Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

The last time he’d seen her, she had been weak and broken, barely alive. Even before that, she had wanted to fight but hadn’t always trusted her skills. Now she looked strong, capable and somehow brilliant, like she was in sharper focus than everything around her. But she wouldn’t be for long if he didn’t get in there and save her. Please gods.

His prayers had gone unanswered for so long that he almost didn’t feel the click at the back of his brain, almost didn’t recognize it. But then the heat of battle readiness changed inside him, gaining a subsonic hum and suddenly feeling like magic. Liquid energy flowed from deep inside him, bubbling up to fill the empty spaces, and the air around him glistened with red-gold sparks.

His heart clutched. Holy shit. This was really happening.

Through suddenly numb-feeling lips, he whispered, “Pasaj och.” And, as if it had never been blocked, the barrier connection formed.

Power hammered through him, lighting him up and making him feel like he could do damn near anything. He didn’t stop to question why or how. He just summoned the magic into him, knowing there wasn’t a second to lose.

Phee hadn’t sensed him yet; she was too focused on Myrinne. Dark energy crackled in the air as the demoness raised her hands to cast a spell. “Xibal—”

“No!” Rabbit shouted, lunging through the doorway, out of the shadows and into the light. And, as Phee and the ’zotz spun toward him, he slammed a thick, fiery shield spell around Myrinne, protecting her.

The flame-threaded shield blurred the details, but he saw her jolt and heard her cry his name in a tone of horror. But then, without warning, emotions blasted through him: shock and anger, followed by a sharp lash of resentment.

What the fuck? His senses spun under the sudden onslaught, which was coming from the magic, from Myrinne. It was like they were mentally connected all of a sudden, like his mind-bender’s talent had fused their perceptions. Only he wasn’t using that part of his magic. This was something else.

Focus! His self-directed snap was almost too late, because Phee quickly shook off her shock, and when she saw that he was riding high on the Nightkeeper magic she coveted, her eyes went bright and brilliant. Her arms swept wide and she flung a bolt of dark magic at him.

Rabbit raised his hands, spread his fingers and shouted: “Kaak!” And for the first time in months, the fire came at his command. Pure and cleansing, it poured from him in a brilliant stream of Nightkeeper power.

Dark magic met light and detonated, hammering him back with its shockwave. The ’zotz screeched and took wing, narrowly escaping the blast. But the bat demon recovered almost immediately, and beelined straight for him with its fangs bared and its talons outstretched, attacking before he could call more fire.

Shit! He threw himself flat and rolled aside.

Without warning, a streak of green fire—like his, only not—seared through the place where he’d been, hit the camazotz and blasted it back. The strange flames clung like napalm and spread, engulfing the bat demon, which fell to the ground and lay writhing, emitting shrill shrieks.

As it died to ash, a suddenly wild-eyed Phee cast a shield spell around herself, yanked a pair of carved stones from her robe, and started a transport spell. The bitch was trying to escape!

“She’s mine!” he bellowed, not sure which of the others had taken out the ’zotz or how they’d summoned the green flames, but not really giving a shit as long as they gave him a clear shot.

The knife was suddenly in his hand, his palms bleeding, though he didn’t remember making the sacrifice. It added to his power as he called the fire magic, gathering it from the depths of a soul he’d thought was dead and gone, used up and kicked aside when he’d betrayed his teammates. Now, though, he felt whole in a way he hadn’t for a long time—farther back even than his imprisonment. He wasn’t the whipped dog anymore, wasn’t the betrayer, the prisoner or the mage.

He was all of those things and none of them.

Magic pumped harder and higher, flowing through his synapses and setting fire to neurons long unused. He could do this. He could.

Raising his bleeding palms, he drew breath and shouted the command again: “Kaak!”

Sound, heat and fury detonated; flames speared from his outstretched fingers and hammered into the demoness. Her dark-magic shield cracked and then imploded, sucking back into its maker as she screamed, flung her arms wide, and caught fire.

“Rabbie!” she cried. The word trailed up at the end, going to an inhuman screech as she began morphing away from the human form she’d flaunted. Her fire-wreathed shape stretched, blurred, elongated . . . and became a huge dark shadow, with glowing green eyes that blazed with hatred and pain.

“Son of a bitch,” Rabbit grated. It was a makol, a soul of such terrible evil that it had descended to the lowest of the nine levels of Xibalba, to be tortured there, honed by fire and pain until it emerged as a green-eyed wraith.

The luminous eyes dominated his vision, locking him in place as her voice spoke deep inside his head. In time you will know me for real . . . Son.

“No!” He poured himself into the spell, into the flames, aware that the others had arrived and were adding their magic to his as he shouted a final: “Go to hell!”

The fire flared higher and the makol writhed, screeched and clawed the air, fighting hard enough to make him think it wasn’t simply being dumped back in the underworld, but was being destroyed utterly. And who knew? Maybe it was. The rules were changing as they got closer to the end date; the magic was stronger, the stakes higher. Good fucking riddance.

Her face appeared in the flames, human once more, and tortured as it screamed, “Rabb-ieeeeee!” Then the luminous green eyes winked out, the shadow disappeared, and the flames guttered and died. And Phee was gone, leaving behind only a few char marks scored deeply into the stones.

Rabbit stood, staring at the scorched spots.

Phee was gone.

Dead. Kaput. No more.

The burning need for revenge drained suddenly, leaving him hollow and aching, with no clue what he was supposed to do next. He could hear the thud of his own heart, the rasp of his breathing. He was very aware of the others standing behind him, partly as backup and partly—no doubt—to protect Myrinne from him. Which was a hell of a thought. I won’t hurt her, he wanted to tell them, but history said otherwise, driving home the fact that one part of the battle might be over, but another had only just begun.

Taking a deep breath, he turned his back on the Nightkeepers—on his resurrected father, his king, all the people who had every right to hate him—and faced Myrinne. Who had the most right of all of them to hate his ass.

She was standing at the midway point between him and the far wall, at the edge of where he’d set his shield spell—gone now, though he didn’t know when or how it had fallen—and very close to the smudgy ash pile that was all that was left of the camazotz.

As their eyes met, she lowered her ridiculous magic wand. And his power went out—poof, gone.

“I didn’t need your help,” she said coolly. “I had it under control. So, hey, thanks for nothing, don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”

Shock seared through him and he took a step toward her. “Myr?” There were a dozen questions in that one word, but he couldn’t articulate a damn one of them, not when she was staring at him the same as he’d stared at his old man, like he had come back from the dead and wasn’t all that welcome. And when a gesture from her had severed his link to the magic.

What was he supposed to do now? What was he supposed to say? An apology would be a good place to start, but there was really no way to apologize for what he’d done to her. Still, he wiped his freshly healed palms on his grubby rag-pants and started toward her, holding out his hands in a gesture of no harm, no foul, and hoping to hell that was the truth. He had harmed her, he knew, had fouled their relationship beyond repair. But if he could just—