Chapter 21 #2
“She might be more powerful than Jessie,” Edgar said from somewhere on the right, hidden behind the trees, “but she is not more powerful than the Ivy House mistress.”
His head slowly peeked from around a trunk. He had a strange smile. Both his eyes blinked, but at different times, before he—just as slowly—melted back behind the tree.
I put up my hands. “As we’ve seen from the new invisibility spell Momar has, I won’t always be the most powerful person in the room. She said she wouldn’t kill me. I guess I’ll learn how to fly without wings, huh? Tristan better be paying attention.”
I continued on.
“Okay. Then yes, use everything you’ve got, like Edgar said.” Nessa fell in beside me. “You’re on Ivy House soil. You have access to additional attacks and defenses because of the house. Use those.”
I frowned at her. “Oh, is that what he meant?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve gotten very good at understanding him.”
“It’s easy, really. You just have to take nothing at face value and always assume he’s confused.”
“Yes…” I already knew all that. It didn’t help decipher some of his more cryptic messages. Then again, I didn’t teach him random, incorrect slang like Nessa did. “Using Ivy House is probably cheating, though?”
“She’s using the energy of these woods. Energy that June cultivated and tends to constantly. I think that’s how these basajaunak grow more powerful. They cultivate and then draw from their surroundings. These are your woods. If anyone is cheating by using natural resources, it is the Elder.”
That was true.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath.
“Don’t kill her.”
At this point, I would settle for don’t accidentally get killed.
Up ahead, I could see a clearing through the tree line.
This was about the middle of Ivy House woods, deep in gnome country.
As I walked, I saw more than a few peek out from ferns or bushes, some dodging from trunk to trunk.
One stood up slowly, made heavy eye contact with me, and ran a finger across its throat.
My shifter guardians didn’t push through the tree line into the clearing. Instead, they went around, surrounding it.
The Elder waited in the middle, fully visible and relaxed.
I stopped before crossing into her space. Gargoyles flew in a circle above the trees, including Tristan, moving in case they needed to act quickly. A group of spectators hovered above them.
Edgar’s voice drifted out from the trees. “Good luck. May the Gargoyle God watch over you.”
History books would probably wonder at what point a “Gargoyle God” came into creation, and the answer would be an addled vampire who’d taken someone else’s joke way too far.
“Fine.” I sprinted at the clearing. Might as well get it over with.
I’d barely crossed the threshold when I loosed a spell.
The Elder dodged and rushed, so stupidly fast it sent my heart racing. Her arms came out to grab me.
I threw up a wall, full of power and pain. She rammed into it. Fire scorched her hair. Magical sparks flew. The air around us—the woods around us—seemed to bow and contract in a shock wave of power. My spell shattered.
“What the bloody hell?” I said with a harried breath, skittering across the clearing.
She was hot on my heels. I had no time to shift. Stupid not to do so before entering the clearing. Then again, I wouldn’t have time to get into the sky, anyway, not without Tristan’s help. She’d grab me before I left the ground.
I threw a spell over my shoulder, then a harder one. She ran through them, taking the pain. Maybe not feeling the pain, for all the reaction she showed.
“Crap, crap, crap.” Where the hell was Sebastian with his think it through stuff? I couldn’t—I was too busy freaking out.
A claw scraped across my back. Pain vibrated through me.
I dodged right. My toe hit a rock. I pitched forward and curled into a ball. As I did, I created a defensive layer around me that pulsed with power.
The Elder’s foot connected as she tried to kick me like a soccer ball. My body had nearly stopped rolling, though. The spell held me in place, something I hadn’t been trying for. Happy accident.
Her toe cracked against my magic. Her momentum carried her forward, and she fell over me.
I bounced up and hit her with spells as fast as I could, using full power.
They didn’t have the effect they had on most people, even Tristan.
I increased the ruthlessness of the spells as she got up.
Blood dripped off hair covering parts of her.
She turned around to me slowly, almost as if the pain was only just starting to annoy her, and she planned to properly deal with the cause of it.
“Oh God, okay,” I said, dancing back, keeping up the spells. This was about to get serious; I could tell. Where was that Gargoyle God Edgar spoke of?
She advanced on me so fast that I froze in panic. Like Sebastian, I just freaking fell over. Timber!
She grabbed me by the ankle, spun, and threw. It was much more effective than a dropkick.
Wind rushed at me as I sailed up toward the gargoyles. Tristan swooped down immediately, but I was already shifting. My muumuu tore. My world went hazy for a moment—I was unable to see as everything changed in my body—and then strong gargoyle hands grabbed me and tossed me back toward the Elder.
Okay. Round two.
“Bring your systems online,” I told Ivy House.
“No. You do it.”
I rolled my eyes. Thankfully, I had learned how to circumvent her being testy with the house defenses. Why it was different than hiding the gnomes, I hadn’t yet discovered. Obviously.
I flew back down toward the Elder. She was standing in the clearing, waiting for me. I once again started casting spells, choosing ones that were grisly but not truly deranged. Those ones would probably really help without killing, but I didn’t want to take the chance.
Magic blasted her, sending her reeling backward.
She got her bearings immediately, though.
The air and woods and all natural things seemed to bow and contract again before power gushed into the clearing, boiling and rolling and surging all around.
It seemed to eat my freaking spells as I shot them, diffusing the potency.
How the hell was she doing this? I’d never even heard of it.
Sebastian needed to be here.
“Stall,” Ivy House said. “I’ll force him out. Send one of the gargoyles to pick him up.”
“Stall?? Are you kidding? I’m just trying to stay in the fight.”
“You can take her.”
“There is evidence to the contrary.”
I dove toward the Elder. I needed to be closer for these spells to have greater effect, it seemed. Which she knew, obviously, hence that concussion of power. This time, though, I used the Ivy House defenses.
The sky darkened. The air currents changed speed and direction, messing with whatever natural thing she was trying to do. She was using the woods—I owned the ground the woods grew out of. I owned the air they breathed and filtered the water they drank. Her power came from my territory’s generosity.
Skeleton arms blasted out of the ground. One grabbed her foot.
She startled and looked down at it. She kicked it off, but another was already there. A skeleton crawled out of the ground near the trees, then another. They ambled toward her, their jaws clacking, their arms out like in a horror show.
The dead will rise from their unmarked graves, I thought. This wasn’t the first time. The type of people buried here didn’t deserve eternal rest.
I continued to hammer her with spells. Darkness blocked out the sun, pitching the woods into near blackness. I could still see through it. She could only feel, and I wasn’t touching anything that could help.