Inherit (30 page)

Loki scratches at the little glow of gold light low in the door. There is a keyhole, and when I fall onto my knees to look through, I see Magda and Hina. There’s low light and not many clothes.

Magda kisses Hina softly. “This is exactly what I dreamed of. This is what I hoped for. You and I, two powerful women who know what it’s like to want dominance. Now we can join. Now we can share what we had before and multiply our abilities.”

Hina rolls over onto her, and I feel like a perverted creeper for watching, but it’s Hina’s face that gives me the key I need.

Magda, for all her evil, is glowing with love.

Hina is glowing with total and absolute power. Power that casts a jade light through her veins, the exact toxic shade of green I know so well.

I transferred powers to Jonas when we kissed. But Hina isn’t half-shieldmaiden, and this is much more than a kiss.

Did she draw Magda’s powers?

My body cyclones back out of the maze in Hina’s head and into my grandmother’s kitchen. I need a distraction, a plan, a way to stop this in its tracks.

In the middle of the kitchen where I shared so many meals with Bestemor, a sweet date with Jonas, late night snacks with Vee, I have to find something to fight with. And then I realize the cabinets and drawers are filled with glass and knives, an everywoman’s arsenal.

My
tentakkel
is crooked and wobbly, and I sure as hell can’t command it with one pinky finger. But this isn’t about showing off. This is about inciting some straight up riotous chaos.

I snake my shield arms through the cupboards and drawers and collect huge, crunching, breaking, sharp pieces of shrapnel, which I hurl in quick, frenzied concentration, grunting from the effort of raining knives and hailing plates. Jonas looks from me to Vee, his hands held up uncertainly, like he’s pondering jumping in and using his own limited shield capacities to stop my psychotic destruction.

It’s funny how a tiny bit of everyday insanity can bring on a world of cosmic implosion.

With all the random sharp and broken kitchen accoutrements flying their way, Hina, Magda, and Sakura pop their shields up and open. The knives and forks ping against the
diament
s, and the plates and mugs explode in tiny pieces of cutlery buckshot. When I run out of things to throw, Hina and Sakura drop their shields down to their sides, but Magda stares at hers.

And I have my definite answer.

Even a novice maiden could have formed a
diament
shield better than hers. Weak frame lines, spotty structure, uneven distribution. Magda’s eyes move to the mess on the floor, looking for whatever impossibly strong item could have broken her shield wall, but it’s all mundane chunks of white ceramic and stainless steel.

I whistle and Magda looks up. “Pretty weak shield, for a master. Funny how even the witches did better than you.”

I make a soft, lopsided
boble
with my damaged fingers and underhand toss it to her like she’s a catcher on the peewee softball team. My droopy, loopy gelatinous shield hits what should be a diamond barrier and shatters it into a thousand fractured shards.

Chapter 28

My
tentakkel
shields are glowing the soft green Hina knows well, and Magda is slowly adding all the common denominators.

The sharp pieces of her blown-up shield deliver tiny slices to her fingertips and blood drips and runs everywhere. She rubs her fingers against her thumbs, smearing everything red, then her head whips up and she lunges at Hina, who throws up a
diament
shield that knocks her back onto her ass.

“You!” The swagger, the arrogance have all fallen away and it’s just pure, vicious, exposed unrequited love. Magda flips a
tentakkel
, which should be tenacious and flexible, but it snaps into brittle pieces between her fingers. Her
boble
is underdeveloped and dish-soap thin, and I know she’s trying to make a
smør
, but it’s a completely lost cause. She holds her blood-streaked hands out in front of her and her voice rises and falls like a seesaw manned by two kids high on Pixy Stix. “Give it back! Give me it back, you witch!”

“It’s not yours anymore,” Hina hisses, flapping those dramatic red sleeves. “You gave it to me.”

“You told me you loved me! You said we’d work together.” Magda’s last words choke on a frantic sob that would be painful to listen to if she hadn’t been gloating over my demise a few minutes before.

Hina’s sneer changes the entire shape of her face in a way I’d only seen on Sakura before. Like mother, like daughter. “You’re a shieldmaiden. I’m a witch. In your own tiny realm, you may command an enormous amount of power, but I guess that’s why it was so easy to draw from you. Witches are so far beyond your ancient incantation dabbling and protective shields. We’ve been hunted since time began, and we understand that we can’t protect or trust anyone else. Look what love and trust did to you, Magda. Your powers are useless now.”

