Chapter 31
Jack
“Free your mind,” Amber coached Jack as he placed his hands on his father’s shoulders. “Nothing else matters now besides you channeling your power over magic. Feel the force flow from you, to your hands, and into your father.”
Jack visualized the wound on his father’s leg, the bite the brown wolf had inflicted when they were engaged in their struggle.
A sudden wave of heat coursed over Jack’s body as he concentrated harder than he ever had before. The strain was nothing like he had ever felt, like the very life force itself was being taken from him and sent through his hands to his father.
The feeling was terrifying. When Jack didn’t think he could take it any longer, he opened his eyes. His father was looking down at his own leg with a smile on his face. The area where the wound had shown through his skin a moment before was closed now and covered by a thin layer of scabbing.
“How do you feel?” Marcus looked up from his wound and searched his son’s eyes. “Are you all right?”
“I feel…” Jack licked his lips looking for the right word to use. “I feel … empty, tired.”
“Now you understand why it’s useful to do as much as we can to heal them outside of magic before we employ that tactic?
” Amber looked over to Jack with a knowing smile.
“It’s a heavy price to pay, but one that, if you master, it will become easier over time.
Rest now. I’ll do what I can for the rest of the pack. ”
Amber spent the remaining day and into the night tending the wounds inflicted on Marcus’s pack. True to her word, she employed traditional medicine first and only used her magic ability to heal wounds that were the most vicious.
Marcus and his wolves who were feeling up to the task scavenged for food, and in this way the day passed into night once more.
“What did I miss?” Aareth stepped out of Amber’s house as the sun dipped past the horizon. He stretched and yawned, showing all of his teeth. “I had the craziest dream that we were being healed by some sorceress in Term and?—”
Aareth looked over from Jack to Amber with wide eyes.
His pause was short-lived as more memories came back.
“And I was torn up from our fight with the same pack that’s just hanging around us now, and Marcus showed up at the door naked and now there’s another chick lying in the house, and I’m pretty sure she’s naked but she had a blanket over her. Yeah, I think that’s it.”
“AHHH!” Kimberly shook herself free from the stone sleep that had covered her skin, healing her wounds.
Everyone, including Marcus, jumped as the large gargoyle shook free from the stone layer that had encompassed her during the day.
“I am reborn more powerful than ever and twice as deadly! Come, you savages of the Outland, and feast your eyes on greatness!” Kimberly rolled her shoulders.
The muscles on her back and arms rippled.
Her wing was in working order, and no sign of the wounds she had received before were part of her skin.
“I’m ready! To battle, beast people, and Jack and Amber! To battle!”
Everyone looked around at one another, trying to figure out if Kimberly was trying to be funny or if she was serious. Aareth who knew her best decided to speak up.
“Oh, she’s serious, people.” Aareth nodded toward everyone with a look that said he meant every word. “This is probably the morning mantra she goes through every day.”
“It’s good to see you, as well.” Kimberly strutted around the group, testing her limbs. “I’m glad your death day has not come.”
“Thanks.” Aareth looked to Jack, then Amber. “But I think I owe my life to something more than traditional healing.”
“You have to say thank you to Amber for that.” Jack pointed to the sorceress. “She’s mastered the art of healing in a way I didn’t know was possible.”
“Thank you.” Aareth looked over to Amber with a wide grin on his lips. “It seems I’d be in the ground without you.”
“You’re welcome.” Amber stood up from a position next to a werewolf who she had finished healing. “Now try to keep yourself alive. I know I make healing look easy, but I could sleep for a month right now.”
“So what’s the plan?” Kimberly looked around to Jack and the others gathered in the clearing. “I think we have a war to get to.”
Jack let out a big breath. It pushed past his lips and into the cool night air. This was only the first obstacle that needed to be resolved. Yes, he had found his father, but now the woman he loved was in danger’s path.
Abigail was as much, maybe even more, of a warrior than he was. She would be in the middle of the fight as soon as it started. The problem now was, it was at least two days back to joining the fight at Azra’s gates.
“We’d better get going soon, then.” Aareth stretched and began taking off his clothing in front of everyone. “We have a long run back to Azra.”
“Maybe not as long as you think.” Marcus looked over to Amber with a raised eyebrow. “Traveling through portals is not a skill that I was able to master while I was still a wizard, but something tells me that you may be able to open a portal near Azra.”
All eyes turned to Amber as they waited for her answer.
“You’re lucky I’m the giving type.” Amber shook her head, trying to summon the strength for a task as large as the one Marcus had requested. “I can open a portal back for you, but I think you forget what I’m all about. Healing, not killing, remember?”
“You’ve seen what the vampire soldiers can do,” Jack pleaded with her.
“There’s an army descending on Azra now, full of these monsters.
The last reports were they’re ten thousand strong.
We’re going to fight, but you have to understand that we’re fighting so this all comes to an end.
We’re fighting now so that others won’t have to fight this same fight in the future. ”
“There will always be these fights in the future,” Amber said quietly. “As long as greed and power exist, so will death at their hands.”
The way Amber spoke, the sadness in her eyes, the expression on her face told Jack all he needed to know. Amber had lost someone long ago. Someone who had meant more to her than he could imagine.
“There’s a woman I love who’s waiting for me.” Jack took a step forward, catching Amber’s eye. “I’m going to get back to her, no matter if you help us or not, but I can do it so much faster with your help. You can save us days of traveling. Please help us.”
“We’ve all lost loved ones,” Aareth said more to the sky than to anyone in the gathered circle, “but maybe Jack doesn’t have to lose someone, again.”
Amber slowly lifted her head. Her sadness was only overpowered by the determination in her eyes.
“All right.” Amber cleared her thoughts and rolled her tired shoulders. “Stand back, this is going to take some doing. I haven’t opened a portal in years, much less one that will be large enough and stay open long enough to accommodate an entire pack of wolves.”
Amber reached into her right pocket and produced a curved wand that looked more like a knife. Etched in the wood were runes Jack could only guess at. She lifted the wand in a large circle. A dark purple light grew at the wand’s tip and penetrated the night’s darkness.
With long movements, she drew a circle in the air in front of her, and the doorway she created began to take form—a circular space of air as tall as Kimberly and as wide as a werewolf. A shimmer began, then turned into a different scene all together.
One moment, Jack was standing across from Amber, watching her create the doorway; the next moment, she had disappeared behind the portal she had opened. In front of Jack was a doorway to a long patch of waving grass and a dark sky beyond.
“Let’s get this done,” Kimberly growled as she strode through the doorway and to the death that waited on the other side.