Natural Dual-Mage (Page 50)

I wiped sweat from my face. “Following her.”

Darius caught up to Reagan and looked at her.

“They took forever to get organized,” Reagan said as an explosion of air, sound, and color blasted out at us, the ward and all the spells attached to it coming down in intense splendor. The force lifted me off my feet and threw me. Emery landed before I did, and I crashed into him. A wolf went rolling past. Then a warthog.

“It is really weird fighting with shifters.” I pushed myself off the ground as Cahal swung up his legs and hopped from his back to his feet in a fluid motion. “Definitely starting to get annoying.”

“We need to keep moving,” Reagan said, pushing to her feet. “The ward is down, by the way. In case you missed it.”

She turned and ran for the compound as an undertow of power shook my bones. The force of the intent fused my jaw shut and tensed every muscle in my body.

STUN!

I staggered, almost fell. Emery steadied me.

“Loo—” I pointed behind us. Shifters and vampires lingered back there, taking up the rear. They’d get hit first. “Nnnn!”

My mouth still not working properly, I dragged Reagan out of the trees and into the clearing as the magic thundered down on us.

“Fucking turdswallop!” she said, dropping her sword and shoving her hands out in front of her.

“Get behind us,” Emery yelled at the vamps and shifters. “Hurry!”

A fog of thick, dense magic moved out from the compound, slow and strangely intelligent. It would track us, I knew. Sure enough, after a brief pause, it started drifting our way in no real hurry. No plans to dissipate until it met its mark.

“Fire,” Reagan said, her eyes sparking. “Fire!”

“Your fire or my fire?” I asked, leeching some of her magic. Fusing it with mine. Spinning a weave.

Emery pushed in beside me, working with my efforts. Taking what I created and building it. Shaping it. Basically, bedazzling it.

“Anything,” Reagan said. “Everything. It needs heat.”

“And life,” Emery said. “You were right, Penny. This organization is working with death. Decay. Magic works in opposites.”

“So much for the theory that they’d only use spells from a book,” I said, a trickle of sweat running down my back.

“This is from a book,” Reagan said. “Everything they do is from a book. And I sure as hell hope we don’t destroy the building it’s housed in before I get to see the beast.”

“Opposites,” Emery said, his face screwed up in concentration, the artificial lighting of the compound barely reaching us. “Balancing spells makes them stronger. Harder to break. Clearly the originator of the spells they are using didn’t know that rule. I didn’t know that rule until I met you.”

“I don’t understand how. It’s pure logic.” I added another layer to the spell, feeling the beast bear down on us. Fire rolled between Reagan’s fingers. She was going to use us as a cover to openly use her own magic.

“We can do it without that, Reagan,” I said, knowing that the right people would know mages couldn’t make fire like hers. Not even dual-mage naturals. Not even angel-touched dual-mage naturals.

“No, you can’t,” she said softly. “I made a choice to be here. So if my old man comes for me, you better back me up.”

“Done,” Emery said.

“How horrible is he?” I asked.

The beast of a spell had us in its sights, though I had no idea how it had identified us. The magical fog sped up, thundering toward us now, churning power and malevolence.

“Now!” Reagan yelled.

Emery and I shot off our spell, horribly small in comparison to the behemoth bearing down on us. It hit the mages’ spell, turning and spinning within it. Fire erupted around it, a great flame that then reduced in height but not width, spreading across the underside of the spell like flame crawling along a ceiling. Little sputters and sparks shot out of it, licking up the sides. Thank goodness we had Reagan.

“In this, you have excelled,” Cahal said.

“Not now, peanut gallery.” Reagan made a circle in the air with her finger. “Let it work. Let’s go.”

“Wait, you don’t—we don’t need to stay and—”

Reagan cut me off by shoving me along. “Let’s go. Let’s circle around them while they think we’re dying a horrible death.”

As Reagan ran past the vampires, Vlad turned and watched her go, looking awestruck.

He clearly knew what she was, and he clearly wanted her.

I did not like that at all.

