Into the Dark (The Conjurors) (34 page)

    “Wake up! Val, look out!” Cyrus shouted at her.

    Valerie turned and saw a boot coming at top speed toward her head. Her reaction was automatic. Magic rushed through her veins and she caught the boot with one hand and twisted. The Conjuror who was wearing the boot was almost entirely transparent, as if he were made of glass, and when his body hit the ground, hard, with his leg twisted beneath him, she heard the sound of glass shattering. Her attacker screamed and clutched his leg, which was now shattered into a million tiny pieces.

    Alarms started blaring, and Valerie realized that she must have set them off by channeling magic and using her power. She saw that her friends were grappling with two more of the semi-transparent attackers. All three guards lay unconscious but breathing near the Where-o-well, the first victims of these strange attackers. The loud noise of the alarm covered up her voice as she tried to yell advice to her friends. “They’re breakable! Try to shatter them!”

    “What?” Kanti shouted back.

    “Gideon! Cam! Chrome!” Valerie called, searching the horizon for her guardians. Gideon was already emerging from the trees, racing toward her at top speed with Cam and Chrome at his heels.

    Valerie felt a pair of steely arms grab her, pinning her arms against her sides. No matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t break free from his grasp. But she bent and threw her weight forward, flipping her attacker over her back and sending him crashing to the ground in front of her with a crunch.

    The wolves leapt on the creatures who were attacking Kanti and Cyrus. Almost simultaneously, they tried to sink their fangs into the transparent Conjurors, but then they immediately let go, howling in pain. They fell to the ground, and blood gushed from their mouths, which were filled with dozens of cuts made by the sharp, glassy shards that formed their enemies’ flesh. The wolves’ assault gave Kanti and Cyrus the chance to break free, and their attackers fled back to the woods. Cyrus grabbed Cara, who was standing behind Gideon as he sparred with another transparent Conjuror.

    Gideon grunted as he punched her attacker in the chest, and a crack appeared in his almost invisible torso from his heart to his stomach. He groaned and retreated, clutching his heart as he ran toward the woods. “Get out of here,” Gideon commanded. “More are coming.”

    Valerie looked toward the woods and saw the shadows moving. Then she suddenly felt her power weaken, like it had when Shade had turned the power-eater on her. Seconds later, Zunya stepped out of the trees, surrounded by more of the transparent Conjurors. His yellow eyes locked on hers, and he held out his hand toward her and smiled darkly. The last of her power instantly vanished. She felt her panic rise. She was defenseless against her old enemy. The laurel circle, which had been warmer as she had fought, suddenly became cold.

But even without her powers to defend her, she couldn’t abandon Gideon. Hadn’t she been training for a moment like this, learning to rely on only her own strength and wits? “There is no way that I’m leaving you here to deal with those guys on your own. Zunya is with them! I have to stay and fight.”

“Zunya can do nothing to me. I have no powers for him to steal. Now listen to me. That Where-o-well – jump in it. They’re after you, Valerie. If you jump in, they’ll follow. With luck, you won’t all come out in the same place. It’s the only solution. There are too many of them. If we’re forced to fight, we’ll lose. Now go – that’s an order.”

    Valerie desperately searched her mind for another solution, but as more transparent figures emerged in the distance, she realized she had to act – now. “Kanti, Cyrus, Cara – run for the police. I’ll distract these breakables.”

    “No, you’re not going alone!” Cyrus said, taking a step toward Valerie. But Cara stood pale and trembling beside him, and his expression changed.

    “Protect her, Cy. She needs you more than I do.” Valerie said, anxiously watching the attackers break begin to break through Gideon and the wolves’ defenses.

    “You’re not going without me,” Kanti said, and Valerie could see from her expression that she wasn’t going to change her mind. She nodded, and they both took off at top speed for the Where-o-well.

    “Hang on to me and think about ice when we jump in – I have an idea,” Kanti said, breathless.

    They sped toward the Where-o-well, leaping over the unconscious guards and reaching the edge of the well just as the transparent Conjurors clashed with Gideon, Cam, and Chrome, trying to fight their way past them to get to Valerie.

    “On three?” Kanti asked.

    “Forget that. Let’s jump!” Valerie said. Then she grabbed Kanti’s hand, squeezed her eyes shut, and leapt.

For one thrilling moment, Valerie felt herself hurtling down, down into the well in a complete freefall into suffocating blackness. She was reminded of dark tunnels, thick forests from her nightmares, and the eerie corridor in the hospital where she first spoke to Zunya. Remembering what Kanti had said, Valerie forced herself to turn her thoughts away from darkness and think of ice, snow, anything cold. A strange sensation seized her entire frame. For a split second, she felt as if she was being tickled by warm bubbles and a sweet taste filled her mouth.

    The sight of stone and dirt as she fell vanished as Valerie’s vision went blank, and she felt as if she was hovering alone in the middle of nothingness, suspended in time and space. She didn’t know if she was frozen there for a moment or a millennium, but suddenly time sped up, and a cold blast of air hit her in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. Bright blue sky blinded her for a moment, and she felt herself fall several feet to the ground, tumbling into a tangled heap with Kanti.

    “Yes! It worked!” Kanti exclaimed.

    “What worked?” Valerie asked, rubbing a sore spot on her knee.

