Endless Magic (Stella Mayweather Series Book 6) (21 page)

Two witches cradled Abby, working their magic on her, while Vanessa and Jamie looked on. I could tell from my position that it couldn't staunch the spreading poison. Sending out my magic, I touched her, pushing magic inside her, then sucking the poison out as I recoiled the magic back to me. I wrapped the oozing poison like honey winding around a wand until it was no more than a congealed blob. Then I blasted it to nothingness. Her eyes flickered with life as I turned away.

There were more out there: hunters and stragglers on the periphery of the fight, but I could tell they were struggling, fatigued and nearly overwhelmed by our allies. I ignored them, still searching for two I'd yet to find. One was the worst of all the hunters, and the other was a witch.

I found Georgia first, frantically weaving magic around herself as Étoile appeared in front of her. It made no difference to me. All the protection spells, and channeling of power, and the controlling spells, and the nasty, creeping magic that clung to her from years of selfish misuse were useless to her. I batted away all of them, and left Georgia powerless before Étoile advanced on her. I turned away, content to know that Georgia was finally being dealt with. Whatever happened to her was meant to be. I expected to have my day in court, when my input would affect her sentencing later.

The fist coming my way didn't register at first. Then, with no time to dodge out of the way, I took the full force on my cheek. However, the blow barely inflicted any pain.

How could I miss Auberon, especially when he was right in front of me?

A shout sounded from behind me, someone's fear-laced voice calling my name. Whoever it belonged to would have to wait.

I surrounded Auberon with magic, and found traces of Georgia's magic still lingering on him, although her concealment spell was fast dissipating. The irony of Auberon using magic to disguise himself in our fight made me laugh, albeit bitterly.

"Give up," I told him.

"Never.

"It's over. Stop."

"It will never be over!"

"Look around you, Auberon. It
is
over. Your people can't fight. Their weapons are destroyed. Georgia has been captured. You have nothing left."

"I started a revolution."

"What revolution? There's nothing left. You tried to kill us all, and you failed."

"Did I? Was that the objective?" Auberon smiled, his eyes flat and bitterly cold. Something about the way he asked that question made me falter. Having been formerly fixated on the notion that he wanted to end us all, we never considered any other possibility. I couldn't even fathom any other objective.

"It's over," I said again, softer this time.

"You sound like a broken record."

"Just stop. Think about everything you tried. Everything that failed. This is it. We're done. Finished." I spread my arms, indicating his fallen army.

"Next, you'll ask me to think about my son."

Truthfully, I was about to say that, but I didn't want to drag Daniel into it. He already suffered enough at his father's concept of mercy. I met Daniel when he was little more than a captive and power source. His father forced him to use his magic for his own magic-hating purposes. There was no appealing to Auberon's good side, since he didn't have one.

"This," Auberon said, sweeping his arms out like I did, "is exactly where it should end. This is my failsafe."

"What are you talking about?"

"This is a new dawn, a new era. An awakening. My name will go down in history! I’m the man who uncovered one of the greatest secrets of all kind. My legacy will be as humankind's greatest protector."

I gaped at him, appalled. "You have got to be kidding."

"And I can never, ever be stopped," he continued. "That's the beauty of a martyr."

"What do you want from me?" I asked, stalling for time as I sought his true purpose. Why would he go to such lengths to capture me if all he wanted was fame? I couldn't aid him with that goal. Nobody knew who I was.

"Nothing. I have achieved everything I wanted."

"You've achieved nothing."

"You evolved, didn't you? We tried everything we had to make it happen, and it worked!"

"This has nothing to do with you." Wait... what? They tried everything? Was that why I was taken? They were trying to turn me into something more than just a witch? "Why me?" I asked, scouring his face for answers. But all I saw was cruelty.

"Our people heard about the prophecy. I knew it had to be you, so we took you. If you turned with us, you would have been the perfect tool. Not just to bring about the destruction of your own race, but also to ensure my position in history."

"You wanted to use me as a weapon."

Auberon clapped his hands slowly, sarcastically applauding. "You're of little use to us as anything else."

Rage surged from within, its power lifting me. I hated this creep, and the way he'd been chasing me for years. I hated what he did to my people: killing us, experimenting on us, forcing us to turn on another. My eyes caught some of the fallen from his army. They too, were nothing more than disposable pawns in his crazy master-plan.

