Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Pressure squeezes Hiram’s skull tight as the scent of magic goes from acrid to ozone.
With a pop, sound floods his awareness, his vision clearing.
Hiram rushes to account for everyone. First he hears Francisco’s harsh pants, then Gabriel’s panicked shouts for backup a short distance away. Veda is . . .
Standing alone. Frozen, lost in a dream.
Ariadne is on her knees, momentarily staggered by her own spell.
Her head jerks up. Hiram’s running before he realizes it, snapping Veda out of her trance by wrapping his arms around her and yanking her behind a nearby tree, yelling the first protection spell he can think of. Ariadne’s wild magic burns it up.
With the clap of her hands, magic showers the grass in ashes. She smiles at Hiram. “Hello, cousin.”
Veda stretches to touch the base of the tree, whispering, “Impetum.”
The leaves turn into blades and rain down on Ariadne. Veda crumples with a cry, paying the full price for her spell. Hiram reacts instinctively, summoning a cyclone that coils around his cousin, buying time as he pulls Veda to her feet. They need to get the hell away.
“Come on.”
They run to Gabriel, who’s bent over Francisco. There’s blood on his face and hands from his efforts to stop the bleeding. Veda drops next to him. Francisco is breathing, only barely.
“Hiram, Veda, take over. I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Hiram looks at Gabriel like he’s lost his mind. “Fight her?”
The ground quakes as the tornado sparks and splits, no longer under Hiram’s control. Ariadne emerges through it, bleeding from numerous cuts. Her face shifts from her own to a familiar blond. Seren. “Hey, y’all.”
“Shit,” Gabriel breathes. “Not her, too.”
“Yes, her, too,” Ariadne mocks.
“This would be an excellent time to have unlimited magic,” Hiram mutters.
Veda’s obviously stunned, costing her an extra minute before she casts a spell that sends a familiar bolt of light into the sky. It strikes a tree, slicing it in half. Hiram holds his breath, thinking it’ll fall just right, but Ariadne opens her hands.
A shock wave explodes, sending them all to their knees. The tree splinters into thousands of pieces that hang in suspended animation.
“That was cute.” Ariadne’s smile turns crazed. “My turn.”
Hiram yanks Veda toward him as an ugly fireball flies past her head.
He overcorrects, and she falls on top of him, her elbow jamming into his ribs.
Another curse speeds over their heads. A third slams into the ground, blasting chunks of grass and dirt skyward.
Hiram shields them in time, his amulet pulsing green as debris ricochets off the dome he’s cast over all of them.
They’re sitting ducks.
Hiram glances around for Gabriel, who is moving on the ground, clearly in pain. There’s a gash on his head from debris, but he keeps muttering healing spells for Francisco. The dome extends over both, too.
“How long is this shield going to last?” Gabriel asks over Ariadne’s attempt to rip it apart one spell at a time.
“Two minutes. Maybe three.” Light explodes against the side of it. The shield shakes but holds. Hiram winces. “Or less.”
“Shit. Everyone is at least ten minutes out.” Gabriel panics when his partner goes still. “Francisco!”
Veda is a deer in headlights, but snaps herself out of it. “A—a cauterizing charm. Kauter. It’ll hold as long as you need. Low stakes.”
Gabriel nods, dazed, as he mutters the incantation. “It worked!”
Another flash of light crashes against the shield. Then a third.
Hiram scans the area, but he can’t see Ariadne.
He casts a spell to make it possible for Gabriel to pick up Francisco as if he’s no heavier than a box of shirts, but his amulet doesn’t absorb all the consequences of the spell.
The rest is an electric shock that hurts like hell as it courses up his arms. It’s worth it when Gabriel hoists Francisco up, ready to run with him the first moment it’s safe.
“The greenhouse,” Veda suggests. “It was built to withstand a storm.”
And one is here.
“None of us can fight her alone,” she says gravely, gesturing at the shield. “When that falls, she’s going to obliterate us all.”
