Jessica Andersen - Magic Unchained

“Positive. Go on. Drop that off in the hall and then you’re off the clock until ’port time.”

Finally appeased—Sven hoped—Ritchie headed toward the mansion, casting a last look over his shoulder. When he was out of sight, Sven closed his eyes, summoned magic that felt far too sluggish for an equinox, and cast a shield around him and Mac.

It failed.

“Fuck me.” A big-ass pit opened up in his gut. He had known he was risking a backfire by staying put longer than his magic wanted him to, but he had counted on his warrior’s talent to keep things working until after the battle. And now… Shit. He didn’t know what the right answer was going to be. All he knew was that he couldn’t help lead the winikin into battle without his damn magic.

Tapping his armband for a private channel, he hit up Cara’s identifier. When she answered, he said, “Hey, where are you? I need a minute.”

“I’m in my suite. Everything okay?”

“Nothing we can’t deal with.” He hoped. He honestly didn’t know what he was going to say or what he hoped to get out of talking with her, only that he needed to see her, touch her. “I’ll be there in—”

A strident beep-beep-beep cut him off, coming from his armband, with deeper echoes sounding elsewhere throughout the compound, and then the emergency channel went live, and JT’s voice snapped, “We need serious help in the main mansion. Rabbit’s barricaded himself into the altar room with Myrinne’s body and the screaming skull. He says he’s going to use it to resurrect her!”

“Just do your thing; that’s all I’m asking,” Rabbit said to the screaming skull’s hollow-eyed, skeletal face. Desperation hammered at him, making his hands shake as he clasped the skull between his and Myrinne’s cut palms and whispered, “Pasaj och.”

He felt the burn of the barrier connection and saw the red-gold of Nightkeeper power, but other than that… nothing.

Sunlight poured through the glass-and-steel roof of the circular chamber at the center of the mansion, creating patches of light and dark on the carved stone walls. The ashes from countless Nightkeeper funerals had been used in the mortar and set beneath the chac-mool altar, skewing the magic heavily toward the light. Which was why he’d brought her here—he needed all the good-guy vibes he could get.

“Come on, come on!” he chanted. There had to be a way to invoke the resurrection spell without being down at the First Father’s cave, had to be. But how? He had shields on all the doors, but soon he would be surrounded, outnumbered. When that happened… Shit, he needed to think, think!

He had placed her on the altar, curled on her side with her hands beneath her cheek as if sleeping. Only she wasn’t. He couldn’t find a pulse, couldn’t sense her inside her own skull anymore. If she wasn’t already gone, she was so very close.

His heart pounded a sick rhythm in his chest. Sweating, shivering, he leaned over her. “Come on, sweetheart; stay with me. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll make it up to you somehow; I promise. Just stay with me.” He tried the spell again. “Come on, come on!”

Beneath the desperation, grief and anger blossomed. Huge, horrifying, crippling guilt. Of all the things he’d fucked up in his life—and there had been many—this was the worst. She had trusted him, loved him without reservation—he knew that now for certain. She had only been trying to help him. As always. And he had killed her for it.

“Think, dumb ass.” There had to be some way to connect the skull’s power to Myrinne’s soul as it slipped away. Some kind of magic, or artifact, or…

What about the eccentrics?

He froze, feeling them weigh suddenly heavy in his pocket. They were powerful, they could forge a conduit to the dead, and the room was skewed so heavily toward light magic, his gut said there was no way the demon that had called itself his mother could break through.

Fumbling, he pulled out the stones. The blood from his cut palms streaked along their slicked surfaces, muddying the black and ocher as he placed them together and put them on her chest, above her heart. “Please, gods,” he whispered, thinking it was fitting that he was on his knees already. “Please bring her back.”

He clasped the skull between their palms once more, and whispered, “Pasaj och.” And—holy shit and thank you, gods—brilliant red light flared from the eccentrics and whizzed around Myrinne, wrapping her in a cocoon of magic. “Yes, that’s it. That’s it. Pasaj och!”

The skull heated.

Pulse racing now, he dug down and called all the magic he could will up from deep within him. Then he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers in a kiss, shuddering at the coolness of her lips, their unresisting softness. She was worth ten of him, a hundred, because what use was all his power if he kept losing sight of right and wrong? “Please, baby. Please come back,” he whispered against her mouth. “Pasaj—”

Glass crashed suddenly overhead and shards rained down. Cursing, he flung himself over Myrinne, protecting her face and upper body as he cast a shield of pure fire energy around the two of them.

Black ropes slapped the stone around him and figures descended through the unshielded skylights, and then dozens of winikin, lighter and faster than the magi, hit the ground running to fan out around him, weapons hot. One among them, though, was bigger and hit harder. Sven.

“No!” Rabbit shouted, and gripped the skull, frantically casting a second shield around it so— Too late. Power surged, and the artifact dissolved from his hand and reappeared in Sven’s grip. “Noo!”

“It’s over,” Dez said, stepping through the main doorway, which was open now that Rabbit’s shield was concentrated around him and Myrinne. “You need to let us have her.”

Wild eyed and beyond himself, Rabbit grabbed the eccentrics, which burned to the touch, feeling strange and fleshy. “It’s not over. I won’t let it be over. I love her; don’t you get it? I love her; I’ve always loved her, ever since that very first day. Nobody but her.” He lurched to his feet, kicking his old man’s knife aside as he brandished the joined eccentrics like a weapon, and only then realizing that together they formed a sharply pointed sacrificial blade. How had he not seen that before? Had they changed, or had he? Reversing the blade, he realized the truth. He had changed the nightmare after all—it wasn’t his knife dripping blood anymore; it was the joined eccentrics… and he was the one who needed to be sacrificed. “Balance,” he rasped, finally understanding what he had to do. “A life for a life.”

The fog rose up inside him again, reaching for him, calling to him.

“Rabbit, no!” someone cried through the mist. “Don’t. Let us—”

He drove the blade into his gut, angling up for his heart. It was like being punched in the stomach by a fist made of fire—a solid thud and then burning, radiating pain.

Then something went pop inside him, and he knew he’d found his target.

Sadness—sweet and profound—welled up with the tears that suddenly flooded his eyes. He collapsed across Myrinne. “Take me instead,” he grated to the gods. The knife was buried in his heart, and he was giving of his own free will. “Send her back,” he said, his voice bubbling with blood. “Take me inst…”

His shield spell faltered and— Crack! A brilliant burst of power that originated from the eccentrics momentarily painted everything in the room with the oily brown sheen of dark magic. From inside it emerged the demon who had claimed to be his mother. She wasn’t a ghost anymore, wasn’t even human—her eyes glowed red and her teeth were pointed to fangs. Power surrounded her like an unholy halo, shielding her when the Nightkeepers attacked with fireballs, the winikin with guns. Seeming not to notice them, she grabbed Rabbit and dragged him off Myrinne.