“Come on, Turdswallop, you can pick a fight with that elder later.” Emery plucked at my sleeve to get me moving.

I had no idea how he’d read my thoughts.

Once again, we ran through the shifters and vampires, the numbers, thankfully, not terribly thinned by the latest assault. Just as thankfully, they hadn’t become a disorganized horde—they waited for their respective leaders to start after us before filing in.

Reagan sprinted for the Guild compound, laid bare without that horrible spell suffocating the life from it. As we entered the compound, it felt as if it were taking a big breath.

Two mages ran from behind a corner of a building, harried and frantic, glancing over at us and staggering. One fell; the other regained her feet, turned, and ran the other way.

Emery zipped off a spell, catching the one trying to get away. It hit her in the back, making her arch and fall forward. Reagan was on the other, a knife in one hand, and a sword in the other.

“What’s the plan?” I yelled, because any sense of direction was better than running around with our heads cut off.

The beast of a spell, now half the mass it had been, moved toward us still, stopping where we’d turned and slowly changing direction to follow us. The fire continued to eat it alive, defusing it a little at a time. Still, it wasn’t gone yet, and the shifters at the back of our group knew it. They ran forward, spreading out around us, fur for miles.

Darius moved up with Reagan, looking at her. She shrugged and glanced back, their communication silent.

“Literally anything, you guys,” I said, bouncing from one foot to the other. “Anything at all.”

Emery, still holding Plain Jane, handed over my phone. A text message glowed on the screen.

I read it aloud. “‘Cut off the head. Sweep out the legs. Reap what you sowed.’

“What the hell does that mean?” I yelled at the screen.

“Penelope Bristol, just because you are in a battle, does not mean you can start swearing,” Reagan said in a terrible impersonation of my mother. “What’d she say?”

One of the wolves started to whine.

The intent of that beast of a spell throbbed into my back. “Yeah. We gotta move.”

“Head—the High Chancellor,” Emery said, grabbing my hand and pulling me along. “The feet must be the peons at the bottom. Though I’m not sure why that would be the case. Why wouldn’t we go for the upper tier? The power players?”

“I’m sure they’ll get hit in the crossfire.” Reagan started a jog, moving right through the center of the compound.

“Split up,” Emery said, motioning away our reinforcements. “Their forces need to be pulled apart. Fractured. Take away their— Oh. Cut off the head. Cut off their ability to think. We need to separate the horde from the mages who’re orchestrating these big spells.”

“Raise chaos,” I said softly.

“On it.” Reagan picked up speed, and I ran after her. There was one surefire way to turn everything on its ear—Reagan and I trying to work together.

Darius kept pace as well, but Vlad peeled off, joined by another vampire.

“I don’t know that it’s wise to let him roam around on his own,” I murmured as we turned a corner.

“Now you’re thinking like a true magical person,” Reagan said, slamming on the jets. “Found some bad guys.”

Ten mages stood facing the opposite direction. At Reagan’s voice, they turned, all holding ingredients, magic billowing around them. Without warning, Reagan took off running, sprinting right at them. Darius was with her a moment later, claws out like Wolverine, mouth open.

I shot a spell ahead of them, felling three mages. Emery took out two more before I felt a tingling at my back. A haze clouded my vision, interrupted by a red spell headed straight toward me…but when I blinked, it evaporated.

Emery pushed me to the side and Cahal grabbed me around the waist and ran, bumping up against the wall and shielding me with his body. A mage popped out from around the corner of a building up the way, got a shot off, and ducked back down. It was the same color I’d seen. The same event.

“He can feel traces of my ability to read intent, and I can see traces of his premonitions,” I said, momentarily tingly inside. That lasted a nanosecond. I elbowed Cahal and pushed out of his grasp. “I was fine. Save it for when I’m actually in danger.”

I darted out and zipped off a quick spell to down the last guy in Reagan and Darius’s fight before catching up with Emery, who was running around the corner after the other mage. A shifter got there first, sneaking up behind the mage and launching at his neck.