, and no clue how to even hold a gun.

Training, David Hill had said. There’s nothing that training with the best can’t achieve.

So, I was put in the “intensive” program, nearly died for six whole months until my body learned the movement patterns by memory, and until I could shoot a moving target from fifteen feet away.

Then, they put me in Michael Perez’s team and sent me out in the world as if I had any fucking clue what the hell I was doing.

That was over a year ago, though. I’d learned a lot by almost dying in the field a couple dozen times. And the first and most important thing I learned was that magic was my biggest advantage, my strongest point. It was the most important thing about me, the reason why I was going to make it out of this place, out of Madeline’s clutches eventually.

If I didn’t die on the job first, that is. Because fighting skills or not, the world hid some pretty fucked up things, and I faced them regularly. I was the one they sent to stop them—me, a twenty-year-old Redfire who was still scared shitless of her own grandmother.

Good thing I wasn’t alone, though. The IDD always sent out teams, not individuals, to deal with creatures like the catfairies.

It was one in the afternoon when we finally entered the ward that the IDD had put up to lock the woods that was infected with catfairies. The first two teams that came here this morning to find Ralf and the others had soon realized that they were not going to be enough, not even close. Apparently, there were fifty-two catfairies who’d made a home out of this place, had been feeding off humans—body and mind—and about half of them were as grown as an average human being. So, they sent us and Lauren’s team in right away, and another two teams were on the way, too.

Things were not looking good for us, even though nobody confirmed how many the catfairies had killed.

“Steady,” Michael said as he led us through the dense trees with his gun in one hand and his wand in the other. He was a Bluefire and they’d turned wielding wands into an art. No other anchor was more precise or faster than theirs.

All colors could do pretty much anything with the right spell and the right caster and the right amount of energy, but some covens were naturally better at some things than the others. But all of that became irrelevant when in situations like this, when dealing with actual real-life monsters that could come at you from anywhere and everywhere at once, and you couldn’t be sure what worked against them and what didn’t. Sure, we learned about all living things in school, and at the IDD Academy, but magic had a mind of its own, and it was in a constant state of change. Catfairies weren’t supposed to grow so big or a group this size to live together in the same place—but here we were. Lauren’s team had taken the south; we’d entered through the west of the forest. So far, we hadn’t encountered any of them.

“Do we shoot on sight?” Jam asked—or I thought it was Jam. He and his brother walked to my left slowly, their own weapons and staffs raised. They were so identical that the only way I could tell them apart was by their longish hair—one kept it tied back, the other kept it loose.

The thing was that I suspected they sometimes switched their hairstyles just to fuck with us, but I could never really be too sure .

“None are close to us right now,” said Michael, checking the small screen attached to his wrist panel that would pick up magical energy from the sensors the other teams had planted on the forest floor. “But, yes, if you see one, shoot.”

“You scared, boys?” Erid said from the twins’ other side, wiping her own forehead with the back of her hand. She was scared, too, actually, even though she tried to sound amused. We all were.

“Pfft. A bunch of kittens need to do better than chop up some agents to scare me,” said who I assumed was Jim. His strained voice dripped with sarcasm.

Erid let out a short laugh. “Feel free to hide behind Erid. I’ll protect you, little ones.” The twins were older than her, but she liked to mess with them more often than not.

“Hey, Erid, you know why Rosabel is our favorite?” Jam said.

“Because we never talk when we’re hanging out,” continued Jim without waiting for a reply.

I bit my tongue to keep that smile that crept up on me at bay. The twins were just messing with Erid, and I couldn’t see her face—too focused on my surroundings—but imagining it as she gasped all dramatically was indeed hilarious.

“You f?—”

“ Erid ,” Michael warned, cutting her off. “All of you, eyes ahead and mouths shut.”

“Yes, sir,” the twins muttered like they always did, just to get under his skin, but Michael was still trying to pretend he was immune.

“We’re approaching a small source of energy. Could be one of the other agents, but stay alert,” he said instead, and Erid and the twins had no reply to that.

Fuck, it was hot. I risked a quick glance at the bright afternoon sky, or what little of it I could see through the branches and the large leaves. The sound of the woods, animals running and birds chirping and leaves rustling, tried to calm me down, but my nerves were getting the best of me, which wasn’t usual. I was normally very calm when out on missions, but the lack of sleep was catching up to me.

And the fear.

