Infinite Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Huntress Book 5) (22 page)

I sucked in a shuddery breath, my mind whirling with panic. Nix was right.
 

My heart skittered deep down in my chest like a frightened animal, unable to be present for what I was about to do. Pain such as I’d never felt surged through me as I looked down at Del, whose eyes were closing.

No. I couldn’t be too late.
 

“I love you, Del.” I sobbed as I pressed my hands to her chest and reached for her power. My stomach heaved as white flame licked down my arms and into Del.

No matter how long I lived or what I witnessed, this would be the worst moment of my life.

I forced myself to grasp hold of her transport gift. It was ephemeral and light, like a piece of gauze, but I grasped it and drew it into me.
 

When I’d taken the last of it, Del shuddered and lay still. I fell back, away from her body, and retched until there was nothing left in me.

My mind screamed at the horror of what I’d just done, but I shoved it aside.

Del was dead. There was no way in hell I’d fall apart and make her sacrifice worthless.
 

My mind was blank as I stumbled to my feet, unable to look at her for fear I’d fall apart again. I charged Victor. The battle raged on as I ran. I had one task, and I had to complete it. But where would I take him?

The Watcher’s words drifted through my mind.
 

I could only defeat him on familiar ground, where I could draw from ancient power that was mine.

The Black Fort.

I was almost to Victor, who still stood above the crack in the ground, soaking up the magic. I hurled myself at him and hung on tight, reaching for my magic and Del’s gift.

Please, let me have enough
.

I envisioned the Black Fort and sent us through the ether, tearing Victor away from his horrible ritual and the devastation he had wrought.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

We crashed to the wet grass inside the Black Fort as pouring rain pounded down upon us. Victor’s enraged roar was as loud as the thunder cracking in the distance. Away from the Gundestrop cauldron, the power that flowed through my veins was strong enough to take my breath. Like an electric current.

I tore at Victor’s pockets, trying to make sure he had no transport charms. I wouldn’t let him escape. Victor threw me off him and surged to his feet. His face was twisted with a rage unlike any I had ever seen.
 

As I scrambled up, I reached for my magic, but he hit me with a sonic boom that blasted me backward. I flew through the air and skidded on the wet grass. Raggedly, I sucked in air, my whole body aching like a giant had stepped on me.

Shit, shit, shit.
 

Weakly, I crawled behind a nearby standing stone. Victor stood in the center of the circle, not far from the statues of Del, Nix, and me.

“You can’t hide, you worthless bitch,” he roared.
 

Hide? As if I would hide.

I was supposed to call upon the power that was here and mine, according to the Watcher. But
how
?

I had no idea, but I needed to do something.

Rain poured down on me as I called upon my magic, gasping when it surged through me like a tidal wave. I’d make a lightning bolt so powerful it’d turn him to ash. As it cracked and burned beneath my skin, I envisioned a bolt the size of a train. I liked the idea of killing him with Aaron’s gift. It would be a bit of vengeance for Victor’s former slave.

When it had grown to full size and strength within me, I lunged from behind the stone and hurled it at him. The crack of thunder deafened me, and the blast of light blurred out our surroundings.
 

Just as the bolt was about to crash into Victor, he threw up a shield, deflecting it. It ricocheted off, crashing into a nearby standing stone. The rock exploded, sending shards straight for me.

I dodged, throwing myself to the ground and covering my head. When I looked up a second later, I saw Victor throwing another sonic boom at me. I tried to dodge, but it picked me up and threw me again.

When I crashed down, I tasted blood in my mouth.

I didn’t stand a chance as long as he could see me. And I wasn’t using my magic most effectively. Rage and pain made it hard to focus, but I tried to shove them aside, focusing only on killing Victor. I was fated to stop him. If I failed, then what? He’d finish the horrible job he started.

No way I could let that happen.
 

I lay still, playing dead as my magic prickled beneath my skin, ready to be released. I started with illusion, grasping the elusive filaments of the gift and imagining my body disappearing. The magic felt almost weightless as it flowed through me, making my limbs feel light. They disappeared, then my torso too. Victor’s roar of rage indicated that my head had probably gone as well. I crawled away from where I’d lain so that he couldn’t blast me.

But this wasn’t good enough. I needed a distraction. I envisioned dozens of me, all running around inside the circle.

The first one appeared. Victor shot it with a sonic boom. The noise cracked in the air, making my eardrums ache, but the illusion of me was unaffected.

More illusions appeared until two dozen images of me ducked and weaved through the standing stones. Victor shot each one, roaring when the sonic booms did nothing.
 

Eventually, he’d hit the real me on a streak of luck. I had to act.

He was definitely trapped here without a transport charm and getting madder every second. He’d planned this for years, and I’d stopped him.

When his back was turned, I called upon my gift of lightning, sending a massive bolt right at his back. There was no way he’d turn in time to see it and block it.

 
He didn’t block it. The bolt, which was as wide as he was tall, slammed right into his back. He flew forward onto his front. I expected to see him smoking and dead, a black crisp of a man.

Instead, he leapt to his feet, his rage palpable on the air. It seeped from him like a black fog.

“I’m done playing!” he roared.

The black fog that seeped from him grew thicker, swirling around him. His skin turned an ashen gray and bulged, rippling with some unseen force.

What the hell?

His body began to grow, upward and outward. The gray fabric of his suit ripped and tore. His skin was fully gray now, turning to black. It cracked in places, revealing a bright red glow, like lava under the surface of rock. It took only seconds, but soon he was twenty feet tall and had turned entirely to stone.
 

