Ancient Magic: a New Adult Urban Fantasy (Dragon's Gift: The Huntress Book 1) (18 page)

“Thanks for your help,” Aidan said.

I followed him out of the room and through the dim foyer. We let ourselves out onto the bright street. The sunlight just made this part of Darklane look even dingier.

“That wasn’t so bad,” I said as we walked to his car.

“Speak for yourself. I just paid for a midsize car, and all I got was this glass ball.”

“Worth it, though.” Even if I’d had to come up with the cash, I’d have found a way. We really needed to get that scroll.

“Very much so.”

We climbed into his car. I reached out for the ball. “Let’s do this thing. I want to know where those bastards are.”

Aidan handed it over. The ball was cool and heavy in my hand. I held it close to my chest and focused on my memory of the man who’d stolen the scroll. Mordaca’s magic twined with mine. Hers smelled musky and felt dark. Though it made my skin prickle, it didn’t feel evil like some people’s magic. It smelled like cigar smoke and tasted like whiskey.

After a moment, the familiar string wrapped around my waist, pulling me. Our prey was close. A sense of the location bloomed within me, clear as glass.

I sucked in a breath.

“They’re at Ancient Magic,” I gasped.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The drive to Ancient Magic felt like it took forever. Aidan drove like a demon, breaking at least five traffic laws. By the time he pulled up beside my shop, I was vibrating with tension.

The car screeched to a halt at the curb. I flung the door open and leapt out. Ancient Magic’s door was shattered, jagged pieces of glass protruding like teeth. Within, figures fought, wrestling on the ground and throwing magic in bursts of smoke.

Shadow demons. An icicle of fear pierced my heart, sending cold streaking through me. They had found us.
 

I drew my copper-hilt knives and burst into the shop.
 

 
There were at least five demons fighting Nix, Claire, and Connor. Even Del was there, wielding her short sword like a master against the same man from the tomb in Norway. He was the only non-demon assailant, but he was strong. He threw blasts of flame at Del that she repelled with her enchanted sword. Blade and shield in one, it was her first choice of weapon.

How had he found us? Fear sunk its claws into my back. My magic surged within me, a tidal wave of power that threatened to overwhelm my control and burst out of me in a horrifying show of force. I could blast them all away, but I couldn’t keep my magic from hurting my
deirfiúr
as well. Or Connor and Claire, who fought two huge demons in the back corner.
 

Nix grappled with two in front of the counter.
 
Behind her, a demon ransacked the shelves. In quick succession, I threw both of my copper-hilt daggers. They plunged into his back, near where I hoped his heart would be.

The demon turned and growled. Damn. Despite the blades in his back, he was still standing. He was at least as strong as the demon at the temple of Murreagh. Not all shadow demons seemed to be that strong, but perhaps he was old.
 

He raised a huge gray hand and threw a blast of smoky magic at me. I dove left as the searing streak of smoke plowed into the window behind me. It shattered, throwing glass everywhere. Pain pierced my back in a hundred little places.

Damn! I climbed to my feet, my back burning, as Aidan launched himself past me at the demon who’d attacked me. He was in his human form because the shop was too small for him to fight as a griffon, but he was fierce. His fists were a blur, which was lucky, because his brand of magic was so destructive that he’d have to fight with fists if he didn’t want to destroy the building he was in.

I leapt over debris in the middle of the shop, my heart aching at the sight of all the broken replicas, and joined Nix in fighting the two demons that attacked her. She’d been fine when I’d first burst into the store, fighting the demons off with her usual skill, but one had gotten in a solid hit to her middle that had her wheezing.

We each took one demon—like a double date, but way more violent. The punch I threw at my demon glanced off his face. My knuckles burned. This was why I hated hand-to-hand.
 

I ducked down and grabbed a jagged piece of shattered pottery. It was shaped roughly like a dagger, and I plunged it into the demon’s chest and then kneed him between the legs, hoping I was getting a ball shot. As he collapsed, I caught sight of Aidan charging the man who’d fought Del.

