27. Chapter 27
Marduk
After Beatrix left with Danzig wrapped around her neck, we got into Titan’s vehicle and tried to follow. Beatrix traveled too fast for us to keep up with on the ground. We lost them within a few minutes.
I was so angry I almost blew up at Titan, who wasn’t at fault. No one but another flier could’ve kept up with Beatrix.
Thankfully Mason had finally called us back. The gargoyle dropped everything and flew to us. Unlike Beatrix, he could carry me in my small snake form and a backpack slung across his chest. While I couldn’t track auras like Danzig could, I was able to track my twin once I was in the air.
Before we’d left, Mason linked his phone with Titan’s so the wolf shifter could follow us on the ground without needing to keep Mason in sight.
“Don’t jump into any fight,” Mason ordered Titan. The wolf shifter was notorious for being a horrible fighter. Despite his size, he was what some of the book club called a cinnamon roll.
“I can help,” Titan protested. “My Beatrix is with them!”
“You can help by staying out of the fight and only jumping in to pull someone to safety,” I said, stripping out of my clothes. Mason shoved them and Danzig’s clothes into his backpack.
“I’ll do that,” Titan said. “I’m big, I can carry several people at a time.”
“Good man,” I said, impatient to get going. “Are you ready, Mason?”
“Can you talk in your shifted form?” he asked.
I explained to Mason how I was going to guide him, then shifted into my serpent form. I made myself small and slid up Mason’s arm when he put his hand to the ground. I wrapped around his neck and waited.
“Hold on,” he grunted, then ran a few steps in the almost empty parking lot we were in and took off.
Because I was tracking my twin and not a path laid out on the ground, we went south in a mostly straight line. Soon we passed over an area so lit up with magic that Mason didn’t need me to tell him to descend.
Beatrix and Bec were sitting on the ground with Danzig standing between them and the casket druid. We were too high for me to see what the girls were doing, but they were huddled over something.
The druid was talking and gesturing wildly. Danzig had gotten him to rant about something. Of course he had, my twin was good at figuring people out.
The moment Mason was low enough, I let go of him and fell to the earth. I made myself as big as a mac truck and aimed for the druid.
He looked up in enough time to send a wave of magic at me, knocking me aside. Other than landing a little harder than I wanted, he didn't hurt me.
I recovered quickly and at the same time, Danzig shifted back into a serpent. Side by side, we were a wall of green scales between the druid and our mate.
“Damn you all!” the druid screamed and broke another tie to send a wash of powerful magic at us. I remembered this feeling, but it was easier to stand against it in this form.
It still hurt.
I felt Danzig’s pain. It was obvious he’d already stood against an attack and was now suffering badly as more of his aura was stripped away.
A dark gray figure swooped down at the druid. It was Mason, hoping to hit him from behind.
The druid must’ve had some kind of protection spell woven into his cloak because a bubble of magic formed just before the gargoyle would’ve hit him.
Mason violently bounced off it, hitting the ground and leaving a furrow in the dirt.
He was forced to dig his claws into the ground to stop his momentum.
He was quick to get to his feet and fold his wings tight against his body before charging at the druid again.
“Mason, no!” Bec screamed. Mason’s surprised expression might have made me laugh if everything wasn’t so dire.
Bec wasn’t done. She yelled again, this time at the druid. “Lomis, is this what you want?”
Danzig and I turned to see Bec standing behind a fire. She’d wrapped the void-tie around a rock and was holding it over the fire. She was holding it so close to the flames that if she didn’t have the rock to shield her hand her skin would be blistering.
She might not be burning her hand, but she didn’t look good. She was pale and leaning heavily on Beatrix.
“Give that to me!” Lomis screamed, lifting his arms to send magic out.
“Don’t,” Beatrix yelled. “Or I’ll drop it into the fire.”
“I could kill you,” Lomis threatened, dropping his arm.
Bec smirked. “And I could burn your life's work. We’re in a standoff, asshole. You even twitch, and I drop this thing.”
“You’ll kill us all,” Lomis said, pulling back his anger and trying to sound reasonable. “Only I can control the void-tie.”
He shifted as he spoke and for the first time I noticed the dark slice floating about a foot above the air off to Lomis’s right.
I was staring at pure void!
What kind of madman created a path to the void and left it open like that? For the few moments I watched it, the void pulsed and opened a little wider. No one in their right mind messed with pure void magic, not unless you were a hobgoblin or demigod.
“Did you hear me?” Lomis said. “If you burn that, we all die. Is that what you want?”
“All I care about is that you don’t get what you want,” Bec said. “For that, I’m willing to die.”
She couldn’t mean that, but she sounded so confident it was frightening.
“I think you’re—no!” Lomis’s words cut off when Bec stuck the edge of the void-tie in the fire, then pulled it back up. Wisps of smoke curled up from a singed edge.
The druid screamed as if in pain and held both hands up, palms out as if in surrender.
