Jocelynn Drake - [Asylum Tales 02] (27 page)

Her smile grew a little wider, sending a tear skidding down her cheek. “Good luck and I’m sorry about this.”

I wanted to ask what she meant by her last comment, but I didn’t get the chance. In an instant, the world went dark and her hands slipped from mine. It lasted only a second. I blinked and Gaia’s garden had been replaced with the parking lot behind my apartment building. It took me only a breath to realize why she had apologized. With me in the parking lot were three warlocks and a witch. The same witch I should have killed when she attacked me the first time. Damn. This was going to get ugly.

22

WE ALL STOOD
there stunned. I was confused as hell as to what they were doing in my parking lot and they were confused as hell as to where I had come from. Common sense said that they had been preparing another attack on my apartment, but the panic screaming through my brain was drowning out any common sense I had left. I didn’t have my wand, I didn’t have the keys to my car, and I didn’t have a clue as to what the fuck I could do to get out of this mess.

“That was nice of you to come to us,” said one warlock, drawing my gaze to his face. He looked vaguely familiar, but then I had met few other magic users while I had lived in the Towers ten years ago. Those that I had met outside of my mentor, Simon, had been on . . .
Oh, fuck.

“You’re on the council,” I said, talking mostly to myself as I took a step backward. “Fox. Henry Fox?”

“Correct,” Henry said with a grim smile. The bastard had argued for my immediate execution when I had been brought up on charges. Apparently, he was still against the idea of me breathing.

My gaze swept around the parking lot, searching for an escape. After they had gotten over their momentary shock, the quartet had spread out, leaving me without an exit. The one potential weak spot was the bitch that I should have killed the first time. It made sense that my mistake would come back to haunt me in a big fucking way. I hated when Gideon was right. After dumping her in a net at the bottom of the ocean off the North Shore, I could only imagine that she was most eager to get rid of me.

“Warlocks who visit Low Town have been disappearing recently,” Henry said pleasantly, his voice crawling across my skin like fire ants dragging razor blades. After my time in Gaia’s garden, the whole world seemed to be washed in a dull gray light despite the fact that the setting sun was painting the sky in shades of pink and orange. Sounds and smells clashed together in a discordant fashion like a toddler pounding on a piano, leaving me flinching as my mind tried to make sense of Henry’s words. “First Master Thorn goes missing two months ago, and now in a matter of days, Masters Rosenblum and Wilson disappear.”

“Low Town can be a dangerous place if you’re not prepared,” I said between clenched teeth. Without moving a muscle, I started drawing small amounts of energy to me, swirling it around my hands and letting it seep into my skin. The cacophonous feel of the world eased so that it was no longer sliding along my brain like a cheese grater. No one flinched or moved. I didn’t think anyone had noticed the shift yet, but then they could have been busy doing the same thing as I was doing.

Looking at my opponents, I figured that the one thing that I could count on was that they wouldn’t all attack at once. That took teamwork and planning if they didn’t want to risk ripping an ally inside out, and the occupants of the Towers did not play well together. The only thing they generally rallied together for was a type of us-versus-the-world mentality. Using magic in a single, concerted effort against one target was the domain of the guardians—the enforcers of the Towers did the dirty work. Henry Fox was a council member, not a guardian, and Useless Clod was an apprentice. That only left the other two unknown warlocks. They could have been guardians, but they were more likely lackeys of Fox.

This was one of the moments when I wished I had stuck it out in the Towers for a few more years, learned a few more tricks that could keep me alive. Just a couple more years and I would have been damn good at teleporting. Oh, I could do the spell now, but it wasn’t safe for me to attempt it with so many warlocks watching me. I couldn’t protect myself and teleport at the same time, and I didn’t think Henry and his friends were going to wait politely. My only hope was for a wave of death and incapacitation to hit them.

As I turned, trying to keep as many of them in my line of sight as possible, Henry gave a little nod. The brown-haired, nameless warlock stepped forward, but it was only a distraction because at the same time I felt a surge of energy jump from the warlock with greasy blond hair and saggy jowls. An energy ball jumped from his fingertips, but I was ready, the shield in place, so that the spell was harmlessly deflected back toward him. Brown Hair joined him, throwing his own energy ball at me. But it didn’t deflect as it should have. It splat like a tacky ball of electric-green slime and quickly started to spread around me, growing over the shield as if it were algae. My pulse raced. The slime was blocking my vision of my attackers, nearly covering me.

