Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (33 page)

“Stop … Stop …” Sienna was crying now, sobbing.

I didn’t stop until I fell. The magic of the protective circle crashed down around us, and I dropped to the rock with Sienna across me.

I’d given it my all.

On the beach, and through the forest beyond, the demons were winning.

I couldn’t do anything about it.

∞

Portal magic washed over me as a doorway opened on the rock behind me. This was the treasure keeper’s magic. Pulou was the only one of the guardian dragons who could open doorways that weren’t permanent.

I felt, rather than saw, Yazi step through this doorway and lean down over me. My father brushed his fingers lightly on my cheek, and said, “She’s alive.” I’d never heard him sound so serious. Normally, his magic was an intense experience for me, especially when he touched me. Now I could barely taste it blended among the magic of the portal and Pulou.

“Of course she is,” Pulou said. He was somewhere above and behind me, but I still couldn’t open my eyes.

“Will the healer come?” Yazi asked.

“To kiss your daughter again? I imagine so.”

Yazi straightened. I imagined he was surveying the massacre on the beach. “Will you ask him to attend us, treasure keeper?”

Pulou huffed out a sigh. “I’m to be your errand boy today, I see.”

Yazi laughed, but the sound carried none of his usual exuberance. “Who else am I to ask? Drake is still sequestered. I figure it will be fifty years before the fire breather loosens her reins again.”
 

“The fledgling is far too clever for that,” Pulou said. He was chuckling.

I held on to the residual touch of dragon magic — my father’s magic — that he’d left on my skin. This wasn’t healing magic, of course, but if I could just get my own magic to mirror his, maybe I could remind my body how to heal itself.

I opened my eyes.

My father was standing over me, fully armored in some sort of hard-shell samurai gear. His face was utterly serious as he gazed toward the beach. The breeze tousled his sun-kissed curls around his ears. Supposedly, I was a feminine replica of him, but I doubt I could ever look so fierce … or golden godlike.

The door shut behind us as Pulou stepped back into the dragon nexus, or so I assumed.

“Hey, dad,” I whispered.

Yazi glanced down at me sprawled across the rock at his feet. He smiled. His face looked more natural this way.

“Is this the black witch?” he asked.

Sienna laid utterly limp across my torso. “Yeah,” I said. “Well, not anymore.”

“Yes, I see. Good. Shall we have some fun then?”

Um, I could open my eyes and move my mouth to talk, but I wasn’t actually moving any substantial part of my body. “Sure,” I answered, a bit faintly. I hated to say no to anyone, and I really couldn’t say no to my newly discovered father.

Yazi drew his sword out of thin air. The golden magic of it hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. This I could thankfully still feel, even though everything else was deadened around me. The magic was a spicy chocolate that was fresh and potent. It was an intense incarnation of the warrior’s power, unique to my father.

The warrior turned to face the beach. Slowly, painfully, I rotated my head to see what he was seeing.

The shapeshifters — at least the ones still standing — and a couple of skinwalkers were still fighting. I could see Kett and taste witch magic, so not all the witches were dead yet.

Yazi bellowed. The noise actually flattened the waves as they crashed before him. It stirred the sand and ruffled the trees beyond.

Everyone on the beach stopped fighting, including the demons.

Yazi bellowed a second time, sounding a little pissed now.

The rock vibrated painfully under my head, so I lurched up just in time to see and hear every demon on the beach and in the forest shriek an answer to Yazi’s challenge. Then the demons charged … right toward me. And I couldn’t fully lift my arms yet.

Yazi laughed and took one step off the rock into the rolling ocean. He brought his gold broadsword around — no fancy moves or anything — and cleanly lopped off the heads of the first three demons.

“Holy shit,” I muttered.

Yazi took another step. He was knee deep in the ocean now — the waves didn’t even budge him — and lopped off three more demon heads.

The portal magic bloomed behind me as the remaining dozen demons realized they’d made a mistake accepting Yazi’s challenge and turned to flee.

Kett and the remaining shapeshifters threw themselves after the demons, chasing the creatures across the beach as they scattered into the forest. Yazi entered the fray. The witches — not including Gran or Scarlett as far as I could see — immediately ran to the fallen on the beach.

