Jonas (Darkness #7) (10 page)

I punched him. And it made me feel better that he grunted and rubbed his side.

“The nature of their fighting relationship takes some getting used to,” Jameson said in a soft voice.

Tim huffed.

We continued down the hall in near-silence. In fact, I got constant looks because I was the loudest one. Even Paulie had the absolute stealth down. Emmy, too. And how a giant bear, who nearly took up the corridor on his own, could be silent I had no idea. But none of this was making me look good.

“The final door is up here at the top of the stairs. It will open up into a large square room. He’ll have all his linked mages with him, probably.” Emmy chewed her lip. “I don’t know about the guards. I would assume some would be with him, but some should be guarding the door…”

Another trap lay in wait, this one much more advanced than the others. Still the same construction, though. These were all laid by Nathanial. “He doesn’t like delegating, huh?”

“He links and always works the majority of the important spells. He doesn’t trust others to do it.”

I could barely hear her whisper. Her body was starting to shake and her hands gripped her whips tightly. Worse, Jonas was getting very edgy. His thick cords of muscles were flexed up and down his body and his arms had come away from his sides. Signs that he was about to lose his shit. Charles took a step away.

“You know a lot about him,” Jameson said lightly. I wasn’t fooled. He sensed a trap.

Stefan blasted wariness and uncertainty through our link.

“I was kept as his prisoner. I know a great deal,” she said in a hush, trembling all over.

And she was treated abominably, I’d bet.
My heart went out to the girl. Facing a tormentor took the greatest of courage. I hoped she had it, and didn’t, instead, cower and give us away. I didn’t want Jonas to have to lose the one woman he’d let himself love. Because there would never be another. Not for him. He wasn’t the type of guy to move on from deep anguish and torment. He owned his misery like a cloak, constantly overcoming it when it threatened to take him over. He didn’t move on all that easily.

Clearing my mind, because there was nothing I could do, I worked at that spell as I crept forward. I put my hand on Tim’s shoulder and moved him up with me. When I stopped, he did likewise. “Can you smell anyone?”

His big head nodded yes. And then he bristled.

“One nod per different smell,” Stefan murmured.

Ten nods. We had more people, but less magic workers. I knew it.

“I wonder if Cato is still active.” I focused on our link and tried to trace it to him. It was a partnership, so that didn’t work. But I did know he was alive. And that’s all I knew.

“The man in the white cloak was taking out our guys while dueling Cato,” Jameson said softly. “If it was a full attack on only Cato, he would be long since dead. As it is, he probably isn’t far away.”

“That mage is shot, though. That’ll slow him down,” Paulie said.

A normal man, yes, but not this guy. I had every belief he’d rule pain like he ruled his people—not much would slow that mage down. He didn’t get as good as he was without constant diligence and complete focus on the matter at hand.

Urgency squeezed my chest as the last trap turned into a puddle of magic and drifted away. “Hmm. That was the best yet. I’m learning.”

The door burst open. Three men poured out with swords drawn.

Spoke too soon!

Stefan pushed me to the side and took my place at the top. But we had a bear. A really big, angry, alpha bear.

Tim lumbered forward with a roar that shook the walls. I heard a yell from the battlefield below. Our guys knew what that sound meant.

Tim stood, taking up most of the corridor from side-to-side and top-to-bottom. He swung his massive paw and swiped the face off of the first guy. Jonas jetted under another huge swipe and stabbed an enemy in the gut as Tim took the guts out of someone else then pushed forward, stepping on squirming bodies and getting a chop in the neck from a man trying to get out to the fray. The huge bear roared again with anger and determination.

I blasted the whole wall, knocking rubble into the room and a hole in the ceiling. Tiles and plaster rained down on us as our guys forced their way into the room behind and to the sides of Tim. I was crowded with Emmy between Charles, Jonas and Paulie as the three pushed us in after the others.

The room opened up like Emmy had said. One figure stood at the ledge on the far side. Crimson leaked down his arm and the tail-end of a really nasty spell left the circling of his arms. A sword came at my head as the robed man turned around slowly.

At that moment the world went dizzy. My stomach heaved. And then the perfect balance, the harmony of magic, eroded away. I was left without the other half. With just my own.