The only bright side to this whole thing was that I knew beyond a doubt that Taland Tivoux wouldn’t come for me in a catfairie- and IDD agents-infested woods.

When we heard a twig snapping under someone’s foot, we all stopped in our tracks, still as the tree trunks surrounding us, eyes wide open and ears sharp. Insects buzzed and birds sang and the sound of water pouring somewhere nearby was in our ears. The heavy smell of wet soil was in our nostrils, so our senses were very limited to sight only.

Sight, and the fancy gadgets of the IDD that were supposed to tell us when something with significant magical energy was close—something they failed at spectacularly today.

The first catfairie landed on Michael’s right side from the branches above us, and slammed a huge paw onto the side of his face, taking him flying in the air before we’d had the chance to breathe in.

Then his friends joined us—another four of them, and they might not have been seven feet tall, but they were strong and they attacked us relentlessly.

There really was no time to even be pissed that that thing on Michael’s wrist hadn’t warned us, or that the catfairies had even figured out they should keep off the ground to remain undetected before they attacked .

There was no time for anything but to fight.

My instincts kicked in and my magic was at the ready, but the catfairies were fast. I’d seen a smaller one before in IDD’s jail, but these were very different. Their bodies were packed with muscle, their genital organs covered in silver fur, their eyes big and blue and perfectly alert. Claws on their paws that weren’t bigger than an inch, but they were curved and sharp.

And they hurt like hell. I found out just how much when one of them got me on the shoulder before I was able to pull my glove off with my teeth the way I usually did.

I fell against a tree trunk with a scream before I hit the ground. All the others were already fighting, too, and my ring heated up, my magic ready to be unleashed. It had become a reflex by then, so when I whispered the words of the spell and raised my hand at the catfairie, who had raised both paws over his head and was about to bring them down on my face, my magic burst out of my hand like wildfire and hit him straight in the chest. He flew a couple feet in the air and landed on the forest floor on his back with a loud thud. No flames burned his fur, even though my magic looked like actual fire.

Redfires weren’t always the bright red my grandmother wished they would be (because hers was). Shades of orange and pink fell under the Redfire umbrella, and mine was a deep orange which looked like actual flames but wasn’t. It was cold—just magic—and the spell I cast on the catfairie worked exactly as it should.

Fighting spells were usually short and easy to memorize, a few Iridian words long each so we could use them effectively while fighting. The problem was that the shorter ones weren’t usually powerful enough to keep a five-foot-five catfairie with shoulders twice the size of mine down for longer than a few seconds. So, by the time I made it to my feet, he was already struggling to get to his.

No big deal, though. That’s why bullets were my second-best friend.

I pulled the trigger as fast as my finger moved while another spell came alive from my other hand. Redfire magic and bullets rained upon the catfairie while he roared a strange, very cat-like sound and tried to get away, tried to hide behind a tree trunk. Three bullets and he fell to the ground again, the magic inside him weighing him down. It was a simple spell to slow his movements, to give me a moment to get close and personal so I could put a bullet between his eyes.

It worked. I pulled the trigger when I was still four feet away because I had a clear shot and the catfairie wasn’t moving anymore, even though his eyes were still half open, focused on me.

In that last moment before he died, I could have sworn he smiled.

I’d killed before—plenty of times, plenty of creatures, among them two Iridian criminals as well. I’d killed them all during missions, and I had no regrets. I’d cleansed the world from bad people, and this time was no different.

I turned to the others to find them already done with their own catfairies—except Erid, who was taunting hers, a five-foot tall creature with extra-large ears and a sneer on his unusual face that made goose bumps rise on my arms.

Fuck, that had been close. They’d come out of nowhere, and by the time Erid drove her dagger in the side of the catfairie’s neck, the rest of us had our eyes up on the branches, moving toward an opening that wasn’t wider than three feet. Right now it was the safest place for us.

Then …

“ Watch out!”

Could have been Jim or Jam who called, but I didn’t even get the chance to turn my head before another group of three catfairies came at us from all sides.

The problem was, these were bigger, almost as big as the one we’d seen the picture of, and their paws weren’t their only weapons.

The illusion started as a drop of black ink in the middle of all five of us, and then it spread onto us like a wave of the ocean, sound and all. Before I could blink, I was swallowed by this deep darkness that took the color out of everything and everyone and left me all alone.

Power. Magic, raw and unfiltered. Fairie magic, the kind that infiltrated your brain and messed with your mind, fooled your senses instead of altering reality, which was what our magic did.

