Endless Magic (Stella Mayweather Series Book 6) (20 page)

"What?" hissed Seren, momentarily distracted as the werewolves bounded through the mist. They skidded to a halt at our circle. Without a noise, they joined us, weaving through our legs and forming sentries between us. "Whatever it is, Stella, fix it. The wolves say we can't get through the barrier at all."

I didn't know how to "fix it." They were living, spelled hearts in buried corpses, positioned at the compass points of the battleground. Was this part of the unexpected I would have to face in a battle? I wasn't trained for that. There was no way I could combat that kind of dark magic. I turned to Evan for answers before a woman stumbled through the mist and into the clearing. All at once, we were on high alert.

"Don't kill me," she cried, holding her hands up. I took in her soaked, ragged trousers and shirt. Her hair was matted in clumps around her face, and her eyes red. "I'm a witch."

"Where did you come from...?"

"They took me," she whimpered. "They..." A shot sounded and she dropped to her knees before doing a faceplant in the fresh mud.

Another person stepped out of the mist, this time, on my left. His hands were werewolf paws, and his face was caught mid-transformation. He growled painfully as he staggered towards me.

"Justin?" Marcy called to him from our circle. "He's one of ours. He..." She screamed as a second shot sounded and her friend crumpled downwards, also landing in a heap. "What's happening?"

"Psychological warfare," said Evan. "These must be the hostages left behind. Get ready, people. The Brotherhood must have found us. They're going to use every trick they have to make us surrender."

"Give us Stella and you can save your people," called a man's voice from somewhere beyond the mist. My eyes scanned the area for him, but the fog was too thick. He didn't sound at all concerned, or like he was wrestling with the spells we imbued in it.

"Never," yelled Seren.

The mist chuckled and many feet stamped, echoing around us. Evan was right; we were surrounded. It could have been a trick; it was impossible to tell. There could have been only one man hidden out there, or a hundred, or even a thousand.

I stilled the rain, cutting off the power that drove the mist, and diverted my energy back to the earth. There was so little time. I didn't want to see another person shot, or another family condemned to mourning. I had to find a way to reach the spelled hearts, and stop them. I had to eradicate the spells that prevented our army from reaching us.

"Stella, you know you can't win," called the man.

"Auberon?" Evan mouthed to me, but I shook my head. It wasn't he. I didn't recognise that voice.

The bodiless man continued calmly, "You're surrounded. First, the hostages will be slaughtered one-by-one. Then your friends. When no one is left standing, you'll wonder why you didn't simply obey me and step into this fog and come with us. Leave now and we'll spare your friends."

"No, you won't," I said, just loud enough for him to hear.

"You have my word."

"Your word?! It means nothing!"

"Would you rather we kill you one-by-one?" he asked, his voice lilting with amusement. He wanted to kill our people. He wanted them to suffer. There was no way he would spare any of them the moment I stepped away. The only thing protecting my team now was my sheer presence with them. Whatever The Brotherhood wanted from me, they weren’t ready to risk me getting caught in the crossfire.

The magic sliding through our circle meant someone was sending protection around us. It had the trace of Seren, so I let it pass through me without touching the magic I already sent out. I could feel the spelled beating hearts, but there was nothing natural, or good about them anymore.

"I found the spell," I told Evan, low enough that only he could hear. "There's four bodies at each compass point; they power the protection spell over the land."

"Can you disarm it?"

"I don't know how."

"Don't think, do!" he urged me. "I'm going to glamour us to throw them off."

"How...?" I stopped as his face began to change and then his body. He was morphing into someone smaller, female, with brown hair. Evan had become me! As I turned my head, I saw the glamour spreading through the group. They were all me!

"Rotate," he said, and the circle moved in shuffling steps, some breaking the circle to dart into new positions. "It's harder to pick people off if they don't know their true identities. They can’t tell if they're aiming at the real you or not," he explained as I picked my way around a werewolf ready to pounce.

"Maybe they'll kill us all."

"Cheap trick," called a new voice from the mist. Female. Mocking. I'd know it anywhere.
Georgia Thomas
.

"Show yourself, witch," called my voice from another body.

"Step into the mist," Georgia replied, like a musical siren song. Something tugged at me, an irresistible attraction to her just like Étoile's impersonated voice made me respond. My muscles stiffened. I barely mustered the will to ignore her lure even if my body felt compelled to obey. Hands tightened around me. "Obey me! Obey!"

"Never!" yelled my voice again, this time, from the other side of our circle.

"Loser!" shouted another glamoured voice.