With a curse, I dropped my shield, as my attackers had expected. The green slime disappeared with a faint crackle. Energy jumped in the air. I dropped to my knees and rolled toward the witch, missing the two energy balls that smashed into the fractured concrete where I had been standing a second ago. Pushing to my feet, I found myself standing only a foot from Master Wilson’s apprentice, a stunned look on her plain, pale face as if she was surprised to be standing so close to me. It was almost funny.

Slamming my fist into her face was funny. I didn’t believe in hitting women. If my father had seen me, he would have tanned my ass, regardless of my age. But since she was trying to kill me, I figured I could make an exception. She cried out, falling backward onto her ass, covering her face with both her hands.

Confident that she was preoccupied for a minute, I turned back to where the others stood, summoning up great gulps of energy like a whale sucking down plankton. There was no subtlety or sneakiness this time, but we were past that, right?

Greasy came at me with a wave of fire, which was kind of surprising. If I hadn’t properly blocked it with a blast of cold air, the flames would have cooked me and the witch behind me. He obviously wasn’t concerned for her well-being in this fight, but then he didn’t strike me as a particularly strong magic user either. He was sloppy and lacked imagination—two things that made a poor magic weaver. Definitely one of Fox’s lackeys.

Brown Hair worried me, though. The strange energy ball that glommed onto my shield was a new twist. He was smart, sneaky, and dangerous.

What was worse, Fox had yet to move. He cast no spells, issued no commands beyond his initial head nod. You didn’t get to be on the council without being very powerful. I didn’t know what Fox was waiting for, but the anticipation was eating a hole in my stomach.

With the wind still in hand, I swirled it up into the sky, stirring the clouds. I immediately released it, hoping that I sent enough energy up in that direction that the momentum of the shifting weather took over. Over the years, I had become good at two types of spells: defensive and weather. I had had to learn to be good at conjuring defensive spells at the drop of a hat if I was going to outlive Simon. They could be tricky because the very art of magic was tricky. Most offensive spells were curses and they had to be deflected or unwound with very specific countercurses. Fear of Simon had taught me to recognize a spell before it left the fingers of the caster.

I had gotten good at weather spells because turbulent weather generated more energy in the area that a warlock or a witch could use. Not all warlocks or witches could tap that energy, but there were enough that I was potentially helping one of my opponents as much as I was trying to help myself.

At my left, I felt a new spell creeping toward me, a soft whisper of words on the edge of the energy that caused me to instantly stiffen with fear. Brownie was working a binding spell, but I couldn’t tell if it was a physical or a magic binding spell. Gideon had used a physical binding spell on me every once in a while to gain my undivided attention. The words of a countercurse flared to life in my mind, but I tweaked the spell, sweeping my hands through an intricate pattern before my chest. You couldn’t immediately unravel a binding spell once it was started. The countercurse always sent it back at the spell caster, but I knew this bastard would be prepared for such a thing.

On my right, Greasy shouted, his pale face growing unattractively red and splotchy. The binding spell had swept past me and hammered against him, leaving him waving his hands in the air harmlessly. There was a dead zone of energy surrounding him. Judging by the mixture of fear and rage radiating off it, the binding spell was a damn powerful one.

I sighed in relief, my right hand trembling and tingling slightly. It had been a close thing. I felt drained, and only one of the four was out of magical commission for now. A chuckle was rising in my chest when I felt the swell of energy at my back. The bitch had gotten her second wind. Unfortunately, my brain was moving too slowly under the temporary fatigue and the icy spell crashed through my defense like a rhino through wet tissue paper, throwing me to the ground. My back slammed against the gravel-strewn concrete and my head followed, lighting up a white glare before my eyes. My breath burst from my chest and I sucked in before I could stop myself. The air froze in my lungs like I had swallowed Freon, locking up my chest so I couldn’t breathe.

Panic swarmed over me, painfully tensing my muscles. Cold chills racked my body, making it nearly impossible to think. It felt as if the bitch had dipped me in water and dropped me naked in the middle of the Antarctic. I had to think of the countercurse, but the biting cold was making it impossible to concentrate. The words scattered within my brain, darting off in a thousand different directions.