And then came the catfairie. One of them was on me, and he came so fast that he hit me twice in the face before I was able to move back. So fucking disorienting when reality was covered by this black blanket, and I couldn’t see where I was stepping or where the trees around me were, so I stumbled and fell before I’d taken my third step.

The catfairie’s pawed foot slammed onto my stomach. My leather jacket was spelled so his claws couldn’t get to my skin, but it still hurt like hell. If my ribs weren’t broken, they were most definitely bruised.

I screamed, wrapping my hand around his ankle covered by patches of silver fur, and the catfairie leaned down and hissed at my face, showing me his sharp teeth, pushing down his leg onto my stomach harder.

“ Fuck you!” I choked with the last of the air in my lung after I’d finished my spell, and then the magic slipped from my fingers and wrapped around his leg, spiraling up to the rest of him like a snake on fire.

The catfairie wailed. The darkness lifted fast—there one second and gone the next. I was back in the woods, now able to appreciate the light of the sun a lot more, especially when I looked to the right and saw my gun—a gorgeous, blood-red M17 that fit my palm perfectly—was right there within my reach. I was hurting, yes, but I was more pissed off, and while the catfairie tried to pull his leg away from my hand and my magic that was slowly slipping under his skin, I reached for it.

I grabbed it.

Claws sliced down my arm, making me scream, but there was nowhere to go now. I raised my hand and shot two bullets right in his crotch before I let go of his ankle.

Blood sprayed me everywhere. The pain had turned most of my body numb, and I sat up, completely disoriented by that darkness still, my eyes searching for the others.

Fuck me, that was not supposed to have happened. Such a perfect illusion that catfairie had created for me. I hadn’t been able to see any colors at all other than him, and that should have been impossible. With power like that, he could have done anything to a person who didn’t know how to fight—anything at all.

We had to get the rest of the IDD down here right now—all of them, every single agent they had on payroll. This was way worse than anybody could have thought.

“Incoming!” Michael was screaming as he moved to the side of a catfairie running and roaring that awful, feline sound, blood dripping where his eyes should have been—courtesy of my team leader. Then Erid rolled on the ground from where she was standing, having killed another catfairie, and jumped to her feet just in time with her guns raised. She buried another five bullets in the creature’s head, and it collapsed on the ground like its strings had been cut.

“That’s…that was…” I started, only to realize I was still having trouble speaking.

Only to realize that it hurt, really, really badly to breathe.

So, I looked down. And I saw the blood.

My blood, not that of the catfairie I killed. My blood that was coming from the wound in my gut right where the creature had stepped on me with those paws lined with curved claws. It had gone right through my jacket. Right through , as it shouldn’t have, because all our uniforms were spelled with shields.

“Fuck.”

The word fell from my lips and I hit the ground on my ass, finding my legs too weak to hold me. I dragged myself back, closer to the tree so I could lean against it, because it was only a matter of time before my arms let go of me, too.

It was okay, though. I couldn’t really tell how deep that wound was, but it was fine because Erid could get to me in no time. She’d close the wound within seconds, and then I could do my own healing if she needed to tend to the others.

It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m okay, I told myself.

“Erid,” I said as loudly as I could, and looked up at the others. For now, there was no sound of fighting, no more catfairies raining down upon us, or coming from around the trees. We needed to hurry up and close this wound, and Erid was right there. She was bleeding, but on her feet.

And Michael was standing, too, his wand in one hand, but he’d exchanged his gun for his katana. Jam was on the ground, muttering curse words while he tried to get up, and Jim was looking down at him. “You’ll be fine,” he told his brother, then raised his head and his eyes landed on me.

“Holy shit, Rosabel is bleeding,” he said, and he started to come to me.

“Water,” I whispered, but I doubted they heard me—they were at least ten feet away. “ Wa—” I tried again this time louder, but I never finished the word.

Jam was on his feet, and Jim was on his way to me, when he was stopped by Michael’s sword.

Michael put his katana in front of Jim’s chest to stop him from coming closer to me.

“That’s far enough,” he told him, and Jim looked at him like he’d lost his mind—probably because he had.

“Michael, I’m bleeding,” I said through gritted teeth, and the pain was beginning to become unbearable.

Meanwhile, Erid was just standing there, right there by the body of the last catfairie she killed. She was most definitely not planning to come closer, even though she was looking at me. She could see me bleeding.

