Faerie Magic (30 page)

“They’re completely out of control, aren’t they?” I said, slightly incredulous. “Are they drugged, or just buying into your deluded lies?”

Instead of answering, Calder attacked. His attack ricocheted upwards off my shield, rebounding back into him. He was like a lightning rod, drawing on all the power coursing through the air. Faerie itself fed his strength.
It must be the same with me. We have the same power source.

Somewhere here was the key point, the edge of the circle. Vance held the Invocation. I needed to get close to him, past the fighting mages and half-bloods—but how to do that without Calder catching on?

I waved a hand. “If you haven’t noticed, we’ve just walked into the middle of a battle.”

Calder blinked and looked to the side, apparently becoming aware we were surrounded. A mage fired a blast of fire at him, but the shield blocked his attack. Calder himself responded with a blast of fear-spell that made my teeth rattle in my head. Several mages fell, and I took my chance to run. Horror expanded to fill my chest—he hadn’t knocked the mages over, he’d killed them. My feet skidded in blood, churned up in mud and wet grass.

Vance. I looked around for him and my stomach dropped. He remained trapped by Calder’s spell, battering at the shield with an animalistic expression twisting his face.

Hands latched onto the back of my coat. I swung my sword around and collided with a half-faerie. His hands clawed at me, his pupils dilated by the drug and the power building around us. I buried my sword in his chest. Two more steps towards Vance—who’d disappeared beneath fighting, grappling half-faerie warriors. One blocked my path, and I blasted him off his feet with magic.
Get away from him.

Screw it all. I reached beneath the surface for the pain of the fighting, dying warriors, and let the magic flood through me. I ran towards Vance, the buzzing magic propelling my steps until I swore my feet left the ground.

Vance’s magic exploded through the barrier with the force of a battering ram. The half-faeries didn’t stand a chance. Two were immediately sent flying, while Vance’s claws made quick work of another two. His eyes were dark with fury, his hands stained crimson.

He’ll be okay.
I needed to get to Calder. He’d moved further downhill, towards where a shimmering barrier bordered on the field. The key point. He intended to focus the power there and open the realms. Dammit.

Elbowing a half-faerie in the face, I moved closer to Vance. “The spell,” I shouted at him—the half-faeries wouldn’t understand my words anyway. My sword sank to the hilt in the half-faerie’s neck, blood spraying everywhere. When the enemy’s body fell, Vance appeared in a blur of metal and blood. The parchment pressed into my hands.

“Thanks,” I gasped. “Try—try to stay back. I don’t know what effects it’ll have. Those guys’ll probably go mad.”

“They already are.” Vance stabbed another of them, sheathing his claws in its chest. He looked me in the eyes. “Kill him.”

I managed to nod. Another half-faerie warrior grabbed at me. I swung my blade and decapitated him, which was considerably messier than I’d anticipated. Blood slicked my sword hand—infected blood. They were all drugged.

My other hand clutching the parchment, I ran downhill after Calder. Adrenaline fuelled my movements, and the dizzying high of the power almost made me forget I was running to my death.

I raised the parchment, ready to speak, and transparent hands grabbed mine.

“What the hell—?”

Ghosts. Half-faerie ghosts, transparent but solid, appeared all around me. I quickly conjured up a shield, but it had no effect on the dead. Their hands grabbed at the parchment, tugging it from my hands. Even if they didn’t know what it was, they’d figured I intended to send them over the veil.

Calder spun around and threw a handful of magic at me. With an army of ghosts blocking my path, I was too slow to avoid the spell. Fear stopped my breath, knocked me flat like a heavy object lay on top of me, choking the air from my lungs.
Fear is a tool,
I told myself.
I can take their power away. Like I did before.

I let the anger and pain of the half-faeries flood me again, giving me strength. I sat upright, pushing the dead away from me with the strength of the magic flowing from my shield.

“Get away.”