“What do you want?” he cried out. When he tried to walk to her, I was quick to put myself between him and Bec.
“It’s okay, Marduk. I've got this,” she said.
She didn’t have this. She was leaning heavily on Beatrix and looked like she was close to collapsing.
“Woman, answer me,” Lomis said, hands still up. “What do you want?”
“A trade,” she said. “I’ll give you the void-tie for all the other ties you have on you.”
He hesitated, and she lowered her hand again.
“Fine!” he screamed, and she lifted her hand up. “How do you want to do this?”
“Come a little closer,” she said.
Both of us hissed in protest, but she sent us a comforting smile. “I know what I’m doing.”
Something about the way she said that told me she had a plan. Next to her, Beatrix flared out her wings and shifted her position a little to better hold Bec up.
“You’re hurt,” Lomis said as he walked slowly to the fire. “I can heal you.”
“As if I want any of your magic touching me,” Bec sneered. “I feel dirty simply talking to you.”
“Stupid human. You don’t know what kind of power you’re dealing with," he said. The tear in the void he’d made floated behind him as he walked to Bec and Beatrix. I wished I could tell Lomis to close it, but I was sure he’d ignore me.
“That’s close enough,” Bec said when he was a few yards away and still on the other side of the fire from her. The three of us moved in to form a half circle behind Lomis.
“I have six ties left,” Lomis said. “I’m going to move my hands and pull them out.”
“Do it,” Bec ordered.
Lomis lowered his hands to chest level and put his right hand up his left sleeve. He pulled six ties off his left wrist and held them up in his right hand.
Danzig pressed his tail against my side. As soon as he drops the ties, we move. You protect Beatrix and Bec, I’ll go after Lomis.
No, brother, I said. I have more aura left than you. You protect Bec and Beatrix. Pick them up and run. I’m going to go big.
I felt Danzig’s humor press against me. Let's go kraken big.
Fun, I answered. Don’t eat anyone. You know that gives you indigestion.
I felt his amusement as Lomis waved the ties in the air.
“I’m not going to drop them before you hand over the void-tie,” he said. “I can’t trust you.”
“Same,” Bec said. “We’re going to throw them to each other.”
For the first time since this interaction began, Lomis looked around at us surrounding him. “They all need to back away. These creatures are able to move fast and might try to remove me as we do the exchange.”
Bec nodded, then shifted her gaze to us. “Everyone, move behind me.”
I shook my head, and she gave me a half smile, even as sweat was dripping down her face and the hand holding the void-tie was shaking.
“Marduk, I need you to trust me,” she said. “I know what I’m doing.”
Even after Danzig slithered past me to take position right behind Beatrix, I hesitated.
“I don’t like this,” Mason said.
“I’m going to need you to be next to me, Mason. I promise, you’ll want to be right here.” She looked at me and pointed. “Marduk, you go here.”
Reluctantly, I moved and took the spot she indicated. Mason moved to flank her other side. As much as I didn’t understand her plan, it felt good to be close again. I snuck the very tip of my tail under her pants’ leg until I could press against the flesh of her ankle.
I felt intense fatigue and pain, but also determination. I needed to trust my mate but also be ready to save her.
“Happy now?” Bec asked.
Lomis didn’t answer, he simply held his hand up again. “Ready to trade?”
“On three,” Bec said.
“On three,” Lomis agreed.
“One, two,” they said together.
On three, I expected Bec to throw the stone, but Lomis to not do anything with his ties. I was mostly right.
“Three!” Bec screamed and launched the rock into the air with an impressive amount of force.
As I’d expected, Lomis didn’t drop the ties, but he did reach out to grab the rock. He didn’t have a chance because Bec hadn’t aimed at him.
The void-tie zinged past him and straight into the void he’d opened.
“No!” he screamed.
At the same time, Bec yelled, “Run!”
Now I understood why she’d wanted us all to be near her.
Everyone acted without a second thought.
Beatrix picked Bec up and tried to run, but even with her pixie strength she wasn’t moving fast. My tail was already there, and I swept them both up and coiled myself around them.
I couldn't move, but I felt Danzig grab me.
As he'd threatened, he'd gone full kraken size. He was massive and could pick me up in his mouth and carry all of us away.
I hung my head out of Danzig’s mouth to look back. Mason rushed at the druid, probably planning to incapacitate him in some way. Before that happened, brilliant light flashed out of the void and a wave of power knocked him into the sky.
When the power hit us, Danzig ended up falling forward, but he coiled his body around his head to keep us from getting hurt.
Now Bec and Beatrix were wrapped in multiple layers of world serpents.
I thought more magic would be coming, but everything went quiet. All I could see was Danzig’s coils so I nudged him with my nose.
What’s going on?
You’re not going to believe this, Danzig said, slowly uncoiling himself so I had a view.
He was right, I didn’t believe what I was seeing.