"I should kill you," I told him.

"Like you killed them?"

"They're just unconscious."

"All of you are nothing but killers. Lousy, foul, stinking human-killers," he yelled, "You are not worthy of my bloodline! You all should be put down permanently like the filthy rodents you are. Ugh!" He gripped his arm suddenly, and a sharp pain contorted his face. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," I said, frowning as he dropped to his knees in front of me. My magic strained to decimate him, but I withheld it as we spoke.

"Ugh, you're floating," he said, squeezing his eyes together in pain, and gasping for hoarse breaths. With a choking sound, he slumped to the floor. Vacant eyes stared up at me.

I remained still, wondering what the hell just happened.

"Stella." I turned, expecting Evan to be miles away. Instead, he was right below me, half a head shorter than I. "It's finished," he said, and I felt a tug at my sleeve. I looked down, seeing my feet hovering above the ground. Auberon was right, I was floating. In the grand scheme of weirdness, however, that was not the weirdest thing that ever happened to me. It was pretty cool though.

"What happened?" I asked. "I didn't do anything."

"He's dead."

"He said this wasn't the end."

Evan kicked him, none too gently. Auberon didn't move. "Seems like the end to me."

Power rippled through me and the earth shifted. Every colour seemed brighter, richer, as all the magic lingering in the air, poured into me. It filled me to overflowing, then surged again, desperately anxious to be consumed by my body. I pulled it all in, flinching when it periodically assaulted me, threatening to overload. I reached for Evan, needing his anchor to this world, and him. My fingers found his, and he shivered, but wound his fingers through mine, lacing them together in an unbreakable bond.

Suddenly, the whole world was a white-out, hot and bright, stripping my vision of everything, but the magic pulsing around me, and inside me.

I was nothing.

Yet, I was everything.

And truthfully, at last, I thought I might be dead.

Chapter Twenty-One

"Stella." The voice came through the quiet. "Stella." Louder this time. A shiver ran through me as I blinked, looking around at the strewn, unconscious bodies and the supernaturals moving between them.

"Evan?" I smiled, pleased to find him standing in front of me. I looked down. I wasn't floating anymore, my feet firmly planted on the ground. Even better, I wasn't glowing either. And no one was fighting. That was strange. Shouldn't people have been fighting? Where was Auberon? "Did I get knocked out?" I asked.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Auberon rushing at me then... I don't know. I must have gotten knocked out. I think I was dreaming..." I trailed off, looking around. Nothing seemed right. The sounds of battle were gone. The mist was gone. The enemy... all gone. I turned, checking on my team. They all seemed fine. Abby sat upright, looking pale, but alive, and talking to Astra. Next to them, Marcy looked dazed.

Walking towards me was Étoile, the High Council flanking her. I raised a hand in greeting her, but she didn't return it.

"What happened?" I asked Evan, while we waited for the Council to pick their way across the ground.

"You really don't remember?"

"I think I blacked out. I remember small bits. I recall..." I paused, struggling to search my swampy memory. The small, lingering block was gone, and there was only a faint trace left. That suggested to me that Georgia didn't want me to forget the questions they probed. Not that it mattered; I remembered how they couldn’t access my power no matter how often they tried to siphon it. All they had succeeded in was exhausting me as I resisted. Their kidnap attempt was also a big failure.

One thing I knew for certain was: I felt different. I felt lighter, free, and very, very powerful. My magic also felt altered, and stronger. What happened? I remembered flowers, a pretty dress... No, I remembered a woman wearing a dress with flowers, but she wasn't real. She was a ghost, or a vision, and she calmed and guided me. More memories flooded back. "What happened to me? She told me I'd become... but become what?"

"She?"

"The woman. She was here. She appeared when I activated the talisman."

"What woman?"

"In the dress..." I stopped, observing Evan's confused face. Of course, he didn't see her; he couldn't. He didn't know how she guided me, or helped me direct the power that awoke in me. "Never mind," I said as something cool pushed against the area of skin where my collarbones met. I tugged at my jacket, suddenly frightened I was injured and didn’t realise it. It wasn't any injury I found, however, but the four pendants, now joined together, yet each still on its own chain. Of all the mysteries that happened this night; how the four chains disengaged from the talisman, and managed to find their way around my neck, under my jacket ,was probably the least of my concerns. Étoile stopped a few yards from me.

"What the hell was that?" she asked, concern filling her eyes.