The parchment had drifted a few feet across the grass. Calder didn’t appear to have noticed, though—his eyes were on the rapidly appearing ghosts. He blasted the nearest aside with a wave of magic, fear and anger warring in his expression.

He’s scared of dying. That’s why he was so petrified when he saw my ghost. It’s his worst nightmare.
I should have guessed. Most half-faeries feared the same, as did any faerie in this realm. They didn’t have any concept of an afterlife, because pure faeries didn’t have souls. These mad, screaming spirits did, though. They’d targeted Calder as well as me—maybe because they’d worked out he gained strength from their misery.

So did I. Power humming through me, I conjured another shield, willing it to repel the dead. I was living, they weren’t. I must have power far beyond whatever lingered on the other side of the veil, even without the Invocation.

Magic pulsed from my body, sending the spirits back. Wait—some of that was Vance, who appeared in my peripheral vision, fighting against two half-faerie ghosts. As for the living half-faeries, the ones who weren’t fighting had spotted the power flooding from the edge of the circle, and figured out the way back to Faerie was on the brink of opening.

No. Oh, shit, no. Behind Calder, a gap rapidly spread across the place where the summoning circle ended. A gap… like a door.

To Faerie. No—the Grey Vale. Anyone who passed through wouldn’t be coming back. Worse, it’d grow to consume the whole circle, and us along with it. I needed to close the damned thing,
now.

Calder managed to push the spirits out of his path. Magic radiated from him, and in his eyes, too—lightning blue, raging,
scared.
He didn’t seem to have noticed the gap opening behind him—his gaze was fixed on me, and the ghosts I’d shoved out of range.

I wouldn’t let him run away into Faerie. I needed to incapacitate him somehow. My magic might have gained strength, but he’d taken so much into himself, he buzzed all over. If I touched him, I’d probably burn up with it. His skin glowed, rage distorting his expression as he fought against the spirits with single-minded intensity.

He saw me, and fired the magical equivalent of a lightning bolt. I rolled out of the way, the aftershock rippling through the air. My hands shook on my sword’s hilt. I couldn’t count on magic to bring him down, not with this much power flooding this realm. The very ground shifted underneath our feet, and the air split as ghost after ghost appeared. Damn. He’d even stirred up Death itself.

My sword felt weak in comparison, but my grip tightened. Crimson blood stained it—from the other half-faeries—and even that glowed blue in the light suffusing the air.

Wait a minute.

Before I lost my nerve, I ran at him, brandishing my sword, magic cloaking me. My sword struck Calder’s weapon hand, breaking his grip on the sword. He let go and hit me with magic instead. The blow clashed against
my
magic. I’d turned it into both sword and shield, boosted by the closeness of Faerie.

He glared at me. No trace of fear remained in his expression this time. Maybe he’d realised he could use fear as a tool, like I did. But he wouldn’t draw on
my
power this time. He wouldn’t crush me.

Ah…

My vision turned white, a suffocating fog pressing down on me. He grinned, hands glowing with magic. Magic he’d taken from
me.

Not again.

My sword slipped in my hands, reminding me of its presence. Even Calder’s magic couldn’t hold back iron, but it could hold
me
back. If we moved another few metres, we’d be on the edge of the circle. In Faerie.

Not gonna happen.

I took aim, a wild impulse grabbing me, and threw my sword at him. His eyes widened, his shield too late. Even faerie magic acted weirdly around iron, and my blade carved a path to him, sinking between a gap in his armoured arm. His hesitation gave me the chance to hit him with a blast of magic, knocking him off his feet. My blade clattered to the floor and I launched myself forward, grabbing the sword and pointing it at his heart.

“You can’t kill me,” he hissed. Blood soaked one of his arms and I’d knocked the armour plate loose, but the gash had already begun to heal.

He was right. Being half-Sidhe, he wouldn’t normally have their unnatural healing abilities—but with the amount of power he’d taken in, he’d gained strength equal to a regular Sidhe, if not stronger.