With the ensuing confusion, and the direct pull from Georgia becoming increasingly less subtle, I hoped the protection Seren provided for us was enough to stop me from walking out of the circle and into whatever Georgia and her cohorts had in store for me. Concentrating my efforts, I focused on the bodies. The spells were nasty and severe, protecting the beating hearts. Earth enveloped them, but did not weigh heavily on their shallow graves. I sent my magic into the areas around them, imagining the dry brush and grass around their graves.
Kindling.
Of course! Fire could kill, but it could also cleanse. I called sparks into the magic, summoning a fire to me and relished the heat I sensed as it drifted through the magic. Just as Evan told me, I didn't think about it, I just did it.

One-by-one, the bodies ignited after the fire spread to the kindling strewed around the graves. The first heart snapped, and the spell weakened. Then the second.

In my line of sight, people were stepping into the clearing. Weak, injured, sick and dying.
Hostages.
The whine from one of the werewolves struck me with a pang. Were these the same people I was forced to leave behind? I searched for the red-haired witch I remembered, and found her, the confirmation burning through me. At least she was alive. I had to hold onto that.

"Stop, or we'll kill them all," shouted the man. He was getting angry now, but still remained hidden.

I forced more energy into the embers, fueling them anew as they consumed the spell. It suddenly snapped, like a recoiled string, having been retracted to its home. I heard audible drawings of breath. I wasn't the only one to sense the break around us.

Shapes whooshed over our heads, moving impossibly fast, like streaks in the darkness. "What's that?" someone asked as our hands tightened.

"Vampires," said Evan, his glamour fading. He stretched out his body to full height, and the hair began receding until it was only his own barely-there black. "You did it. You broke the spell!"

My broad smile reflected my brief moment of pleasure in the midst of hell. "I did it!"

"You did. We need to help them," said Evan as the hostages limped towards us.

"Let's get them into the circle," I called out to our team. "We need to protect these..."

"Wait, there's something wrong, look at their eyes," said Evan, freezing.

I squinted at the hostages, unsure of what he was talking about. They looked ill and tired, and their eyes were bloodshot, but when one man came within a few feet from me, I saw what Evan was questioning. Their eyes were unfocused and filmy. In the distance, a werewolf howled, and a shapeshifter roared like a lion.

"Stella," the hostage moaned, reaching for me with bloodied arms.

"What is he? A zombie?" I asked, stumbling backwards. I was careful not to fall over the werewolf brushing past me, its fangs bared.

"Shit. We can't protect them. They're after you, and us."

"I can't kill him!" I said as the zombie hostage advanced closer.

I wanted to ask what we should do, but the hostage launched himself at me. We went down in a tumble of sweating flesh, and my backpack slid from my arms as he tugged on my legs, trying to pull me towards the mist. Evan reached for him, but was knocked off to the side by a man and woman, whose faces were contorted with pain.

I scrabbled in the dirt, trying to cling onto clumps of grass, my hands catching in the thorns that rose from the ground. They were unnatural briars that someone sent to infiltrate our circle and rip our skin. Flipping onto my stomach, I reached for something, anything, to prevent me from being pulled away. My hand closed around my backpack. I groped at the ties, reaching for the talisman. I hated to do it, but I grabbed the talisman with my bloodied hands, and flipped onto my back. The momentum helped me sit up and I wielded the talisman as my weapon, ready to hit him. At least, it could serve some purpose.

The hostage stumbled back, blinking, before looking around as if he were seeing everything for the first time in the brilliant light that spun around, illuminating us.

No! The light was spinning around me! Fresh blood coursed from my torn hands, falling into the intricate carvings of the talisman.

Unbridled power surged through me, ceaseless as it broke free.

I was alive. Truly alive.

Chapter Twenty

The world around me began to fill with the brightest hues. No, not hues,
energy.
Silvers, blues, purples. I could see them all rippling like thick, ethereal ribbons as I blinked with my new eyes. I saw the world in layers: the earthy darkness where I stood, the bright layers of magic over that, pervaded by dribbles of dark, seeping along the contours, trying to obscure the brightness.

"Stella." The voice came as a whisper. No, not a whisper, not a voice. A remnant of something. A voice that wasn't even a memory, inside my head.

I turned to where I thought it came from, trying to decipher between the planes of what might be real and what was
otherly
.

"Stella."
Female
. I knew her. I recognised the voice, but even as I thought that, I was certain I'd never heard it before. I blinked, trying to focus.

She was in front of me. Standing, still, smiling shyly and raising her hand. I felt heavy, unable to move, so I watched her instead. She wore a long, pretty dress, that flowed to the ground with little flowers embroidered at the sleeves. She flickered out of sight before reappearing again.

"Are you a ghost?" I asked, my tongue growing thick as I struggled to form the words.

"Maybe," she said.

"Am I?"

"No."

"Where are we?" I asked, looking around, forcing my head to move against the oppressive air. Evan edged slowly towards me, his hands reaching out, pain etched on his face. He was afraid, for me. I thought about reaching for him, but I wasn't sure I could. I wondered if we were even on the same plane. Gone was the cold, along with the dark.

