Authors: Christine Warren
“I am bigger,” he growled.
And she laughed.
Chapter Sixteen
Ella slept most of the day. Since she’d had her soul wrung out like wet laundry by a very determined gargoyle in the wee hours around dawn, she had needed the extra rest. She would apparently need even more of it by the time Kees got finished with her.
He had given her approximately half an hour after she’d crawled out of bed just before two in the afternoon to suck down a cup of coffee and remember her own name. As soon as she could answer that question, he pulled out the stack of books Alan had given her and began picking out spells.
Her stomach had clenched reflexively when he told her they would use whatever time they had at the cabin until Fil contacted them with more info working on Ella’s spellcasting. Her mind instinctively screamed a denial. After all, the only two times she ever directed her magic with purpose, people had ended up dying. She didn’t ever want to risk doing that again.
She had opened her mouth to refuse and found Kees watching her with steady, patient eyes, ones that glowed with both understanding and resolve. His eyes told her that he knew exactly what he was asking of her, and he had known what her first reaction would be. He would give her the time and the space to either disappoint him or make him proud.
When she looked at the choice in those terms, it became easy.
It became even easier when she remembered the
nocturnis
attacking him in her apartment. She couldn’t let herself become just a liability to her Guardian. She knew he had the skills to fight like a sharply honed instrument of destruction, and she also knew that if he had to worry about her all the time, he risked making himself vulnerable in the midst of a battle. If he were to be injured—or, God forbid, killed—because of her, Ella didn’t think she could take that guilt. Not again. Not after her parents. It would haunt her into the afterlife.
She had dreamed vividly last night—this morning, really—and she knew it was her brain’s way of processing through all the emotion and memories she had dredged up last night. She had dreamed about the accident before, but this time, for the first time, instead of reliving the horror, she had been outside of the events, looking down with the clinical detachment of a neutral observer. Details that she had missed as a furious and wounded twelve-year-old had jumped out at her. She had seen the approach of the other car, made note of the way it swerved and weaved in and out of traffic on the other side of the road. The driver had obviously been seriously impaired.
Her heart had hurt when she saw the way her father had jerked and looked terrified when her magic spilled into the front seat, but he hadn’t lost control of the car. No, he had been trying to calm down Ella’s mother, talking to her soothingly when the drunk in the other car had crossed into the opposite lanes and come hurtling toward them. For the first time, Ella truly saw that the wreck had not been her fault. It had been just a tragic even that coincided with the worst moment of her life and managed to make it a million times worse.
But Ella was not responsible. She never had been.
So she had nodded to Kees, gathered herself, and picked up a spell book.
When she’d first woken and remembered her dreams, along with the events of the night and the dawn, Ella considered thanking Kees for helping her through the memories and her own muddled emotions. That impulse faded quickly when he proceeded to become the most demanding taskmaster she had ever known.
He worked her like a rented chain saw, pushing her from one spell to the next, giving her only minutes to familiarize herself with the intent and the wording before making her perform it. Then he would have her practice each spell over and over until she thought he ought to be worried about the idea of going to bed with her again. She’d probably be muttering spells and curses in her sleep after this.
Hours flew by while Ella learned how to create and throw fire, how to deflect the energy of incoming spells—he threw frickin’
rocks
at her for that one—and how to create a magical cage that could hold a person trapped within bars of energy visible only with mage sight. She still didn’t want to learn any death magic. Killing spells were off her list. She told Kees she could perform her rebound spell again, but to deliberately use magic to kill still made her uncomfortable, so he let it slide.
He did, however, insist that she learn a few basic moves of physical self-defense. Using his human shape, he taught her how to break out of a captor’s grip in a number of common holds. He showed her the vulnerable spots on a human’s anatomy—both male and female, even though Ella had started to assume that like the Wardens, the
nocturnis
were a bunch of backwards chauvinists—and taught her how to make a blow count in spite of her small size and limited physical strength.