Too bad it relied on him staying in control.

He pushed upright, readying another attack. “Your magic is mine.”

“No, it isn’t.” I waved a hand, and blasted him in the chest. “You’re weakening.”

He blinked, uncomprehendingly.

“I cut you,” I said, holding up my blade. “Several of those drugged-up half-faeries bled all over my sword. The drug’s in your bloodstream now, unless you have some kind of immunity you never mentioned.”

His eyes bulged.

“Gotcha,” I said.

Calder roared with anger, launching himself to his feet, but I let the shield surrounding us drop. Ghosts swarmed him instantly. Calder’s earthly body wasn’t under his own control. His frenzied movements were a far cry from the controlled swordsman I’d battled last time.

Half-faeries surrounded him, some I recognised. The boy whose body had been torn apart by hellhounds. Others, killed in the fighting. Calder screamed, high and loud, as the dead held him locked in place.

And his magic was gone, disappearing by the second into the swirling torrent around the circle’s edge. It wouldn’t be dispelled for good, not until I read the Invocation.

I found a gap in the fighting, and I ran.
The parchment…
it had blown clear of our fight and lay on the hillside. I lunged, snatching it up, and glyphs immediately flared to life on my arms.

My eyes locked onto the words, my mouth forming sounds I’d never normally be able to pronounce. They rolled from my tongue, and the magic moved along with me, stirring in my blood and bones.

Your magic is sealed.

I fractured. Pain ripped through my body, which I was dimly aware had floated above the ground. All the power concentrated in the circle rushed towards this point. The line of the circle moved back, knocking half-faeries aside—I’d have screamed Vance’s name, but I couldn’t speak, and only hoped he’d moved out of the way.

As for the door to Faerie, it was already closing, sealing itself, the lights at the circle’s edge winking out. Chaos erupted, but I floated, disconnected from it. I’d left my body behind, again.

Maybe this time, forever.

I won’t leave until he dies.

I willed my disembodied spirit to land beside him. Calder floated above his earthly body. Like me.

“Your magic is sealed,” I said. Well, more croaked. I was dying. Hell, I knew it. I’d used up my last chance. Greyness crept into the corners of my vision. “The veil is closing.”

And it’ll take me with it.
But like hell would I leave without dragging him along with me.

I turned to the ghosts. “Take him.”

Transparent hands latched onto Calder’s. He yelled and fought, thrashing wildly, but he was far outnumbered. His earthly body remained, fighting half-faeries in a desperate frenzy. They’d all turned on one another, trampling each other flat in a desperate effort to find the door to Faerie again. The mages easily overwhelmed them.

So many dead, though… My vision blurred with the strangeness of seeing unmoving bodies accompanied by faintly outlined spirits, looking around with expressions of confusion and shock. The newly dead. Most of the half-faeries joined the frenzy swarming Calder’s ghost, while the mages’ ghosts just—watched.

Vance.
He walked downhill, past the bodies of the fallen, towards where my own body lay stiff and cold at the hillside. I floated to land beside it. The emotions warring in his eyes punched me in the chest. A dead person shouldn’t be able to hurt this much, not when I didn’t have an earthly heart to break.

“Vance,” I croaked. The veil was closing, but I knew he’d be able to see me, amongst the other ghosts. “Finish him.”

He nodded, stiffly. I could tell what it cost him to retain control. His hands locked around my sword, and he strode forward, driving the blade into Calder’s heart.

The final threads of magic disappeared, sealed in the parchment my body held in its hands.

As for me… I drifted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Firstly, I floated above the hillside, above the battleground. Bodies littered the hill, more half-faeries than mages, though some had run for the opening to the Grey Vale when they’d had the chance to. Someone would have to deal with the consequences. But not me. I was done, finished with this world, and it wasn’t fucking
fair.
I tried to move closer to Vance, but grey smoke thickened around me, obscuring my vision.