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Authors: Linsey Hall
Infinite Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Huntress Book 5)
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INFINITE MAGIC
Dragon’s Gift: The Huntress Book 5
by Linsey Hall
CHAPTER ONE
Prison sucked. No two ways about it, two hots and a cot was as bad as I’d feared. Not that I actually got two hots at the Prison for Magical Miscreants. Food at this lovely establishment left a lot to be desired. And my cot had one skinny blanket, which did nothing to ward off the chill that came through the tiny, open window set high in the wall.
I shivered against the cold and rubbed the goosebumps off my arms. The regulation black shirt and pants the prison staff had given me were basically worthless for warmth.
It was a good thing I’d be busting out of here soon, or I’d lose my mind. I hadn’t seen another person in the three days I’d been here, unless I counted the hand that shoved a bowl of gruel through the hole in the door twice a day. I should count myself lucky for that, actually. They could be coming to torture me for information instead of coming to feed me.
But what I wouldn’t give for a Pabst Blue Ribbon and a Cornish Pasty from my friends’ shop back home. Just the thought of my friends made my heart clench in my chest.
A faint rustling sounded from behind me and I turned. A fat black and white rat ran through the hole in the stone wall. I grinned at the sight of Rufus, who was an emissary for my buddy Emile, an Anima Mage who was locked up in another cell. Our cells were just stone boxes with wooden doors, none of that wall of bars business so popular on TV, so I’d never seen Emile in person.
I could see him through Rufus, though. I shifted from where I sat on the bed and lowered my hand so that the little rat could jump onto it.
Rufus hopped on, and his warm weight and tiny little paws were the best thing I’d felt the whole time I’d been here. Another being—someone who wasn’t out to get me and didn’t care that I was a FireSoul—was a welcome distraction from this hell hole.
“Hey, buddy,” I said.
Rufus stood up on his hind legs and twitched his pink nose, his gaze on mine. I grinned as a vision of Emile filled my head, sent by Rufus through his brother Ralph. Ralph was in Emile’s cell, looking at Emile. My new friend’s Anima Mage powers created a connection between the four of us.
As usual, Emile was sitting on his bed, his skinny form curled against the cold. He had dark hair and eyes, and though I could make out his face, the vision wasn’t very clear.
Emile was getting weaker and sicker, and I suspected it was because he fed most of his rations to Ralph and Rufus. I’d started sharing with them, too, though the little rats could really scarf down some gruel.
We needed to escape soon because I didn’t think Emile would make it much longer. And I was sure they weren’t going to just leave me in here. Something worse was waiting for me.
“Hey, Emile,” I said. “Got some good news for me?”
“Yeah,” Emile said. “And some bad news.”
I grimaced. Bad news in a place like this was usually
bad.
“Start with the bad.”
“My trial date has been set for day after tomorrow.”
“Shit.” Emile was a FireSoul like me. We were the most despised type of immortal, hunted and destroyed because we possessed the ability to steal another’s powers when we killed them. No one cared that most FireSouls had never stolen a power in their life.
I’d taken powers, but only when a person offered or from people who were trying to kill me. Though guilt still crawled up my back with little claws when I thought of it. I tried to shake it away.
“Morning or night?” I asked, calculating the time we had left to escape. I wouldn’t leave here without Emile.
“Not sure.”
“Okay, then we assume morning. Have you heard anything about a potential trial date for me?” Like me, Emile wasn’t allowed to leave his cell. He heard things through Ralph and Rufus when they went on scouting missions.
“No. I still don’t think they know you’re a FireSoul. And I also don’t think they know your name. They normally refer to us by our last names, but they call you Prisoner 857.”
“Weird.” I’d been captured a week ago while trying to rescue my best friends from a sociopath called Victor Orriodor. A member of the Order of the Magica—the government that ruled all magic users—had witnessed the rescue attempt. I’d gotten my friends out, but had been captured by the Order member’s guards after I’d used some serious magic against them. “I have no idea why he wouldn’t tell the prison what I am.”
“Just be grateful,” Emile said. “You don’t have a trial date yet.”
“Yeah. I don’t know why no one has come to interrogate me, but I’ll take it.”
“Breaking your spirit,” he said. “They’ll come soon enough.”
I grimaced. Emile was likely looking at execution. “I’ll get us out of here before that happens.”
“Do you have backup coming?” he asked.
I hoped not. Del and Nix, my best friends who were really my sisters by choice, were also FireSouls. I called them my
deirfiúr
, sisters
in our native Irish. Though I knew they would stage a rescue attempt, I didn’t want them to risk getting tossed in here, too. I could get myself out just fine.
I hoped.
“We need to assume that no help is coming. But I’ve got a plan. Did Ralph and Rufus see where the guards are keeping my stuff?”
“Yeah, that’s the good news.” Emile gave me directions to the room where they stored prisoners’ belongings before auctioning them off, doing his best to paint a picture of the prison that was outside my cell walls. I’d been brought here while mostly unconscious, so I had little memory of the layout. “Do you really need that stuff? It’s all the way across the prison. We should just run for it. And how are we getting out anyway?”
“Yeah, I need that stuff. I’m not letting them take anything else from me.” They had my daggers, a gift from my boyfriend, Aidan. But it was more than sentimentality. “And they took a transport charm and a Penatrist charm from me.”