Pulou stepped out from the open portal and looked down at me. A bear of a man, his girth was only emphasized by the full-length fur coat I never saw him without. He spoke with a British accent, though his territory was Antarctica. Yeah, that was odd, but I guessed one of the guardians needed to oversee it.

I met Pulou’s gaze. Then his eyes flicked to Sienna, who lay across my lap now. Specifically, he was looking at the sword still twisted around her neck. Then he looked back at me.

The ruined katana glowed, tasting of all the magic Sienna had stolen, as well as her own. It was impossible to distinguish any one taste over another.

“I’ve made something,” I said.

“I see.” Pulou didn’t sound judgmental, but I knew an object of great and terrible power when I created it.

“Will you keep it for me?” I asked.

“That would be wise.”

I gently pulled the twisted sword off Sienna’s neck and held it up to Pulou. He took it carefully, holding it just by the tips of his fingers as he slowly rotated it. Different colors of magic swirled in the folded steel.

In Pulou’s hands, the sword morphed, shrinking to the size of a bracelet. Then the treasure keeper opened his fur coat. More magic than I’d ever felt before hit me, scrambling my brain and blurring my vision. Pulou placed the shrunken sword in a pocket within his coat, then buttoned it up again. Something crazily metaphysical and dimensional had just happened, and I had no context in which to understand it.
 

Qiuniu, the guardian healer, stepped out from the golden doorway that stood open just behind Pulou. If any of the witches — and maybe even some of the shapeshifters — had been near enough, they would have instantly swooned at the sight of the Brazilian guardian dragon. He was that beautiful … if you liked that sort of thing.

He smiled down and nodded where I was sprawled at his feet. “Warrior’s daughter.”

“Guardian,” I responded.

His eyes flicked to Sienna, barely registering her. Then, frowning, he looked past us toward the beach.

“I cannot revive the dead,” he said.

“That’s certainly up for debate,” Pulou said. “I remember your predecessor —”

Qiuniu glanced in Pulou’s direction and the treasure keeper put up a hand in surrender. “The warrior certainly wouldn’t expect or desire such a thing from you, healer.”

Qiuniu nodded, then smiled at me again. “I shall be back for you, Jade Godfrey. You will live. Others’ … their magic is very faint.”
 

He stepped into the ocean before us and headed to the beach and the multitude of bodies lying scattered there.

I moaned and looked away. I looked down at Sienna, who still lay across my lap. I couldn’t taste even a hint of magic from her. I actually wasn’t sure she was even alive until I saw her chest rise with breath. Unconscious like this, and with her skin clear, she looked sixteen again.

The sacrificial knife lay across her chest.

“The knife,” I said to Pulou.

He just shrugged, and said, “A trifle. Not for you to wield perhaps, but not meant to be locked away.”

I opened my mouth to protest — and then realizing who I was about to argue with, I snapped it shut.

Yazi laughed from somewhere deep in the forest. He was chasing down the remaining demons that had broken through our defenses, then continued on into the human world without Sienna to direct them.

“We’ve won,” I murmured.

“Have you, alchemist?” Pulou said. “Not everyone is rising at the healer’s touch.”

I turned to look back at the beach. I could see Kandy, in human form, standing by Qiuniu as he leaned over a gray wolf on the beach. The green-haired werewolf was scratched and bruised, her hair was back to its natural dull brown … but that wasn’t the point. She was on her feet.

I couldn’t see Desmond or Kett among the fallen.

Reaching out with my dowser senses, I could taste witch magic but not specific witches. “I can’t find Gran or my mom,” I said, voicing the fear I could feel wedged like a rubber ball in my throat. I was surprised I could speak through it.

Pulou nodded. “Your magic is faint. Depleted.”

I looked down at Sienna and thought about that for a moment. Everything had been so much easier … so much nicer, before I’d known I was an alchemist. Before I’d known I was half-dragon and not just half-witch.

“Will it come back?” I finally asked.

“Of course, warrior’s daughter. Most likely stronger than before. Living through great trauma usually has that effect … on all of us.”

“But not on Sienna,” I murmured.

“No. You’ve taken every last drop. I have never seen or heard the like. Perhaps this is best kept between us.”

