Remnants of Magic (8 page)

“Ya think?” The woman got to her feet, raising her hands like she was all harmless, when Malcolm knew different.

The others had magic that could zap her right here and now. Malcolm waited, wondering which one would get her, wishing hard as ever that he had a brilliant magic. She’d already be a sizzling puddle of goo on the floor if he did.

But the others didn’t do anything. Donovan told them to kill her and they just stood there like sheep.

The human edged toward the door.

Malcolm cut her off. The boss said kill her. There wasn’t anything Malcolm wanted to do more. Magic or no magic, this chick wasn’t just walking out of here.

The woman froze.

Who was the prey now?
His lips curled back with his fury and disgust. She wanted to steal from him? Never again. Malcolm slid the knife from its sheath. If he’d had a cool magic, she’d already be fried. Or exploded. Or whatever gruesomely hateful thing he could do with it. Might not have a spectacular magic, but he bloody well had one heck of a knife.

“Easy now.” She gave him a sweet, aren’t-we-friends smile. “Remember me? Remember our kiss? You don’t want to hurt me.”

How
dare
she?

How dare she even speak of it?

How dare she pretend it was anything but what it was?

All his hate, all his wrath for all that time exploded inside him. Words meant nothing. The scream that ripped from him was all he could conjure. Malcolm lunged at her, knife slashing.

She raced around a table, avoiding him. Every time he plunged for her, she retreated, keeping the furniture between them. Malcolm wanted her dead. Now! He jumped onto a chair and then the table, throwing himself down onto her.

He realized too late that she was ready for him, lifting up a chair so the crossing bars between the legs caught him in the chest. She heaved him up and over her head, using his momentum to fling him away from her.

Malcolm crashed into a table, shattering the glasses before the whole table tipped and knocked him into chairs and fey who couldn’t get out of his way. The physical pain from the crash landing was nothing compared to the pain on the inside. The pain that he could never get out of him. The pain he’d make her feel. Hurt her until she understood what terror and agony really were.

Others yelled and scuffled about, but Malcolm couldn’t see what was happening. Then there was the sound of fireballs exploding. Malcolm grabbed his knife and shoved his way between the fey, rushing back toward the fight.

Kieran rolled on the ground, grabbing his throat. The fire exit door was open, slowly closing on the hydraulic spring. The human got out! Bryce rushed for the door and Malcolm stayed hot on his heels. Out in the alley, they dodged around Trip, another casualty writhing in pain. The lads didn’t slow down to check on her. They raced each other after the human, gaining ground with each stride.

They’d have caught her too, if she’d not rushed from the back streets out into the open. The woman collided with some pedestrians, only stopping long enough to steady herself and look back.

Malcolm didn’t care. He wanted her dead. Dead forever. Dead and never going to hurt him or any other Sidhe ever again.

Bryce snagged his arm and jerked him back. “No, mate! Come on. Give it up.”

“No!” Malcolm snarled, jerking his arm, but couldn’t break Bryce’s hold. “Let me go!”

“Not in public, mate. You don’t want to get locked up in jail with a bunch of humans.” He pulled Malcolm, and this time Malcolm let him. He glared his hatred at the woman, but let Bryce turn him around and get them out of there before anyone could start asking questions or fetch the coppers.

If only…

If only he had a flipping brilliant magic he could have done something.

Chapter Four

Donovan purposefully didn’t interfere as the earthborns clumsily stalked and attacked the human. Instead, he evaluated. Not surprisingly, Malcolm possessed the aggression to attack first when the others froze. His skills with the blade were close to nonexistent, slashing wildly with a great expenditure of energy and with no accuracy. Without a more combat-oriented magic, the lad would require extensive hand-to-hand and weapons training.

How Kieran had survived the encounter with werewolves, Donovan wasn’t certain, for he played with the human rather than attacking her. Something she quickly took advantage of. He’d done nothing more aggressive than grabbing her from behind, hugging her arms down to her side. She’d broken the hold with elementary fighting moves and punched Kieran in the throat. The lad might learn a lesson about squandering advantage once he stopped rolling on the floor, struggling to breathe past the swelling.