"I... I don't know," I stammered.

Étoile grabbed my hand, pulling me aside, away from the listening ears, I decided, as she glanced over her shoulder. A worried look was on her face as the High Council spread out, checking their brethren. "You're the superwitch. We all saw it. The prophecy came true, and it was
you
."

I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped, unsure of what to say. As her words crystallised in my mind, I knew it was true. However comprehending it, and really believing it, were something else.

"What happened?" she asked.

"My hand was bleeding and I grabbed the talisman," I said, raising it slightly so she could see the way my dried blood coursed through the carvings. My hand ached with the grip I maintained, so I relaxed it slightly.

"And these?" she asked, reaching for the pendants, now hanging around my neck.

"I pressed them into the talisman, and when everything turned normal again, they were around my neck. I don't know how they got there."

"Magic can be impossible to explain. What do you mean,
when everything turned normal again
? What happened?" she persisted in a low, urgent voice.

"It was like I was real, and not real at the same time. I saw her, the ancestor who made it. She guided me. She told me
I was becoming
."

"You were like a beacon. A really intense human lighthouse. I think many found the light emanating from you becoming."

I held back a smile. "She didn't mean 'becoming' like that. She meant, I was becoming something else. I was brimming with power. I didn't even need to think. Things just happened. The earth, air, fire, and water were connected to me along with everything else. I could feel everything. I was part of everything. Then I started to come around and the world was normal again. I can't see the magic as clearly now. Was I out long?"

"Out? Minutes, maybe seconds. It all happened so fast. There was little we could do. We couldn't set foot on the land. We couldn't shimmer, or craft spells to aid you. All we managed to do was have Kitty push the weather from up on the bluff, and manipulate it to give you some cover. We knew the moment the spell they cast to prevent us from coming to your rescue was lifted, and that's when we rushed to your aid."

"There were spelled bodies at the corners. I stopped the hearts from beating and broke the spell. They were dead anyway," I finished lamely, the burdensome weight of all the dead quickly accruing. I was glad I didn't add to the count.

"It was the only thing you could do. We'll recover whatever's left of the bodies."

"Someone rushed me and I grabbed the talisman to hit him, and that's when it happened."

"It must have been your blood that unlocked it. That was the trigger! Everything we tried... no, everything
you tried
... none of it would have ever worked. It needed blood.
Your
blood."

"How could it have possibly known it was my blood?"

"Who knows how the spell was originally worked on the talisman, but it recognised something in you that it didn't find in anyone else. That's not to say others with your DNA couldn’t have activated it. Daniel, perhaps, if the DNA were linked to your mother's ancestry."

"Maybe. I'm the last of my father's line. She said I was her blood."

"If it came through him, then it could only ever have been you. We may never know, Stella. I don't think you should worry about how it happened. What we need to think about immediately is what happens now that it did."

"What do you mean?"

Étoile paused. "How do you feel?"

"Amazing." Étoile didn't answer so I continued, "Better than amazing. I feel so alive. So connected. I feel like I can do anything, and not just in an ‘I feel so positive’ way, but in a magical way. I don't think I use magic anymore, I..." Searching for the right word, I stopped when the idea formed in my mind. I knew it was the simplest, yet the most complicated, answer possible. I replied, "I
am
magic."

"That's what I was afraid of. You're not just the superwitch. In the wrong hands, you could be a weapon. Stella, you wiped out the entire Brotherhood army. No one was left standing even though you had the foresight to leave them alive." Étoile turned away, her words chilling me, and someone called her name. Striding toward us were two demons. A figure hung limply between them; and the closer they got, the louder the werewolves and shapeshifters began to growl. Étoile gave my hand a light, reassuring squeeze, before moving to meet them.

"We bound the witch," said Corinthia's right hand, the taller of the demons, gripping the figure's chin in one hand and tipping her face upwards. Georgia appeared barely conscious. "She was prepared to fight to the death, so we had to incapacitate her further."

