Cast Into Darkness (38 page)

Victor struggled with his bonds, his fingers working the lockpick talisman he’d somehow gotten hold of, his face scrunched in pain. Purple energy pulsed through Dylan’s spellcuffs, his body twisted in agony as Melina sent spell after spell into him.

Dad was surrounded by Makris’s guards as Nico backed away, shield glowing blue around him. Her dad fought his way toward her, fingers crackling with crimson energy as he threw bolt after bolt at Nico’s men.

Concentrate. Make the light brighter. Come on, come on.

The light flared, the darkness receded. And pain overwhelmed her. It ate into her hands, burning the nerve endings like acid. She screamed, over and over, her voice trailing into hoarseness.

Victor’s spellcuffs clicked open. Kristof smashed Dmitri into the energy barrier with a crash of lightning. He focused on the circle stones, willing them to drop their barrier, and the glowing energy faded. Dylan tumbled out of the circle. Victor grabbed for Kate, only to be thrown back into the sand by the rippling energy of a kinetic punch cast by Melina. She focused for a moment, eyes going blank, and the energy barrier came back up.

Kate kept pouring light into the bowl’s darkness. The pain tore into her hands until her eyes rolled back in her head. Finally the darkness crept away, searching inside the circle until it found new prey. Melina’s servant gasped and fell to the ground.

No, oh no. That’s not what I wanted to…

“Who taught you how to cast that spell? My brother?” Melina said.

“No,
my
brother,” Kate answered.

Melina had the stone, still in its silk covering, in her hand. The call went off full blast:
Touch me, touch me now.

Kate stumbled to her feet.
If I can get the stone, touch it… Melina’s story about possession was a lie. She had me in the circle to kill me, the Null here to transform into a primal magic caster.
She reached for the stone.

“Oh no. The Pandora Stone’s not for a Null like you.” Melina removed the silk covering from the stone and clasped it between her bare hands.

A jolt like a killer earthquake went through Kate. Then a giant hand grabbed her heart and squeezed, hard. She gasped and fell to her knees, weak and shaking. The stone glowed green in Melina’s hands, its call diminished to a whisper. The stone had found a new muse.

“You want the damn thing, take it,” Kate said.

“It isn’t that simple,” Melina said. “Before I can use it, it needs to let go of you.”

“
You
use it? You can’t, you’re not a Null.”

Melina laughed. “I lied. It works much better on a caster than a Null.”

Melina held her hand over the stone and muttered a harsh, guttural word, one Kate didn’t recognize. Darkness rose up from the artifact and swirled around Melina’s hands. The spells embedded in the stone swirled with viridescent energy. They rose, flickering. As Melina concentrated, the spells swirling around the stone went off, one by one, like bubbles bursting in the air. The magic reached for Melina and swathed her in a gleaming green glow. Melina fell to the rocky ground and screamed as the stone’s energy cascaded around her and shot into her body. Exactly as it had Kate’s, back home in her family’s Sanctum.

No
. This couldn’t be happening. It had taken the stone hours,
days
to prepare Kate for the change. Melina hadn’t gone through that whole programming thing…

But Melina wasn’t a Null.

Kate knew what would happen as soon as the stone finished. It would reach out and find a sacrifice. And she was the only person left in the circle.

The stone’s green-black energy crawled over Melina. Her body writhed in agony. Tendrils of dark emerald power shot through her skin and into her body as the magic changed her.

Outside the circle stones, Dylan had gotten free of his spellcuffs and smashed them into the bloody face of a Makris guard. Nico Makris lunged toward Kate’s dad. Victor aimed a kinetic blast at Kristof’s father, and a shower of sparks flew as Makris’s personal shield dissolved. One of his bodyguards sent a cascade of ice into Victor’s stomach, and he tumbled across the beach and slammed into the jagged rocks leading to the estate. And her father, blue shield blazing, dogged by a ring of Makris enforcers, strode across the sand toward Kate, step by slow step.

Kristof, standing at the circle stones, rose from Dmitri’s groggy form. His eyes narrowed as he concentrated on the shimmering field shooting up from the circle stones. The barrier flickered but stayed up.