She was sprawled on the ground, her dark hair spread out in a crimson wave. The attacking Magica flung out his hand and sent a jet of ice at Aidan. The jagged blue wave of ice plowed him to the ground.

Oh, man, I wished I could use my power to blast him back. The bastard so deserved it. None of us wanted to destroy Ancient Magic, so we didn’t use our powers. But this guy didn’t care.

The man jumped over the counter. I ran for him. Before I got there, he reached under the counter and grabbed a box, then threw something to the ground. A silvery cloud burst up around him and he disappeared.

I stumbled to a halt.
 

What the hell? I thought he’d been after us. I spun around to check my
deirfiúr
. The demon that Nix had fought was on the ground. She knelt over Del.
 

Aidan slipped up behind the demon who’d fought Claire and broke its neck. It was the last demon in the shop. The rest were unconscious or had already disappeared.
 

“Check to see if they’re all dead,” I said. “I want to know why they were here.”

“Robbery,” Nix said. “The first real one we’ve had in a while.”

She was right—we didn’t often get thieves she couldn’t take care of. But these weren’t ordinary thieves. There was a lot more at play here that I didn’t understand.
 

I knelt over the demon that Nix had knocked out and shook him. Nothing. He was just dead weight. Literally. He wasn’t breathing.
 

He’d disappear soon, back to his hell.
 

“I killed this one,” Aidan said. “Sorry about that.”

“Mine’s dead too,” Connor said.
 

“Damn.” With the promise of information gone, I sank to my knees. The pain of my wounds finally hit me. My back hurt like hell.

“Are you all right?” Aidan knelt beside me, gently touching my shoulder with one big hand.

“Yeah.” I bit out the words. “Just a flesh wound.”

“Not funny,” he said. “How wounded are you?”

“Not as wounded as Del.” I jerked my chin toward my
deirfiúr
, who still lay on the ground. “Help her.”

I tried to catch my breath as Aidan knelt over Del and laid his hands on her middle. Her clothes were singed from the flame, but at least I didn’t smell burning flesh. Nix looked on expectantly. She held one hand over a gash on her arm, slowing the blood flow. Connor and Claire sat with their backs against the counter, panting. Claire looked rough—her clothes were torn and her lip was bleeding. Connor looked a bit better, but not much. He was almost as good a fighter as his sister, despite his lack of practice. A natural.
 

Ancient Magic was a mess. Shelves were broken, replicas shattered all around us. Pottery and glass glinted on the floor, and silver and fake gold were crushed. In most cases, if the vessels containing the magic broke into too many pieces, the magic dissipated into the air, gone forever.
 

How much had we lost today? And why the hell had it happened? We needed to go after whoever’d done this, but not until Del was better and we’d all talked.

“How’s she doing?” I leaned over Del.
 

“Okay.” Del’s voice was scratchy and her eyes weren’t open yet, but there was a bit of color to her cheeks. She was dressed in her usual mercenary gear. Whereas I favored jeans and leather jackets, she was an all-leather kind of girl. It looked pretty badass with her black hair.

“She’ll be fine,” Aidan said. “I don’t know what that guy hit her with, but it was strong.”

“Felt like a rhino hit me in the gut,” Del muttered. She opened her eyes and her gaze met mine. “Did he get away?”

“Yeah,” I said. There was a hell of a lot more I wanted to say to her and Nix, but I couldn’t. Not until I got Connor and Claire and Aidan to go away.
 

Del pushed herself up until she sat upright. Or at least, as upright as she could. We were all a mess. Only Aidan looked uninjured, and that was probably because he was a man who could fight like a bull.

“What happened?” I asked.

“That guy and his minions blasted through the glass door,” Nix said. “There was a flash of light when it happened. It blinded me, but I’d seen how many there were right before it happened.”

“They were trying to incapacitate you and not even have to fight,” I said.

“Probably. Little did they know,” Nix said. “I used my charm and called Del.”