Someone fell dead at my feet, but I didn’t even notice. A sob ripped out of my throat as I met the cold, calculating eyes of the man who’d just killed Cato. Nathanial now had all his attention on me.

“
N
o
!” I screamed.

“A human. To challenge me? Why-o-why did they bother to let you out of your cage?” His smile became placating. “What will you do without your puppet-master, little puppet?”

Faster than thought, a blast of white came at me. I plunged into it with my opposite magic and imploded the damn thing. I knew what he was about. I might be a human hack, but I was a destructive one.

“Puppet-master? That is so cliché,” I said with a sneer as I took a step forward and blended two of Toa’s really,
really
nasty spells. I added my own flourish—a bunch of jumbled, magical crap all heaped on top with little zings and blasts of magic. No pretty wrapping that he’d be used to, no. A bunch of spare parts and forgotten bits that would affront this sensibilities.
So suck it!

Tim roared and attacked one of the mages huddling against the wall. “Let me disengage!” the man screamed as the bear descended.

Stefan dodged a swinging sword, stepped over a wolf, and plunged his sword into an enemy’s gut as Jonas launched himself at another mage running toward the door.

“But I need your magic,” Nathanial sneered as his face clouded with my spell. “How ab-solutely
revolting
is this spell?”

“I hate how you all drag out the word absolutely. It drives me nuts.” Another spell came at me as mine fell away. And then Nathanial glanced at Tim and flicked his wrist.

“Did you know, stupid human, that the mastery of magic can force a shifter into his own body? A lesser species, to be sure.” Another spell came at me and exploded halfway to me as Tim erupted in a cloud of green. In the place of the bear lay a naked and shocked human.

Nathanial laughed as I wrestled with the next spell. Even just blowing things up or changing them, he was too good. Too experienced. Too fast. I was flying by the seat of my pants, and he knew it. He devised his spells accordingly. He aimed to take time. To make me think. He was the best mage in the world against, arguably, the most new and naïve. I didn’t stand a chance.

Spells zipped off toward Stefan and Jameson as the rest of the shifters were forced to change into their human, expending massive amounts of energy to do so. The shock of blue hair in the corner meant Ann was alive, but not much use.

“Paulie, do you have your gun?” I asked in desperation as shimmery light bathed Stefan’s face. I zipped off another spell as I wrestled with the creation aimed for Jonas.

“No. It’s no good.”

“Emmy.” Jonas’ voice was gruff, but the tone was pleading.

“Emmy is mine. That’s the wonderful thing with fear and humans. They only have so much courage. And then they just wait to be led.” Nathanial’s voice was cold and grating.

I could barely see Emmy huddled against the wall. She held her whips to her chest. Her body racked in sobs.

“I overcame my fear, Emmy,” I said with strain in my voice as I quelled the burns against Jameson’s skin. Stefan tried to rush forward to physically kill Nathanial, but a singeing spell had him grabbing his eyes and staggering back.

“I am still terrified most of the time, but fuck it, you know? I’d rather be free in this life then caged in my old life. He only has the power over you that you give him. I’ve set you free—now you just have to keep your freedom.”

I panted with fatigue. One of the mages in the corner passed out. Energy was scarce, even for Nathanial. The spells got more brutal. Wilder. More vicious.

Tim stood up and wobbled next to Stefan. Jameson and Jonas screamed and clutched at their heads, both having been hit with a spell I couldn’t unravel in time. Charles tried to work another spell, pushed back with the effort. The spell scalded his shoulders.

We couldn’t even get to him to push him over the ledge. We couldn’t reach him, and I was no match.

I focused on a spell bubbling in front of Nathanial. I knew that mix of fire and earth. I knew Nathanial’s love of acid.

He was about to kill everyone in this room, including his own people, and there was no way I could alter the spell to make it benign. I’d learned his magic, but he’d learned my tricks. He’d closed that vulnerability susceptible to my inverted magic.

“Get out! All of you!” I screamed.

“You see my spell, human?” That cold grin was aimed directly for me. Tim groaned and sank to the ground. Stefan’s arms swirled with magic as he fought a spell. As he fought the pain. “What a lovely prize you would’ve been. Better-trained than I expected. But if you blow up this spell—why do Americans love blowing things up, I wonder—your explosion will simply kill the last mages connected to me as I erect my shield. Checkmate.”