“The Adept wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, they would understand. And they would fear you.”

I looked up at the treasure keeper. He smiled and patted my head like I was a toddler … and to him, I was.

“A conversation best left to tomorrow,” he said.

“Tomorrow?” I echoed.

“Yes. When you come to treasure hunt for me.” This was a statement, not a request.

I nodded. His smile deepened.

“I must go. Haoxin is calling,” he said. “Tell your father and the healer I will be back when they need me.”

I nodded again. I guess I’d run out of words. I was really, really tired.

Pulou stepped back through the portal and it snapped closed behind him, taking the comforting warmth of the dragon magic with it.

Qiuniu, still a dozen feet away on the beach, acknowledged the portal closing with a glance and then returned to healing. More shapeshifters were being helped to their feet. I tried to be glad of that, and to not dwell on Qiuniu shaking his head to Rebecca, the skinwalker elder, as he crouched over the body of Gord. He had reverted from his grizzly bear form in death.

The skinwalkers should have never been on the beach, but they stepped up without question when the witch magic fell. And the witch magic had fallen because of the spell the witches used to get me to Sienna.

My sister was looking at me.

Her eyes were once again the color of cappuccino robbed of its foam.

“Hey,” I said.

“Jade?” Sienna asked. Her brow furrowed. “You’re covered in … in … are you okay?”

Utter hope spread through my chest, warming me from within. The painful spot that had been lodged there — always hurting, never easing since that terrible night in the bakery basement and all its terrible truths — melted.

Maybe it was going to be okay —
 

Sienna’s frown deepened. She lifted her hand and flexed her fingers. “Jade.” Her tone sharpened. “What have you done?”

I opened my mouth to soothe her … to plead with her … to make her see —

“Jade!” Sienna shrieked and rolled off my lap to rise shakily to her feet. The sacrificial knife fell to the rock between us. I placed my foot over it as I stood as well.

Sienna watched me do so and then lifted her hateful gaze to mine.

“It’s not going to be okay,” I said — to myself, not my sister.

“No, it’s not!” she shrieked. Then she attacked me.

She raked her nails across my face — I barely felt it.

She pummeled me in the stomach and kicked me in the legs — I didn’t move. I didn’t even raise my arms to stop her.

I felt magic spark from the beach and looked over to see Mory and her mom, Danica, stumbling toward us, supporting each other. Mory’s toasted marshmallow magic took flight and zoomed toward us.

I willed my knife into my hand and easily batted the spell out of the air before it hit Sienna. I recognized the magic without having felt it before, without ever knowing it might be real. It tasted like a death curse — or at least an attempt at a death curse.

I shoved Sienna, still kicking and screaming, behind me. “Mory! No!”

The second spell — a much, much stronger curse — came from Danica. When I slashed this out of the air before me, it shattered all the bones of my right hand.

Danica fell to her knees in the sand. A wave crashed against her. Mory screamed, then began to drag her mother away from the water’s edge.

Desmond was suddenly beside me. He’d taken human form. I started to smile at his grimness. I started to reach out to him with my undamaged hand, to tell him —

He reached by me, yanked Sienna forward between us by the hair, and snapped her neck.

My sister hung suspended upright for a moment while her brain informed her body that she was dead. Then she fell to the rock at my feet.

The life debt bond between Desmond and I dissolved into a painful puddle of mush at the bottom of my heart.

I stared at Desmond in disbelief. He gazed back at me impassively.

“I … I …” I murmured, not sure what I wanted to say, not sure I was even reacting at all.

“You weren’t going to do it, Jade.” He pitched his voice low. His use of my given name was meant to be intimate.

“She was my sister.”

“She killed my pack mates. I’m alpha. It was never going to be any other way.”

Gran, flanked by Scarlett and Kett, pushed through the crowd of half-healed shapeshifters who’d gathered around the rock on which Desmond and I stood … on which Sienna lay dead.

“This is witch business,” Gran snapped.

The shapeshifters parted. Gran waded through the water and climbed up onto the rock with Scarlett and two other witches I didn’t know.

Gran reached for me, but then didn’t actually touch me. Her white-gray hair was wild, flying around half out of her braid. Her eyes were rimmed with magic that I could still barely taste.