The stone’s power sparkled rapidly across Melina’s body then coalesced into a green-and-black ball of energy that blazed above her. Kate felt it search for its price. It considered her with a cool regard.

One way to stop it. Maybe.

The stone lay in Melina’s hand, burning with green energy like the heart of a nuclear reactor. Lying there, waiting for her to touch it.

She struggled to her feet and threw herself toward Melina just as the stone’s malevolence was poised to strike her.

It hit her with a whoosh of power. The energy sank into her body, trying to consume her soul, turn the light in her into darkness. Her sight dimmed, her hearing faded. The blood seemed to slow in her veins, shutting down like the rest of her body.

She stretched her hand out. An inch, maybe less, and she’d have the stone in her grasp. Almost there,
almost
…

Her hand fell. No energy left to fuel it.

Melina stumbled to her feet. Kate heard her laugh, a distant sound like a mockingbird.

Kate was dying, like Brian. Just like Brian…

“No!” Kristof yelled, and the subtle hum of the barrier ceased as it dropped. Footsteps rang on the rocky ground, then he bent down at her side, another spell already shimmering on his hands.

The energy let her go. Kate could see again, feel again. It lifted away from her and swirled to a target it liked even better. Kristof.

No, no… I have to do something. Stop it.

Kate felt the life returning to her body, but slowly, too slowly.

Melina closed her eyes. The stone’s energy turned from Kristof and shot out of the circle stones to where she directed it. Under Melina’s control the primal magic became a sharp, sleek hunter focused on the kill.

The energy cleaved through Kate’s father’s shield as if it were made of water. The dark energy whipped around his arms, his legs, his torso. As Kate watched, helpless, he tried the same counterspell she’d used, the same one Brian had tried. The light poured out of him, brightening his dark hair with the power of its magic.

Yes
. That would do it. Even the stone couldn’t hurt Dad. Even the…

Light and darkness met in a cataclysmic explosion that turned the sand into glass for a three-foot radius around her father. The sound echoed back to the circle in a whip of power, cracking against the stone held in Melina’s hand and throwing her against the wind-worn cliffside.

When Kate’s vision cleared, she slumped to the rocky ground, a wail rising from deep inside.

Her father lay still, eyes open and staring at the blue sky, the wind ruffling his hair.

Melina struggled to her feet, the powdered pieces of the Pandora Stone shifting through her fingers to fall to the ground. “Well, that was interesting.”

Kristof took in
the scene: the stone crushed to pieces, Hamilton’s still body lying on the wet sand, Kate’s devastated eyes, his sister’s calculating gaze. His father hovered behind his bodyguards, one foot on the step leading to the estate house.

Alive.

He closed the few paces it took to reach Melina. “What the hell did you do? Hamilton wasn’t the target.”

“No. He was a harder one. We’d never get another chance at Hamilton. I can take down Papa anytime now.” Her smile had a hard edge to it. “With or without your help.”

“Now that you have Dmitri’s?”

“If you won’t cooperate, he will. Step away from Kate.”

“Why? Don’t you have what you want from her?”

“With the stone gone, she’s the only person who can challenge my power. She can’t be allowed to live.”

Kate, head in hands, sat still behind him.

“No. Take out Papa. Leave Kate alone,” he said.

“You seem to believe you’re in charge here, brother dear. You’re not.” Melina’s eyes went dark. She drew in a breath, and her arms stiffened. Her aura rippled, morphing from rainbow caster hues to a deep-green shot through with black. She turned to Kate and raised her hands.

He pulled out his cell phone and spoke. “Target Melina. Now.”

At the top of the cliff, tucked behind an outcropping, Brooke stood, bangles glinting in the sun. Victor’s silver chain glowed purple around her neck, Dylan’s talisman-lined jacket gripped tight in her hand. She fired three blades of red kinetic energy down from her position. They hit Melina in the back, slicing through her white suit and splashing her blood across the hot rocky beach.

As Melina dropped to the ground, stunned, Kristof turned and scooped up Kate in his arms. Touching her spellcuffs, he spoke the word to release them. He leaped over the circle stones and onto the beach. Only a few minutes before Melina recovered from Brooke’s attack, healed herself, and came after them. He had a only a few minutes to get Kate to safety.