Fuck, the pain. It was incredible, and I was still bleeding. Iridians healed as fast as the next magical creature, but even we needed assistance when our skin was cut open.

“What the hell are you doing, Michael? She’s bleeding,” said Jam, holding onto his own ribs, though his jacket was unbroken, and he wasn’t bleeding from anywhere that I could see.

“We can’t help her,” said Michael, and my eyes closed as I mouthed the words of a healing spell. They worked just fine, and Redfire magic was already slipping out of my bloody fingers, and onto the wound over which my hand was resting.

“What do you mean, we can’t help her— we can . It’s just a wound,” Jim said, trying to push Michael’s katana away, but Michael wouldn’t budge.

“No, boys,” he said, slowly turning to face me. “We can’t help Rosabel today.”

“What the hell?” said one or the other?

“What the hell are you saying, man? She’s bleeding—just let us go.”

“Erid, go help her!”

“Why are you standing there— move !”

“This is fucked up! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

On and on they went while my skin knitted back together. It had been less deep than I’d feared, that wound, and I was no longer bleeding, and the sensation was coming back to my legs.

My magic—my biggest advantage. Another, longer more complicated spell, and I’d be as good as new.

With some rest and good food, of course.

Sadly, I didn’t think there was time for either of those at the moment. Because Michael was slowly coming toward me with his katana and wand in hand, blood-splattered and still breathing a bit heavily from the fight, while Erid had gone to stand near the twins, but not to talk to them or anything. Just to make sure they didn’t come closer.

Then Michael squatted in front of me, and all my focus went to my face— remain neutral . He didn’t need to know that I could breathe easier now, that I felt my legs and I was sure they could carry me. He didn’t need to know the spell that was at the tip of my tongue—the strongest shield I knew. I was no Greenfire, but I could fire up a shield like the best of them. At least for a little while.

And a little while was all I was going to need, considering the situation I’d found myself in. Calm. Cool. Just like the ocean. You understand what’s happening first, and you choose your response accordingly— that’s what David Hill told me before he sent me to the Iridian school in Columbia that day.

“I’m sorry, Rora,” Michael said. “I really wish I didn’t have to do this.”

He looked down at my wound that I was deliberately hiding with my hands, now that my magic was gone. Iridians could never be sneaky with spells—you could see the magic very clearly before it did what it was ordered to do.

Except Blackfires in the dark, but even then you could tell by the way the magic shaped itself like flames.

“So, don’t,” I said, and I made an effort to sound in pain, though I wasn’t. Not anymore, and I had no idea if it was the adrenaline or the anticipation or the fear—or just the healing spell—but all I felt was a light throbbing in my gut that I could easily ignore. “What…whatever it is you’re doing, Michael, don’t do it.”

Because it was clear that Erid wasn’t going to heal me. It was clear that she and Michael wouldn’t let the twins even come close to me—that’s all I was able to understand right now.

“See, I can’t just not do it,” Michael said, dragging the edge of his katana blade over the pale skin of the catfairie I’d killed, the body between my feet and his. “I have orders, Rora. I’m really sorry.”

And he stood up.

My heart fell all the way to my heels.

“Orders from whom?” I asked through gritted teeth because this could be the most absurd thing I’d heard all year—even after seeing that video of Taland in prison. It would have been funny, even, if the look in Michael’s eyes hadn’t said that he was dead serious, and if Erid hadn’t looked at me like she wanted to set something on fire.

“Does it matter?” he said, taking a step back.

“It matters to me!”

But, of course, he didn’t care.

My mind was working, even if I wished it didn’t right now. I was trying to think of who would do this, and unfortunately for me, I only had one guess: Taland Tivoux. He’d escaped from prison and he’d somehow gotten to Michael. He’d gotten to my team leader to get his revenge on me. It was easy to see.

Had he paid him or threatened him—or both?

Regardless. He didn’t need to come close to me at all to make sure I got what I deserved.

Tears in my eyes that would have shocked me any other day because I didn’t really cry often, but Michael continued to speak.

“It really doesn’t, Rosabel. I can’t disobey orders, so I’m afraid this is goodbye. It’s for the best that you were wounded. We’ll make it painless, I promise.” And he had the audacity to smile all lovingly at me, before he stepped farther back, and turned to Erid. “Erid, if you will.”

Erid gave a look at Jim and Jam, who’d stopped speaking now. Had stopped blinking and were so white they resembled the bones rattling against Erid’s chest from where they hung on the leather cord around her neck.