Veda sounds like she’s in a dream. Or a nightmare. The dome cracks, crashing around them. Trees are wrenched from the earth, floating into the sky.
Through the fog and smoke, Marlene appears with the trickster pendant back around her neck.
Her features blur and reform again. She’s back to Seren.
Then Ariadne. Then Everett. Veda’s face takes its place for a split second before they all blur together while burning white builds in her hand like a charge.
Pure power. Hiram can’t stop it. He braces himself, hands on Veda, his promises to Antaris fresh in his brain. He—
The light is extinguished by a bolt of darkness that strikes Ariadne in the chest.
Hiram turns in the direction of the curse.
Everett yells, “Run!”
The collision of magic is deafening.
Its thunderous clap shakes the ground, and the acrid sting of power burns Hiram’s nose like sulfur. Running toward the greenhouse, he’s right behind Veda when Gabriel speeds past them both with Francisco in his arms. Spider lilies explode into fire and ash beneath their shoes.
Once inside the greenhouse, they slam the doors shut.
Hiram casts every locking spell he knows to keep Ariadne out, but it sounds like Everett is keeping her preoccupied outside.
There’s no time to look around. Gabriel lays Francisco on one of the empty tables.
His skin is pale and streaked with blood, body trembling violently.
“Seven minutes away,” he says grimly.
Veda all but stumbles over to Francisco, voice numb when she says, “He’s going into shock.”
Another loud bang from the battle outside makes her freeze. A tree sails over the roof. Wind pounds against the glass. Hiram bumps into Veda. She looks at him, terror in her eyes like he’s never seen before.
“What does he need?” Hiram asks clearly.
“Pressure on his wound. And warmth,” she says automatically. “There’s a cloth in the cabinet by the door.”
Gabriel rushes off. Veda, too, returning with a pair of scissors she uses to cut Francisco’s shirt off. It’s no wonder Gabriel was struggling to heal him. It’s more than a cut. It looks as if she took a knife and carved a symbol—an Imprint—into his chest.
“I—I can’t cast right now,” Veda says.
“Tell me what to do.” Hiram studies the wound.
Parts of it still ooze blood until Veda directs him to cast the spell, his voice drowned out by the battle outside.
Gabriel returns with the blanket. She covers Francisco with it and whispers the next spell for Hiram to repeat to warm the blanket.
Slowly recovering from the consequences of using so much magic outside, she checks his pulse, closing her eyes, counting.
“How much longer?” Veda asks.
“Four minutes,” Gabriel announces.
A flash of light turns everything white. Deafening silence follows.
The sky clears. The sun is out. The world has returned to normal.
Only, when Gabriel opens the door to check, Hiram nearly vomits from the smell of darkness.
The nausea is so bad, he can’t escape it, even after Gabriel closes the door.
He doesn’t get a chance to recover before Gabriel bursts back in. “I need some help.”
With Francisco stable and Gabriel looking faint, it falls to Hiram and Veda. His stomach rolls as he runs behind Veda—not toward Moab’s body, but to another figure lying in the grass, writhing in pain.
Blood soaks the grass beneath Everett, and there’s something sticking out of his stomach. A strangely shaped stone. Hiram doesn’t need medical training to know there’s nothing that can be done.
Everett knows it, too. “I . . .” he whispers, sputtering blood. “I’m finally . . . free.” He’s dying, but his mind is clear, sharp. Veda is still determined to help, but he whispers, “Stop.”
Veda looks like she’s about to be sick.
“She . . . she . . . cursed. My bones are stone.”
Hiram can’t imagine the pain his brain has blocked from him.
“I . . . that night. That wasn’t—”
“I know.” Veda rests her hand on his forehead gently. “I know that wasn’t you. It was her.”
“The Dalneau Bridge . . .” Everett says. “Rest of the truth . . . there. Did you . . .”
“We figured out what you’ve been trying to tell us. We won’t let her get away with this.”
Relief explodes on his face and tears roll down his cheeks. “I . . . I can rest?”
“Yes.”
As if waiting for permission all along, the light in Everett’s eyes extinguishes.