Magda moans and holds her head in her hands, lining her hair with red streaks of blood. Jonas rubs his elbow on my ribs, breaking my trance-like attention on this drama, and juts his chin towards Vee. Hina and Magda have taken center stage, and neither one has eyes for us anymore. I nod imperceptibly, and he presses a pocket knife into my palm. I begin to inch along the wall, then dart, fast and sure, to my best friend’s side, sawing through the binds that have cut into her skin with hands shaking so badly, I’m sure I’m going to knick her. When she’s free, her hands fall limply at her sides. Her eyes roll back in her head, but I shake her by the shoulder and propel her across the room ahead of me, and into the safety of Jonas’s arms.

I’m almost there with them, almost cradled by the uncomplicated love and friendship I’ve been missing so badly, when a detonated
boble
punches at my chest and blows me back to the wall. My head bashes against the wainscoting, and I have to shake it back and forth to clear the ringing.

Sakura’s face is close to mine, and her lips are moving with horrific slowness. When the ringing in my ears finally dies down, I can hear her loud and clear. “…stupid, pathetic loser. You never had an ounce of the strength I have. I guess it makes sense since your mother is a weak shieldmaiden and your father is the weakest Kochi the family ever produced. It’s over after my mother saps you and Jonas. Isn’t that what you wished for? Your sad old life back? Your stupid, lowly mortal existence filled with mundane school dances and tests and slave work — ugh.” She gives a delicate shiver. “I can’t talk about it anymore. It’s too. Fucking. Depressing.” She shakes her pink hair and purses her lips. “And to think I actually thought you might have something worthwhile in you. It seemed like you had some promise, and we could have had a little fun, cousin. Now?” She shrugs. “You’re lower than a filthy piece of gum stuck to the bottom of my favorite stilettos.”

Magda is curled into herself, crying into her bloodied hands. Hina stalks over to me and holds her own smooth, firm hands out with a satisfied smile. “Alright, niece. We’ve never really met, but I’m very comfortable with this being our hello
and
good-bye. Give Auntie Hina your hands, and we’ll be gone in no time.”

“Bestemor?” I ask, not trusting my voice to say more.

“Svane Jelle is one of the most powerful shieldmaidens who’s ever lived. But she’s also one of the last who knows how to block a witch’s draw. She’s too much of a liability.” Hina opens and closes her hands, eager for mine. “I promise you, Wren. Her passing will be fast and painless. She’s lived a long life. This is the merciful way.”

The adrenaline that shoots through me is so intense, it screams in my ears. I flick my wrists and feel a surge that starts low in my guts and sings through my tendons and bones, swelling my hands with fantastically dense power. The skin on my fingers peels and splits as I produce a quaking
smør
that crashes into her and sends her flying into Magda, who screeches and scratches at Hina’s arms and chest, her face contorted with a raw emotion that’s half desperate need and half pure hatred.

Hina jumps up and yanks herself out of Magda’s grasp, but Magda grabs onto those ridiculous red sleeves and hangs on for dear life. Hina kicks and rips away from the shieldmaiden, and when she looks at me again, her eyes are gold flames lit up in crazy fury.

A deft rib kick manages the job of throwing Magda to the side, and she pushes those stupid red sleeves up and flicks her wrists back and forth. “So you want a fight, little niece? Because I’ve already drained one of the most powerful shieldmaidens in the world. Are you sure you’re ready for—

I manifest a
tentakkel
so quick and mean it whips her feet out from under her before she can finish threatening me.

She jumps back up with a yelp and a growl and blows hard, quick
boble
s, one after another at my body and head, jade light simmering on her palms after each assault.

I hold one hand up in a bloomed
diament
that repels her tiny targets, and with the other, begin to make another
smør
, its wide, strong net green and abrasive.

“Wren!” When I turn, Jonas has an arm around numb-looking Vee’s shoulders, and his eyes are cold and serious as a dull winter sky before a nor’easter. “You can’t. You’ll hurt yourself.”