“This is fucked up, Michael,” she said through gritted teeth. “So fucking fucked up.”

“It’s an order,” Michael repeated, eyes never leaving me, even though I kept looking back at the twins, who were not going to even try to intervene anymore. They refused to speak at all. Jam had his hands around his head as he paced behind his brother, and Jim had his in his pockets and his eyes to the ground.

Meanwhile Erid had put her guns away and was holding the bones of her necklace in her fists, eyes red with rage as she looked at me—like she was pissed at me .

“I’m sorry, Rora. I’m fucking sorry, okay? I got no choice,” she spit, though her hatred wasn’t directed to me.

And I wanted to tell her, yes, you do. We all have choices. That’s what my dad used to tell me when I was little—or maybe that was just my imagination, too. I didn’t really remember much of my parents, so it was possible I’d made it up.

But maybe her dad taught her differently, so she doesn’t really care?

And what if she’d resent herself even more for this if I spoke now?

In the end, I clamped my mouth shut like I always did. Better to let the silence do the talking because it really wasn’t going to matter, anyway. These people were going to kill me right now, as perfectly absurd as it still seemed to me—and not because of me. Not because I was shocked they didn’t like me or couldn’t stand me—or secretly even hated me—but because of my family. Because of my grandmother. Madeline Rogan, former director of the IDD, the woman who’d captured and imprisoned and drained the most notorious criminals of her time within the first year of taking her position. I was her granddaughter, even if that had been my biggest curse in life.

And to cross her, even though she was no longer in charge, was to cross the IDD itself.

I couldn’t believe Michael was so stupid as to accept payment from Taland—or anyone, for that matter—to get rid of me, when she’d do everything in her power to find him and make him pay. Not because she loved me, either—my grandmother didn’t know the meaning of the word at all, but because it would be a stain on her name. Because she would feel she had been disrespected, and her ego would never let her live with it.

“It’ll be over quickly,” said Michael, and I felt like smiling because what if this was for the best?

I’d never actually considered dying, to be honest, even with the life I lived. I’d never seriously considered it, but what if it was the blessing I’d prayed for, the blessing I didn’t deserve? What if it could finally, truly be… over ?

All of it, everything. The guilt, the shame, the fear, the anxiety. Over.

“For fuck’s sake, can we just get it over with?”

Erid’s voice pulled me out of my head, and the spell of that shield was still right there, waiting for my lips to move. It was a second-degree spell, but it was powerful enough and it wouldn’t drain my energy at all. My magic was ready, too, my instincts fired up even though I was seriously considering just giving up. Just taking it. Just choosing death as my response to this situation.

A snap somewhere in the distance, and Michael and Erid and the twins turned in its direction.

If a catfairie was coming right now, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be happy or sad about it. But my eyes closed either way because I’d already begun to chant, and my magic, bright orange Redfire, was already slipping out of my hand.

Because as it turns out, I couldn’t just choose to die. I couldn’t sit there and do nothing and wait for them to kill me. Despite the situation, I had to try . My instincts were too strong, my will to live too hard to fight off. So, I caved and whispered my spell, and my magic disappeared as it melded with the words I was whispering, and the shield rose all around me. A Greenfire spell, one of the first ones they taught us at the IDD Academy, and it always worked, though not for long. And there were four of them and only one of me, but it was okay. I still had my gun in my hand and my magic, and my wound had completely closed. Only old, half-dry blood remained on me, and I didn’t think any of them had noticed.

I’d take them by surprise, wait for them to attack, then move, throw them off, and run. Run the hell away from this forest and find my way into the Back River. Swim anywhere I could to get away from this place, and then I could figure out the rest.

All I had to do was run.

“Focus, Erid,” said Michael, and Erid’s head whipped back to me. I no longer even looked at the twins, even while Jam kept whispering, “ Wrong, wrong, this is so wrong… ”

Yes, it was, but the whole world was made wrong. We were all made wrong. I hadn’t expected justice a day in my life since I lost my parents, and I wasn’t about to start now.

“Now!” Michael called, and Erid actually screamed when she raised her hand toward me. White flames danced on the tip of the bone she held in her fist, then shot for me lightning fast. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

At the same time, Michael’s wand came to life, vibrating with two strings of blue flames as they snaked their way from the bottom of the wand’s handle tightly secured in his fist. They spiraled around and became one at the tip before launching at me just as fast as the Whitefire.