All Ella could think was that she should have gone to the gym more often.
The sun had begun to dip toward the treetops when Kees gave his last lesson. He began to talk to her about demons.
“The Seven, pray to the Light, you will never see. They are the oldest of their kind, and the most dangerous. They have no thoughts, no emotions, no shape but pure evil. When they join together, they form the Darkness, and if that happens, our war is all but lost.
“But there are demons of other sorts, ones less powerful and more easily controlled. These are the ones the
nocturnis
may draw into our realm to aid in their plans. These beings should not be underestimated. Though their power cannot be compared to one of the Seven, they still have the ability to kill even a squad of well-armed human soldiers without thought or mercy.”
Ella shot him a peevish glance. “Gee, and I could wind up meeting one? Bully for me.”
“If you do meet one, you should call for me. I will stand against it and slay it. That is my purpose.”
“Right, but what if you’re busy? What do I do then? Politely ask it to wait until you’re free to come deal with it?”
“You think I would abandon you in battle? That I would not stay right by your side and protect you from all danger?”
His insulted roar made Ella roll her eyes. “No, that’s not what I think. What I do think is that shit happens and after watching one or two movies in my life, I think even more shit happens in the heat of battle. So I’d just like a little more to go on than, ‘If you see a demon, wait for me to rescue you.’ Sorry if that offends.”
Kees’s expression hardened. “You cannot stand alone against a demon. Even a fully trained Warden would not try without two or three others by his side. Even for the weakest of their kind. The most minor demons can be destroyed, but it requires enormous power.”
“Fine, then I won’t try to destroy it, but I would like to have the option of holding it off by some method more reliable than running away. I’m not that fast, or that graceful. With my luck, I’d trip over something and end up demon chow before you could swoop in and save the day.”
Kees growled something under his breath, but he relented and found two spells in the texts and one in the grimoire that might prove useful. One was a variation on a warding spell, and that one looked easy, considering she already had a pretty good handle on standard wards and barriers. Rather than sealing off a space that others could not enter, the spell created a boundary others could not exit. It was like a magic invisible bubble that trapped the user inside. And even better, it had a reflective interior, so magic cast from inside could not pierce the boundary. Put it around another mage, and that mage couldn’t cast a counterspell to dissolve it. On demons, it worked like a summoning circle, keeping them inside, but it didn’t last as long as with mages and mortals. Eventually the demon’s evil would eat away at the barrier and allow it to slip free.
The second spell allowed the mage who cast it to close a portal on a summoned demon. That one was trickier, because it still left you facing an angry demon. Or even parts of an angry demon, since there was a note that said if a demon had partially made it through the portal, that part would remain on earth with a level of power commensurate with the amount of it not contained on the other plane.
That just sounded gross.
The third spell came from the grimoire, and sounded both the most effective and the most dangerous. In it, the caster bound the demon to something on the mortal plane, like a rock or a tree or a man-made object. Once the demon was bound, it would share the vulnerabilities of the object. It if were bound to glass, it could be shattered; to wood, it could be burned. And remains, like shards or ask, could be swept up and stored in a container, then buried in a hole filled with salt. The demon would be trapped in that prison forever.
Ella immediately committed all three spells to memory. She would have liked to practice them as well, but by the time she looked up from the books, the sun was already sinking below the trees. No wonder the text had been so hard to make out.
“Come.” Kees picked up the other books and their sparring tools and turned toward the cabin. “We should eat. Later you can continue to practice.”
“Right. Because I’m not just a regular human anymore, so I don’t need to worry about stuff like rest and recuperation.”
Her words had been muttered under her breath, but the damned gargoyle heard her anyway.
“You can rest later. For now, practice.”
She stuck her tongue out at his retreating back.
Trudging up the steps and into the cabin, she almost missed the faint sound of her cell phone ringing as it drifted from the bedroom. She had to dash to reach it before the voice mail picked up. The screen told her who was on the other end of the line.