I shake my head and direct all my focus on my offensive and defensive shields. I don’t know if anyone’s ever done two at once alone before. I also don’t know if a shieldmaiden has ever transferred powers to her magus before. Or if a novice has ever learned every type of shield in a few weeks before. Or if a family of misfits ever sent the
Kråke
flying with their tails between their black claws before. The point is, I’m part of a revolution, a new world order in magic, and I’m never listening to anyone tell me I can’t again.

Hina’s trying to mimic what I do, but all the shield technique she has is from a classically trained maiden. I’m rogue, street, an improv shield maker, and I play by my own rules. The
smør
burns my fingers down to the knuckles and makes the skin pucker and redden like I have radiation poisoning. I know this may not be good for me, but I want Hina gone, out of all our lives, and I’ll do whatever the hell it takes to make that happen.

I keep casting the net, and, in her haste, she pops shields that are truly beautiful and serve no real purpose. They explode and fall in tiny showers of white light around her.

Sakura comes behind her and makes a very decent
diament
, but the stage is all Hina’s, and she doesn’t want disruptions. One push sends Sakura sprawling back, her mother’s face exposed with disgust. “Back up, daughter! This is my battle, and these will be my rewards. You’re not putting the noose around your own mother’s neck so quickly.”

Sakura’s hands go to her throat. Her eyes, one still violet, one gold, probably from a knocked-out contact, go wide and her mouth crumples. “We can fight this together…we can—”

Hina sends the first decent
tentakkel
she’s made yet to cover her daughter’s mouth. “Shut up! Stop blubbering. I let your failures go before, but how could you think I’d be able to trust you again? You couldn’t even steal back one kitsune. You couldn’t even take down one untrained half-breed. If this were a hundred years ago, fifty even, you’d have set yourself on fire from shame. Things are so easy now. Now you just live with the shame like it doesn’t make any difference. But it burns me every single day to know that I created a petty little worthless cretin like you!”

Sakura shakes her head and blinks. I keep building my net, making it longer, wider, stronger, to contain this hateful sub-human aunt of mine.

She lobs a few more hard-edged whirling
boble
s my way, but I sweep them aside, no problem, as she continues to trample on Sakura’s feelings. “I have to say, this half-blood has fight in her. Maybe Ryuu’s genes aren’t so anemic after all. With the proper training, this little rogue could make a great addition to the Kochi coven.
This
is a girl I wouldn’t be wasting my time training.”

I get the distinct feeling Hina is a sociopath cat with way too many mice to torture. “I would never stoop to your level.” I pick up the
smør
, already burning my hands and wrists, and prepare to cast it over her.

She eyes the net and starts to weave her own, but she isn’t fast or brutal enough to keep up with me. “I can admit when I’ve been bested. But hear me out. Wren, listen to your aunt. You have incredible powers, and you need to know how to use them. Look at what you’re doing to yourself.”

The skin on my hands is sore and bloodied, getting worse by the second.

“Your power is too strong. Stronger than you can manage. Let me help you.” A slimy smiles snakes over her face, her teeth so white and straight behind deep red lips. “Let me guide you.”

“Never!” If I had a drink, I’d throw it in her face. If I had a trapdoor, I’d open it underneath her. If I’ve ever had any faith in my powers, this is the time to invest fully in that faith and blow this witch out of the water.

She tilts her head back, her neck a long, gorgeous brown line, her hair a black waterfall, her laugh strong, evil, and beautiful all at once. “Good! Tell me to go to Hell. A niece who’s willing to kill her own aunt is worthy of the Kochi name.” The gold in her eyes dances wildly.

My hands burn so badly, it’s like there are a million forest fires concentrated on my palms, fingers, and knuckles. I loosen my hold on the
smør
.

“Cast it at me! I can take it!” she shrieks, her bugged eyes and savage mouth startling me into action. I lift the shield, ready to transfer all of this pain, all of this negative, brutal energy to the one woman who proved herself ugly and hateful inside and out. There is no grey area, no guilt, not wavering. This is my destiny, and I’m strong enough to embrace it.

“Wren!” Jonas yells, and it occurs to me that his voice will be the last innocent, beautiful thing I hear before I’m marred permanently with blood-soaked hands. “Don’t do this. You’ll lose yourself. You don’t understand what this will do to you.”