My instinct was to close my eyes, but I didn’t. I wanted to see. I needed to see.

And I did.

Magic, white and blue guided by second-degree spells crashed onto the shield that pulsated orange when it held it back from me. The shield held perfectly, just like I’d hoped. With my gun in hand, I moved as fast as my body let me, and I jumped to my feet. My other hand was raised, my magic ready, dozens of spells I’d learned solely for this purpose fresh in my mind, but I only needed one. Just one spell to knock them off me, give myself enough time to run.

Michael laughed.

“Look who has tricks up her sleeve!”

“Goddess-fucking-damn it, Michael!” Erid shouted, enraged, while Jim and Jam stood side by side, watching.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Not as wounded as you made us think, were you,” said Michael, smiling sneakily at me as he came closer.

So much was on my mind that I wanted to say…

I trusted you. You were supposed to lead us, take care of us. I am your responsibility—you swore to protect me with your life. You’re rotten on the inside. If I die, she’ll find you. You’re going to die, too, very soon.

I said nothing because words don’t really make any difference to anyone, so I didn’t bother. It was easier. Less time wasted. The outcome was the same, anyway.

“Now!” Erid shouted, and I took that as my cue, too.

I moved.

Throwing myself on the other side of the tree to use it as a shield, I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath when their magic hit the trunk hard, sending splinters in the air, making the ground groan.

I counted backward in my head from three as soon as the groaning stopped, and then I moved again. The spell I chose was third-degree, and it would cause a very big explosion when I unleashed it, but it was going to take a few seconds to complete. Until then, bullets flew in the air, and the shield I’d initially wrapped around myself was already getting weaker, so the bullets from Michael’s and Erid’s firearms went through. The entire woods turned to chaos once more, and I jumped over dead catfairie bodies while I moved farther back. The two of them moved with me, hiding behind tree trunks to avoid my bullets until my gun was completely empty. I had magazines strapped to my person, but there was no need for them anymore. I lowered my gun and the silence that followed when we all stopped pulling triggers made me feel like I’d suddenly stepped into a dream.

Erid and Michael moved away from the trees where they hid, about twenty feet away from me. Jim and Jam were still keeping their distance to the side, not engaging, not protecting themselves, either. Just watching.

My eyes were on Michael, and he was most definitely not smiling anymore. Instead, he looked a bit panicked as he wielded his wand at me, and his magic shot out to meet the red flames extending from my hand.

Boom.

I smiled when my magic swallowed his and kept going. It was the reason why I’d chosen a third-degree spell, even though it was going to use up a lot of my energy. The spell was much more powerful than Michael’s, and it slammed onto him hard before it took him down to the ground. He screamed and we heard the sound of his bones cracking, but I couldn’t even be relieved because Erid was still standing.

Erid still had her bones in her hand as she chanted, shouting out the words as if she wanted me to hear them, wanted me to know exactly what was coming—and I did. Her spell was second-degree, but it was going to paralyze me in place as soon as it hit me, and I most definitely didn’t want that.

“Jim, Jam, move! ” Michael shouted when I started to run, hoping to stick behind trees, because Erid’s spell was going to take a few more seconds. If I hadn’t been wounded, and if I hadn’t just performed a third-degree spell against Michael, I’d have been faster.

If I hadn’t stayed up all night, I’d have been more focused.

If Michael wasn’t such a traitorous prick, I would have been just fine.

Then a gun fired.

The sound echoed in my head, chasing away every thought in my mind, including the one that insisted I would make it, that I was close enough to the river, that they couldn’t even see me anymore from the trees.

That thought was wrong. They could, and Michael’s aim was true. The bullet caught me right in my left calf and sent me tumbling to the ground, rolling and rolling until a tree trunk stopped me in place, knocking the wind out of me as it did.

Pain. Red hot pain took over my senses and I saw, heard, felt nothing but it. Fuck, that hurt so badly. The bullet had gone through me—I felt it coming out the other side, and I had no idea how much damage it had done but it hurt. I heard myself screaming even though I wasn’t really aware of anything that wasn’t my leg, but I was also moving. I was sitting up, pulling my leg closer, my gun no longer on me. My hands shook as I pressed them against the wound gushing out blood like from a faucet.

Pressure. I needed to apply pressure before I called up a healing spell again.

I’d never been shot before—magical creatures we hunted tended to stick to magic as their primary weapon, and it’s safe to say I did not want to be shot ever again.