Someone was shouting. It wasn’t me because I couldn’t draw a breath, but I could hear it over the pounding of my blood in my ears. Twisting on my side, I looked up to find Fox pointing at me while he shouted at the witch. A small swell of energy washed over my chest and I could suddenly breathe. The absolute wretched cold didn’t disappear, but I wasn’t going to suffocate.

“You idiot!” Fox screamed. “I need him alive! He’s useless to me dead!” A long knife flashed in his right hand from out of thin air as he moved in front of the woman. I could no longer see her, his larger body was blocking my view, but I saw his right hand reach back again and again. A sick, squishing and sucking sound echoed against the unnatural silence of the early evening as the blade sank into her chest with each thrust. No one moved except Fox as he stabbed the woman repeatedly.

Anger spent, he stepped back from her, letting the body crumple to the ground, a lifeless sack of chopped meat. I was pushing to my feet when he turned to look at me. A twisted light shone in his blue eyes while blood soaked into his shirt and slacks. It dripped from his face while more rained from the fist tightly gripping the knife. He might need me alive, but the insanity dancing in his eyes said that he wanted to carve me up like a Thanksgiving turkey and dig for the wishbone with his fat hands.

“And now you know I’m serious,” Henry Fox said, breaking the thick silence.

I forced myself to smirk because fear was shredding what was left of my self-control, making it hard to grab a lungful of air. “Never doubted your seriousness, old boy.”

Fox flinched at my familiar tone, his hand tightening on the knife, so that fresh blood dripped to the ground. “Good. Then I’ll give you a choice. You can come willingly and submit to questioning, or we kill you. I will then raise you and you will tell me anything I want. I’m sure you can guess my preference.”

Yeah, I knew the sadist’s preference, but he would avoid it if he could. I’m sure he thought he could raise me from the dead, but we both knew that zombies were notorious for giving incorrect and incomplete information. The mind deteriorated way too fast after death because the soul couldn’t be anchored in the body. And I was pretty sure that with Lilith holding a chunk of my soul, the underworld bitch wasn’t going to let me be called back unless she could gain from the bargain. Henry Fox wasn’t going to raise me, no matter how powerful he was.

Unfortunately, my other option was pretty shitty too. Questioning always equaled torture, and I was not going to let this bastard touch me. Particularly since he was going to kill me after.

If I was going to get out of this, I needed to change tactics. I couldn’t remain on the defensive because they were going to wear me down until I made a mistake. But I wasn’t a full-fledged, trained warlock like they were. I knew most of the spells that they could attack with, but I couldn’t perform them with the same speed or strength. Most would be batted away before I finished. I had to stick with my strengths, the common, seemingly useless spells I could work reflexively. They weren’t curses, but types of enchantments—easier to unravel but much harder to predict.

Widening my stance to keep my balance, I blanked my mind while shoving down the nausea rising in my stomach. Adrenaline bubbled in my veins until it felt like my hair was standing on end. In a breath, I pulled up a swell of energy, and I slammed it into Greasy and Fox. I couldn’t manage all three at once. Greasy was a nuisance and Fox was dangerous. Brownie was somewhere in the middle.

Narrowing my eyes, I could feel Brownie summoning up a shield, but it wouldn’t work. With only the smallest push, I directed the energy toward him but my only thought was of peeling an apple. I was vaguely aware of him jerking one arm sharply and twisting, looking around for whatever was attacking him. His face was a mask of confusion as he stubbornly held on to his magical barrier while straining to figure out what I was doing. A second later, his scream rang out, sending shards of glass cutting through my soul. His body twisted and writhed in pain. I tapped down the revulsion while my brain locked on the vision of a small paring knife sliding around a bright red apple as it cut away the skin in a single, long coil.

With the spell in place, I turned to find Greasy staring in horror. He seemed to have forgotten about me. I lifted one hand and extended one finger, pointed down. I slowly spun it in place, imagining that I was stirring a cup of coffee. The warlock gave a surprised shout as he began to spin in place as well, but his shouts and flailing arms were quickly replaced with pain-filled shrieks. When I took the time to magically stir my coffee, I also heated it.

I should have been feeling horror, revulsion. I should have been throwing up the contents of my stomach, but I felt detached and numb as I killed them. My mind desperately clung to the images of an apple and coffee because if I thought about what I was doing, I’d go mad.