Natural Dual-Mage (Page 4)

I let anxiety come crashing into me, blackening my mood.

Sure enough, a heavy dose of the goblin’s magic came rushing in too, feeding on my turmoil. Delighting in my strife.

Nasty little door knocker!

I picked through all the elements, focusing on those rogue strands. Feeling out how to best hijack and manipulate them.

A pattern emerged in the shape of a series of feelings, pushes, and prods more than anything concrete. An ebb and flow of sorts.

“Got you!”

“Penny, look lively!” Reagan shouted.

I snapped my eyes open as the creature lunged for me, its eyes glinting in malice.

It had felt me messing with its magic. Connecting us.

“I got you, you little creep!” I pushed out my hands as a surge of vicious magic dumped out of me. The weave nearly created itself, using some of Reagan’s magic and a lot of the goblin’s.

An invisible wall spread out in front of me, shimmering with magic that would zap the creature full of electricity when it hit. I waited for the goblin’s spark, knowing the creature would sense the spell and turn to stone. I latched on to the spark as soon as I felt it, engaging in more careful analysis of what happened when the Redcap shifted to stone.

“I’ll get it.” Reagan rushed over and gave it a kick, making it skitter across the ground and slam into a little fairy door attached to a stump. The toy door cracked and fell off. “Huh. That was strangely gratifying.”

“Don’t break kids’ fairy doors,” I admonished her. “That isn’t right.”

“I’ll just burn the stump. They’ll never know.”

“That is not the right answer to this problem!”

Reagan ran after the goblin as it turned back into its gross self. It blinked at me with those large red eyes twice before Reagan shot a stream of fire at it. I felt her complex weave, so perfect and tight that it barely made sense. Then came the goblin’s little spark again.

“Ah ha,” I whispered as the goblin’s magic, in stone form, split Reagan’s stream. In my mind’s eye, I could see how Reagan’s magic was being picked apart before the whole weave blinked and died. “Amazing.”

“Not. Amazing.” Reagan was battering the stone goblin with her sword again. “Really. Damn. Annoying!”

“Leave it. Try again,” I said, still crouching, eyes closed. “Don’t let it kill me.”

“Hear that, you little stone bastard?” The clanging stopped. Reagan’s footfalls indicated she was backing away. “Come out. I’m about to kill you.”

“I am invincible,” I heard in that scratchy sandpaper voice.

“You’re a turd,” came the reply, and the sounds indicated she’d launched at it again.

This time, I pounced the moment I felt the spark. I twisted the thing’s magic and shoved it into mine, counteracting the dank, dark flow with pure joy and light. Dousing the spark with it. Foreign magic flowered inside me, strong and potent and powerful, unlike anything I had ever experienced. It crawled through my body, forcing the air from my lungs. Adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream as I gasped for air, but it was nothing compared to the ancient feeling supercharging my power and winding through my body. I stilled, feeling the lightness of it, the effulgence, as my power pulsed and surged, begging to be used in some grand fashion.

A victory shout went up somewhere in the distance. Light flared all around me. Magic and energy danced. I felt majestic. Invincible.

And suddenly it all dimmed.

“Penny?” I heard, a small sound at the end of a long tunnel. “Penny!”

Something slapped my face. Energy blossomed, and a weave somersaulted from me, attacking my attacker.

“Holy crap, what—”

My lungs burned, no air coming in. Feathers stuffed my head.

I felt so alive with this magic. The feeling was indescribable.

All the while, I was dying from asphyxiation.

A spear of white-hot magic punched through my center before expanding outward, turning colder with each passing moment. It mingled with mine—icy cold heat and light warring with the combination of my magic and the Redcap’s—before fusing with it, rising through my middle.

A shock of magic roared through me. I convulsed, sucking in a huge breath of fresh, delicious air. I choked and gasped, sucking in another while blinking my eyes open.

Reagan was straddling me, a knee on either side of my body. Somewhere along the way I’d collapsed, sprawled out on the cold, wet ground. I could see the abject terror in the lines marring her pretty face. Her velvety brown eyes darted between my eyes, lips, and chest.

