Secret of the Gargoyles (Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles Book 3) (10 page)

I teetered on the precipice of control, then fell back into my body. Magic still flowed between us, but I could separate my core self from the magic.

I opened eyes I hadn’t realized I’d closed. Marcus leaned close enough to fill my vision.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

Not a moment too soon. Marcus threw our combined might into a huge shield of water and earth, wrapping it around the sled, the dormant gargoyles, Oliver, and Celeste and tethering it to the elemental anchor he’d pounded into the ground. The magic storm slammed the shield a second later. The impact would have thrown me from my feet, but Marcus grabbed my arm without even looking at me, holding me up.

Water countered fire; earth countered air. The wild magic folded back on itself before twisting for a second attack. Fire and air pounded the shield and burst, unraveling with a thunderous boom. The remaining snarl of wood flared across the shield, feeding from the water, devouring the earth. Fast as thought, Marcus wrapped the wood magic in fire and squeezed. The elements canceled each other out with a clap I barely registered over the ringing in my ears.

Marcus released the link, and I sagged to the ground, drained. He stalked across the quiet meadow and picked up the null trap with a pinch of air. The brass basket was blackened, the previously round shape melted and disfigured. Shaking his head, Marcus tossed the deformed mess into the back of the air sled.

Oliver loped under the sled to my side, rubbing against my forearm with a whine.

“I’m okay. Just catching my breath,” I assured him. That hadn’t even been a big storm. I tilted my head to peer up the mountain. “Are we close, Celeste?”

“No.”

My heart sank.

“That’s not going to work many more times,” Marcus said, yanking the anchor from the ground and shaking the dirt from it before sliding it back into its loop at his waist.

“We can help,” Oliver said, including Celeste in the offer.

“It might be dangerous if the magic backlashes to you,” Marcus said before I could.

“No more dangerous than if you burn out before we reach the baetyl,” Celeste said. “Rourke is getting weaker. We need to keep moving.” She leaned her chest into the rope and dug her back paws into the soil. Marcus pushed the sled until she got it in motion again. I braced my hands on the dirt and shoved to my feet. Another ten minutes’ rest would have been preferable. Marcus picked up his crossbow and notched another null trap—whatever good it would do us.

“If we use the dormant gargoyles, it’d help them at least,” I said, falling into step with him. “The anchor worked, right?”

Everything had happened so fast, I had only an impression of the anchor funneling some of the wild magic harmlessly into the soil.

“More than the trap.”

“What about the sword? Does it have any special properties?”

“Against raw elements, no. But if we encounter something with a body, it might come in handy.”

“Do you really think anything could live here among the storms?”

He shrugged. “I’ve seen stranger things.”

We climbed the switchbacks as fast as Celeste could pull the sled. My thighs ached and my stomach sat heavy with fear and doubt. Marcus sent Oliver to scout the way in the air, and I bit my tongue to hold in my protests. Oliver was smart and fast; he wouldn’t put himself in danger. Even so, after he flew off, I spent so much time looking at the sky that my neck knotted and my toes bruised inside my boots from tripping over unnoticed rocks.

Our luck held for almost a half hour, until a small storm of raw water and air spinning as tight as a tornado veered off its previously straight course and whirled toward us. It switched directions so rapidly, we didn’t have time to move from where we were pinned between a steep outcrop of ragged milky quartz and a washout. Already past the storm, Oliver circled back, wings beating so fast they blurred in his effort to reach us.

“No, don’t let him—”

Marcus formed an air message and curved it around the storm. I half expected the wild magic to snatch it out of the air or change course in attraction to the magic, but it didn’t alter its headlong rush for us.

I thrust my magic toward Marcus without taking my eyes from Oliver. Our linking was rough but fast, and in my worry for Oliver, it didn’t unseat my equilibrium. When the message reached Oliver, he pulled up, his long body sagging beneath his spread wings. I let out a shaky breath.

“Thank you.” Oliver was clear of the storm. He would be safe.

If Marcus replied, a gust of wind took his words. He formed another shield, this one fire and earth, and anchored it in the copper and quartz rod he stomped into the ground. I could feel the dormant gargoyles in our link this time, but Marcus didn’t include Celeste despite her silent offer of enhancement. I could have accepted her boost and pulled more magic into the link, but I trusted Marcus to have a plan.

The storm dipped, coating the ground beneath it in ice and lifting rocks and weeds into a funnel. Wide-eyed, I watched the frozen front race toward us. Marcus locked my wrist in his hand and drew a wallop of power from our link, altering the fire in the shield from the basic elemental form to the weaves for a white-hot heat. When the storm hit us, it melted into nothing with an anticlimactic
shush
of released air.

“That’s more like it,” Marcus said. He released me from the link at the same time he let go of my arm, and I sagged against the sled. My heavy breaths fogged the chilled air, and between ragged pants, I could hear the tinkle of the ice crystals melting in the sunlight. Marcus rolled a weak band of heat across the ground in front of Celeste, thawing it, and we pushed back into motion.

Before following the sled, Marcus stooped to pick up something from the icy ground. It wasn’t until he held it up that I recognized the frosted twist of metal as a null trap.

“How did that get there?”

“I tossed it. I hoped if it was grounded, it would work. I think it’s safe to say they’re useless.”

“That storm should have passed us by,” I said, pulling the grounding rod from the ground. It burned my palm, and I bounced it between my hands to cool it until Marcus took it.

“It’s as if someone is guiding these damn things toward anything living,” Marcus said.

I shuddered at the thought. “Not anything. It ignored Oliver.”

In unison, we glanced at the sled of dormant gargoyles.

“It’s them,” I said.

I couldn’t believe I’d missed it. It was so obvious. The mining explosion, the broken baetyl: They were the same thing.