“I had enough power that I could come,” Del said.
 

“Thank magic,” I said.
 

Del could transport from anywhere in the world in a second, but she had to have enough power stored up to do so. Her power regenerated weirdly, but it wasn’t a matter of practice like mine was. If I used my magic, I became so exhausted I couldn’t do much for a while. I just wanted to sleep. She was physically fine after using her magic—she just didn’t have any more juice for a while. It was one of the reasons she couldn’t often make transport charms. It was also one of the reasons that we didn’t call her home unless we really needed her.

“Shit! That reminds me,” I said. “Check the demons’ pockets for transport charms. They sometimes have them.” Raiding demon corpses was one of my favorite tricks of the trade.

Wincing at the pain in my back, I crawled over to the demon that Nix had felled and searched his pockets. Nothing. I turned back to my friends.

“Mine already disappeared,” Claire said.

“No charms in this guy’s pockets,” Aidan said.

“Damn. Worth a shot, anyway.” I sat back down by Del. I tried not to shift my back too much. “So you made it here.”

“Yeah,” Del said. “Claire and Connor were already here.”

“We heard the blast that took out the door,” Connor said.

Guilt tugged at me. “Thanks for coming, guys. You didn’t have to.”

“Sure we did,” Claire said. “You’re our friends.”

“Yeah, but our business is dangerous. Connor, at least, chose a profession that wasn’t deadly. We shouldn’t drag you into our mess.”

Connor shrugged. “No problem. And my sis here gets antsy if she doesn’t kill something every week, so this was good exercise for her.”

“True,” Claire said. “But what did that guy take?”

“A box. I couldn’t make it out though.” I gingerly climbed to my feet. As I made my way to the counter, I remembered the Chalice of Youth that Nix had stashed under there. The original.

When I looked down at the empty shelf, it was gone. Damn. I glanced at the back shelf. The replica was gone too. He must have grabbed it right before he disappeared.

What the hell?
 

“Thanks for your help, guys,” I said to Connor and Claire. I didn’t want to drag them farther into this. “You’ve got to be beat. Why don’t you get cleaned up, and we’ll meet you over at your place. No need to hang around this dump with us.”

“We’ll help you clean up,” Connor said.

I looked around, my heart breaking at the devastation inside our shop. Half the shelves and possibly as much inventory were smashed. “I think we’re going to save that for another day.”

“Yeah,” Nix said. “I don’t think I can face that right now.”

“Same,” Del said.

“All right,” Claire said. “We’ll head over to P & P and get cleaned up. Come on by for food later.”

“Thanks.” I smiled at my friends as they limped out.
 

I glanced at Aidan. I wanted to ask him to leave so that I could speak freely with Nix and Del, but he’d never do it. Not until we’d at least discussed some of what had happened here.

“Who was that guy?” Nix asked.

“The guy from the temple in Norway,” Aidan said. “He’s got the scroll.”

“What kind of Magica was he, Del?” I asked.

“I don’t know. He threw a lot at me. Fire—he’s got at least one elemental gift. But he was also hitting my mind with horrible memories. So he’s got some telepathy too.”

“So a mystery mage wants the scroll and the Chalice of Youth,” I said. “But he grabbed the original too.”

“Do you think he realized?” Del asked.

“I guess so, but I don’t know how.” I turned to Aidan. “Do you have any idea why that guy would want the Chalice of Youth and the scroll?”

“No. They’re unrelated, as far as I know.”

“Damn. I don’t get it. We need to go find him.”

“You need to heal, first,” he said.
 

“I will. But could you go get us some plywood or something to cover up the door?”

Aidan looked at me suspiciously, like he knew I was trying to get him out of here for a minute.

“Please? I can’t leave until the shop is at least closed up. We need something to put over the door. And we need to hire someone to enchant it.” I wished I could put security enchantments on things, but I couldn’t. Then I remembered what Aidan did for a living. “You’re the perfect guy for it. Don’t you have someone on your payroll who can come over and enchant it?”