For the past few weeks, Bryce had practiced accuracy with his thrown fireballs. He nailed the human in the back twice as she raced from the club into the alley outside. Although his aim had been spot-on, the flames burst apart like a fistful of burning leaves, with no real force behind the blows.

While Malcolm and Bryce raced after the human, only Trip possessed the skills and levelheadedness to teleport. Donovan hadn’t pursued the battle. The earthborns had their assignment, which should have been easy enough to accomplish given their powers.

Dawn had no more than finished her healing ministrations over Kieran’s throat before Trip came stumbling back inside holding her head. She slumped to the floor. Blood dripped from her hand when she removed it from her scalp wound. The healer tended to her second patient as they waited for the final two to return.

Which they did.

Empty-handed.

“She got away,” Bryce announced, his cheeks almost as red as his hair, either from embarrassment or excursion.

Malcolm yelled in frustration and slashed one of the chairs. He kicked it, sending it skittering across the floor. He’d have rampaged further, but Donovan snatched him by the back of his shirt and jerked him up short. There was a time for unbounded aggression and a time for self-control. Something the bloodhound lacked in understanding. Donovan snarled into the boy’s ear, “Take it out in the workout room.” He shoved him in that direction.

“All of you!” Donovan snapped. “Downstairs! Now!”

The others scrambled after Malcolm. Donovan spared a glare around the room, at the fey who’d borne witness to this pitiful display by the earthborns. For centuries, the Unseelie Sidhe rightly earned their fearsome reputation. The fey submitted before the Sidhe, because it was the Sidhe who protected them and ruled with a power no other could withstand. These fey did not coddle the earthborns, tending to their mundane needs, out of some ingrained love or for the noble status of their birthright as Sidhe.

Everything Donovan built here with the Glamour Club, everything he hoped to secure for the fey and the Sidhe in the future, hinged upon these earthborns. If they didn’t rise to a fighting force as formidable and fierce as the best of the Elite, everything was lost.

Chapter Five

The earthborns milled near the doorway, awaiting Donovan with an excited apprehension. He’d given them leave to use his personal training room, but never yet had he taken the time to put them through their paces. The lessons were well overdue. “Have you wondered among yourselves why the floor and walls of this room are this particular shale?” Clearly they hadn’t, nor had they any clue why he should mention it. “This is why.”

At his will, the ground before them turned fluid, moving as if by its own intelligence. The practice mats, targets, balance beam, dumbbells, all of the equipment slid with perfect balance and smoothness of motions until the equipment stacked against the far wall several yards away and the vast expanse of the room was bare of obstacles. He ignored the impressed gasps and rustle of movement as the earthborns allowed such trivial use of magic to stun them. He’d yet to even reach the point, but merely cleared the way for it.

The fine particulates of the shale moved easily by his design, becoming as soft as the saturated consistency of a mudslide or as robust as limestone. So acutely could he manipulate it, that it no longer even taxed his effort, for in this very room, over the course of many centuries, he’d mastered its every nuance.

Before them, five figures arose from the ground like men sheathed in a layer of mud, only these were no living beings. In form and movement, they were as the elf-kind, tall and lean in stature. They moved with dexterity born not from sinew, but from magic and fluid substrate. The stone elf men shifted and flexed, as if testing their agility. One rolled his head from side to side, while another jogged in place, each moving naturally as though a true living being with the desired effect. If one did not know better, they might well mistake them for alive.

Donovan selected his first victim, startling a yip out of Bryce when he clamped a hand upon his shoulder. He pushed the lad to the right side of the training room. One of the faux elves broke away from their grouping and joined them. Bryce could scarcely take his eyes off the face, with its indiscernible features just reminiscent enough of an elf so as to not be mistaken for a human. As the lad stared, Donovan made the figure turn its head toward him, getting a startled “Geez!” and a flinch out of the youth. The creation acted enough like a true living being to make it convincing as such.