“Fil,” she said. “You there?”
“I’m here. Just starting to wonder if you were, though.”
“Sorry, I was in the other room and I forgot to bring the phone with me. D’you have news for me?”
“Sure do. I found your piece!”
Ella immediately looked around for Kees and waved him over. He finished lighting the fire in the hearth and joined her next to the cabin entrance. “Fil, you are amazing. Where is it?”
Kees watched her closely, and she could see from his expression that he was picking up both sides of the conversation.
“Well, it’s not on display anywhere, but I lucked out and stumbled on it by accident. That’s the only reason I’m able to get back to you so fast. Turns out it just arrived in town. The Ste. Celeste Museum acquired it from a private seller in Budapest like two months ago. The plane carrying it literally landed on Friday. It’s still going through prep and waiting for the display space to be ready. I think they plan to place it in their gardens.”
“You’re the best. Seriously. I owe you so big for this.”
“Hey, we already worked out the price, sweetie. Don’t go trying to haggle now.”
“Trust me, I’ll pay it and still be in your debt.”
“Cool. Hey, listen.” There was a pause, and Felicity’s voice came back sounding slightly unsure. “I can see why your director would be upset to lose a piece like this, El. It’s … well, it’s pretty amazing. The condition is unbelievable. If it didn’t come with a stack of provenance paperwork thicker than my front door, I’d be sure it was a fake. I mean, that thing needs not a single bit of restoration that I could see. It’s almost creepy.”
Ella forced a laugh. “Creepy? Why? Because if more art were like that, you’d be out of a job, right?”
“Har-har. No, I mean it, El. This thing is weird. You gotta trust me on this.” She paused, and her voice lowered. “The way I trusted you.”
Memories of that night after the library sneaked up on Ella. She remembered Felicity’s calm reaction, her easy acceptance. Was there more to easy, breezy Fil Shaltis than Ella had thought?
“Anyway, just be careful,” Fil said, her tone returning to normal. “On general principle, if nothing else.”
“You got it.”
“Good. So is there anything else I can do for you? I’ve been saving up vacation time, so I can extort you for another couple of weeks, easy.”
Ella met Kees’s gaze. He frowned and whispered to her. She repeated the question to Felicity. “Can you do me another favor and go back to get a picture? I’d love to have something visual to back up my notes.”
“Already taken care of. I took a handful with my cell once I realized that was the one. I’ll shoot ’em over to your e-mail.”
“Thanks again. And again. Seriously, if I had kids, you’d get pick of the litter.”
“No way. Now, if you were talking puppies…”
Ella laughed. Fil had a soft spot for furry things, especially furry babies. She’d never met a juvenile mammal she didn’t like. Ella opened her mouth to tease, but the words were drowned out by something outside.
Something that sounded like an explosion.
“Holy shit!” Fil yelled into the phone. “What the hell was that? Ella? El, are you okay?”
Kees had pushed Ella to the floor and crouched over her to peer out the front window of the cabin.
“I’m fine,” Ella said, struggling to keep the panic out of her voice and knowing she was only half successful. “I, um … I think a tree might have gotten hit by lightning,” she improvised. “I have to go check it out, make sure it’s not gonna hit the house. I’ll call you later, Fil. Thanks.”
She hung up on her friend’s loud protests.
“What was that?” Ella demanded, looking up at Kees.
“We have company.”
Judging by his tone, he wasn’t referring to a few pals dropping by for dinner.
Ella felt a chill sweep through her. “How many?”
“I can see five. With our friend McQuaid standing right out in front. This other looks familiar, as well.”
Squirming, she managed to raise her torso far enough to peer out the very bottom of the window. Despite the sill and the porch railing trying to obscure her view, she could make out the forms Kees had mentioned. She saw three blurry shapes back along the tree line, but the sight that drew her eye was of the bonfire now burning in the center of the front clearing and the two men standing just beyond it. With the flickering light glowing against their features, they weren’t hard to recognize.