I somehow managed to take off my leather jacket and wrap the sleeves around my leg, tie them up so I could add that pressure to the wound and hope for the bleeding to slow down.

I was still doing it, still trying when they came for me again, Michael limping on one leg, Erid behind him, Jim and Jam behind her, at least ten feet away.

“You could have made this easier for all of us,” Michael hissed, gun raised, his wand in his other hand that he rested against a tree to support his weight.

Goddess-damn it, I can’t be killed by the likes of Michael. It was almost offensive to my own self.

“Just get on with it. Hold her down and I’ll do the rest,” he then snapped at Erid, whose face was wet now. Wet with tears. She was crying, shaking, yet that still didn’t stop her from grabbing the bones of her necklace and whispering her spell—the same one she’d started earlier, the one that would paralyze me.

I held her eyes, and for a moment, I really did see my life flashing me by. It wasn’t much of a life, to be honest, but the time I spent with my parents, and then those six months before I finished high school…yeah, those were good days.

“See you in hell,” I told Erid, and I meant it. Regardless of what hell was, or if it was real—it didn’t matter. Whatever bad place came after this, I’d be there, and so would she.

Erid stuttered on the last paragraph of her spell, but my leg was still bleeding, and the colors of the world were fading away from around me little by little. I was losing consciousness, and I knew there was no escaping this. I hit a tree trunk with my shoulder before I even realized it. I still couldn’t manage to tighten the jacket sleeves around my leg effectively to stop the bleeding—my arms were too weak—but what was the point? Even though my lips were moving and I was chanting a healing spell again, it would make no difference once Erid’s magic paralyzed me, then Michael shot me in the head.

Clean. Quick. Painless.

Maybe it’s for the best…

Then the real pain began.

I’d never been subjected to a paralyzing spell before, but I’d studied them in school. It was a known fact that it caused its subject a lot of pain. I’d just had no idea how much.

Another scream escaped my lips before I could stop it, and then Whitefire magic was all I knew. It slipped under my skin and began to consume me, making my own magic rage.

It was a strange thing, magic. It was part of you, at your command, but also a separate entity at the same time. It could control itself and react without my say-so if I wasn’t in control, and right now I couldn’t stop it if I tried.

And, yes, I knew how dangerous that was. How deadly to use magic without a spell, an anchor.

I knew.

Redfire came out of me all at once, trying to protect me. It came out of me all at once, the way we knew it shouldn’t, because once I was open to the magic that was out there, there was no going back. A bullet between my eyes would be a favor—and knowing that I was already as good as dead was why my last survival instincts kicked in and took control.

I didn’t have the slightest hope that I would make it .

Except by some miracle, I began to realize my magic was actually blocking the effect of the Whitefire. I began to realize that I was starting to feel my limbs again while the foreign pain retreated, leaving me only with the one radiating from my torn calf.

Can it be? I wondered, but not for long.

The answer was no, it can’t, because then Bluefire was coming at me, too, straight from Michael’s wand. And once it crashed onto mine that was vibrating all over my skin, I fell farther down that tree, barely keeping my head up.

Eyes half closed, I saw the colors—red and blue, and they were both fading by the second. So much magic. Entirely too much, and I couldn’t even breathe in anymore from the intensity of it. The last of my energy was completely spent, and I suspected it wasn’t just the fact that I was being attacked by two powerful Iridians, that I hadn’t slept most of the night, that I hadn’t eaten, or that I’d already been attacked and almost killed by catfairies, no.

I suspected this weakness mostly came from the loss of blood from my leg.

The bleeding wouldn’t stop. I felt it trickling down my skin. It wouldn’t stop, and my magic was too busy acting out, throwing a damn temper tantrum, to give me a moment to chant a healing spell to stop it.

But it snapped eventually. I wasn’t strong enough to support it, and it snapped back into me like a rubber band, and then Erid’s Whitefire was on my face and chest, the flames slipping inside my open mouth and sinking into my skin, shutting me down quite effectively.

“ Again! ” Michael then shouted at Erid, more pissed off than I’d ever seen him before. “She better not move when I go closer, Erid!” He pointed his wand at her and his gun at me .

I couldn’t even focus on him because something inside me felt…strange. Not magic strange, but a different kind of strange.

A bad strange, like a part of my insides had shifted. Or maybe even disappeared.

Erid began to whisper a new spell as fast as her tongue allowed as she shook, the bones of her ancestors rattling around her neck.

Then she died.