“Get out, Stefan, please!” I begged.

“Then what, love?” he asked with strain in his voice as he staggered. “With our last mage gone, who can stop him?”

“Toa!” I said with tears in my eyes. I worked at that spell as Nathanial finished it. As he held it in front of him for me to stare at in wonder. He was showing me how far above me he was. Ever the showman.

In desperation I tried to tweak it. Mess with it. But it was fortified and booby-trapped, just as Nathanial had said. Any heavy-handed magical attempt would blow it. We’d all still die, because I barely had anything left. I wouldn’t be able to shield.

We’d all die.

I watched as that last fiber of the spell moved toward its home. The trigger.

A crack sounded behind us. Nathanial screamed and reached for his shoulder. The spell wobbled. A moment later a knife blossomed in the mage’s throat. Another knife hit his eye and sank in deep.

The trigger still moved in as Nathanial slumped back against the wall.

“That spell is going to trigger!” I screamed. I ran forward, but Stefan was already there, Jonas and Jameson staggering after. Clenching their jaws against the pain, the three pushed through as a unit, forcing each other on. With a guttural yell, and braced by his two Watch Commanders, Stefan was pushed around that spell and at the slumping mage. He picked up the other man in a huge show of strength and tossed him out of the window.

I summoned every reserve I had and devised the equivalent of magical wind to blow that fog of spell out after him, pushing it out into the empty space over the battlefield as far as I could. The spell, 99.5% complete, and volatile because of it, exploded as its maker lost control of his magic.

As Nathanial fell, the explosion was directed skyward and out, raking down the sides of the building and punching at my weakening shield.

I braced and monitored my energy. I chopped off the links of everyone but Paulie and Birdie, the two strongest, and then I cut them off, too, as Nathanial’s spell finally drifted away.

Panting, exhausted, I glanced around with wide eyes. Emmy stood at the back wall, straight-backed but visibly shaking. Her face was as pale as death. A whip dangled from a hand. Her other hand hovered next to her belt of knives. “I did it.”

I lost sight of her as Stefan, once again, crushed me to his chest. We swayed together. I felt two hands come in to steady us—Paulie and Charles. “Jesus that guy was something.”

“Someone needs to make sure he’s dead.” I buried my face into Stefan’s chest.

“Oh yeah. He’s dead. And his guys are—“ Charles cut off as a huge explosion rocked the foundation.

“Oh no.”

Everyone turned to a wide-eyed Emmy. Another explosion shook the building.

“He set traps. He was always setting traps. Without his magic to fuel the—“ Another explosion. The building groaned ominously.

“Who cares why! Let’s get the hell out of here!” Charles started sprinting for the door. Stefan pushed me in front of him.

We filed out as though the devil was on our heels. Another explosion and something structural popped. Wood squealed. Somewhere it sounded like crumbling stone.

“That guy was insane!” I yelled as I burst through the door into the main second-story hall. My legs shook under me. My energy was flagging badly.

Stefan picked me up and threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. Only Emmy was faster than him. Jonas and the others were right behind, shifters included. Only Tim and Ann had had the strength and power to turn back into their animal form. The rest wobbled and staggered as fast as they could.

We took the stairs in a mad flight and fought a mass exodus as the building shifted. The floor dropped to our left: just sank down into the depths below. A gaping hole exposed moldy stone.

“Faster!” Emmy urged. “The whole place is going down. They didn’t update the foundation when they re-did the living quarters.”

A rumble tossed us to the side. Stefan grabbed a hold of me tighter and bounced off the wall. I felt another hand on my back that could’ve been Charles or Jameson.

“C’mon, man,” Jonas growled from behind. I lifted my head to see Jonas ramming his shoulder under Paulie to keep him moving. “You’re too big to carry.”

Emmy slowed from in front of us and ran to Paulie’s other side.

“Get out!” Jonas yelled at her.

Fierce determination written plainly on her face, she ignored Jonas and put Paulie’s big arm around her shoulder. Together they rushed him up behind us as the whole place rumbled again. Dust filled the halls. More floor dropped out ahead. Ceiling started to rain down.

“Go right into that room. There’s a hole that leads outside!” We could barely hear Emmy’s voice through all the screaming.