"We're here. We haven't gone anywhere."

"But everything is different."

"This is destiny. This was written for you, many years ago."

"You made the talisman," I said, fighting to form a coherent thought as magic vibrated through me. "You made the pendants."

Shouts filled my ears like past echoes, becoming distant and faint. Yet, I knew they weren't from the past. Something was happening. But I was frozen in time, unable to hear fully.

"Not frozen," she said, her lips moving, but her voice was inside my head now. "Just still."

"What's happening to me?"

"You are becoming."

"Becoming...?"

She began to fade, her smile warm and kind as she watched me. There was something so familiar about her and I searched for it.
Her eyes
. She had my eyes.

"Becoming?" I prompted.

"Becoming what you were always meant to be," she whispered. "You are the truth."

"Wait! I know you. Who are you?"

"I am yours as you are mine. Our blood is one," she said before fading completely.

Damp earth crumbled under my palms and I shook. Something changed again. I could still see the layered planes, but now I sensed the breeze and the whip-fast whoosh of air as a vampire passed overhead. I could hear the screams and shouts and sounds of fighting. Yet, I was apart from it.

Slowly, I got to my feet, disorientated with the pronounced disconnection between worlds.
Why did she leave me?
I needed to know so much more. On the edge of the mist, I saw her again. She beckoned me, and I stepped towards her. She didn't feel like a trick. She didn't feel like another of Georgia's siren tricks. No, there was something so warm about her, almost sisterly.

Just to see if I could, I turned away from her, stepping towards Evan where he was scrambling on the ground with a witchhunter. They grappled, hitting each other. A powerful blow knocked Evan off guard and he stumbled backwards, raising his hands to foist pure energy at the hunter. It hit the hunter in the chest and he staggered backwards, dropping to his knees. Such a blow should have killed him, but... there it was! He was protected by some kind of magic that hovered around him. I reached forward, using my fingers to trace the magic. I snapped it apart by the force of my will. The witchhunter looked up at me in surprise, his protection instantly disappearing. "What the fuck are you?" he grunted before Evan landed a well-aimed blow to his head. The man sunk to the ground, unconscious.

"Stella?" Evan asked, rising to his full height.

I smiled up at him, a new sense of joy filling me. Love spilled from every pore. I watched it dancing towards him, surrounding him with warmth. A glow spread around him. But not just any glow.
My light
. It drifted from me, enveloping him. I raised my palms, gazing at the radiance that emanated from them, and all around me.

That wasn't what I should have been doing. Confusion unexpectedly overcame me. I was supposed to be doing something.
What was it?
It couldn’t have been lighting myself up like a beacon in the middle of a swarm of witchhunters.

As if my limbs awoke just then, a heavy weight pulled my hand. I was holding a thick piece of wood, intricately carved, and somehow, I knew it was very important, I should have known what it was.
A talisman
. Of course!

My memory flooded back to me. The man grabbing me, and trying to pull me into the mist. Reaching for the talisman with bloodied hands. My blood dropping on the talisman, the smear of blood from my briar-torn hands searing its way through the carvings that I now saw in a new light. Those weren't pretty patterns at all. Those were runes or glyphs, some type of ancient charm that my blood managed to activate. Although I was glowing, the true source was the magic from the talisman and the pendants. Not only did it empower me, but together, their magic awakened something that was dormant, residing deep inside me, something I never knew existed.

I tried to focus. Why did I have this magic? Why was I surrounded by people fighting?

My memories resurged again and the weight of them struck me like a punch in the gut. The Brotherhood caught us in a trip, and attacked us. They cut us off from our people, and executed hostages in front of us.

But apparently, my earth magic vanquished the spells that prevented our army from stepping onto the land. However, the fight spreading around me was very real.

Not everyone saw the situation with my eyes.

Nor did everyone see it with the omnipresence I experienced now.

But I had no time to learn exactly what I was, and what I could do.

"Time isn't important," came the voice. I looked around for her, finally finding her standing in the mist. "You are magic."

"I..." I faltered, looking down at my glowing hands again.

"Who are you?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"Who are you?" I asked again. This time, she pointed at the talisman in my hands. A thought trickled into my consciousness. "You're she! The witch who made this!" It wasn't a question. I knew it with a surety that I couldn't quite place.

She nodded, smiling again, almost appearing shy now.

"And this is your magic?"

"No, Stella. It's yours. The magic was waiting for you." She began to fade, and the mist seemed to be rippling through her. The flowers on her sleeves looked like they were being carried away on the breeze. "For my blood, for your true heart."

"Wait!" I called. I needed her. I didn’t know what to do next, or how to use the power that filled every cell, or where I should direct it. I couldn't do anything without her, except, maybe explode by having too much power.

