Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

Then she was through the fire and back on the open road, but it was too late to steer, too late to correct, if she even could have without rubber on her rims.

The BMW was doing nearly sixty when it hit the guardrail and flipped. Alexis went weightless for a few seconds; then the vehicle crashed down on the other side of the guardrail, cartwheeling, tumbling down a steep, rocky embankment toward a thirty-foot drop-off and the ocean below.

She cried out in pain and terror as the seat belt dug into her chest and thighs. The windshield spiderwebbed, the air bag detonated with a whumpf , and the OnStar did its thing, sending a distress call as the car started coming apart around her. Another flip and bang, and the driver’s-side door tore off, and then the vehicle was right-side up, sliding toward the edge of the precipice.

Body moving before her brain had caught up with her magic-honed warrior’s instincts, Alexis yanked off her belt, grabbed the metal case, and threw herself out the open door. She hit hard and rolled in a tangle of arms and legs, unable to protect herself without letting go of the case, which she wasn’t about to do. Sharp stones scratched at her, tearing her clothes and ripping shallow gouges in her scalded skin, but she clamped her teeth on the howl of pain and dug in her heels to stop the slide.

The BMW went over the edge, and the world went silent for a few seconds. Then the car hit bottom with a splashing crash, which would’ve been the last thing she heard if she’d still been in the vehicle.

Relief flared alongside the fear of what might happen next. Alexis lunged up and scrambled for the scant cover offered by a small pile of boulders near the edge of the embankment. She crouched down behind the rocks, heart hammering in her chest as she pressed herself against the warm stone and breathed through her mouth, panting like a dog that was damn glad to be alive.

Where the hell had the fire magic come from? Where were her attackers now? Her brain spun while her warrior’s talent buffered the fear a little, dampening the panic so she could think. The firewall had been magic, but not Nightkeeper magic. It’d scraped along her skin rather than humming, sounding discordant and wrong, and tasting faintly of salt and rot. She’d really experienced the magic of the Banol Kax only once before, during the equinox battle the previous fall, and she didn’t think it’d felt the same. But if it wasn’t demon magic, then what?

“Hope shield magic works against whatever the hell it is,” she muttered under her breath, and threw up the strongest shield she could muster: a six-inch-thick invisible force field that would repel projectiles and fireballs, and hopefully whatever else her attackers could throw at her. In the process, though, she’d be using up a ton of energy. That was the problem with having puny magic: Even the simplest spells kicked her ass.

Already feeling the power drain of shield magic, she eased around her boulder screen, took a look . .

. and didn’t see a damn thing. The roadway was clear; the fire was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place; and there was no sign of whoever had set the trap for her. There were only her skid marks, a caved-in section of guardrail, and the unholy mess the BMW had made on its way down the slope and over the cliff.

It looked for all the world like the driver had simply lost control and gone over the edge—Alexis decided to think of it that way, as “the driver,” rather than dealing with the fact that she’d been in the car that’d made those marks, that she’d nearly gone over the cliff trying to get free of a firewall that hadn’t left even a smudge on the street. But it’d been real, she knew, just as she knew her attacker was out there, waiting.

Figuring it’d be stupid to drain herself further, she dropped the shield and hunkered back down behind the rock. She needed a plan.

Calling for help wasn’t an option—her cell phone had gone over with the car, she wasn’t a natural telepath, and she didn’t have a strong enough connection with any of the other Nightkeepers to get through to Skywatch via blood magic. The OnStar signal would’ve called in the local law, but she wasn’t betting on their being in time for whatever happened next. Which meant she was on her own.

Worse, her head was seriously spinning from the drain of the barrier spell, and her fireballs were for shit.

Damn, damn, damn.

Closing her eyes, she tried to remember what she’d seen in the last few seconds before she’d whipped around the corner and driven into the flames. There’d been nothing on the right side of the road but the cliff and the bay beyond, but she was pretty sure she remembered seeing a house just before things went to hell. Could she make it there and take shelter? Would she be any safer if she did? Who the hell knew, but making a run for it had to be better than huddling behind a couple of rocks, especially when power crinkled across her skin, warning that her attacker was gearing up for stage two.

“You’re not getting Ixchel,” she muttered under her breath, holding the suitcase close to her chest as she tried to slow her rocketing heartbeat and call on all the training she’d done recently, the sprints and balance exercises. She took a few quick breaths, managed not to throw up, and got herself in a defensive crouch. Then, casting up the best shield spell she could manage, she scrambled out from behind the rocks and bolted for the road, aiming for the house on the other side of the blind corner.

Behind her power surged, and the rocks that had formed her hiding spot suddenly exploded beneath the force of a smoky brown fireball.

Screaming, Alexis ran for her life. Her feet skidded on rocks and bits of broken glass, and her ankle turned as one of her too-high heels broke off. Cursing, sobbing, she hurled herself up the embankment and scrambled over the guardrail, kicking off her shoes once she was on the pavement. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and adrenaline spurred her on, pushing her past the pain when she stepped on another chunk of glass and it bit deep into the ball of her foot.

Blood flowed, bringing power. She felt the barrier magic reach out and grab hold of her, bolstering her failing strength as she put her head down and hauled ass.

She was halfway there when muddy brown smoke detonated in the middle of the street. Power rattled from the midst of the explosion, and a big man materialized in her path. He was as big as any of the Nightkeeper males, with slicked-back chestnut hair, green eyes, and broad features, wearing dark combat clothes and a weapons belt that looked all too familiar, loaded with a ceremonial knife and an autopistol.

Alexis skidded to a stop, freezing in disbelief at the sight of his bare forearm, where he wore an unfamiliar quatrefoil glyph, done in bloodred rather than Nightkeeper black.

Impossible.

“What are you?” she whispered, fear and confusion jamming her throat and almost robbing her of speech.

“I’m what your kind wish you could be.” His mouth tipped up at the corners, and he held out his hand. “Give me the statuette.”

“Like hell!” She pulled away, but wasn’t quick enough. She wasn’t sure if he’d ’ported or just moved incredibly fast, but one second she had the suitcase, and the next she was flying three feet through the air, and he was holding on to the case.

Alexis didn’t think; she reacted, scrambling up with a cry that came from the warrior within her.

She lunged, grabbed the big guy’s knife off his belt before he knew what was happening, and plunged the weapon into the bastard’s hand. He cursed bitterly and let go of the case, and Alexis grabbed the thing and ran like hell.

The enemy mage roared a curse, pulled his machine pistol, and let loose. Gunfire chattered, though most of the bullets bounced off Alexis’s shield spell. At least one got through, though. It plowed into her shoulder and hurt like hell.