Victor and Dylan were still fighting Dmitri and the remaining guards. Kristof was tapping out a teleport spell as the chant left his lips.

Kate’s fist slammed against his jaw with a painful crunch. “Let me down. Now.”

“I have to get you out of here—”

“I’ll get myself out. Somehow.”

The despair in her voice broke his heart. She squirmed out of his arms and dropped to the ground, stumbling as her feet hit the deep sand.

“No,” his father’s deep voice sounded. “You won’t. You’ve done enough damage, all of you.”

Kristof spun around. His father stood braced by his bodyguards, a deep cut across his chest, a frown creasing his square jaw. “You aren’t taking Hamilton’s little girl anywhere, my son. I have changed the codes on the security grid. Neither you nor your sister can teleport out. Hand the girl over. Your plan is finished.”

Kristof glanced up the cliff at Brooke, scrambling down the steps, then at Victor and Dylan, fighting his father’s guards. At Melina, slowly getting to her feet. Back at his father, his shield torn to shreds by Victor, his bodyguards tired and bloodied.

“Maybe not, Papa.”

He aimed a kinetic dagger straight at his father’s heart.

Kate got to
her feet and ran across the sand. Dad. She had to get to Dad.

Dodging a guard running for Kristof’s father, she reached her own. She fell to the ground, reaching out a hand to touch his face.
He’s hurt, like when I blasted him at home. That’s all. Victor can heal him.

But he lay still, eyes sightless, skin starting to cool.

He was gone.

She could use primal magic—bring him back. The ancient casters could do it, the legends said. She pulled open the door inside her mind and ran down the staircase.

Then she stopped. If she brought him back, who would pay the price? Victor? Kristof?

Her whole body felt rigid and cold. The beach, the fight, everything looked unreal, as though she viewed it through a haze.

Can’t let myself feel anything. Not now, not here. No time. Have to get my people and get out.

In front of the stone circle, Dmitri slashed his hand in a wide arc and three pulses of kinetic force caught Victor in the midsection. Victor doubled over and flew back onto the beach, landing with a thump.

Dylan fought two of the guards, one arm limp at his side, the other desperately trying to reinforce the pale-blue flicker of his shield spell. He took a step back, then another, the rocky cliff at his back. The guards closed in.

Brooke fought her way toward Victor and Dylan, her shield flaring with every attack it absorbed. She reached Dylan and tossed him his jacket. He caught it with a wince.

What the hell is Brooke doing here? Whose side is she on?

The security grid around the island hummed distantly with a tinny whine. Somehow Victor had broken through the first time; she doubted the Makrises would let him break them out, too.

Kristof fought his own battle now: he cast spell after spell at his father while Makris’s bodyguards protected their master with glowing blue shield spells.

She shook off her haze. Their escape was up to her. And what did she have? Minimal caster training. Primal magic inside her, magic that threatened to eat her alive if she so much as touched it. Magic she had no chance of controlling now that the stone had crumbled into dust.

Great. No options.
Still, just because I’m down, doesn’t mean I’m out.

She touched Dad’s blue-topaz cufflinks, the talismans that worked as his personal shield. Maybe they would give her some kind of protection. Turning the clasps let her slip the cool silver jewelry from their buttonholes, her fingers brushing the backs of his hands.

He’d said just the other day that I wouldn’t have to worry about what artifacts did for a long, long time.

She choked back a sob and clutched the talismans in her hand, their sharp points stabbing into her palm. Feet unsteady in the shifting sand, she struggled to stand.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Melina said.

Kate twisted around. Melina stood behind her, fists clenched, her white suit spattered with blood. The blue glow of a shield spell surrounded her. Her brown hair spun in disarray, pulled from its neat twist, her eyes snapping with the light of a thousand dark spells.

Melina
. All through Kate’s life, casters had told her she wasn’t like them. Wasn’t good enough. Strong enough. Magical enough to play in their Sanctum. Now, Melina stood sneering down at her, hands dripping with her father’s blood.

I’ll show you just how magical I am.

She’d seen enough casters use talismans by now to put the theory she’d read into practice. Kate sent the command for shield to her father’s talisman with quick mental order. A strong blue glow sprang up around her, and for a moment, she felt his arms wrapped around her again.