“I think I have a girl crush,” I said hoarsely, my head still dizzy and my throat feeling scratchy and sore.

“I think I am going to bash your head in for scaring me. I don’t like being scared. It’s an annoying feeling.”

“What happened?” I twisted to roll over so that I could get up—the moisture was seeping into my jeans—but she put a hand on the center of my chest, keeping me put.

“That’s my question. What happened? Are you okay? Do we need to go to the hospital? I swear, Darius will absolutely kill me if I kill you, and I don’t even want to get started on Emery. I’m confident I could take him, but it would be a wild ride.”

“Since when do you babble?” I tried to slap her hand away.

“You’re as weak as a kitten. Crap. I broke you. But how did I break you? What happened?”

I tried to gauge her with my gaze. She slowly pushed up to standing, stepped over me, and squatted again, hovering.

“Cut the apron strings, Mable, I’m fine,” I said, rolling to my side and continuing to suck in lungfuls of air.

“I don’t even know who you are right now. I mean, I like the change, because that’s funny, but I’m worried you have brain damage. Do you have brain damage? Seriously, what is going on? You clearly solved the riddle of how to keep that nasty little creature from changing. I got my sword through it, finally, but then I turned around and you were lying flat on your back, not breathing. Did it somehow have the power to make you stop breathing? I didn’t notice my air drying up, and usually I do.”

I waved my hand in front of my face to stop the bombardment of words. “I don’t like when you fret. It’s unnatural. Fretting is my job.”

“Yeah, I know. How do you think I feel? I didn’t know I had it in me to fret. I hate it.”

I huffed out a laugh before sitting up painfully and rubbing the back of my head. I’d clearly fallen on it first, somehow. Thinking back, I relayed everything I’d felt, including her magic surging in and balancing everything out.

“I’m pretty sure you saved my life,” I finished, slowly getting to my feet.

She grabbed my arm and helped me up. “I felt magic warring within you somehow. I panicked. Don’t tell anyone.”

“I’m in no position to judge—I panic all the time.”

“It’s funny when you do it.”

“Great,” I mumbled, my mood souring.

The Redcap goblin lay in a pile about thirty feet away, a sword through its middle and a pool of red around its body. A charred speck sat off to the side, still smoking.

“What happened there?” I pointed.

“That was its hat.”

“Ah.” I twisted to each side, trying to stretch my back. It felt like I’d run back-to-back marathons. “It had some extremely powerful magic.” I put up my hands. I could still feel the power surging through my blood. “And it isn’t dissipating. Usually when I latch on to someone else’s magic, it’s only while they’re near me. And alive, obviously. This magic should be long gone.” I widened my eyes. “Did you make sure it was dead?”

“Of course I did! I hacked the hell out of it. Vicious, yes, but warranted. It was a nasty little— Anyway, maybe it wasn’t lying.” Reagan’s brow furrowed. “Maybe gods are legit and it…somehow…got a gift of power…from one of them?” She scoffed and shook her head. “That just sounds absurd. It’s a goblin. Why would a god give a nasty little creature like that a gift of any kind? It was more deserving of a kick. Right to the head.”

“Maybe the goblin killed whoever had the power first, and it somehow managed to ingest the magic.” I ran my hand down my chest, feeling a strange tingling and lightness, like nervousness and butterflies and excitement, all mixed up. It didn’t feel like it belonged. “I can’t think how else this would be possible. Then again, I know next to nothing about the magical community, so…”

“This is a question for Darius. Regardless, you’re alive, not still dying…” She lifted an eyebrow at me. I shook my head. The danger had passed; I could feel it. Whatever was going on with the magic wouldn’t kill me. Not yet, anyway. “And next time, when a creature says something about power from the gods, we’ll know how to handle it.”

“No.” I shook my head and about-faced. “No way. This was the last time. No more. I am done with these bounty hunter gigs. Absolutely done.” I waggled my finger behind me. “You can call the cleanup people or whatever. I’m out.”

“You don’t have a car,” she yelled after me.