    “We’re in Elsinore, in the woods right behind my house. We can hide out there while we try to figure out what to do next.”

    “It’s freezing here!”

    “Don’t worry, we’ll be inside soon,” Kanti said.

    “I wonder if Cyrus and the others are okay. Do you think the plan worked and those transparent guys jumped in after us? There were way too many of them for Gideon and the wolves to fight off on their own,” Valerie said anxiously, wondering if she had made the right choice by running. She couldn’t help but feel that her place was by Gideon’s side, fighting like a warrior.

    Suddenly, the sky flashed above their heads, and one of the transparent Conjurors who had attacked them in Messina fell from midair and landed in a pile snow that had fallen from a nearby tree. Instinctively, Valerie leapt into one of the defensive stances that Gideon had taught her, positioning herself between Kanti and their enemy and curling her hands into fists.

    The Conjuror fell to the ground groaning. Valerie tensed, ready to fight, but the Conjuror yelled, “Wait, please, don’t hurt me! I don’t want to fight.”

    “Yeah, right!” Kanti said, almost shouting.

    “Why should we trust you? You ambushed us!” Valerie added.

    “I didn’t have a choice! Zunya’s punishment for disobedience is worse than death,” he said, shuddering. “He ordered us to capture you, and I had no other choice than to obey.”

    Valerie straightened from her crouch but didn’t let her fists relax. Her mind raced. “What happened to the others?”

    “I don’t know – Zunya told us to jump in the well after you, so I did. I think the other warriors followed me, but I jumped in first, so I can’t be sure.”

    “If you are so against Zunya, why did you join him in the first place? Who are you?” Valerie asked.

“And why shouldn’t Valerie kick your butt right now?” Kanti added.

    “I’m Blake. I wish I never got into this whole mess. I wanted a power so badly, and Zunya said that he could take me to someone who could give me one. In return, I’d work for him for awhile. It was cool at first – I was given the power of invisibility. No one could track my magic and no one could see me. I thought I’d be the perfect spy and become really famous.”

    “Wait a sec, wonder boy,” Kanti interrupted. “Magic always leaves a trail and we had experts following us 24/7. So cut the crap.”

“Oh yeah? Well I guess you’re not as smart as you thought you were because my friends and I followed you all the way from Arden to Messina, and you had no idea we were there – even those wolf trackers didn’t have a clue!” Blake grinned triumphantly until Kanti shot him a dangerous look and he shrank away from her.

Valerie ignored Blake’s comment, lost in her own thoughts. It seemed like Blake’s power defied the laws of magic, and even Azra and Gideon hadn’t known about this. She wondered if she would ever be safe, since someone like Blake could slip past any defense and ambush her when she least expected it. Even the most skilled guardians on the Globe hadn’t been able to stop them.

“But as you can see, the power is wearing off,” Blake continued, looking down woefully at his hand. It was true; Valerie could see that Blake already looked less transparent – more like a ghost than glass.

“And that’s not the worst part. The power had a side effect. I’ve become breakable,” he said, his eyes wide with horror. “I have to be careful all the time, or I’ll shatter. But Zunya keeps sending us out to fight, knowing what could happen to us,” Blake finished, showing them a shattered finger that looked like a strong breeze would blow apart.

“Who gave you your power?” Valerie asked.

“This foul vampyre with nasty red hair cast a spell. Someone was helping her, but I didn’t get a good look at the guy. I wish my power was to turn back time, so I could avoid this whole mess!”

Blake fell to his knees and started to sniffle, and Valerie couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him. She knew that she could disable Blake with little more than a kick, but she didn’t have it in her heart to leave him crippled in the snow. Besides, he seemed more concerned with his broken finger than capturing Valerie now that Zunya wasn’t there to give him orders.

“All right, I guess I believe you. Go on your way,” Valerie said.

“But if you breathe one word to Zunya, we’ll tell him that you revealed his secrets,” Kanti warned.

    “Thank you, oh thank you!” Blake said gratefully. “You can count on me not to say a word.”

    Blake started to walk away, but Valerie called him back. “One last thing. If you, or anyone you know, needs a power, go to Azra next time. She’ll help you, no strings attached.”

    He hung his head glumly. “I know. But I heard that it’s hard work developing a power with Azra. It takes time and training for her to bring it out in you. I thought this Zunya guy would hand it to me. I should have known there’d be a catch.”

    After Blake had gone, Kanti turned to Valerie. “We better figure out our next step, quickly.”
    “Yeah, I don’t trust Blake.”

    “Me either. He’ll give us up in a second for the next person who threatens him,” Kanti replied.

    “Then let’s move,” Valerie said with determination.

    As Kanti led the way out of the woods, Valerie’s mind sped a million miles an hour over what had happened. Even the bitter cold, which her thin sweater did little to keep out, and her chattering teeth couldn’t distract her from her worries. Was everyone safe back in Messina? Where could she possibly hide so that Sanguina wouldn’t find her? How would she ever rescue Henry now?

Then, almost as if thinking his name triggered the connection, Valerie saw a flash of light and felt herself being pulled into Henry’s reality. “Kanti…” she tried to tell her friend what was about to happen, but before she could, the world around her vanished.

    “What did Sanguina tell you earlier?” Venu said angrily to Henry, who was trying to back away in fear. Venu grabbed him roughly by the front of his shirt. “She said to do everything I said.”