Chapter 598: Ready For A Fight
It wasn't like I expected a cake walk or anything. But it would have been nice if we could have just strolled through the exit door, climbed the short staircase to the roof, sauntered up to the machine of doom and broken it into a million pieces while kindly handing Mia's power back, safe and sound.
Um hum. Dream time over in three, two, one-
I might have done all right against a heavy bag Sage had me working with at the gym, but taking on giant sorcerers in expensive suits was another matter altogether. The second we passed through the roof door and into the narrow stairwell to the top, three of them rushed out, one falling with a cry as Demetrius, more prepared than I was, took him out at the knees with a slash of his crystal. I didn't think the stone itself did the damage. But whatever Demetrius's power did to the big guard, he crashed forward, almost taking out Quaid as he fell, a redwood crashing in the forest. Charlotte's claws liberated another of his life, more blood spraying outward in an arc of red as the sorcerer's throat opened in three deep slashes.
Taking Demetrius's lead, I struck with my own crystal, my meager protective learning enough, thanks to the pressure of my other powers. My demon's fire, now tied to my sorcery, seared the guard's face, sending him stumbling back, hands raised in protection while Shaylee reached beneath me and buckled the floor. A long rattling ended in a screech as marble cracked, steel girders puncturing the heavy stone as the very floor crushed its way upward. Sharp metal teeth, jagged and smoking from the vast pressure the earth magic applied, split the door entry in two, the frame collapsing to one side, landing on Demetrius's victim with crushing results.
So much blood.
If I hadn't been deep in my magic, I know I would have puked.
Demetrius didn't wait to see if more hulking bodies in suits waited for us, but rushed through, hopping over the wreck of the floor and the bleeding body of Charlotte's victim, disappearing up the stairs. I followed at a dead run, the whole world in sharp relief, everything brilliantly clear as adrenaline tightened my focus. I felt my heart beating, heard my breath. Caught the scent of the ocean again on the other side of the coppery smell of blood. Gasped at the rush of heat as Demetrius threw open the narrow, metal door at the top of the steps and vanished into the night.
Cold air full of death reclaimed the space as the door thudded shut. I didn't hesitate, keeping myself tightly inside this new feeling of attention, silently thanking Quaid for the exercises I'd practiced, knowing this hyper-awareness came from the combination of adrenaline and confidence. Two leaps of two steps at a time and I jerked the door open, flying through it into the humid Miami night.
Ready for a fight, burning for it.
But none came. I caught a glimpse of movement ahead, spotted Demetrius running the length of the building and raced after him. Charlotte chuffed next to me as she morphed further into wolf form, loping at my side on four legs. A silver streak of fur raced past her, heading for Demetrius as I wondered what Sassafras thought he could accomplish without power.
I glanced over my shoulder, saw Quaid, Mia in his arms, running after us. This time I supplied him magic support and he nodded grimly in thanks.
The rooftop was empty, all but for some outtakes of air conditioning, the giant units roaring into the darkness, and a sculpture on the far end, facing inland. I slid to a halt on the pebbled asphalt roof, the stink of it rising to assault me, heat making the footing sticky. Demetrius pointed as I tried to make sense of what I saw.
Five pillars, taller than me, taller than the goon squad we'd taken out, stood in a rough circle around another central column. No ordinary pillars. My sorcery called to them as I approached, the pulse of their magic warming to greet the stone in my hand.
Crystals. But not the rough edged ones I was used to. These hulked their way skyward, polished columns, each glowing softly from within with their own subtle beauty, facets clearly visible past surfaces as smooth as glass. All the colors of magic pulsed here: green, white, red, blue, amber. I circled them slowly, eyes going to the ground, realizing then this was no circle.
They stood at the points of the pentagram, and the central crystal, its heart black and opaque, loomed in the middle. The Brotherhood used the power of the covens, the same pattern we called on to reinforce our family magic, to connect and bind us together.
Learned a thing or two from us, it seemed.
"This," Demetrius's lower lip quivered as he came to stand beside me, shoulders sagging, tears welling in his eyes. "Monstrous."
I reached for it with power, feeling each of the columns answer me, wake, hum to life.
Try to feed from me.
My vampire snarled, demon howling her fury while Shaylee's earth magic made the rooftop rumble. I slammed up shields against the crystals as they seemed to sigh in sadness before falling still again.
But no. Not still. Not quite. They were still drawing on power, weren't they? I could feel the subtle thread they pulled toward them, closed my eyes a moment before opening them slowly. Yes. There. The threads were real, barely visible to my magic sight. Sucking in power.
From everywhere. Multiple trails, from hundreds of sources, flooding the columns with energy.All of it, every scrap, funneling through them into the center of the pentagram, to the heart of darkness waiting.
To the black stone, the one in the middle. Silent as death, absorbing power as though it ate the light.
"We must shatter the crystals." Demetrius jabbed at me with one sharp finger. "They've taken enough power the machine does its work for them."
I stared at him. "The Dumont magic," I said. It now made complete, horrible sense. How would we end, I wondered, standing there, staring at the possibility of the end of magic? Would it build, this drawing of power, until, like the crack in a dam, it burst, and we lost all of our power in one great wave? Or, would it go on like this, subtle and slow, the loss so incremental we didn't notice until it was too late? Until all of the magic was eaten alive?
Demetrius's head bobbed, hair waving around his damaged cherub face. "It's awake now," he said. "It has a soul. And it must feed."
Quaid stopped behind me, the press of his shoulder against my back sticking my t-shirt to my slick skin. But I welcomed the contact, didn't feel the heat anymore, not through the chill of discovery.
"This is why they haven't bothered to attack anyone else," he said. "They don't have to, do they, Demetrius?"
The little man sighed sadly. "No," he said, singing the words. "Not now. It will eat and eat until nothing is left but what they own. Just like the rest of their plans."
"How do we stop it, Demetrius?" A part of me felt guilty, imagine. But the pulsing soul of the crystal in my hand felt so similar to the heartbeats I'd felt in the large columns I wondered what I'd done, if the crystal I had in my possession was as dangerous as the magic siphon before me. "How do we destroy it?"
He turned and looked up at me from the corner of his eye, hand reaching for mine, holding it like a little kid who needed his mommy to save him. "There's only one way," he said. "Maji."
The power of creation. That didn't make any sense. "How can I create them into destroying themselves?" Damn it, I knew so little, really about what I was. About what I could do. A little appearance from my maji guardian/teacher/pain in my ass, Iepa, would have been pretty helpful right about then.
Like that was going to happen.
Sydlynn, my vampire sent. We've already had this conversation.
We had?
Creation magic not only creates, it controls. She sounded a little miffed I'd forgotten. All other magicks bow to it, can be manipulated and altered by it. It is literally the reason for other magic.
Oh yeah. I seemed to recall she mentioned that to me when we fought Quaid, after the Seelie Queen Aiolainn thralled him.
What had my vampires said then? Creation magic controlled all other magicks. That was the true power of the maji.
Gotcha, I sent. Creation magic it was.
Charlotte's scream turned me half-way around, just as the crack of a whip jarred my ears. I saw her flying toward me, her half wolf form filling out, eyes wide and wolfish. But I wasn't paying attention to her, not really, not when something slammed into me, shoving me back, stumbling, falling.
Shoulder on fire as I went down.
***
