Jessica Andersen - Magic Unchained

Jesus Christ. Was this really happening?

The trip passed in a blur of kicked-up dirt and spinning tires. He didn’t bother with stealth, couldn’t think beyond the rage and grief that pounded through him along with the pain in his head and the soul-deep whisper of, You have to get them back, become the crossover, and save all mankind.

He didn’t question how he could hear his mother’s voice without the eccentrics; he knew only that he could.

The cave mouth gaped wide and the once muddy ground surrounding it was cracked and crazed. The flash-flood river was gone, the earth parched, and his boots rang on the hard surface as he called a shield spell and strode through. His brain buzzed, filled with whispered echoes in his mother’s voice and the pull of the stones. And though there was a part of him that raged against both, saying that this was Myrinne—he loved her, trusted her—those thoughts were drowned out by the others that said she had betrayed him.

Inside the cave was cool, damp, and shadowed, and felt crowded with the animals that danced on the walls and ceiling.

Myrinne was at the altar, slim and lithe in jeans and a cropped tee that flirted with her tattoo. Her head came up at his entrance; her mouth went round with surprise and horror. And he felt nothing but murderous rage.

The scents of vanilla, patchouli, and lavender filled the air, and the eccentrics lay in a round dish beneath a layer of fragrant oil that flamed blue, then red as his magic filled the space. He had dismissed her Wiccan stuff as useless, thinking it was her way to feel like part of the team. He’d been wrong, though. There was power here. Betrayal.

“Rabbit.” She held up both hands. “Wait. I’m just—”

“Don’t!” he thundered. “No more lies!” There was a wrenching, tearing pain in his chest, and he broke, shattering from the guy he had been with her into a new man, one who could see what she had done to him, all the ways she had manipulated him.

“I’m not lying. I—” She screamed as the eccentrics erupted from the oil in twin burning sprays and flew to land in his outstretched palm, where they seared into his skin without pain.

Stuffing them into the pocket of his jeans, ignoring the way his black Windbreaker gaped open across his bare chest, he advanced on her. “Were you going to destroy them right away, or were you going to summon her first? What were you going to do to her? Damn it, tell me!”

Tears streaked her face. “I wasn’t going to hurt anybody. I was just trying to help. After what you said about the stones, I got this idea—”

“Don’t.” The word cracked like a whip. “Don’t pretend this was for me. It’s always been for you, hasn’t it?”

“No.” Her lips shaped the word but almost no sound came out. Her eyes were wounds, her mouth a slash.

“You’ve fooled me, manipulated me all these years, but now I’m seeing things clearly.” He was at the edge of the island, where baked mud went to shifting sand. A drip-drip made him look down. His hands were bleeding from twin slashes across his palms, though he didn’t remember making the sacrifice. He was filled with equinox power, though, overflowing with it. More, beneath the red-gold sparkle there was a faint rattlesnake hiss. A clatter. Exhilaration pounded through him. It was the first time he’d heard the dark magic’s song since Iago took away his connection to that half of himself.

His lips pulled back in a feral snarl. “This was what you wanted, right? You wanted me to use the dark magic again. But why? Who are you working for?” He leaned over her and got in her face to yell, “Damn it, what are you trying to do to me?”

“I’m not doing anything! Snap out of it, Rabbit, please! This isn’t you.” Tears ran down her cheeks in fat, glistening drops. She was shaking, gripping the edge of the altar as if to hold herself up.

The fog was thick now at the edges of his mind, his vision tunneled to her face above the burning oil. He slapped the pan aside, splashing scented oil, and smiled as she screamed and backpedaled. Deep down inside him, a weak, puny kid heaved, puked, and beat at the walls of his mind, screaming, What the fuck are you doing? But that kid was a pussy who’d never done anything right, and was easy to ignore when another voice, so much louder, said, Yes, Rabbie. My Rabbie. You are the crossover. Do what needs to be done.

The dark magic rattled again, filling his veins with flames and terrible power.

Sobbing now, Myrinne cried, “Call for help, Rabbit. You need to call the others. Please. I’m begging you.”

“They can’t know until it’s over,” he said, hearing another voice beneath his own.

Her eyes went wide, stricken, terrified, as she understood. “No.” Again, it was more the shape of the word than the word itself, and then, louder: “No!”

She spun and bolted. He didn’t even move, just flicked a finger and sent flames searing around her in a bright, crackling cage of fire. She screamed and stumbled to a halt. “Rabbit, no.” She collapsed to the ground sobbing, shouting through her hands, “I was only trying to help. Please!”

He barely heard her over the dark magic, which thrummed through him, and coiled at the black quatrefoil mark on his arm. Nearby above the altar, the fog swirled, gathered, and began to glow in the shape of a doorway. He stared up at the spot and a smile split his face.

We’re waiting. Make the sacrifice and call us through.

She said “we”! His blood leaped at the promise of seeing his twin, his other half.

“Yes, Mama.” He whispered the words, afraid that if he said them too loudly the dream would disappear. This wasn’t a nightmare, after all. It was the promise of a new future.

At his command, the fiery cage moved toward the gathering gray cloud, forcing Myrinne to move with it. She staggered, went down, and cried out when the lattice burned her. Her hair was soaked with sweat, her eyes blank.

The pussy inside him wept and railed, but his mage self—his better, stronger self—extinguished the flames and then reached for her with his blood-streaked hands. He got her by the hair and forced her onto her knees.

Her eyes focused, went wet with grief. “Rabbit, please.”

He set the knife to her jugular. “My name is Rabbie.”

“No,” she whispered, “you’re Rabbit. My love. My one and only.” She reached for the knife, grabbed the blade, and yanked her palm along it, and then clutched his free hand, matching them blood-to-blood.

The connection clicked into place instantly, traveling along neuronal pathways that had been burned into place by two years together and the love—or the illusion of it—they had shared. He fought to yank free, to shake her off. “Get the fuck—”

Then she dropped her mental shields. And for the first time, she let him all the way into her mind.

Vertigo spun around him as he plunged into the whirlwind without preparation. Then he was seeing what she saw, feeling what she felt, and knowing what she knew.

Terror, grief, horror, betrayal. The emotions slammed through him as he looked up at his own face, nearly unrecognizable in its fury. But beneath the fear there was Myrinne, opening herself to him. He caught memory flashes of the things that had made her the person she was: the abuse she’d endured at her foster mother’s hands, so much grimmer than he had ever suspected, kindling the drive to be more than herself—better and stronger, so nobody could hurt her ever again. He saw himself—as rescuer, lover, antagonist, friend, and, finally, betrayer and murderer, or close to it—and he felt the emotions of each.

But what he didn’t sense was duplicity.

She was pushy and ambitious, but she wasn’t a spy, a traitor, or a saboteur. She was, quite simply, Myrinne. The rest of it was lies.