Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
To keep compos mentis, I let my gaze drift out the window. My eyes land on a familiar green shirt. The person is in the middle of a line of spelled stumbling their way towards the spinning machine. My eyes widen, and adrenaline sloshes through me, chasing away the lethargy of the bands.
Rich! It’s Rich from work.
My heart misses a beat, and something inside me snaps.
Red-hot anger heats my blood.
How dare these gargoyles try to control me! How dare they steal my magic, attempt to knock me out, threaten me, and accuse me of theft! And how dare they do nothing to help the innocent people down there, people like Rich.
The gargoyle is wrong if he thinks I’m easily controlled. I’m my mother’s daughter and, to no avail, she’s been trying to control me for years.
The null bands might lock my power down and keep me from accessing my internal magic. But my magic isn’t just internal. It’s also on the outside, stored within all my charms.
I can’t use my magic with the null bands on, but the little pillow charm in my pocket can.
I grin and let go.
I allow the charm to access my magic. Pain cracks in my chest—it’s nothing like I’ve ever felt before. My insides feel like they are on the outside, and my intestines are spilling out.
Boom.
The power in the charm explodes, and the energy blasts in all directions, hitting the two gargoyles, throwing them off their feet and sending me flying. Ouch. I crunch against a pillar, and for a few terrifying moments, I can’t hear, see, or sense anything.
My head swims, but rage gets me moving. I need to get rid of these bloody null bands. I roll onto my hands and knees. “Fuck you, gargoyle. You’re a lying turd,” I mutter as I half crawl, half drag myself across the dirty car park floor towards his unconscious body. “That’s it, you twat. Stay down.”
Blood from a stinging cut on my forehead dribbles into my left eye.
I rapidly blink, and when that doesn’t work, I wipe it away on my sleeve.
I feel dizzy and want to stop and lie down, perhaps have a meltdown and cry.
But the gargoyle’s words from before rattle around my mind.
They came here because of you. This is your fault.
No, fuck that. This is their mistake. Not mine.
“I’m not about to be a martyr or a scapegoat,” I huff, pulling myself forward an inch at a time.
“I know, I bloody know, this isn’t my fault.
The council thought it was fabulous to lock us all up without giving us the lowdown on our powers.
When in creature history has ignoring anything worked out?
This mess is on the council. It’s on the weird-looking fake dragons outside who are right now committing genocide.
” A sob wrenches from my throat. I drop my head, and blood drips on the floor and onto my hand.
My fingers dig into the dirty concrete, and I keep crawling.
“I’m just the convenient person to blame—if that’s even the truth. I don’t trust you.” I drop my voice to imitate his rock-like rumble. “Spill your guts, Kricket. Give us the charms, Kricket, and we will only lock you up and not cut off your toes. Dickhead, do people fall for that crap?”
I flop against him. Huh, he’s as hard as the concrete digging into my knees. When the sleeping spell hit, he’d turned to stone. Handy trick. I can’t stop myself from poking his cheek. Yeah, the handsome bastard is solid.
At least his clothing is normal, and I don’t think twice before I rifle through his pockets. There should be… Aha! I find the tool I need to unlock the null bands, or it should. I hope.
I bite my lip, wince, and press it to the first one.
There is pressure, and five seconds later, the band unravels from my wrist, and the other two quickly follow. Three null bands—what were they thinking? They could have killed me.
There’s a ping of familiar magic coming from his trousers. In an inside pocket, I find the sock charm. “Hi, little sock.” I pop it in with the others and keep digging.
There are lots of weapons. Whenever I find one, I throw them into the dank corner by the stairs. I hope they get scratched or that the gargoyle never finds them.
I also discover his stash of spells. The gargoyle has many nasty ones, some bordering on illegal. I hold a marble-sized red ball to the light streaming through the far windows. Great, I’ll be able to blow shit up.
I then pop the top off a vial of healing potion, unzip my coat, pull my jumper away from my neck and pour the gloopy liquid onto my chest. He owes me one. The magic isn’t as good as mine, but it will fix my head, cuts, and scrapes.
Feeling better, I wobble to my feet and stare down at him.
“Here, have a cookie.” I’m a tad vindictive, and instead of kicking him in the head, I slap two of the null bands on the gargoyle’s thick wrist and pop the third one on his friend.
“Let’s see how you like that, arseholes.
” A vicious smile pulls at my lips when I think of their colleagues coming to collect them and finding them sleeping on the job with their null bands on.
I flick my wrist and chuck the removal tool, satisfied when it bounces into the dark depths of the car park and disappears against the dirty floor.
Then I remember Rich.
The sound from outside has stilled; everything is quiet, and that’s odd. Before, the invaders were vocal, their voices carrying and echoing around the empty car park. I shuffle back to the windows and see— Oh!
Oh, oh heck.
My eyes are wide enough that there’s a risk my eyeballs will roll out of my head. Everyone is flat on their backs, asleep. Everyone. I laugh a little manically—no wonder the sleep charm’s blast felt so strong.
The magic wave wasn’t just confined to the car park. No, it’s knocked everyone in the area out. Adrenaline hits me, and I dash for the stairs. I clumsily take them two at a time. I don’t know how long the fake dragons will stay down.