“Whoa,” Emile said.
“Exactly. I want those back.” Penatrist charms were super valuable and insanely rare. They helped you break through protection spells, both getting in and getting out. Like the protection spells on a prison. The transport charm would blast us right out of here. We needed both if we wanted to escape.
“Be ready, Emile,” I said. “I’ll get you out of here.”
He nodded, then the connection blanked out.
“Thanks, buddy,” I said to Rufus as I set him on the ground near my gruel bowl. I’d saved some for him, and he started chowing down. “We’ll feed you better when we get out of here.”
Rufus didn’t respond, but he did look up, gruel on his whiskers. I grinned, then leaned against the cold wall of my prison cell and turned my attention inward, focusing on my magic.
I shouldn’t be able to access my power here—the prison was enchanted to block magic—but as of last week, I was the most powerful Magica in the world.
True, I didn’t have much control over my magic, but that would come. Right now, I was basically a fire hydrant of power that was trying to blow out of a straw. The result was usually an explosion.
But in here, the prison’s spells dampened enough of my power that I could actually control it. They’d crush a normal Magica’s powers. A prison that allowed its magical inhabitants to use their gifts wouldn’t be very effective.
Emile shouldn’t be able to use his, but there were exceptions to every rule. My theory was that Emile’s power drew from the animal’s innate magic, so he had a source of power outside of himself.
Whatever made it possible, I was grateful. Ralph and Rufus were little scouts and emissaries that were vastly improving our chances at escape.
Magic thrummed in my veins, humming along my skin. I had a number of gifts to choose from, all of them stolen at some point in the last couple months.
As a result, I was loaded for bear. I was a Mirror Mage, able to mimic another supernatural’s gifts, and a wolf shifter. I could send lightning shooting out of my fingertips and create illusions. Now I just had to figure out how to use these to get out of my cell.
Lightning could fry the wooden door, but I didn’t want to alert the guards with the thunder that followed. And would my lightning even be strong enough? The way my magic was dampened, I thought maybe not.
That meant I was going to have to mirror the power of whatever supernatural came to deliver dinner. I’d been biding my time, waiting for a useful magical gift, but one hadn’t showed up yet. Now it seemed I was running out of time.
I went over Emile’s description of the prison in my head, testing out scenarios. I hoped the dinner guard was telekinetic. That’d be ace. I could just manipulate the lock in the door to click it open.
When footsteps sounded in the hall, I jerked upright, my eyes flaring open. It was too early for dinner. And no one walked down this hall outside of meal times. The figures were still fairly far away—all the way down the hall if I had to guess.
I strained my hearing, trying to count the number of people coming down the hall. My hearing had been astoundingly good since I’d unlocked my root power. Even better than the improved hearing I’d gotten when I’d taken a wolf Shifter’s power.
Three pairs of footsteps. No, four. One was heavier than the rest, his footsteps plodding.
My heart thundered as I waited. When they stopped in front of my door, deadly calm descended over me. This was it. Whatever the reason four people were at my cell, I wasn’t going to like it.
A key scraped against the keyhole. Part of me wanted to hide behind the door and jump them, but my advantage was in stealth. They didn’t know I could use my powers. Though I wasn’t at full strength, it was an incredible advantage.
I reached out for their magical signatures, hoping to get an early hint at their gifts. What would I be working with?
A sickly sweet smell hit my nose and I stiffened.
The bulldog.
The Order member who’d sent me to this prison had magic that smelled like that. I’d called him the bulldog for his size and heavy jowls. He was a powerful weather witch who could also create magical shields.
When the door creaked open, I held my breath. The bulldog stepped in, his piercing blue eyes going straight for me. I stiffened and glared at him. He was about sixty, dressed in a snappy suit and sporting a lumbering gait that would put someone at ease before they realized how powerful he was.
Three men accompanied him. Two Magica entered behind him. They had hulking shoulders and mean-looking faces. I reached out for their magical signature, trying to get a feel for their gifts. One felt ephemeral. Invisibility. Cool. The other felt like shocks in my bloodstream. This guy could shoot stunning spells.
I’d have to be careful of him. They all wore a heavy metal bracelet. From the feel of their magic, which wasn’t repressed by the cell, the bracelets made them immune to the prison’s dampening spells, allowing them to use their magic.
That wasn’t good for me.
A slender man trailed behind them, pale and gaunt. His gaze was even colder than the bulldog’s, and he too wore a heavy silver bracelet. I shivered.
But then his power signature hit me. It felt like tiny bubbles in my head. Not a good feeling, not a bad one.
He was a Mind Mage.
I tried to school my features into placidity as I stared at the men. I needed time to get a handle on everyone’s powers so I could use them to my advantage. Particularly the Mind Mage’s. They all had different gifts over people’s minds, and I didn’t know what his was.
I also wanted to know what the bulldog was up to. He’d been colluding with Victor Orriodor, the sociopath from whom I’d rescued my
deirfiúr
. Victor wanted me and my
deirfiúr
for some unknown, terrible purpose. I wanted to know what it was.
“Where are your friends?” the bulldog demanded.
I laughed at him, but my heart lightened at the knowledge that he still didn’t know their names. He was Order of the Magica. If he knew their names, he’d be able to find them in an instant.