Stefan did as she said, bursting away from the crowd and through an open door. A beautiful, glowing hole greeted us where a wall used to be. Not wasting any time, Stefan plunged us through it and out through the crowds. There he turned left and kept running, pushing through. At the end he turned right again and slowed to an easy jog to the road.

“There. Nothing to it.” He staggered to a stop once he reached the cement, gritted his teeth against pain he was still feeling, and put me down amid a sparse crowd of onlookers done with the fighting and just wanting to be out of the way. Most of them used to be the enemy. And we let them be. They weren’t going anywhere.

Stefan set me down as I noticed someone I knew. My hackles rose and my jaw clenched.

That bitch.

Darla.

“Oh
hell
no!” She was dressed in a cute little sporty sweat suit and white shoes. She’d obviously run right out of the building by the safest route, and then stepped over here to wait patiently for a winner to be decided. Now that one was, she was probably thinking of sidling up to some Council members and slinking into their fold.

Well, screw that!

“Oh, Stefan.” Darla sauntered closer with smoldering eyes directed at Stefan. “I see you’re still toting your human luggage…”

My hands curled into fists. I stalked right up to her as the gazes around me started sticking to a face splattered with blood, dusted with dirt, and probably red with anger. I might not’ve looked hot, but I bet I looked pissed.

Darla smirked at me as I got right in her face. I cocked my fist and let it fly! I clocked her right in the nose. I heard a
crack
as her head whipped back. She staggered backward as her hands flew up to her face.

“Don’t you dare think you are welcome anywhere on Team Good-Guy!” I seethed. I concocted a mostly translucent box—I didn’t have anything left—to keep her put and tied off the spell. Then, just to make sure no other magic users would come along and undo it, I put a bunch of flourishes and whatnot around the spell like Nathanial loved so much. He was a dick, but he knew his magic.

“Stay.” I pointed at her like I might a dog.

Blood gushed down her lips and dripped off her chin. “You bwoke my node!”

“Why is it people always shout the obvious when they get hurt?” I turned to a grinning Stefan.

“Feel better?” he asked with a chuckle.

Jonas and Emmy jogged up with Paulie a moment later. Charles and a bunch of lagging shifters came seconds after that.

“Nice work, human.” Jonas grinned at Darla as he put his arm around Emmy’s shoulders. She leaned in heavily to his touch and closed her eyes.

“What’d you do? Punch her?” Charles asked, barely looking in Darla’s direction.

“Yeah. She’s a bitch.” I slipped my hand into Stefan’s and took Emmy’s example by leaning heavily. I was tired, but I wasn’t done yet. I needed a small rest before I let reality seep back in. Anger was a great distraction, but I had to face the outcome of the battle.

“Yes. She sure is. Can I just point out that you know how to punch because of me?” Charles preened.

“Can I just point out that the human did what you were too sissy to do?” Jonas countered. “How much blood did that wench get off you, again?”

“Says that guy that had to be saved by his girlfriend.”

“She saved your ass, too, nitwit.”

Charles rubbed his eyes. “Jonas, bro, I’m tired. Go find a prison and lock yourself in. It was nice and quiet when you weren’t around.”

“The spell is fading,” Jameson said with his hands on his hips. “That was a nasty one. Did you get it, Mage?”

I nodded with my eyes closed. “It was a nasty one. I know what he did, but I can’t duplicate it yet. He was so far above me… I didn’t know people could even
do
the stuff he put together. I have work to do.”

“You’ll get it.” Jameson blew out a breath. “I’m glad he’s gone, though.”

“We all are.” Jonas rubbed Emmy’s back. I took that as a sign that the stalling had, once again, come to an end. I took a deep breath and started walking, my hand clutching Stefan’s. I could hear the others fall in behind me. Even the shifters, who were gathering together as the battle wound to a close, followed our crew.

Bodies littered the ground leading up to the building. Those that were left alive were busy either securing the prisoners, running after prisoners, being prisoners, or just lying in a heap for medical aid. The building continued to groan and shift, parts falling down and wood or stone rolling from the structure. What was left was in no way salvageable. Someone would have to tear it all down and rebuild for the place to be habitable again. Which, I supposed, was a good thing. The Europeans would have to go elsewhere, though they probably had a few hideouts we didn’t know about.