“Bryce, your fireballs hit with all the might of a child’s plush toy. Fire is unforgiving. You have the capacity to devastate your foes and incinerate them where they stand.” He gestured to the figure before him. “Blast a hole through him with one strike.”

“Are you winding me up? Blast a hole through him?” The firebrand’s eyes couldn’t have stretched open any wider.

The figure across from him pounded his chest and gestured for Bryce to bring on his attack, taunting and daring him to try.

“What…? What is it? A sprite? Or um…” he snapped his fingers as he struggled to reclaim the word from memory. “An elemental?”

“You can’t hurt him, but he could hurt you.” Not clarifying more than that. If the lad believed the figure was alive, all the better to hone his focus to a deadly edge. Donovan pointed him toward his opponent. “One shot, Bryce. Blast him!”

The lad wound up a throw like a cricket player and pitched a flaming ball at the figure. It smashed into his chest, not even knocking him momentarily off balance. The figure brushed off the scorch mark, the slight depression in the chest reformed as it had been before. “Brutal,” Bryce griped under his breath.

“Brutal is what your enemies will be if they overpower you, for they shan’t stand idle awaiting your next strike.” And with Donovan’s words, the rock elf-man stalked toward Bryce, raising a fist to strike.

The lad fled backward, flinging his fireballs as rapidly as he could, losing strength in exchange for speed. His opponent didn’t even flinch, but continued forward as rapidly as Bryce retreated. Donovan barked at him, “Build your power then throw it, else learn to run faster than that!” The figure broke into a charge.

Bryce’s outcry was a mingle of fear and effort. He stopped fleeing, instead gathering a great flame between his palms. Just before the figure leapt forth to tackle him, Bryce hurled the cannonball of fire, knocking the form backward through the air and battering away chunks of its body. It flew back and smashed into the ground where it shattered like ice.

The earthborns gave up a cheer. Donovan turned to them. “You see how it’s done. Now get to it!”

A fresh elf man formed of sediment rose up where the other had fallen, coming once more for Bryce. The other four figures paired off with the earthborns as they stepped forward. Only Dawn hesitated, embracing herself. “I respect what you are doing here, but as a healer, inflicting physical damage is against my nature.”

He swept her with his gaze. How like a skittish doe she seemed. An easy victim for those with no mercy for the timid. “Do you think the wizards will care that you were a healer when they harvest your organs for their magicraft? How hard will the vampires laugh when you tell them not to drain your blood because you’re a pacifist?” When she paled at the questions, he added, “Your power could manipulate flesh in ways you’ve not even begun to imagine.”

The shine of trepidation in her eyes proved what he’d already suspected. She well knew she could wield such power. And feared it.

Soon enough he’d press her on this matter. For the moment, he set her at ease. “But these stone golems have no flesh to manipulate, so you better come up with another strategy.” He grabbed a quarterstaff from the arsenal displayed on the wall and tossed it to her. She caught it from the air. At least the healer possessed reflexes enough to train as a fighter.

Because Donovan controlled all of the figures, he knew why Trip screamed even before she did so. One of the elves detained her in an unrelenting embrace. Although the golem wouldn’t release her, Donovan knew exactly how much strength to use. The figures wouldn’t go easy on any of the youths, but also wouldn’t cause more than superficial injury if they prevailed.

Raising his voice for them all to hear, Donovan called out to her. “Don’t underestimate your magic. Think creatively. You’re capable of more than you imagine. And don’t ignore the common magics. Glamour and teleportation are powerful tools.”

Picking up on his cue, Trip teleported away from her captor. She reappeared behind Donovan. “Bloody lot of good shadows can do.”

“Your shadows are more than just the absence of light. They are the manifestation of pure dark magic. It has a mass. You can make it solid.” Even as Trip remained cowered behind him, the elf form charged for her. At the last moment Donovan sidestepped, allowing the elf to fly past him and tackle Trip.