Chapter 10 #4
What do I do now? Think, Susan!
A noise behind us stole my attention for a second—a loud crash as the door smashed in, then, the malevolent collective hiss of a dozen vampires swarming towards us, rushing over the path through the stalagmites. Vampire men, young ones, their faces pale but not snow-white.
Jillian whirled around, snarling. “Traitors! They are rebel vampires who left to join the Devourer!” She bared her fangs, her hands bladed, fingers clawed. Her ruby-painted fingernails, glinting in the candlelight, were suddenly four inches long.
She looked almost more terrifying than Grisela.
Jillian whirled, launching herself towards the rebel vamps.
Daggers flashed in Donovan’s hands. “I will cover you, Chosen. I will hold them off. You take Grisela. You have beaten her before!”
“Yeah, but if I do the same thing I did before,” I shouted. “We’ll all be crushed to death by giant rocky knives!”
The stalactites above us wobbled with every thundering step Grisela took towards us. I swallowed roughly. Think, Susan!
Donovan let out a battle-cry and threw himself after Jillian, tearing into the rebel vampires, whirling, slashing, stabbing, and dancing a macabre ballet in a god-like combat mode.
Vampires were fast; Donovan matched them in speed if not in strength.
Three rogues already lay dead around Jillian; she hissed, baring her fangs, and waved four more forward.
Grisela lumbered like a rocky elephant over to the Ancients as they looked on almost helplessly. A wave of despair hit me for a fraction of a second, making it hard for me to think.
Connor had planned this whole thing perfectly—stashing Grisela in here to hide for God knows how long, setting up his misogynist vamps to sneak in after us, waiting for the perfect moment where the Ancients brought out the spark stone, knowing that breaking the wards and bringing the stone out of hiding would exhaust them completely.
He’d planned this all so perfectly. Connor was too good. I couldn’t think of one thing to do to stop Grisela as she lumbered over towards the Ancients.
But Donovan had faith in me. That thought gave me courage, at least.
“We have to stop her,” I spat out through clenched teeth.
“No shit, Sherlock.” Cecil lay crumpled on the stone floor, still in fox-fur coat-mode. “What are you going to do, chip away at her until she’s in pieces? The woman is a twelve-foot pile of rocks.”
I thought frantically. “There must be a way. There must be.”
Troll magic. What have I learned about troll magic?
There wasn’t much to learn. Trolls were literally sentient piles of rocks—practically indestructible, unwaveringly stubborn, frustratingly loyal.
The troll realm was just an endless sea of rocks, and every now and then, a magical pulse would spark, binding several piles of rocks together to form a troll?—
“That’s it,” I gasped. “Bonds. That’s how.”
I knew what to do.
Clenching my fists, I concentrated, stoking the swirling pit of heat in my belly, letting it boil, then, I sank the magic into my limbs.
Grisela was almost on us now, her massive legs stretching out towards the Ancients who clustered around their most precious stone, too weak to do any more than shelter it behind their backs.
“Do something!” Jillian’s voice screamed at me from what sounded like very far away. The sounds of fighting still raged behind me.
Do something.
I was the only one who could.
Cecil was right; I was the only person in any of the worlds who could manipulate matter. I alone could close the stones. I could ask an inanimate object to move its atoms around, harden, close.
And now, thanks to Donovan, I knew how to sense bonds.
Grisela kicked the marble table aside, and it slid forwards like it weighed nothing. The Ancients scattered. The spark stone hit the ground and rolled. Grisela let out a hideous bellow of laughter that sounded like bricks grinding together and swooped down to grab it.
I held up my hand, and pushed with my magic, concentrating on the bulk of her body. Up.
Her chunky hand swiped straight past the spark stone as I lifted her into the air.
“Yes,” Cecil hissed. “You’re doing it, Chosen!”
I focused, pooling more energy into my limbs; sweat beaded on my brow. Grisela moved her legs, trying to walk forward, but I held her in the air so her feet didn’t touch the ground at all.
She creaked in alarm; the noise was almost deafening. The Ancients watched her, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, as the giant troll flailed in the air, her grasping stone fingers only inches from their spark stone.
I let out a huff of frustration. You’d think that one of the Ancients would have enough energy to bend down and pick the damned thing up.
Screams came from behind me. A corner of my mind noted that it wasn’t Donovan, and it wasn’t Jillian, so I didn’t turn, but I sent up a silent prayer.
Concentrating again, I focused on the inanimate atoms. The rocks of Grisela’s body weren’t magic.
It was the bonds between them that gave her life.
That was where her power was; it was in the tiny spark of magic holding the rocks together, allowing them to move.
Panting, I reached out with my power and felt for them, not trying to see them, but letting myself visualize them in my mind’s eye.
There. A tiny connection like a magical ligament.
That was what was holding her together. That was what was animating her. Grisela was an earth elemental, a spirit who had picked up rocks, bound them together, and made herself a body.
The ligaments were magical bonds, and I could see them so clearly, buried deep within her stone form.
Now I just had to break them.
Flailing in mid-air, Grisela groaned. The noise hurt my ears. I flinched, my concentration sapped, and she dropped down a foot towards the earth, whirling her arms and legs furiously as she tried to get purchase on the ground.
The vampire spark stone was right there. Once she had it in her hands, it was gone for good.
Warm liquid trickled down to my lip; my nose was bleeding. My strength was waning. I had to stop this now.
Letting my magic boil through me, I pushed hard, then harder again. Break the connection, break the bond.
I splayed my fingers. Separate.
An enormous pulse of energy blasted through the cavern; the ground shook, almost throwing me off my feet. An ear-splitting crack like a shotgun blast came from the ceiling. Donovan jumped and scooped up Cecil just as a stalactite crashed to earth right where he’d been lying.
More giant spears fell. The noise was deafening.
I ignored it, focusing on the giant pile of rocks I held suspended in the air, right above the Ancient’s ceremonial table. My fingers twitched. More. Further.
The rocks that made up Grisela’s body moved apart, rolling over in mid-air.
Lumpy feet drifted away from the stumpy columns of her legs.
Her giant round torso floated next to barrel-shaped arms. Little oblong stones—her fingers—separated and drifted away.
Finally, her enormous potato-shaped head, dangling green lichen for hair, rolled over.
The light in her eyes had gone out. Grisela was no more.