She didn't wait though, she simply faded, still smiling.

I blinked, refocusing again. Everyone around me had changed positions, or were switching places, and now grappling with new enemies. It was like a strange sort of dance occurred while I was temporarily distracted. Their speed was still a little slow, however, in my slowed-down world. I looked up as a vampire swooped over me, landing squarely on two feet. He glanced back, his eyes connecting with mine before turning away.
Matthias.

Only Evan remained the same. He was standing before me, his hand outstretched. I could accept it, and anchor myself to him, and to the real world. I knew I would be safe with him. We could shimmer away, far from here.

I practically shook the thought from my head as soon as it flittered in. I wouldn't abandon everyone.

"Stella?" His voice broke through.

"I'm okay," I told him, the words forming like cold tar in my mouth. It felt like I was speaking another language. "I'm fine."

He started to say something, then stopped, looking around. "They're coming," he said, moving closer to me and adopting an attack position. He was waiting for something unseen to strike.

The mist lowered, then separated. Kitty's defence must have either fallen or been dropped. I reached out with my senses, probing everything, almost overloading myself, searching for her. I knew she was alive, and her spirit was still very strong.

Just like mine.

The witch was right. I could do this. I didn't have to analyse it. I didn't have to think. I just had to feel, the same way I'd always felt my magic.

The hunter surged towards me, swinging a blade over his shoulder, and that was the clincher in my decision. Evan rose slowly, blasts of energy bursting from him as the blade swung, its cold steel catching the rays of moonlight as it sliced the air. I reached forward and used my hand to melt the blade. With a twist of my wrist, the hunter dropped to his knees, folding his hands over his ears. A sliver of blood began in the corner of his eye. I pulled back the magic, lessening it. I only wanted to disable the hunter without killing him.

Another charged at me, dropping to his knees before he had the chance to unleash the bolt from his crossbow. The crossbow collapsed, and fell apart as his eyes rolled back.

The next assailants came as a pair, both launching themselves at me, knives in their hands, and murder in their eyes. The knives melted, dropping like blobs of boiled metal to the ground. The hunters fell soon after them.

I waited a couple of minutes for the next assailants, but no one come. Shouts sounded from behind me as the fighting continued. The clearing had long since turned into a muddy swamp, churned under myriad boots and scuffles. I turned in a steady arc, disarming the hunters, watching them collapse like dominoes in front of me. One-by-one, my team scrambled to their feet, glamours gone, their confusion obvious as they looked around, but all the same, ready for the next assault. I wanted to assure them everything would be all right, but there wasn't time. At the sound of the stampede, I knew the onslaught was imminent.

I turned around, ready to face it.

Not just ready. As I moved one foot in front of the other, the barriers dropped between the magic plane and the earthly one. I advanced to meet them.

I should have been afraid when the mist lowered to little more than knee-high, but there was no room left in me for fear. Dozens of armed men and women appeared. Unlike the hostages, I didn't sense anything bespelling these people. Instead, a common belief that we were evil emanated from them, twisted and cloying in its intensity. There was nothing I could say or do to convince them otherwise. Their beliefs were too far ingrained to be bested by any logic or sensibility. Plus, I didn't think the light shining from me could aid me in anyway. It made me too strange, too otherly.

Hate was the foundation of their beliefs; and as they advanced, each soldier adjusting and priming his weapons, a wave of sadness gripped me. Would they have been this way if they’d only had a chance to learn about my kind? Would they have been so afraid of us if they were raised knowing witches, demons, werewolves, shapeshifters, and more, lived among them, and could even be their friends?

A man to my left lifted a rifle, positioning me in his sights. I didn't even have to think. A little push of magic had his rifle misfire before falling from his hands.

They surged forward and I prepared to meet them, disintegrating their guns, freezing their crossbows, and melting their blades in my wake. The hunters dropped to their knees, combating my magic with their blind determination to kill us. Their energy, however, amounted to little more than an annoying buzz at the edges of my psyche, something to be swatted away.

My power rose as more of the hunters dropped, suddenly incapacitated. I reached further than the immediate battle arena, and began knocking out guards, while rendering fighters unconscious mid-battle. I found all of their spells and collapsed them. I undid their glamours and ripped apart any booby traps I could find lying in ambush for my people. Georgia's magic was nothing compared to mine.

Their desperate battle cries ceased, and confusion ensued.

Vampires began to land all around me. They were watching me with curiosity burning in their eyes. I turned away from them, searching for Evan, and panic started rising inside me when I couldn't immediately feel his essence.

The discomfort and anxiety I felt ended as soon as I found him. He was unharmed, and standing with the remains of our team. More witches joined them, a pack of werewolves paced between everyone, and I spotted the lion, whose roar I heard earlier. It was real! None of them, however, were fighting.