“Because the gargoyles are basically leaking magic?” Marcus guessed.

I shook my head. “Celeste, why haven’t any of the other baetyls been accidentally discovered?”

“Baetyls protect themselves.”

Exactly. The Native Americans had avoided Waupecony Ridge long before the storms. The baetyls must have some form of a ward or protection spell to scare off anyone who ventured too close. But the lure of wealth had spurred the members of the Hidden Cache Mining Company to ignore the dangers.

“The early miners, they merely lost their memories, right?” I said, without giving Marcus a chance to respond. “They must have gotten too close, and the baetyl’s protective measures kicked in. The storms didn’t start occurring until the incident with the Hidden Cache mine. Baetyls have their own type of magic—”

“They
are
magic,” Celeste interrupted.

“What if the miners broke
into
the baetyl and fractured its magic? All these wild storms have to be coming from somewhere. What if it’s coming from the baetyl?”

“That would explain a lot,” Marcus said.

“I think so, too. And if the dormant gargoyles are tuned to this specific baetyl’s magic, then these wild storms might also be tuned to them. The gargoyles might actually attract the storms.”

“Well, doesn’t this day just keep getting better,” Marcus said to no one in particular.

* * *

The third magic storm whirled across a barren slope of Reaper’s Ridge and headed straight for us less than five minutes later. Oliver whistled a warning, giving us time to stop on a plateau of sandstone before the storm rolled over a gully into view, its snaking coils of earth and water covering over eighty feet of ground and moving so fast we had no chance of escape. It ripped up the ground, spewing gravel in its wake and hurtling hail in every direction. The few spindly trees in its path cracked and splintered.

“It’s too big,” I said. My knees felt like wet sand, and I locked them. “If we try to shield against it, it’ll flatten us.”

“We need to weaken it.”

“How?”

“Unravel it. Come on.” Marcus grabbed my hand and pulled me into a stumbling run
toward
the oncoming storm.

“What are you doing?!”

“Giving us a head start. Link up.”

I thrust magic to him as I finally got my feet under me. He didn’t slow our sprint until the pebble-size hail stung our faces.

“Concentrate on earth,” he said. “Anywhere it’s wrapped around water, loosen it.”

“Me? Don’t you want to do it?”

“It’s your element. Get to work.”

“But . . .”

“Unless you want to let it hurt the gargoyles.”

I grabbed hold of the link. The elements came in a rush, enhanced by the dormant gargoyles and Marcus. His magic signature—a rosewood shield wrapped in flames and sparks of lightning—sat in my head with the same solid, comforting presence as his fighter’s stance at my side.

Reaching for the first cable of wild earth felt like sticking my hand into a fire and trying to grab a particular flame. The raw element writhed around my magic, eating away my control. I sliced it, cutting a piece of earth from the bundle. The severed end dissipated.

“Just like that. Keep going. Don’t stop, no matter what.”

Working on the outer perimeter of the storm where I had a remote chance of seeing what I was doing, I hacked twists of earth as fast as I identified them. With the snarl of water and earth swallowing the hillside, I had no shortage of options, but no matter how fast I sliced through the earth strands, more always took their place, many of which were too tightly bound to the writhing water to budge.

I faltered for only a second when Marcus scooped me up, then redoubled my efforts as he retreated.

“It’s not going to be enough.” We were almost to the sled, and though I’d reduced the storm to one-tenth its original size, it loomed twice as large as the first storm we’d tackled. It hadn’t slowed, either. Hail battered us, the tiny beads of ice sharp as finger flicks against my exposed face and hands. I squinted against the dust and sand, holding a hand over my eyes to shield them.

Dipping into our linked magic, Marcus enclosed our upper bodies in an air bubble, shielding us from the elements. Without setting me down, he pulled the anchor rod from its loop at his waist and hurled it into the ground, stamping it into place.

“My turn,” Marcus said, tugging on the power of the link. I relinquished it in time for him to wrap a shield of fire and water around us, Celeste, and the cart of gargoyles. It wouldn’t be enough, but we didn’t have another option.

8

The storm slapped against the shield and shattered it in a single blow, hurtling Marcus and me into the air. We slammed to the ground a half-dozen feet from the sled.

Wild magic pinged between the helpless dormant gargoyles, battering them with stones and hail. Celeste fought free of the rope and the storm, scrambling up the hillside to safety.

The storm should have swept over the cart and continued across the ridge, but it didn’t. With almost predatory focus, it attacked the dormant gargoyles. Desperate, I seized control of the magic in the link again and resumed my assault on the storm, slashing and yanking on the tangles of earth.

When I grabbed a strand that pulsed like tainted quartz, I dropped it, shocked. The rest of the wild magic had been pure, undiluted earth. This was tuned—malignant and sharp, but tuned. I scrambled to find it again, and this time I cut through the flawed magic with a sharp slash.

The last of the wild water flattened, and the storm billowed above the dormant gargoyles like a fluffed sheet, then settled onto them and disappeared.

I collapsed. Marcus grunted when my head hit his chest. I froze, taking a quick assessment of my location. Crap. I’d landed on top of him when the storm blasted us.

“Oh! Are you okay?” I asked, rolling to the side. Gravel bit into my hands and knees.

“Fine.” He groaned as he sat up. I pushed to my feet and gave him a hand to help him up. Considering he weighed twice as much as me, it was more a token offering than actual help.

“Sorry about that. Again.” This wasn’t the first time an explosion had ended up with me using him as a cushion. I circled him, remembering the injuries he’d sustained when he’d protected me in Focal Park. The spell in his shirt had held this time, and his back was merely dirty. “I didn’t plan on making it a habit.”

He snorted and drew his sword, checking its length. I winced in sympathy at the bruise its sheath had probably left on his back. His shirt wouldn’t have protected against that.