My stomach dropped to my feet. He was made of
stone.
How could I kill stone? Was this the new gift he’d taken from the Stone of Power? It must be. What would he be if he’d gotten all the stone’s power?

He lumbered toward me, steam rising from the surface of his body as the rain hit the lava that seeped from between the cracks of rock.
 

My heart thundered so loud I swore he could probably hear it. Could he see me? A quick glance at my arms told me no. I was still invisible.
 

But he was upon me now, drawn by the sound of my heartbeat or some other kind of magic. I built up my lightning to hurl it at him, but his massive fist was too fast. It slammed into me, so big his hand made contact with my body from my legs to my head.
 

Blinding pain exploded through every inch of me.
 

I flew through the air, crashing into one of the statues. When I crumbled to the ground, I’d lost control of my illusion. I was visible again and could see my limbs, which looked twisted at odd angles. Breathing felt like being stabbed in the lungs with a million knives. I tried to sit, but I couldn’t. My whole body was pain. Broken, dozens of bones snapped. Multiple ribs piercing my lungs.

On the other side of the stone circle, Victor smashed the upright standing stones. He was entirely absorbed in his rage.

Pain seared through me. I couldn’t move. Not an inch.

Was this all over? Was I too broken to fight? Too destroyed to use my magic? What did I have that could defeat a man-made rock? There was probably a core of life in him somewhere, but I didn’t know how to extinguish it.

But I had to think of a way. For my parents, who Victor had killed. For Del, who’d sacrificed herself so that I could do this.

Unable to sit, I gazed up at the statue. It was the one representing magic. Representing me. I could just make out the statues of Del and Nix—Life and Death.

The Watcher’s words flashed in my mind. “A place from which you can draw power.”

The statues.

When we’d been here last, Del and Nix had said they could feel their magic in the statues. Life and Death.
 

I needed both of those, and I was a Mirror Mage, wasn’t I? Normally, mirroring the magic in a statue would be impossible. But nothing was normal here.
I
wasn’t normal. Not anymore. My body might be broken, but my magic wasn’t

And Nix and Del would help me, even though they weren’t here.

As Victor crushed the last of the standing stones on the other side of the circle, I reached out with my magic, stretching for the life in Nix’s statue. I needed just a bit—enough to heal myself so I’d live long enough to deploy Del’s gift.
 

When I grasped hold of the bright light of it, I nearly wept with relief as it flowed through me. My pain started to fade as Nix’s life-giving force poured into me.

When I had enough that I thought I could stand, I cut the connection. But I wasn’t stupid enough to get up and attract Victor’s attention. He was consumed with rage, stomping toward me, swatting at standing stones as he came.
 

But he was made of rock, and he was slow. I might have just enough time…

I reached out for the magic in Del’s statue, gasping when the cold touch of death flowed toward me. I couldn’t hold on to this magic—it would kill me. Only Del could really do that.

I had to shoot it at Victor, and fast.

I flung my hands out, directing a stream of Del’s deadly magic at Victor. It shot like a black bolt of lightning. Beneath it, the wet grass shriveled and died. When it slammed into Victor’s stone chest, he stopped dead in his tracks.
 

I couldn’t make out any expression on his stone face, but I imagined there was shock. The lava between his cracks of stone began to turn black, then crumbled to dust. It fell to the dead grass below his feet, a raining shower of disintegrated lava rock.

As the stones fell to the ground, one by one, I imagined Del in her last moments. My sister, my
deirfiúr
. Now, her power destroyed Victor. Without her, this wouldn’t have been possible. Nor without Nix, whose power had saved my life here and who had forced me to take Del’s power. Without my
deirfiúr
, I’d had no chance.
 

I funneled more of Del’s magic into Victor, letting Del’s power of death flow through me and into him. I held on to the memory of her as we finished Victor.
 

Finally, he collapsed into a pile of stone. The sickly scent of rot that followed his magic dissipated on the air.

The night grew silent.
 

On shaky legs, I climbed to my feet and stumbled over to the massive pile of rock. It sat on a bed of gray stone dust.
 
I felt no magic in it, nor any life.

Victor was dead.

I left the Black Fort immediately, returning to Glencarrough just in time to see the black fog of Victor’s circle of power disappear. Bodies were strewn everywhere, and demons fled on foot. They must have felt their master’s death. The Shifters wouldn’t let them get far.

 
I had won, but I felt no sense of victory. The tears that had dried threatened to return, but I swallowed them back hard. I needed to find my friends. To find out… if anyone else had died.

I stepped around the great crevice. Golden light flowed from it, no longer turning black from Victor’s polluting touch. The melted Gundestrop cauldron still repressed my magic and everyone else’s. They’d have to tear that out. Dermot’s body lay nearby, torn to pieces.

The fire dragonet fluttered to hover in front of me. His brethren joined him—water, stone, and smoke—all flitting around me.

“Thanks, guys,” I said. “Or girls.”

They flew close enough to brush my shoulders, then turned and headed away, off to wherever they lived.

“Cass!” Aidan’s voice sounded through the din.

I turned to follow the voice. He ran toward me, blood streaming down his face and arms, his chest soaked with it. But at least he was walking.

A body slammed into mine from the side, wrapping slender arms around me.
 

Nix.
 

“You’re okay!” she cried. “You just left. You didn’t take me with you!”

“I wasn’t strong enough to take more than Victor.” I had also been so angry and distraught that I hadn’t stopped to think. I hugged her back. Hard. “He’s dead.”

She pulled back, tears streaming down her face and her eyes bright. But she looked almost…happy. “Del’s body disappeared.”