Étoile replied something in a voice I couldn't quite hear and the demons answered. I could have moved closer and attempted to listen, but clearly, this conversation wasn't meant for a wider audience. Instead, I looked around, and determined where my friends were. Evan moved closer to me, after he applied a healing magic to one of The Brotherhood's prisoners. Seren and David stood together, holding hands. Kitty was making her way towards me, waving and looking quite pleased with herself, despite the chaos happening around us. Astra left the injured witch on the ground, moving to stand with Seren. Micah stood beside Étoile, his arms crossed, his face impassive, and not a stitch out of place. Of course, the battle didn't faze him, as few things did. Gage transformed to human again. I wasn't sure when, but seeing he wore a full set of clothes and was just zipping his jacket, it had to have been recently. He saw me looking and nodded before turning away, directing his pack. They darted across the battlefield, their noses to the ground. Beau was one of them; I would have recognised him anywhere; but I was glad not to see Annalise. With a start, I spotted Chyler and her aunt picking their way over the battleground with a number of other witches. Ariadne and Clare. Lisette, and many more I recognised easily, along with others I didn't. I didn't realise they joined the battle.

I wondered how many of them saw me. And what did Étoile mean,
in the wrong hands, I could be a weapon
? Didn't Auberon say that too?

"Georgia, you never fail to disappoint," said Étoile, a bit louder so everyone could hear. "But you have failed entirely."

Georgia croaked out a laugh. "Have I?"

"Your army is gone."

"For now."

"Your leader is gone."

"I have no leader. Merely allies."

"Your spells are broken. Your magic has been bound and suppressed."

Georgia laughed again. "Where are you going with this, Étoile? Do you plan to make an example of me for your minions?"

"Minions?" Étoile looked behind her at those waiting expectantly to see what she would do. "I have no minions. That's not what we do. We're an elected Council. We solve the problems of our people."

"Not for me. You're nothing more than a puppet for the true masters of this game."

"Subterfuge, Georgia. It's over. You failed miserably. You will be tried and convicted for all your crimes against our people."

"Do you think I care about your pitiful pronouncements?" Georgia asked, her laughter dripping with condescension.

"I think you will when your sentence is pronounced."

"I'm sure the Council's pathetic court system is already rigged to find me guilty, so why don't we skip all that? What could you possibly have in store for me that you think could stop me, hmm?"

"You will be stripped of your power and excommunicated, permanently. You will be condemned to a human life for the rest of your natural existence."

"That's the worst you can do?" scoffed Georgia.

"No, that's the kindest I can do. And what I'll argue for on your behalf."

"You're weak."

"No, Georgia, you are. Weak and greedy. You threw away a good life for the promise of powers you will never possess. You aligned yourself with our enemies, and you slaughtered your own kind for personal profit. You shame our race. I'll argue for you, but I'll move with the majority vote. They might not show you the same kindness I'll argue for."

Georgia yawned. Anger passed across Étoile's face in the briefest flash before it vanished. I doubt any but her closest and dearest would have noticed it.

"How could you ever think you would succeed?" Étoile asked. "You could never destroy all of us."

Georgia smiled, a slow, malicious smile. "What makes you think I haven't succeeded? Was your destruction really the object? Or was it, perhaps, a bonus? Look around, President Winterstorm," she sneered. "Today, the whole world changed. We're in the open now. You, me, your precious pet, Stella Mayweather. We've all been exposed for what we are, and nothing can ever be the same again. This is a new world order, and the world can thank me for it."

"Get rid of her," said Étoile softly, stepping back so the demons could drag the prisoner away. I doubt I’ll ever forget the sound of Georgia's laughter, or her utter lack of humility, even after being captured.

"She still thinks she's getting out of this," I said, moving to stand at Evan's side.

"She'll wish she did escape," he answered. "Étoile is being extremely magnanimous. I doubt the rest of the High Council will agree with her when the extent of Georgia's crimes are finally revealed."

"What's worse than being excommunicated and stripped of power?"

"Death."

A howl echoed through the night; and I found Evan's hand before slipping my fingers into his, and allowing his warmth to heat me. I didn't realise how cold I was until that moment, and now I needed the heat as much as the security of not being alone. I caught a few glances that unnerved me.

"They found something," said Evan.

I wanted to ask what, but a tug at my magic told me it was faster to send out my sensory vibes. I did so, and the energy of the world responded to me. I sent it past shapes that I identified as shapeshifters — some morphing to human as I touched them — and werewolves. There were cold spots that I determined were vampire, not quite living, and not quite dead, and demons that were large and brimming with magic. Witches were multiple shades of magic, and subtly different. When I found what I was looking for, I knew it was dead. "They found Auberon's lieutenants," I said. At least, I think that's what they were."